Tank Jaeger

Aliens attacked the Earth in the year 2250

Scientists created human-animal hybrids, called Varius, to help defend the Earth.

The varii helped fight off the aliens but some humans treat them like third class citizens.

Dan Blocker works at Magnum Metals alongside many different varii

Dan becomes friends with Bo Taylor, a canine varius who works with him.

on him that remained thin enough to see his muscles through, but was substantial enough to show he wasn’t afraid to eat what he wanted. He was a big, burly brute, and wherever he was, Dan’s eyes were drawn to him. He wished they weren’t. There were plenty of times Dan had to force his eyes to look somewhere else before anyone noticed him gawking. The last thing he wanted was to have everyone in the plant know he was staring at Bo. They’d tease him, and then they’d probably tease Bo, and then Bo would never speak to him again. Besides, Dan thought, it wasn’t like anything could ever happen between them. He knew for a fact that Bo dated female varii, and he didn’t strike Dan as the experimenting type. So Dan felt free to watch Bo from a distance, and he accepted the small amount of guilt his voyeurism brought. Bo now stood in the doorway to the plant, holding a small stack of packing lists in his hand. “Copy machine in the plant’s busted,” he rumbled. “Mind if I use yours?” His deep voice was distorted a bit by his thick lips and the bone structure of his muzzle, but his enunciation was clear enough that Dan rarely had any trouble understanding him. “Sure.” Dan waved Bo towards the machine that warmed the space next to his desk, feeling successful because his mouth was not hanging open. He didn’t say any of the hundreds of thoughts frying their way through his overloaded brain at that moment. An invitation to wrestle in the nude sprang to mind, but was choked back as being situationally inappropriate, as well as a blatant violation of a half-dozen humanresources policies. Dan turned in his chair and watched the varius feed documents into the machine, pushing the small, closely-spaced keys with his oversized fingers. Dan’s curiosity overpowered his shy nature. “How do you punch those tiny buttons with those industrial-sized meathooks of yours?” The machine alternately glowed and spit out copies, making blue-green highlights that flickered across Bo’s short black fur. The varius flashed Dan a withering glance that the sapiens ignored, then relented when he realized that Dan wasn’t withering. “I’ve got some equipment that you don’t.” He took a step closer and held one paw out for Dan to see, palm facing upwards. “And now, for your entertainment…” Flexing the muscles in his wrist theatrically, Bo made a pointed nail slide out of the top of his forefinger. “I usually don’t extend them all the way for something like this. If I did, I’d probably slice through the buttons. I just use the top of the nail tip, see?” Dan was fascinated. “How long is it?” “Most men don’t ask other guys about size,” Bo replied soberly, withdrawing his handpaw and favoring Dan with a stony glare. “Uh…” Dan reddened in embarrassment, realizing how his comment had sounded. When a devilish grin spread across Bo’s muzzle, Dan realized he’d been had. Damn, he thought, shaking his head. His chagrin at how easy it was for Bo to unsettle him was insufficient to keep a pathetically eager smile from popping out. “Yeah, right. I see how you are.” “Yeah,” Bo called back, a smile in his voice as he gathered his copies and headed out the door, “it’s always so easy with you pinkies.” “Come back here and say that!” Dan hollered at Bo’s back as he lumbered down the hall, his short, bear-like tail wagging back and forth in time with his steps. “I’ll bite your ankle!” Bo’s only reply was a single finger stuck up in the air in Dan’s general direction.

Chapter 2 “So what’s going on?” The man on the other end of the vid connection was his usual, enthusiastic self, and Dan thought he might have to reach through the screen and stab him with a fork if he didn’t stop being so damned chipper. “Oh, Jesus, I’m tired.” Dan rubbed his face with his hands. He’d thought that calling his best friend might help, but all of a sudden it felt like a really bad idea. “Jim’s got it stuck in his head that he’s going to shrivel and die if we don’t go to Hawaii for vacation this year.” “Hawaii? What’s wrong with Hawaii?” Richard seemed perplexed. “What’s wrong with it is that we don’t make enough money to go to Hawaii.” Richard looked puzzled. “I thought Jim had some great job and was pulling in the big bucks?” “He does,” Dan told him, “but good God, the man runs through money like it’s toilet paper.” “You’re not kidding,” Richard said with a smirk. “He must have burned through a couple of hundred credits last weekend, buying drinks for his buddies. He even bought me a couple to shut me up,” he admitted, with a roll of his eyes, “but I don’t think it worked.” “ A couple of hundred credits?” Dan sputtered. “You really shouldn’t let the boy go out alone. He’s obviously got money to burn,” his friend said. “If he’s got to go to Hawaii, let him pay for it.” “That’s what he said,” Dan was disappointed that Rick didn’t seem to understand where he was coming from. “But he’d just use a credit card, and right now we’ve got debts to pay off. Well,” he amended, “he’s got debts to pay off, anyway, and it doesn’t make any sense to go blowing two thousand credits on a cruise. Instead of paying off one of his loans, he wants to dig himself even deeper into debt. And,” he added, “I wouldn’t have any fun anyway, knowing I had to pay back a bunch of money I don’t have.” Richard was quiet and still for a long moment; long enough that if his face hadn’t been right there on the wall, Dan might have thought that he’d broken the connection. Finally, he sighed and looked at Dan’s image from his side of the screen. “You’re still not feeling this thing with Jim, are you?” Dan wished he could dispute it, to come right back with something like, ‘no, I love him!’ but he couldn’t make the words come out. Instead he just stared dumbly at his friend’s image. “You’re not being honest with yourself Dan, so it’s my sad job to say it.” Rick continued, speaking carefully. “You are not in love with him.” He ticked off on his fingers, one by one. “It’s always ‘mine’ and ‘his,’ never ‘ours.’ You’re not happy with his financial decisions, you can’t handle his lack of responsibility, you can’t even let him give you anything without feeling obligated to pay him back.” He paused, looking straight into the camera. “I’m running out of fingers here, Dan. You’re a big bundle of ‘we’re not compatible,’ but you’re too obsessed with having a relationship to see it.” Dan shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe I am. But maybe that’s not as bad a thing as you think it is.” He sighed in consternation. “Look, I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you next week, all right?” When they signed off, Dan snapped the connection closed with a bit more force than was strictly necessary, wishing that his friend wouldn’t be so damned pessimistic. Things could change between Jim and him, if only he could figure out what he was doing wrong. He had botched things with Blaine by giving up too soon, and he’d be damned if he was going to make that mistake twice. This relationship had cost him everything he had and he was determined to make it work.

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The bathroom in the office was small, but neat. Shortly after hiring on at Magnum, Dan had talked the owner, Mister Ellis, into letting him remodel it. He’d painted the walls, framed the mirror, fixed the dripping faucet, scrubbed the sink within a centimeter of its life and replaced the old toilet with one that incinerated properly the first time, every time. He even spent a little of his own money buying a potted plant and an air freshener he liked. Dan wasn’t prissy, but if he had to use a crapper somewhere other than his own home, he’d rather not have to worry about catching some weird disease when he did. While washing his hands, Dan looked up and saw something new in the mirror’s reflection. Reaching up, he angled his head slightly and parted his hair. Yup - there it was. A silver hair. Annoyed, he yanked it out and stared at it angrily, as if it had been the cause of his aging and not merely a symptom. He turned to walk out the door, then reconsidered and moved back to the mirror, examining himself more carefully. Time had been gentle with Dan, and there wasn’t much to see. His face had always looked youthful, so much so that he’d been carded for intoxicants well into his twenties. He used to waste time wishing that he had been born ruggedly handsome, resenting how dimples and blue eyes solidly locked him into the category of ‘cute.’ But as time marched on he was cultivating an appreciation of how ‘cute’ worked in his favor by keeping people guessing about his age. Dan made an effort to drop his preconceptions about his body and see himself as a stranger might. One point eight meters tall, ninety kilos… nope. Dan stepped back and tried again. Without his boots on he was closer to one point seven, and after not hitting the gym in a while he was more like ninety-five. His light skin tone and facial shape made it obvious that he’d picked up British traits from at least one ancestor, and he thought that his plain, brown hair did nothing to enhance his bland appearance. His thin eyes lent him a rather severe look, but his straight-toothed smile was somewhat redeeming. The length of his neck made it seem more slender than its girth would suggest, but didn’t seem excessive. Chin? A bit weak, perhaps, but effectively hidden behind a classic Van Dyke moustache. Continuing downwards, his neck terminated against traps which still showed evidence of his past gym life, then sloped into shoulders that were slightly wider than average. Dan had to admit that although he might not be in love with the way his body was shaped, his bone structure was sufficiently sturdy that anyone who saw him from behind wasn’t left wondering if he were a woman. His biceps remained thick enough that the arms of some shirts were still snug, but his forearms were nondescript. He admired how some men could have nice, chunky forearms, but his never seemed to grow much. They terminated in hands that wore a size ‘large’ glove, with knuckles a bit larger than he would have liked. Wide, chunky hands were just another item on the list of body parts that Dan wished he’d been born with, but hadn’t been. Between his arms was a chest which had a difficult time gaining thickness, and a belly that had the opposite tendency. Dan hesitated for a moment, then turned and locked the door. Unbuckling his pants, he pulled up his shirt and tried his best to see his body with clinical detachment. In the less-than-perfect light he saw too little body hair, nipples that grew too large when he gained weight, and a gut that was one step shy of prominent. He shook his head and looked again, this time seeing a body that was a bit heavier than normal, but still average. Average. He hated being average. Again he hesitated, but only for a second. He was alone in the office and the door behind him was locked, so what was the harm? Dan unzipped and pushed his underwear and pants to the floor, feeling like a bit of a pervert for doing something like this outside the confines of his own bedroom. Holding up his shirt with both hands, he continued his examination. Underneath his slowly growing, white-skinned belly with its few hairs was an unruly bush of brown pubic hair and…what was that? Oh, fuck me! The gray hair on his head wasn’t working alone. Its partner in crime was hiding down here where, fortunately, it had been a while since anybody looked. His junk was…junk. Unexceptional. At least, it was if you were part of the European Union. In the NorAm Union, where Dan lived, it was more common to be circumcised. Other than that, it was nondescript. It was a little wider at the base than it was at the tip, and a little less than eighteen centimeters long when the time came for that. His nuts weren’t anything to brag about, either. Average-sized, housed in an average sac, stored under his average tool. His legs, however, were good. Years of lifting and cycling in college had given him solid legs that laughed at the concept of straight-legged jeans. His calves were big enough to make ‘over the calf’ tube socks false advertising, unless they happened to be really, really stretchy. Dan flexed his thighs, enjoying how the lines and ridges of his muscles still stood out. His legs didn’t have a lot of hair on them and they might not be as rock-hard as they used to be, but they didn’t embarrass him either. Turning around, he levered himself up onto the toes of his size-twelve feet and flexed his calves, watching in the mirror as they obediently bifurcated and flared out at the bottom. And since he was already looking back there, he allowed his eyes to wander up to his rear end. Dan’s body would never be up to his own standards, but even he had to admit that he’d inherited an above-average ass. It wasn’t big enough to qualify as a bubble butt, nor was it wide enough to be considered a rump. Instead, it was large enough to fill out the white briefs that he wore and had a nice, rounded shape. It was similar to the one Michelangelo carved onto David, only tighter. Maybe things weren’t as bad as he feared, Dan mused, as he pulled his pants back up and tucked in his shirt. It wasn’t as if he were hideous; just average in spots. He had a few features that were marketable, if he ever had to go through that again. Dan returned to his paperwork and remained immersed until almost an hour later, when his attention was jarred by the crash of the plant door banging open. Dan hated to be startled like that, but this time a smile stole across his face because he knew what that sound meant. Without having to turn around, he could tell that Bo was striding into his office. As hard as he was trying to keep his feelings for the other man at bay, he wasn’t quite succeeding. He knew that nothing could ever happen between them, yet his heart still skipped a beat whenever the big lug was around. Something about Bo was so damned attractive. Hell, Dan thought that everything about Bo was attractive. The thick neck, the broad back, the dark, shining eyes; what was there not to like? If he hadn’t been straight, and if they hadn’t been of different species, and if Dan hadn’t been trying to hold his own floundering relationship together… If, if, if. Dan wiped as much of the smile off his face as he could, swiveled his chair around, and tried to sound stern. “Okay, I pay the bills here, and I distinctly remember paying the repair guy way too much money to fix the plant’s copier two weeks ago. Why are you still using mine?” He crossed his arms, and looked down his nose at Bo as if expecting the man to quake in fear when faced with such skillful interrogation. “Because this one is faster.” Not the least unsettled by Dan’s charade, Bo wrapped his thicker-than-sapiens lips around words designed for other people’s mouths. “And,” he added, walking up to the copier as if he owned it, “it’s forty degrees out there today. This is the only place I can come to get out of the heat for a few minutes.” “It isn’t even thirty degrees outside,” Dan said. “It’s May.” “You ever actually been in the plant?” Bo asked, rhetorically. “The furnace runs at twenty-one hundred C, and that’s a lot of waste heat to deal with. The plant heats up, even in winter.” He raised one eyebrow. “And guess whose machine the heat exchanger blows down on?” “Yours.” Dan assumed. “That’s all well and good, but if I keep letting you use the machine in here, Bucky’s gonna want to use it, too.” He raised his own eyebrow for emphasis. The argument was a powerful one. Bucky was, by far, the worst-smelling varius in the plant. He had “overactive glands,” even for a feline, and smelled bad when he was fresh from a shower. After he’d worked up a good sweat, his fetid aroma could knock a freight train off course. “What Bucky doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Bo said, conspiratorially, then raised his ears and quickly ducked behind a row of cabinets just before the office door swung open to reveal a sodden and foul-smelling Bucky Gardner. Bucky was the poster child for brevity. “Seen Bo?” “Isn’t he in the plant?” Dan asked, covering for Bo and hoping to make the encounter as brief as possible to minimize the amount of airing out he’d have to do after Bucky left the room. He wasn’t afraid of a little B.O., but Christ, this was horrible. To his relief, Bucky turned and walked out the door without further discussion, leaving only a mild odor in his wake. Bo raised an eyebrow and went back to the copy machine to harvest the printouts. Using the sheaf of papers, he fanned the air in front of him, a disgusted look on his face. “Kitty funk. See what I mean?” he said, Bucky’s odor making the argument for him. “It could be worse.” “You’re arguing my point,” Dan said. “Just don’t let anyone see you coming in here, or before you know it, Bucky’s gonna be in here dripping sweat into the carpet while he makes copies, too.” He shuddered at the thought, and turned back to his desk, trying his best to focus his attention on anything but the friendly mountain of muscle and fur standing way too close behind him. He didn’t breathe easier until he was alone in the room again, and that had little to do with Bucky’s smell. Against his will, Dan found himself sitting up straighter, sucking his gut in, and trying to present himself well whenever he knew Bo was around. Even though his actions were mostly subconscious, Dan thought they were probably about as subtle as a cat in heat, and he wished he could just relax and loosen up. Dan prided himself on his self-control, and it unsettled him that this one man was affecting him so strongly. He’d been around any number of ruggedly handsome men in his life and he’d brushed them off without a second thought. Why should Bo be any different? It wasn’t like he could do anything, even if Bo were interested. Even though his relationship with Jim wasn’t great right then, Dan hoped that things with his partner might finally be on the upswing. He was intent on making things better, hopeful that if he could make Jim know that he was Dan’s priority, maybe he would calm down and let the relationship grow on its own instead of trying to manage it so aggressively. Why did things always seem so forced between them? How could loving someone possibly be this difficult? When things were good between them, they were great. But when things were bad, Jim seemed to take childish delight in tearing down the bridges that Dan worked so hard to build between them, making certain that Dan knew he was being punished for whatever transgression had started the fight. No matter who eventually won the argument, their bridges still had to be rebuilt, brick by laborious brick. Looking down at the belly that he tried to hide every time Bo walked into the room, he thought that maybe if he got back into shape, Jim would calm down a little bit. He’d been a lot leaner when they first met, and maybe Dan’s weight gain was adding to the friction. Reaching for his notepad, Dan jotted down a reminder to investigate gym memberships on his lunch break, then turned back to his overflowing desk to wade through the never-ending flood of paperwork.

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Dan glided his car onto his driveway, bringing his ten-year-old flitter to rest a few meters behind Jim’s expensive new car. He shut down the drive coil and closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the silence permeating the closed passenger compartment. He knew that it would be a while before he was able to enjoy it again. Jim was a boisterous person, and didn’t seem happy unless surrounded by as much sound as possible. Dan was quiet by nature and enjoyed his time alone, but with Jim in the house there was no such thing as “alone.” The man seemed to want to spend every waking moment practically in Dan’s lap, and if Dan ever tried to have a moment to himself, Jim felt shunned and did his best to force conversation between them. Even something as simple as reading a book was an exercise in frustration with Jim in the house, so Dan had given that up, as well. Dan put a lock on his negative thoughts. They were counterproductive, and he knew it. He had to focus on the good points in their relationship and try to put the bad things behind him. He knew that his ass was no great prize, and he was thankful that Jim put up with his bad points as well as he did. Opening his eyes with a sigh, Dan got out of the car, straightened his back and tried not to trudge up the walkway. He put a synthetic bounce in his step in the hopes that Jim would not notice his apathy, but his efforts weren’t necessary. Jim was on the vid with one of his bar buddies when Dan walked in the front door, and barely acknowledged his return. Well, that’s typical, Dan thought to himself before he could squelch it. When he wants me around, I can’t do anything else. When he’s on the vid, he doesn’t even know I’m here.Dan was upset with his poor attitude, but didn’t know what to do about it. He didn’t want to leave, and he didn’t want to stay. Not knowing what else to do, Dan shucked off his shoes and turned on the living room vidscreen, muting the volume so he wouldn’t disturb Jim’s conversation. He sat in his favorite chair and turned on the massager, but the knots in his back muscles refused to loosen, and the tension in his shoulders made it impossible to relax. Every giggle and cackle that came out of the other room stabbed his ears, reminding him that Jim was lately behaving more like a woman than he was a man. If I wanted to date a woman, Dan thought, I’d be straight. Dan believed that if you had someone alongside of you pulling in the same direction, there was no limit to how far you could both go. But if the two of you were pulling away you’d go nowhere. And right now, listening to the mindless chatter streaming from the other room, Dan was forced to wonder whom it was he had yoked himself to.

Chapter 3 Dan pulled his lunch sack out of his lower desk drawer and headed out the front door, eager to escape the air-conditioned confines of the office. The brisk spring day that had graced them after weeks of cool, dreary rain had been taunting him all morning. In their region, it wasn’t at all uncommon for everyone to go to work on Monday wearing parkas, then come home Tuesday evening missing half their clothes because it was so damned hot. This unexpected spring day was to be treasured, and Dan wasn’t about to let it go uncelebrated while he ate indoors. He walked around the corner of the building, headed for the break table that he’d built to enjoy just such rare days, and was dismayed to see that it had already been occupied by one of the plant workers. He hadn’t been paying attention to the time, and didn’t realize that the operators would also be on break. Dan had been looking forward to reading his book while he ate, but even with his stunted social skills, he knew that it would have been rude to pull out a book with someone else sitting at the table. He’d built the table to comfortably fit a six-foot-tall man, but the large varius sitting there made it look more like child-sized furniture than a full-sized picnic table with built-in bench seats. The glare of the noonday sun in his eyes made it difficult to identify the occupant, but he could tell that whoever it was had really wedged themselves in there. For a moment Dan hesitated, his feet grinding to a halt on some loose gravel in the driveway as he wondered if he could sneak back into the office and wait until the worker left. Too late. The morph’s ears rotated at the sound of crunching gravel, and Dan knew that he’d been heard. If he went back inside now without at least saying hello, he’d look like a gold-plated asshole. As he got closer Dan’s heart gave that weird flip-flop in his chest, that excitement-mixed-with-dread feeling that only happened with one person. “What’s the matter, too good to sit with me?” Bo reached his mammoth, black paw across the table and cleared the litter away, making space for Dan to lay out his lunch. Dan was uncomfortable, but he didn’t know what else to do. He could imagine how this would go, and it probably wouldn’t be pretty. If it followed the usual script, they’d first stare at each other for ten seconds, then they’d each pick at their food for about two minutes , and then Bo would find an excuse to go back inside. It would be yet another social interaction that Dan could be proud of. He’d talked to several people over the years about overcoming his shyness and talking to new people, and at its core, the advice they’d given him had all been the same. “Talk about something you know. Find what you have in common.” Right now, the advice seemed spectacularly unhelpful. What in the world did he have in common with a handsome, rugged morph like Bo? Dan had trouble holding up his end of a conversation for two or three minutes while Bo generated his copies, and now he was going to have to be entertaining through an entire lunch? It didn’t seem possible. Dan didn’t think he was overly pessimistic, but he was acutely aware of his own limitations. “Go on, spread out,” Bo said encouragingly as Dan sat down. “There’s plenty of room.” Dan felt the tension draw up between his shoulders like the haunches of a pouncing cat. He had no way to retreat without looking like an antisocial jerk, and nothing to talk about if he stayed where he was. “What’cha got in the sack?” Bo asked, not put off in the least by Dan’s silence. Reaching into his crumpled paper sack, Dan pulled out a bag of crisp vegetable chips, then a large sandwich, a pickle wedge, an apple, and a man-sized slab of cake. “Is that roast beef?” Bo asked, eyeing the sandwich with great interest. “Yes, it is,” Dan answered warily, and then, for reasons he would never understand, he added, “and no, you can’t have it.” He groaned inside, wishing that he could pull back the comment. He’d meant it to be funny, but it only made him look like an arrogant prick. Bo grunted out a barking laugh, and instantly Dan felt the tension in his shoulders ease. “Man, that must be one hell of a sandwich. You’re guarding it like a mother lion protecting her cubs!” “As a matter of fact,” Dan said with wary pride, “it is one hell of a sandwich.” Talk about something you know. Dan grabbed onto the advice like a lifeline and gave it a shot. “It’s got multiple layers of thin-sliced roast beef, pan-seared until the outside is dark and flavorful, but the inside is still pink and juicy. Oh, see?” Dan crowed, pointing out a drop of meat juice that was hanging from a slice of the beef. He looked over at Bo and was pleased to see that his eyes were riveted. He began to have fun giving Bo an audio tour of his creation, treating him to a blow-by-blow account of its construction. “Then I sliced organic, heirloom tomatoes wafer-thin and layered them over fresh, crisp bibb lettuce. And look,” he said, peeling back a piece of the beef, “see what that is, right there?” He paused for dramatic effect, turning to look at the other man. “Bacon.” Did Bo just swoon? Dan could feel the world shift beneath him. The varius sitting across from him was the biggest, most imposing man he’d ever known, yet he was swooning over a roast beef sandwich? In that instant, Dan moved past the appearance of the frighteningly big, dangerously sexy brute of a man who could have snapped him in half as easily as Dan broke a twig, and saw the person living behind the facade. Underneath his confident bearing and the superhero build, Bo was a hungry little boy, one who was vulnerable in a way Dan never would have imagined. Belatedly, he stole a glance at the trash left over from Bo’s lunch; it didn’t look like he’d brought himself much to eat that day, certainly not enough to satisfy a man of his size. Suddenly, Dan felt like a lousy jerk for teasing the varius with his food. Putting down his sandwich, Dan fished around in his pocket for his knife. With a dramatic sigh of grudging indulgence he snapped it open, cut the sandwich into even halves and handed one to Bo. The big, black-furred varius looked surprised for a moment, then gratefully took the sandwich in his huge paw. “Thanks, man! This looks great.” Now that it was in Bo’s hands, Dan thought that his oversized sandwich looked ridiculously small. Dan was grateful that the varius hadn’t wasted time with pointless social pleasantries by saying something stupid like, “you don’t have to do that,” or, “I couldn’t.” He wanted the food, had said his thanks, and that was that. Dan hated the inane convolutions that most people forced themselves to go through in their torturous attempts to not offend one another, and he was encouraged that Bo hadn’t bothered. Bo gave the sandwich a tentative sniff, his leathery nose-pad twitching slightly with each inhalation, then shoved a third of it into his mouth. He gave a few chews, washed it down with a swig of his drink, wiped the sides of his muzzle with the back of his free hand, and pronounced, “It’s fit to eat. But these,” he said, carefully pulling out the tomato slices with an extended claw, “have to go.” Without thinking, Dan reached out and snatched the tomato out of Bo’s meaty paw and, after giving it a quick inspection to verify that it was free of hair, added it to his own sandwich. It was something he would only have done with someone he was comfortable around, and it was apparently the right thing to do. The men shared a smile at the assumed familiarity and kept right on eating. To Dan’s surprise their conversation flowed smoothly, and he found himself enjoying Bo’s company far more than he’d expected. He knew when to talk and when to listen, he paid attention, and Dan could see why everyone in the plant seemed to like him. Bo smacked his lips after sucking the remains of the sandwich off the short fur on his fingertips. “You kept most of the bacon for yourself, didn’t you?” “Yup,” said Dan, comfortably, talking around a mouthful of sandwich, “sure did.” He stuck his thumb in his mouth and licked off a stray drop of tomato juice. “I loves me some bacon!” Bo guffawed, lips curled back to expose a mouth full of pointed, gleaming white teeth that would have, under other, less friendly circumstances, made any sane person run away in terror. The boisterous, happy sound of Bo’s chuffing laughter blew away a good deal of Dan’s remaining trepidation, and he felt his guard easing down. Finding someone who shared his offbeat sense of humor was a rare treat for Dan, and for the pleasure of Bo’s companionship he was more than happy to cut the morph in on half of everything he’d brought in his crumpled paper sack. The two were deep in a discussion about the possibility of an endlessly rebuildable car when they were interrupted by the buzzer that signaled the end of the worker’s break. “Time to get back to work,” Bo said in his usual gruff voice, standing abruptly and stretching his arms and back until they cracked. “This was fun, though.” Dan thought the words were nice, but the eagerness with which the man wanted to get back to his station suggested that he might not have enjoyed their conversation as much as Dan had thought. Quickly, he pulled back inside his comfort zone. “Yeah,” he said uncertainly, gathering his trash and stuffing it into his lunch sack without another glance in Bo’s direction, “I guess I’ll see you around.” Walking back to his machine, Bo wondered what the hell had just happened. He thought Dan had been enjoying their conversation, but now the sapiens man was acting as if he regretted ever having it. He guessed that their halfway-completed discussion on the perfect car would never be finished. Shaking it off, Bo powered up his press and fed it the next of the seemingly endless stream of eighty-kilo ingots that would pass through it that day. He doubted that he would ever understand the eternally shifting moods of the plant’s sapiens workers, and it was probably best that he not even try.

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“Well, you look happy!” The smile Joel gave Dan over the vid was genuine, and Dan felt pleased to have at least one person in his life that he could give good news to without worrying that he was in for a lecture. “I am happy,” Dan said, nodding his head. “Thanks for noticing.” “Good, I’m sick and tired of watching you frown all the time. For the past six months, you’ve been moping around like your favorite dog died, or something.” “Shit, don’t say that!” Dan exclaimed, and when his friend looked at him inquiringly, he had to explain. “The whole reason I’m feeling better is that I’ve finally had a good conversation, and it was with one of the plant’s varii.” “Well, that’s fitting,” Joel said, sarcastically. “You’ve finally found someone who wants to listen to you prattle on about what a fantastic time you had fixing the recycler, and he’s a goat.” “He’s canine.” Dan’s voice was stern. “And stop giving me such a hard time just because purses and shoes don’t fall out of my mouth every time I talk.” Joel sighed in dramatic consternation. “Dan, you’re the straightest gay man I know.” “Thank you.” “That wasn’t supposed to be a compliment.” “I know,” Dan smirked. “What happened to you, anyway?” he asked. “Your father was a police officer and your brother’s a construction worker. Shouldn’t you have come out of the oven a little more butch?” “God, don’t remind me,” Joel said, remembering his hometown. “My dad made sure I could change a tire when I had to, and I know which end of a wrench to hold, but I’d much rather pay someone else so I don’t have to.” “Pay someone?” Dan scoffed. “What do you mean, pay someone? All you do is call me and make me do it!” “Well,” his friend reconsidered, “you’ve got me there. But I do feed you well. When you finally finish the job.” He pointed the camera at the trim on his kitchen cabinets that was only partially attached, then moved it back on himself and gave Dan his best, ‘bitch, please,’ look. “I’m getting to it,” Dan promised, embarrassed. He knew that he had trouble finishing projects, and he hated to be reminded about that. “What are you doing this weekend?” “Working. But you know where the key is, so come on in and help yourself. I ripped a blouse the other day on one of those exposed nails.” “It’s a shirt, Joel, you’re not a woman.” Dan said, only partially feigning his annoyance. “Okay, fine,” Joel said, only partially feigning his contrition. “Just get over here and fix it before I have to hire a real man to do the job.” “I love you!” Dan said sweetly into the comm, smiling guilelessly. “I know.” Joel returned, smiling back at him as he cut the connection.

---

Dan’s morning seemed to drag on as he plodded through his tasks, like someone kept resetting the clock in his computer. He had so much work to get done in the office that he was rarely bored, but this day seemed exceptionally mundane. The ringing of the plant’s lunch bell perked him up considerably. He pulled his insulated food sack out of his desk, stood to walk outside and made it as far as the front door before he caught himself. What the hell was he doing? He’d never consciously eaten lunch on the plant’s schedule before, so why was he starting now? He wanted to pretend that that’s just the way his day had gone - that he’d finished his morning’s work and now was a logical time for him to take his break. Problem was, he’d never had much of a talent for fooling himself. He knew that he’d timed his entire morning so that he’d finish up in time for the worker’s break. He knew that at the end, he’d been hustling through duties that he normally plodded through, just so he could have the chance to sit and talk with Bo again. Dan felt like a teenage schoolgirl with a hopeless crush on the captain of the football team. The mature, adult part of his personality told him that he was barking up the wrong tree, and even if he had been barking up the correct tree, he could never catch the squirrel. And even if he did catch the squirrel, he’d have to let it go and watch it run away, because he was partnered. His id, on the other hand, had radically different opinions on the matter. He’d enjoyed the hell out of his lunch with Bo yesterday, and he wanted that to happen again. Dan was dying to make friends with another guy who understood why war machines and planetary gearsets were more interesting than clothes and curtains. That was the one thing Dan missed more than anything else – ‘guy talk.’ The fact that Bo was hot, well…he’d just have to get over that. The hell with it, he told himself, swinging the ‘closed for lunch’ sign around and locking the door behind him. A man needs some friends. But what if he’s not there? What if he is there, but the other workers are sitting with him and I have to sit in the middle of all of them? What if they don’t let me sit down? Dan sighed, disgusted by his prepubescent social skills. What’s the worst thing that could happen? It wasn’t like he was trying to pick Bo up or anything. So what if he had to eat at a table occupied by the hourly workers? He’d live. Dan strode along with determination, prepared for the worst. For once, it seemed, ‘the worst’ did not happen. As he turned the corner of the building, he was greeted with the sight of just one morph sitting at the table, and it happened to be the one he wanted to see. “Hey there!” Dan called, “You sitting out here all alone, again?” Bo looked up quickly, almost seeming surprised to see Dan walking towards him. “The other guys didn’t want to sit outside.” he explained. “They’d rather sit in the break room, where it’s air conditioned.” Dan thought the varius looked bored, but he wasn’t really sure. Bo’s thick brow and deep-set eyes always looked so stern. “Too bad for them,” Dan said. “It’s a beautiful day out here.” As he sat down, he glanced at the lunch Bo had laid out on the table in front of him. Dan noticed that although the pile of food was considerably larger than yesterday, it had not yet been unwrapped. Did he wait for me? The two continued their conversation from the day before as seamlessly as if there hadn’t been a twenty-three hour interruption. After the majority of the food had been wolfed down, Bo reached down for a plastic storage container that had been sitting beside him on the bench. “You were nice enough to share your lunch with me yesterday, so today it’s my turn.” He pulled the lid off the container to expose a dozen homemade chocolate chip cookies and handed the box to Dan, who wasted no time in grabbing one and stuffing it into his mouth. “These are great,” he said, mumbling around a mouthful of cookie. “Did your girlfriend make them?” Bo gave Dan an injured look. “I made them myself, thanks very much. I don’t need someone else to make my cookies.” Pulling the container back towards himself, he snagged a cookie, bent it until it broke in two, and popped half of it into his mouth. Dan noticed that although Bo’s relatively small ears didn’t have far to travel, they were in almost constant motion. He thought that maybe by watching them, he could get a better handle on the man’s body language. Dan pulled another couple of cookies out of the box and set them on top of his lunch bag, in case Bo did something rash, like putting the lid back on the container. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who would bake cookies, is all,” he said. “You do a lot of your own cooking?” “Usually.” Bo said. “Pre-made food usually doesn’t have enough protein.” “Is that because you’re so big?” Dan asked. The look that clouded Bo’s face was unreadable, but Dan sensed in his stiffening posture that he’d said something offensive. But then, as fast as it had come, the expression dissipated. “I do have to take supplements, for nutrients that normal food doesn’t have enough of,” Bo said, visibly trying to shake off whatever monkey had climbed onto his back. “But the government provides those.” The ears. Dan paid closer attention as Bo spoke, and saw that his ears had rotated to the sides, and maybe had even flattened out a bit. Under normal circumstances Dan wouldn’t have brought up Bo’s change in mood, preferring to let whatever caused it fade out on its own, but this time it seemed like a better idea to try talking it out. “Hey, look,” he said, “I’m sorry. I guess I maybe said something that I shouldn’t have. I didn’t mean to step on your toes, or anything.” Bo inspected him closely for a moment, then apparently decided he was telling the truth. “No, Dan, it’s my problem,” he said, shaking his head slowly back and forth. “It’s not your fault. Conversations with a varius can be a minefield of shit like that, even when you’re aware. You just don’t know any better.” Dan thought that sounded condescending, but the big morph was right - Dan really didn’t know what he was talking about. “But,” Bo added, his deep, rumbling voice gentle, “you’ll learn.”

Chapter 4a Late in the day on Friday, long after the plant crew had grabbed their paychecks and run off to the local package store to buy lottery tickets and enough alcohol to numb them through the weekend, Dan was finally getting ready to lock up the office. The day’s invoices had been created, the outgoing mail was on the corner of his desk waiting to transmit on Monday, and he couldn’t think of anything else that needed to be done. He didn’t usually watch the clock, and today it was well past eighteen by the time he finished everything that needed to be done. Peering out the window, Dan noticed that the setting sun was leaving behind it tinges of red and orange which promised to deliver a sunset of riotous color before night claimed the sky. He was about to turn off the office lights for the weekend when his attention was drawn back to the parking lot by the lights of a car setting down in the space next to his. Curious, he watched as Bo climbed out and bounded up the front steps. “I’m sure glad you’re still here!” the varius panted, pushing his way through the door. “I think I left my credit chip in my work pants.” “You’re lucky you caught me,” Dan replied, unlocking the door to the employee dressing room and letting Bo through. “I was about 30 seconds away from heading out for the weekend.” Bo rooted around in the hamper for a moment, emerging with a small square of translucent blue plastic held triumphantly in his handpaw. “Got it!” He grinned in relief. “I wish they’d make these things bigger, or put them on a chain, or something.” “How far did you get before you figured out you didn’t have it?” Dan pulled the door shut behind them and locked it. “All the way to the grocery store,” Bo said, “but at least I only had a few things picked out. Would have really pissed me off if I had to leave a cart full of food behind.” Following Dan out of the building, Bo waited for him to thumb the lock shut behind them before padding down to his waiting car. Popping the back hatch of his tired old hulk, Bo rooted around, generating the unmistakable sounds of glass and ice sloshing around in a cooler. “Here,” he said, pulling out a dark glass bottle. He carefully tossed it to Dan, then pulled one out for himself. “My car may be falling apart, but it comes bearing gifts!” Dan caught it easily and looked at the label. “Dark beer?” Bo chuckled, prying the top off his bottle with his fingers and flicking the metal cap back into the trunk before slamming it shut. “What, is that too strong for a lo-cal, light-beer-swilling pinky? Or were you just trying to maintain your girlish figure?” The playful insult was way over the top, and it brought the shadow of a grin to Dan’s tired face. He rolled his eyes and gave Bo’s shoulder a stiff-armed push forceful enough to make the morph stumble for a few steps before regaining his balance. “It’s fine.” Dan struggled to twist the top off his own bottle like Bo had, and almost shredded his hand before realizing that the bottles didn’t have twist-off caps. Impressed by the morph’s finger strength, he fished his keys out of his pocket and used the largest one to pry off the lid. Careful to not litter, he put his keys and the twisted bit of metal back in his pocket. “I just thought I was the only person around who still drank it.” He tipped the bottle towards Bo in acknowledgement. “Thanks.” “I have to go to the other end of town to buy it,” Bo said, leaning on the rear fender of his car. He positioned himself to watch the sunset, and took a long, slow pull on his beer. “Seems like the only thing they carry in the store any more is that super-fizzy, fruit-flavored crap.” “Don’t lean too hard against that,” Dan warned, using the neck of his bottle to point at the fender Bo was leaning on. “It might fall off.” “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bo scoffed, patting his car’s multi-colored flank as affectionately as if it were a prized racehorse. “This is the only part that hasn’t fallen off…yet.” “I guess it can’t be in too bad shape if it still gets in the air,” Dan assumed. “If the safeties let it get off the ground, you’re good, right?” “Safeties?” Bo asked, jokingly. “What are those? The two men leaned back against the car’s faded paint, the last dregs of heat from the sun-warmed pavement tempering the cooling evening breeze. The sunset that had formed was every bit as spectacular as Dan had expected, looking as if God had spilled his entire bucket of colors into the sky. High up, the sky had darkened to a deep, royal blue, becoming warmer and more agitated closer to the ground. Pink-tinged clouds floated near the impossibly vibrant horizon, and Dan felt that its beauty might cause his heart to burst. Drinking their beers, the two men quietly enjoyed each other’s company while watching the sunset. “So what do you have planned for this weekend?” Bo asked, voice intentionally quieter than usual out of respect for the natural spectacle playing out around them. “It’s supposed to be great weather to be outdoors.” “Oh, I don’t know,” Dan‘s voice was nonchalant. “I just thought I’d hang around the house.” He moved the conversation away from his personal life as quickly as he could. “But I’m sure you have a full weekend planned, huh? Full of wine, women and song?” He grinned as he glanced over at his companion, but His smile faded quickly when he saw that Bo wasn’t returning it. Instead, the varius was staring at him curiously. “What is it you’re so scared of me finding out? I already know you’re gay, so it’s not that.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “What are you trying so hard to hide?” Dan stared at the magnificent sunset for a while before speaking, but the way his head drooped told Bo that his question had been heard. Levering himself off of the car, Dan took a few steps towards the setting sun to gather his thoughts. When he turned and walked back, he admired how the evening light played off of Bo’s coat. With the brilliant colors of the sky shining off him, Bo looked like one of the Gods of old. He could have been the model for a deity straight out of Egyptian myth, except that none of the depictions Dan remembered had posed any of the ancient gods with one hand wrapped around an ice-cold beer bottle, the other hooked by an oversized thumb into the front pocket of a pair of jeans so tight in the thigh they looked like they might split their seams. Dan felt cornered. He’d never been called out like this. Usually people took the hint and started talking about something else, but he guessed varii must be different. “It’s hard for me to let people into my life,” he said, finally. “The less they know about me, the less I seem to get hurt.” His voice lowered, but Bo still heard it loud and clear. “And I haven’t had the best luck trusting straight guys.” “Trusting someone is always risky,” Bo said, nodding his head as if he understood where Dan was coming from. “But you’ve got to get outside your comfort zone if you’re ever going to grab the brass ring.” Dan snorked a laugh at the mental image this brought up. The thought of Bo riding a white plastic merry-go-round pony festooned with pink streamers and a gilt pole brought a welcome chuckle, and lightened his suddenly somber mood. “I just can’t imagine a big ox like you on a merry-go-round.” “Hey, watch it,” Bo said in a gruff but playful voice, “some of my best friends are oxes.” “Oxen.” Dan corrected, automatically. “Whatever.” Bo waved a huge paw as if swatting away a pesky insect. “We’re off the subject again,” he encouraged. “Tell me what’s so horrible about yourself.” Dan laughed wryly, forcing his voice to adopt a light tone that he didn’t actually feel. “You’re not letting this go, are you?” Bo said nothing, merely widening his stance as if settling in for the long haul and staring expectantly. Dan sighed. Aside from the fact that he tried never to make his sexuality the focus of his life, he’d wanted to keep Jim and Bo as far apart as possible for a multitude of reasons. That plan apparently wasn’t going to work, so he dived in with both feet. If Bo was going to condemn him, he might as well condemn him for who he was. If he didn’t condemn him, they could go from there. “Okay, fine,” he said, with an air of exasperation. “I’ve got a partner, his name is Jim, and right now we’re not doing so well.” Bo didn’t seem fazed. “Why is that?” Since Bo apparently hadn’t been scared off, Dan chanced a little more. “I won’t bore you with the gory details, but I’ll tell you that the man he is now isn’t the person I thought he was.” “Separation isn’t an option?” Dan couldn’t stem his rush of annoyance. “That’s the first thing that pops into your head when things aren’t going the way you want them to? Give up and run away?” Bo looked like he might backtrack, but ended up just shrugging. “Sorry. You’re right, I shouldn’t assume things like that.” He toyed with his beer bottle. “I just got the idea you two hadn’t been together all that long.” “It’s been about two years, now,” Dan said, then added, “it just seems like longer, sometimes.” Bo looked at him oddly. “Are you two married?” “No.” Dan’s gaze looked far off into the sunset, staring into the distance. “For some reason, we can’t seem to agree on that.” “So if you’re not married, where’s the commitment? Sapiens don’t lifebond, do they?” Dan chuckled humorlessly. “Not usually. I was the one who wanted to get married, but he kept putting it off. As soon as I started to think better of it, he got scared and started insisting on it.” The furrow between Dan’s eyebrows deepened as his frustration grew. “Now I don’t think either one of us thinks it’s such a great idea, at least until we get things hammered out. But even without a contract, I still gave my word that I’d stick by him.” Bo tilted his big head and rumbled, “Does he feel the same way?” Dan had to think about that for a moment before he answered. And when he did, he regretted what honesty demanded he say. When Bo’s car lifted up and drove out of sight in the dimming light, Dan still heard the echoes of his own words ringing through his head, and he wondered how pitiful and weak his admission made him sound. “I don’t really think so.”

Chapter 4b Summer that year hit with unexpected force. It might have been late in coming, but the heat made up for lost time when it finally settled in. The heat and drought were responsible for several dozen deaths, mostly among varii, where heatstroke was harder to avoid when one permanently wore a fur coat. Magnum’s plant managers did what they could to keep heatstroke at bay by putting a jug of iced water at each work station, but the employees still occasionally neglected themselves and became dehydrated. The best solution anyone could come up with was to have Dan walk around the plant every few hours to audit the jugs and make sure the workers were drinking enough, and refill them as they emptied. He didn’t really mind the added duty. It was nice to be forced out of the office every now and then to stretch his legs. When Dan came to Bo’s station he pulled a flimsy, disposable cup out of the dispenser and filled it with cold water from the insulated plastic jug, getting a stupid little rush from sharing even something so mundane with the bigger man. With no small amount of interest, Dan watched Bo’s muscles play back and forth beneath his shirt as the varius lifted the heavy ingots into his machine. Peering into the insulated container, Dan saw that it was almost as full as it had been that morning when he’d filled it. “Buddy, this ain’t good,” he said. “You’re not going to last long in this heat if you don’t remember to drink up.” “Too busy to worry about that, Chief,” Bo replied, muscling heavy ingots of metal into the huge machine as if he himself were mechanical. “Bob’s really pushing for the production bonus this month.” He chuffed out a snort of laughter that didn’t sound amused. “Must have to cover more of those ‘can’t lose’ bets he’s always trying to get us to chip in on.” Looking underneath the varius, Dan saw that the reinforced concrete floor had darkened from the sweat dripping off of the man. “You’d better start worrying about it before you kill yourself,” Dan reprimanded him, then reconsidered. “Although, if you do drop dead we can probably save a huge chunk of money by replacing you with a retarded monkey and a C-clamp.” Filling another cup with cool water from the barrel, Dan handed it to Bo before taking a long drink from his own. Bo took a grudging sip and pointed at his water jug, “I spat in that,” he said, a devilish gleam in his eye. “What a coincidence,” Dan replied, finishing off his water and crushing the paper cup in his hand before chucking it into the waste bin, “so did I.” He grinned at Bo’s stodgy expression, watching as the varius rooted through the rubbish surrounding his water barrel. “What are you looking for?” “My straw. It was up here…Ah…” Bo located the plastic tube, but instead of closing around it his fingers clumsily nudged it off its elevated perch. “Fuck me,” he cursed, as he watched it fall onto the filthy concrete floor. With a grimace and an angry scowl, he picked up the straw and moved to rinse it off under a stream of water, but his fingers couldn’t do that and hold the cup at the same time. “Here,” he said, shoving the full paper cup back into Dan’s hands. “Hold this.” “They expect us to drink out of these little fucking paper cups that barely hold a single mouthful of water,” Bo complained as he worked, “and they don’t ever buy the kind of cups I can use without needing a god damned straw.” He unceremoniously pulled the cup out of Dan’s hand and used the business end of the straw to slurp up a mouthful of water. “So bring a bigger cup,” Dan suggested. “Everyone else gets cups that work for them. Why should we be the only ones who have to bring them from home?” He expected Dan to make an excuse about why it was impossible to get the varius their special cups, but Dan just stood there, looking at him quite seriously. “I’m sorry,” he said, in a way that made Bo actually believe him. “I think we’ve got one of the better varius programs here, and we really do try to get it right, but I guess we still fuck up from time to time. “ “It’s okay,” Bo said, sheepishly, the wind taken out of his sails by Dan’s honest apology. “I know you’re trying.” He shrugged. “We really do have a good program here and I don’t mean to bitch, but it gets frustrating sometimes.” “I’ll get you some proper cups, okay?” Dan promised. “But it might take a few days.” Once Bo nodded, Dan added,” Just keep using those until the new ones come in, okay? Don’t stop drinking.” Two days later, Dan was generating the monthly invoices when a gang of workers struggled through the office door under a large varius who was fighting a losing battle for consciousness. After laying the man on the cool tile floor of the break room the workers slowly backed away, all wanting to help but none knowing what to do. “Make room, guys.” Dan pushed his way through the circle of workers, groaning inside when his fears were confirmed. It was Bo. His fur was dry and his breathing was rapid and shallow, classic symptoms of heatstroke. Dan struggled to remember the emergency training that had seemed so basic, so common-sense that he hadn’t paid all that much attention to it in class. There was probably some stupid acronym associated with the treatment of hyperthermia that he was supposed to remember, but in the stress of the moment it escaped him. Someone had to take action before Bo’s overheated brain pickled itself. Mentally throwing his hands into the air, Dan stopped waiting for someone else to step up. He remembered two things for sure, fluids and cooling, so he ran with those. “Get out there and bring me a water jug,” he barked. Two of the varii went back into the plant to retrieve the nearest water barrel, but the rest of them just stood there, every eye locked expectantly on Dan. “Jimmy, get some towels. Bob, bring me the fan off my desk, please. The rest of you, back up and give him some room to breathe. And speaking of which,” Dan looked at the funky feline, “Bucky - no offense, but you’re killing me.” Bucky shrugged without malice and walked back into the plant, but Bob looked like he wanted to rip Dan’s head off for ordering him and his workers around. He couldn’t complain without looking like a complete and utter bitch, but the set of his ears and the angry twitching of his tail told everyone in the room that he wasn’t amused that Dan had taken charge. With an impudent curl to his lip, he went over to Dan’s desk, gripped the fan base in one meaty paw, and yanked the cord out of the wall with the other. Stalking over to where Bo lay, he plugged the fan into the socket and directed the flow of air onto Bo’s unconscious body. Dan rapidly unfastened the buttons of Bo’s shirt, exposing his chest and belly to the cooler stream of air. The heat radiating from his body was intense, and Dan knew that it had to be brought down as quickly as possible. Was he trying to work himself to death? “C’mon guys,” Bob said, angrily, “get back to work. We’ve got a quota to meet, and I’m not losing my bonus because this stupid pimpstick can’t remember to drink his fucking water.” With a final grunt of disgust he turned tail and stalked out of the office, most of the sapiens and varius workers following close behind. Dan took the towels, wet them in the cool water and draped them over Bo’s hot, dry fur. He knew he needed to get some water in the man, but couldn’t think of a good way to do it without pouring it straight down his gullet and gagging him in the process. Thinking of nothing better, he grabbed his coffee cup off his desk and got the two guys who hadn’t yet gone back out with Bob to help him prop Bo against the side of an old metal desk before they returned to their machines. Now alone in the office, Dan sat next to the unconscious varius, carefully feeding him small sips of water from the ceramic mug that proclaimed, ‘World’s Greatest Lover!’ in flamboyant red letters. Although much of it drooled out the sides of his mouth, Dan thought that Bo swallowed enough by reflex alone to do some good. Dan’s hands were busy but his attention was free to wander. Crusts of dried salt had gathered in the corners of Bo’s eyes, and as Dan gently wiped them away with one of the damp towels he noticed how lush and thick the morph’s eyelashes were. This was the first chance he’d really had to examine the big morph close up and he wasn’t about to let the opportunity go to waste. For the first time Dan saw how the heavy, worried-looking brow blended smoothly into the top of his short, thick muzzle, and when his hand accidentally brushed against the fur on his forehead, the fur that appeared so bristly and uninviting, it was actually quite soft. It just needed a good grooming, was all. The fur was slightly longer at the tips of his folded, triangular ears, making them look slightly more pointed than they really were. When he wasn’t scowling the varius had a regal look about him, and Dan saw that he was, quite possibly, the most quietly handsome man he’d ever seen of any species; a realization that made him acutely uncomfortable. He shouldn’t be thinking that sort of thing about a coworker, especially one that he was trying to make into a friend. After a few minutes Bo stirred and began to slump sideways, and Dan had to scramble to keep him from banging his head against the hard tile floor. He had to stay upright enough to take water, but was too heavy for Dan to move back into the position he’d been in. Sighing in resignation, Dan did the only thing he could think of. Shoving with all his strength, he maneuvered Bo’s inert form so that his head and shoulders were propped against his own body, immediately soaking large patches of his clothing in a nasty smelling mixture of drooled water and reconstituted sweat. At least the position moved the bulk of Bo’s body away from Dan’s face so at least he didn’t have to smell the overworked morph any more than he absolutely had to. As he slowly fed the other man water, Dan was thankful that the other workers had cleared out after the initial excitement had worn off. He hated to think what questions might have been raised, had anyone seen him sitting on the floor with the oversized head of a huge, black varius resting in his lap. Gradually, sip by patient sip, more water went into Bo and less dripped into his fur and Dan’s clothing. Regardless that their position was the only one that made sense, a dirty little corner of Dan’s mind enjoyed the feeling of Bo’s mass pressing against him. Even though it was only because the varius was semiconscious and had little say in the matter, it still felt damned good to be underneath his muscular weight. To his shame, Dan enjoyed the fact that this hulking brute of a man needed help, and that he was the one to give it to him. When consciousness returned and Bo realized that his head was resting in another man’s lap, he immediately tried to sit up. He wasn’t halfway there when Dan restrained him. “Lie down!” Dan barked, as if commanding a dog instead of another intelligent person. Dan’s chest and lap were sopping wet from the water running through Bo’s fur and he was sure he smelled like a drowned rat, but until Bo was more aware, Dan could think of no better place for him to be than where he already was. Bo shut his eyes with a groan and allowed Dan to pull him back down. “Under other circumstances I’d take offense at that.” His voice was churlish, as if he didn’t appreciate being handled, but he obeyed. “Under other circumstances you might be dead,” Dan snapped. “You scared the crap out of m-…us.” Bo had nothing to say, so he lay still and allowed himself to be nursed for a while longer. When he refused to take any more water, Dan helped him to slowly sit up with his back against the desk. “Whoa,” Bo put a hand on his forehead. “Oh, man. Let me know when the room stops spinning.” He closed his eyes and draped a wet towel over his head, canine ears making triangular tent-shapes in the blue cloth. Jimmy popped his head into the office, “Hey, Bo! You all right?” he asked, thankfully not noticing that the wet patches on Dan’s shirt and pants described the rough silhouette of a large canine morph’s head and shoulders. “Yeah, I’ll be okay,” Bo replied sluggishly from underneath the towel. To Dan’s ears, he sounded anything but okay. “Bob’s pissed off at both of you,” Jimmy warned. “He says if Bo don’t get back to work soon, it’s gonna be your fault if the quota’s off.” Bob had hounded Dan since his first day, and Dan was trying not to take it personally. The varius supervisor apparently disliked all sapiens, only tolerating the company’s owner because he signed the paychecks. His genetics were panther-based, and his impressive claws could have sliced Dan open like a Christmas turkey. At that moment, however, Dan was far more concerned for Bo than he was about production. “Fuck Bob and fuck Bob’s quota,” he muttered, irritably. “Yessir, I’ll be sure to tell him you said that,” Jimmy said as he pulled his head back out of the office. “I’m sure you will, you little tool,” Dan muttered to himself. He thought his words had been quiet enough that nobody else could hear him, but a rumbling chuckle from underneath the damp towel covering Bo’s head told him that he’d been overheard. “Don’t worry about Bob and his damned quota,” the varius said, unsteadily. “I’m already three orders into tomorrow’s production anyway.” “Even if you weren’t,” Dan answered back, “I’m more concerned about you. We can make up production later, but we can’t make another Bo.” Despite Bo’s assurances, Dan was still concerned. Bob could turn mean and spiteful at the drop of a hat, and although Dan wasn’t really on his bad side, he wasn’t on his good side either. Now, however, Jimmy would probably use that little tidbit as leverage to improve his standing with his boss, happily throwing Dan under the bus without a second thought. “Okay, Bo, it’s time for you to graduate,” Dan said, brightly. “Now you get to sit in a chair.” Pulling one of the plastic office chairs a little closer, Dan reached his hand down to help Bo off the ground. His hand disappeared into one of Bo’s, and the big morph levered himself into the chair Dan offered to him with a grunt and a huff of air. He looked like he was seriously considering throwing up, and Dan replaced the wet cloth with a fresh, cool one. Though the varius didn’t say anything, the look of gratitude on his face was blatant. Although Bo outwardly ignored the concern in Dan’s voice, on the inside he was disquieted. Most sapiens men had no idea they projected their feelings as strongly as they did, and this one was especially easy to read. Dan might be gruff and prickly on the outside, but Bo thought that on the inside he was probably a good man. The fact that he’d dropped his swagger and was sincerely concerned made Bo feel odd inside. He knew that he should pull himself together and get back to his machine, but having someone care about him made him just want to sit there and accept the kindness. But he didn’t want to want it. Doing something so stupid as passing out in the heat made him feel weak inside, and letting someone else fawn over him like this was downright disgraceful. What would the other guys think? That thought almost made Bo give in to his urge to push himself up and get back to work, but in the end he just let the matter rest. He was so tired… They sat in the cool office and talked quietly, periodically swapping out hot towels for cool ones. When the other workers came off shift, Bo joined them in the showers, unsteadily standing under the tepid spray until his body temperature had returned to normal. Through the glass of his office window, Dan watched as Bo lumbered out to his car on wobbly legs. Silently, he said a prayer to whoever might be listening that he would be smart enough to put the car on auto-pilot, and make it home without flying into a pole.

Chapter 5 Dan was unsurprised when Bo called in sick the next morning, and over his lunch break he stopped at the local deli to buy a sandwich and a drink for himself and an extra-large carton of chicken soup and a sports drink for the morph. Bundling all of it up in a sack, he punched Bo’s address into his car’s nav system and headed off for unknown territory. The part of town that his car navigated itself to was hardly a slum, but it wasn’t fancy either. Bo’s parking lot had a couple of derelict cars shoved off into one corner, but other than those, seemed respectably clean. The apartments themselves were old, but not as shabby as some Dan had lived in when he was at college. It seemed obvious that whoever managed the property took pride in their job, keeping trash picked up and stairways freshly painted. On the way up to Bo’s flat, Dan opened his senses to the stories that places like this inevitably told. Sometimes they shouted and sometimes they whispered, but they always told. Vidscreens blared out of the occasional open window, audible over the excited shouts of shoeless children playing in the parking lot. It wasn’t exactly squalid but it was definitely low-rent, and was a couple of notches below what Dan had become used to. He stood for a moment watching the group of four children as they played, noting with interest that two of them were sapiens, one black and one white, and two of them varius, one bovine and one lupine. He marveled at the catholicism of youth, and regretted how rapidly things fell apart once you grew up and someone told you who you couldn’t play with. He smelled someone’s lunch cooking, and that brought him back to the reason he was here. Turning to Bo’s door, he was a little surprised when his knock was answered not by a person, but by a shouted voice. “Come in!” Dan cracked open the door and peeked inside. “I guess someone as big as you doesn’t worry much that someone dangerous might be at the door, huh?” Dan said as he stepped out of the midday heat and into the cool darkness of Bo’s apartment. “No,” the morph said, quirking his head to one side, “personal safety isn’t something I invest a lot of time worrying about.” He was sitting on his couch, with the vidscreen quietly displaying the news channel from one corner of the room. When Dan held out the package of food, Bo looked perplexed. “What, furries don’t eat chicken soup?” Dan asked, trying to remember if he’d ever seen Bo eating chicken for lunch. Had he just made another of those invisible mistakes? “We eat chicken soup,” Bo replied, almost sounding suspicious, “I just didn’t expect you’d be bringing me any.” He took the carton of soup and the drink that Dan handed him. “Thanks.” The varius settled himself onto the couch, and busied himself trying to pull the lid off of the soup container. After a few moments spent fiddling with plastic fasteners too small for his big fingers, he extended a razor sharp claw and sliced off the entire top, a satisfied grin on his face. Dan sat across from him on the floor and unwrapped his sandwich over the coffee table, marveling at the delicacy of Bo’s eating habits. It seemed incongruous that someone so huge and powerful could eat something as potentially messy as chicken noodle soup without getting a drop on him. The second time he caught Dan watching him, Bo paused his eating. “You haven’t known many varii, have you?” Embarrassed that he’d been caught staring, Dan shook his head. “No. This is the first time I’ve really worked with any of you.” “You’ve been at Magnum for a while now,” Bo said. “You should be used to us by now.” “You’d think,” Dan agreed, “but nobody really wants to talk to me. I think I’m on the wrong side of too many fences.” “Huh.” Bo grunted, but offered nothing more. Now that Dan thought about it, it seemed rather pathetic that he’d gone two years without ever having a friend at work. “Why do you ask?” Bo’s pointed white teeth clicked against the red plastic spoon as he shoveled another mouthful of soup into his muzzle. “It seems like every time I look up, you’re watching me.” Dan silently chewed on his sandwich for a moment. Although Bo had made the observation, he didn’t sound angry about it, or even annoyed. He had just been stating a fact. Still, Dan felt like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t, and he wanted to give some sort of rational explanation for his actions that wouldn’t paint him as some sort of voyeuristic pervert. Sure, he looked at Bo. The varius was different and that made him interesting. He was self-confident, and seemed to get along well with everyone at the plant. Bo exuded strength in everything he did. The way he walked, his self-assured attitude, were all absolutely masculine in a way that Dan admired and wanted to emulate. He didn’t just want to act like Bo; he wanted to be like him. And he was the hottest man Dan had ever laid eyes on, but Bo didn’t need to know that. “I guess I have been,” Dan admitted, electing to be as frank with Bo as the morph had been with him. “You’ve got a lot of admirable traits, and you’re a lot of things I want to be.” Dan took another bite, and through a mouthful of roast chicken and lettuce, he dared to open up to the other man. “I didn’t have a lot of strong male role models growing up, and there are plenty of times I don’t feel comfortable around straight guys.” Dan wiped his hands with his napkin, even though they were clean. Realizing that he was falling back into an old nervous habit, he tossed the still-clean napkin back onto the coffee table. “I’m always afraid that when the time comes to give the secret handshake, I won’t know how to do it.” Dan thought about what he’d admitted for a moment, and then hung his head sheepishly, regretting saying any of it. “I guess that sounds pretty lame, doesn’t it.” “No,” Bo said, slurping down the last of his drink through a straw. “Surprisingly enough, it doesn’t.” He belched quietly and crumpled up the soup carton, mashing it into his empty drink cup. “I think most guys feel the same way, they just bluff their way through it.” He spied the half-eaten brownie still sitting on the waxed paper Dan’s sandwich had been wrapped in. “You gonna eat the rest of that?” he asked. “No.” Dan lied, pushing the brownie towards him. Bo wasn’t speaking to him with the usual bluster and macho attitude he was used to hearing, a fact that left Dan feeling a little unbalanced. Bo broke the brownie in two and popped half of it into his mouth before pushing the rest of it back to Dan. “You lied,” he said, one ear twitching slightly. “I can always tell.” His dark brown eyes stayed on Dan as he chewed, as if he had decided not to say whatever he’d been thinking. Like he knew that although Dan had not lied about his reasons for watching him, there was far more to the truth than he’d revealed. And whether or not Dan was going to finish his dessert had very little to do with it. “If you knew I wanted my brownie,” Dan grumbled, only half-jokingly, “why did you just eat half of it?” “Because lies cost you,” Bo said, bluntly. “Even when I’m just being nice?” Bo looked at him thoughtfully. “Sometimes those lies are the most expensive. Be thankful that this time, it only cost you half a brownie.” The brownie had had a thin layer of frosting on it, frosting that now clung to his thumb. Bo was tempted to just lick it off, but that would have felt rude with company sitting right in front of him. He settled for sticking the tip of his thumb into his muzzle and gently chewing it. “There’s one thing you’ll learn about varii if you hang around with us much,” Bo continued, after his finger was clean. “We don’t like lies, and we like half-truths even less.” Dan didn’t seem inclined to say anything about that, and Bo took advantage of the silence to explain. “When we form relationships they’re usually for life, so we’re very picky about who we call a friend. Maybe it’s the pack instinct that’s hard-coded into our genetics, but we’re not very trusting, and we don’t let just anyone get close.” Dan pondered Bo’s words. The comment made him wonder whether he was on the inside of Bo’s life, or the outside? His tone seemed to indicate the latter, and Dan suddenly felt out of place in this dark, cool cave of an apartment. When he looked up, Bo was still studying him, but Dan saw no animosity in his gaze. The varius wasn’t staring; he was just…looking. “I’d better go,” Dan said, gathering his trash. “I’m going to be late back to work.” “Oh, yeah, sure,” Bo said, getting up from the couch and opening the door to the recycler so Dan could throw away the remains, “and thanks for lunch,” he said, with automatic politeness. “Next time’s on me.” As Dan walked back to his car he turned and glanced back to the window of Bo’s apartment. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, or maybe the motion of the trees was reflected in the glass, but he almost thought that he’d seen a large shape inside the apartment turning back into the cool darkness.

---

Bo was back at his machine the next day, working double-time to make up for his lost productivity. A few minutes before break, Dan walked outside to Bo’s station and checked his water supply. Sure enough, he hadn’t been drinking. Dan filled two cups, cleared his throat loudly enough to be heard over the din of the huge machine, and waited. Bo turned at the sound, and was surprised to see Dan standing in front of him, wearing an irate expression and holding out a cup. “Drink the goddamned water before you pass out again!” Dan barked, and for the life of him, he’d swear Bo flinched. “Yes, sir,” he said, sheepishly taking the cup from Dan’s hand. It really was ludicrous since Bo outweighed Dan by thirty kilos and they both knew that he wouldn’t be ordered around if he didn’t want to be. Bo gave him a wry smile that the sapiens had a hard time returning. “Your water’s safe to drink,” Dan said, trying to shake off his anger with a measure of humor as he drank from his cup. “I didn’t really spit in it, you know.” “Yeah, I know,” Bo replied, flashing an evil smile. “But I did.” Watching Dan paint the side of his machine with a mouthful of water was the most entertaining thing Bo had seen all day long.

Chapter 6 The horror of the situation turned into a leaded lump that settled in the pit of Dan’s stomach with nauseating weight. “Harassment?” he said numbly. “But, who?” “I’m afraid we can’t tell you that, Mister Blocker,” the management company rep said, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands over his stomach. Everything about his attitude screamed, “I could, but I won’t, because I’m in control here and you’re the one under the bare bulb, and I’m not going to let you forget that for an instant.” From Dan’s perspective, hiring an outside company to handle Magnum’s personnel management duties had brought nothing but problems. First the paychecks weren’t delivered on time, then the insurance went haywire, and now this. The HR rep had an air of pompous propriety that was alien in Dan’s normally informal office. “The accused has their right to anonymity at this point,” he explained, as if letting Dan in on privileged information. “If it goes past the simple complaint stage to mediation or to trial, of course you’ll be told at that point who complained.” Trial? Dan thought with rising panic. This was spinning out of control. “Look,” he said, fighting to keep his voice civil, “I know I’m probably not always the sweetest guy in the world, but nobody out there could think I’m about to get them fired if they don’t do what I want. I might be grumpy every now and then, but I’d never hurt anyone and they know it.” “Many people are under the misconception that a charge of harassment hinges on the ability to terminate a fellow employee if they don’t do what you want,” the rep explained, already sounding bored with their conversation. “Any time someone feels threatened, or even just offended, it makes the work environment hostile.” “But no one has said anything to me!” Dan’s frustration was rising, and he struggled to keep his voice at a normal conversational tone. “Nobody’s had a problem or asked me to stop anything I’m doing.” “They don’t have to say anything.” The rep was now looking at the nail on his index finger, which he found far more interesting than anything Dan was saying. “They used to have to ask you to stop before it became harassment, but since that exposed the complaining party to ridicule and potential abuse, it’s no longer required. I’m sure you can see why this is necessary,” he said, looking at Dan pointedly, “especially in cases of sexual harassment.” “I’m the only worker in the office,” Dan said, confused, “and I don’t have a lot of interaction with the guys out in the plant. I’m not interested in any of them.” The moment he said that, he knew it wasn’t true. There was indeed someone he was drawn to. Bo. Dan closed his eyes and let out the breath that he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. “Aw, crap,” he said, disgusted with himself. “I guess maybe I do know what happened. Or at least,” he amended, “who might have complained.” Dan thought back to all the odd looks that Bo had given him over the past few weeks, the looks he hadn’t been able to interpret and had just let go, assuming that if he’d said something wrong, the other man would have told him so. Big mistake. “You just don’t know any better.” This piqued the rep’s interest, and he looked up from his paperwork. “Care to tell me what happened?” The gleam in his eyes reminded Dan of a snake about to strike at a rat that had wandered too close and was about to become a tasty little snack. “There’s nothing to tell, no specific incident,” said Dan, shaking his head in confusion. “I just thought I was being friendly, and I guess it was misinterpreted.” His response deflated the rep. No snack today. “That’s the way it usually goes, in cases like this,” the rep said, sounding simultaneously sympathetic and bored. Dan wondered how many times he’d had to deliver this speech in order to become so blasé about it. And then Dan remembered sitting on the floor of the break room with Bo’s heavy weight pressing against him, and the dirty little feeling it had given him to be so close. “Under other circumstances I’d take offense at that.” Dan had been more than just friendly towards the man; he’d been downright pushy. Shame burned his ears at the memory of what had happened. The rep sighed deeply and sat up in his chair, leaning forward slightly to reinforce the seriousness of Dan’s situation and clasping his hands in front of him on the table. “You’ve got two choices here, Mr. Blocker. If you dispute the claim and take it to court and are found guilty, you’ll be fired immediately.” He paused to let this sink in, then went on. “Your second option, the one we recommend, is to attend sensitivity training. The complaint remains in your record for six months. If another offense is reported by anyone in the company, you’ll immediately be terminated.” He leaned back a bit. “But if no further complaints are filed, the original complaint will be removed as if it never existed.” Dan tried logic one more time. “If I don’t know what the complaint was, how can I know what not to do?” “If I tell you what the complaint was, you’ll know who complained, and that’s not possible,” the rep replied, oblivious to the stupidity of his rote response. Dan remembered inviting himself over to Bo’s apartment, buying the man chicken soup and staring at him as he ate it. “It seems like every time I look up, you’re watching me.” No wonder Dan had creeped him out. Dan was glad that this situation had an escape hatch, but he resented that, in essence, he had to admit to guilt to use it. But the choice was clear, and he could see no real option. Bo had dozens of witnesses who could attest to the fact that Dan had rescheduled his lunch so he could eat with him. And he visited (or had he flirted?) with Bo several times a day over his water jug. And although they all knew that Bo’s unconscious body had been put into the care of the openly gay office worker, they could only speculate what Dan had done to him after they were alone. Most of them had seen Dan remove Bo’s shirt, after all. Who knew what he might have done when they were alone? If he disputed the claim, each and every one of them would back Bo, and Dan would certainly lose his job. It might not be the best job in the world, but he enjoyed his work and it did pay his bills. “Sensitivity training it is.” He sighed in resignation. “Give me the papers.” “Conversations with a varius can be a minefield.” Boom. They wasted no time in getting him into a class, and that night, Dan showed up at the assigned location to find that the city was crawling with more sex-crazed, office-worker perverts than he’d ever imagined. Although classes formed on a daily basis and the auditorium was far from small, there wasn’t an empty seat in the house. Dan thought that whoever was running this show was making a killing, and in the middle of the third hour of lectures he discreetly pulled out his communicator and did a quick web search. Sure enough, the same company who owned their HR firm also owned the training center. Dan thought it was quite a racket. First they got paid to implement a set of regulations so Byzantine that they were impossible to follow, then they got paid again to solve the problems their policies created. It was genius. Dan spent sixteen hours that weekend listening to monotonous lectures and watching pre-war films designed, he felt, to be punishment as much as they were education. Dan reflected back to his history classes where he had learned of Soviet-era communist retraining classes, and he felt renewed sympathy for the poor bastards who had been found in need of cultural re-education. To be simultaneously told that you were a good little worker but your actions were inappropriate was patronizing in the extreme. What would have been truly useful would be a class in choosing friends more wisely, and once you’d decided to like someone, how to tell what their hot buttons were so you could keep from pushing them. Jim, predictably, went ballistic. Dan didn’t think he was ever able to get past the accusation itself. Instead of believing, or even listening to, Dan’s explanation that he had no idea what had happened, Jim latched onto the idea that Dan had been caught being sexually provocative towards another man. The cold-shoulder treatment was in full effect, and Dan elected to sleep in the guest bedroom rather than endure the chill that permeated his own bed. The last class was on Sunday night, and Dan had never before been so glad to put an educational experience behind him. He’d had the entire weekend to reflect on what had happened, and on Monday he arrived at work early and packed the trunk of his speeder with everything in the office that wasn’t company material. He was surprised at the number of personal articles he’d accumulated over his time at Magnum. Pictures, mementos from vacations, a calendar, the computer screen saver, all had provided a small measure of hominess and comfort to him, but all were now suspect and could not be trusted. If he had learned anything from his torturous sensitivity training, it was that you couldn’t tell what was going to offend someone. At this point in his life Dan couldn’t risk the possibility that something as insignificant as a refrigerator magnet might incur someone else’s wrath, so away it went. By the time the bell sounded for the beginning of first shift, Dan’s office was back to the sterile, impersonal space it had been when he’d sat down there on his very first day. It was disheartening to think that he could spend so much of his life in one place without leaving a mark, something of himself, behind. He felt dull, and even more, he felt eminently replaceable. It was depressing to think about, so he tried his best not to. Dan buried his nose in his work, and by ten o’clock he had most of the billing done for the day. He’d worked through problematic invoices and called late-paying customers, and was almost through drafting an advertisement to fill a vacancy in the plant when heavy footsteps announced Bo’s arrival to make his morning copies. It galled Dan to be polite to the man, but he knew he had no realistic option. They’d emphasized this situation in the classes, and Dan knew that if he alienated his accuser, he would be the one to suffer. But although he had to be professionally courteous, he didn’t have to be nice. “Mr. Taylor,” he said without looking around. “Mr. Blocker,” Bo said, with equal formality. He walked over to the copy machine and was surprised that going through the normal motions didn’t produce the expected result. “I think this damned thing’s broken again,” he said, repeatedly pushing the large green button to no effect. “It’s not broken, it’s locked,” Dan explained calmly, his face as expressionless as he could make it. “The copy machine out in the plant has been repaired, and you can use that one from now on.” Bo turned to him, and the chilly look Dan was wearing was an icy slap in the face. Goddamned pinkies can’t make up their minds if they want to keep you as a pet or throw you out with the trash, Bo thought to himself, as he snatched his papers out of the feeder. The angry varius strode out of the office like he had a chip on his shoulder, and Dan watched him leave without a word. Well, that’s too damned bad, Dan thought smugly. Office privileges are just that – privileges. Membership has its rewards, and you’re no longer a member. He tried to be happy with his small victory, but instead he just felt petty and mean. In spite of the fact that he’d spent the whole weekend furious with Bo, he was also massively disappointed that he had ended up not being the friend Dan had hoped he might be. Asshole, asshole, asshole! Dan called Bo in his mind. But in the end, had it been Bo who was the asshole? Even though the offense had been unintentional, Dan had to admit that Bo had reason to suspect him. Lunchtime for Dan was back to the way it had been before he lost control of the situation and got himself bitten. Bo used to meander through the office on his break and talk with Dan. He’d lean against the partition that separated Dan’s desk from the outer world and tell all sorts of tales about his weekend, the life of others in the plant, about…everything. All of that was gone now, and Dan tried unsuccessfully to not miss it. The more he thought about what had been lost to him, the more bitter he became. So many possibilities, so much opportunity, all gone because someone didn’t trust him enough to come to him with an issue. Four simple words would have solved the problem in seconds, had Bo come to him in the first place. “I’m sorry,” and “You’re forgiven.” Dan was back to his old schedule. He came in at eight, left at seventeen; got his work done, then went home. Lunch was spent by himself, eaten at his desk behind a locked door, and the invisible wall between the plant and the office was back in place, stronger than ever. He was safe but isolated, and he began a slow spiral into depression. In the span of a single week, Dan started thinking about finding a place to work where the air hadn’t been tainted with his failure. Work was available anywhere, and it would be an easy thing to find some other dump to hang his hat in. And this time, it would be somewhere with people of his own kind.

Chapter 7 On Friday night, Dan thumbed the lock on the office door and heard magnetic servos shoot into place, securing the door for the weekend. When he turned, he was startled to see Bo leaning against the corner of his car. “Hey,” Dan said, warily. “Hey, yourself,” Bo shot back. He wasted no time in getting straight to the point. “So are you going to tell me why you’ve got such a huge stick shoved up your ass?” “What are you talking about?” Dan said, hating the fear that made his stomach queasy. Bo was a very big man, and he was obviously angry. At him. Looking around the parking lot, Dan saw nothing but his car and Bo’s nearly dead speeder, and a battered pickup truck parked fifty meters away. Bo hammered him with his words. “You’ve spent the past week treating me like a fucking reject, and I want to know why.” Dan winced. His training had warned him that this might happen, and he’d practiced what to say over and over inside his head. “I apologize if I’ve offended you, Mister Taylor. It was not my intention, and I’m sorry. I would like to remain on cordial terms with you.” He’d rehearsed it so many times to himself that it came out sounding wooden and lifeless. He could only hope that Bo would take his explanation at face value and leave him the hell alone. Although he knew it wasn’t in his best interests to do so, he couldn’t keep himself from adding a snide comment that wasn’t written into his script. “I can’t handle another sexual harassment accusation.” Bo shoved a thumb into his own chest. “I’m not the one who complained about you, ya jerk,” he said, leaning towards Dan, his voice growing louder with anger and frustration. “It was Chester!” “Chester?” Dan was dumbfounded. Chester stood taller than Bo and was even wider in the shoulders, but that was where, in Dan’s opinion, the attractive parts ended. His arms were stretched out of proportion, his body way too long in the torso, and his ass positively non-existent. His face was as flat as the proverbial pancake, and Dan didn’t find him the least bit attractive. Seen from behind, he looked like a giant, hairy frog that someone had stuffed into pants. Dan’s fears were instantly replaced with puzzlement. “Why the hell would I hit on Chester? He’s not my type at all.” Dan crossed his arms and leaned back against his car. “How could he possibly get the idea I was harassing him?” “Remember when you were on the forklift a few weeks back?” Bo said, his tone still angry. “You shouted something to Chester when you passed him.” Thinking back, Dan could remember something about that day. What was it? Then it hit him. “No. No, that’s not right. I didn’t pass him, I stopped in front of him.” As he spoke the words, the memories began to solidify, and he spoke with growing assurance. “I had a short pallet that I was moving around, and Chester had dropped something in the middle of the floor.” The furrow between his eyes deepened as he concentrated. “It was his paperwork. He dropped a bunch of production tickets, and I stopped so he could finish picking them up.” “He mentioned something about you making fucking motions with your hips,” Bo pressed, sounding uncertain of Dan’s explanation. Dan raised an eyebrow. “Ever sat on the spare fork-truck? It’s got a spring that-” “That pokes up out of the cushion and sticks you in the ass.” Bo interrupted, finishing Dan’s sentence for him. “Yeah,” Dan said, nodding his head. “I don’t remember doing it, but sometimes I have to lift up out of the seat to rearrange the spring and keep it from sticking me in the junk.” Bo curled his lips in a peculiar way, baring his fangs menacingly. For a sick moment Dan thought he was going to be on the receiving end of an attack, and his heart rate jumped with the adrenaline rush. Before he could decide whether to run or to defend himself, Bo let out a piercing whistle. Dan looked at him dumbly. “You can whistle?” “Well, yeah,” Bo said, the tone of his voice suggesting that whistling dogs weren’t uncommon. Hell, Dan thought, in his world, they probably weren’t. Then it occurred to Dan to wonder why the varius had whistled in the first place. His eyes followed Bo’s, and saw Chester’s big, shambling form come around the corner of the building. Dan still wasn’t certain the two men weren’t going to beat the shit out of him, so he stayed quiet and maintained his guard, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. He couldn’t outrun them, but he might stay out of their hands long enough to dial the emergency number on his personal communicator. What Bo asked Chester eased Dan’s mind somewhat. “You hear him?” Chester’s reply sounded like he was talking around a mouthful of pebbles. “Yeah.” “Does what he said match what happened?” “Yeah.” Silence fell between the three men, an uncomfortable heaviness that threatened to burst like an overfilled water skin. Chester was apparently not a man of many words. “So are you okay with it?” Bo pushed, annoyed by Chester’s one-word answers. He shrugged. “I guess.” Then Chester pulled back his shoulders and squared his jaw. “I’m ready.” Dan looked at him dumbly. He had no idea what Chester was ready for. Seeing the man’s confusion, Bo pulled on Dan’s arm, moving him out of earshot. “Chester’s tribe has a code of honor that he violated when he falsely accused you,” he explained quietly. “To satisfy the demands of honor, you get to bust his chops for free.” Dan stared at Bo as the varius playfully waggled his eyebrows. “One shot, completely free, to make up for what he did. You don’t get that sort of offer every day!” Bo said it like it was the opportunity of a lifetime, but Dan was horrified. Sure, he was mad at Chester, mad as all hell, as a matter of fact. But he didn’t want to hit him. He opened his mouth to protest, but Bo stopped him in mid-breath. Discretely, he moved his body to block Chester from seeing any protest Dan might make. “Buddy, he explained, you’ve got to hit him, and hit him as hard as you can.” Seeing that Dan still didn’t fully understand the gravity of the situation, Bo leaned in a little closer, his warm breath tickling Dan’s skin. “It’s not like you’re going to hurt him. If he thinks you pulled your punch it’ll be an insult to him. It’s like saying he can dish it out but he can’t take it, and if you do that it’ll be an offense to him and to his entire tribe.” The look he gave Dan spoke volumes. “Trust me, you don’t want to offend them.” Dan nodded slowly as understanding leaked its way into his addled brain. The last thing he wanted was to have a whole tribe of Chesters pissed off at him, and Dan realized that although this wasn’t the path he would have chosen, it seemed to be the path he had to walk. He looked up at Bo one last time, appreciating the sympathy and understanding that he radiated before walking back to where Chester patiently waited. In the seven steps it took him to reach the other man, Dan gathered up all of the anger and frustration he’d been feeling. He held, in his clenched fist, the injustice and stupidity of the accusation, and how he’d almost killed his friendship with Bo over nothing. He tightened his fist like he was trying to squeeze a lump of coal into a diamond and, growling deep in his chest, he gave Chester a wallop to the jaw that was powered by all the rage, frustration, and grief that had ridden him for the past week. Remembering everything he’d ever learned about fighting, which wasn’t much, Dan threw his whole upper body into that punch and snapped Chester’s oversized head around on his thick neck. To his surprise, a half-second after he’d connected with Chester’s jaw, the man’s eyes glazed over and he dropped to one knee. He didn’t stay down long though, and Dan held his breath as he watched the large green eyes regain their focus. When Chester shook his shaggy head and got to his feet, Dan had a moment’s fear that, despite Bo’s assurances, Chester was going to come after him. But he needn’t have worried. All bills had been paid with that one blow, and the accounts between them had been settled. The big man grinned at him, rubbing his jaw with one enormous paw while holding the other out for Dan to shake. Dan’s hand ached fiercely and dripped blood from several deep cuts on his knuckles where they’d impacted with Chester’s sizeable teeth. Instinctively, Dan hid his pain and stuck his hand into Chester’s much larger one. Pain shot up his arm when the other man squeezed, but he gritted his teeth and met Chester’s eyes with a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He was pleased to find that when the situation demanded it, he could play the macho game as well as any other man. Getting decked improved Chester’s personality tremendously. “I’m sorry, Dan, he rumbled, I should have come to you first. I hope I didn’t cause you too much trouble.” The sudden about-face caught Dan off guard, and he stumbled for words. “No, that’s all right, I can understand why you did what you did. It was an honest mistake.” Then his brain caught up with his mouth, and he added, “But it would be nice if you told the boss it was a misunderstanding so they can take it out of my record.” “Sure, Dan, sure!” The shaggy morph looked at his comm and winced. “Hey, I’ve gotta go, it’s my mom’s birthday.” He sounded like a little boy, and Dan thought that it wasn’t going to take him long to get over being mad at him, especially after socking him in the face. Perhaps there was some wisdom in that tribal custom, after all. Bo and Dan watched as Chester shambled over to his battered pickup truck and roared off. “You’re making a mess,” Bo said, pointing at Dan’s injured hand. “Oh, shit.” Dan held his left hand under his right to catch the falling drops as he unlocked the trunk of his car and retrieved a rag to clean up the blood that had fallen to the concrete. Bo leaned back on his car and watched Dan dab at his hand. “You’re doing a great job, Chief, but that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. You need to get your hand fixed.” Dan stopped what he was doing and looked at his bleeding knuckles. Much as he hated to admit it, Bo was probably right. He sighed and wrapped a clean rag around his bloody fist. Bo gestured towards the passenger side of his car. “Get in.” It wasn’t the safest-looking vehicle in town and he’d much rather have taken his own, but there was no way Dan was going to turn down a ride from Bo. Besides, the Doc-in-a-Box was only a few blocks away, and he could always walk back to his car if Bo’s jalopy wasn’t up to making the return trip. An hour later, Dan walked out of the clinic sporting a large bandage on his right hand and a vial of pills to ward off pain and infection. Bo plucked the paper Dan was carrying out of his fingers and whistled appreciatively. “Wow, two broken fingers, subdermal regen and a tetanus shot! You really gave him all you had, didn’t you?” Embarrassment warmed Dan’s ears.There was no way in hell he was going to tell Bo that the main motivator behind that punch had been the thought of losing his friendship. He couldn’t tell Bo about the depression, the anger, or the remorse for how he’d acted. “That sounds worse than it really is,” he said instead, sounding embarrassed. “The bones were just cracked. But yeah, I guess I kind of unloaded on him, didn’t I?” Bo knew that everything Dan had just said was factually correct, so he had to wonder why his ear was twitching. Letting it go, he looked at the other man as they settled into the parking lot next to Dan’s car. “I know your hand hurts, but you feel better inside, don’t you?” Dan considered for a moment. “Yeah, I guess I do. He paused, then said, “Thanks.” “For what?” Bo asked, idling the thrusters in his car and turning his attention to Dan. Dan knew that Bo wasn’t asking out of ignorance, he was giving him the chance to reconcile things between them once and for all. Dan counted off on his fingers. “In reverse order, for taking me to the clinic and treating me like my injuries were, in some way, heroic. For helping me to understand what to do with Chester. For caring about our friendship enough to go through the trouble of bringing this to resolution. And most of all,” he said, looking Bo square in the face, having to crane his neck to do so, “for not being mad at me when I was being such a prick to you.” Then he came to the worst part, the part that had always come so hard for him. “I was wrong, Bo, and I’m sorry.” To Dan’s surprise, giving Bo his honest apology wasn’t as difficult as he’d imagined it would be. Bo shrugged, accepting the formal apology with good grace. “You’re welcome for all of that, and you’re forgiven.” He got a playful gleam in his eye and waggled his eyebrows at Dan. “Now, do I get my free shot?” “Wrong tribe!” Dan laughed, getting out of the car. “In my tribe, when someone does you wrong, you settle it by repressing your feelings and talking to your therapist.” He shut the door behind him, then leaned down and rested his arms on the open window of Bo’s car. “How ‘bout I just apologize and let you use the office copier again?” Bo grinned back at him. “Deal. That one in the plant is junk.” Dan glanced at the time displayed on the dashboard of Bo’s car. “Oh, shit.” He sighed wearily, the fun energy he was sharing with Bo vaporizing like water on hot sandstone. “Is that really the time?” Bo glanced at his dashboard and nodded. “Yeah. Why?” Dan looked vaguely ill. “Now I get to go home and explain to Jim why I’m late.” “I would think the way your hand’s wrapped up would be all the explanation you need.” Bo was annoyed at Dan’s partner even though he’d never met the man. “Didn’t you call him, already?” ”Shit, shit, shit…” Dan groaned, putting his good hand to his forehead, “I’m going to get in trouble for that, too.” He’d been through this before. “He’s not going to believe me, and nothing I say will make a difference. Even when I show him the stitches and regen marks, he’s going to stay mad at me for no good reason. Or,” he added, “just because I didn’t call him.” “So call him on the way home and tell him you just got out of the doctor. Tell him we ambushed you on the way out of work so you’d have to listen to us, and never gave you a chance to call. Get all excited about it before he has a chance to.” Dan thought about it, and decided that the strategy just might work. “Thanks. You’re pretty good at this, for someone who doesn’t lie.” Bo shrugged, “Just tell them the parts of the truth that you want them to hear. Now get out of here.” He stuck his hand out the window and Dan shook it gratefully. Painfully, but gratefully. Bo watched as Dan got in his car, powered up and drove away, once again wondering what Dan hadn’t said, and even more, wondering why he cared. Chapter 8a Bo walked into the break room and was greeted by the sound of Jimmy’s prattling, even though few of those sitting around him appeared to be paying attention. “I looked up the other day, and there he was, dressed in work clothes and acting like he knew what he was doing.” He snorted, the long whiskers on either side of his fox-like muzzle twitching derisively. “He don’t know shit about what goes on out there.” “Who?” Bo asked, settling himself at the table across from the other man. “Oh, our little homo office boy.” The disdain in his voice was obvious, and Bo’s ears flattened almost imperceptibly at the denigration. Jimmy never noticed the small change, but every other varius in the room sat up a little straighter and paid attention. They knew that Bo wouldn’t lay a hand on Jimmy; a fight between a battle varius and almost anyone else would have been dishonorably unfair. It was drilled into the head of almost every large varius from an early age that the greatest shame in life, worse even than dishonesty, lay in taking advantage of someone weaker than yourself. Bo was so strong that there was almost nobody he could fight without bringing shame to himself and his tribe, so Jimmy felt safe to prattle. Ever since Dan made that comment about Bob going and fucking himself, Jimmy hadn’t had a good thing to say about him. Bo was too polite to say it, but he thought that Jimmy was carrying around a massive man-crush on Bob, and since Bob didn’t like Dan, that meant that Jimmy didn’t either. Dan could have shit gold bars and passed them out like candy, and Jimmy would still have hated him. Bo was usually able to ignore Jimmy’s rantings, but ragging on Dan for helping to get orders out the door was excessively bizarre, even for him. Although he wouldn’t have lifted a finger to hurt Jimmy physically, that didn’t stop Bo taking him apart intellectually. “Why do you care what he does?” Jimmy looked at him like he was completely ignorant, and after deciding that Bo wasn’t smart enough to figure it out for himself, Jimmy spelled it out. “First off,” he said, holding up one finger, “there’s a certain amount of hours of work out there, and every hour he works steals an hour from us. Second,” another grimy finger joined the first, “he makes a hell of a lot more money sitting in that fucking air-conditioned office than we do out here in the heat. Not only is he stealing our work, but he’s getting paid more to do it!” “Third,” he said, ignoring the fact that he still only had two fingers held up, “he doesn’t even know what he’s doing, so even though he’s getting paid twice as much as us, he’s not really doing a damned thing.” Bo was careful not to allow the annoyance he was feeling to show on his face. Even if he hadn’t considered Dan a worthwhile acquaintance, one who was well on his way to becoming a friend, such blatant misrepresentations of the truth would have demanded correction. “How much do you think he makes, anyway?” “I don’t know exactly,” Jimmy blustered, “but it’s gotta be more than we do. Office workers always make more than us.” “Starting wage, yeah, probably,” Bo said, “but you’ve been here for eight years, and plenty of guys have been here even longer. You’re probably pulling in fifty percent more every month than he is.” “I got seniority!” Jimmy said, as if that proved anything. “Yes, you have seniority,” Bo agreed, “but you’re still paid by the hour, and every hour you work overtime gets you time and a half, right?” “Sure,” Jimmy said, “I earned it.” “Okay,” Bo said, calmly, “then you realize that Dan is a salaried worker, so he gets paid the same whether he’s out there helping us or not.” “He’s still taking work time away from us.” Jimmy said, certain that he had Bo on this facet of his brilliantly constructed argument. “You said that he doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Bo countered, “and if that’s true, then he can’t be taking very much work away from us, right?” Jimmy now had the choice of agreeing with Bo or admitting that he was shooting his mouth off for no good reason. Neither option was particularly appealing to him, but agreeing with Bo meant that Dan could still be considered useless, so he grudgingly nodded his head. “So he takes a very small amount of work away from us,” Bo concluded, “but the help that he does give ensures that we make our contract bonus, which puts a hell of a lot more money in our pockets than a few hours of overtime would. And even though he’s out there making sure you get your bonus,” he added, one eyebrow raised for emphasis, “he doesn’t get to share in it.” “Bob says he does.” Jimmy retorted, as if invoking the panther-morph’s name would restore logic to his argument. “How would Bob know?” Bo asked, perplexed. “I talked with Dan about this at lunch a couple of weeks ago. His bonus is based on his performance in the office, which has nothing to do with all the extra hours he spends helping us out in the plant.” “So why is he doing it?” Jimmy challenged. “Why work his ass off if he’s not getting anything out of it?” Bo spread his hands. “I don’t know, Jim. Instead of asking other people why Dan does something, why don’t you ask him? Maybe,” he added, widening his hands, “he’s just a nice guy?” Shaking his head in disgust at Bo’s stupidity, Jimmy snatched up the remainder of his snack and stalked out of the break room. Probably, Bo thought, to find Bob and tell him all about their conversation. With a weary sigh, he wondered why he involved himself in things like this. Bo was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he barely noticed Mona approaching his table. An older feline varius, she sat down across from him, curling her tail carefully around her legs before sitting down. “Is that right?” she asked, without preamble. “He’s just doing this to help?” Bo shrugged. “As far as I know. But then,” he amended, “it’s not like he doesn’t get anything at all out of it. He gets job security, I guess.” Mona didn’t know that working voluntary overtime was a great way for Dan to get away from his partner for a couple of extra hours every day, and Bo wasn’t about to educate her. He wouldn’t lie, but some things were nobody’s business. “Huh,” she said, looking disturbed. “Bob’s been saying some pretty nasty things about the two of you, but I trust you more than I trust him.” “Just stand up for Dan next time, will you?” Bo asked. “He’s a good guy, and he doesn’t deserve to be dragged through the mud like that.” Mona looked down for a moment before asking, “Is he really a tail-raiser?” Mona sometimes had trouble perceiving social boundaries, not understanding the difference between behavior that was blunt and that which was just plain rude. Bo couldn’t hear any cruelty in her voice, and he thought that she was just being curious. “Yeah,” he shrugged. “It’s not a big secret, or anything.” Mona looked at him with the peculiar intensity that only cat eyes could bring to bear. “Is that why you like him?” “No,” Bo said, firmly. “I like him because he’s a good man.” She began to open her mouth again, and Bo cut her off. “And before you ask, Mona, no, I haven’t ever bedded a sapiens. Or another male, for that matter.” Whether or not that was what she’d been about to ask, she closed her mouth and silently nodded her head, sensing at last that she’d overstepped the bounds of good manners. She had known that this was none of her business, but still she’d involved herself. Yet Bo had answered her questions, so she hoped they were still on good terms. She looked up at him one last time before getting up and asking in the condensed manner that varii sometimes adopted, “Okay?” Bo nodded fractionally, his eyes still gentle. “Okay.” Looking thoughtful, Mona made her way out into the plant, wishing that things didn’t always have to be so difficult to figure out.

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Although Dan was fiercely independent, he had often wished that he had someone to look up to, and it seemed that Bo was falling into that role. Every now and then, Dan would surprise himself by finding elements of Bo’s behavior taking root inside him. They showed up at the oddest times; like how he held a fork, or what he did with his feet when he sat on the edge of a desk, or the patience with which he approached a problem. It wasn’t intentional, but his behavior was definitely changing. Dan was encouraged that he could incorporate Bo’s better traits into his personality, but few things in life come without a price. What was found could also be lost, and Dan knew that the more he invested in Bo, the more important he allowed the morph to be to him, the harder it would be to let him go when Bo finally found a good woman and settled down with her. Dan was certain that the varius would eventually leave, and when he did, his absence would leave cavernous holes where once, good things had been. The closer Dan allowed himself to get to Bo the more vulnerable he became, yet he couldn’t bring himself to put the brakes on what he knew would most likely end in a painfully bloody crash. After a lifetime of friendships limited to the sapiens community, Dan found Bo’s perspective on the world fascinating. Although their reality shared the same physical space, varius culture was so alien to Dan that it sometimes didn’t seem possible that they could be from the same planet. Two weeks after their reconciliation, Dan wished he lived more in Bo’s world and less in his own. Bo was working his way through a triple cheeseburger at lunch that day, and Dan had his usual in front of him, a bacon cheeseburger with mustard and jalapeño peppers. Between the men sat a shared basket of French fries from which both men picked. “So what’s up?” Bo asked, “You’re even more pissy than usual, and that’s saying something.” Dan grunted in disgust at his inability to hide anything from the big morph. He’d thought he was doing a masterful job of concealing his bad mood. “It’s nothing. Just Jim being a jerk again. Work is keeping me so busy that he feels abandoned, and he’s trying to get his social feet back underneath him and hurt me at the same time.” “You don’t look too hurt,” Bo observed. Tactfully, he didn’t bring up the fact that almost all of the extra time Dan had been spending at work had been by his own choice. “I’m not,” Dan confirmed, “and that’s one of the things that annoys me. Shouldn’t my partner know enough about me to get under my skin a little better than that?” “You’re weird.” Bo smirked. “It’s like a five-year old getting mad at you and thinking he’s going to rock your world by yelling, ‘nyah nyah na boo boo,’ or something.” Bo chuckled and shook his head. “Gay or straight, everybody’s got the same problems.” The corners of his mouth quirked down in distaste. “Why are you with him, again? I thought you liked guys.” The jab at Jim was risky, but it paid off when it brought a wry grin to Dan’s face. “It wasn’t always like this,” Dan reflected. “When I first met him, Jim seemed to really have his act together. He made a bunch of noise about wanting to get out of the bars and make some real friends, but two years later he’s jumping right back into that.” Dan’s nose wrinkled in disgust as he pulled a piece of gristle from between his teeth. “Do they have to use the absolute cheapest grade of hamburger meat in these things?” “How much did you pay for that?” Bo asked. “A couple of credits, I guess.” “Then shut up.” Bo shook his head, not understanding why Dan stuck it out with someone who seemed so unpleasant. Commitment or no, Jim seemed like a huge pain in the ass. But Dan seemed like he had his head screwed on straight, so there had to be some logic behind the union. “So how did you two meet, anyway?” When Dan looked uncomfortable, Bo thought he might be on the right track. “We met at a powerlifting meet, of all places. I was with a group of guys from the gym, and he was there to cheer on one of his friends. One of my friends knew him, and they introduced us. “ “How long had you been single at that point?” Bo asked. Dan paused, and for a moment, Bo felt certain that the other man was either going to lie or find some way to avoid answering the question. Finally, Dan just threw it out on the table. “I was still with Blaine when I started seeing Jim.” Dan blushed, but to Bo’s surprise, the man’s answer didn’t make his ears twitch. It might have embarrassed him to do so, but Dan had given him a completely honest answer. Bo didn’t know quite what to say to this, so he settled on, “Oh.” Even though he hadn’t really known Dan that long, he didn’t think this sounded like something he’d do. “It wasn’t like that,” Dan explained, quickly. “It’s not like we were doing the nasty behind Blaine’s back or anything.” Bo wanted to say something, but the look on Dan’s face stopped him. He had started telling something that was difficult for him, something intensely personal, and Bo got the feeling that he needed to be heard so he shut up and gave Dan some room to breathe. “Let me give you some back story.” Dan said, after a moment’s pause. “Blaine was everything I thought I wanted in a man, all wrapped up in one big, chunky package.” Dan knew he sounded like a lovesick schoolgirl right then, but he couldn’t help himself. He could only hope that Bo could get past the banality of his words to the more significant meaning they carried. “He was a lifter, too. He was smart, he was handsome, he was fun to be around, and we could talk for hours about nothing. The very first time we met, it seemed like we were already old friends who’d grown up next door to each other. It was just so easy to fall in love that neither one of us could have resisted.” Dan’s voice momentarily stalled as he watched the cinema of his mind play back his favorite memories. “So what happened?” Bo prompted, gently nudging Dan out of his reverie. “What went wrong?” “Blaine’s a crewman on a freight hauler. When we got together he was working mostly Terran and Lunar runs, and that was great. The money was good, and he was only gone three or four days at a time. Then he started staying out longer and longer, and by the time he signed on for a Mars run, he was away for two or three weeks every month.” “That’s a long time,” Bo said, “I’m surprised you went for it.” “Believe it or not, it wasn’t all that bad,” Dan explained, “I need my space, and that gave me lots of it. We still talked for hours every night, and that made up for his not being there. We probably communicated more than most people who share a house. But when he started taking on the eight week Jupiter runs and was staying in offworld ports for weeks at a time without getting any freight, we started going downhill.” “I tried to be supportive,” Dan said, “I tried to help him see that if he got a job closer to home, it might make things better. But he wouldn’t listen. His paycheck got thinner every month, and his bills were piling up.” Dan wasn’t ever very hard to read, and right now he was an open book. If he’d taken a razor and slashed his wrists in front of Bo, his pain wouldn’t have been any more obvious. “He didn’t want to go to counseling to try and save our relationship. I guess by that time, I’d driven him away by needing more from him than he could supply. I tried not to complain, but I guess I did anyway.” Dan absentmindedly twisted the paper wrapper of his straw between his fingers as he awakened memories that would have preferred to slumber. “So when Jim came along and told me all the things I wanted to hear about being financially mature and making his partner a priority in his life, I jumped for it.” He sighed, and in that breath, Bo thought he could hear the weight Dan carried on his shoulders, the weight that was usually carried with grace, but which now was pressing him into the earth. “The next time he was back home, I did the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I told him I was letting him go to live the life he wanted, and a week later Jim was moving in.” “And now you regret your decision?” Dan’s head hung low. “That’s what’s so weird,” he said, his voice growing quieter with his pain. “Even though it just about killed me to let him go, my rational brain knows I can’t be with Blaine. If he did nothing else, Jim gave me the push I needed to be out of that relationship. If he hadn’t come along I’d probably still be with Blaine, up to my ears in debt and missing him so much that I cried myself to sleep every night.” Bo didn’t miss the longing in Dan’s voice. “So what about your irrational brain?” he asked. “You still miss him, don’t you?” “Every hour of every day,” Dan admitted, looking as wistful as anyone Bo had ever seen. “I cut things off so fast that a big chunk of me got left behind.” Dan shook his head ruefully. “I had no idea how much of myself I’d invested in him.” Realizing that he’d just shared far more than he’d really meant to, Dan suddenly felt uncomfortable and immediately clammed up. Bo sensed his sudden change in mood, and tried to lighten it with some news he’d been wanting to share. “Not to change the subject or anything, but remember how we went off to the side and had our little conference right before you knocked the snot out of Chester?” “Yeah,” Dan said, “what’s up with that?” Bo’s face illuminated with a devil-may-care grin. “I forgot to tell you, but the other day, Chester asked me if you’re still mad at him. I ask him why, and it turns out that he thought you were arguing with me to get more than one hit! I guess you rang his bell pretty good, because he was trying to get me to talk to you and cool you down.” Dan’s somber mood lifted instantly. “No shit?” “No shit.” He looked at Dan admiringly. “You did pretty good!” He held up a huge paw for an old-fashioned ‘high five,’ that Dan was happy to deliver. “The thing about you pinkies is that you put way too much emphasis on sex, and this is where it gets you.” “Wait - we’re going straight from talking about knocking someone’s teeth in to talking about sex?” Dan asked. “Now, who’s the weirdo?” He shook his head. “It’s no wonder you can’t get a date. Okay, so what’s wrong with the way we do it?” “Well, I shouldn’t have said that anything’s really wrong with it, but if you hadn’t ever had sex with Jim, you wouldn’t have stayed with him this long, right?” “Probably not,” Dan admitted. If he’d just been casually dating Jim, there’s no way he wouldn’t have found someone else to be with by now. Once they’d slept together a couple of times, Dan felt obligated to try and make things work out between them. “We don’t do things that way,” Bo explained. “Sex is more casual with us. Maybe it’s just because varius females are in control of their fertility and they can’t accidentally get pregnant, but it’s just sort of…recreational, maybe?” “Huh,” Dan said, fascinated. Listening to Bo talk about his sex life had definitely made him forget any problems he was having with his own. “I mean, it’s like last weekend,” Bo said, warming to his story, “I’m at the bar with some buddies, and by midnight, they’d started pairing up with their ladies and getting out of there. By one, I’m left with about three choices, and none of them are all that appealing.” “This one gal’s been sitting at the bar all night, sort of looking at everyone who walked by, and finally there’s nobody else around but us, and I catch her eye. She’s a little older, maybe, but we’re both a bit desperate,” he looked up at Dan and, out of respect for what the man had just shared, admitted what he would not have to anyone else, “and a bit lonely, so we hook up.” “We went back to her place, and we both played nice for a little while, and she seemed okay until her personality started to come out. Oh, God,” Bo groaned, remembering, “she bitched, she moaned, she complained, and I almost had to stuff a sock in her mouth just so I could do the deed and get out of there.” “So I scratched her itch, I got my rocks off, and that was it. She’s not gonna call me, I’m not gonna call her, and nobody’s feelings are going to get hurt. Sex isn’t a promise with us; it’s just a handshake. It’s simple, like that.” “And that’s enough for you?” Dan asked, more disappointed than he wanted to admit. “I didn’t say that,” Bo replied, and Dan thought he heard longing in his voice. “I wish I could have a steady date for once, instead of just playing fuck-and-run.” Heaving a sigh of consternation and regret, Bo voiced the age-old question, “Why can’t I find someone decent?” Every response Dan might have offered at that moment would have been spectacularly inappropriate, so he clamped his mouth shut. “Me!” he wanted to shout. “Pick me!” The stupid jerk didn’t know what he was missing out on. Dan was right there in front of him, and he would rather have skanky fishwives? What a moron! What a fucking idiot! Sweet Jesus, Dan hated Bo’s guts sometimes, the insensitive lout! Damn him. Damn his amazing, misdirected, wonderful soul, Dan thought. He was inexorably falling in love with Bo, and he couldn’t say a damned thing. Dan gathered up his burger wrapper and calmly wadded it up into a tight little ball before aiming carefully and bouncing it off Bo’s head. “Okay, I’ll ask the obvious question. Why are you looking for love in a bar? Why not go someplace where you could meet somebody nice?” The big, black morph stared at Dan incredulously. Embarrassment put heat into his voice when he pointed at his face. “This doesn’t exactly make me a hot item, you know.” Dan barked a laugh, but was caught up short by Bo’s irate glare. “You’re kidding, right?” Bo’s expression was chilly. “About what?” Dan was getting exasperated. Without meaning to, he was afraid that he might have hurt Bo’s feelings. “About your face, dummy.” He was only getting part of the story, and he suspected that their cultures were getting between them. Bo said nothing; he just sat there, staring at him from across the table. Dan tried again. “Look, I know this probably isn’t the best way to ask this, but what makes you think you’re so ugly?” Perhaps Dan just saw Bo through sapiens eyes, but he found Bo’s powerful build and short-muzzled face to be exotic and appealing. His fur was soft, glossy and richly colored, his eyes were absolutely magnetic, and the personality behind that handsome face only made the package that much more compelling. Seeing Bo’s expression soften a bit, Dan added, “I’m sorry. I honestly don’t understand.” “Oh, please,” Bo said, with the weary tone of someone who’d heard all the platitudes before. His normally attentive gaze wandered to everything that was behind Dan. His deeply rooted shame made looking directly at anyone painful, and Dan could tell that by sharing this, Bo was ripping the scab off a nasty wound that he’d had for a very long time. “My friends joke about it, girls tell their friends what a great personality I have… Hell, when I was little, even my mother used to tease me about being an ugly baby.” Dan had no idea when his mouth began hanging open, but he snapped it shut. How anyone could find Bo ugly was beyond him. He didn’t want to blurt out that he thought Bo was just about the most strikingly handsome man he’d ever seen, but he felt obligated to say something. Anything. To say nothing was to agree that Bo was ugly, and he couldn’t do that. Taking a moderate approach, he offered, “Maybe it’s just because we’re from different worlds or something, but I’ve never thought of you as unattractive. In fact,” he admitted shyly, “I’ve sort of thought that if I were varius, I wouldn’t mind looking like you.” Immediately, Dan was afraid that he’d said too much, and looked away from Bo in embarrassment. Lost in his own feelings, the varius misinterpreted Dan’s inability to hold his gaze, and his ear twitched madly. One more person thinking he was ugly was just another drop in the bucket to him. It was his own fault for bringing it up, and he couldn’t blame Dan for trying to be polite. A part of Bo wanted to tell Dan that he knew he was lying, but after the man had made such intensely personal admissions, Bo chose instead to play along with the polite deception. “Well, it’s too bad more women aren’t like you, then.” Sighing deeply in a conscious attempt to let go of his frustration, Bo leaned back and rested his chin in the palm of one huge hand, absentmindedly tapping his cheek with the tips of blunt fingers that were as thick as bananas. “I guess that’s one of the big differences between sapiens and varius. You sapes can get by with a big, black mole on your face and just call it a beauty mark, but in the varius world, if you’re not perfect, you’re nothing. A thin patch of fur, a crooked tail or one bad marking, and you go from hero to zero in nothing flat.” He paused for a moment, and asked, “Haven’t you seen all the ads on vid for cosmetic surgery and stuff for morphs?” Dan thought for a moment, then slowly nodded his head. He had seen billboards and magazine ads for all sorts of procedures to correct the sorts of things Bo had mentioned, as well as many others. “Yeah, now that I think about it, I’ve seen them.” He sat more upright on his side of the table, furrowing his brow in concentration. “A lot of them.” Bo held out a hand to Dan in a ‘there you go’ gesture. “Or I guess you can be scrappy and look like you just came out of a junkyard. Bob seems to be working that look, and Lord knows he sure gets enough pussy, even with his ugly kisser. But that’s probably just because he’s got a big dick.” His voice sounded disgusted. “I don’t even have that going for me.” Well, that information was new to Dan! He’d honestly had no idea. Knowing something about the huge morph’s junk made Dan’s head swim. “And even if my face was perfect, I’m still just so fucking huge.” Bo gestured at his body. “The slimmer you’re built, the better. And all the pretty people have long, swishy tails. I’ve just got this fucking stub.” Bo’s ears drooped, but if Dan hadn’t known him pretty well by this point he probably wouldn’t have noticed. “I’m just so far away from what anyone’s looking for that it’s just about not worth my time to keep looking.” Dan suddenly felt horrible about how often he’d commented on how large Bo was. He’d meant it as a compliment, but there was no way Bo could have seen it like that. On their very first lunch together, Dan had asked, “is that because you’re so big?” Dan had always wondered why Bo had reacted so negatively, and now he knew. All these months, he’d been poking a sore spot without realizing he was doing it, and Bo had been too nice to tell him to stop. And now that Dan knew, he didn’t know any way to apologize without bringing the subject up again, so he let it rest. I’m sitting right in front of you, Dan thought, and you can’t even see me. The irony of the whole situation just killed him. Had he been female and varius, he would have jumped all over Bo and they’d be knocking out puppies in no time. The twist of fate that saw him born sapiens and male made the perfect solution an impossible one. Maybe I’m only attracted because I can’t have him, Dan thought. Maybe if we were both available to each other, I wouldn’t be interested after all. This realization was a small comfort to him, and allowed him to push his subversive feelings back inside where they could do no harm. A harsh ringing sounded over the plant’s PA system, announcing the start of the afternoon shift and the end of their conversation. As they walked back into the plant, Dan tried to give the big morph an encouraging slap on his broad back, but he was a half second too late. As Bo strode into the hot, noisy plant, trying to shake off what had been an annoyingly self-defeating conversation, Dan’s hand swatted through empty air.

---

Dan stared at the bedroom ceiling and wondered why the hell he was still here. He hugged the edge of the bed, lying as far away as possible from the man he completely didn’t understand. He was so frustrated that he didn’t even want to feel the heat radiating from Jim’s body. Jim had picked yet another fight, this time over the amount of time Dan spent away from home. At first there had been accusations of cheating, which Dan had energetically denied. Personal communicator logs and transportation records from his car were demanded, produced, and pored over, and when they revealed nothing incriminating, Dan’s time at Magnum was called into question. When his time-clock transcripts confirmed that the long hours he was away from home had been spent at work, the argument degenerated into incoherent, alcohol-fueled accusations that only ended when Jim finally fell asleep. Dan was so horny that he could have fucked a dry knothole, and he couldn’t even jerk off to relieve his tension without feeling guilty that he was depriving Jim of physical attention. But the thought of even touching the man had become so repugnant to him that he’d rather just do without. Unable to sleep, his thoughts once again turned to Bo, replaying the day’s conversations in his mind. Maybe Jim had been right – maybe Dan really had been cheating on him. Maybe, even without sex being part of the equation, Bo had unwittingly undermined Jim’s place in Dan’s life. He had never permitted himself to even fantasize about Bo, yet right then, Dan felt like he had been committing mental adultery with someone who could never return his feelings. And as foolish as Dan knew he was being for investing so much of himself in a man who could never love him back, he also knew that, no matter what happened, he could not stop. Chapter 8b Dan was finishing up his daily correspondence when the lunch bell rang. Outside the office, the plant slowly wound down to silence, the great machines smoothly spinning to a halt as their operators shucked helmets and gloves before working their way to the lunchroom. Tossing his stylus onto the desktop, Dan pulled a larger than usual lunch container out from behind his desk. After learning how limited Bo’s culinary experience had been, Dan had taken it as his personal mission in life to expose him to the best flavors the world had to offer. Last night he’d cooked more food than usual, and had called Bo to inform him that he’d be providing lunch today. As he walked out to the table they shared on the shaded side of the building, he saw Bo already sitting expectantly, napkin tucked in his collar and a fork in his hand, bare plate at the ready. Dan laughed, “I’m glad to have a receptive audience!” “Yeah, right,” Bo answered, dry as the desert wind. “Dish up.” He wasn’t at all certain about this, but if somebody was going to go through the trouble of feeding him, he’d go through the trouble of eating it. Dan sat on the bench facing the hulking varius and put his lunch box on top of the table, rotating it to find the red button on the side. “Not yet, fur-face. Give it a minute to heat.” Inside the container, tiny emitters took the food from nearly frozen to piping hot in a matter of seconds, then signaled its readiness by beeping softly and popping the lid open. As Dan pulled out plastic containers, he glanced in his friend’s direction and did a small double-take. “You’re drooling.” Bo hurriedly wiped at his mouth with a guilty grin. “Hey, I’m hungry. And I’ve gotta admit, it smells good.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “It’s not gonna blow my head off, is it?” Dan put a scary amount of pepper sauce on most of his own food, and Bo sincerely hoped he’d tempered this tendency when cooking for others. “Don’t worry,” Dan reassured him, “a little old lady could eat this.” He looked at Bo again and teased, “It might still be a bit spicy for you, though.” He piled steamed Jasmine rice on the plates, then covered the rice with a brilliant yellow sauce, through which Bo could see substantial chunks of meat. “This,” Dan explained, is a chicken curry, and we’ll have it with a side dish called aloo gobi, which is cauliflower and potatoes.” “Oh boy,” Bo said, his voice dripping with skepticism. “Vegetables.” “Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it, big boy,” Dan advised, spooning a trial-sized amount of the mixture onto Bo’s plate. Bo made appreciative noises as he watched the sauce drizzle through the rice, and Dan thought he may even have heard a tiny whimpering noise escape him, but that might have been nothing more than the rumbling of his stomach. Although Bo didn’t know a lot about exotic cooking, the smells that were drifting over to his side of the table were incredibly savory, and sharpened his hunger to a painful edge. One look at Bo was enough to make Dan hustle. “Man, you’re about to bust!” Dan hurried to serve the food before Bo passed out. He put out a plate of hot naan bread that he’d made with his own hands, and let loose the hounds of war. “Let’s eat!” Dan expected Bo to dig in immediately, and was surprised when he bent his nose over his plate and spent a few seconds appreciating the delectable aromas. He was gratified that he’d made food for someone who truly seemed to appreciate both the effort and the result. Bo pulled a piece of bread loose from the basket and used it to mop up some of the curry sauce experimentally. Popping it in his mouth, he was surprised by the vivid explosion of flavors that wrapped themselves around his tongue. “Holy shit,” he said, talking around the hunk of bread in his mouth, “this is really great!” Dan could tell by the look on his face that the varius wasn’t just feeding him a line. “I’ve never had anything like it before.” Between forkfuls of food, Dan said, “I’ve always thought it was funny how you can be absolutely sure you know what you like, then something new pops up and you realize how little you understand about what you really enjoy.” Looking up, he noticed that Bo had an odd look in his eyes, like something wasn’t quite adding up. Dan slammed on his brakes and wondered if Bo thought he was making a pass at him. He’d gotten so used to speaking his mind with Bo that he’d completely forgotten to censor himself. Afraid that he’d offended the varius, he was on the verge of apologizing when he realized that he’d been so busy with his fit of self-consciousness that he hadn’t noticed that Bo’s water glass was already empty. Sighing silently, Dan mentally kicked himself – hard - for seeing demons where none existed. “Too hot for you, bubba?” “No, I’m fine,” Bo started, his eyes bright. “It’s just so good,” he explained, “I’m having trouble slowing down enough to let my mouth cool down between bites.” “We’re going to have to build up your tolerance so you can eat proper adult food,” Dan grinned, refilling Bo’s glass with cool water. “Ever try jalapeños?” “Those green rings of death you insist on putting on everything?” Bo asked sarcastically, while slowly popping bits of naan into his mouth to mitigate the heat. “Yeah, that sounds like a shit-ton of fun.” “Don’t be a quitter!” Dan chided. “Spice brings a whole new level of enjoyment to food.” A question he hadn’t previously considered suddenly popped into his head. “Are hot foods something that all varii don’t tolerate, or is it just you?” Bo shrugged his shoulders. “I think it’s something that varies by subspecies. I’ve heard that some ursines can just about swallow fire, and some of the more aquatic varieties can’t even handle black pepper.” He considered the half-eaten plate in front of him. “I used to think that spicy food wasn’t worth bothering with, but this shit’s really good. If you keep bringing me food like this, it might be worth the pain.” “You’ve probably never had Thai food, then?” Dan guessed. “I don’t think so,” Bo answered, while stuffing more aloo gobi into his mouth. “Is it hot, too?” Dan chuckled. “Oh, it can be. The first time I ate it, I thought my tongue was going to fall out of my mouth. The first rule of eating Thai food, the thing nobody at the table bothered to tell me, is to pick out the peppers! I just shoved the whole thing in my mouth and started wheezing for air.” “That’s just insane,” Bo said. “Why would anyone want to eat something hot enough to kill you?” Dan just grinned and shrugged his shoulders, tucking in to his own plate of food before it got cold. He didn’t want to scare Bo away with too many new flavors too quickly, but maybe next week they could try Ethiopian. Chapter 8c Dan was halfway through writing his bookings reports when the grumbling from his stomach went from bad to worse. Usually he was able to hold out until the end of his shift, but today that wasn’t going to happen. He rubbed his eyes, getting them to focus somewhere other than on the screen in front of him, then pushed himself back from his desk. Biting back a yawn, he dug around in his pockets for his debit card and walked into the break room hoping to find something edible in the dispensers. “Do people actually eat this crap?” he muttered to himself as he surveyed the meager possibilities. A voice piped up from one of the tables at the back of the room. As usual, it was loud-mouthed Bob yucking it up with a couple of his buddies. They were talking under their breaths today, and Dan heard nothing but the word “queer” a couple of times. Yeah, they were laughing at him. Again. From his talks with Bo, Dan had learned enough about varius culture to know that they probably weren’t really concerned about his preferences. They were just trying to get a rise out of him; saying things designed to annoy him in voices just loud enough for him to overhear. Dan knew he was being baited. He shot them a look, and managed to catch Bob’s eye. The foreman looked up at him, as if meeting a challenge. “What? Did you need something from me, buddy?” His words and his solicitous tone were at odds with his attitude, and when both of his cronies started giggling like schoolgirls, Dan knew he was being mocked. Dan was sick and tired of playing patsy for Bob, and it was going to stop now. “No, Bob, I don’t think I need anything at all from you, thanks so much,” he replied, with equally smug politeness. “I don’t think I like the way you said that, little man.” Bob rose up from his table, spoiling for a fight. Dan knew that he was no match for the big varius feline, but the only way he could escape this fight was to run away, and if he did that he knew he’d never hear the end of it. All his hard-won credibility with the plant crew would be gone in an instant. More daunting still was the fear that he’d look like a fool to Bo. That thought gave Dan pause, and he was quiet for a moment. How would Bo handle this,” he asked himself. Coming to a decision, Dan acted before his good sense or self-preservation instincts kicked into gear. Marching out to meet Bob halfway, Dan looked straight up into his eyes in a posture that, while not overtly aggressive, was calculatedly assertive. “I don’t care whether you liked the way I said that or not, Bob,” Dan said testily. “If you’ve got a problem with me, take it up with me instead of gossiping with your little group back there.” For a heartbeat Bob looked surprised by the smaller man’s audacity, and Dan thought that perhaps he’d won this round. Although Dan wasn’t small for a pinky, Bob still towered over him and outweighed him by half. When the look on Bob’s face turned from surprised to mean, Dan knew he’d picked himself a fight. Bob didn’t lift a hand against him. The panther varius used his body and his personal space to push Dan backwards through the room. Bumping chest to chest, Bob pushed Dan towards the rear door. Walking backwards, Dan didn’t realize a chair was behind him until it struck the back of his knees. With one last subtle push, Bob forced Dan over the chair, knocking him onto his back. Bob reached down with one meaty, gold-furred paw and grabbed a fistful of Dan’s shirt, pulling him so close that the only thing Dan’s eyes could focus on were a pair of green-slitted pupils. A rumbling growl began growing in Bob’s chest, and Dan became acutely aware of how woefully outmatched a sapiens was when fighting a morph. They had been bred to kill. The eyes, Dan thought. Go for the eyes. He was preparing to jam his thumbs into Bob’s big, cat eyes when, without warning, Bob was suddenly gone, lifted away by some unseen force. A second later he heard a whuff of air exploding from someone’s lungs. Dan scrambled to his feet to see Bo standing in front of Bob, holding him against the back wall with one huge paw wrapped around his neck. Bob’s buddies were long gone, leaving nothing behind but the swinging break-room doors to mark their passing. Bo never raised his voice, and it never wavered from its usual, reasonable tone. “Bob,” Bo said, giving the other man’s neck a gentle but firm squeeze that refused to be ignored, “you need to leave Dan alone. You do understand why that’s important, don’t you?” Bob looked like he was about to go ballistic on Bo but he kept his tongue in check, saying nothing until Bo’s fingers quietly extended the points of their claws, pushing them through the dense yellow fur of Bob’s coat until they gently touched the surface of his skin. Realizing that his hand wasn’t particularly strong and there were no cards left to play, Bob’s demeanor suddenly changed. “Yes.” he said quietly, and the moment was broken. An instant later Bob was standing on his feet again, and Bo was brushing the dust off of the feline’s shoulders as if nothing had happened. Bo was savvy enough to salvage what was left of Bob’s pride and leave him the shreds of his dignity, but he had to wonder what, if any, retaliation he had just bought for himself and Dan. He could defend himself, but what would happen to Dan? Bob strode angrily out the door, shooting Dan a wicked glare that promised retribution. Bo turned to Dan and asked in a quiet, calm voice, “You okay, buddy?” Being called ‘buddy’ certainly felt a lot better coming from Bo than it did from Bob, Dan reflected. “Yeah, I guess,” he replied uncertainly, feeling a little sheepish, and more than a little shaky. Adrenaline had left his heart pounding in his chest. “Thanks. I think Bob was about to pound me into jelly.” “Not while I’m around.” Bo said absently, staring through the break-room windows into the plant. There wasn’t much to see, except for a handful of other employees going through their normal routines. “It looks like nobody else saw what happened, so we may be all right,” Bo turned and looked at Dan, concern evident in his voice. “If word gets out that Bob lost a fight, it could get pretty hot around here. Best to lie low for as long as possible and,” he looked directly into Dan’s eyes, “don’t ever get caught alone with him. You got that?” “Yeah, I got it.” Dan answered, nodding his head. As comforted as he was to be under the umbrella of Bo’s protection, he hated that, sooner or later, being on his side was going to give Bo grief. The varius started to walk back out into the plant, but stopped when Dan called out to him. “Can you spare a few minutes? There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.” Bo looked like he was about to protest, then he turned a chair around and straddled it, folding his huge arms over the back. Dan moved to the soda machine and bought them a couple of fizzydrink pouches. Putting one in front of Bo, he sat across the table from him and opened his pouch with a loud “Pffffft”. The straw popped out of the pouch, and Dan took a sip. “Look, Bo, I’m sincerely glad you helped me out with Bob. Thank you. But this is my fight, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to get involved with something that’s not your problem.” “It needed to be done.” was all Bo said. He opened his own drink and looked at it silently. “I know you didn’t expect this sort of thing,” Dan went on, “but it’s going to happen. All of that ‘repopulate the Earth’ bullshit is finally dying down, but there are still people out there who need a scapegoat, so gay folks are still getting abused.” He paused, hating what he had to say, but knowing that there was no way around this. “If you hang out with me, you’re going to catch heat over it.” Bo took a sip and made a face. “Juka Cola? What were you thinking?” When Dan moved to get up to buy him a different one, Bo told him that it didn’t matter and motioned him to sit back down. “Look, Dan, I don’t choose my friends based on what they think,” he said, jerking his thumb towards the plant. “If they don’t like it, they can kiss my black ass.” “So what are you going to do when they tease you about being my friend?” Dan asked, soberly. “Because they will.” Bo couldn’t think of a single good reason to tell Dan that the harassment had already started, so he kept that to himself. “I’ll tell them the same thing I just told you,” Bo replied, meeting Dan’s gaze. “It’s none of their business.” All Dan could think to say was, “Thanks.” He held his hand out to Bo, and the morph matched his grip in a hand so hard that Dan would have compared it to rock, had it not been so warm and alive. The look in the varius’ dark brown eyes was every bit as solid as his grip. “Thanks for the drink.” Bo said, tossing the empty container into the recycling bin as he walked back into the noise and bustle of the plant. A second later, he popped his head back in through the swinging door, catching Dan’s attention. “Oh, and I saw that whole scene through the window.” His face split into an approving grin, and he gave Dan an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “That took guts!”

---

The end-of-month closing reports were a huge pain in Dan’s backside, but they were part of his job and they needed to be done, so he tried not to complain. Still, he didn’t see any logical reason why they couldn’t have the production month end one single day before the fiscal month so he’d have at least a full day to finish the report. There hadn’t been a lot of production to keep track of when Dan had started. But now that Magnum was growing, every month it was getting tougher to do it like this. He was almost finished, and his eyes were crossing with fatigue. The adrenaline that had coursed through his body during Bob’s attack had left him feeling tired and shaky, and he’d been ready for bed hours earlier. Forcing his eyes to focus on something further than a half-meter from his face, Dan looked up at the clock and groaned. He had promised Jim that he’d be home by twenty-two, and by this point it was almost twenty-three. He picked up the comm, but tossed it back on the charging pad after only dialing four digits. The thought of the lecture he’d receive made him die a little inside. At his age, the last thing he wanted was a lecture on responsibility. Better, he thought, to ask forgiveness than permission. His bladder had been sending him signals for the past half hour, signals that he’d been ignoring but were becoming insistent. Bowing to biological necessity, Dan pushed back from his desk and stood up, stretching his arms and legs like a giant cat. After making sure the front door was securely locked, he headed into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. Unzipping his pants, Dan pulled himself out and chuckled at what he found. His prostate had been up to its old tricks, pumping out way too much of his natural lube, and some of it had already soaked into the fabric of his underwear. Maybe his excitement had been caused by his adrenaline rush earlier in the day, or maybe it had something to do with the few minutes he’d spent with Bo after Bob had gone back into the plant. Or maybe, he thought, it’s just because you’ve got to piss so bad. For whatever reason, he was leaking like a faucet. He milked the pre out of his junk, rolling a large, clear glob of it out of his foreskin. It lingered at the edge of his fingers for a moment before falling into the toilet water with an obscene slapping noise, leaving a long, thin string of viscous liquid hanging behind it like a spider spinning a crystal clear thread. Dan pulled back his slippery foreskin and relieved himself, amazed at the quantity of urine that his bladder could hold. As he emptied himself into the toilet, he thought about what had happened earlier that day, and how comforting it was to know that Bo was watching his back. Bo. Thinking about the big varius made his junk twitch in his hand with each heartbeat. Dan knew he shouldn’t do it, he knew he should obey his self-imposed restrictions on fantasizing about co-workers. He knew that what he was doing was wrong and he hated himself for it, but it was so difficult to stop. By the time he was through urinating, he was holding a warm chubby in his right hand. After he’d finished shaking it, he had a full-blown hard-on. Damn. Impatiently, Dan stuffed himself back into his pants. He washed his hands and went back to work, hoping that finishing up the last of his report would make the images in his mind go away. Nothing cooled the ardor like a set of balance sheets. It didn’t work. Bo’s face hovered just above his spreadsheet, and it was so much easier to focus on Bo’s handsome face than on the field of numbers underneath. Dan’s chubby throbbed in his pants, and he felt another unwelcome glob of pre pump itself out. Fuck it, Dan thought. I give up. Pushing away from his desk, Dan went back to the bathroom and locked the door behind him. The closing reports were just going to have to wait. Besides, judging by how insistently his cock was screaming for release, this wouldn’t take long. Dan spread his legs and pulled his pants down to mid-thigh, and stared at the lump his erection made in his white underwear. A large, wet spot had formed in the fabric of his shorts directly over the head, and Dan touched it, momentarily engrossed by the feel of the warm, slippery liquid. He could feel the indentation of his cock head through the fabric, and his head could feel the tantalizing pressure of his finger sliding back and forth through the soft cotton cloth. It was a delicious tease for both sides of his brain, an appetizer for what he was about to do. Pulling his underwear down, Dan wrapped his hand around himself and began cranking away. Images of Bo kept working through the hazy curtain of his lust, and he pushed them away. But the more he denied them the more persistent they became, until finally Dan gave in to the pressure and allowed the seditious memory of his morph to flow unimpeded into his mind. No, his rational mind protested, not ‘my’ morph. But what if he were? Dan moaned softly at the thought, ashamed that he was defiling his friend this way but unable to stop himself. The whirlwind of images that raced through his mind settled on one scene, the best one, where Bo was standing just a couple of meters away, one hand held casually at his side, the other effortlessly holding Bob up against the wall by the throat. Bob was much stronger than Dan, yet Bo had easily pinned the cat using only a single hand, and hadn’t even looked as if it were an effort to do so. Dan focused on the thick, meaty handpaw that Bo had wrapped around Bob’s neck – the hand that had protected him – and in his mind he could see the tension of the corded muscles playing back and forth underneath his forearm’s glossy black fur. When his memory came to that calm squeeze, the one so deadly that it had made Bob instantly surrender, Dan grunted his release into the toilet’s gaping mouth.

---

Enjoying the sunny summer day, Bo dumped himself onto the picnic table’s bench across from Dan and unpacked his lunch. Shooting his friend a quick glance as he pulled his sandwich out, he asked, “So what’s wrong?” Dan swigged a mouthful of his drink and carefully avoided Bo’s eyes. Dan thought that Bo’s habit of cutting straight to the chase could be damned unsettling, and he said as much. “It doesn’t give me much chance to organize my thoughts.” he complained. He wasn’t about to tell Bo that he was having trouble looking him in the eye because of how he’d used him the previous night. Bo shrugged. “It’s easier to tackle a problem head on. Once it gets sugar-coated and watered down to make it easier to talk about, it’s usually not the same problem anymore.” He took a leviathan bite out of his sandwich, and didn’t release Dan’s eyes for an instant. Dan breathed in deeply, and consciously calmed himself before he spoke. “Jim has decided that it’s not working between us, and he wants to end the relationship.” “Mmmm…” Bo grunted, noncommittally. He’d heard similar things from Dan in the past, and the man always managed to patch things up. “Is this because you were up here so late last night?” “He says so,” Dan confirmed, “but that’s not really why. When I finally got home he blew up at me over the same old shit. Cheating, lying, sneaking around behind his back.” What Dan didn’t say was that after he’d gotten home, he’d immediately changed into dry underwear. The argument had started when Jim had found the huge wet spot in his soiled pair, the spot left by Dan’s shameful release. He couldn’t tell Bo that, but he could tell him what was said after Jim had calmed down a bit. “After I proved to him that I was up here and not sneaking around, he said that the pressure was too much. He said I put too many demands on him, that I want him to change who he is.” As Dan’s voice tapered off, Bo didn’t need his superhuman ears to hear the edge in it. “So do you?” “Do I what?” Dan asked in return. “Do you want him to change, dummy?” Dan considered the question for a minute, shoving some chips in his mouth as he arranged his thoughts. “Some things, yeah. I’d like it if he thought about me and my needs more, the way I think about his. And I wish he’d take on some of the responsibility of running the home. And maybe even do a chore or two on occasion.” “None of those sound unreasonable,” Bo said. “Did you tell him what you wanted him to do?” Dan shook his head slowly back and forth, looking at the tabletop. “About a thousand times over the past couple of months. It’s always the same - he gets angry, then he rubs my nose in everything I’ve ever done wrong so he can weasel out of making any changes himself.” “Dan.” Dan studied the top of the table, then stared at the buttons on his friend’s shirt, avoiding his gaze. Bo was a little louder a few seconds later. “Dan.” Dan gave up and looked Bo in the eye. Bo could see that the other man’s eyes were bright, but he still had firm control of himself. “Do you love him?” Bo asked softly. Dan paused, and instantly hated himself for that. “I honestly don’t know anymore.” He fought the urge to look away from Bo, to escape from the unrelenting honesty in those dark-brown eyes. “Are you willing to live with him as he is, without him making any changes at all?” Bo asked, “Because that’s really the choice you’ll have to make here. Either you accept him completely and learn to live with the things he does that irritate you, or you find someone else who’s more in line with what you want in a life partner.” “But why do I have to be the one to do all the changing?” Dan retorted, “Why can’t I expect that he’ll do some changing for me, the way I’ve changed for him? It’s called compromise. You know, I give in a little, he gives in a little, and we meet somewhere in the middle.” Bo looked at his friend sadly, and spoke to him with a kindness at odds with his fierce appearance. “You can expect anything you want, but you’ll end up being disappointed. We’re not talking about what your rights are. We’re talking about whether Jim is ever going to change his behavior. The answer to that one, judging by his history, is no.” Bo’s words were mechanically blunt but they were not unkind, and Dan saw compassion in his friend’s eyes that left claw marks on his soul. “Whatever he’s doing today, he’ll probably still be doing ten years from now.” “But I want this to work!” Dan protested, petulantly. His voice reeked of frustration. “I’ve done everything I can think of to get through to him, and he still doesn’t seem to understand what’s happening to us. Or he just plain doesn’t care anymore. I feel like there’s something I should be able to do to salvage things, but I just can’t get it to work!” A part of Bo hated to do this, but he couldn’t allow Dan to keep lying to himself. Not admitting the truth was causing the man too much pain, and he’d been through enough already. Regretfully, he said, “You can’t get this to work because it’s a lie.” The man looked at him with more trust than he deserved, and Bo hated how what he was about to say was going to rip through him. Bo sighed. Sometimes there was no gentle way out. Sometimes there was no alternative to grabbing the sore tooth and yanking it out by the roots. “The only reason you want to keep Jim around is so nobody else can come along and replace Blaine in your life.” As he expected, the expression on Dan’s face was like he’d just been slapped. “You’ve put Blaine on a pedestal so high that he can’t be knocked off, and Jim’s the weapon you’re using to chase away anyone who tries.” Bo wasn’t saying this to hurt the man sitting across from him, and he hoped Dan realized that. “You’re using him, Dan, and it’s not right.” Dan was quiet for a moment, contemplating what Bo had said. He had hoped he’d grow to love Jim, but that never really happened. “That’s the problem, I guess. As much as I want to love him, I know that it’ll never work. I guess I have for a long time, now.” Dan looked away in shame. “Whether I love him or not, I guess it’s obvious that we’re just placeholders in each other’s lives.” “Dan, “ Bo said quietly, “You could be with anyone you want.” No, Dan thought, miserably, no, I can’t. “You deserve someone who’ll bear his share of the load, and Jim deserves to find someone who will love him as he is and won’t pressure him to make changes that he doesn’t want to make. If you try to stay together and it’s not right, you’ll make each other’s lives miserable until you finally hate each other. You’ll end up breaking up anyway, but then you’ll be just that much older, and you’ll have that much less of your life to spend with the right person.” The big morph sat back and interlaced his thick fingers. “That’s my opinion. Whatever you choose to do, I’ll still respect you and I’ll always be here for you.” Dan looked at the ground beneath the picnic table for a moment, then closed his eyes. Bo was patient while Dan got his emotional legs under him again. When his friend looked up, there was resolve in his eyes. Pain, yes, but a strength of conviction that hadn’t been there before. “I’m not going to be much fun to be around for the next few weeks,” he warned. Bo smiled quietly and tossed a limp French fry at Dan, who let it bounce off his chest and fall into the grass. “You’re not a lot of fun to be around right now.” Then, his expression softened a bit. “But I’m not going anywhere.” Chapter 9 Bo chomped a huge bite of his pie-plate-sized sandwich, which was composed of nothing but lots of meat and just enough melted cheese and bread to hold it together, and chewed with determination. The rainy day had chased them back inside the building, and the two men sat side-by-side on the shipping dock, the rhythmic drumming of the raindrops against the awning above their heads providing a soothing backdrop for their conversation. Back in the spring, sitting this close to Bo would have caused Dan’s brain to lock up, but the varius had become such a steady fixture in his life that it was becoming somewhat easier to ignore how insanely hot he was. Not that Dan ever failed to notice; he’d just tried to stop staring quite so obviously. “So why’d you start working here, anyway? Bo asked. “You’ve got a college degree, right? You could go just about anywhere. Why are you working in a shithole like Magnum?” “Be nice!” Dan said, “It’s not that bad, and you know it.” He slurped his drink and thought for a moment about how to answer. His first impulse was to give a glib reply, but he decided against it in favor of honesty. “My folks are solid, respectable citizens who expected me to get a nice, stable job once I got out of college, preferably with Dad’s investment company. They didn’t start out with much, and they built a great life for themselves. They just wanted the same for me I guess.” Dan took a bite of his meatloaf sandwich and talked around it as he chewed. “When I got my MBA I took a job at my Dad’s firm. But three weeks after I started, I was ready to chew my arm off at the end of the day just to get out of there.” He shook his head ruefully. “Some folks can be happy doing jobs like that, and I think that’s great. Without people to do that sort of work, our world wouldn’t function. But I’m not wired like that.” Dan swallowed what he was chewing and washed it down with a swig from his drink. “It really hacked my dad off when I left the company and went off to find out what I wanted to do with my life.” Dan held up a finger in a ‘hold on’ gesture, burped long and low, then continued. “He feels like I’m throwing away the most productive years of my life.” Bo had an odd look on his face that Dan couldn’t interpret. “So you gave up a life of stability to be true to yourself.” He made an odd chuffing noise that Dan recognized as the varius version of laughter. “Ever since I can remember, I’ve dreamed about having what you turned your back on.” Dan looked at him expectantly, and with a deep sigh, Bo began telling Dan the story of his own youth. “My mother ran away for the first time when I was seven, and I had to go live with my grandparents.” “Damn,” Dan said, kicking his heels gently against the steel dock plate they were sitting on. “That must have been tough.” “Really it wasn’t so bad, “ Bo said, “it could have been a bunch worse, but my grandparents were really great folks. “As he spoke, his gaze became distant as he looked back through time at his childhood. “They had this big house in the country and I had a ball out there, better than it ever was at home.” Almost lost in memory, Bo was picking tiny pebbles out of the cracks in the dock plate’s metal frame and flicking them out into the distance. “I made some pretty good friends out there, and most people seemed to accept me for who I was instead of what they wanted me to be.” “Two years later, mom came back and decided that she was finally ready to be a mother. She dragged me kicking and screaming back to the city, away from everyone I knew. And two years after that, just like clockwork, she disappeared again.” Bo stopped talking for a moment, but when Dan glanced over at him, he saw that the varius was far from finished. The slight movement of the morph’s lips and the clenching of his jaw made it look as if he were chewing on the words he wanted to say until they became softer and easier to swallow. “I came home from school one day and found a note from her waiting for me on the kitchen table. It said,” he recited from memory, “‘Honey, I love you but this isn’t right for either of us, so I’m going to find where I need to be.’ She never even said goodbye.” Bo said it like he could not possibly have cared less, but Dan could see in his eyes that her actions had cut him deeply. “She left five hundred credits,” he said, staring back out into the rain, “which would have been just enough to get me back out to my grandparent’s place if I’d left right then. But something inside me couldn’t do that. I had this idiotic thought that as long as I didn’t leave, there was a chance she’d come back.” He chuffed a short laugh at his foolish hope. “So I stayed in the apartment for a couple of months until I ran out of money and got evicted, but she was long gone.” Bo heaved a massive sigh, then went on, “I think I’ve spent half my life wishing she’d come back, and the other half believing that it would be better if she’d just stayed away. She screws up everything for everyone she ever met.” His voice grew quiet. “There are times I really want to hate her, but after everything she’s done I still can’t do it.” “So you haven’t seen her since you were eleven?” Dan was astounded that anyone could abandon their own child the way Bo’s mother had. How could you turn your back on your own flesh and blood, especially when that child was Bo? “Nah,” Bo said, dismissively. “She shows up ever couple of years when she has a new man, just to kind of show him off, I think. ‘Hey, look!” he said, waving his handpaws around his head, "I’m normal!’ She stays around for a couple of weeks and makes a bunch of promises, then she freaks out and disappears again. Last time,” he said, a look of disgust coming over his face, “she headed off to Tibet to meditate, or mediate, or something.” “What about your dad?” Dan asked. Bo answered with a dismissive wave of his hand and a curl of his lip that could have passed for either a smile or a sneer. “He comes and he goes. He’s never been tied down to any one place, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to get anchored down with a kid.” Bo busied himself tearing his napkin into small shreds as he talked. “I guess he wasn’t all that much better than mom was, but at least he was honest about not wanting to stay around. He never played any games about it.” “So he just left your mom to raise you by herself?” Dan couldn’t prevent annoyance from seeping into his question. “Don’t waste too much time pitying my mother,” Bo advised. “Remember, it was her choice to be fertile without being bonded. She probably thought she could use her pregnancy to guilt him into bonding with her.” He threw the pebble he’d been holding out into the rain, listening to the faint sounds of it bouncing against the parking lot pavement before disappearing into the distance. When he spoke again, his voice held no small amount of contempt. “Most people who want to take care of something just get a puppy. She had to have a fucking baby.” Dan could remember, at one point in his childhood, being overcome by the thought of his parents’ eventual death. The idea of going through life without them had been damned near paralyzing. How much more must it hurt Bo for his parents to have abandoned him by choice? Thinking back to how important his own family had been in his life, Dan felt something inside him break loose and float away. For months, he’d secretly harbored hope that maybe, just maybe, Bo might one day return his affections. But now that he knew what an incredibly shitty hand life had dealt his friend, Dan finally admitted to himself that should their relationship go down that path, all he’d ever be able to offer Bo would be even more confusion and uncertainty. Forcing him into shoes that didn’t fit would do nothing to Bo other than cripple him. No. He could never do that to someone he loved. Instead, Dan resolved to be the best friend he could possibly be, even if that meant locking the door on his own feelings. As powerfully attracted as he was to the big morph, Dan knew with complete clarity that what Bo needed in his life was a friend, not another complication. Dan would never be the one to bring him more pain. Bo continued his story, speaking faster now, as if wanting to be through with the story but unable to stop telling it. Now that the dam had been breached, the waters must flow until equilibrium had been reached. “I grew up fast at that point. I had no home, no money, and nobody to take me in. My grandparents offered, but I knew they didn’t have enough money to support both me and the farm. The choices were to either go into foster care or get a job, and I’d heard enough horror stories about foster families to know it wasn’t where I wanted to be.” “I thumbed my way down to the coast and signed on to a fishing trawler out of New Galveston. I was pretty big even back then, and they believed me when I lied about my age. Or at least, they said they did. They didn’t ask questions and they paid in cash, so it worked out for both of us.” Dan was having difficulty wrapping his mind around what Bo was telling him. When he was twelve years old he was busy playing with model space ships and doing his homework, while Bo was earning a living at one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet. Words were completely inadequate to express what he was feeling so he kept his mouth shut. Anything he said would do nothing but cheapen the effort it had taken Bo to open up and share this painful part of his history. Rarely had Dan felt such a strong need to protect another person, to make them safe and repair the damage life had inflicted. If he had any lingering doubts that he truly loved Bo Taylor, they vanished in that instant. Before, his attraction might have been passed off as a childish man-crush, nothing more than the organic reaction of his body to Bo’s powerful masculinity. Now, sex was no longer the predominant feeling winding its way through his emotions. What he felt for Bo was an abiding sense of compassion, a desire to share the morph’s pain and help carry his burden. Dan had to fight the urge to pull Bo into a hug, to find some way to make the varius believe that there was at least one person in the world who would never leave him. Knowing that wasn’t possible, he reached out and put his hand on the big morph’s shoulder, feeling the shifting softness of fur beneath the fabric, and under that, the warm, firm muscle of his deltoid. For a split second he felt the mass of the varius move away from him, and Dan was afraid that Bo had misinterpreted the gesture and was pulling away. But then, he felt a subtle increase in pressure on his palm as the varius relaxed and leaned gently into the contact. Bo felt Dan’s hand on his shoulder, felt the gentle squeeze, and he sensed the weight on his heart suddenly ease. He almost pulled away from Dan’s hand out of habit, but squashed the impulse and allowed himself to relax into it. The single touch did what weeks of friendly talks had not. More than anything else could, that wordless gesture of support reassured Bo that a connection was growing between them. Bo dared to hope that perhaps Dan could be the sort of friend who would go to bat for you when nobody else would, who would stand beside you when the evidence wasn’t in your favor. The kind of friend who you could open your heart to and share your dreams with, and no matter how impossible those dreams might seem, would never laugh or put you down. For the first time in a very, very long time, Bo was afraid that he might be starting to trust someone again.

Chapter 10 Dan sat in the middle of what used to be ‘their’ living room, but was now ‘his.’ He couldn’t honestly have said that he regretted Jim’s leaving, but still the man’s absence left behind an emptiness that weighed heavily. Dan sighed, getting up to pour another two fingers of Scotch over the half-melted ice in his glass. Most of the furniture was still there, the shelves and the books, the entertainment center, everything one might expect in a modern home. What were missing were small things, a picture here, a trinket there; clean spots in the thin dust the only evidence that anything had ever rested there. Dan rolled the ice around in his glass and took a slow sip. The distillery that produced his favorite Scotch had been in business for over three hundred years, and he appreciated its history almost as much as he enjoyed the end product. Given its complex character, Dan was never likely to get drunk off Scotch. Such cavalier treatment of a beverage crafted with such care seemed like abuse, but he did use it today as a tool to take the edge off what had been a highly unpleasant experience. The amber drink passed his lips smoothly, leaving a pleasant trail of warmth in its wake as it moved down his throat. Within seconds, the dark, dry smells of old oak and smoky peat floated up into his nose like a child’s balloon rising into the sky, and he felt himself release another tiny portion of stress to follow it. For two years Dan had overlooked, justified, and rationalized Jim’s unpleasant behavior, and now, finally, inevitably, it was over. Dan had been prepared to terminate their relationship after his talk with Bo, but to his surprise, Jim had saved him the trouble by making the first move. He had accepted a position with a company twelve hundred kilometers away and said that he’d be gone within a month, but it had only taken him eighteen days. It was that simple for Jim. Sign a few papers, sell a few belongings, then start his life fresh in another city. He hadn’t asked Dan if he might want to come along, and although he had tried to soften the blow by saying, “I couldn’t ask you to leave your family and the friends you have here,” his real message was clear: “I want to start my life over, but not with you.” Everything Dan had gone through to make their relationship work seemed to matter little as Jim energetically disposed of the remnants of the life they’d once been trying to build. Dan took it in stride, but in spite of the fact that he didn’t even like Jim that much as a person, the rejection still stung. It was possible that his feelings ran deeper than he was willing to admit, but it seemed far more likely that Dan’s feelings were nothing more than the response any sentient being had to rejection. Dan reached over to the end table and turned on a reading lamp, chasing away the darkness that grew not only outside his house but in his soul as well. He sat in his favorite chair, slowly sipping his favorite drink while swaddled in the tranquility that he’d missed so much, and thought about where his life would go from here. And when sleep finally did claim him, he was very nearly at peace with the situation. Tomorrow the house would get a good cleaning, and by the time he was finished all traces of Jim would be gone. It was time to open a new chapter in his life.

---

Dan settled his flitter into the parking lot and looked around for Bo’s aging jalopy. The varius usually beat him to work by a good ten or fifteen minutes, but his car wasn’t there yet. Dan guessed he must have gotten stuck in traffic. It didn’t happen often, but it wasn’t unheard of. Dismissing his worries, he unlocked the building and got busy, wanting to get as much of his work done as possible before the morning rush hit. A few of his more troublesome customers had fallen into the habit of waiting until Friday morning to call in their last-minute orders, and if he didn’t hit the ground running he’d be playing catch-up until well after lunch. His comm rang five minutes after he sat down, eliciting a frustrated curse. The customers weren’t supposed to call so early. But then, they’d never done what they were supposed to do before, so why should today be any different? Toggling the display, he was surprised to see Bo’s image on the caller ID. “Hey,” Dan said, thumbing his end of the connection alive, “what’s up?” “Bad news,” Bo said, by way of greeting. “Let me guess,” Dan said, feeling better, “you picked up a supermodel last night, she chained you to the bedpost, and you’ve just now worked yourself free?” “Not exactly,” Bo corrected. “Don’t think ‘supermodel,’ think ‘blown lifter coil.’” Dan felt the cold finger of worry stab through him. Apparently, Bo hadn’t been kidding about having to remove the safety monitors to keep his car running. If the coil had blown while Bo had been halfway to work, it could have meant a hundred-meter plunge to an ugly crash. “You okay?” he asked, trying to disguise his concern. As if reading his thoughts, Bo tried to ease his mind. “It happened right after I turned the car on, so I was only about a meter off the ground. It still left a dandy little dent in the pavement.” Dan breathed a silent sigh of relief. “It’ll take a month to get the smell of smoke out of the interior, though,” Bo muttered. “Anyway, I’ll be late. I’ve got to take the bus, so it’ll be at least half an hour before I get there. I thought I should let someone know.” Dan considered offering to pick Bo up, but thought better of it. The plant worker’s tongues were starting to wag over the amount of time he and Bo spent together, and he didn’t want to make the man’s life harder than it already was. Better to just let him be late. “Thanks for the heads-up,” he replied, nonchalantly. “I’ll get Guido to cover your press ‘til you get here.” Thirty seconds after signing off, Dan was walking through the plant with a clipboard in his hand. He found Guido sweeping the delivery dock floor slowly, but very thoroughly. “Guido!” he shouted, raising his voice to be heard above the din of machinery. Guido slowly turned at the sound of his name. “Press!” Dan shouted, pointing to Bo’s workstation with the clipboard. Guido’s face lit up, and he immediately shuffled to the machine where Bo usually worked. After glancing at the production schedule hanging on the wall, Guido grabbed one of the hundred-kilo ingots off the pile and muscled it into the forging press with a deftness belying its mass. Dan shook his head, admiring the work ethic of the towering ursine. Guido had been one of the press operators before Dan had started at the plant, and was still one of the hardest working employees on Magnum’s payroll. Like Bo, Guido was huge, and was one of the few people strong enough to load the massive ingots into the machine without requiring the assistance of a hydraulic lift. A half-hour later Bo hurried through the front door of the office, tucking his shirt into the waistband of his pants as he rounded the corner. “Hey, bud. Sorry I’m so late. The bus system was more crowded than usual.” Dan looked up from his work, interrupted by the commotion. “I’m surprised you made it before lunch. There’s never enough buses in the morning.” He thought about ribbing Bo for being late, but by the look on his face, the varius probably wouldn’t appreciate that sort of humor at this moment. “Now that you’re here, slow down and catch your breath.” Bo made an effort to slow his huffing breaths as Dan accompanied him out into the plant. Bo shook his head regretfully as they approached his station, seeing Guido’s blissful expression. “I guess I’d better get in there and relieve him. He looks so happy that I almost hate to do it.” Dan looked over at the ursine morph, who was shuffling his feet back and forth in a happy sort of dance as he stuffed heavy steel ingots into Bo’s machine. “He sure is getting a kick out of it, isn’t he?” Dan scratched his head. “Tell ya what. Why don’t you double-check it with…who’s the foreman on duty this week? Mac?” Getting a nod of agreement, he continued, “Clear it with him, then just let Guido be. There’s nothing scheduled for the press for today except regular inventory replenishment, and he can handle that. Just check on him every now and then and make sure he drinks his water.” He poked Bo in the side, “And make sure YOU drink, too.” Bo grinned at Dan as the sapiens headed back into the office, clipboard in hand. “I’ve got to get those orders straightened out.” After the lunch bell sounded, Bo came back into the office, sack lunch in hand. “This one morning’s hard work is gonna make Guido a happy man for quite a while,” he grinned. “You gotta love it that something so simple can make him so happy.” Dan abandoned the chair behind his desk and sat in one of the other office chairs, pointing at the terminal on his desk. “See if you can’t look up the parts to fix your car while we eat.” Bo sat down at the computer and tried to use the keyboard as he ate, but that was an obvious recipe for disaster. His huge sandwich was resisting containment by a single hand, threatening to spill across Dan’s desk in an avalanche of meat. Temporarily retreating to a safe distance, Bo admitted defeat and wolfed down his lunch in several huge bites. “Good Lord, I’ve never seen a sandwich so big disappear so fast,” Dan marveled as he watched the enormous hoagie vanish from Bo’s big hands. “You’re going to have a heck of a case of heartburn in an hour or so.” Bo belched and knocked a fist into his chest, chuckling without humor. “Yeah, I know. I can do that if I have to, but I don’t really enjoy it. I’d rather taste my food when I eat it.” He wistfully licked a bit of horseradish mayonnaise from his thumb. “And that was a good sandwich, too.” Now able to use both hands, Bo reconfigured Dan’s keyboard for his larger fingers and began searching in earnest. After a half-hour of poking around the ‘nets, interspersed with several vid calls to parts warehouses across the country, Bo groaned in frustration and leaned back in Dan’s chair, which creaked in painful protest. “I was afraid of that.” “Mmm?” Dan inquired. “My piece of crap car is so old, the parts store doesn’t sell rebuilt lifters anymore, and buying a new one from the dealer costs more than the stupid car’s worth.” “How about a boneyard?” Dan asked, referring to the many salvage yards that dotted the industrial region. Bo sighed in resignation and ran one huge paw through his head fur. “Unless you get real lucky, the coils are all either burned out or gone. It took me two weeks to find the old one.” “Tell ya what,” Dan said, handing Bo a pad and stylus, “write down the model number of your car and the coil and I’ll poke around and see if I can find something that might work. How much of your money am I spending?” Bo rubbed the back of his neck, as if working out a bothersome knotted muscle. “Couple hundred, maybe three if it’s in good shape. Cash is pretty tight right now.” The look on his face worried Dan. They had never discussed money, but Dan used to print the paychecks, and unless Bo had gotten one hell of a raise since he’d last worked the payroll, he couldn’t have all that much squirreled away. “Okay, I’ll see what I can find. Get to work,” Dan said, and he shooed Bo back out into the plant. After wrangling his paperwork into submission, Dan spent an hour contacting every junkyard within fifty kilometers. He quickly discovered that Bo had not been exaggerating about the availability of replacement parts. Dan found several coils for sale, but they were either well out of Bo’s price range or they were blown, “repairable” units. Dan blew out a breath through his teeth, wishing the outrushing air could take with it some of the stress he was feeling. He had something to prove here - to himself and to Bo - and he was at a dead end. Turning back to his computer, Dan pulled up the specifications for the component Bo needed, studying them more closely. Something about that particular lifter coil seemed familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite remember where he’d seen it before. Taking a sip of his coffee, he opened up a new browsing page and allowed his mind to wander. Sometimes when he did that, his subconscious mind would take him where he needed to go when rational thought would not. When the end-of-shift siren sounded, Dan caught Bo on his way into the locker room. “When you get finished, meet me at my car,” Dan told him. “We’ve got an errand to run.” Bo shrugged his shoulders, and trudged into the locker room with the heavy step of a man whom life had kicked hard in the gut, but had not yet defeated. Twenty minutes later, Dan and Bo locked up the office and headed out to Dan’s car. Dan walked ahead and opened the passenger door, and Bo was about to crack a joke about his chivalry when Dan ducked his head into the car and wrestled with the passenger seat controls. “The seat sticks sometimes,” he explained. “I don’t think you’ll fit in here unless I can get it to move back.” A sharp rap with his fist did what thirty seconds of polite fiddling had not, and the seat reluctantly moved back, moaning resentfully all the way. Bo folded himself into the passenger seat and nodded. “This’ll work, buddy.” He squirmed back and forth a bit, wedging his oversized rump into the seat pocket. Once Dan had strapped himself into the driver’s seat, he continued, “Actually, now that I’m settled in, this isn’t half bad.” “Well, you can leave it in that position when you get out. I don’t think anyone else is going to be using that seat for a while.” “Oh,” said Bo, quietly. “I guess that means Jim’s finally out of your hair?” He was more than a little surprised that Dan hadn’t mentioned this earlier - at lunch, maybe. Perhaps he had tried, but had Bo been too involved with his own problems to pay attention? Bo suddenly felt like a heel for pushing such a significant event in Dan’s life to the back burner in favor of his own problems. “Yep!” Dan confirmed, forcing joviality. “I’m a free man again. You’re going to have to remind me how to do that dating thing again. I’m out of practice.” Bo looked at his friend skeptically. “You’re going to ask me for dating advice?” “Oh,” Dan said, reconsidering his request, “you’ve got a point. Never mind.” “Dick.” “Jerk.” As they flew past the limits of the industrial complex, Dan noticed Bo sniffing himself. “Problem?” He asked. “I,” Bo proclaimed with great gravitas, “am funky. The janitorial company put cheap soap in the showers again.” Dan sniffed the air, but for the life of him, he didn’t smell anything out of the ordinary. “Funk? What funk?” Bo looked amazed. “You must have a cold. Either that, or you pinkies wouldn’t smell a skunk if you got hit with one.” “I can smell that. Trust me.” “Here,” Bo said, shoving a forearm the size of a Christmas ham under Dan’s nose. “Sniff.” Dan bent down, and pretended to smell the furry arm. “Nope, don’t smell anything.” “You’re not even trying, Pinky,” Bo protested. “Give a good whiff.” He hadn’t moved his arm, and Dan supposed that there wasn’t any way Bo was going to let him out of the car without smelling him. Despite how much Dan liked Bo, he didn’t really have much of an urge to sniff him. He had never enjoyed the odor of wet dogs, and he vividly remembered how Bo had smelled when he was laying on top of him in the office, dripping wet after a day of sweating in the hot sun. It had not, he recalled, been a pleasant experience. For the life of him, Dan couldn’t think of any way out of the situation that would not offend Bo, so he leaned down and gave his friend’s fur a shallow sniff. A single, shallow, mind-blowingly intoxicating sniff that took Dan’s breath away. He felt his junk instantly stiffen in his pants in a reaction that was as severe as it was unwelcome, given the circumstances. Dan’s free hand came up of its own accord and gently held Bo’s arm by the back of the wrist, turning the pulse point up so he could bury his nose in the warm fur. It was the most powerfully affecting smell he’d ever encountered, reminiscent of cloves and musk and exotic spices, and Dan could have wallowed in it. Jesus, Dan, pull yourself together! he yelled at himself, This is your friend! Dan quickly pulled his nose away, desperately trying to regain his composure. “Wow, that’s not what I expected,” he said, honestly, but Bo’s ear still flicked back and forth of its own accord. “Are you wearing any cologne, or anything?” “No, just the soap,” Bo replied, sniffing his own wrist and wrinkling his nose again. Dan had just told him another half-truth. Bo didn’t have any idea what he was covering up, but once again Dan wasn’t being completely honest with him. With an inaudible sigh Bo tossed that chip into the bucket marked, ‘I will never understand pinkies,’ and let it go. “So where are we going?” he asked, looking out the window, watching the evening traffic speed past in all directions. “You’ll see,” Dan said, with studied indifference. “Just sit back and enjoy the ride.” He kicked off the auto pilot and hovered for a moment before seeing an opening in traffic and gunning the accelerators. “Since you’re in the car, we can use the upper-deck express lanes and be there in less than half an hour,” he said, giving Bo an evil smile. “That gives me an excuse to drive fast.” Unaware of Dan’s condition, Bo rolled his eyes and tightened his safety harness. On his side of the car, Dan just hoped that the wood in his pants would disappear before they arrived. Every time he replayed that scent in his mind, which was about once every ten seconds, his junk throbbed for release. Oh, God, he hadn’t expected that to happen! Dan’s situation was under control by the time they landed in an industrial complex on the edge of town and walked inside a huge, dusty warehouse. Bo looked around as Dan identified himself to the counterman, and soon they saw a forklift emerging from the back carrying a shrink-wrapped bundle. Bo looked at Dan in astonishment. “That looks like a new coil!” “Naw, it’s a fresh rebuild,” Dan said, “but it should be as good as a new one.” Bo knelt down and examined it carefully through the protective plastic wrapping. “Uh, I hate to break it to you buddy, but that’s the completely wrong interface.” Almost before Bo had finished speaking, the counterman came back from the storeroom and tossed a bundled adapter harness on the pallet next to the coil. Bo, still crouching on the ground, looked up at Dan with new-found respect. “Damn, you’re good!” “I know.” Dan was obviously enjoying himself. “My awesomeness isn’t over yet. I even thought of some things you haven’t noticed.” He pointed Bo to the counterman, who was again returning from the back holding their invoice and a white plastic box. “That’s your pulse modulator. You’ll need it to modify the signal going from your engine computer to this particular coil.” The counterman punched some buttons on his terminal and looked up. “Who’s paying?” he asked, clearly ready to be finished and on his way home. “I am.” Bo looked wary. “How much?” “Four twenty five.” The counterman answered, a response that made Bo’s jaw drop. “If you don’t have that much I can cover the difference,” Dan offered quietly. “No, that’s okay,” Bo mumbled, pulling his credit chip out of his wallet before the man came to his senses and doubled the price. “I can manage it for a fresh rebuild.” Dan had to repress a smile. Bo looked like a kid who’d gotten a present that he clearly didn’t think he deserved, and was balancing his excitement with the dread that someone would realize their mistake and take his new toy away from him. Transaction completed, they wheeled the coil out to Dan’s car. With a grunt, they lifted the heavy coil into the cargo compartment and strapped it down. On the way back, Bo’s confidence waned. “I didn’t just blow four hundred credits on something that isn’t going to work, did I?” Dan thought it might work better to explain his reasoning than to try to reassure him. “You’ve got a Volksmobile, right?” Bo nodded. “Well, they used to come with Henderson lifter coils, but fifteen years ago, the year your car was made, there was a mid-year model change and DeGeorno started supplying them. The mounts are the same. That means that your car can use either one, and it will still work.” “But Henderson doesn’t make that one any more,” Bo protested, a crease furrowing his brow. “No, but they do make the exact same casing with slightly different guts for industrial lift trucks,” Dan explained. “The input matrix and the connectors are different, but the mounts are all the same. A new connector and a minor tweaking of the control unit firmware, and you’re back in business.” “Is it really that simple?” Bo didn’t sound entirely convinced. “As far as I can tell,” Dan said. “They get away with it in the hot rod magazines, at least. I remembered seeing something like this in Speeder Craft a few months ago, but it didn’t click until I cross-referenced the part numbers. Your efficiency will be a little lower since this coil was built for a heavier application, but you should get about a twenty percent increase in power, too.” “Gee, more power. What a bummer!” Bo said, unable to hide the amusement in his voice. “Somehow, I didn’t think that would ruin your day.” Dan said, grinning at Bo like a schoolboy who’d learned a secret. “Don’t act like you’ve got me all figured out,” Bo said, seeing the expression on Dan’s face. “It ain’t that easy.” Dan beamed. Maybe he was getting Bo figured out! After landing in Bo’s complex, they got out and transferred the new coil into the trunk of Bo’s car. Brushing the dust off of their hands, they stood looking at the sunset for a moment. Dan was looking at the sunset, anyway. Bo was looking at Dan. He finally noticed Bo’s scrutiny. “What?” “You’re pretty good, you know that?” Dan flushed. Noticing his embarrassment, Bo felt compelled to proclaim, “You’re my hero!” Getting down on his knees, he worshipped at Dan’s feet. “Oh, I’m not worthy!” he cried, alternately bowing and scraping as Dan shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot, not sure whether to feel honored or annoyed. Finally he compromised, putting a firm boot on Bo and gently pushing him over onto his side. “Just what I’ve always wanted,” he said, satisfaction suffusing his voice, “an adoring public.” Then he sobered. “Do you want help installing that thing?” “I can do it myself,” Bo said, picking himself up and dusting the dirt off his knees. “I know you can do it yourself, “ Dan said, “that wasn’t what I asked. I asked if you wanted some help.” Bo shrugged his mammoth shoulders. “Sure, I guess having two more hands might make the work go quicker.” “Eight o’clock, then?” Dan asked, backing slowly towards his car. “Don’t be late!” Bo admonished, sounding far more cranky than he actually felt.

---

The next morning, Bo was already hard at work by the time Dan settled into an adjacent parking space. The varius looked like he was being eaten by his car, half his body exposed to the morning air, the other half crammed into the upper hatchway. As Dan approached he gave a mumbled greeting, prompting Bo to lever himself out of the guts of his car. He stood up with an access panel in one hand, a fasten-all tool in the other. “You’re late.” “You said to be here at eight.” Dan looked at his watch, which read 8:02. “You’re nit-picking over two minutes?” He set his tool chest down on the ground. “Get a grip.” Bo rolled his eyes. “Late is late.” Leaning back in, he started pulling power cables out from the hole he had opened under the access panel. “While I’m doing this, see if you can’t get underneath and get the lower access panel out.” “Why should I do that when I’ve got a fresh, hot bag of donuts just begging to be eaten?” Dan asked, waggling a white sack whose contents were betraying themselves by the dark rings working their way through the paper. “I’m not late,” Dan drawled, “I’m riiight on time.” Bo stood to his full, imposing height, threw out his chest and examined the bag with disdain. “You brought sugar-frosted lard puffs?” “Well…” Dan was momentarily caught off guard by the look on Bo’s face, and that split second was all the time it took for Bo to extend a single razor-sharp claw and slash it through the paper sack, missing Dans fingers by less than a centimeter. His other hand shot out with lightning speed, catching the bag before it could drop. A quick turn on his heel and Bo was walking away with the donuts, leaving a disbelieving Dan holding nothing but the top few centimeters of an oil-stained paper sack. “Hey! Give that back!” “Ask nicely,” Bo admonished, spearing a glazed donut out of the bag that he held protectively close to his chest. “Nicely?” Dan sputtered, “they’re my fucking donuts!” “I seem to be the man holding the bag,” Bo said, “thus, they are my donuts.” The varius chewed slowly, obviously savoring the flavor. “These are delicious.” Before Dan could protest, Bo held the bag out for him, a huge, shit-eating grin plastered all over his face. “Thanks.” Dan didn’t know whether to laugh or blow up, so he settled on pulling a raspberry-filled puff out of the bag and fixing the morph with an evil glare, which Bo pointedly ignored. Ten minutes later Dan got down on the ground, only to find that he was too big to get under the car. He went back to his car and removed the jack stands from the trunk, using them to lift Bo’s car up several more centimeters. Wriggling underneath, he removed the access panel and had only a single fistful of dirt and gravel drop onto his face. Rooting around inside the dark recess, he found the last two power cables and disconnected them, pulling them out of the way so they wouldn’t get damaged. Dan crawled out from underneath and stretched his back, watching as Bo loosened the coil’s mounting bolts from above. Peering around Bo’s bulky frame, he saw another obstruction to their progress. The subframe would have to be removed before they could lift out the old coil. Dan tried to see where it was mounted, but he couldn’t see any of the bolts. Bo gave an oddly humorless laugh and asked, “What are you looking for Dan?” Not getting a response, he guessed, “You’re not looking for the subframe mounting bolts, are you?” Dan stopped and looked at him. The tone of his voice told Dan everything he needed to know, but he wanted to hear it. “You’re not telling me…” “Yup.” Bo nodded, with a tired smile. “You ever hear the joke, ‘When do you wash your Volksmobile?’” “Why bother,” Dan answered by rote, “just scrap it and buy a new one?” It was an old joke, and everyone knew it. “This is why.” Bo said. “Their accountants figured out that they could save ten credits per car by welding in the subframe after the coil was installed.” Dan imagined the bizarre contortions that would be required to get the old coil out. With a groan, he begged, “Oh, please. Please. Don’t tell me you’ve got to bring it out from underneath.” “Yup,” Bo sounded weary. “That’s what the manual says, and for once, it’s actually right.” His voice had a ‘been there, done that’ edge to it that Dan recognized as one he’d heard coming out of his own mouth from time to time. Without wasting his breath on pointless argument, Dan picked up a wrench and clambered back underneath to loosen the remaining bolts that Bo couldn’t reach. “You’re not planning on dropping that thing on my head while I’m down here, are you?” Dan asked, as he struggled to free the corroded hardware. “Jeesh,” Bo chuckled as he worked, “you wimpy pinkies. It’s only a couple of hundred kilos.” “So I haven’t been in the gym lately,” Dan retorted. “So sue me.” “Yeah,” Bo said, diligently wrenching away from the top of the car, “I’ve been meaning to ask you that. Why’d you quit the gym, anyway?” “I tweaked my shoulder pretty hard a couple of summers ago,” Dan explained, as he strained to wrench the corroded bolts out of the motor mounts. “I had to lay off for a while to let it heal, and since then I’ve just been so busy I fell out of the habit.” Removing the last of the bolts, Bo wriggled under the other side of the car. His right ear was next to Dan’s, so close Dan could feel its heat. Dan had to force his mind onto the task at hand. He unclipped one side of the coil and Bo got the other, and they slowly lowered the device out of the car’s chassis. In the process of wrestling the coil out, Bo’s hands wound up bumping into his several times, forcing Dan to clamp down on some decidedly lascivious thoughts. When they slid the new coil under the car and resumed their positions, Bo somehow wound up even closer to Dan than he’d been before. Any closer, Dan thought with chagrin, and we’ll be sharing the same skin. When they lifted the coil into place, Bo’s soft, triangular ear pressed against Dan’s hairless one, and it was all Dan could do to maintain even breathing. When he accidentally caught a whiff of Bo’s scent, Dan began reciting calculus equations in a desperate effort to keep from becoming aroused. He was supposed to be helping a friend fix his car, not wallowing in lust! When Bo reached up to fasten the mounting clips, his warm, meaty arm pressed up across Dan’s chest, and Dan forcefully ground his teeth together. Without meaning to, a quiet groan of frustration escaped Dan’s chest. “Am I hurting you?” Bo asked, concerned. “This thing’s just getting heavy, that’s all,” Dan said, his breath coming faster now. “I’ll be finished in a jiffy,” Bo promised. So will I! Dan thought, desperately wishing that Bo would stop pressing up against him. “Jiggle it,” Bo instructed, trying to align two holes in the parts so he could push the bolt through. Dan did, and with a faint grinding noise the bolt slid home, and Bo’s strong fingers twisted the fastener down. “There,” he said, using a wrench to tighten the bolt. It was done. Now that the new coil was firmly attached to its mounting frame, Dan relaxed, lying still for a moment to catch his breath and take a quick inventory of his physical condition. Thankfully, it seemed that at most, he’d gotten a slight chubby and not a full-blown erection. Wriggling out from under the car, he emerged in time for Bo to put a huge hand on his chest and push himself up off the ground. Holy Mother of God, Dan thought. I wish he’d stop doing shit like that! Dan felt something stirring in his pants, and quickly pulled himself back underneath the car before he embarrassed himself. He finished hooking up the lower power cables while Bo put the upper maintenance hatches back in place, and by the time they were finished Dan was silently applauding them for using all the bolts they’d removed. No matter how simple the task, it always seemed that Dan had a few bolts left over when he was done. This time they’d used them all. Crawling out from under the car, brushing dirt from his face and clothes, Dan was dismayed to see what Bo was holding in his hand. “You know where this goes?” He asked, holding up a two centimeter long bolt, a disgusted look on his face. Goddamn it! Dan didn’t even have to think twice. “In the glovebox.” “Good answer,” Bo said, tossing the bolt over his shoulder and offering his friend a hand up. Clapping the dust off of his hands, he looked expectantly at Dan. “What now? Do we fire it up?” “Put this in the ignition slot first,” Dan instructed, handing Bo a data wafer that he’d pulled out of the parts bag. Bo sat down in the driver’s seat and fed the data solid to his car. The program went through an automatic checkout sequence, then flashed a green light on the dash, prompting Bo to engage the drive system. Bo gingerly dropped the car into gear, and when the car suddenly lurched upwards Dan would have sworn that he heard the big, scary-looking varius make an alarmed little meep. But when he glanced over at him, Bo’s face hadn’t changed from its usual stoic expression. The car slowly rose up to its standby height, eliciting a series of beeps and chirps from the computer as the program made a series of adjustments. Bo read the display screen and turned to Dan. “It’s asking for a passenger. Get in.” Dan went around and sat in the other seat, and the car wobbled disconcertingly for a moment before determining the correct power balance and becoming steady. The program made its final adjustments, then spat out the data wafer as if it tasted bad. Bo shut the car down and got out, wiping his hands with an air of satisfaction. “Thanks, man!” he grinned at Dan, “You maybe saved me some time.” He and Dan sat next to their cars, using oiled rags to wipe the grime from their tools as they put them away. Bo picked up their earlier conversation as if it hadn’t been interrupted. “I kinda figured you for a gym rat,” he said, wagging a finger at Dan’s shoulders. “You’ve still got the trap thing going on. You ever compete?” Dan grimaced slightly. He wanted to impress Bo, but he didn’t want to overstate his involvement with the sport. “Not really,” he admitted, “just some small time local stuff.” “So it’s been what, a year or so since you last lifted?” Dan grimaced. “More like two. I’m almost afraid to go back. I’m not sure I’d be able to lift the bar.” “Carl has some rubber weights that he keeps in the back of the gym for magazine shoots,” Bo suggested, enthusiastically. Dan rolled his eyes and gave Bo’s chest a hearty shove. “Bite me, dog boy.” “That’s Mister Dog Boy to you, Monkey Man!” Bo laughed, prompting Dan to shake his head in annoyance that he didn’t really feel. “Okay, tell ya what,” Bo said. “Let’s wash up and grab a snack, and then head to the gym. It’s my workout day anyway. You got some gym clothes with you?” “Not really,” Dan answered. “Since I’ve still got some errands to run today, how about I go take care of those and then run back by the house and grab my gym bag. Send the coordinates of the gym to my comm and I can meet you there at around sixteen?” “Sounds like a plan to me,” Bo answered. looking happier than Dan had ever seen him. “Don’t forget your belt!” Chapter 11 Dan felt simultaneous shivers of dread and anticipation run up and down his spine as he dropped his car down onto the gym’s parking lot. The place wasn’t in the best part of town, but that didn’t bother him. Years spent working out under heavy weights made him no stranger to gyms like this. What did bother him was the idea of finding out how out-of-shape he’d become after being away for so long. He was excited at the prospect of lifting again and he was looking forward to experiencing this with Bo, but he wasn’t eager to find out how much strength he’d lost. His first day back would be humiliating enough without having to grunt and strain under the scrutiny of the one man on the planet he really wanted to impress. While these thoughts nagged at Dan, they weren’t enough to quell the anticipation he felt at finally getting to see how much weight Bo could move. He’d been curious about that for months, and his curiosity was about to be satisfied. Bo nearly jumped out of his car when Dan touched down beside him, as irrepressible as usual, and obviously enthusiastic about being there. As they crossed the nearly deserted parking lot and made their way to the entrance, Dan took a good look at the outside of the building. Made of concrete and corrugated steel, the strip mall looked like it might have held a half dozen other shops in older, better times. Now it carried its age with a particular lack of dignity, roofing tiles peeling up at the corners, paint flaking off the exterior walls, and at least one gutter holding on for dear life by what looked like a single bolt. The oversized electric sign clinging to the front of the building looked like it had been repaired a dozen times, and from the darkening of the antique neon tubes, Dan suspected that half of the letters spelling out “Carl’s Gym” no longer worked. He gave Bo a meaningful look out of the corner of his eye, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Cool!” Bo grinned at his friend. “You don’t mind getting a little dirty?” “Oh, Hell no.” Dan answered him, “I never could stand those prissy fitness clubs where it gets really crowded at the first of the year when everyone makes a New Year’s resolution, then clears out again in a couple of weeks once they all give up.” “I hear ya,” Bo said, holding the door open for him. They walked inside, past an empty desk overflowing with loose papers, bodybuilding magazines, and brochures for health supplements. “Sign in!” a loud voice yelled from somewhere among the clutter of machines, and Bo dug an old clipboard out from the bottom of the pile. Signing both his name and Dan’s, he tossed the clipboard onto the top of the heap and plowed in, Dan close behind. The first thing Dan noticed was the airflow. With a dozen heavy duty fans going at top speed, the inside of the gym was like a wind tunnel. The day was still warm, but the moving air kept the temperature inside the gym tolerable. Large roll-up doors at both ends of the building opened to the parking lot out front and a grassy field behind, letting the afternoon air circulate freely. Dan instantly felt at home, unconsciously nodding his head in approval. “This place isn’t as hardcore as it used to be,” Bo told him. “The owner’s been updating it a little bit every year. Last year he even added a pretty nice locker room in back with some real toilets, so now if you have to puke, at least you don’t have to do it in a nasty plastic bucket.” He rubbed his massive hands together in anticipation of the fun they were about to have. “Next year we might even get air conditioning.” As they passed the first row of old but serviceable-looking weight machines, Dan was surprised to see a bank of three modern ProStima 3000 muscle stimulator booths. Dan remembered reading somewhere that although the devices could help grow the size of the user’s muscles beyond what nature would otherwise allow, the growth was temporary, and maintaining any of the increased mass depended entirely upon the continued use of the machine. They did nothing to improve health or make the user stronger, and Dan had written them off as being about as useful as a tan from a spray-booth. “You don’t use those things, do you?” he asked, looking over at his friend. “Hell, no,” Bo snorted, giving the bank of machines a withering glance. “Carl got them as part of a compensation package for sponsoring the Grand Nationals a couple of years back, but I don’t think anyone here actually uses them. Most of us prefer good, old-fashioned iron weights.” Pausing next to the machines, he reached behind and pulled out a loose power cord, then moved even further back to peer behind them. “Nope,” he said, grinning at Dan as he tossed the cord back out of sight, “there’s not even an outlet back there.” Somewhere behind the tangle of machinery, clanging weights sent shudders through the floor as the invisible attendant did some very heavy deadlifts. Dan didn’t need to see how much weight was involved to be impressed - the shaking of the concrete floor spoke volumes. Bo saw the expression on Dan’s face. “That’s Jackson. He’s just warming up. He usually tops out at around 750, when he’s not training for a meet.” “Holy cow.” Dan whistled through his teeth. “I’ve never seen anyone lift that kind of weight in real life.” Dan had watched morphs lift big weight on the vid shows, and it never failed to fascinate him. When he looked back to Bo, the man was choking back his laughter. “What’s so funny?”

Bo had channeled his undignified giggles into a knowing smirk. “You’ll figure it out. Come on.” When the repetitive banging noise of the weights paused, Bo shouted over the tangle of machines, “I brought a friend with me.” “Got it,” came the curt reply. Dan had expected little more. Deadlifting that much weight didn’t leave a lot of breath for pleasantries. “That’s why we need special facilities,” Bo continued as the two men made their way to the back of the building. “The kind of weight we lift would break the floor in a regular gym.” Dan noticed as they walked through that there weren’t all that many people using the gym. Including him and Bo, there may have been a dozen others in the building. “Where is everybody?” “It’s still early. Most of the guys won’t get here until the sun goes down, after it’s cooled down a bit.” “Yeah,” Dan said, “I know how fragile you guys can be in the heat.” The jab was probably not in the best taste, but Bo took it in stride. He wondered if Bo had met him there earlier than usual so they wouldn’t run into any of his regular workout buddies. Being seen with a wimpy little pinky under his wing might damage his reputation. Knowing that Bo would give him an honest answer if he asked, Dan didn’t. The two men pulled their lifting belts out of their bags, then tossed the duffels underneath a chalk-covered bench along the back of the wall. Their thick leather belts had the well-worn patina that only came from years of hard use, and Dan noticed that even though his own belt was heavy-duty by sapiens standards, Bo’s was considerably thicker. The morph assembled the weights they were going to need on the rubber mat, and while doing so he spoke to Dan in a no-nonsense tone. “We need to get something straight before we start,” he said. “You’ve been out of the gym for a long time, and if I don’t hold you back you’re going to end up killing yourself. Am I right?” Dan could do nothing but shrug and nod in grudging agreement. “I’m going to try to keep that from happening,” Bo went on. “I’m not going to let you get hurt while I’m helping you. Can you handle that?” Dan thought about it and nodded his head in agreement, but still his voice carried indignation that he couldn’t quite filter out. “You’re not my mother, you know.” “Yeah, well, maybe you should have had your mother around when you blew out your shoulder,” Bo shot back. Dan grimaced, but he couldn’t really argue the point. He watched as Bo loaded two twenty-kilo weights onto a heavy steel lifting bar and locked them solidly in place. “Warm-up time, Sunshine.” Bo ran them through a set of basic stretches before climbing underneath the bar and resting it across his impressive shoulders. He finished the set without comment, and Dan had the feeling that Bo was going through the motions for his benefit. Yes, he thought, perturbed, I remember how to squat. When he put himself under the bar, though, he felt uncomfortably small. Chalking it up to his time away from the gym and his current feelings of insecurity, he settled himself and went through his own series of squats. He didn’t want to show it, but by the time he’d done ten of them he was starting to breathe heavily. “Wow,” he said, trying to catch his breath without letting Bo see how badly he was winded, “that’s heavier than it used to be!” Bo looked puzzled for a moment before breaking into an understanding smile. “Oh, man,” he said, doing a classic face-palm, “I should have remembered. Remember how I said that the stuff in here was extra heavy duty to handle the weights we lift? The bar in a normal gym weighs around twenty kilos. That one weighs fifty.” “Oh, thank God,” Dan said in relief, “it’s not as bad as I thought.” Bo went to the bar and pointed out another difference to Dan. “It’s also a bit longer, and there are two sets of grip rings instead of just one, so be sure you center yourself between the right set of rings or you’ll be off-center.” Looking at where Bo had his claw pointed, Dan did see a pair of smooth rings on each end of the knurled bar, about ten centimeters apart. It only made sense, he thought. To accommodate Bo’s wider frame, he’d need a wider bar with a wider grip, and Dan chided himself for not realizing this sooner. At first Dan felt his muscles groan in protest, but they soon remembered what they were supposed to do, and he soon ceased to feel as if he were a machine that was sorely in need of lubrication. Bo restricted him to the lighter weights, while the varius graduated to larger and heavier plates. Dan felt foolish lifting the tiny amount that Bo was allowing him. “Can’t we put some more on the bar?” he asked from the bench, after watching Bo blow through three hundred kilos as if the bar weren’t even loaded. A panting Bo came over and crouched down on one knee so he could look at Dan from eye level. “I know you can lift more than what’s on that bar,” he said, between breaths, “but you and I both know that you’re going to be sore as hell tomorrow as it is. There’s no shame in coming back slowly from an injury,” he said, patting Dan on the shoulder. “Give yourself time to adjust. You can show me next time what you can do.” He looked at Dan until he got a nod of understanding, then went back to the bar and removed all but the smallest plates from it. Dan knew that Bo was only looking out for his well-being, but it was still frustrating to be held back like this. Dan nodded, hauled his ass off the bench, and once again climbed underneath his embarrassingly small weights. As he coasted through the motions, he was reminded of his first weight lifting class in college, where the coach emphasized the necessity of performing each movement correctly. He’d pounded it into their heads that it didn’t matter how much weight you were able to move if your actions were jerky and poorly executed. He’d made them grow slowly and taught them the benefits of proper form. Dan hadn’t imagined at the time that he would ever thank the coach for his dogged adherence to discipline, but today he did. Even if he were lifting tiny weight, he was still doing it with impeccable form. “Straighten your back.” Bo called out. Shit! “My back is straight.” Dan replied, testily. “Stop right there - don’t move.” Bo quickly pulled a mirror off a hook hanging beside the bench and held it at an angle in front of Dan’s face so he could look through it to the mirror on the side wall. Damn, Dan thought to himself, he’s right. He carefully straightened his back until what he saw through the mirror was textbook-correct. Bo sat down again, crossing his arms and scrutinizing his every move like a stern mentor. “You remind me of my old lifting coach, you know that?” Dan said, a hint of annoyance coloring his voice through his labored breathing. “Is that a good thing?” Bo asked, one eyebrow raised “I’ll let you know tomorrow.” Half an hour later, as Dan helped Bo rack two hundred and fifty kilos of iron weight onto the bench press bar, he had relaxed enough that he felt comfortable allowing his attention to wander. One of the first sensations to come to him was the smell. The odors of clean sweat mixed with machine oil and a bit of mildew wound their way into his brain, threatening to bring back wretched memories of his public school phys-ed class. He gently pushed away the anxiety the memories brought along with them, unwilling to allow an unpleasant past to ruin a present that was pretty damned good. Forcing himself to be calm, he remembered the humiliation he had endured day after day at the other boy’s hands. Ironically, Dan reflected, he had been bigger than most of the kids, and stronger than all but a few. In the end, it was only his lack of self-confidence that had held him back. Feelings of inadequacy had nipped at his heels like rabid dogs throughout his early life, and still reared their ugly heads on occasion. It wasn’t until his college years that he truly began his journey of self-discovery. A fresh start away from his childhood demons was apparently what he needed; once away from the poisonous taunts of his childhood peers, he exploded into competency. He took to lifting like a fish to water, surprising his parents with his tenacity and enthusiasm, and drowning a few of his childhood ghosts in the process. “Spot.” Bo said, pulling Dan back into the present. He carefully balanced himself on the raised platform behind Bo’s head. He’d been baffled at first by its construction, but he soon saw why it was built the way it was. Instead of being completely behind the lifter, like it was on a weight bench designed for sapiens, this spotting platform wrapped around the lifter’s head. The necessity of this design became clear the instant Dan stepped up on it. Because of their differences in height, Dan couldn’t give Bo an assist without straddling his face. Good thing for long shorts and jock straps, he thought. His unconventional stance had an additional side benefit that Dan appreciated greatly. Since his body blocked Bo’s line of sight, Dan could ogle the morph as much as he wanted. Bo was even better looking when upside down, Dan thought, stepping back a few centimeters to look down at his friend as he prepared to lift. Two jet-black paws gripped the bar lightly, the extended claws of his two middle fingers buzzing against the textured surface as they moved back and forth to find the smooth indicator rings machined into the knurled bar. Two massive feet clad in flat-bottomed lifting shoes bounced up and down with nervous energy at the far end of the bench before settling down in a familiar stance. Bo’s massive shoulders squirmed back and forth on the bench, working to find the best angle to lift from. And then…dead silence for a moment as Bo took several deep breaths and centered his concentration. When Bo stopped moving, Dan stopped messing around and leaned over slightly, focusing his attention on the morph’s eyes. Bo blinked once, and then twice, and then with the slightest nod of his head, he signaled Dan that he was ready. Dan used his back and shoulders to help deadlift the huge weight off the rack, and for the instant before Bo started pushing on the bar, it felt to Dan like it had been welded into place. He couldn’t lift half of what Bo was pressing, his job was to assist, not to take over. He helped guide the weight into position, bringing it smoothly to rest on Bo’s outstretched arms. When the varius unlocked his elbows and let the weight settle to his chest, he knew he couldn’t do many more reps that day. He’d wanted to impress Dan when he racked this much weight, and there was more on the bar than he normally lifted. It hadn’t looked like so much at first, but now it felt like he was trying to lift a fire truck. With a leviathan push and a strained grunt, Bo shoved the weight into the air once. That wasn’t so bad. And again. Heavy, but smooth, Bo thought. Nice. And a third time, but somewhat more slowly. I’ve got one more in me, I know it! Dan’s hands were hovering just above the bar, ready to help, but not touching it until it was necessary. Bo was still in control. His arms ached like they hadn’t in years, and he knew that starting tomorrow afternoon, his body would begin cashing the checks that his ego was busy writing. And he looked forward to that pain with the sick anticipation only known to other gym rats. On the fourth repetition, he got about three quarters the way up before his burning arms and chest failed him. Oh, fuck me! I thought I had this! Dan’s hands closed around the bar just before it ground to a halt, taking just enough weight off to allow Bo to push it back up and lock his elbows. Dan’s face was hidden by his body, but his voice came down loud and clear. “Another?” “No,” Bo said, and Dan responded by pulling the bar back into the rack with a definitive clank, careful to not mash his friend’s fingers in the process. It might have been a while since the sapiens had last been in the gym, but it was obvious to Bo that he remembered how things worked. Bo had tried working out with partners in the past, but usually found them more annoying than they’d been helpful. In the back of his mind, he wondered if maybe Dan would be a good fit? When it was time for deadlifts, Dan and Bo took turns on the low platform, rolling Bo’s heavy weights out of the way each time it was Dan’s turn. Even though he was lifting much less weight than he used to, Dan felt himself rapidly growing fatigued. Bo was right, he admitted to himself, he was in no shape to try to impress anyone today. As Bo climbed onto the platform for his final set, Dan openly admired the man’s ability. Although he’d seen men lift large amounts of weight before in competitions, he’d never seen anyone do it with Bo’s casual ease. Half the time, Dan thought, it didn’t even look like Bo was trying. Although Dan had walked into the gym feeling awkward about working out with Bo because of the difference in their abilities, that had quickly fallen by the wayside. Even though Bo lifted a hell of a lot more than Dan could, he never made the weaker man feel the slightest bit inferior. It has been said that you should never lift against other men in the gym, that you should lift against your own personal best. Although that advice was rarely followed in real life, Bo never failed to treat Dan as an equal, worthy of respect regardless of the amount of weight on the bar. As the two moved to an upright weight bench in the corner of the gym, the demons living in the back of Dan’s mind began to writhe. He had damaged his shoulder during a heavy set of military presses, and had completely blown it out at a powerlifting meet a week later. He’d already had a workout as complete as any he’d ever experienced, and he was damn-near exhausted. If Bo hadn’t been with him, he would have hit the showers long before now. But Bo was with him and Dan refused to quit. Positioning himself under the empty bar, Dan pressed it into the air, grimacing when his shoulder stabbed out a warning twinge of pain. “Whoa, hold on, chief,” Bo said, immediately lifting the bar from Dan’s grip and racking it as easily as he might a broomstick. “Something ain’t right here.” He motioned for Dan to stand, then reached underneath and adjusted the angle of the padded backrest. “Try it now.” When Dan lay back down at a slightly lower angle, he looked straight up into the concerned face of his friend. As much as he trusted Bo, he still wasn’t sure this was a smart thing to do. Gingerly, he went through several repetitions with the bare bar. To his delighted surprise the pain was gone, and by the end of his set he was grinning from ear to ear. “We can work up from here,” Bo assured him, pulling the bar into its holder. “Once your shoulder muscles are strong enough to bear some weight, over time we can start ramping you up again.” Bo’s assumption that Dan would be back in the future made the man smile. “If you ever get tired of feeding a machine, you could always get a job as a personal trainer. Or better yet, get into physical therapy.” As they traded places, Bo remarked, “You know, you’re not the first person to say that.” He shrugged. “Maybe one day I’ll think about it.” Dan was quiet while Bo went through his set, but after he’d racked the weight, he was serious. “Why don’t you? Be a physical therapist, I mean.” “Maybe I will.” Bo said, noncommittally. “Programs like that cost money, though. Money I don’t have right now.” Dan thought there must be some sort of assistance program for people in Bo’s position, but he didn’t press the issue. Bo’s life was his to lead however he saw fit, and it wasn’t his place to push. Counter to all his fears, Dan found that he was really enjoying his time with Bo in the gym. He’d been looking for a reason to whip himself back into shape, and getting to stare at Bo as he lifted was all the incentive he’d ever need to keep coming back. Watching the man’s thick muscles move underneath his glossy fur was better than porn to someone like Dan, and the forced intimacy of spotting his partner in the gym took little away from the eroticism. In spite of the fact that watching Bo as he lifted was mandatory, Dan enjoyed the hell out of it! By the time Bo finished his set, they’d been in the gym for over an hour and a half and were both drenched in sweat. “Come on,” he said, giving the sapiens a pat on the back that Dan thought felt more like the slap of a construction timber, “time to hit the showers. You shouldn’t do anything more with that shoulder anyway.” Dan didn’t need to be convinced. He was pooped. As they undressed, Dan was uncomfortably aware of Bo’s nudity. Against his will, his eyes stole a glance in Bo’s direction. Although his eyes might have been disappointed that Bo’s junk was prudently hidden from view behind an open locker door, his rational mind felt relief. “Come on,” Bo said, wrapping a towel around his waist and walking towards the sauna. Dan did likewise, following him into the large, cedar-paneled room. Bo pushed a button on the wall, and clouds of steam issued from concealed openings. With a contented sigh, the men sat down across from each other and absorbed the heat that helped relax their abused muscles. Through the hot mist, Dan had a clear view of Bo sitting on the teak bench, naked save for a small white towel that barely covered his crotch. His musculature was amazing, and Dan had to force himself not to ogle his friend. Dan had thought that Bo was just on the pleasant side of overweight, but seeing him with his muscles solidly pumped up, it was obvious that what Dan had taken to be fat was relaxed muscle mass. The layer of fat was still there, but there was nothing soft about him now; After getting pumped up by the workout, he was all humps of solid, rounded muscle. After a few minutes of listening to the soothing sounds of steam hissing from hidden jets, Dan asked, “You weren’t lifting anything near your personal best out there, were you?” “Not on most of them.” Bo replied, eyes closed as he breathed in the steam. Dan noticed that now that the varius was relaxed, his speech had slurred, as if talking as clearly as he usually did took some effort. That he felt comfortable enough around Dan to let his guard down was encouraging. “Why not? You won’t grow unless you push yourself.” “Oh my God,” Bo joked, “am I getting small?” At one point he would have left it at that, but he was becoming comfortable enough with Dan to elaborate. “I used to train that way,” he said, “but I was getting too big so I toned it down a little.” “Too big?” Dan echoed, the question evident in his voice. “I don’t know if it’s my weird genetics or what, but I put on muscle mass faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. I tried to find my upper limit a few years back, but I got to the point where none of my clothes fit right, and I looked like a walking freak show. I finally called it quits when I couldn’t tie my own shoes. Bo was probably right, Dan thought. The amount of mass he had right now was amazing. Anything more would have looked vulgar. “How long did it take you to put on that much mass?” “About six months,” Bo said, sounding annoyed. “It took almost a year to get back to normal.” “Huh.” Something was bugging Dan, but he didn’t dare ask. He caught himself before he said something offensive, squashing his unanswered questions deep into the recesses of his mind where they couldn’t make trouble for him. “Go ahead and ask it, whatever it is.” Shit! Dan sighed, more than a little frustrated. He wanted to believe that Bo wouldn’t get mad at him, but was not at all certain of that. Just because he asked to hear the question didn’t mean it wouldn’t piss him off. “Are you sure?” he asked, “It’s probably rude.” Bo chuckled, leaning his head back and rolling it from side to side to stretch his neck muscles. “After all the impolite things you’ve already asked, you’re worried about that now?” “That was different,” Dan said, trying to relax. “I didn’t know I was being rude then. Now, I’m pretty sure I am.” “Oh, why the fuck not?” Bo said, casually, “It’s been a good day. I probably won’t even hurt you too bad if you piss me off.” “Great…” Dan said, less convinced than ever. Bo leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Seriously, Dan. Shoot.” Dan took a breath and started, uncertainly. “Okay, well…why are you here? At the gym, I mean?” It was difficult to tell through all the steam, but Dan thought Bo looked perplexed. “You said the biggest thing you had going against you was your size, but here you are, making yourself even bigger.” He raised his hands in confusion. “I don’t get it.” Bo screwed up his mouth with a muttered, “Hrmmm,” and ruffled the unruly shock of black hair on his head with one big hand. Dan didn’t think he looked offended, just a little bemused. “How do I explain this?” he wondered, aloud. Leaning back, he spread his arms and rested them on the back of the bench, exposing his wide chest and flaring back muscles in all their glory. His biceps jumped in time to his movements as he rubbed a thumb back and forth over a knot at the back of his neck. “Remember how I said that varius standards were really picky?” “I guess,” Dan said, intrigued. “Well, this is the same thing,” he explained. “It’s more a matter of where you’re big than how big you are. It’s…” he waved his hands, trying to conjure the right words. “It’s really more a matter of bone structure than raw mass. Look here.” Holding out one huge arm for Dan’s inspection he circled his left wrist with his right thumb and middle finger, and Dan saw the nearly five-centimeter gap between his finger pads. “I’m too thick.” “Well if you’re so hideous, who’s beautiful?” “Oh, that’s easy,” Bo said, not even having to think about it. “Everyone wants to look like Chester.” “Hold on.” Now Dan was confused. Very confused. Chester was a direct frontal assault on the eyeballs, and his bones looked almost freakishly small in comparison to the rest of his body “Chester’s got tiny little feet and wrists. You mean…” Dan almost laughed, but restrained himself. “Are you telling me that Chester’s some sort of hunk?” Bo nodded his head, and the admiration and envy in his voice were obvious. “Chester’s really lucky. He can get all the women he wants, any hour of the day, any day of the week.” He looked at his own wrists with disdain. “I’ve got such thick bones, I look like a fucking shire horse.” Dan was flabbergasted. Chester was hot? And here, he hadn’t even noticed. He’d thought sapiens standards of beauty were bizarre, but compared with varius standards they seemed almost logical.“I’d still rather look like you than Chester,” he grumbled. “Yeah, but you’re weird.” Bo pointed out, reasonably. “So getting big muscles doesn’t count against you?” Dan was feeling much more at ease talking about this now, since Bo hadn’t seemed to take offense. “Naw,” Bo scoffed. “The bigger your muscles are, the smaller your joints look. If it wasn’t so much of a pain in the ass, I’d just get big.” “So why don’t you just muscle up, get a nice girl, then shrink back down?” “Bait and switch?” Bo raised an eyebrow. “That’s not very honest.” “Sapiens do it all the time,” Dan said, “We’re pros at it. Guys go to the gym to look like they’re athletic and women go on diets to stay skinny, then as soon as we find a partner we let everything fall to crap.” “Is that why you want to get in shape?” Bo asked. “To land a guy?” “That doesn’t have anything to do with it. I was already looking for a gym before butthead left,” Dan said, then . “amended, “maybe it has a little bit to do with it, but it’s not all about that.” Bo was quiet for a little while, and the pensive look on his face made Dan curious. “Okay, it’s my turn. What is it?” In all the time they’d been talking, he’d never seen the varius hesitate like this. “So what about…you?” Bo asked, carefully. “Do you think you’re handsome? To other sapiens, I mean?” “I certainly don’t think so,” Dan replied, remembering his self-examination in the office bathroom. “Huh,” Bo grunted, then with a devilish gleam in his eye that penetrated the thick, foggy steam and a teasing, singsong voice, he parroted back what Dan had told him not all that long ago. “I’ve sort of thought that if I were a pinky, I wouldn’t mind looking like you!” “Oh, shut the fuck up!” Dan laughed, reddening in embarrassment. “I only said that to make you feel better.” Their conversation was interrupted by the entry of an older gentleman, a buck-naked vulpine varius who wore nothing but a huge smile. He crossed the steam room and plopped his skinny, thinly furred body onto the third bench. Letting out a huge sigh, he spread his arms and legs wide to embrace the heat, blissfully unaware of the other two men averting their eyes as his pendulous white-furred testicles swung back and forth like a hairy metronome. “I think I’m done,” Dan said weakly. “Yup, it’s shower time,” Bo agreed. “See you later, Pop,” he said, as he and Dan crowded to the exit. “Bye-bye, sonny! See you next time!” the old man called after him. After the door was safely closed behind him, Bo muttered, “I really hate it when he does that shit. I have to beat my head against a concrete wall for a good hour and a half to get that sight out of my mind.” Dan shuddered and had to agree with him. “Why is it always the wrinkly old men who want to parade around in the nude?” He followed Bo into the shower room, making a mental note to ask his friend about his feet. They made almost no sound against the tile floor. “Why don’t any buff guys strut around bare-assed naked?” “I hope you don’t expect me to do that.” Bo looked affronted and drew his towel closer around his waist. “I’m a nice man.” “Nice?” Dan scoffed. “Yeah, right. And my mother wears army boots.” Dan was no stranger to group showers, but standing naked under a hot, steamy spray while Bo soaped himself up only a meter away was the last thing he wanted to do. As appealing as the thought might seem on paper, in reality it would have been somewhat awkward to turn around and point a fully erect sperm cannon at his best friend. Thankfully, the heads in this shower each had their own stall, and Dan was saved from both temptation and humiliation. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but Dan’s first impression was that the shower was just about like any other he’d ever been in. It was larger, perhaps, and the shower head was higher off the ground, but the shower controls operated the same way. Although the soap dispenser was considerably bigger, it was equipped with the same sort of multipurpose liquid gel that every other gym in the world seemed to use. He’d been in enough hardcore gyms to have no expectation that the showers would be spotlessly clean, but aside from the predictable hair in the drain trap and the occasional small spot of dark mildew here and there it seemed hygienic enough. Attached to the wall behind him, there was a two-meter tall, stainless steel grooming post that was covered in stiff, cone-shaped rubber fingers. Judging by the hair that had been left behind, Dan guessed that it was some sort of scratching or scrubbing device to clean places that a big morph might not be able to reach. Now that Dan thought about it, the shower wasn’t all that similar after all. The basics were all there, but the specifics were uniquely suited to the special needs of varii. Dan finished his business, dried himself off, and was headed out of the showers when he noticed Bo moving into another booth that was completely enclosed. His curiosity was satisfied when he heard the whoosh of powerful air jets that, he assumed, were blowing the water out of Bo’s fur. Shaking his head at how much he didn’t know about the varius world, he walked back to the locker banks and started dressing. In spite of the fifteen pounds he’d lost in the past couple of months, Dan was still self-conscious about his body. He made it a point to have himself covered with a shirt and some clean underwear by the time Bo got back. Being teased when he was younger had left its mark on him, and no matter how little he weighed or how much muscle he built, he thought that he’d probably always consider himself overweight. Surrounded by so many well-built, fur-covered morphs, he felt like a fat, pink slug. Bo followed a minute or two later, and Dan had to laugh at how his fur was pointed in all directions. “You look like you’ve been exploded,” he said, a friendly smile brightening his face. Bo didn’t like being laughed at, but he knew Dan wasn’t disrespecting him, and he had to admit that he did look pretty funny. “You should see how some of the double-coated types look when they come out of there,” Bo said, smoothing the hair on his head with a big hand. “This is nothing.” Dan was feeling less uncomfortable around Bo’s nudity now, and he hoped that once the novelty of it wore off, he would be able to stand in front of him like this without even noticing it. “That soap smells better,” Bo announced, shoving his arm under Dan’s nose before he could move out of the way. “Smell this.” Shit! Dan was really hoping to never have to do that again. Unfortunately, he also longed to do it again as many times as possible, every single day for the rest of his life. That smell could become an obsession with him, and he absolutely could not allow that to happen. Bo was his friend, and he didn’t want to go through life finding reasons to sniff him. But maybe what he had smelled before was just the soap, and this time it wouldn’t be so bad. Dan shrugged, leaned forward, stuck his nose in Bo’s fur and gamely took a good whiff, hoping that this time Bo would just smell like a disgusting wet dog. Nope. His reaction was immediate, and was, if anything, even stronger than before. Dan quickly excused himself to go to the bathroom. “Yep, that’s a lot better than yesterday,” he said, holding his towel in front of him as he walked off. Bo’s ear twitched, but he said nothing, and a few minutes later they were both almost dressed and ready to go. “Okay, so you remembered how to lift,” Bo said, straightening up after tying his shoe, “Do you remember how to eat? Let’s grab something.” “All you can eat buffet?” Dan suggested, watching a smile spread across Bo’s face. “You read my mind!” Chapter 12a Dan awoke with a groan and reached for the ringing comm. Making sure the video wasn’t active, he punched open the line. “Ungh.” “Hello!” came the cheery voice from the other end. “I…Hate…You.” was Dan’s strangled reply. Bo guffawed. “A little sore this morning, are we?” “My hair hurts,” Dan groaned. “If you were here and if I could move, I’d find something sharp and stab you with it. Repeatedly.” “Didn’t I tell you you were gonna be sore?” Bo teased, his voice coming across sounding tinny through the tiny speaker in Dan’s communicator. Dan groaned, burying his face deeper into his pillow. He could only thank God that the morph couldn’t see how wrecked he was. “Hey,” Bo said, regaining Dan’s attention, “unlock your front door!” Shit! Groaning, Dan pushed a sequence of buttons next to his bedside, and heard the magnetic deadbolt buried inside the frame of his front door snap open. Within a few seconds he heard heavy footsteps padding down his hallway, and a moment later Bo’s eyes peeked around the edge of his open bedroom door. “Are ya decent?” Bo asked. “Rarely,” Dan groaned, “but my naughty bits are covered, if that’s what you mean.” Bo came around the door and strode over to Dan’s bed. With a sigh he sat down on the edge, his mass making a considerable dent in the mattress and rolling Dan into the valley his bulk created. “Mrrph,” Dan protested, pondering the irony of the situation. A few months ago he would have killed to get Bo into his bed, and now that Bo was actually there, Dan couldn’t even move his arms. “You suck.” “Unless I’m sadly misinformed,” Bo said brightly, “that’s your fetish, not mine.” He leaned over and rustled a paper sack near Dan’s head, prompting the sapiens to open one eye. “Ooh,” Dan managed, one bleary eyeball now open. “Heaven smells like hamburgers, and you must be an angel.” Bo snorted and pulled a foil-wrapped lump out of the sack. “If that’s your best line, it’s no wonder you’re still single.” “I haven’t even been single for a whole week,” Dan protested, “give me time. Besides,” he said, testily, “it’s not like you’re doing any better.” A familiar odor made its way into Dan’s nostrils, and he forced the other eye open. “Oh, you didn’t.” “Of course I did,” Bo said happily, “I know they’re your favorite.” The hamburger’s wrapper bore the familiar green and gold logo of the Happy Shiny Burger Company, a Chinese chain that Dan had fallen in love with. It was probably just a ton of MSG that made them so delicious, but at that point Dan didn’t care. He wanted it. Badly. “I’m gonna put that in my mouth,” Dan announced with conviction, groggily rubbing his eyes with one hand while grabbing for the burger with the other. “I should make you work for it,” Bo teased, holding the foil-wrapped package out of Dan’s reach and giving him a shove that almost pushed him out of the other side of the bed. “Cut it out,” Dan said testily, snatching the burger and unwrapping it. “What time is it, anyway?” “It’s almost seven,” Bo said, his good mood unaffected by Dan’s grouchy attitude. “Seven o’fucking clock?” Dan groused, shooting Bo a nasty glare over the burger he was devouring. It was really hitting the spot, even at that obscene hour on a Sunday morning. “Seriously, how sore are you this morning?” “It’s not that bad yet.” Dan took a quick inventory of his aches and pains. “I guess most of it’s just stiffness. Once I get moving I’ll be okay.” Dan licked the last of the burger sauce from his fingers, and Bo wasted no time reaching into the bag for the second one. “Hold up,” Dan implored, waving off the food. “Wait a few minutes on that.” He was fairly amazed that he was still sitting upright, and even more amazed that his junk was not. Making a quick check under the covers to be sure nothing was poking out where it didn’t belong, he peeled off the sheets and shuffled towards the bathroom. “Let me take a shower first and wake up.” “Hurry up!” Bo called after him. “We got stuff to do today!” “We do?” Dan asked, turning to face him from the bathroom doorway. The expression on his face was not pretty. Confused, yes. Annoyed, probably. Pretty, no. “Like what?” A look crossed Bo’s face as it dawned on him that his plans might have been premature, and his ears began to droop. “Well, if you, uh… don’t have anything else planned, that is.” Despite the early hour and being awakened so suddenly Dan couldn’t keep his expression from softening, although he was pretty sure it came out looking more like a grimace. “Actually, I’ve got a whole bunch of nothing to do, so you’re in luck.” He yawned monumentally and scratched his belly, resisting the urge to reach into his shorts and give his balls equal attention. “So what are we doing?” “There’s a classic car show and swap meet going on at the stadium,” Bo said. “I blew all my fun money on that damned coil, but I thought we could still kill some time out there.” “Sounds like fun,” Dan shrugged, turning back into the bathroom. “Grab yourself something to drink out of the cold box, if you want,” he said, waving an arm vaguely towards the kitchen. The door closed, and Bo found himself standing alone in Dan’s bedroom. Might as well give myself the nickel tour, he thought. Bo had never been in a gay man’s house before. Not that he’d been aware of, at least, and he was more than a little curious. He didn’t know what he had expected to see, but somehow it wasn’t this. He wondered idly if Dan was typical of his breed. Bo tried his best to not make snap judgements about people. On the rare occasions when his instincts were completely wrong he had been forced to eat humble pie, and he wasn’t fond of the taste. Wandering aimlessly through the house’s main rooms, he thought that Dan’s living arrangements fell right in line with his personality. The walls and floors were basic, with none of the fancy moldings or intricate paint schemes that seemed to predominate modern decorating. The floors were all either natural-looking ceramic tile or synthetic wood, with carefully placed floor rugs to soften the effect. It was obviously done with care, but didn’t look contrived. Overall, Bo thought it looked comfortable and homey. What ultimately caught his attention were the books. Hundreds of real, honest-to-God books scattered throughout the house. Outside of a historical archive, Bo had never seen this many paper books in any one place. Examining them more closely, he saw that Dan had collected something from every genre. Mystery, science fiction, historical – his thick finger traced along the shelves, marveling at the display. As his eyes wandered over the collection, he noticed other things on the shelves. Dan was apparently fond of collecting old electronics and small pieces of interesting-looking machinery to use as sculpture. Contrary to what he might have expected, Bo found that they looked perfectly at home sitting next to the antique volumes. Like Dan, his house was an exercise in comfortable eclecticism. Dan also had a number of framed pictures sitting out, and as Bo looked over them he thought he recognized the scenery in some of the backgrounds. Some images showed Dan with his family. In one, he was standing with an older couple who Bo assumed were his parents, at what looked like an anniversary celebration. In another he was standing next to a pretty woman, watching a young girl in a frilly pink dress blow out the candles on a birthday cake. The photos documented the sort of healthy, happy family that had never been a part of Bo’s own history, and he found himself feeling a little jealous of the life he’d never had. Moving back to the books, he gave in to temptation and pulled one off the shelf. It fell open in his hands, as if eager in its anticipation that someone might once again enjoy its story. Bo closed the yellowed pages and turned the book over to look at its cover, then smiled quietly at the title, Tom Swift and His Amazing Rocket Car. It was from a time when people seemed so innocent, so naïve about the way things really were. Bo put the book to his nose and inhaled deeply, the scent of disintegrating paper and aging glue being one of which he was exceedingly fond. His grandparents had a few paper books and magazines that he remembered playing with and reading as a child. They had been handed down through the generations, and it never occurred to his grandparents that by reading them, and in the process getting them dirty, dog-earing the pages, and maybe ripping a page or two, a small child might diminish their value. Books were made to read, not to be put on a shelf and admired from a distance. “I’m glad you’re not afraid to touch them,” Dan said from behind Bo, startling him almost enough to make him drop the book he was holding. Regaining his composure, Bo quickly apologized. “I’m sorry,” he carefully closed the book and put it gently back in place. “I just couldn’t resist.” “Don’t sweat it,” Dan insisted, smiling at him. “I think it’s cool. Most antique collectors shit kittens if you so much as breathe on their junk, but bibliophiles can’t resist picking up a book and having a look inside.” To emphasize his point, he turned around and, after a moment’s examination, pulled one off the shelf and handed it to Bo. “Here’s one of my favorites. You ever read Tom Sawyer?” Bo shook his head, and Dan continued, “Even if these were valuable, the only danger might come from the acids in your skin oil breaking down the paper, but since you’re already wearing fur gloves, I don’t think that’s much of an issue.” “Some of these look interesting,” Bo observed, flicking through the pages of the one Dan handed him. “I never pictured you as a bookworm.” “That’s okay,” Dan said, easily, “I never thought you’d be able to read.” “Nice.” Bo favored Dan with a withering glare, which the sapiens ignored. “You do wake up cranky, don’t you?” “Weren’t we supposed to be doing something?” “Yup,” Bo agreed, slapping Dan on the shoulder nearly hard enough to knock him over. “Let’s get moving!” Locking up his house and following the morph to his newly repaired car, Dan wondered what effect the new thruster coil would have on the performance of the old jalopy. His questions were answered when Bo let out an enthusiastic war whoop and blasted the car down the road, making Dan exceedingly glad that he’d just emptied his bladder. Although traffic was limited to a ten-meter altitude inside Dan’s neighborhood, Bo was still able to turn the trip to the main traffic lane into a thrill ride. “Whataya think?” He yelled, before throttling down and merging smoothly into weekend traffic. “I think I’m gonna puke!” Dan moaned, holding his stomach. Bo just laughed, his pearly white canines gleaming in the sun. “Where’s that other burger?” Dan asked, looking around the cabin of the car. Bo reached underneath his seat, but his searching hands didn’t find it. Twisting around, he checked the rear seat with a similar lack of success. He was certain he’d tossed it back there when they got in the car, but… “Oh.” Levering his bulk out of the seat, he reached underneath him and handed the distressed paper sack to Dan. “Sorry.” “You sat on it.” Dan said, tonelessly. “I was keeping it warm!” Bo protested, so cheerfully that Dan couldn’t stay annoyed. If it were anyone else, Dan mused, pulling a very flat cheeseburger from the sack. “I just hope you don’t have gas,” he muttered. The wrapper was securely adhered to the burger by the cheese that had squeezed out from the pressure of Bo’s solid rump, and Dan had to work to separate the barely edible food from completely inedible packaging. “Uh,” Bo asked, hesitantly, “how much of a problem would it be if I do, ‘cause…” “La la la la la!” Dan yelled, hurriedly, as his hand shot up to block whatever it was Bo was trying to say. “Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know. Nothing’s going to stop me from eating it anyway, so you’d just gross me out for no good reason.” Watching Dan devour the burger, Bo whistled appreciatively. “You’re starting to eat like a varius!” “Yeah, thanks,” Dan said, as he sucked the viscous cheese sauce off his fingers. Ten minutes later they were elbow-deep in antique machinery, and Dan was having the time of his life. Bo’s attention was drawn more to the large trucks and commercial machinery on display, but he didn’t seem to mind when Dan occasionally dragged him over to the smaller, more maneuverable personal transporters and sport craft that he favored. They made a good pair, Dan thought, as he watched Bo crawl underneath a military ground-crawler to examine its suspension. Each of them balanced the other’s abilities, interests, and aptitudes, and for probably the hundredth time Dan thought that it was a pity Bo was straight. They would have made a great couple. By the end of the day, Dan was exhausted, sunburned, and happier than he’d felt in years. As he relaxed at home in the last few quiet hours of his weekend, he reflected on the fact that even his best times with Blaine, as wonderful as they might have been, didn’t compare to the rich satisfaction he was finding in his friendship with Bo. And yet, had the opportunity arisen, he knew that he would have gone running back to Blaine in a heartbeat. Bo had been right. The main reason he’d been with Jim was to keep other men at arm’s length. But maybe that hadn’t been an entirely bad thing. Maybe his festering love for his old mate had prevented him from making a complete ass of himself in front of the varius for long enough to secure the man’s friendship. Swirling the ice in his bourbon, Dan wondered how his life would have been different, had Bo been there for him to talk to five years ago. Would having a best friend around have taken enough pressure off their relationship that he could have avoided driving Blaine away? There was no way to answer the question, and it annoyed the pragmatic part of Dan’s psyche to be dwelling on it. Ruminating on what might have been was a monumental waste of time. Still… Dan sipped the smoky amber liquid and wondered if, should his personal wheel of time ever bring Blaine back into his life, Bo would be there to help him reassemble the pieces of his shattered heart.

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Chapter 12b Dan groaned inside when Bo showed up at work the next Wednesday sporting a swollen eye and a distinct limp. “You just can’t keep yourself out of trouble,” he commented, shaking his head as he surveyed the damage. This wasn’t the first time Bo had come to work looking like something the cat dragged in. “What happened this time?” Bo gave him a wry smile and the simplest possible explanation. “Someone didn’t want to leave the bar when they were asked.” “Just one?” Dan asked, looking him over. “With that much damage, I figured there must have been at least three of them.” “Two,” Bo replied, chagrined that so small a number of opponents had inflicted any significant amount of damage, “but one of them was a bull.” Dan shook his head in bemused good nature. “You don’t have to kick everyone out of the bar you don’t personally like, you know.” Bo looked surprised. “What, you think I like doing that?” “You must get something out of it or you wouldn’t keep coming in here all busted up.” He didn’t want to come across like a judgmental old prude, but he had the uncomfortable feeling that this was exactly what was happening. “I’ll talk with you at lunch about it,” Bo told him, sounding a bit hurt. “I’ve got to get out there and get to work.” Dan shrugged his shoulders and turned back to his morning’s paperwork, trying to put Bo’s injuries out of his mind. After staring at the same invoice for five minutes, he admitted defeat and closed the accounting program. Walking into the break room, he refreshed his mug with the last of the brew in the coffee maker and made a fresh pot while he thought about how he’d reacted. Had he just harped on Bo the same way he’d apparently browbeat Blaine? Was that what he did to the people he loved? Nag at them until they wanted nothing more to do with him? It wasn’t an attractive thought, but no matter how much Dan wanted to pretend that it wasn’t true, he knew it probably was. He’d apologize to Bo at lunch, he decided, and hopefully that would be the end of nit. Going back to his work, Dan managed to immerse himself until the lunch bell sounded at noon. He met Bo out at the Roach Coach, a mobile delivery service that supplied what passed for food to many of the factory workers in the area. Bo was moving a little less stiffly as he picked through the stacks of paper-wrapped sandwiches and snacks, and judging by the size of the pile of food he selected for himself, his appetite was certainly up to his usual Herculean standards. They brought their lunches to the table on the side of the building, enjoying the cooler autumn weather that would pass all too quickly. “So what was it you wanted to tell me this morning?” Dan asked, unwrapping his burrito and carefully smoothing out the paper wrapper on the table to act as a placemat. “I’ve been thinking about it,” Bo said calmly, unwrapping the first of his three sandwiches, “and you don’t have the slightest clue why I do what I do.” Dan thought Bo didn’t sound angry, he was just stating the facts. “You’re right,” he said, hoping he hadn’t pissed Bo off, “I don’t understand.” “So why are you judging me when you have no idea what’s going on?” Ouch. “Look, I’ve been thinking about that too, and I owe you an apology for my reaction this morning.” He found it difficult to look people in the eye when apologizing, but he forced himself to do it. “We may live in different worlds, but that doesn’t change the fact that I like you and I respect you. People just do things differently in your world than I’m used to.” “‘My world,’” Bo repeated. “You mean, because I’m a varius?” Now, Dan thought, he sounded offended. “No,” he said automatically, then stopped himself. Although what he was about to say was politically correct, it wasn’t right. He remembered, vividly, what Bo’s reaction had been when he’d glossed over the truth in the past. “Yes,” he admitted, finally. “Partially, at least. We’re a lot alike, but you could fill a book with all the ways we’re different. You’re blue-collar, I’m white. You like girls, I like guys. I grew up in a traditional home, and you didn’t. You didn’t go to college, I did. And yes,” he added with a wry smile, “you’re varius and I’m sapiens, and it would be stupid to pretend that difference doesn’t exist.” Bo sounded somewhat mollified as he watched Dan peel apart his burritos one by one and add a dozen pickled jalapeño peppers to the goop that filled each one. “I just didn’t want you to think I was some sort of crazy brawler, or something.” He said it almost as an apology. “Believe it or not, I have good reasons for doing that sort of stuff.” Dan expertly rolled his burritos back up, then lavished hot salsa on the end of the first one before taking a bite. He was completely unsurprised when a huge, wet glob of ground beef, lettuce and cheese broke through the bottom of the tortilla and landed on the wrapping paper with a disgusting splut. “So what were your reasons last night?” “I don’t know why you have any guts left,” Bo said, watching with horror as Dan enjoyed his meal. “All those peppers should have hollowed you out years ago. Anyway,” he continued, “the place I usually go is owned by an old friend of the family. Last night there was some trouble, and I helped him out a little.” “What kind of trouble?” Dan inquired, intrigued. He’d never pictured Bo as a bouncer, but he certainly had the build for it. “Some jerk was hassling a lady in the pool room and he wouldn’t stop. Stuff like that usually burns itself out pretty quickly, but this guy just wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” The expression on his face suggested, ‘what was I supposed to do?’ “When it started getting physical, I stepped in.” Bo ate a few bites of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. “So you’re his hired muscle?” Bo shrugged his shoulders as he chewed. “Well, me and about eight other guys. If you don’t make it a point to run out the assholes, they’ll take over. We just want to keep the place nice,” he explained. “In a part of town like that, it’s a full-time job.” “Anyway,” he said, getting back on track with his story, “I don’t like trouble and I’m usually pretty good at talking people down, but this scraggly looking runt of a lupine just wouldn’t let up. He just kept pushing and pushing until I ran out of options. Finally, the only thing I could do was toss him out. I didn’t think he was going to be any trouble, but as soon as I grabbed his arm, this big mountain of a bull stood up and started coming after me like it was me who started it. He’d been sitting in the shadows over in the corner, watching the whole thing go down, and he was on top of me before I could do anything about it, yelling and hitting me like I was his favorite punching bag, or something.” “Do you think the little guy set you up?” Dan asked. “Nah,” Bo said, talking around a large chunk of his sandwich, “not me personally. I’m pretty sure it goes down like that a lot for those two. I’ll bet the little guy shoots his mouth off whenever he wants to, and his buddy’s there to pull his ass out of the fire.” Dan looked confused. “That’s just weird. What do they get out of it? People don’t do something for no reason.” “Well,” Bo said, thoughtfully, “the way it usually works is that the little guy pays for the drinks, and in return he gets to pretend like he’s a tough guy. The big one gets free booze, and he gets to feel strong by beating up anyone who gets in the little guy’s way.” “And doesn’t that sound like a lot of fun?” Dan said with a disgusted look. Bo looked back at him with an evil gleam in his eye, “Sometimes it’s more fun than you might think. You ought to come out with me sometime.” Dan didn’t think he would ever actually take Bo up on his offer. This sort of thing was far more entertaining to hear about secondhand than it was to experience in person. Still, he didn’t want to turn the varius down outright. “As long as you’re there to pull my ass out of the fire, that might be fun,” he said with a smile. “Okay then,” Bo said, with a nod of his head. “I’ll pick you up at your place after work this Friday.” A hunk of spicy burrito chose that particular moment to slide down the wrong pipe, and Dan coughed so hard he almost gagged himself. Once the offending lump of tortilla popped out of his windpipe and he’d recovered enough to talk, he tried desperately to think up some excuse that would let him escape without making him look like a giant wimp. Unfortunately, nothing was coming to mind. For a few precious seconds he was speechless, and then his rational mind wrestled control away from the part of his brain that panicked when faced with scary new situations. He wasn’t planning on being in any brawls, and even if something did happen, he’d be with the best bodyguard imaginable. “Sure,” he wheezed, trying to sound like the independent, adventurous man that he wanted to portray, “that sounds great.” He still wasn’t certain about this, but if what Bo had said was right, all he had to do was be the one buying the drinks.

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True to his word, Bo showed up at Dan’s a few minutes before eight that Friday night. As usual, Dan was running a little late. He had just stepped out of the shower and was toweling himself off when he heard a sound; it was either an elephant falling down the attic stairs, or Bo banging a fist against his front door. He wrapped the towel around his waist and ran to answer it before the battle varius knocked it off its hinges. “You’re ready like always, I see.” Bo said, as he evaluated Dan’s state of undress. He flipped his sunglasses down over his eyes with the flick of a claw. “Nice tan.” “If you hadn’t been early I’d have been right on time, Dog-boy,” Dan shot back, scurrying back to the bathroom to finish his preparations. “Don’t get comfortable!” Five minutes later Dan was dressed and ready to go, and barely ten minutes after that, the two were setting down in the parking lot of Bo’s favorite burger joint, the Tasty Shake on Old Capital road. The restaurant was housed in what looked like an antique railroad car, one with polished aluminum sides that reflected the light of the autumn sunset. “You ever eat at a varius restaurant before?” Bo asked Dan, as they walked up to the chrome and glass doors. “I never really had to,” Dan said, feeling conspicuously small as he walked through the oversized doors. He tried his best to not look at everything around him like some tourist in a foreign country. “Keep your eyes open and try not to embarrass me,” Bo said, under his voice. When Dan bristled, he smiled and went on. “This is one of the only places in town where I can sit in a booth and not feel squished like I’m sitting at the kiddie table, or something.”He stopped Dan from sitting as he reached under the table and unfastened a latch. “Hold up.” With a smooth push the rectangular tabletop rotated ninety degrees, converting the booth that was previously suitable for six regularly sized sapiens into one that would fit four varii comfortably. Or a pair of sapiens and one Bo. The place sported what Dan thought of as an old-world feel, with sparkling Formica tabletops and a small chrome jukebox in each red, vinyl booth. “Hey there, Bo.” Their sapiens waitress was dressed in clothing to match the decor, wearing a pink apron ornamented with white lace at the sleeves and the name ‘Flo’ embroidered in flowing white script at the neckline. “You gonna have the usual?” Bo nodded happily and hung his tongue out the side of his mouth, doing a passable impersonation of a large, unevolved puppy dog. In response, Donna snapped her chewing gum and scratched behind Bo’s floppy ears with her long, red fingernails. Watching the exchange, Dan had to wonder who was manipulating whom in this scenario. While ‘Flo’s’ right hand was busy making Bo’s leg twitch, her left was replacing his knife and spoon with utensils more suitably sized for his oversized hands. It occurred to Dan that he’d never seen Bo eat with anything other than the sapiens-sized disposable plastic forks and spoons that the lunch wagon supplied. He had no idea what the man used when he was at home. Thanks, Donna,” Bo said appreciatively, pulling his tongue in and giving her a sincere smile. “You’re the best!” She flashed them an electric smile of her own, making attractive crinkles at the corners of her eyes as she turned towards Dan. “What about you, hon? What’ll ya have?” Dan looked at Bo, wondering what ‘the usual’ was, then turned back to ‘Flo’ and took a chance. Fools rush in, after all. “I’ll have the same,” he chanced. He figured nothing could possibly grace their table that was so putrid or bland that it couldn’t be rendered edible with copious amounts of hot sauce. The waitress cocked her head to one side, and Dan was mildly surprised that her slender neck was able to support the weight of her huge bouffant hairdo. She was obviously stronger than she looked. “You really want both Monster Platters?” she asked, skepticism evident in her voice. Dan was taken aback. He had no idea what a Monster Platter was, but it sure sounded like a lot of food. He pondered the issue with a look of great solemnity on his face. “That depends,” he asked, seriously. “Are the monsters fresh today?” ‘Flo’ laughed heartily and clapped Dan on the shoulder. “You’ll do all right here!” she exclaimed. “Just for that, I’ll show you a little trick. Hop on out of there, big boy.” She patted Dan on the shoulder, encouraging him to vacate the booth he’d just occupied. “See under here?” Donna pointed one long, red nail at a lever just behind Dan’s knees. “Pull it up like this.” She demonstrated, and Dan watched as the seat and footrest rose up high enough to put him at eye level with his dining companion. Dan hopped back in and looked around. “I feel like a kid in a booster seat.” “We’ve got those too, if you think you need one,” Donna laughed. “Why don’t you bring him one platter,” Bo suggested, “and if he’s still hungry, you can add the second one when you put in the ticket for mine.” “Good idea, pup,” she said, spinning on one of her spiked heels like a Vegas showgirl. “I’ll go get y’all some water.” Once she was gone, Dan lowered his voice, conspiratorially. “What did I just order?” “You’ll see,” Bo smirked. “Hey, look over there!” Dan said, looking at the back corner of the diner. “Doesn’t that guy go to the gym?” “Oh, yeah,” Bo said, following Dan’s gaze to a large table surrounded by morphs of various types. “They all do.” He named them off slowly to give Dan a fighting chance to remember. “Starting with the Clydesdale, that’s Dunny, Kip, Jake, Rob, Quinn, Ralph, Dave and Sam. They’re all stand-up guys.” “Looks like they’re celebrating something,” Dan observed, as one of the bigger guys - Jake, was it? - threw an arm up in the air and ordered a whole cherry pie and eight plates. “You want to go over and say hi?” “Naw,” Bo replied. “It looks like they’re in the middle of something.” “So why aren’t you in with them?” Dan asked. “It seems like you’d fit in really well.” “For one thing, I’m almost ten years older than most of them,” Bo said, “but mostly, they’re just…” he searched for the words, “Don’t get me wrong, they’re all great guys and I like them, but their whole group is just drama, drama, drama.” Not certain how acute any of their hearing was, he lowered his voice, “You should have heard them a couple of weeks ago when one of ‘em slipped and fell in the shower. You would have thought someone dropped an atom bomb on a schoolyard.” The varius held up two hands like puppets chattering animatedly at one another. “Yip, yip, yip!” The hand puppets and the overly-excited look on his face almost made Dan shoot water out of his nose. “Okay, I get it. If there’s one thing gay people know, it’s drama.” Bo chuckled. “Well, none of those guys are gay, but point taken.” When Donna came back loaded down with two huge plates, Dan knew that leaving hungry wasn’t going to be a problem. The ‘Monster Platter’ turned out to be just about everything on the menu that was bad for you, all layered on a single dish. Then covered with chili and cheese. And sour cream. And onions. His mouth dropped open at the sheer gastronomic horror of it all. He looked askance at Bo. “You’re having two of these?” The varius grinned. “I like to eat light before I go out, and if I’m still hungry I can finish yours, right? ‘Cause there’s no way you’re going to be able to finish all of that,” he challenged. He gave Dan a playful wink and shoveled the first bite of smothered monster into his mouth. “Uh, Donna?” Dan asked, before their waitress could make her escape. “Do you have any pepper sauce?” ‘Flo’ looked dubiously at the pile of heartburn fuel sitting in front of Dan, then directed her question at Bo. “Is he serious?” Bo shrugged and talked through a mouthful of monster. “Bring it on.” Oh, Lord, Dan thought, picking up his fork and doing his best to navigate the enormous, savory-smelling mess, what have I gotten myself into? Chapter 13 Dan dropped his car into an open parking spot near the back door of the pool hall. Looking around, he thought that he’d been in worse places in his life. He was about to say as much when a pair of very large canines brawled out of the rear door and began punching each other with no small amount of enthusiasm. “Let’s just give them a chance to work things out before we get out of the car,” Bo advised. Dan was all too happy to oblige, settling back to watch the fight as it progressed. “This probably won’t take long.” Sure enough, it was only a few minutes before the two men worked out their differences and went back inside, holding each other up like a pair of drunken army buddies on leave. “Promise me we’re not going to do that,” Dan said. “No problem,” Bo shot back, a boyish grin tugging at the corners of his muzzle, “I’m delicate, you know.” Dan belched as he climbed out. In spite of Bo’s challenge he’d only eaten half of his Monster Platter, offering up the remainder to the altar of Bo’s insatiable appetite. The last thing he wanted was to come to a place like this stuffed to the gills, then get drunk and give it back on the sidewalk. Or worse, in the seat of his car. “So this is your place, huh?” he said, giving the bar’s exterior a quick once-over. Iron bars covered the windows of the gray fab-crete building, but this was the one structure in the neighborhood that was free of graffiti. It was obvious that the owner cared about how the place looked, even if it did happen to be the solitary rose in the middle of a field that couldn’t even grow potatoes. Bo shouldered ahead of Dan and went in first, a fact for which the man was immensely grateful, especially considering what had come tumbling out the door only a few moments earlier. If Bo wanted to be first into the fire, who was Dan to argue? The inside of the bar was dark, but somehow maintained a festive atmosphere. Antique neon signs provided much of the illumination, the rest coming from small, multicolored lights strung above the tables and behind the bar. The moment they walked through the door, the huge mountain of a morph behind the bar pivoted his massive head to give them a quick once-over. He looked more like a gorilla with anger management issues than a man, but that image was dispelled when he broke into a wide, toothy grin. His barked welcome carried across the room, his deep baritone voice cutting easily through the conversation of the other patrons. “Bo!” he yelled, “Get your ass over here and tell me what’s going on.” Bo smiled encouragingly at Dan. “That’s Sam.” They walked carefully through the sea of tables separating them from the bar, and Dan, mindful of what Bo had told him at dinner, took great care to avoid bumping into anyone. Even if Sam did rule his roost with an iron fist, Dan thought that it would be all too easy to accidentally offend one of the other patrons and end up in the dentist’s chair having his teeth put back in his face. No eye contact with anyone’s lady, don’t bump into their table, and for the love of God, he reminded himself, belatedly looking down on the floor in front of his shuffling feet, don’t step on anyone’s tail! His heart skipped a beat when he saw that his foot had come down just shy of a huge, mean-looking dog’s whip-like tail. Gotta be careful, he reminded himself, stepping over the appendage. The far end of the deeply polished oak bar seemed like a home-free zone to Dan, and he let out a relieved sigh as he slipped into one of the tall chairs that Bo stood beside. To call them bar stools would have done them an injustice; they were more like bar thrones. Richly upholstered in oxblood leather, they looked far more comfortable than the wooden seats that ringed the rest of the bar. “What’s up with these?” Dan asked, indicating the chairs. “Why is nobody sitting here?” He plopped his butt in the deep pocket of the first one he came to, swiveling around to face Bo. “Sam reserves those for his family.” “Whoops!” Dan immediately started to lever himself out of the chair, but was stopped by Bo’s huge handpaw pushing against his chest. “Sit.” Not only did Dan belong in the seat as Sam’s guest, but Bo wanted everyone in the bar to see him sitting there. Although he wouldn’t have said so much to Dan, he wanted the other patrons, especially the other sapiens, to realize that Dan enjoyed a protected status and wasn’t someone they could mess with. “And sit up,” he said, just loudly enough for Dan to hear, “like you belong there.” Dan felt a little uneasy sitting in a chair that he didn’t feel he had any right to, but since this vantage point gave him a better look at Sam, he took the opportunity. His first thought was that the bar’s owner was taller than he’d initially thought; the impression of size coming from the fact that he was almost as wide as he was tall, with a barrel chest and long, muscular arms terminating in wide, thick-fingered hands that never seemed to stay idle for long. His face was broad, with a high, sloping forehead and widely spaced, intelligent eyes that peered alertly from beneath a prominent brow ridge. If it weren’t for the eyes, Dan thought, Sam could be mistaken for an exhibit of prehistoric man in the Natural History museum. But those eyes made all the difference in the world. They gave Dan the feeling that Sam was a man he could trust; someone who, if ever help were needed, would give it without question. He held his huge, gnarled hand out to Dan, who took it without the slightest hesitation. “Dan Blocker,” he said, respectfully. “Sam Worthington,” the bartender said, in return, his diction nearly perfect. “I’m glad to meet you, Dan.” Bo’s handpaw was, Dan thought, the perfect blend of the sapiens hand and the canine paw. The leather-like pads on his palms were warm and pliable on the surface, but underneath the callused doeskin lived strong muscle and rock-hard bone. Sam’s hand, however, had the structure of the typical sapiens hand, but distilled to its primal components. Bo’s handpaw might be the evolution of the sapiens hand into something better, but Sam’s hand was what had allowed humanity to drag itself up out of the primordial ooze and become what it was today. It was big, it was heavy, and it was hard. In that two-second handshake, Dan instantly comprehended the origin of the gesture. He’d been taught that it had originated to prove that neither party was carrying concealed weapons, but the people who had told him that had never met a man like Sam. Shaking a hand like Sam’s told you, without a scrap of doubt, that the man standing in front of you was not to be fucked with, under these or any other circumstances. Through the man’s handshake alone, Dan felt like he understood this man, and he was left feeling a little awestruck. Releasing his grip, Sam paused to look Dan up and down before turning to rummage through a large stainless steel chest full of ice and beer bottles. “Do you have LaFittes?” Dan asked. Sam turned back to look at Dan for a moment, then completely ignored the question and went back to what he was doing. Bo gave a strangled chuckle that Dan didn’t understand, and that the varius didn’t seem inclined to explain. Finding what he was looking for, Sam pulled two bottles from the bin and used a bar towel to wipe off the remnants of crushed ice that clung to their sides before setting them down on the counter in front of the two men. Dan picked up the bottle in front of him and saw that it was a beer that he’d tried before, but honestly hadn’t liked. “Guinness?” he asked, remembering the beer being served to him by an ostentatious British friend who had insisted that he consume the beer at room temperature. He also remembered that it had tasted like he was drinking bread. Sam nodded encouragingly. “Give it a go, young man.” Dan put his doubts behind him and took a cautious sip. The brew was full-bodied and rich, almost too strong at first, but calming down within seconds to a deep, pleasing flavor. It was, Dan thought, astoundingly better ice cold than it was warm, and was not going to be a taste that would take long to acquire. “It’s good,” he said, tipping the bottle towards Sam. “Thanks.” He reached into his pocket for his credit chip. “What do I owe you?” Sam waved him off. “Any friend of Bo’s…” He left the rest of the thought unspoken. Dan was surprised, to say the least. Bo had warned Dan to expect a rather chilly reception. Sam was generally disapproving of just about any of the friends Bo brought in with him, passing judgement swiftly and ruthlessly about their character, their morals, their upbringing, and just about anything else that could possibly be divisive. Bo told him that Sam was a difficult man to know, critical and niggardly with his praise before he knew you well, but if you were fortunate enough to work your way into his good graces, you were pretty much in for life. It was, Bo had observed, rather like being in Congress. Something about Dan had apparently been sufficient to get him elected. Dan turned to Bo, and saw that he carried the same pleased but puzzled look on his face. “Don’t ask me,” Bo said, answering the unasked question, “I have no idea.” “So how are things going?” Bo asked, turning back to Sam. “Pretty good, I guess,” he said, rolling his massive shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “I can’t complain. A couple of local lowlifes tried to deal in the parking lot Thursday night, so I called in some muscle to do some pest control.” “Aw, Sam,” Bo complained, “you know you could have called me and I’d have gotten the job done.” He looked aggrieved. “You didn’t need to spend your money like that.” “It didn’t cost nothing,” Sam said defensively, picking up what looked like a crystal beer stein and polishing it absentmindedly, “I just called in a favor. Besides,” he said, putting the stein on a shelf and picking it’s mate up from the drying rack, “I don’t want any of my boys roughing up the dealers. If I’m gonna piss off the local punks, I don’t want my family involved. Having those little fuckers mad at the local muscle is bad enough without it getting personal.” “It looked like there was some action going on in here right before we came in,” Dan observed, taking another pull from his Guinness. “Yeah, well…that’s nothing,” Sam explained, casually. “Mark and Charlie went through school together, they work together at the mill, and they live practically next door to each other. They come in here and get drunk almost every night, and pick a fight at least once a week, but only with each other.” Sam laughed, “Even when they fight, they won’t do it with anyone but each other. Then they make up and come back in here like old buddies again. I swear,” he said, drying his hands on his apron as an affectionate smile crossed his face, “they’re like a little old married couple. They bitch and moan at each other non-stop, but you can’t pull ‘em apart.” He began polishing the top of the bar with another small white towel. “How long have you been doing this?” Dan asked, fascinated by the fierce bartender. Sam thought for a moment, “About thirty years, maybe? I started working here the day I got out of the army, and that was back in sixty three. I walked in for a beer, and walked out with a job. Ten years later, the man who owned the joint retired and sold the place to me. Turns out, he got the place the same way, and so did the guy before him. We just keep passing it on down the line.” Sam picked up a common water glass and gave it the same thorough polishing he’d given to the expensive beer steins. “I thought Bo’s daddy would be next in line, but that ain’t gonna happen. He’s got too much wanderlust in his blood to ever settle down.” He looked pointedly at Bo. “So now it’s up to you, Squirt,” he said. “When are you gonna buy in?” “No, thanks,” Bo said, laughing. “I’m happy to be your hired muscle from time to time. I don’t have your tolerance for misbehavior.” Sam shrugged, as if tabling an old argument. “The offer’s always open.” He turned to help someone else at the other end of the bar. “When you change your mind, just let me know.” Bo shivered visibly and leaned in closer to Dan. “What scares me most,” he said in a low tone of voice, “is that he’s almost always right about stuff like that. When he makes a pronouncement, like he expects it to happen but he’s not sure when, it’s only one small step away from gospel.” “Is career counseling one of the secret varius powers?” Dan asked, jokingly, making reference to a crackpot public figure who was trying to worm his way into politics by spreading rumors about morphs having secret abilities that they kept the authorities from knowing about. According to him, the world’s varii were breeding a secret army, and the sapiens population was doomed to serve in eventual slavery under their hybrid overlords. Bo leaned over and glanced in Dan’s lap. “Did your balls just grow four sizes bigger?” he asked. “Don’t even joke about that shit in a place like this.” His tone was lighthearted, but Dan could tell that he was serious. Bo glanced back at Sam, watching as the bartender chatted with a young lady as he poured her a beer. “Naw, I think it was just something he was born with. He can look at someone and tell you things about them you can’t believe, and then later you find out it’s all true.” “Well, he was right about the beer he gave me,” Dan said, “I thought I was going to hate it, but it’s really pretty good.” He looked around them at the growing crowd. “Things around here are starting to pick up. You want to grab a pool table before they’re all gone?” They abandoned their chairs at the bar, and Bo walked around to the back of the counter and retrieved a pair of plain, rectangular wooden boxes and a tray of pool balls. He handed one of the wooden boxes to Dan who, opening it, discovered a half-meter length of what looked like ordinary carbon fiber pipe. He pulled it out and examined it for a moment before looking questioningly at Bo. Bo put the balls down on the last open table, opened his own box and pulled out the black shaft. Holding it vertically in front of him to demonstrate, he gave it a quick up and down snap like he was shaking a big bottle of ketchup, and the rod obediently extended it’s length to form a regulation pool cue. “Try it.” Dan held his out and gave it a tentative shake. Nothing happened. He did it a second time with more vigor, and the ends of the shaft telescoped out halfway before bouncing back to their tube-like forms. Now he had the idea, and on his third try the cue snapped into shape like Bo’s had. “Very, very cool!” he said appreciatively. “Where did he get these?” “They’re special travel cues from one of the Jupiter moons,” Bo explained. “They’ve got better feel than plastic cues, and they don’t warp like synthwood can. I don’t think they sell them at the store, but you can special order one.” Bo racked the balls, moving them carefully into position with the practiced ease of a longtime player. “Sam keeps them on-hand for his own personal use, but he doesn’t mind if we use them.” He handed Dan the solid white ball, and graciously motioned for him to break. Dan walked to the far end of the table with the cue ball in his hand, fervently hoping that the evening wasn’t about to end in an ugly interspecies brawl when he accidentally sent it sailing into the back of someone’s head. Drawing his cue back, he aimed carefully and sent the ball rocketing down the table. The break was clean, and both a solid and a stripe fell into the pockets. “Dealer’s choice,” Dan announced, examining the remaining balls on the table. “I’ll take solids.” He paused, “We’re not calling our shots, are we?” “We’re not playing for money, so why bother?” Bo shrugged his shoulders. “If it goes in, it’s good.” “Good,” Dan replied, nodding his head. “I’m not good enough to do that anyway.” He lined up his first shot, and the ball fell neatly in the pocket. But that was the last ball on the table that was going to be easy. He felt lucky on his next turn and tried a bank shot, rebounding the cue ball off of the side of the table, but he only grazed his target. Fortunately for Bo, the cue ball came to rest in a favorable spot, and he ran three striped balls into the pockets in quick succession. From that point on, he held on to his lead without breaking a sweat. He was undeniably better than Dan, which might have chafed if both men hadn’t been good sports, but Bo wasn’t abrasive about his superior skill and Dan wasn’t a sore loser so they generated little friction. Dan almost won the third game, but he suspected that Bo was flubbing his shots to keep him from feeling discouraged. After that one, they surrendered the table to the next pair of players and made their way over to a table near the middle of the back wall, where Dan entertained himself watching the other patrons. Before they even got comfortable, a pretty young waitress who barely looked old enough to hold the job was at their table, her arm carrying a tray loaded down under the weight of a dozen empty glasses and bottles. Her face may have been young, but the way she handled the heavy tray suggested that she was no stranger to the job. “Hey, Bo!” she exclaimed, happily scritching the back of his neck with the fingernails of her free hand. “Who’s your friend?” she asked, eyeing Dan with obvious interest despite the difference in their ages. “Hey, Sandy,” Bo said, leaning his head forward to give Sandy better access to his neck. “That’s Dan.” “Well, hi, Dan!” she said, brightly, abandoning her scratching to offer her hand to the obviously uncomfortable sapiens. “I’m Sandy. Is this your first time here?” “Yeah, it is,” Dan said, encouraged by her friendly demeanor to peek out of his shell. “Is it that obvious?” “You look a little nervous,” she said, but her eyes laughed. “It’s a little intimidating” he admitted, not quite knowing what to say. “Everyone seems friendly, though.” “They usually are,” she said, “but if any of these clowns gives you trouble, just let me know and I’ll take care of them for you.” “Isn’t that supposed to be his job?” Dan joked, pointing at Bo. “She could do it,” Bo gave Sandy a knowing look. “She only looks sweet and innocent.” She patted Bo’s shoulder one last time, and looked at Dan significantly. “Can I get you anything?” “I think we’re good, right?” Dan asked, looking over at Bo. The look he got back in return was practically a smirk. “Thanks, Sandy, we’ll let you know.” Bo said, sending her on her way. “What was that all about?” Dan asked, perplexed. “She was hitting on you, doofus,” Bo replied, after making sure that Sandy was out of earshot. “Oh, hell, no,” Dan was certain Bo was wrong. “How did you get that idea?” “When she asked if there was anything she could get you,” Bo explained, with exaggerated patience, “you were supposed to say, ‘Your comm number.’” “Really?” Dan asked. When Bo nodded his head, Dan changed his response to, “Really!” “Are you truly that clueless?” Bo asked, grinning from ear to ear. “Apparently so,” Dan looked in the direction Sandy had gone, but she was out of sight. “I had no idea.” “You really are naïve!” He shook his big head in amazement. “Sometimes I completely forget you’re gay, and other times…” He looked at Dan intently. “Do you think you could ever have been straight?” “Isn’t that one of those things you’re not supposed to ask out loud?” Dan asked, not certain whether or not he should be concerned about anyone in the crowd around them overhearing. Bo looked around them casually, then dismissed the idea with a wave of his handpaw. “Ninety percent of the people in here are varii, he said, “and won’t give a rat’s ass who you fuck. As far as the other ten percent go, you’re with me and Sam so you’re essentially bulletproof. In fact,” he joked, “if you want to try to pick any of them up, just let me know and I’ll make it happen.” Dan looked around at the few sapiens in the bar, and was completely unimpressed by the selection. “Sandy’s looking better and better. How old is she, anyway?” “Late twenties, early thirties,” Bo guessed. “With plastic surgery the way it is these days, who can tell? Why?” he asked, giving Dan a look, “Are you interested?” Dan rolled his eyes. “Just don’t do me any favors, okay?” The varius laughed and repeated his question. “So what about it, Pinks? Was there ever a point where you think you could have gone right instead of left?” “I don’t know,” Dan said, not wanting to get into a conversation like that at the beginning of what was turning into a damned good evening, “I don’t give it much thought.” Bo wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily. “Oh, please. That’s a load of shit. You have an opinion on everything.” “Okay, fine,” Dan said, laughing despite his trepidation. “I do have an opinion. Not on myself in particular, but on people in general.” He took a sip of his beer, then played with the label for a moment while he organized his thoughts. “There’s three billion people in the world, and I think we’re all different, and we’re all the same. I think there are some things you can change about yourself, and there are others that are set in stone, if not from birth, then at least from a very early age. Regardless, you are who you are, and the important thing is to decide what kind of person you want to be. Once you know who you want to be, you spend your life living up to your own expectations.” “So are you saying that if someone wanted to be straight badly enough, they could be?” Bo asked. “I’m saying they could act straight if they wanted it badly enough, but they’d never be straight,” Dan clarified. “The feelings inside a man can be repressed, but they won’t be denied. They’re the framework that you build your character around. The framework doesn’t make a person good or bad, it’s your character that does that.” “I can change what I do, but not who I am?” “Right,” Dan said, toying with one of the empty bottles, “it’s not a choice. If I could choose, I’d make myself straight in a heartbeat. It would make life a hell of a lot easier for me, you know.” After a moment, he continued, “I’ve known more than a few guys who wanted to be straight so badly that they got married and had kids. They all thought that if they just lived the life, they’d stop wanting to be with another guy.” Dan took a deep pull on his beer bottle, savoring the rich taste. “Every single one of them decided they weren’t happy and eventually came out of the closet, but by trying to be someone they weren’t, they ended up messing up their own lives and everyone else’s in the process.” Bo hadn’t said much, so Dan asked, “What do you think?” Bo raised his voice to carry over the din of the crowd. “The way I see it, a man is in control of who he is. If he isn’t happy with what he is, he can change. That’s what separates us from animals.” “I thought it was the use of cutlery?” Dan suggested, dryly. “Close,” Bo inclined his head, “but no. We have the ability to control our impulses.” “Sure, you can control your actions, but that doesn’t change who you are inside,” Dan said. “A man is what he does,” Bo retorted. “You’re not a slave to your baser instincts.” “So tell me about some basic biological drive that you used to have, that you’ve changed,” Dan challenged. “Are you telling me that homosexuality is a biological drive?” Bo asked. Dan considered for a moment while he stuffed his mouth with one of the nachos that had mysteriously appeared on their table. “The instinct to bond with another person is,” he said, when his mouth was clear, “and the desire to sexually mate is, too. It’s the same drive straight men have, it’s just pointed in a different direction.” Dan had no idea why he was the slightest bit hungry after downing even half of a Monster Platter just an hour earlier, but something about the nachos made eating them a necessity to his happiness. “What is up with these things?” he asked, dipping the tip of a loaded chip into the mound of snow-white sour cream. “They’re off the chart.” “I know.” Bo said, nodding his head in agreement. “Sandy makes them. And I know what she does to make them so tasty.” He looked around them to make certain there were no industrial spies within earshot. “The secret ingredient,” he said, leaning over the table and lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “is salt.” Dan widened his eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding.” “Shh!” Bo said, with a smirk on his face that suggested how much he loved to be stupid around someone without being concerned about what anyone might think. “Not so loud! If word gets out, everyone will be using it.” Digging one out of the center of the plate, where the toppings were thickest, he asked, “Have you ever tried dating a woman? If you did, you might like it.” “Have you ever tried dating a man?” Dan rebutted, one eyebrow raised. “If you did—” “Yeah, yeah, okay,” Bo interrupted before Dan could finish, chip halfway to his mouth. “Point taken.” “Put a jalapeño on that,” Dan suggested, “it’ll taste even better. Is the point of all this that I could be straight if I wanted to be?” Dan felt a little annoyed that they were still covering ground that people should have resolved centuries ago. “I’m saying that if you wanted to badly enough, and acted the role long enough, you might eventually find yourself acclimatized to it.” Bo extended a foreclaw and, per Dan’s suggestion, hooked a pepper ring out of the bowl. “Might?” “Might. Sometimes core values are too deeply ingrained to be changed.” Dan laughed. “It sounds like you’re arguing both sides.” “Maybe I am,” Bo said. “Both sides have merit.” “You never answered my question,” Dan pointed out. “Have you ever been able to change a strong biological drive in yourself?” “No,” Bo said, “I’ve never had anything that needed changing.” He looked at Dan with a look of smug satisfaction plastered all over his muzzle. “I’m just about perfect, just like I am.” Dan rolled his eyes and laughed, enjoying the lighthearted banter, and was completely steamrolled by Bo’s next comment. “So now that you’re not seeing Jim any more, you should try to get back together with Blaine.” “What the fuck?” Dan hadn’t meant to actually say the words, but he heard their echoes and saw the change they caused in Bo’s eyes, so he was pretty sure they actually came out. “Look, I’m sorry, Bo,” he said, gathering his wits, “I’m just not ready to…” He trailed off, exasperated. “Where did that come from?” Dan was about to say that he wasn’t ready to talk about that right then, but was that true? He decided that no, it wasn’t, so instead he asked, “Why the hell would I want to do that?” Bo chuffed one of his short, barking laughs. “Because you still love him, stupid.” “No,” Dan corrected him, “I’m…” he remembered where they were and lowered his voice. Even though Bo had assured him it was okay to be himself in here, discussing this sort of thing out loud still made him uncomfortable. “I’m in love with him. It’s different. Really different.” Bo shrugged. “Semantics.” “Yes, it’s semantics,” Dan said, heatedly, “The meaning behind the words makes all the difference here. ‘In love’ is when you’d kill for someone. ‘Love’ is when you’d die for them.” “I’m not going to argue with you, Dan.” Bo took a salted peanut out of the shallow dish that sat between them, carefully placed it on the table, and with a flick so casual that it almost looked gentle, sent it rocketing into Dan’s chest, where it impacted with surprisingly painful force. “Call it what you will, your history with Blaine is a hairball in your plumbing that you’re going to have to cough out before you can get past it.” Dan opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. He didn’t exactly slam his beer bottle down on the table, but he didn’t put it down gently, either. The sound drew the attention of the other patrons, and although conversation around them didn’t stop, it did quiet by a few decibels. Bo held Dan’s stare, but didn’t act as if anything the sapiens had done was out of the ordinary, given their location. Dan finally sighed deeply and grumbled deep in his chest, annoyed that he didn’t have anything to push against. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it certainly wasn’t wrong. Bo leaned forward on the table to close some of the distance between them, and his expression softened. “Look, Dan, I’m going to make you an offer. I don’t want you to give me an answer on this right now, but I want you to promise me you’ll think about it, okay?” When Dan nodded his head in agreement, Bo continued. “Let me talk to Blaine for you. Sometimes things like this are too close to home for you to do it by yourself. Sometimes they hurt too much.” Dan opened his mouth, but Bo shut it with a raised hand and a stern look. “I told you, don’t answer me right now. Think about it.” He lowered his hand when Dan stayed silent, but his stare was inescapable. “Why wouldn’t you want to talk to him?” Bo asked. “Why not get this all resolved?” “Bo,” Dan shook his head doubtfully, “I don’t know…” He trailed off, staring at his beer as if it might hold the answers he needed. “After Blaine and I split, I went a little crazy. I knew that I’d made a huge mistake, and for a couple of months I kept calling him, trying to patch things up. On the rare occasion that he picked up his comm. we’d have a decent conversation, but nothing ever seemed to get resolved. “The instant we hung up, it was right back to where it was before I made the call. I always had the feeling that he was just on the other side of coming back home, that if I could just find the right words to make him understand how much I love him, we could be together again.” Dan tried shooting a peanut at Bo the way the varius had done at him, but his finger was too far away when he flicked it, and all he did was hurt his fingernail. “We even got so far as agreeing to have dinner somewhere to talk, but before we ever set a date, he stopped answering his comm.” “So you’re embarrassed by how you acted?” Bo guessed. Dan sighed. “It’s not that simple.” He knew why he didn’t want to call Blaine, he just had a hard time admitting it. Hearing the words out loud, even from his own mouth, was going to hurt like hell, but he finally couldn’t put it off any longer. “I think if I ask him to talk this out, the answer will probably be no. As long as I don’t call him, I can pretend the answer might be yes.” “Why would he say no? Why wouldn’t he want to get this straightened out?” Bo flicked another peanut at Dan, who winced at the impact. He was reaching for another one when a huge, black-furred hand came out of nowhere and snatched the bowl away. “Stop wasting my food.” Sam grumped away with the nearly empty peanut bowl, leaving Bo and Dan to stare sheepishly at one another like disobedient children who’d been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Before Sam and their peanuts were even back at the bar, Sandy took pity on them and covertly slid them another bowl of snacks, this one full of the seasoned matchstick pretzels that Dan could have stuffed himself with. She gave them a sympathetic grin, then went about her business, leaving Dan to answer Bo’s question. “You think I’m stubborn?” He asked, one eyebrow raised. “Blaine makes me look agreeable. If he thinks he’s right, and he always does, he’ll fight you tooth and nail to get his point across. And if he knows he’s wrong, it’s even worse.” “You’re a perfect match, then,” Bo chided. Looking over his shoulder to make sure that Sam was safely occupied with a customer at the bar, he pulled a pretzel out of the bowl, stuck half of it in his mouth, and chewed it while flicking the other half at Dan. His mischievous grin was blown off his face when a towel flicked out of nowhere and snapped the corner of his ear. “Ow!” He whirled, fists balled to punch out whoever did that to him, and immediately deflated when he saw that it was Sam, standing a meter away and twirling a bar towel between his beefy hands. “I told you to stop wasting food.” “Yes, sir,” Bo said, rubbing his ear. He looked at Dan reproachfully. “Why didn’t you tell me he was there?” “Because he’s a good boy, he listens to his elders,” Sam answered for him. “You should be more like him.” “Is it bleeding?” Bo asked, pinching the corner of his ear between the folds of a paper napkin. “I think it’s bleeding.” He looked at the napkin hesitantly, as if expecting to see blood stains from a traumatic head wound, but it came back clean. “Why don’t you just use a damned bullwhip next time,” Bo complained. “Stop being such a crybaby,” Sam chided. “You can pick your teeth up off the floor and shove them back into your head after a fight, but you can’t take a stupid little flick with a towel?” His words were granite, but the look in his eyes was more like warm pudding. Moving behind Bo’s chair, he put one big arm around the morph’s neck and pulled him into a fatherly hug, his cheek resting on top of Bo’s head. “I’m sorry I hurt your ear, Bo. You okay?” “It’s all right,” Bo said, quietly, pulling his hand away from his ear and patting the bartender’s arm. His ear still stung like mad, but he wasn’t about to dwell on it if it was making Sam feel bad. And the man obviously felt sorry for what he’d done, so Bo just let it go. Dan, watching quietly from the other side of the small table, was really starting to take a shine to Sam. Anyone who loved Bo as much as he obviously did had to be good people, in Dan’s book. It wasn’t much longer before their table had amassed a considerable number and variety of beer bottles. Every time either man’s drink ran low, it was discreetly replaced with a fresh one, sometimes of the same type, sometimes of another. Regardless what was placed in front of them, it fit the mood of their conversation. Since Dan wasn’t paying for the food or the drink, he felt justified in lining Sandy’s pockets with his effusive tips. “I know Sam said not to worry about it,” Dan said, “but I feel like a jerk, not paying him for all this.” “Don’t worry about it, Dan,” the varius said. Seeing the disobedient look in Dan’s eyes, he advised, “No, seriously. Don’t worry about it. If you did something stupid like try to force money on him, it would cause trouble. Trust me,” he said, finishing off the dregs of one beer before picking up the fresh bottle that neither of them had seen being placed there, “if Sam wants you to pay, you’ll pay. “Besides,” he said, gesturing towards the bottles on the table, “he’s the one picking out the drinks, right? He wouldn’t be sending us top shelf beer if he thought you were sponging off him, he’d be sending us that nasty fruit-flavored crap in the basement he’s been trying to get rid of. When I dented his car, he made me drink that shit for a month. Don’t ask me why,” he said, in disbelief, “but I think he likes you.” “Of course not,” Dan said, “I’m an amazing guy.” When Bo didn’t seem inclined to jump on his self-serving bandwagon, Dan added, with a grin of smug satisfaction, “You should be more like me, you know.” Bo was about to set Dan straight when a large sapiens male staggered against their table. Obviously well into his cups, the man grabbed onto the table for support as he leveraged himself into a chair. He leaned his stubbly, dirty face towards Bo and examined him as one might look at a particularly interesting bug. “Well, well, well,” he crooned, “what have we here?” The man’s breath was foul, and Bo leaned back in a vain effort to escape the smell. “You’re new here,” he said, eyeing him warily, “I haven’t seen you around.” “Just flew in on the last freighter. I like this place,” the man said, looking around as he spoke. “I think I might stick around.” Although Bo remained silent, Dan could see his hackles rising. “What’s a nice little puppy like you doing in a place like this?” the drunk asked solicitously. Tongue loosened by the drinks and the atmosphere, Dan decided to flex his sidekick muscles. The expression on his face was friendly, but he stared straight into the man’s rheumy eyes. “I think it’s time you went back to your drink, friend.” “Friend?” the man mocked, turning his attention to Dan, “Do I know you?” “You seem to think you do,” Dan retorted, the smile still firmly on his face. “Did I ask for your opinion, buddy?” His unfocused gaze slid back to Bo. “I’m talking to furry boy, here.” Dan started to say more, but Bo put a restraining hand on his arm. “Don’t.” He stared at the drunken man with an almost eerie calm, with that sense of composure that only comes from someone who is holding all the cards, and knows it. It made the drunk shift in his seat uncomfortably, but wasn’t enough to make him leave their table. The only outward clue to Bo’s anger was the tip of one canine poking out beneath a slightly curled lip. In a tone of voice that was reason itself, Bo spoke quietly to the stranger. “My friend and I were quietly enjoying our drinks, and we didn’t want to be rude by turning you away when you came over here. Mister Blocker has even addressed you as a friend. And in return,” he said, sounding disappointed,”you’ve disrespected us.” Dan was spellbound. Although Bo’s words were completely rational and eminently polite, his tone conveyed a completely different message. It sent a chill down Dan’s spine, and made him remember that even though he’d chosen to tame himself somewhat for Dan’s benefit, Bo remained a very dangerous man. “All we ask from you is the small courtesy of your respect, the same respect we’ve given to you and the other folks in here. Now my friend and I are going to offer you one last courtesy, and a bit of friendly advice. Take your drink back to the bar, and strike up a conversation with some nice lady.” Bo put his hand on the man’s shoulder and gave a gentle but firm squeeze. “Thank you for stopping by to say hello.” The man took Bo’s proffered hand, shook it limply, then took Dan’s hand in turn. Turning on his heel, he ignored the bar and made a hasty beeline for the front door. Dan looked at Bo with new respect. “Remind me never to piss you off. Where did you learn to not blink your eyes like that, anyway?” “I taught myself to do that when I was a little kid, “ Bo said, and Dan had to chuckle at the thought of a little Bo standing in front of the bathroom mirror holding his eyelids open. “Well I guess that skill came in handy today, didn’t it?” “This place can be a lot of fun,” Bo said, continuing the conversation they were having before the drunken stranger interrupted them, “but you can get your head ripped off if you don’t know the rules.” “So how did you learn the rules?” Dan asked. “Back when I was staying with my dad, he’d let me tag along when he tended bar. He worked at a couple of different places, and ended up working here for a while before he started doing off-planet construction. The way I remember it he’d get into three or four fights a week. He was really pretty good at talking people down, but there are some guys who just won’t listen to reason.” Dan nodded and took a pull on his beer. “You know, sometimes it almost sounds like you enjoy beating the ever-loving snot out of someone.” Bo looked taken aback. “Do I really sound like that?” “Sometimes.” Dan acknowledged. “If you don’t like doing it, why do you keep going places where that sort of thing happens?” Bo was silent for a moment as he mulled the question over. He drained the last of his beer and set the empty bottle down on the table with a solid thunk. Catching Sandy’s eye, he signaled for another one. “Maybe it’s just because this is what I know. Or maybe it helps me feel like I’m tougher than I really am.” “That’s pretty deep,” Dan said. “Most guys wouldn’t admit something like that.” Sandy came back to them bearing not just a pair of beers, but two jumbo-sized tequila shooters to go with them. “Here ya go, boys!” she shouted over the crowd, smiling all the while. “Time to ramp it up!” Bo grinned and hoisted his shot glass in a salute. “Well then, here’s to not being ‘most guys.’” Dan’s glass collided with Bo’s, and when some of the tequila slopped out and onto the table, he realized that he was more than a little tipsy. Oh, what the hell, he thought, why not? He was certainly safe enough in Bo’s company. Even though Sam’s was the roughest tavern he’d ever been in by a considerable margin, he could let his hair down a little. And with that thought in mind, Dan began knocking his drinks back with regularity. Later he would remember little of their evening together past that point, but what he could recall was happy and fun. He remembered pool games and darts, good beer and new friends; and he remembered in the wee hours of the morning, his friend gently taking his keys from him and leading him to the car. He remembered a warm, furry arm, heavy on his shoulders, steering him out the door and around obstacles in the parking lot. He remembered being tucked into his own passenger seat as Bo drove them back to his apartment on auto-pilot. He remembered the big varius practically carrying him up the stairs, laying him gently on the couch, taking off his shoes and tucking him under a warm blanket like a parent might a sleepy child. And if he concentrated hard enough, he could almost remember his friend pulling up a chair and sitting by the couch, watching over him protectively until he drifted off to sleep. Chapter 14a Dan worked his way through the halls of his school, calling out greetings to his friends as they passed. He’d had a great winter vacation and was actually looking forward to the spring term. Things would be different now. He was single and had learned to be happy that way. Life with Blaine had been great, but after working his way through a few months of depression, he finally felt like he might be ready to start life anew. It didn’t hurt any that he’d gone a full month without seeing his ex every day. Separating from someone while living in such close proximity to them was difficult, and spending an entire month away from his ex had given Dan the space he’d needed to heal. Turning the corner into the common room, Dan stopped dead in his tracks. There, sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor, a screwdriver in one hand and some odd piece of machinery in the other, sat the man he suddenly still loved. Their eyes locked, and Dan felt a hard-hitting rush of affection for the man. No matter how much pain their separation had caused him, nothing would ever change the fact that he loved Blaine. Dan would rather have said nothing, and simply walked right by as if the other man didn’t exist, but for some reason he felt compelled to stop and speak. “Hey.” “Hey yourself,” Blaine replied, uncertainly. Something in his tone and in his look told Dan that his affection wasn’t one-sided, and hope bloomed in his heart. Dan had become so used to having Blaine in his life that doing without him had felt like cutting his arm off. The sudden cessation of their epic nightly conversations had left a void in Dan’s life that had proved difficult to fill, and Dan missed them immensely. Hearing even these two words from Blaine filled him with hope that maybe they could renew their relationship, if not their romance, and his heart swelled. Standing closer to his soulmate, Dan leaned one leg against him and gently pushed against the warm, muscular shoulder, toppling a smiling Blaine over onto his side. At that instant, Dan knew without a doubt that this thing was going to happen. He knew with the certainty that day follows night that they would once again be together, and his world would be upright again. He would again feel Blaine’s body snuggling close to his beneath the covers at night, and he would revel in the joy of holding his mate close and smelling his wonderful, unique scent. At long last, things would be right in his world again, and he would be truly healed. The ringing of his alarm clock was a sledgehammer to Dan’s gut, crushing the hopes he hated himself for having and the dreams he didn’t want. In spite of his pain, Dan knew that he was indeed healing, for this morning he didn’t try to go back to sleep in a desperate bid to sink back into the soft warmth of that dream world. He didn’t curse, or throw the clock across the room to put a dent in the wall matching the one he’d put there when this happened a week ago. He thought about doing all those things, but chose instead to face reality and drag himself out of bed, starting this day like he did any other, by splashing his face with hot water, lathering up, and shaving. The season for juvenile tantrums had passed, and now it was time to act like an adult. As he dragged the razor over his cheeks, Dan thought about the dream and what it meant. He knew perfectly well what was happening. He’d taken enough psychology courses in college that he could have written a fascinating paper on what was going on inside his mind. His subconscious was yammering for him to go find Blaine and hit him over the head with a club, then grab him by the hair and drag him back home. These dreams hadn’t returned when he’d separated from Jim because he’d been fixated on Bo at the time, secretly hoping that something would happen between them – that the varius would express his non-existent, latent homosexual tendencies and choose Dan as his mate. Once his subconscious had finally accepted that Bo didn’t have any homosexual tendencies to express, it went back to what it was familiar with: obsessing over Blaine. Dan lifted his chin and carefully shaved around his throat. Understanding his mind’s behavior didn’t make the dreams any easier to stomach. And damn it, a spot of blood was emerging under his right ear, where he’d nicked himself.

---

“Spot!” Bo said, knocking Dan out of his reverie. “I’m here,” Dan said, his voice raised in annoyance. “You don’t have to fucking yell at me.” Instead of yelling back, Bo let go of the bar and sat up on the bench. “What the hell is up with you today?” He struggled to keep irritation out of his voice. “You’ve been pissy all day long, and it’s getting old.” Dan started to shoot back a smart-assed reply, but he bit it off. Bo was trying to help, and he was right. Instead of calming him down and making him feel better, pushing iron in the gym that morning had only made him that much more aggressive. He was ready to chew nails and spit screws, but it shouldn’t be at Bo. Sweat streamed down the sides of his face as he stared off into the distance, wondering how much he could burden his friend with. Bo didn’t give him the chance to decide. Standing, he put a skillet-sized hand in the middle of Dan’s back and pushed him towards the door with a single word, “Outside.” Dan turned to protest, but Bo interrupted him. “You can lift all you want today, but it’s not going to do you any good. You’re so distracted you’re gonna drop the bar on my head and not even notice.” He raised his eyebrows fractionally to defuse Dan’s retort before it began. “Trust me?” Dan sighed quietly and walked out the door. At least he’s not in a huff, Bo thought, thankfully. Dan was impossible to deal with when he got that way. The heat of the autumn air wasn’t what Dan would have called refreshing, but at least there was a small breeze that attempted to dry the sweat on his body. The two men walked slowly out to the parking lot, doing their best to avoid the cars that were passing through. “So what’s going on?” Bo said, then waited patiently for Dan to gather his thoughts. Dan shook his head, feeling angry and sad and frustrated all at once. “I’ve been having those dreams again,” he said, finally. “Dreams about Blaine. Dan hadn’t ever thought to wonder whether varii dreamed like sapiens do, but his mention of the dreams had caused such a distinct change behind Bo’s eyes that he suspected that they must. “I know how to handle it when I see things that remind me of him. I can stay busy to distract myself so I don’t spend all day thinking about how much I miss him, but I’ve gotta sleep sometime, and when I do I keep dreaming about us getting back together. I can’t stop it, and it’s really pissing me off.” “Let me recap this,” Bo said, his voice now far less brusque. “Blaine wasn’t giving you what you felt you needed, so you gave him his walking papers and started seeing Jim. Now you regret your decision, and you want Blaine back.” “Pretty much, yeah,” . The silence between the men lasted long enough that Dan wondered if Bo had finally had his fill of Dan’s internal drama and was about to walk away. “It doesn’t work that way.” Bo said gently. “No matter how hard you try, you can’t make someone love you back.” Despite Bo’s light tone, the pain of loss and regret was obvious in his eyes. His mother? Dan wondered, Or one of the other women in his life? Bo didn’t volunteer, and Dan was too polite to ask. It didn’t matter, really. Bo’s pain was authentic, his advice was sincere, and Dan would be foolish to ignore it. “But why?” Dan asked. “Why does that have to be so impossible? Why can’t it work that way just once?” He loathed the whiny quality his voice was adopting, and he consciously reined in the needy part of himself. He hated admitting that this unattractive aspect of his personality even existed, and he sure as hell didn’t want Bo to see it. “If I still feel this way, maybe he does too.” “He knows your number, Dan. Has he called?” Ruefully, Dan shook his head. “Three years ago you had all of the ‘Blaine’ he could give you and it wasn’t enough to make you happy.” Bo said, stopping in the middle of the driveway and nearly getting run over in the process. He pulled Dan off to the grassy area at the side of the building and continued. “Blaine is the same man he was three years ago, Dan. Men. Don’t. Change.” he said, expressively. “Even if he wanted to get back together, if you opened your life and your heart to him again, what rational train of thought stops at a station where things would be different this time?” The gentleness of his voice took the sting out of his words, but did nothing to diminish their truth. “From what you tell me, you were the one who did all the compromising the first time around. You got tired of denying your own security and happiness so he could avoid his issues, right?” Dan had to agree, and he nodded his head mutely. “And now you think you’d be willing to give up even more in order to get him back into your life? Do you really think you could do that, and still be happy?” Dan paced back and forth, then started walking around the building. He felt he had to move before his head exploded. Bo remained by his side, but said no more. He knew he’d made his point, and further discussion on the subject would just be beating a dead horse. The two men made the trip around the building twice before Dan spoke again, but Bo didn’t mind the delay in their workout. The gym wasn’t going anyplace. “So I guess it’s pointless to worry about what I could have done different, huh?” “It’s an anchor dragging you down, buddy,” Bo said. “You’re gonna have to let it go.” “Easier said than done,” Dan replied, but all of the heat had burned itself from his voice, leaving in its wake the dull ache that was his constant companion. “Yeah, I know.” Bo wrapped one beefy hand almost all the way around Dan’s biceps and pulled him into a bear hug. “I know.”

---

Dan looked at Bo suspiciously, but he accepted the beer that was handed to him. “You’ve been in a weird mood today, grinning like the Cheshire cat for no good reason. I’ve been trying to wait you out, but you’re all clammed up.” Dan squinted at him suspiciously. “Did you find yourself a girlfriend, or something?” “No,” Bo chuckled, “no girlfriend.” He favored Dan with a guileless smile that reminded Dan of a small child who hadn’t yet been ruined by the vicious realities of life. “Better.” His deep brown eyes were bright with excitement, and when Dan looked into them his breath caught in his throat. For an instant the world fell away, and for that microscopic slice of time, Bo was his universe. The comfort that surrounded him was complete, and he allowed his mind to drift. With a mental start, reality snapped back into focus and Dan realized how far away his mind had wandered. The varius’ just asked him a question, and Dan had no idea what he’d been saying. He blinked, hoping that the varius hadn’t noticed his lapse in attention. Bo wasn’t acting any differently, so maybe it hadn’t been that bad. Dan muttered what he hoped was a suitably generic reply. “Uh, yeah. Sure.” Bo broke into a happy smile, bounded over to the coat closet and threw open the door, digging with unusual enthusiasm through piles of unused stuff. Oh, crap, Dan thought, what did I just volunteer myself for? His anxiety grew when he watched Bo’s back stiffen. He’d found either a dead rat in the back corner, or whatever it was he’d been looking for. To Dan’s considerable relief, when Bo turned to face him, he was holding nothing more alarming than an old speeder helmet. “This is my spare.” He started to hand it over, then pulled it back and cautiously sniffed inside it. After a moment he shrugged and handed it to Dan, who took it in the way one might accept a live frog from a happy five year old. Dan followed Bo down the apartment steps to the parking lot, catching up to the varius as he was pulling his own helmet out of the speeder’s storage locker. He watched Bo pull the helmet over his head, angling it over his ears and securing it with several thickly padded straps. Dan tried to imitate the varius, but it was painfully obvious to Bo that he didn’t have the slightest idea what he was doing. Bo reached up and gently swatted Dan’s hands away from the webbing, the physical contact startling Dan into submission. The varius quickly fastened the straps and adjusted them for Dan’s smaller head, then pushed a concealed button on the back of the helmet. Dan heard a click, and a moment later he felt the helmet’s metamaterial shift as it conformed to the contours of his skull. Bo pointed to a red button on the side of his own helmet. Dan reached up on his own and felt a slightly raised blister on the plastic skin. Pushing it firmly caused a soft beep that was heard through the plastic and padding, and he suddenly heard Bo’s voice as clearly as if they were both just standing there talking. “–ing…testing… You hear me now?” Dan nodded his understanding, then realized that Bo was waiting for his own mike check. “Yeah, I do!” The clarity of the sound was far better than Dan would have expected. “These things work pretty well.” “Stay still,” Bo said, grabbing Dan’s helmet. He pulled it back and forth a few times to make sure it was tight, eliciting a series of pained grunts from his victim. “Ow!” Dan complained, “Are you trying to rip my head off, or something?” Satisfied, Bo gave Dan a playful thump on the head and jumped astride his scooter. “You ever been on one of these things?” “Nope.” Dan replied, “I’ve always thought they looked like fun, but none of my friends ever had one for me to ride. I guess our mommies were just too protective.” “Well, don’t tell your mamma, but you’re gonna ride one today. Put your left foot there,” he flipped down a footrest on the left side of the speeder, “and swing your right leg over the rear like you’re getting on a horse.” “If my momma wouldn’t even let me ride a motorcycle, there’s no way in hell she was going to let me have a horse.” Dan said, but he swung himself onto the seat with ease, nestling up against Bo’s broad, muscular back. “I thought this thing was just about ready for the scrap heap.” “Naw, she’s still got a lot of life left in her. A buddy owed me a favor, so he fixed her for free. Now, just hang on and don’t try to lean to either side at first. Follow my lead, and you’ll do just fine.” Dan nodded in agreement, then realized that Bo couldn’t see him. “Uh…okay.” Bo fired up the scooter’s motor, and the thrum of power vibrated up through the seat. They sat unmoving for a moment before Bo spoke. “Dan? Did you hear what I told you?” “Yeah?” Dan said, uncertainly. “Hang on?” Dan realized that his hands were resting on top of his thighs. “Oh, uh…” Holy shit – what to do? Putting his arms around the varius’ waist would place his hands dangerously close to Bo’s junk. What if he got too relaxed and forgot what he was doing? What if his hand fell down and brushed against Bo’s crotch? And almost as bad, what would happen if all that togetherness gave Dan a raging boner? Would Bo feel it pressed up against his backside? Oh, God! The thought of it happening really was giving him a boner! “Look,” Bo’s no-nonsense tone came through the speakers in Dan’s helmet loud and clear, “this ain’t a car and it doesn’t have seat belts. Nobody’s going to think you’re a sissy. You boost a ride from your buddy, you hang on. You ain’t giving me a hug, you’re holding on for dear life. Got it?” Dan hesitantly put his hands on either side of Bo’s waist, eliciting an exasperated sigh. “Stop trying to tickle me, damn it. Hold on!” Reaching to either side, Bo grabbed Dan’s wrists and pulled his arms tight around his waist. “Stop being so fucking shy.” Dan tightened his hold. “Good,” Bo said, in response. “When you get used to what’s going on you can ease up a bit, but for right now hold on tight. If you fall off, my insurance rates are going to go through the roof.” Dan raised an eyebrow at the friendly jibe, gently bouncing his helmet off of Bo’s in retort. Bo chuckled and fed minimal power to the thrusters, causing a slight sideways motion signaling their severance from earthly bonds. Dan gave Bo’s belly an encouraging squeeze, and they smoothly rose into the air. Dan likened the feeling to being in a large building’s lifter tubes; eerily smooth, with the sensation of building weight as their speed increased. When they were a couple of meters off the ground, Bo fed power to the drive motors and they shot off. Smooth though it was, the effect was still thrilling to Dan, who felt that at any minute he might be flung off the speeder to his certain death. Unconsciously he tightened his grip on Bo, producing a grunt as the air was forced out of Bo’s lungs. “Not quite so hard there, Chief.” Bo leaned harder and harder against the gyroscopic forces keeping the bike under control, encouraging Dan to scoot forwards in the seat and plaster himself against Bo’s back and thighs. “Good!” Bo commended him. “Feel what my body does when I’m turning, and gently shift your weight when you feel me moving.” Underneath him, Dan felt Bo’s bulk move slightly to the right as he executed a sweeping turn, and Dan followed suit. Then Bo went left, and Dan shifted a portion of his weight to compensate. It was, Dan thought, very much like dancing. All he had to do to look good was trust Bo’s lead and enjoy the ride. Bo began making progressively tighter turns, praising Dan for keeping up with him. After a few kilometers they were out of the height restriction zone and Bo increased power to the thrusters, sending them swooping dozens of meters into the air. Dan relaxed his grip a bit, but still clung to his friend like a limpet. When Bo made a series of gently rolling turns and dips to get Dan used to the sensation, Dan couldn’t keep himself from laughing in childlike glee. “Oh, man,” he whooped, “this is great! This is just like riding a giant roller coaster, only better!” Dan was definitely in his “happy place,” holding onto a warm, hunky man as they flew through the sky. The air cooled as they gained altitude, and the falling temperatures of the autumn evening were chilling Dan’s fingers. Bo’s hands had to stay on the speeder’s handlebars, so Dan knew that the pockets of his jacket would be vacant. Bo had told him not to be shy, so he moved his hands into the warm pockets on either side, carefully working his fingers around bits of rubbish Bo had stuffed in there, and decisively claiming the warm space as his own. The thrum of the powerful engine underneath him and the warmth of Bo’s back were hypnotic, and after a few minutes Dan finally allowed himself to relax and stop trying to force reality to conform to the ill-fitting box he’d constructed for it. He was tired of playing this incessant game. Bo would have had to be an idiot to miss the fact that Dan loved him, and if there was one thing Bo wasn’t, it was an idiot. By this point Dan was certain that Bo must know of his feelings, yet he hadn’t been rejected. The varius might not be able to return Dan’s interest in a romantic way, but by doing things like inviting him to hang out at his favorite bar or share a ride on his speeder, Dan felt his affection. Bo hadn’t asked any of his friends from the gym to go with him, he hadn’t asked any of their co-workers from Magnum, and he hadn’t asked some girl he wanted to impress. He’d asked Dan, and that felt pretty damned good. If that was what Bo could give in exchange for Dan’s love, he would accept it with thanks and never ask for more. Dan felt another of the barriers between them crumble to dust. If the morph could trust him not to do anything stupid while they were in a compromising position like this, maybe Dan could trust Bo – and himself – enough to relax and enjoy the ride. The sensations were very, very pleasant, like dancing with the world’s biggest and most wonderful teddy bear. “This is great, Bo,” Dan called out, “I love it! Thank you!” Bo had been a true friend to him, accepting him as he was and encouraging him to be a better person without ever asking him to change. On impulse, Dan gave Bo a hug of gratitude before settling back down. Snuggling up against the huge wall of the varius’ back, Dan turned his helmet sideways and rested it on the canine’s burly shoulder. Dan was certain that his contented sigh wasn’t audible over the rushing winds, but through the speakers built into his helmet, Bo heard it loud and clear. The morph smiled his toothsome, canine smile and turned the bike back towards home, but via the longer, scenic route. He was happy that Dan had agreed to be his first passenger, but when they’d first lifted off the ground the sapiens had been so mechanically tense that for the first few minutes, Bo would have sworn that a robotic mannequin had clamped on to him from behind. It was so unpleasant that he’d been tempted to turn the bike around and take them home sooner than planned, but Dan had finally crossed whatever mental boundary was holding him back and relaxed. After burrowing his hands into the pockets of Bo’s jacket, Dan had settled himself against Bo’s back, sharing his welcome heat as it leached between their clothing and warmed them both. Bo couldn’t help smiling when he heard Dan’s contented sigh over the comm system. At last, the big morph thought, steering the bike gently back and forth in a subtle rocking motion, Dan Blocker finally gave himself permission to relax. Mission accomplished! Dan’s happy mood was contagious, and Bo responded in kind. Dan had thought about his hands accidentally migrating downwards and coming in contact with Bo’s junk, he’d worried whether the vibration of the bike would give him an erection, and he’d fretted over whether holding the meaty varius so close would send him into an uncontrollable storm of lust that saw him madly dry-humping Bo’s back a hundred meters in the air. In spite of all his worries though, what made beads of sweat pop out on Dan’s forehead wasn’t anything he’d anticipated. It was Bo’s tail. Thrumming happily back and forth, Bo’s stubby little tail was unwittingly massaging Dan’s pubes, causing the poor man to have a thousand filthy thoughts that he would have gladly emptied his bank account to have avoided. Houston, we have lift-off. At quarter-mast, in a vain attempt to stop his soldier from saluting, Dan thought about the three hundred pound lesbian that had coached his high school PE class. At half-mast, he thought of abandoned kittens freezing in the rain, and all of the homeless puppies around the world that were going without food. At three-quarters, he broke out the big guns and pictured his parents having sex. With his lesbian PE teacher. Nothing was helping. Dan’s junk was rock hard, and it was pushing into Bo’s backside like a guided missile headed straight for a spaceship full of aliens. After it was far too late to do any good, Dan realized that the solution to his problem was obvious. “Hey, Bo?” “Yeah?” “Could you…uh… stop wagging your tail, please?” The rubbing immediately stopped, a fact for which Dan was immensely grateful and shamefully sorry. “Oh, hey, sorry,” came the reply, sounding as embarrassed as Dan felt. “Sometimes I forget that’s even back there.” Dan thought carefully before remarking, “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wag it.” “I’m not usually this happy,” Bo answered, then said, hesitatingly, “Sorry if it, uh… caused any…you know…problems…back there.” “It’s okay,” Dan assured him, “don’t worry about it.” He found that his own embarrassment wasn’t nearly so bad, now that Bo shared it with him. In fact, he felt sorry for Bo. Flying along with a gay man’s stiff cock shoved up against your ass couldn’t be much fun for him. “It’s not like you’re turning me on, or anything,” he lied, “It’s just biology.” And with that, Dan returned his head to its spot on Bo’s back, thankful his friend didn’t seem annoyed. Bo was too busy being annoyed with himself to be annoyed at Dan. When had he forgotten the most basic rule of manners? “Remember your tail!” It was lesson one for any pup – don’t swish it, don’t swing it, don’t wag it around, just keep it still and try not to knock anything over. With his small tail Bo had less to worry about than most, but he was still subject to the same polite rules. When Dan didn’t get angry at Bo’s thoughtlessness, the varius forgave himself for his small transgression and, within a dozen kilometers, was smiling again as he and his buddy swooped through the skies.

Chapter 14b With a groan, Dan realized that Guido had brought him the wrong pallet of material. It was an easy mistake to make - the unit numbers differed by a single digit, and from outside the protective wrapping they looked exactly the same. Climbing on to the spare fork truck, Dan returned the pallet back to the raw materials stock room at the back of the warehouse. He found the correct pallet half-buried under a unit whose restraining bands had broken. “No wonder he missed it,” Dan muttered to himself, as he climbed off the forklift and began cleaning up the mess. Thankfully, the metal blanks in the broken unit were easy to handle. The lightweight alloy blocks weren’t too heavy for Dan to pick up without needing the muscles of a morph. Even through his hearing protectors, the constant thrum of the plant’s machinery on the other side of the wall was one step shy of being painfully loud, and it wasn’t until movement caught his eye that Dan realized someone was approaching. Looking up, his heart skipped a beat. Bob had an evil look on his face, and Dan didn’t think that he’d bother smiling this time - he was all business. Glancing around them, Dan could see that not only was nobody else in the area, nobody was likely to be coming around anytime soon. Bob would have planned it that way, Dan realized. The panther morph had set up a trap just for him, and he’d been naïve enough to walk right into it. Bob walked up to where Dan crouched, shamelessly invading his personal space. Dan resisted the urge to flinch. There was no way in hell he would allow this feline piece of shit to make him cower. The panther morph raised his fist, and Dan realized he’d been wrong about one thing. In the dim light, he saw the hint of a cruel smile tease the corners of Bob’s feline face.

---

Bo ran the last of the hundred-kilo ingots through his machine and, with a deep sigh that was equal portions exhaustion and satisfaction, he turned to his water cooler. Taking a long, cool drink from his mug, he noted that his jug was almost empty. Dan usually kept everyone’s coolers full, but Bo had seen him feeding a machine of his own today. He must have been too busy to keep up with everyone’s water, Bo thought. He looked at the pile of work he’d already completed, then thumbed through the work orders with paws that looked too big for the task. He smiled with satisfaction when he realized he was ahead of schedule. Way ahead. He could certainly take a few minutes out to take care of his own water jug, he thought. Movement caught his eye on his way to the water tap, and he turned to see Dan driving a forklift into the raw materials stockpile. Bo was impressed. After a full day in the office getting his own work done, Dan didn’t have to be out here helping, but here he was. There were times when Bo wished he could emulate Dan’s attitude; he didn’t know that he’d be so ready to go help somebody else do their job after he’d worked his own for eight hours. Bo screwed the cap on the full jug of iced water and nestled it in the crook of his arm like a twenty-kilo football. Turning to walk back to his station, he saw Bob walking casually into the stock room. At first that meant little to Bo and he almost went right back to his machine, but after a moment’s thought he realized that unless they were doing inventory, nobody ever walked into that room. There wasn’t anything in there that could be moved without a forklift, and that meant that Bob wasn’t up to anything legitimate. Glancing over to the machine where Dan had been working, Bo saw that the operator’s station was empty, and the man hadn’t yet returned from whatever chore had taken him into the stock room. The varius tossed his water jug aside, not noticing when it burst under its own weight like a watermelon dropped onto a concrete floor. Waving his arms excitedly, Bo caught the attention of the regular forklift driver. Phil braked hard, bringing the fork truck to a stop a few meters away. “What’s up?” “I need to borrow that,” Bo said, muscling Phil out of his way as he clambered into the seat of the forklift. Ignoring the other man’s protests, he stomped an oversized work boot on the accelerator pedal and heard the engine whine as the machine lurched forwards. Bo had never been great at driving these things, and he almost hit a pole as he rounded the corner to the stock room. He flipped on the headlights in time to see Bob bending over Dan, fists balled and ready for a fight. Bo had spent enough time keeping order at Sam’s to know an aggressive stance when he saw one, and Bob’s was textbook. Although Dan wasn’t standing, he wasn’t cowering either. The expression on his face was defiant, and very angry. Bo wasn’t certain what he’d driven into the middle of, but he was going to stop it. He’d told Bob to keep his hands off of Dan, and it seemed that Bob hadn’t taken him seriously. Caught square in the forklift’s headlights, Bob’s demeanor instantly changed from aggressive to helpful. He bent and grabbed some of the material lying haphazardly around Dan, giving every appearance of helping to clean the mess but fooling no one. “Dan!” Bo raised his voice over the din of the machinery. “Boss man needs you back in the front office,” he said, smoothly. “You okay?” “Yeah, sure,” Dan said, getting up from his crouch on the floor and swatting the dust from his pant legs. “Get back up there, then,” Bo told him, jerking a thick thumb towards the office. His voice was calm, but his eyes never left the other varius. Dan walked back to his forklift on wobbly legs, climbing back into the seat like a man who’d just been thrown off a horse. Bo had told him to get out of there, but no matter how much he wanted to run like hell, Dan would not abandon his friend. “You coming?” he shouted, the adrenaline in his blood making his voice a bit shaky. “I’ll be there in a minute,” the varius said, hopping down from his forklift with athletic grace. “I’m going to help Bob clean up his mess.” He still didn’t look at Dan, his eyes locked onto a spot in the middle of Bob’s forehead like a sniper ranging in for a kill shot. Dan’s trust in Bo was absolute, but his understanding of the situation was incomplete. Did Bo really want him to leave, or was he actually expecting him to do something to intervene? Was he missing a subtext somewhere? God, he felt stupid! His conflict was rendered moot when Phil ran around the corner, scrambling to maintain his balance as the hard rubber soles of his work boots skidded across the dusty concrete floor. “Bo!” he shouted, nearly out of breath, “What the hell are you doing?” The expression on the three men’s faces stopped him in his tracks. Phil might not have been the smartest varius in the world, but he didn’t have to be to understand that what he’d interrupted wasn’t good. Bo was standing with one hand on the forklift he’d commandeered, staring at Bob with icy dispassion. Bob was, in turn, eyeing Dan with that peculiar, disgusted hatred that made Phil’s stomach churn every time he saw it. He’d seen what it was like for a pinky to be on the receiving end of one of Bob’s vendettas, and he felt pity for this man who was trying so hard to be accepted. Phil enjoyed hunting wild game, and the look in Dan’s eyes reminded him of a rabbit who wanted to bolt from its hiding place. But the sapiens’ body language said something else entirely, that he was in control of his fear and was ready to jump into whatever was brewing in this room, no matter what it cost him. Phil had to give the sapiens credit. Tail-raiser or not, the man obviously had guts. Bob straightened his back and tried his best to look innocent. He didn’t even know why he bothered toying with the little bare-skinned sack of shit in the first place. Pinkies weren’t ever worthy adversaries. They broke too easily to play with. He did know, however, that Bo was about to take him apart at the seams, and he didn’t waste the opportunity that Phil’s surprise entrance provided to escape. He thought that Bo was a self-righteous prick for interfering with his game, but he wasn’t a fool. Now wasn’t the time or the place to solve this. There would be time later for that. Bob knew that Bo could do nothing to him as long as there were witnesses. If someone saw him fighting inside the building, he’d lose his job, and a black mark would be put in his record that would follow him wherever he worked. The second Bob left this room, he’d be safe. Bo wouldn’t make the first move against him, even in retribution. Being a self-righteous moralist had its drawbacks, Bob smirked. He was not under such lofty, self-imposed restraints. Stalking past Phil, the feline radiated an arrogant confidence that compelled the eyes of the other three men to follow as he made his exit, dun-colored tail waving back and forth a little too casually to be authentic. He would take some time to let things settle before he acted again, to let them forget about what they’d denied him. And when he did act, there would be no witnesses, and he would win. Chapter 14c Fifteen more minutes, Dan thought, and this endless day will be over. After working in the office for eight hours he’d come out into the plant and worked four more on the laser press, and he couldn’t remember ever longing for a beer and a bed as much as he did now. With a tired sigh, he moved a pallet of steel plating into position at the press in preparation for tomorrow morning. It had been a long day and an even longer week, but he knew that the effort was worth it. The delivery bonus on this single huge order would buy end-of-year gifts for all of the worker’s families.

There was nothing waiting for him at home, so why not stay here? On Monday, Dan had gone straight home after work, crashing on the couch with a beer in one hand and the vid remote in the other. It only took five minutes of sitting alone in his empty house to show him that everything that mattered to him was still up at Magnum. He put his work clothes back on and flew back up to the plant, stopping by The Happy Shiny Burger Company to buy dinner for the other workers. Ever since then, he’d picked up odd jobs in the plant to keep himself occupied until everyone else went home.

On his way past Bo’s station, he looked over at the varius and was the recipient of a jaunty smile and a wave. Dan couldn’t help but feel uplifted by the morph’s unsinkable cheerfulness, and he waved back with his own grin in return. “Ten more minutes!” Bo called out to him, not missing a beat.

With Bo’s cheery message ringing in his ears, Dan belatedly remembered that he’d promised to go out for a beer with his friend after work today. He really didn’t feel like doing anything but going home and collapsing, but he supposed he’d feel better after a pint or two and a few minutes in the cool tavern air. Even though it was getting to be fairly late in the fall, the temperatures inside the plant were still higher than Dan found comfortable.

Pondering his absent-mindedness, Dan wondered whether his feelings for Bo might have reached some sort of plateau. If the morph hadn’t said anything, Dan would have completely forgotten that he’d promised to go to Sam’s with him after work. A part of Dan wanted to beg off and go home, to kick his shoes off and watch a movie on the vid, but the thought of the disappointed look that decision would put on Bo’s face made him abandon that idea completely. He could suck it up for his friend, he decided.

After dropping off the last pallet at the loading dock, Dan plugged his fork truck into its charging station and hurried inside the office. A quick trip through the employee shower before the crowd rushed in washed off the majority of the stink clinging to him, and he fervently hoped that a liberally applied deodorant stick would hide any lingering funk that he may have missed.

He turned off the water reclaimer just as the end of shift alert blared through the plant. Just in time he thought, pulling his shirt over his head and escaping through the far door as a dozen workers crowded into the room behind him. He’d gotten over most of his anxiety about showering with Bo at the gym, but something about being naked in front of the other plant workers still unsettled him. He felt uncomfortable around them as it was, and listening to Bob and his cronies crack wise over his nude body wasn’t on Dan’s short-list of things to do before he died.

Ten minutes later, Bo emerged from the locker room smelling far less offensive than he had when he’d walked in, with damp fur but undampened spirits. “Come on, buddy!” he called, “Time’s a wastin’!” The happy smile on the varius’ face told Dan that even though he had been dead tired, his choice to go out had been the right one.

Now that he’d had a chance to sit still for a few minutes and cool off, Dan found that he was feeling better. He put his computer in standby mode and got up from his desk, ready to join Bo for that promised beer that, he knew, was most likely going to turn into three beers, a couple of games of pool, and a long, drawn-out conversation with Sam on a subject that he hadn’t realized he was interested in. He knew he’d get to bed late and wake up the next morning with his head feeling like it was stuffed full of cotton, but that smile on Bo’s face was absolutely worth it.

As they walked out of the office’s front door, they paused to let Dan key his code into the door lock. Bo turned and looked at him quizzically. “Huh?”

Dan looked at him blankly. “I didn’t say anything.”

Bo looked puzzled for a moment, cocking his head to hear a little better. “I thought I heard something, that’s all. Must still have water in my ears,” he joked, digging a finger under his ear leather and stirring it around. An instant later they both heard the sound from around the corner of the building – the unmistakable cry of an animal in pain.

Dan vaulted over the railing and sped around the corner with Bo in hot pursuit. If there was one thing the man couldn’t tolerate, it was the suffering of an innocent animal. Thinking creatures could fend for themselves, and were usually responsible for getting themselves into whatever mess they were in. Unevolved animals, on the other hand, usually didn’t deserve what happened to them when they got hurt. All too often, their pain was the direct result of human stupidity.

Rounding the corner, it took Dan only a heartbeat to realize his mistake. “Oh, fuck,” he muttered as he pulled up short, looking straight into Bob’s angry, square jawed face. He looked quite serious, and Dan knew that this wasn’t going to be a pleasant social meeting. The panther varius sprang into action the instant Dan appeared around the corner, stepping forward and swinging a metal pipe at Dan like a baseball team’s star batter swinging for the bleachers.

Bo, following so closely behind that he couldn’t stop, ran headlong into Dan’s back, bouncing the sapiens to the cement with an impact like a freight train hitting a deer. His eyes instinctively following Dan as he fell, Bo saw only a flash of color and motion from the other corner of his vision before stunning pain exploded in his ribs.

With a dull thud, the pipe Bob was holding smashed into Bo’s side, forcing a grunt from his throat and sending the morph to one knee in shock. Not waiting for his advantage to fade, the panther morph swung the pipe in a backhanded arc, catching Bo again on the opposite shoulder. Again and again Bob swung the pipe, following Bo around in an arc as the other morph tried to regain his footing.

Caught off guard, it was all Bo could do to keep from being knocked to the ground. As stunned as he was, Bo was fully aware that if Bob beat him, it would leave Dan defenseless. Bo’s sapiens wasn’t weak, but he was no match for the brute strength and natural armament of a varius, especially one as vicious as Bob. !Protect Dan! All he could hope was that Dan might take advantage of this distraction and make a tactical retreat, saving himself for another day. Bo could take care of himself, but Dan…

Bob never stopped his attack, pushing his advantage and using it to drive Bo further down. There were no theatrical pauses to the swinging pipe. WHAM! There were no deep, introspective looks into the eyes of his victim. WHAM! There was no monologue about how humiliated Bob had been watching Bo fawn over the weakling pinky. WHAM! He’d bet that the stinking canine had even let the pinky into his Circle, by now. WHAM! And as soon as this overgrown mutt was out of the way, he’d play with the sapiens for a while before putting him away. WHAM! Bob’s only concession to vanity was that he wanted Bo to know that he’d been beaten.

The flaw in Bob’s plan was that Bo wasn’t feeling particularly submissive. Canine eyes tightened in rage. He felt like he’d been cheated. Bob hadn’t won a fair fight; he’d gotten the upper hand through deceit and trickery. Bo might be bruised and battered, but more than anything he was infuriated, and the thought ran through his mind that Bob had no idea what an amazingly large and ugly can of worms he’d opened. He might be the one on his feet right now, he might be the one holding the weapon, but Bo’s heart was varius to its core, and he would never, ever give up.

Dan was in danger and Bo was through fucking around. Bo’s muscles coiled up to strike with deadly force when Bob suddenly flew towards him, hit from behind by a hundred plus kilos of enraged sapiens. Dan hadn’t bothered with anything as futile as throwing a punch, choosing instead to go with an old-fashioned football block to the small of Bob’s back that whiplashed the feline’s neck and gave Bo the few precious milliseconds of breathing room that he needed to regroup and launch himself at Bob.

PROTECT!

Bo sprang from his crouch, propelled by the considerable strength of his massive legs, sending his shoulder crashing into Bob’s chest. He hoped Dan had time to move, because regardless of whether he had or not, pussy was going down.

The two thudded to the ground with Bo on top, the iron pipe flying from Bob’s grip as he struck the hard earth. Bo scrabbled to position himself, using his weight to keep Bob pinned while he wrapped his legs around the feline’s lower torso. He wished he could have gotten his legs around Bob’s arms as well; the feline’s having two arms free to strike back at him with eight razor-sharp claws was going to make this much uglier.

Bo was in control, and he knew exactly what he was doing. He was in his element, and although Bob might have been scrappy, he was no match for a fighter with Bo’s experience. Years of brawling had taught Bo that using his own set of razor-sharp claws would cause more problems than it solved, so he contented himself with slapping at Bob’s face until the feline was forced to raise his arms in defense.

It cost Bo some skin and fur to do it that way, but as soon as Bob’s arms were out of the way Bo drove his fist into the cat’s unprotected sternum, pushing the wind out of his lungs and, as a happy bonus, breaking a couple of his ribs. He pulled his punch so Bob’s heart wasn’t crushed, but Bo held back only the barest amount necessary to preserve the cat’s life and nothing more. He wanted Bob to hurt for what he’d done to Dan. He wanted Bob to pay.

From where he stood, Dan was horrified. He’d seen fights before, everyone had, but he’d never seen one like this. It was beyond brutal. Bob’s lower body was trapped beneath Bo’s weight, but his hands were free to strike back. He clawed at the canine morph’s arms and chest with lightning speed, slashing through the cloth of his shirt like it was so much tissue paper, and it seemed for an instant that Bo was doing little to defend himself.

Dan watched with morbid fascination as Bo wrangled himself into position on the feline’s chest, then slapped determinedly at Bob’s face until the cat had no choice but to raise his hands in defense. Until the day he died, Dan would remember the sight of Bo pulling his fist up, then with a roar sounding more like it should come from a lion than a canine, brutally driving it back down into Bob’s chest. Replaying it over and over in his mind in slow motion, he watched the big cat’s chest cave in at the blow, compressing almost impossibly around Bo’s huge fist. Dan had never before heard living bones break, and he was sickened to learn that when they do, they sounded very much like thick stalks of celery snapping in half.

Without thinking about what he was doing, Bob’s hands flew down to clutch at the agony that had bloomed in his chest, leaving his head unprotected. The instant his paws were clear Bo took his shot, snapping Bob’s head to the side with a coal-black fist whose knuckles were hard as marbles. Bob’s head lolled over to his shoulder, a thin trail of blood leaking out the side of his mouth where his lip had split against a tooth.

It was over. “Stay down!” Bo commanded, warningly, as he levered himself off of Bob’s chest. Dan thought that he looked amazingly fit, for having been through a major fight. His chest rose up and down a little more than normal with his deep breaths, but other than that he looked little different.

Bob rolled himself over onto his stomach, greedily sucking in the shallow breaths of air that were all his broken ribs would allow. The panther slowly pushed himself onto his arms, then up onto his knees, unwilling to prostrate himself before someone he respected, much less this canine.

In spite of what Bo had just told him to do Bob was soon on one knee, then was staggering towards the traitorous dog. He would not let Bo win this so easily. He’d been holding back before, but not any more. Bob’s forearm muscles tightened, and organic blades slid free of their sheaths. The mutt was about to feel what feline claws could really do to flesh.

Bob had his moves planned out. He would feint right, and then as soon as Bo moved to block, he’d slash with his left paw and open the side of the dog’s neck. It was a good plan. It might have even worked, if he hadn’t dismissed the helpless little pinky, who was currently standing above the feline’s unconscious body, holding Bob’s discarded length of iron pipe.

Bo turned his head in a fast arc, visually sweeping the immediate area for anyone else who might attack. Seeing no one, he dropped his facade of strength and fell to one knee in exhausted pain. He could drop his guard now; Dan was safe.

Tossing the pipe to the ground Dan ran to his friend’s side, one hand reaching out to the mammoth shoulder. Bo’s fur hid it, but underneath the layer of thick hair his skin was wet with blood. Bob wasn’t much of a puncher, but damn, the cat could slash!

Fear gripped Dan as he realized the extent of Bo’s injuries, but the varius’ voice sounded almost normal. “I’m okay, Buddy. Just give me a second here to catch my breath.”

Dan wasn’t sure that it would be so easy for Bo to shake off the effects of Bob’s attack. He reached for his communicator. “I’m calling an ambulance, and then I’m calling the police.”

“No,” Bo grabbed his arm halfway towards his pocket, mindful to be gentle. “Don’t do that – I’ll be okay.” He paused for a moment, sucking in breath. “Calling for help would only cause a lot more trouble for all of us.” He gave Dan’s arm a careful squeeze before letting it go, conscious of the adrenaline-fueled tremors running through his thick fingers.

Bo winced in pain as he stood up, then looked at Bob’s body. “Geez, I hope shithead’s not dead.” He glanced at Dan. “You didn’t kill him, did you?” Bo didn’t sound particularly worried, or even like this was a question that he’d never asked before.

Dan took one look at the unconscious varius and shrugged his shoulders. “I guess I should care, but I really don’t.” He got to his feet and rolled Bob onto his back. “Nah, he’s out like a light, but he’s still breathing. He must have a pretty thick skull.” He restrained his impulse to kick the feline while he was unconscious; but damn, he wanted to.

Dan turned his attention back to Bo. “Let’s get out of here before he wakes up.”

Bo allowed Dan to brace him underneath his less-damaged arm, putting part of his considerable weight on the sapiens’ shoulders. Bo didn’t allow Dan to bear too much of his weight for fear of knocking the other man down, but he appreciated the gesture. He appreciated it even more once they started to move and he nearly fell over. It seemed that Bob had gotten in more good hits than Bo realized.

Dan started guiding them to their cars, but Bo had something else in mind. “Wait,” he said, once he had regained his balance. He used Dan as a pivot to slowly turn, and hobbled back to where Bob lay. With a groan of effort, the varius picked up the pipe Dan had used to bash the back of Bob’s skull.

A shudder of fear went through Dan. If Bo was about to do something to Bob’s helpless body, could he be stopped? “What are you doing?”

To Dan’s relief, Bo bunched up his shirttail and used it to wipe the end of the pipe free of fingerprints, blood and fur. “No sense in leaving evidence if he doesn’t wake up. The shirt’s trashed anyway.”

When he was finished, Bo tossed the pipe onto the roof of the building, and put his arm back around Dan’s shoulders, allowing the man to bear more of his weight this time as the two walked unsteadily back to their cars. On their way, Dan remembered the two friends helping each other back into the bar after fighting in Sam’s parking lot. “You promised me we wouldn’t end up like Mark and Charlie.”

Bo’s bark of laughter was cut short by the pain of bruised ribs. “Oh, shit,” he wheezed, “don’t do that.” He wrapped his free arm around his chest. “It hurts!” In spite of his injuries, Bo still looked amused.

Bo detached himself from Dan as they neared their vehicles, hobbling over to his car and thumbing the door open with a shaky hand. “Are you sure you should be driving?” Dan asked, seeing the veil of pain that had drawn across Bo’s eyes.

“It’s the only car I have, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave it around for shithead to vandalize. When he wakes up, he’s going to be mad as hell that you cleaned his clock.”

Dan wanted to protest, but he knew Bo was right. “Hold on.” He pulled a pair of large, tattered towels from the trunk of his car and covered Bo’s driver’s seat with them. “No sense messing them up more than they already are.”

He watched without protest as Bo wedged himself into his driver’s seat. “My place,” was all the varius said before pulling the door shut and taking off, cutting a slightly wavering path across the early evening sky.

Although Bo’s car immediately jumped to the higher elevations, the safeties built into Dan’s vehicle restricted him to lower elevations and legal speeds. Dan yelled and cursed at the safety regulations from the time he pulled out of Magnum’s parking lot until he pulled up next to where Bo’s speeder was parked a few minutes later. He’d had every intention of helping the morph out of his car and up the stairs, but when he looked into Bo’s car, he saw only an empty seat. Turning to the buildings, he saw a large figure already lumbering up the staircase towards the apartment. Damn, Dan mused, he’s tougher than I thought!

Following his friend, Dan walked through the open front door just as the bathroom door latched with a soft click. He knew there was nothing he could do to help, but being prevented from even trying was maddening. Water began running in the shower, and Dan could hear the sounds of Bo cleaning himself up. Dan picked up the remote control and flipped through the channels to find a distraction. Flipping through news channels that harped on war, poverty and disease did nothing to lift his spirits, and he ended up staring at a light-hearted sitcom about the only varius family living in a building filled with sapiens. It was nothing but noise, though. He was far more worried about Bo.

A few minutes later, much sooner than he’d expected, the shower stopped and he heard the water reclaimer doing its job. After a few minutes of an odd buzzing noise came sounds of the air dryer, then the running sink, then the sound of Bo clearing his nose, hawking up a ball of snot, then spitting. Ewww. No matter how hot Bo might be… Ewww.

The bathroom door opened and a freshly-shampooed Bo emerged, looking calm and clean, and showing only faint signs of his recent beating. Other than a slight limp, he looked right as rain. “You ready for that beer?” he asked.

“Aren’t you…” Dan sat back in open-mouthed astonishment. Finding his words, he sputtered, “Weren’t you about dead ten minutes ago?”

Bo looked askance at him. “What, that?” he scoffed. “You’ve gotta be kidding. That was baby stuff. Things probably would have been a lot worse for both of us if you hadn’t knocked him out, though.” He winced and sighed as his damaged ribs protested. “You’d better drive.”

Dan sat on the couch for a few seconds longer just looking at Bo, not quite believing what he was seeing. Either his friend was a hell of a lot tougher than he looked, or he healed with miraculous speed. Finally he gave in and scooped up his keys. “You’re the boss,” he shrugged, heading for the door. “We going to Sam’s?”

“No,” Bo said, trying to force his voice to sound normal, even though it hurt to breathe. “Now steak.” He closed his eyes and sighed. He’d just spoken to Dan in the abbreviated mil-speak he sometimes fell back into when talking with another combat-trained varius. “Now, I want a steak,” he corrected. Have to watch out for that, he thought.

On the way to the tavern the mood between them turned celebratory, and once seated with their drinks, they toasted each other in triumph. Although it was only the most recent of many fights for Bo, Dan had much less experience with them. When the realization of what they’d done finally hit him, he began to understand the appeal of getting drunk and getting into a fight with your buddies. The sense of power he carried inside him was as much if not more intoxicating than the beer, and Dan relished it.

After attacking their steaks, Bo found his drink empty. Feeling adventurous, he told the waitress, “Surprise me.” What came back to him was a smooth and unexpectedly good ale in a bottle, and he smacked his lips in appreciation.

“Is it any good?” Dan asked, dubiously. “I didn’t think something called Skunkwater Ale would carry much appeal.”

Bo eyed the bottle for a moment before handing it over to Dan. The sapiens examined the label, unsure what Bo wanted him to see.

“Try it, stupid!” Bo said in feigned exasperation.

Drink? From a bottle that Bo had just had his lips all over? Dan felt like he’d been the one to get brained in the parking lot. With a raised eyebrow, he put the bottle to his mouth and took an experimental sip. He didn’t feel much different. The beer was good, but the experience was hardly transcendental. He lifted the bottle to his lips again and took a longer, deeper drink before Bo reached out and pulled it away from his lips, nearly making Dan shoot beer all over the table in the process.

“Mine!” Bo had truncated his speech again. He camouflaged his error by adding, “Get your own!” Bo made a show of looking down the neck of the bottle critically. “I hope you don’t backwash.”

“Hey,” Dan retorted indignantly, “I knocked a raving lunatic off your back out there. You owe me a beer!”

Bo looked stunned. “You? I was just about to get up and kick his mangy ass when you butted in, thank you very much! And let’s not forget who that first swing was aimed at. I knocked you out of the way and took the punch for you!”

“Whatever,” Dan said, hoisting his own bottle with a conciliatory grin. “Here’s to us.”

Bo grinned and returned the salute, clinking the neck of his bottle against Dan’s. Willfully, he turned off his worries about being seen as odd or different, and spoke to the man across from him like his instincts demanded. “Us.”

Hearing the word come out of his muzzle, Bo realized that somewhere along the line, the two men had indeed become an ‘us.’ As much as Mark and Charlie had bonded themselves to one another, he was binding himself to Dan with the iron ties of friendship and trust.

And he knew that in just a few days he was going to hurt the man he was allowing himself to care about.

---

Dan walked up to the picnic table and took the seat across from Bo. “What’s up, Chief?” Bo had asked to meet him after work, and although Dan hadn’t questioned him, something in the varius’ voice had warned him that this was important. The day had been sunny, and the wood tabletop was warm under Dan’s forearms. His mood was light, but something in the morph’s expression sobered him.

Seeing Dan’s expression darken, Bo thought about what he was doing and felt his heart bend. There was no doubt in his mind that what he was about to do was going to help Dan, but first he was going to have to hurt the man. Badly. “Do you trust me, Dan?”

“Yes,” Dan didn’t have to think about his response, but his stomach lurched. Nobody started pleasant conversations with the words, ‘do you trust me.’

Bo sighed deeply and held his eyes, wanting to cement this last image of their friendship in his mind. This was the end of ‘before,’ and he was about to throw them both through a one-way door marked ‘after,’ from which there was no turning back. The trusting, innocent look Dan had in his eyes for him would never be the same.

The world had a habit of becoming less substantial for Dan when he was looking at Bo, of being somewhat transparent and less tangible, so it wasn’t difficult to understand how footsteps that had once been intimately familiar to him could sneak up on him today.

It even took him a second to turn and look when someone swung their legs over the bench to his left, and when he finally did turn his head, the man was so out-of-place his identity didn’t immediately register. When it did, Dan realized that there were several decisions he would have to make in the next few seconds, the first of which was whether to stay where he was, or to run away as fast as he possibly could.

It was Blaine.

Chapter 15 Dan was suddenly dizzy, at a complete loss for words. Slowly, carefully, he stood and moved off the bench, walking not towards the parking lot and freedom, but into the fenced area just beyond their table. Stopping to face the building, he saw nothing but speckled concrete as images crawled randomly across the surface of his thoughts like picnic ants on a melon. He wanted to think about anything but the man sitting on the bench behind him. He was seconds away from curling up in a fetal ball and waiting for both men to go away when he felt a huge, warm hand on his shoulder. It rested there for a moment, then gently turned him away from the concrete wall he faced. Bo deliberately turned him so that his back was to the table, and if he pretended, Dan could make himself believe that Blaine wasn’t sitting just a few meters away, and that his best friend hadn’t just driven a stake into his heart. “Dan,” the varius said, his voice calm, determined and certain, “you need to talk to him.” The look in Dan’s eyes made Bo recoil slightly. He’d always thought of sapiens as being somewhat weak, but the look in Dan’s eyes was anything but. It was feral. It was panicked. And it was a little frightening. Dan glared at the morph, but in spite of the torrent of emotional pain he’d just unleashed, Dan couldn’t bring himself to hate him. He hadn’t imagined that it would be possible to feel such intense love and betrayal at the same time, but right now he was managing it. He tried to keep his voice level, but what emerged from his tightened lips was ragged and hoarse, almost a gasp, “Why did you do this to me?” He didn’t care that Blaine could hear every word he said; he just wanted the pain to go away. Dan wanted more time to think of what he needed to say, he wanted to be in control of the situation, and most of all, he wanted to deny Blaine the opportunity to reject him again. “Trust me, Dan,” Bo said, calmly, “He’s willing to talk to you, and your subconscious has been screaming for you to get this resolved. That’s never going to happen until you talk to him.” Rage and adrenaline made his voice tremble. “I can’t do it,” Dan said, his arms crossed so tightly in front of him that his fingers made white indentations in his forearms. The muscles in his jaw working furiously, Dan tried his damnedest to maintain his self-control as his eyes darted back and forth like those of a trapped animal facing slaughter. He turned his gaze up to the man to whom he’d recently given so much control over his feelings, and ground out a single word. “Please.” Bo pulled Dan into a hug as he talked to him, his rumbling voice resonating through Dan’s bones. “I know this hurts, buddy, but you’re safe,” he reassured, rocking back and forth like a mother holding a crying cub who’d just fallen off his bike. The man’s arms wrapped around the varius, fingers entwining themselves through Bo’s shirt and the fur beneath, ceding control to Bo for a few invaluable moments while he calmed himself. “I’m here with you, Dan,” the big varius rumbled, “and I’m not going to leave, no matter what.” Dan’s almost frantic grip on the morph gradually eased, and after a few seconds, Bo felt confident enough in his stability that he could back away slightly. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked, stooping down to look into Dan’s face. Dan gave a short nod, trying desperately to get his emotions under control. If he had to face Blaine, he was determined not to do it in this condition. Bo’s hand rested heavily on Dan’s shoulder, but for all its considerable weight, it pulled him up out of the dark waters he was drowning in instead of pushing him down. Cushioned fingerpads on handpaws that Dan had seen toss slabs of hot steel into a machine one after another pressed gently on him now, lending him the strength he needed. “Take a few deep breaths,” Bo suggested, never removing his hand from Dan’s shoulder. He had given his word that he’d be there for him, and he suspected that Dan was holding on to the physical contact like a lifeline. Dan mindlessly accepted Bo’s advice and was glad to see that it made him feel a little better. Looking up, he saw that Bo’s eyes were exactly as they’d been when he’d looked away: unshakably strong, yet filled with remarkable compassion. Dan straightened his back, correcting his posture as he gathered his tattered dignity about him, but he didn’t pull himself away from Bo’s touch. He would permit Bo to influence, but would not completely yield control. He’d done that once before, with the man sitting behind him, and his reckless trust had almost cost him everything he was. It would never happen again. “We’re going to talk about this, later,” he promised. Bo grinned bashfully, “Yeah, I sort of expected that. Are you okay?” He asked again. “Yeah,” Dan nodded, sniffing in hard one last time to clear his nose of the watery snot. He cleared his throat and quickly brushed wetness from his eyes. “Do I look okay?” His eyes might be red, but they were strong again. “You look like hell,” Bo smirked, “but that’s okay. You just had a big surprise, right?” Giving one last firm squeeze, complete with a bonus rub with his thumb that threatened to casually squish Dan’s shoulder out of its socket, he let it go and reassured him. “You look fine, buddy. You ready?” Dan nodded, and Bo walked with him back to the table. Dan managed to get there without looking at Blaine, and by the time he deigned to look up at the man he had once been so certain he would spend the rest of his life with, he once again had his emotions under firm control. “I’m sorry about that,” he apologized, “I was just…a bit surprised, seeing you sitting there.” “I guess so,” Blaine said, “I don’t usually have such a negative effect.” Dan chuckled wryly. Blaine’s humor had been one of the things he loved most about the man, but even it hadn’t been enough to keep them together, at the end. “You’ve still got it.” Both men looked up at the unmistakable sounds of bottles hitting the table. “Where did you…” Dan started, then broke off when he noticed the blue and white plastic cooler sitting on the ground next to Bo. “Well, son of a bitch,” he said, shaking his head and laughing. He wondered if the morph would ever fail to surprise him. “I guess you told him this is my favorite?” Blaine asked, taking a swig of his Newcastle. Dan shook his head. “I didn’t say a word. It’s a talent he has,” he parroted what Bo had once told him about Sam. “I think it was just something he was born with.” He took a slow sip of his Guinness and put the bottle down, not wanting his hand to warm it. The comment had flown over Blaine’s head, but Bo caught it, and that’s what mattered. “Just pretend I’m not even here,” Bo said, doing his best to blend into the background. As large as he was, Bo was about as inconspicuous as a bull elephant at a tea party, but Dan appreciated his intention. “I’ll give your friend one thing,” Blaine said, “he’s persistent. The first three times he asked me to do this, I said no.” “So why did you finally say yes?” “He convinced me that you were still hurting, and you weren’t getting any better.” Motioning over to the corner where Dan had broken down, he added, “I guess he’s right.” “Yeah, well… I guess there’s just been a lot of shit I’ve been holding inside for a long time,” Dan admitted. “Seeing you just brought it all up to the surface.” “So why worry about any of this now?” Blaine asked. “You seemed pretty content with your decision when you kicked me out.” His voice wasn’t any louder, but it now carried a rapier-thin edge of anger to it that sliced through Dan’s composure. “I don’t want to argue with you, Blaine,” Dan said, unwilling to be baited. “I’m trying to apologize. I know that I treated you badly, and I’m sorry. I’ve been carrying around a lot of guilt about it, and I hope you can understand that I know I made a big, big mistake by treating you like that.” “I’m not getting back with you, if that’s what this is all about.” Blaine announced, almost without emotion. “No,” Dan said, calmly, “it has nothing to do with that.” He sighed deeply. “This is about coming to terms with my decisions. Just because we can’t live together doesn’t mean that I ever stopped loving you. You’ll always be one of the most important people in my life, and I never want that to change.” “Well you could have said that in a greeting card,” Blaine said, suspiciously, “why did I have to come all this way to hear it?” “Because I need to do more than just shout into thin air,” Dan said, his patience thinning. “You don’t ever call me back when I leave messages, and I need to know that you’re hearing me. And I really need to hear your thoughts on some things, too.” “Well, I’m here,” Blaine said, with an air of annoyance. “Talk away.” “Okay,” Dan said biting back his impulse to be snotty in return, “but it would help if you’d stop being so hostile. I just want to have a conversation.” “I’m trying,” Blaine said, petulantly, “but it’s not easy.” Dan bit back his impulse to tell Blaine to stop being such an asshole and tried instead to be diplomatic. “I understand that you’re trying, and I appreciate it. But what you’re doing isn’t matching up with what you’re saying, and that’s throwing me off.” Blaine was looking at him oddly. “I’m sorry,” Dan apologized, “I wasn’t really planning on having this conversation right now, and my thoughts aren’t organized.” Dan sighed. He hated not having his ducks in a row. After a pause to get his thoughts in order, he explained. “If you’d wanted to be with me, you wouldn’t have taken all those long-haul jobs that you knew were driving a wedge in our relationship. If you wanted to be apart, you wouldn’t be so pissed off at me right now. If you didn’t care either way, you probably wouldn’t be sitting here in front of me tonight.” Dan held his hands up in confusion. “I’m sure there’s a logic to how you’re acting, but I just can’t see it. Part of why I need to talk to you is to help me understand what’s going on in your brain. The way it is right now, I don’t know what to think or how to respond, and it’s killing me. And it looks to me like you’re just sitting there, watching me twist in the wind without doing anything to help.” He looked at Blaine carefully. “If I didn’t know better I’d think that you were enjoying watching me burn. I’ve never known you to be cruel or vindictive like that, but that sure is the way you’re acting.” “You did this to yourself, Dan,” Blaine said, coldly, “when you kicked me out without even talking to me about breaking up. You never even told me there was a problem that big between us.” You knew, Dan thought. He remembered having dozens of conversations with his partner about how unhappy he was, and telling Blaine that he wanted him to find a job where he could live at home so they could finally start building a life together. But there had always been some excuse, some delay that prevented it from ever happening. “Okay,” Dan said, clamping down on the angry feelings Blaine’s response had stirred within him, “I’ll take the blame. You’re right – this is all my fault. I lit the fuse on this bomb, and it exploded in my face. I understand that. What I don’t understand is how you can just sit back and watch me rot in hell for something that you know I’m honestly sorry I did, and that I’ve tried to make right a dozen times.” “Don’t try to make this about me, Dan.” Blaine’s refusal to accept any responsibility for their failed relationship grated at Dan’s patience. “I’m not trying to…” he cut off his heated reply and took a deep breath. Now that he was talking with Blaine in person, he vividly remembered what had frustrated him so much about the man. He wanted to turn his back on his ex and just walk away, but he knew that if he did so before the fire in his heart was completely extinguished it would spring back to life again and again, until he finally did take care of it. “Please,” he said, calming himself. “Let’s not do this. Can’t we just put all that in a box and put it on a shelf for a while? If you can just forget for a few minutes that you’re supposed to hate me for doing what I did, if we can sit here for a while and talk like two adults…I promise you that if you still want to, you can go back to hating me after we finish.” Dan’s words might be calm but his emotions roiled inside him, and he couldn’t keep a solitary tear from quietly rolling down his cheek. “But I don’t want you to hate me, Blaine.” He was about to wipe his cheek dry with the back of his hand when Bo offered him a box of tissues. He snuffled a short laugh at how Bo had seemingly known to bring everything they’d need, and kept speaking. “I love you right now every bit as much as I did the day I put a ring on your finger, and it rips me up that you hate me.” He blew his nose, and the snot blew straight through the cheap tissue and into his palm. “Oh, God damn it…” Blaine chuckled at the exasperated look on Dan’s face, but quickly looked away to maintain his facade of indifference. When he spoke he was almost too quiet for Dan to hear him, but somehow his words made the journey across the vast gulf between them. “I don’t hate you.” “Then why are you doing this to me?” Dan said. “You told me when you left that we’d go crazy if we didn’t talk to each other, and it’s true. I need you in my life, even if it’s only as a friend.” The three men were silent for a few minutes, and Dan was wondering if Blaine was ever going to speak again. When he did, he had returned to the same coolly indifferent person he’d been when he first sat down, but Dan thought he sensed a few chinks developing in his armor. He rubbed his temples with his fingertips. “Remember a year or so in, when I told you that my feelings were changing? You didn’t even listen to me. You just kept saying that it was normal for people’s feelings to change over time.” “It is normal!” Dan said, his exasperation evident. “But there’s a big difference between the honeymoon being over, and abandoning your partner!” Blaine said nothing, choosing instead to look at a particularly fascinating patch of gravel next to Dan’s right foot. “Blaine? What are you thinking?” Bo asked, quietly. Looking annoyed, Blaine sighed. “I think that no matter what I said then, and no matter what I say now, I’ll still lose the argument.” “Lose…” Dan cut himself off. He couldn’t decide whether to break down in despair or rip Blaine’s head off. “That’s the problem,” he tried again. “There wasn’t ever an argument to lose! It was supposed to be a discussion, about us, and where we were going.” He sighed in exasperation. “It was supposed to be about compromise, not about winning.” He looked miserable. “All that time I thought we were listening to each other and agreeing what we should do, but now it sounds like it was all just you giving in because you didn’t want to have an argument.” His voice carried a sorrow that even Blaine, withdrawn as he was, could hear, and yet the other man remained silent. “I wish you would have told me that a long time ago. Is that why you started taking the long runs?” Dan asked, quietly, “because you didn’t want to come home to a fight?” Blaine sighed wearily. “Pretty much, yeah. Every time I came back, I felt like I was going to get grilled about something. It was going to be my job, or my weight, or stimsticks, or…whatever.” With one big hand, he batted away the memory of Dan’s old complaints like pesky flies. Dan rested his head in his hands, feeling sick in his soul, more tired than he had been in…ever. “Oh, God, I had no idea, Blaine.” He looked up, into the hurt, confused, weary hazel eyes that he thought he’d known so well, but it seemed that he’d never known at all. “I’m sorry. I had no idea you felt that way.” He shook his head slowly back and forth, remembering. “I used to tell people that we never had a fight, but I guess I just didn’t realize we were having them.” When Blaine finally looked up at him, Dan said, “Look, I’m not trying to re-light any fires, but I need to know if you still have any feelings for me?” “Maybe,” Blaine shrugged, “I guess.” “Are you just saying that to make me feel better, or do you really feel it?” Dan asked. “I don’t know,” Blaine said, sounding frustrated. “We were together for five years. Things got complicated at the end. What the hell does it matter, anyway?” “It matters,” Dan said, evenly, “because it confuses me when what you say doesn’t match what you do.” He looked at Blaine with a small smile on his lips. “And I think we’d both agree that the world rotates a lot more smoothly when Dan Blocker isn’t confused.” One corner of Blaine’s mouth quirked up but he remained silent, for so long that Bo took a breath, ready to prod him along. Dan stopped the morph with a hand on his paw, giving Blaine the time to figure out how to put what he was thinking into words. “Yeah, I guess I do, Dan,” Blaine said, finally. “Deep down I care about you, but you really hurt me when you just up and threw me out like that.” Dan sighed as he felt one of the ugliest of the thorns piercing his heart slowly pull free. “Thanks. I appreciate your telling me that.” When Blaine made no move to say anything, Dan asked another question that had been plaguing him. “Do you…understand why I broke up with you?” “Yeah,” Blaine scoffed, bitterly, “because Jim made more money than I did.” Dan blew out a disappointed breath, trying his best not to speak harshly. “Well that explains why none of our friends would talk to me after we broke up. But is it really what you think?” Blaine was quiet for a guilty moment. “I guess not,” and then, after a silence, “I think I just wasn’t motivated enough to make you happy.” “Yeah, well, that was part of it,” Dan said, “but it’s not even close to the whole reason.” He tried to explain in a few seconds what had taken him months to understand. “The life you were living made you happy, and there were parts of that life that were making me absolutely miserable. I knew that if I ever convinced you to change your life so it gave me what I needed, you’d hate it, and you’d end up resenting me for it. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.” Dan clasped his hands in front of him, willing Blaine to understand that his decision hadn’t been a frivolous one, and that he’d never had malice in his heart. “I thought about it for months, and I couldn’t find any way to change things so we’d both be happy. We were arguing every time we talked, and you constantly refused my help with anything we did. I felt like you’d completely lost confidence in me, and when that happened, I lost confidence in us.” He shrugged, to this day not knowing how they could have ended up differently. “We weren’t getting any better on our own, and we both know you would have refused any effort to go to counseling, so what was left? What other choice was there?” “Okay,” Blaine said, sounding angry again, “if things were so hopeless, why were you so hell-bent on getting back together?” “Because I realized that I love you.” Dan replied, unfazed. “Even though you’re a huge pain in the ass, even though I’d have to go weeks at a time without seeing you, even though you were constantly late and you drove us into debt, even though you didn’t take care of your body and will probably die by the time you’re sixty, you can’t save money and won’t invest your time in building a life together, I still love you. And that,” Dan said, taking a tissue and calmly pressing it against his eyes, “has never changed.” He blew out a hard breath, refusing to let himself dissolve in tears. “But no matter how much I love you, I still don’t know what we could have done differently.” When he looked up, he thought he saw the chinks in Blaine’s shields turning into holes. “That doesn’t change the fact that I love you, and I’m really, really sorry that I didn’t have the courage to have this conversation with you before I told you it was over.” Thinking about it for a moment, Dan asked, “Can you think of anything we could have done differently to make it work?” “Not really,” Blaine admitted, wiping his eyes with the back of his blocky hand. “It was hard when you said we were through, but it was also a relief. It took the pressure off, you know? I could do whatever I wanted without hurting anyone else.” “Sounds like a perfect life for you,” Dan said. “Are you happy?” “Mostly,” Blaine shrugged, “There are still times when it’s lonely out there and I miss our conversations, but…mostly.” “Oh, God, the comm calls!” Dan said, remembering. In spite of the fact that he hated talking on the comm, the two men had talked for hours every night that Blaine was away from home. “I think it took me a year to stop grabbing my comm at twenty-one every night to talk to you.” “Yeah, I know,” Blaine agreed, “I was the same way.” “If you don’t hate me, then please, call me every now and then,” Dan asked. “If we don’t talk, it’s killing the best thing we had together.” Blaine hesitated for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was filled with doubt. “It’s tough talking to you,” he paused, gathering his thoughts. “It’s always great when we talk and I’m right back where we used to be, but after I hang up I feel like shit for the next three days.” Dan cocked his head to one side. “You mentioned that the last time we talked. Does it still happen?” Blaine looked disgusted, and Dan couldn’t tell whether it was at himself, or at Dan. “Every stinkin’ time.” “Why do you think that is?” “Shit, I don’t know,” Blaine answered, a little huffily, the anger leaching back into his words. “I guess you want me to say that I want to get back together with you.” Dan opened his mouth to make a snarky comment, but snapped it shut. Taking a calming breath, he centered himself and tried again. “Sure, there’s a part of me that wants that, just like there’s a part of me that wants to believe in the tooth fairy.” On impulse, he reached out and took Blaine’s hand. Surprisingly, Blaine allowed him to do it. “What I need in this, Blaine, isn’t for us to get back together. What I need is for you to not hate me. Anything I get beyond that is a big extra.” “I don’t know if I can do that.” Blaine said, trying to withdraw his hand. Instead of just letting him take it, Dan grasped it more firmly to make his point. “Why are you pulling back? I’m offering you all the best parts of what we used to have, all wrapped up in a nicely-wrapped package. All the companionship with none of the responsibility.” And maybe, eventually, more than just friendship, a part of his brain whispered. “Because I don’t believe you!” Blaine pulled back more firmly, and this time Dan let him take his hand back. “The last time I trusted you like that, I got trampled,” he spat. “I’m not going to go through that all over again.” Tears had started in the corners of his eyes, and he angrily dashed them away. For the past two years, Dan had thought long and hard about what he’d say to this man, should he ever have the chance. But at this moment he couldn’t remember any of what he’d come up with. Blaine had admitted that he still had deep feelings for him. Now, what was he going to do with that? Even though he hadn’t seen the man for over two years, Dan still thought that he knew him better than anyone on the planet. He knew what made him tick, and he knew that if he pressed in just the right way, if he pushed all the right buttons and avoided touching the wrong ones, he could lure Blaine back in. He could have his old life back. He could have the man that his subconscious loved so desperately that it had held his common sense hostage for eight years. He could talk to him every night, and know that every few weeks, he could look forward to seeing him in the flesh again; to know that he could reach out and touch him whenever he wanted – at least until he left for another eight-week haul. And maybe he could even find some sort of local job for Blaine where he wouldn’t be bored, where he wouldn’t feel pressured, where he could just be himself, and could be happy. They could share hobbies and dreams and ideas, and look forward to growing old together like they’d planned, all those eternities ago. With the greatest of care, Dan pushed none of the buttons that had been laid out before him. “We’re so much alike, you and I, that I think I’m safe in guessing that what you want isn’t me, it’s what we had that first year we were together, right?” Blaine looked up, his eyes bright with emotion. “That was good, wasn’t it?” “It was the best,” Dan agreed easily, feeling much more right this time in pulling Blaine into a hug. “And that’s why I had such a tough time letting go of you. That’s why I kept trying to get back together with you.” They sat like that for a moment, heads on each other’s shoulders. “But it’s the past, babe, and life doesn’t let you go backwards.” As much as he regretted letting go of the hug, both men knew it was time. “You were right,” Dan said, wiping tears from his own eyes. “When you said your feelings had changed, I should have let you go. I just loved you so damned much that I couldn’t let it be over. I’m sorry.” His tears fell more quickly, but this time they healed instead of burned. Blaine reached out and rested a warm, strong hand on Dan’s knee, putting nothing more on the table than quiet comfort. Dan placed his own hand on top of Blaine’s for a moment, enjoying the simple human contact. When he reached for the box of nose tissue that Bo thoughtfully provided, Blaine took his hand back, and Dan quipped, “You might want to put some sanitizer on that. It’s got my snot all over it.” Both men laughed, and this time it came easier. Bo reached over the table and pushed their bottles towards them. They both took the hint, finishing off what was left. Blaine had more in his than Dan did, but when he put it back down on the tabletop, both bottles were similarly drained. “May I ask a question?” Both men looked at Bo, but it was Dan who answered. “Sure, buddy, go ahead.” The morph looked at Blaine, confused. “If you wanted to end the relationship years earlier, why were you upset when you came home and Dan told you it was over?” Blaine looked thoughtful for a moment, and Dan had to wonder if he’d ever bothered to ask himself that question. “I tried for years to make things work,” he said, finally, “and when Dan threw me out it just pulled the rug out from under me, like nothing I’d done made any difference.” Bo nodded his head slowly, but his ear twitched, like it had been doing through much of the sapiens’ conversation. The morph extended a huge paw to each man, palm up. “Give me your hands.” Dan instantly complied, trustingly grabbing onto Bo’s wrist and feeling the gentle yet viselike grip of the varius’ leathery pads closing around his own wrist. Seeing the trust Dan put in the morph, Blaine did as he was asked, but a little more hesitantly. He didn’t understand what Bo was doing, but seeing Dan’s trust in the morph relieved some of his suspicion. “Now,” Bo said, “take each other’s hand the same way.” They closed the triangle, and Bo seemed satisfied. Bo turned to Dan first. “We’re closer, so you get to go first. You were a chickenshit, Dan,” he pronounced. “In part, this happened because when Blaine said that his feelings were changing, you didn’t listen.” For a moment Dan tried to squirm out of Bo’s grip, but was held fast. When he realized what was happening, he settled down and sheepishly listened to the truth. “You could have saved everyone a lot of pain by talking to Blaine early on, and talking about your feelings instead of turning them into a time bomb by repressing them.” Bo’s grip on Dan’s arm changed subtly, as he stopped being jury and went back to being his friend. “But what you did was out of love, Dan, and that’s not a bad thing. You loved Blaine so much you were terrified of losing him, so you never asked him the questions that you couldn’t stand to hear the answers to. Don’t ever give so much of yourself away that you forget who you are inside. And,” he added, gently, “don’t ever throw yourself off a cliff for someone if you’re not certain they’re down there to catch you.” “For your part,” he turned to Blaine, his voice turning diamond-hard and, Dan thought, maybe even a little aggressive, “you were a coward. You abandoned your mate at home and kept pushing him until he finally did what you didn’t have the stones to do, and then you spent two years playing the part of the innocent, jilted lover instead of accepting your own responsibility for what had happened.” Blaine sputtered in protest, but Bo simply increased the force of his grip and just talked slower and louder until he quieted. “You should have helped him understand what you needed and eased out of the relationship instead of stringing him along.” “You gave Dan pain you will never understand.” Dan was surprised by the flash of anger in Bo’s eyes. It looked for all the world like he wanted to rip Blaine’s arms out of their sockets. “You knew he was hurting, and you did everything you could to prolong his pain, just to get back at him for doing what you should have been man enough to do for yourself. It was childish, it was self-centered, and it was cruel.” “But,” he conceded, his gaze softening a bit, “I know that whatever you were doing kept Dan happy for at least four years, and I commend you for that. You stayed in the relationship you didn’t really want instead of finding where you really needed to be because you didn’t want to hurt him, and for that, you get a pass.” He eased his grip and added, “Going through life trying to be someone you’re not not only hurts you, but it hurts the people around you. Stay true to who you are, Blaine.” And with that, he let go of Blaine’s wrist. Contrary to what Dan had expected, Blaine didn’t immediately snatch his hand out of the morph’s paw. He retrieved it, but did so almost hesitantly, as if feeling like he’d gotten off too easily and had penance left to pay. In that instant, Dan realized that Blaine’s feelings of guilt were every bit as strong as his own. So intent was Dan on seeing Blaine’s reaction that he didn’t notice that his own wrist was still grasped in Bo’s. The varius’ deep, rumbling voice brought him back to the real world as Bo leaned over the table and asked him, quietly, “Are you okay?” “Yeah,” Dan said, giving Bo’s thick wrist a reassuring squeeze before retrieving his hand. “I’m okay.” “Are you okay.” Bo asked Blaine, but this time it sounded more like a statement conforming to ritual than genuine concern. “Yeah,” Blaine nodded, gingerly rubbing his wrist where Bo had gripped it. “Good,” Bo said, reaching into the cooler and pulling out three fresh bottles. “You’ve both heard the truth, so you can be friends, now.” “Just like that?” Blaine asked, a little defensively. “Yep,” Bo answered, “just like that.” He took a drink of his beer, half-emptying the bottle. “Why would it be any different?” He looked at both men, “You care about each other, you hurt each other, and you’re both sorry. You like each other enough that you stayed together for five years, so why wouldn’t you want to be friends now?” After a few moments of Blaine’s suprised silence he added, “If you’re bound and determined to be an asshole you can go back to ignoring Dan again, but now that you both know the truth, he won’t be hurt by that as much as he was, before. You’ll just look like a stupid jerk who can’t let go of a grudge, and you’ll lose a good friend.” “What do you think?” Bo asked Dan. Dan wasn’t quite sure how to answer. “I think we’ve wasted a few years and I’d like to be friends, but if it’s going to be some sort of ordeal for you to pick up the comm every now and then, Blaine, I won’t put you through it.” “I’ll think about it,” Blaine said, toying with his bottle without drinking from it. After a moment, he put it on the table and stood up. “Thanks for the talk, Dan.” The two men shook hands, and Dan resisted the urge to pull him into a hug as he watched Blaine turn away. “I’ll call you sometime.” Blaine paused. “Actually,” he said, turning back, “Let me call you first. I know your number.” Dan watched as the man he’d once thought was his soulmate turned and walked to his truck, wondering where he would have ended up if they’d stayed together. Blaine got in the truck, slammed the door shut behind him, and took off without a backward glance. Dan sat back down at the table, where Bo was placidly examining the label on his beer bottle. “He didn’t even say goodbye to you, did he?” Bo looked up, his face unreadable. “It doesn’t matter.” He emptied his bottle and grabbed Blaine’s untouched Newcastle. After considering it carefully, he threw the full bottle twenty meters away into the weeds and pulled a fresh one from the cooler. “This wasn’t for him.” He pulled the cap off a second one with his fingertips and set it on the table in front of Dan, even though the sapiens hadn’t finished the one he was currently working on. Dan took the unsubtle hint and drained his bottle. The varius asked, “Do you think he’ll call?” “I don’t know,” Dan said, after a contemplative moment, “but after that performance, I’m not sure I want him to.” He wiped beer foam from a corner of his mouth. “I’d forgotten what a rude son of a bitch he can be.” The two men drank in silence for a time, Dan easing down slowly from his emotional roller coaster ride, and Bo content to share space with him, being the dependable rock Dan could always count on. Finally Dan broke the silence. “Fuck him. He knows where I am, he knows I’m sorry, and he knows the truth about what happened. If he doesn’t want to be friends, that’s out of my hands.” His voice held no regret this time, and underneath its tenor Bo could almost hear him finally letting go of his pain, like an unloved bird held caged for too long flying free into a peaceful sky. Bo stood, grabbing the cooler full of ice and bottles and lifting it as easily as Dan would have if it were empty. “Let’s get out of here,” he grumbled.“That seat hurts my ass.” “Sure,” Dan was caught off guard by Bo’s abrupt decision. “Your place or mine?” “Doesn’t really matter,” Bo said, looking disdainfully around them. “Anywhere but here.” His nose twitched in the cool evening air. In the past couple of weeks, this spot had been ground zero for far too much turmoil for Bo’s taste. It crawled with a negative energy that threatened to dampen his good humor. “Mine, then,” Dan decided. “I’ve got better snacks.” He wanted very much to be in his own house right now. Surprisingly, he didn’t mind if Bo shared that space with him. Under other circumstances he’d have wanted to be alone, but in this case he appreciated the company. “I’ll be there in a few minutes, then,” Bo rounded the table and waited as Dan tossed the trash bag full of their empty bottles into the dumpster before walking with him to their cars.

---

Dan tensed when he thumbed his front door open. Was his house clean enough for visitors? Then he relaxed. It wasn’t like he was hosting the Presidents of the Union, or anything. It was just Bo. He left the door ajar so Bo wouldn’t have to bother knocking once he arrived. Not that he usually did – for the past few weeks he had been waltzing into Dan’s house much the same way Dan had been waltzing into his. One day that was probably going to lead to an embarrassing encounter, but Dan was enjoying the casual camaraderie too much to stop it. Tossing his keys into the ceramic bowl on the side table where they lived when they weren’t in his pocket, Dan pulled off his shirt and walked to his bedroom. A brain-full of stuff had happened that day, and he was glad to have the entire weekend to process it before he had to concentrate on work again. And the first step in relaxing was to get out of those damned clothes. As he flipped through the casual shirts hanging neatly in his closet, Dan felt oddly disconnected from the whole incident. Whether it was the alcohol or something else, he didn’t feel nearly as bad as he expected he would. Less than thirty minutes ago he’d been sitting a meter away from Blaine, talking with him, crying with him, and even holding his hand and giving him hugs. Why wasn’t he a pathetic puddle of emotional goo right now? As he pulled a clean shirt over his head, he wondered if he were in shock. Pants and shoes were exchanged for shorts and sandals, and by the time he dumped the day’s clothes in the hamper, Dan was wondering what had happened to Bo. Had he felt compelled to stop and buy even more beer? How unbalanced did he think Dan was, anyway? Thinking about it, Dan had to chuckle. Given his recent behavior, the scene outside the plant might well have resulted in his full-blown meltdown, ending with Bo standing suicide watch over his straight-jacketed body. He’d given his friend every reason to be concerned. During his conversation with Blaine, something had changed inside Dan; some switch had clicked that disconnected him from the pain he used to feel, and he suspected that it wasn’t merely an anesthesia. He really thought that the source of his pain had finally been excised. Maybe it was the knowledge that Blaine didn’t hate him, or perhaps he just had to be reminded of what an argumentative ass the man could be. Whatever the reason, Dan finally felt ready to face his future instead of trying to crawl back into the past. And to think, he told himself wryly, all it took to set me straight was a skillet in the face, wielded by a big, furry hairball! As if on cue, he heard his favorite hairball enter the house, and by the sound of ice and water sloshing back and forth he had brought the ice chest with him. Dan heard him set it down on the living room floor, then heard the cushions of his couch hiss in protest as Bo took a seat and thumbed the stereo to life. Dan walked into his living room, and was there just long enough for Bo to hand him the beer he’d opened. “I’m gonna heat up some snacks,” he said, continuing through to the kitchen. “Come on.” Bo levered himself out of the deep pocket the couch had made to accommodate him, wondering if it was constructed sturdily enough to support his bulk for long. “Snaaaaaacks…” he crooned, doing a credible imitation of a zombie as he followed Dan into the kitchen. “So what did you think of him?” Dan asked, once Bo had settled himself onto the reinforced bar stool that Dan had made for him. It blended in with the rest of the set, but had been built to a substantially heavier standard. “I can see why he interested you,” Bo said, diplomatically, watching Dan neatly arrange a third of a bag of frozen munchies on an oven-proof crisping tray and popping them into the heater. “You seem to have a lot in common.” “When I first met him, he seemed like everything I ever wanted,” Dan said, setting the timer. “Maybe it’s just the emotional distance from not talking to him for so long, but tonight I couldn’t see him that way.” “I think maybe you were finally seeing that the man he really is isn’t as interesting as the man you wanted him to be.” Bo upended his bottle and took a healthy drink. “You’re probably right,” Dan admitted, remembering the joy and happiness he’d felt when they’d met. “When we first got together he was full of dreams about his future, but he never did anything to make them happen. He’s a smart guy, but he lets it all go to waste. I tried to help him turn that potential energy kinetic, but he just seemed to give up.” Dan shook his head, ruefully. Remembering the chilled beer steins he stored in the freezer, he asked, “You want a cold glass for that?” Bo waved his beer bottle in negation. “Nah, this is fine. Thanks.” The timer beeped, and Dan pulled a dozen crispy cheese and bacon snack puffs out of the oven. Carefully plucking them off the tray, he arranged them with deliberation on a plate before putting them on the bar between them. “So what else did you think? Truthfully.” “Truthfully?” If Dan was brave enough to ask… “I think he was full of shit.” Dan didn’t seem surprised. “Of course he’s full of shit. But…specifically?” Bo barked a short laugh. “All that crap at the end about why he was mad when you ended it.” “You didn’t buy that either, huh?” Dan sounded relieved. “I thought it was kind of weird that you accepted it at face value.” “I wasn’t about to waste our time turning it into his personal therapy session,” He gathered a half dozen of the puffs in a massive paw, shaking them like a fist full of dice. “Not that he would have listened to me, anyway. The man’s seriously fucked in the head. He’s completely ignoring reality, and he’s made a hobby of re-creating the world, and his own feelings, even, according to what he wants them to be.” He popped the whole handful into his maw and chewed, then made an unsatisfied face. “These things could use some hot sauce.” He winced. “And they’ve got sharp corners, too.” “See?” Dan laughed. “I’m converting you! Spicy is good, right?” He reached behind him in a cabinet and put the mildest of the Central American sauces he stocked in front of Bo. “Try this out. And if you wouldn’t pop them into your mouth whole, they wouldn’t get mad and stab you. You’ve gotta nibble off the corners first,” he explained, “to weaken them before you go in for the kill.” He demonstrated with his own snack and made a face of his own. Bo was right – they really did need hot sauce. “Do I look like a nibbler?” Bo said, indignantly. “Dan pulled a bottle of ghost pepper sauce out for himself and put a dash of it on the remainder of the snack before nipping off the other two corners. “He always did re-arrange reality so that he either came out on top, or was a helpless victim of everyone else’s stupidity,” he mumbled, through a mouth full of crispy pastry. Bo twisted open the bottle of sauce Dan had provided and squeezed a small amount onto one of the remaining snacks. The picture on the package made them look satisfyingly large, but in Bo’s hands they looked positively dainty. “How could you put up with that crap for so long?” “I thought he was just being bitchy,” Dan said, pulling the last of the puffs off the plate and dosing it with hot sauce. “I guess he really does think that everyone’s dumber than he is.” Dan walked back to the cooler and pulled out the bag of frozen munchies. “Why don’t you bring the ice chest in here,” Bo suggested, “I’ll take care of those.” Dan shrugged and handed the bag to Bo, then disappeared into the living room while Bo kept talking. “And about that ‘being in a funk’ thing? After you talked on the comm?” Dan carried the ice chest in and put it near the door, where they’d have access to it from either the kitchen or the living room. Looking back, he watched in silent horror as Bo extended one sharp claw and razored off the top of the bag before unceremoniously dumping the entire contents onto the crisping tray, where the hors d’oeuvres didn’t stand a chance in hell of ever becoming crisp. “Would you like some help arranging those?” he asked, hopefully. “Nope. I got it covered, Chief,” Bo answered with a satisfied smile. He shoved the pile into the oven, pushed the ‘cook’ button, and turned his back on it without bothering to set the timer. ‘Disorderly,’ Dan could handle. ‘Fire Hazard,’ he could not. Leaning over and reaching conspicuously around Bo, he punched the digits that started the oven’s timer. “Yeah, I know. Either he’s lying about getting all weepy or he’s in massive denial about his feelings. Neither one is appealing.” “That’s exactly what I think,” Bo said, walking back to his seat and settling in. He put his bottle cap on the table and toyed with it, absentmindedly. “I think he probably does have some feelings for you, but he hates being tied down so much that he probably won’t ever get partnered again. At least, not to someone who can’t be his sugar daddy.” “Plus, he’s got a huge ego, which you single-handedly ground down to a nub when you handed him his walking papers,” Bo added. “That really kicked him in the eggs.” He put his finger behind the bottle cap and positioned it carefully. “Before you ask, because I know you want to, yes, I think you could have him back if you tried. It would take time and it would take the patience of Job, but I think you could do it.” Giving the cap a flick, he sent it sailing across the kitchen to the opposite wall, where it embedded itself halfway into the plaster. “Would you mind not doing that?” Dan asked, petulantly. “I still have to live here after you go home, and I’d prefer that my house not have beer caps embedded in the walls.” “Sorry,” Bo said, sheepishly. Dan was thoroughly annoyed that the expression on the man’s face made it utterly impossible for him to stay mad. Dan dug around in his junk drawer and pulled out a length of ball chain that had fallen off of one of his ceiling fans. His cousin’s five-year-old had entertained herself for hours with it the last time she was over. “Here,” he said, tossing it to Bo, “play with this.” “Ooh, cool,” Bo said, laying the chain out on the granite countertop and pushing it into shapes with his claws. He was intent on making what looked like a palm tree when he muttered,”Three…two…one…” At zero the oven’s timer beeped, and Dan gave the varius a startled look. Bo shrugged without looking up from his new toy and said, “It’s a useful skill when you’re setting detonator charges.” “And timing snacks.” “That too,” the morph agreed. “Look, I made a fish!” “Riiiight,” Dan drawled. He was going to have to ask Bo about that later, when they were both a little more sober. Dan pulled the randomized pile of hot munchies out of the crisper and arranged them on a plate as neatly as he could. Given that the majority of the snacks had welded themselves into a unified lump, his efforts weren’t very effective. “Let me see that,” Bo said, reaching for the tray. Dan offered it to him, thinking that the varius was going to take one of the snacks. To his dismay, Bo grabbed the entire tray out of his hands and dumped the contents onto the plate in a monolithic pile. “They’re not historical artifacts, Dan. They’re cheese puffs.” He gave Dan a mischievous wink. “Live dangerously.” Hoping to inspire by example, the morph unstuck one of the triangles from the mass with one hand and grabbed Dan’s bottle of hot sauce with the other. Over Dan’s sputtered protests, Bo dashed his appetizer with the bright green pepper sauce and popped it in his mouth, the look on his face saying, “See, I told you so!” Two seconds later, the look on his face said, “Oh my God,” which, a second later, transformed again into, “What the fuck have I done?” Dan rushed to the cabinet where he kept the pepper sauces, quickly retrieving a small aluminum spray-bottle of capsaicin neutralizer. He turned to Bo and grabbed his lower jaw. “Open up!” he commanded, in a voice that brooked no nonsense. Bo was in agony but he obeyed. The liquid that Dan spritzed into his mouth had no flavor, but instantly worked to cool his tongue and lips. He barely noticed when Dan let go of his jaw and brought him a glass of water. “Swish this around in your mouth and swallow it.” Bo did as he was instructed, and they repeated the exercise twice more before the pain was finally gone. “Get it under your tongue, too,” Dan advised in a gentler tone. He pulled a tissue out of the box for Bo, then thought better of it and gave him the whole pack. The poor man was drooling and his nose was still running like mad. “Dude, that’s the hottest stuff in my arsenal!” He wanted to laugh, but seeing Bo in so much pain wasn’t the slightest bit funny. Well, okay, it was a little bit funny, but he didn’t laugh. Well, okay, he laughed a little bit, but he felt like a shit for doing it. Coming around the bar, he put his arm around Bo like Sam had done and hugged him across his broad back. “I’m sorry, Bo,” he said. “I don’t mean to laugh. I’m sorry.” “It’s okay,” Bo said, feeling foolish, gently patting Dan’s arm. Dan withdrew, but he didn’t buy for an instant that Bo was okay. The hurt in the morph’s voice threatened to make him wilt in sympathy. “Hey,” said Dan, turning the morph’s shoulders to face him, “Remember the story about me eating the pepper in the Thai restaurant?” Bo did remember, and he gave a grudging smile. “It happens to all of us.” Still embarrassed, Bo chuckled quietly. “I have no idea what I was thinking.” “You were thinking that you needed another beer!” Dan announced, pulling open the lid of the ice chest. Seeing none of Bo’s beers on the top, he dug through the ice, closing his fingers around the neck of what he thought was the dark ale that Bo preferred. It was larger around than he was expecting, and he only had to pull partially free of the crushed ice to see that it was a half-empty liquor bottle. Pushing it back under the ice, he dug deeper and found one of the smaller bottles he was looking for. After putting the bottle in front of Bo, Dan pulled out a fork and attempted to pry apart the mothership of welded-together cheese puffs. “So do you think I should try?” “To get back together with Blaine?” Bo asked, his buzz effectively killed by what felt like a near-death experience. He shook his head doubtfully. “That’s something you have to decide for yourself.” “What would you do?” Dan persisted. Again, Bo shook his great head back and forth, feeling a little dizzy. “I don’t know, it’s not me.” He finished off his beer and grabbed the one Dan had just handed him, wishing like hell that he was still drunk. “There’s a lot to consider here. Yes, you love each other, but you also drive each other crazy. You have great conversations, but very little physical intimacy. You’re intellectually compatible, but you’re a bad fit emotionally.” The big varius shrugged his massive shoulders. “You know, he didn’t get mad when you left him because he loves you so much. He got bad, um…mad because you did something he had no control over. And here it is, over two years later, and he’s still mad that you’ve got bigger balls than he does!” Bo belched. “‘scuse me. You don’t have to make a decision right now, you know,” he said. “Sleep on it and tell me what you decide in the morning.” He paused and put his head down on the counter for a moment, having lost his train of thought. When he recovered it, he continued, “In the meantime,” he pounded one big fist on the counter top, “I’m hungry. Rustle me up some grub, woman!” Oh! Maybe I’m a little more buzzed than I thought… Dan laughed. “I already ordered pizza.” “When did you do that?” “When you dozed off in the middle of your monologue,” Dan smirked. “You must have had a pretty rough day.” Uh, oh! Bo thought, I’m a LOT more buzzed than I thought! “You want to just sack out on the couch?” Dan asked, looking concerned. “Naw, I’m fine. I’ve got my second wind now,” Bo said, taking a few deep breaths. He really did feel better after his short nap. “Come on, then,” Dan said, grabbing the fresh tray of properly cooked appetizers that Bo didn’t remember him making and heading out of the kitchen, “let’s play something on the vid.” These snacks, Bo noticed, smelled much tastier. And better yet, they didn’t have any sharp corners. Bo wobbled his way into the living room and fell into the couch, trying to remember how many drinks he’d had that evening and failing miserably. Dan showed him how to play his favorite online game, and then they were eating pizza, and the next thing he knew, they were laughing so hard that Bo was afraid he was going to throw up. It was all a happy jumble of impressions that Bo knew better than to try to organize. Long ago, he’d embraced the art of letting go and just letting things be. So when he couldn’t keep his eyes open any more, he just let them close and he lay down where he was. Although it wasn’t made for a varius, Dan’s couch was still really comfortable, and, he thought, snuggling his nose into the corner of the cushions, it smelled good! It smelled warm and comforting, like leather, and like home, and like…Dan. Chapter 16a “Hand it over,” Dan said, disgustedly. Dropping himself onto the seat across from Bo, he tossed his lunch sack on the table with an uncharacteristic lack of grace. Bo smirked. “What, my credit chip?” He raised one eyebrow, playfully. “I guess this means he called?” He dug into his back pocket, retrieving the green and blue square of duraplast and held it out to Dan. He wondered how much ribbing Dan could take without getting upset. He had the feeling that the sapiens wasn’t nearly as annoyed as he was acting, but you could never tell. Pinkies could be unpredictable. “Yup,”Dan confirmed, irritably snatching the wafer from Bo’s fingers. “Sure did.” “I told you it wouldn’t even take a week.” In spite of the fact that Dan was so annoyed, Bo still couldn’t keep the grin off his face. He liked winning ten credits, but even more he liked being right. “How’d it go?” Dan pressed Bo’s blue chip against his bank’s red one, and pushed a button on his communicator. After seeing the verification light built into the chip blink, he tossed it onto the table in front of its owner. “Says he doesn’t want to talk.” “And this surprises you?” Dan sighed in consternation. “It surprises me that even though we were together for five years, everyone on the planet seems to know him better than I do. Did,” he corrected himself. “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Bo said, trying to help Dan feel better. “You were too close to see things clearly.” “Yeah, I guess,” Dan said, “Where the hell was I, all that time? Am I really that blind?” “There are none so blind as those who will not see,” quoted Bo, sagely, “and you were so in love with him that you refused to see anything other than his good points.” He chewed his sandwich quietly for a few moments. “You’re a good man for doing that, you know,” he said, examining Dan carefully. Then he extended his foreclaws and began searching through the pile of French fries, looking for the darker, well-done ones that occasionally found their way into the basket. Bo’s words were distracted as he used one of his claws to dig. “He’s an idiot for letting you go so easily,” he muttered. Dan looked up at this, but all he saw was the top of the varius’ black-furred head as he doggedly searched through the pile.

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“Are your hands clean?” Dan asked. He had something to show Bo, and he wasn’t about to let him get it filthy. The varius gave him his most aggrieved look, then grudgingly turned and went into the bathroom to wash off the anti-oxidizing oil that coated almost every alloy block that passed through his hands in a day. Spending even sixty seconds of his precious work-break cleaning his hands when they’d just get dirty again five minutes later seemed like an annoying waste of time. The morph casually ran his eyes over the wrinkled sheet of paper Dan handed him, then realized what it was and gave it a closer, more careful inspection. It was a drawing, a sketch, really, made with whatever crude materials happened to be within its creator’s reach, but executed with a truly artistic flair. There weren’t all that many lines in the whole drawing, but the way they were put down on paper transcended the medium, turning the back of a production ticket and a few milligrams of carbon into art. “This is amazing.” “Yeah, I know, right?” “Who’s it supposed to be?” Bo asked, and did a small double-take when he saw the look Dan was giving him. “What?” “It’s you, stupid.” Bo barked a laugh. “No way,” he scoffed. The varius in the picture was dignified and elegant, his head-and-shoulders pose had him looking up and to his left, concentrating on something outside the frame. Whoever it was, was far better looking than he. “Maybe it’s…” and then he noticed the telltale tuft of hair under the jawline, matching the one that stuck out whenever he lifted his head like that. “Huh,” he said, looking more closely, “I guess it does look sort of like me.” “It looks exactly like you.” Dan said, carefully taking the picture out of Bo’s hand and putting it into a folder on his desk. “Where did you get that?” Bo asked, cocking his head to one side in curiosity. “You know that new kid on the laser press? Kensuke?” Bo grinned. “The guy who’s always bouncing up and down to the music in his head?” He nodded. “Yeah. Seems like a good kid. Haven’t really gotten to know him yet, though.” Dan remembered speaking with the young lion a couple of weeks earlier. “I talked to him on his first day here. I don’t think this is a long-term thing for him. He’s just filling in between…how did he put it? ‘Other opportunities.’ Anyway, he turned in the wrong copy of one of his production reports, and when I dug the good one out of his trash can, this was on the back.” “He’s got talent, I’ll give you that,” Bo said, raising one eyebrow appreciatively. He was about to say more when the end-of-break bell sounded, drawing him back into the plant. “I’ll see you later,” he said, slamming the door open with his usual unconsciously destructive enthusiasm. It’s probably a good thing we’ll never live together, Dan thought, ruefully. I’d have to replace all my doors with heavy-duty steel. Alone once more in his office, Dan pulled out the drawing and looked at it again, holding it carefully by the edges. He’d missed out on all the good electives his junior year in college, and had to take a course in art appreciation. To his surprise, his instructor had turned out to be one of the few whom Dan could relate to, and he’d enjoyed the class far more than he thought he would. As his eyes traveled from one carefully drawn line to another, he remembered some of what he’d learned. The professor had been adamant in his belief that the complexity or sophistication of a piece was irrelevant, that great art could be composed of a single line drawn on the canvas, if it were in the right place and applied with skill. Kensuke seemed to embrace that philosophy, putting no more lines on the paper than required to achieve his goal, and not cluttering it with extraneous fluff. Dan had the feeling that Kensuke hadn’t made the slightest effort to appease popular tastes, instead transcribing his perception of reality onto paper with brutal honesty. Curious now, Dan put the single drawing away and walked into the plant. The laser press was in the middle of the plant, surrounded by the usual hubbub of activity. The closer Dan got, the more clearly he could hear the happy singing coming from its operator. “Hey, Kensuke!” he called out. The short, muscular lion whirled in surprise, his ears drooping as if he’d done something wrong. The yellow pencil that lived behind his right ear came loose and flew out, bouncing and rolling to Dan’s feet. Dan hoped that the friendly expression on his face would calm the young man and make up for startling him. “Whoa, sorry!” he said, raising his hands, “I didn’t mean to scare you or anything.” He bent down and retrieved the pencil, handling it almost reverently as he handed it back to its owner. “That’s okay,” Kensuke said, closing the distance between them to take the pencil from Dan and put it back where it belonged. Now that his ears were back upright it seemed to nestle comfortably there, partially hidden behind an unruly shock of head fur; secure, but ready to be put to use the next time something around him needed to be drawn. Shaking the tension from his wide shoulders, he returned Dan’s smile with interest. “I just flashed back to my childhood, is all. The only time anyone ever called me Kensuke was when I was in trouble. You can call me Ken, if you want.” Dan’s eyes shot down to the trash bin sitting next to the machine, and sure enough, it hadn’t been emptied in a couple of days. “Okay, thanks,” he stammered, suddenly feeling silly for indulging himself like this. “I just wanted to be sure you were all right out here. Everybody treating you okay? You don’t need anything?” The more Kensuke looked at the man, the more he thought he seemed nervous about something, to the point that if Dan had been varius, the lion would have expected his tail to be flicking nervously back and forth. But the lion’s nose wasn’t twitching the way it usually did when someone was trying to deceive him, so maybe the guy was just bothered by something else. The man was, Ken noticed, after pulling his square-rimmed glasses down on his nose and peering over them, sort of cute. “Everyone’s been treating me pretty good, you know? But…” he hesitated. Should he? Oh, why the hell not. He ramped up his shy smile a bit, “I can call you if I need something, right?” he flirted. When he’d first seen them together, he’d thought that Dan and Bo were a couple, but he’d adjusted his thinking after he learned that Bo dated women. Still, maybe Dan liked varii? “Okay!” Dan said, a little too brightly, “Let me know if there’s anything I can, uh…” Kensuke’s golden eyes leaned towards brown, and in this light, Dan thought they might have flecks of brilliant green in them as well. And how had he gotten so close to them? The two men’s faces were only a handspan apart now, and Dan nervously pulled at his collar. He must have dried his shirt on a higher setting than he normally did, because it seemed to be tighter than it usually was, cutting off his air supply. “Anything you need, you just, uh…let me know.” Looking uncomfortable, he waved a quick goodbye before turning on his heel and walking back into the office, trying his best to look casual. But he only succeeded in looking like a very nervous man who was trying far too hard to look casual. “You’re a lousy actor.” Kensuke said, quietly, grinning as he watched Dan’s retreating form. The guy wasn’t anywhere near as stuck up as Bob had said. In fact, compared to Dan, it was Bob who seemed to have the fleas under his collar. He shrugged it off. Back to work, he thought, picking up his song where he’d left off.

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The screech of cold-rolled steel against reinforced concrete echoed through the empty plant as Dan pulled the empty barrel over to the laser press and carefully transferred trash from the full receptacle. He hadn’t gone a fifth of the way down, past innumerable, torn load tags and empty water cups before he found what he was looking for. Dan reached over and flipped on the light that illuminated the press’ feed table, making a bright spot in the otherwise dark and quiet plant. Smoothing out the crumpled paper, Dan saw that he’d unearthed a quick sketch of Mona, the female tiger varius who operated a friction-welding machine just a few meters away from where he stood. She’d been in some sort of accident when she was young, and the side of her otherwise beautiful face had been slightly caved in. As with the drawing of Bo, this one did not shrink from the subject’s imperfections, but used them as beacons, guiding the viewer to a better understanding of the soul living inside the shell. But unlike Bo’s image, the eyes on this one showed Mona’s negative side as well, her hair-trigger temper and her occasionally surly attitude. Dan was about to tut-tut Kensuke’s lack of even-handedness when the devil on his shoulder poked him in the cheek and asked if maybe it was Dan who was prejudiced. Maybe Bo’s flaws were there for the rest of the world to see, but he was choosing to ignore them? Shouldering the question aside for now, Dan put down the sketch of Mona and continued digging. Further down in the mess of discarded scraps he found a quick doodle of Jimmy’s hand, and then one of someone’s eye. He instantly knew whose it was, even if his mind stubbornly refused to recall her name. Eight more scraps he found, before he found one drawn on the back of a discarded work order that made him sit down on the feed table and stare, as mesmerized by the elegant simplicity as he was by the subject matter. He’d come out here after everyone else had gone home in the hopes of finding a few more scraps of Kensuke’s work, and maybe, if he were very lucky, to find another picture of Bo. But this…this was more than he could have hoped for, and it took his breath away. His hands shook slightly as he held the sketch out into the light, the tremor passing through them making them jump in time to his rapidly beating heart. Two men, one much larger than the other, sat at a crude picnic table; scribbled lines that Dan took to be their lunch laid out before them. What captivated Dan’s attention wasn’t the proportion, which was perfect, or the elegant simplicity. What made Dan’s heart jump into his throat was the way the sketch expressed what the two men meant to each other. One hand of the smaller man was rising to make a point as the larger man leaned forward, eager to understand what was being communicated. It was blatantly obvious that the two men wanted to be closer to one another, to know what the other knew, to feel what the other felt. Most of all, it bluntly demonstrated to Dan what the rest of the world had alreadyseen, but he had never permitted himself to acknowledge – that in his own way, Bo Taylor loved him. Even if he might never be able to show it in the way Dan craved, the love was there. The single scrap of paper, just another piece of rubbish to Kensuke, had just become Dan’s most cherished possession. With the greatest of care, he put the discarded paper into a folder where it would be safe. He quickly looked through the rest of the rubbish, finding a few additional scraps and placing them alongside the rest after barely a glance. He took them for the sake of completeness and he’d certainly look at them later, but why spend time rooting around in a dumpster for scraps of iron when he’d already found such a huge nugget of gold? Chapter 16b Dan scheduled his Sunday errands so that he’d finish in Bo’s neck of the woods around lunchtime. He didn’t really need another pair of dusting emitters, but since the only store in town that sold them was just a block away from Bo’s apartment, he stopped in and bought some anyway. He’d just store them away in the junk drawer until he needed them, right next to the half-dozen other pairs that he also didn’t need. When he arrived at Bo’s apartment he bounded up the stairs two at a time, hoping as he always did that Bo didn’t have company. The door to the morph’s apartment was cracked open, and Dan knocked quietly before letting himself in. Bo had fallen asleep on the couch wearing only sweatpants, the fingers of one beefy hand tucked under the waistband, the other arm flung behind his head. Dan had never noticed it before, but the hair in Bo’s armpits was the same length as on the rest of his body. It made him look simultaneously hairy and smooth, and Dan wondered if it was as soft as every other furry patch he’d touched on his friend. Dan squelched the thought with extreme prejudice. No man Dan knew wanted to have their guy friends checking them out, especially while they were asleep. “Hey,” Dan said, bumping the foot of the couch with his boot. “Wake up, sleeping beauty!” “Mrph…” Bo grumped, as he rolled over to face the wall. “Aw, come on now. I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat! It’s a beautiful day, and you don’t want to waste it sleeping. It’s almost noon, for the love of Pete.” Bo rolled back to face Dan and slowly opened his eyes. “Sweet mother of God,” he exclaimed, shutting them again. “For a horrible second, I thought you were my mother.” “Nope,” Dan said, pulling his shirt up to his neck with both hands. “See? Your mother had six more titties than I do.” Bo threw a couch pillow at Dan’s head and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Pull your shirt down, Pinky. You’re blinding me.” He yawned deeply and stretched his arms, displaying an awesome set of muscles and a frightening set of teeth. As he stretched, the sound of his popping joints ricocheted off the walls in his small living room. Dan grinned impishly as he tucked his undershirt back into his shorts and sat down on the chair facing Bo. “Are all furries this grumpy when they wake up?” “Don’t be demeaning.” The varius graced Dan with the best ‘go to hell’ look he could manage and trudged into the bathroom. He shut the door behind him, and Dan heard the water running in the shower. “Get yourself something to drink, if you want,” Bo called out after a few moments, trying his damnedest to be a respectable host even when he was still half asleep. Dan walked into the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator door. Looking for something to drink, he pushed his way through quite a few plastic-wrapped hunks of meat. Pulling out one of the smaller packs, Dan saw that it had been hermetically sealed, with a ‘Government Issue’ stamp across the vacuum port. Belatedly, he remembered that Bo had said something about cooking for himself when he’d brought those cookies to work all those months ago. The way Bo had acted since then had been far more ‘frat boy who parties’ than ‘responsible adult who cooks,’ and from the way the man had tossed food around in his kitchen the prior week, Dan would not have been the slightest bit surprised to learn that Bo could burn cereal. Finding real food in his refrigerator was a stark reminder that how the varius appeared in public was not necessarily who he was when in his own space. Returning his attention to his task, Dan put the hunk of beef back in its place and dug around some more. There wasn’t a huge selection of beverages to choose from. He found containers of milk and beer, and a half-empty box of mixed fruit juice. It was still early enough in the day that he nixed the idea of beer, helping himself to the juice instead. Carrying his glass back into the living area, his eye crossed the closet where Bo had stored his spare motorcycle helmet, and he was tempted to open the door and take a look inside. As much as Dan had always been the sad victim of his own curiosity, he couldn’t bring himself to go snooping around in his friend’s private spaces. He knew that Bo would probably be more than happy to take him on a tour of the closet if he asked, digging through the piles of stuff with him and playing with whatever they found. Sipping his juice, Dan thought that some music might help pass the time, as well as distract him from the sounds of Bo showering in the next room. The last thing he should be thinking about was Bo soaping up his nether regions. Crouching in front of the cabinet where the vid sat, he found a simple but decent-quality music system. Although it was well used, the player was a brand that Dan recognized. Touching the glowing red dot on the otherwise featureless front panel, Dan watched in fascination as the old machine ran through its startup routine. Navigating through the menu of artists, Dan was surprised to see what had been loaded onto the box. Hundreds of songs by performers he was familiar with, and dozens by artists he’d never heard of. Classical, choral, instrumental, electronic, it was all there. It was like the varius had gone through the Universal Art Archive and picked the best examples from every category. If this box hadn’t come to Bo already filled with this music, his tastes were amazingly varied. Dan was so preoccupied looking through the collection that he didn’t notice that the water in the bathroom had stopped running. He was still browsing when he heard Bo pad to a stop behind him. “See anything you like?” came the deep, rumbling voice. Dan felt the increase in warmth and humidity, and he could smell the clean scent of damp hair. He knew that if he turned around right now he’d be face-to-crotch with the most amazing man he’d ever known, and he carefully stayed precisely where he was. If he weren’t careful, Dan could easily embarrass himself right now. “You’ve sure got eclectic tastes. There’s everything from Rossini to Dirac Beep in here. Was all this on the machine when you got it?” Bo chuckled quietly. “It’s all mine, Pinks. The box was wiped clean when I got it.” He paused for a moment. “Pick out something you like.” When Dan heard him taking the towel from around his waist and drying his head with it, he was thankful for the distraction the music collection afforded. He knew that Bo had no way of knowing if he stole a glance at his junk as long as he had that towel wrapped around his head, but Dan didn’t dare risk it. It would have been in poor taste anyway, so he ignored temptation and dialed in one of his current favorite artists, then set them playing from concealed speakers. “Good choice,” Bo said, turning to go back into the bathroom. In contrast to his words he sounded somewhat disappointed, as if Dan could have chosen better. Dan might be above looking at Bo’s package, but he wasn’t so pure that he could resist sneaking a peek at the varius’ retreating back. His efforts were richly rewarded by the sight of the morph’s stubby tail wagging back and forth above two perfectly shaped, furry butt cheeks, and Dan felt his blood pressure drop. He’d seen Bo’s naked ass often enough in the gym’s locker room, but even in that public setting it never failed to elicit a response. In the privacy of the morph’s home, the man’s nudity was damned disconcerting. The varius walked out of his bedroom a few minutes later wearing shorts and a short-sleeved tropical shirt that fit him so well, Dan thought that it must have been specially tailored for his unique body. He wore sandals, and the irrelevant thought occurred to the sapiens that he still hadn’t gotten a look at the bottoms of his feet. Brushing the thought away, Dan led Bo down to his car and popped open the door. The varius directed them to an Indian Republic restaurant near his house, and Dan was happy to see that instead of the white linen service that was so common with most IR restaurants that it had become passé, in this one the patrons were treated like ancient royal Sultans. There were low couches for those who needed more support, but Bo and Dan chose to seat themselves on the thick Persian rugs, reclining on soft pillows scattered around the low table as they talked. “It’s varius-owned,” Bo explained, “and besides being really cool, using pillows instead of chairs lets them seat a wide variety of morphologies.” “That’s a pretty big word!” Dan enthused, grinning broadly. “Who’s been watching the educational channel?” Bo shot him an equally smarmy smile and bounced a chickpea off of his forehead. “I’m plenty smart, Pinks. In fact,” he challenged, “any time you want to get in a battle of wits, you just let me know.” He nodded decisively. “I’ll mop the floor with your ass.” He sipped his drink through the oversized straw they thoughtfully provided. “I know lots of big words,” he said, nodding like a proud student. “Lots.” “Is that what they told you in the army?” Dan asked, only half joking. He’d been curious about Bo’s service, but for some reason, the morph seemed to always direct them away from that aspect of his past life. Now seemed as good a time as any to plumb those depths. “As a matter of fact, yes.” Bo indulged him. “They told me I was a real progidy.” Dan groaned at the stupidity of the joke, but he had the feeling that it was more than just his friend being silly. He thought that maybe it was Bo’s way of showing Dan an exit ramp to a conversation he’d rather not have. Not a blatant refusal to answer or even a distraction, but an option brought to the table. An option that Dan did not choose to exercise. They had time to kill, and he was really curious about some of the things Bo had said over the past few months. “You don’t talk about your service very much. Were you really involved with explosives, or was what you said the other night just a joke?” Bo looked at him for a long moment, and Dan knew he was being evaluated. He apparently passed whatever metric Bo was measuring him against, and the varius slowly nodded his head, “Yeah,” he said, and although the smile was still on his face, Dan thought it now looked a little forced. The sparkle in his eyes had dulled a bit, and Dan thought he remembered a similarly distant look come over the man when they had talked about his mother. “That was true.” Dan didn’t say anything, he just waited patiently for more. “You know, it’s funny,” Bo said, “I was actually planning on talking to you about this today.” He cocked an eyebrow at Dan, “You’d think I’d be better prepared, huh?” His smile was gone now, replaced by the disinterested stoicism that seemed to be his default expression when Dan couldn’t put something else there. “Prepared?” Dan had anticipated a conversation, not a debriefing. Sure, he was curious, but he didn’t want that curiosity to drag them into an unpleasant conversation that Bo would rather not have. He was willing to put some things on the back burner, if need be. “Look, if this is something you’d rather not talk about, I’m okay with that.” “Naw,” Bo said, shaking his head slowly. “It’s okay. There are just a lot of things about me you don’t know yet.” “I know,” Dan said, “that’s why we’re here, right? To learn about each other? Help each other out? Maybe help each other to be a little better?” Bo pulled the straw out of his drink and started playing with it. He wanted to smile at Dan’s almost naïve innocence, but the expression didn’t make it very far. “Yeah. I’m not sure if I believe that anything put us here, but if someone is up there, I hope he puts people in your life who can help you out from time to time. Heck, maybe that’s why you’re here right now. To help me out.” He looked up at Dan for a moment before wrapping the straw around his finger, watching the way it compressed the short fur underneath as he twisted it tighter. “I’ll do what I can,” Dan said, quietly, “you know that.” When their waitress peeked her head around the corner, Dan silently motioned her to bring Bo another straw to replace the one he was busy mangling. He’d seen Bo try to drink directly from a glass before, and the result wasn’t pretty. “Yeah,” Bo said, “yeah, Dan, I do know that. You’re a good man. And it’s been years since there’s been anybody I could talk with about this.” He snorted a disappointed little laugh. “Hell, what am I saying? I’ve never had anyone I could really talk to about this shit. Unless you count a string of third-rate Army shrinks…” he trailed off, as if he really were taking the time to remember them one by one. “I’ve told some of this to Sam, but even he doesn’t know everything.” Dan rearranged the pillows he was resting on and moved himself closer to the varius, ready to hear whatever was said even if it had to be whispered. He usually tried to keep a prudent distance between Bo and himself, not wanting to catch another whiff of that amazingly addictive scent that the morph put off, but in this case he was willing to risk it. He propped himself up facing his friend, listening patiently. He knew he was probably getting more casual with the “furniture” than the owners of the restaurant had intended, but he didn’t really care. Today, Bo needed him in a way he never had before, and it was Dan’s turn to be there for him. When the waitress dropped off the replacement straw, Dan thanked her and dropped it into Bo’s drink. “It’s just you and me in here, buddy.” Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw one of the varius servers, an older woman, look at them oddly before disappearing into the back. Probably, Dan thought, to complain to the manager about the pair of deadbeats who were monopolizing table six. Well, that was too bad – they’d have to suck it up. It wasn’t as if the restaurant was full that day. In fact, he realized, looking around them, they really were the only customers in there. He could wait all day, if that’s what it took for Bo to feel comfortable saying what was on his mind. Reaching into his pocket, Dan retrieved a meter of ball chain and quietly put it on the table in front of his friend. A quiet smile crossed Bo’s muzzle when he saw the chain, remembering their previous weekend together, and the times he’d shared with Dan. Yes, he thought to himself, covering the chain with his hand, I’ve made a good choice. Bo spoke with his usual bluntness, his fingers slowly working to untangle the chain on the table in front of him. “I achieved the highest technical proficiency level available in every skill set I attempted, including ordnance detonation and removal. I was the army’s golden boy, and I qualified for promotion faster than anyone else in the history of my company. There wasn’t anything they put in front of me that I couldn’t do. “ His monotone delivery robbed his words of any sense of braggadocio they might have carried. “And then I killed eleven people on Io.” Dan felt the blood drain out of his face. The even, measured pace of Bo’s speech gave the impression that this was something he’d said over and over to himself, possibly to explain things, or maybe so he’d never forget. Dan rested a hand on the morph’s arm for a moment before pulling it back and giving him space. “Tell me.” Bo took in a huge lungful of air and then let it out slowly. Now that he had someone to tell this to, he had no real idea what to say. “We were on a training mission,” he started, speaking more slowly than he usually did, “bouncing off the Jupiter moons, and we found an old pre-war cache of explosives. I was ranking technical expert, so I went in and cleared the site. I made sure all the detonators were separated from the charges, the chem packs were in different containers, the electrics were defused…” he shrugged. “I did everything by the book, and I cleared it.” He had wound the chain into a tight circle, and now he traced a sharp claw along the spiral channel it made. “The other guys took the crate into the ship to bring it back to base for disposal, and I stayed behind to double check, to make sure there wasn’t another case hiding somewhere.” “Oh, God,” Dan said, instinctively suspecting what Bo was about to say. “Yep,” Bo said, lightly, “telemetry reported an EM spike in the box, twenty-two milliseconds before it exploded inside the ship.” He uncurled the chain and formed it into a zigzag on the table, tracking it back and forth in neat, even rows. “From outside the ship, you couldn’t even tell anything had happened. Military transports are pretty tough that way. It didn’t even damage the skin. But inside, the pressure wave killed everybody in my unit. Everyone but me.” “What happened?” Dan asked. As much as he didn’t want to know if it was Bo’s fault, he had to know. “They say it was a booby trap that the aliens left behind,” Bo told him. “They’ve found others since then and they’ve figured out how to defuse them, so they think they know what happened.” “Then it wasn’t your fault.” Dan concluded, breathing easier. “You said you did everything by the book.” “Technically, maybe,” Bo allowed, “but you can’t depend on the book to cover every situation. You’ve got to be smarter than that. You’ve got to be smarter than the bastards that set them.” He took a long drink to ease his parched throat. “I wasn’t.” “As much as you try, you can’t be perfect, babe,” Dan said, “It sounds like it was just your unit’s day in the barrel.” “That’s easy to say, but it’s a little harder to feel that way in real life,” Bo said, calmly. At least Dan hadn’t said that he understood. A decade ago Bo would have physically lashed out if he’d done that, but today he probably would have just laughed in his face, and he really didn’t want to do that to him. “The hardest part was the look on the faces of their families when I told them I was the one who cleared the box.” He’d stopped trying to organize the chain, and now just pushed it around into random shapes. He nodded his head, slowly. “Yeah. That sucked.” “Your C.O. made you tell them?” Dan was outraged. That was the sort of thing a Commanding Officer should handle in person, not defer to a subordinate. He felt a rage coming on at what looked like a dereliction of duty that had scarred someone he loved. “No, it’s okay,” Bo said, seeing Dan’s expression. “I asked them to let me do it.” He knew that if he didn’t correct Dan’s misperception, his friend would start firing off letters in his defense to every possible authority. Bo thought that Dan’s loyalty was worthy of a varius, but the man did tend to over-react, occasionally bringing his shotgun to bear on opponents who required only a peashooter. Dan appeared somewhat mollified, but the look in his eyes told Bo that if he learned differently, there would be hell to pay. “So what happened after that?” “The ship’s computer sent out an automated distress signal, and the base sent another ship out to pick me up. All I had to do was sit there on a frozen little moon, leaning up against a ship full of my dead buddies, and wait for the taxi.” Dan was spared from comment when the woman he’d seen scurrying to the back re-appeared, now carrying a large tray. Instead of complaining at them as Dan had feared, she busied herself filling their table with a selection of foods from the buffet line. “You were so busy talking that I was afraid you might forget to eat,” she said, as she arranged the plates so that both men had access. “We have all this food ready, and nobody to eat it. It would be a shame if it went to waste.” She disappeared again, leaving both men feeling as if they’d just been successfully mothered. “Thank you,” Bo called out after her, startled out of his introspective reverie. “That was very kind.” “People like you, you know,” Dan said, gently. “This sort of thing never happens to me unless I’m with you.” He wasn’t good at stroking egos, but Dan had the feeling that right now, Bo needed it. “I haven’t seen the woman yet who can keep her hands off you. Every one we’ve ever been around wants to run her fingers through your hair like you’re some big puppy.” “Listen,” he continued, hating the fact that Bo was blaming himself for the death of his team. “All I can say is, whatever other magic tricks you’ve got up your sleeve I don’t know about, you can’t see into the future. What happened back then wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t your commander’s fault, and it wasn’t the fault of the guys who died.” Dan had kept his composure while Bo was speaking, but now his feelings leaked out. “It’s some stupid alien’s fault, and he probably got his ass shot off a hundred years ago anyway. You ended up being just as much a victim as your buddies.” Bo didn’t fail to pick up on Dan’s righteous anger in his defense, and he suddenly felt guilty. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything, Dan. I’m sorry to burden you. It’s probably why I don’t really have any close friends.” Dan thought that Bo was getting a little dramatic. “Don’t be stupid. What about Sam? And…” he trailed off, realizing belatedly that Bo was right. Sam was more of a father figure to Bo than he was a friend. The guys in the plant were acquaintances, work-buddies at best, and Bo hadn’t ever had someone over at his apartment when Dan showed up unexpectedly. “Well, you’ve got one friend, at least,” Dan said, defensively. “Am I not your friend?” “No,” Bo said, bluntly. “Not yet.” Seeing the look of hurt surprise on Dan’s face, he conceded, “But you’re getting damned close.” Dan was hardly mollified. “My mistake. I thought that was what we’d been for the past three months. Who did you say was a big bucket o’ crazy?” he asked, trying to shake off Bo’s rejection. “Your ex!” Bo said, emphatically. Dan opened his mouth to defend Blaine, and then closed it. Shrugging his shoulders, he admitted, “You do have a point.” “How did you stay with him for so long?” Bo asked, “Doesn’t that put you on the road to sainthood, or something?” “It should,” Dan agreed. He wasn’t feeling nearly as chipper on the inside as he was trying to sound on the outside. Bo’s matter-of-fact denial felt far too close to the rejection Dan had feared for so long that he had to fight his natural inclination to shut down. “So what’s your next miracle going to be?” Bo asked, pulling out of his somber mood, “I think you need three before they make you a saint.” “I dunno,” Dan said, doing his best to help Bo pull back on the stick and keep their conversation from going into a depressing tailspin. “I know a couple of good card tricks.” “Good enough!” Bo pronounced. “I’ll alert the Vatican.” Although the food they were served was exceptional, throughout the afternoon Dan found himself concentrating more on his conversation with Bo than he did on the meal. By the time the two men had their fill of both conversation and food, the tableau beyond the restaurant’s windows had grown dark and the less-casually-dressed dinner crowd was starting to filter in. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Dan apologized to their waitress, “we didn’t mean to hog your table for so long.” She laughed, the tiny silver bells she wore on her ears making music as she spoke. “Don’t worry about it. The greatest honor you could give me is to be so comfortable in my restaurant that you forget where you are.” “You’re the owner?” Dan was surprised. For some reason, he’d thought the silver-haired varius was one of the waiters. Perhaps it was only the fact that she’d served them personally and with such humble care, but he had a difficult time picturing her as a business owner. She bowed slightly, with a grace that made the motion look more like a dance. “We’re slow today anyway, and we’ve all been enjoying watching you talk. We should thank you for bringing life into this place!” Dan handed her his credit chip, and left a generous tip on the table to make up for sitting there for so long. Bo dug into the back pocket of his shorts. “What’s the damage, Chief?” “No can do, Kimosabe,” Dan said, enjoying his ability to treat a friend to a meal, every now and then. He’d been afraid that Jim’s departure would necessitate a tightening of his purse strings, but the reality had been quite the opposite. Apparently, Jim had been even more of a financial burden than he’d realized. “You can catch it next time.” Walking outside and squinting into the setting sun’s orange light, Dan asked, “Did we just eat lunch, or dinner?” “Yes,” Bo answered, smugly. “We have successfully eaten our way through two consecutive meals. Welcome to powerlifting.” Ten minutes later, dust swirled around Dan’s car as he settled the vehicle into the parking lot of Bo’s apartment. As the drive coil was winding down, Bo opened his door but did not step out of the car. The glare of the setting sun made his eyes squint nearly shut. “Why don’t you come up for a beer?” Dan wanted to, but he thought better of it. “Sorry, bud. It’s getting late and I’ve still got a laundry list of things to do.” Bo reached over and took the keys out of the ignition. “Come on up,” he said easily, getting out of the car and walking towards the door. Dan was annoyed that he’d been taken out of control of the situation, but he could see no harm in doing as Bo requested. He’d only made his excuses because he didn’t want to become tiresome, but it seemed that Bo wasn’t tired of him yet, so... Bo cracked two bottles of beer and handed one to Dan. He sat down on the corner of the couch facing Dan, took a pull on his beer and said simply, “We need to talk.” Oh shit, thought Dan, here it comes. He knew this was too good to last. He imagined that he knew what he’d done – he’d fucked things up when he’d paid the check by himself, like Bo was his boyfriend and they were out on a date, or something. Bo sat up straighter on the couch and looked at Dan with disconcerting focus. “One of the things I need you to understand is that you can’t buy the loyalty of a morph. You can’t curry our favor, you can’t buy our friendship, and you can’t make us like you. That much is coded into our genome, and it’s there for good. We’re suspicious as a lot, so we don’t like being lied to, and we like not being told the whole truth even less.” Damn, this goes deeper than I thought! “I’m sorry, Buddy,” Dan stammered. “I didn’t mean to buy your friendship. I just thought I was paying for lunch.” Fuck! He thought to himself, I sound like a guilty schoolgirl! Bo looked surprised, and for a moment Dan thought he was going to get thrown out on his ear, a painful prospect, considering that Bo lived on the second floor. He made a move for his keys, lying on the table, but a warm, furry paw on his hand stopped him. “Sometimes I’m amazed at how magnificently you can over-think things, Dan. Sit back down. You need to hear me out.” Cautiously, Dan settled back into the chair that had been proportioned for the frame of a varius, feeling like a child sitting on adult furniture. Bo picked Dan’s beer off the table and handed it to him. “Hang onto this – you may need it.” Looking thoughtful, he walked back into the kitchen and came back with two more beers in Sta-Kold wrappers. After putting them on the coffee table between them, he sat back down onto his side of the couch. Bo settled in, tucking one big foot under his other leg. “Now, listen to everything I have to say before you pipe up again, Pinky!” He commanded gruffly. “This has nothing to do with your paying for lunch. And I’m sorry if I didn’t say ‘thanks for lunch.’” He hoisted his beer in salute. “Thanks for lunch.” He swigged the beer, and settled in to say what he had to say. Dan listened, more than a little perplexed. The varius looked over at Dan. “You’re not in trouble here, so you can stop looking guilty. You’re making me feel like I slapped a puppy.” He thought about what he’d said and shook his head. “It’s my fault, I guess I shouldn’t have started that way. I’m trying to make you understand that if I like you, it’s because of who you are, not because of anything you can do for me. “We’re not a trusting people, and as a rule we don’t let other people into our Circles. You,” he said, looking straight into Dan’s eyes, “are my exception to that rule.” He broke his gaze, and let Dan sift that information through his tiny little pinky brain for a few seconds. After it had percolated through, Bo saw the realization dawning behind Dan’s eyes, and when the sapiens quirked an eyebrow at him, Bo understood his intent. “Okay, I’m not really through, but you can talk.” Dan remembered hearing Bo mention the varius Circles from time to time, and not having anything else to compare it to on the sapiens side, he had equated it to a circle of close friends. But something in the morph’s bearing suggested that his interpretation had been far too simplistic. “You’re telling me that you’re going to allow me to be your friend?” Dan asked, hope battling against defiance at how arrogant that sounded. He was afraid that his words came out a wee bit snarky. “This isn’t frivolous,” Bo said, with a touch of rebuke in his voice that was new to their relationship. It caught his attention, and Dan quickly sobered. “There are many levels of friendship, some of which come with a degree of obligation. There are some things you need to understand about us…” he paused, “…about me, before you can make the decision to be my friend, and that’s why I asked you to come up here.” “Asked me?” Dan said, “You stole my keys, you butt-licker!” “Well, yeah,” Bo conceded, “but it worked, didn’t it? So hush. And,” he said with dignity, “I do not lick my butt. That was just a rumor that Bob started after I caught him masturbating in the employee bathroom.” When Dan had stopped laughing, Bo continued. “You’ve never made it any secret that you’re gay, and at first, that social openness concerned me a bit. But you’ve never been anything but respectful to me. You’ve never rubbed my nose in our differences, and I appreciate that.” Dan lifted his beer bottle in acknowledgement, taking a silent pull from it. He could see by the look on his face that what Bo was telling him was important, so he shut up and paid attention. “Part of that friendship I was talking about, part of being in my Circle, is that I’ve gotta know that I can trust you. There are certain things I need to tell you, and I have to know without a shred of doubt that you’re not going to tell anyone else without my express permission.” “I’ve never shared what we’ve talked about with anyone,” Dan replied, “I know you’ve opened up to me and shared parts of your past that were uncomfortable.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing you’ve told me has been really shameful, but I know you’re pretty private, so I kept it quiet.” Bo sat back down on the opposite side of the couch, nodding his head. “I know, and I appreciate that. Over the past couple of months, nothing I’ve told you has come back to me through anyone else, so I’m pretty sure you know how to keep your mouth shut. “I trust you, Dan. I think, maybe even enough to let you in. Talking to you like this is part of the process. I want you to understand me, and to know where I’m coming from. No walls, no shields, just me.” “Well…thanks,” Dan said, nodding slightly, wondering if this had been the big surprise Bo was talking about. Being included in his circle of personal trust was a big thing, but hardly seemed earth-shattering. Dan thought that it must be a Big Thing in varius circles, so he chalked it up to cultural differences. With a look of morbid anticipation on his face like a child who was about to have a tooth pulled, the varius said, “What you don’t know about me, what nobody in the plant knows, what nobody in the world knows, is that I have my own set of sexual peccadilloes.” At this, a portion of Dan’s beverage got blown through his nose. Concerned about the condition of both Dan’s health and his couch’s upholstery, Bo tossed him a box of nose tissue. While Dan busied himself blotting beer from the places it did not belong, Bo continued in earnest. “Look, I don’t have to tell you how important it is that nobody knows this, right? You’ve met the crowd I run with. That’s part of why I’ve been taking you out to Sam’s, you know? So you’d understand. Even if ninety-nine percent of what I do is completely normal, those guys can’t find out about that other one percent. And if you say a word to anyone, I guarantee you it’ll get back to them. If that happens, I won’t stop being your friend, Dan, but it’ll hurt me.” The tone of Bo’s voice was almost frantic, but honestly, Dan was more concerned about the beer dripping on his shirt than he was about Bo being weird in the bedroom. He knew a pair of guys who had built a subterranean dungeon into their new house, and seriously doubted that anything the varius could tell him would be shocking. “I’ve heard this sort of thing before, Bo, and it’s okay.” He blotted the remaining moisture from the fabric of his shirt. “I’m sure you’re not the only varius in the world who gets a little freaky in the sack. Y’all might not talk about it,” he said, “but trust me, it’s there.” “I don’t know, Dan,” Bo said, tapping his forehead with a thick forefinger. “Things seem awfully weird from in here. I like varius women well enough, heck I’d like to get married and have kids one of these days. I’ve dated plenty of ladies, I’ve screwed around with my share, but…” He trailed off, trying to gather the thoughts that were spinning through his head. “I can’t see myself settling down with any of them.” As he was saying this he seemed to be going off into his own private reverie, and Dan thought that he could see Bo’s dark eyes becoming bright with emotion. “But I don’t need to explain this to you – you understand about stuff like this, right?” “I think so,” Dan told him, “but I never went through what you’re going through. I knew right from the start that I was different. I knew I liked guys, even if I didn’t know what that was called back then.” He shrugged, “I never really had any interest at all in women, and I never had anything inside me telling me that I should be anything other than who I was.” “Nobody’s ever told me that I can’t be me,” Bo said. “I’ve never felt like I was a bad person or given a second thought about being who I am. But still, I just can’t imagine settling down with anyone I’ve ever dated.” Bo sounded so confused about his own thoughts that Dan considered his own carefully before replying. “What you’re talking about really doesn’t sound like being a pervert. It sounds like maybe you don’t want a commitment. Maybe you were born to be a bachelor?” “So I get to spend the rest of my life alone?” Bo asked. It wasn’t a leading question, it just sounded like he was putting it on the table for discussion. “Why alone?” Dan asked. “There are plenty of guys in my community who don’t want to partner up. They have all the companionship they want, and a full social calender to keep them busy. They just don’t want to get married.” Bo shook his head, sadly. “With varii, my type, at least, that’s even worse than being gay. There aren’t a lot of us out there, and if we want to keep our subspecies alive, we need to reproduce. Singles don’t fit into that model very well.” Both men sipped at their beers and watched the clouds roll in from the east. A storm was coming, and it was going to be a big one. The silence between them was comfortable and Dan didn’t really want to break it, but after a few minutes he gave in to his curiosity. “You said something about your ‘type’?” When Bo nodded, Dan continued. “I’ve seen a bunch of all the others, but I’ve never seen another varius like you.” It wasn’t really a question, but Bo understood what Dan was asking. He polished off his beer and played with the empty bottle, looking a little uncomfortable. “Questions about type usually aren’t discussed, even between varii.” “I’m sorry if–” Dan started, but Bo held up a big paw to stop him. “Don’t apologize, you’re only being honest about your curiosity.” He extended a foreclaw, and began absentmindedly razoring off strips of the beer’s label. “It’s society that’s wrong, not you.” He went around and around the bottle, the thin ribbon snaking down towards the floor. “Maybe it’s just that itdigs up what we’d rather not think about, but most morphs are a little sensitive about why we were created.” Bo gave a sharp, sad little laugh. “Created. It makes us sound like robots, or something.” The corners of his mouth quirked downwards in distaste. Visibly shaking off the feeling, he continued. “There’s not a lot of us out there. Back when my great-grandparents were conceived, the designers were trying to make a type of scout who could wreak havoc behind enemy lines. The canine model seemed ideal to them, so that’s what they started with. Then they threw in some other things they thought might come in handy from felines, ursines, and God only knows what else.” He chuffed a bark of laughter. “I think they were trying to make us smaller, but when they threw in the bear DNA they shot themselves in the foot.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever. But that’s sort of what I needed to talk to you about.” He looked at Dan intently. “I know I can trust you, but I still have to ask. Can I trust you with something you can’t repeat? To anyone?” The intensity of his gaze took Dan by surprise, and was enough to make him hesitate. Was he completely trustworthy? He considered the matter carefully, and when he spoke, his words were deliberate. “Unless it’s something that’s going to hurt someone.” He thought about his words for a moment before nodding his satisfaction. “Yes.” As he watched, Bo’s entire affect changed. It was subtle, but definite. Bo closed his eyes. “You don’t know how glad I am that you took the time to think about what you were saying, and didn’t just say yes.” He drew a calming breath and continued. “Scouts had to have superior problem solving ability, and the engineers gave us something they didn’t give the others.” Bo cut his eyes to Dan. “They bumped our intelligence.” At Dan’s stunned and disbelieving look, Bo said, “Yeah, I know, the publicity corps said it never happened. They claimed they never tinkered with any of the genes for intellectual predisposition in any of the varius forms. It’s not difficult to believe that they lied, is it?” Dan understood what Bo was saying. “No, I guess it isn’t. They’ve lie about almost everything else, right?” Bo raised an eyebrow in agreement. “I’m not a supercomputer, or anything, it’s nothing that dramatic. I’m probably not all that much smarter than you are. But then again,” he added, giving Dan the respect he was due, “you’re pretty smart.” “So what’s the product of two hundred and fifty-six and thirty-eight?” Dan challenged. “Let me rephrase that,” Bo said, reconsidering. “You’re pretty smart, for an eight-year-old.” “What?” Dan asked, stung. “I’m not a savant, Dan. I can’t sit down at a piano and play something I heard once, or do math tricks in my head.” “Oh,” Dan sounded a little disappointed. “But you can time baked snacks with pinpoint accuracy,” he sniped. “It’s good to know my tax dollars went to something useful.” “It was your great-grandparents’ tax dollars,” Bo corrected. “But no matter how small the enhancement was, it’s critical that nobody know it happened. My tribe doesn’t share that, for obvious reasons, and now I have to trust that you understand how important it is that you not tell anyone. If word leaks out, the right-wing kooks are going to start screaming for our extermination again. And this time, the left wing just might let them do it.” “I understand, Bo. Thanks for trusting me.” Dan grew serious. He was surprised that Bo would tell him such sensitive information if it were true, but he could see no reason Bo would lie about something like that. “We got other tricks,” Bo continued, “like the extendable claws, the expanded color vision, other stuff that canines never came with from the factory. Anyway, the long and short of it is that there weren’t all that many of us made to begin with. The geneticists were afraid that news would get out, and instead of just removing that enhancement, they got scared and scrapped the program altogether. There were only twenty-eight viable morphs like me who made it through the war. Nine males, and nineteen females. There are only two hundred and twenty-six of my type alive in the world today.” No wonder Dan had never seen anyone else like Bo walking the streets. Two hundred and twenty-six people seemed like quite a few when they were in one place, but it was a vanishingly small number when spread across an entire planet. “Now let me get this straight, just so I don’t misunderstand,” Dan said, pulling his second beer from the Sta-Kold wrap and handing the other fresh bottle to Bo. “Only subspecies of similar type can interbreed and produce viable offspring, right? You couldn’t mate with a wolf subspecies and expect to have a child?” Bo took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the subject matter obviously making him uncomfortable. “Yeah, sort of. Mostly. About one in ten wild hybrids can be carried full term, and maybe one in twenty of those survives infancy. Social pressures keep that from happening very often, so for the most part you’re right.” Dan followed his thought out to its logical conclusion. “That means that you’re one of a very few of your type, and if you want to keep your line alive, you need to breed with another of your type.” “Right.” Bo nodded his head. “It sounds like you’re homing in on the difficulty.” “Difficulty? You mean, it doesn’t make much of a difference if a wolf morph doesn’t breed because there are thousands more to take his place, but if you don’t pitch in and help, it removes a significant chunk of genetic material from the gene pool? That sort of difficulty?” “Yep.” Bo said wryly, taking a deep draught from his bottle. “You got it in one try.” This was getting confusing. “So why haven’t you been dating women of your type? With so few out there like you, there’s gotta be some sort of list, a registry, some way of contacting the others in your clan if you need to.” “There’s a directory,” Bo admitted, “but I’m not all that thrilled with who’s on it.” “With such a small pool, there can’t be that many eligible women,” Dan guessed. “What, eight, maybe? Ten?” Bo sighed dispiritedly. “Six.” The tone in his voice made Dan really look at Bo, and he saw more in the morph’s body language than words ever could say about how much this talk was costing him. Bo had tucked one of his legs underneath him, and had protectively wrapped one huge arm around his chest, as if what he’d just told Dan might be turned into bullets and fired back at him. “You’re looking really uncomfortable,” Dan said, gently, “do you want to put this off for a while?” “Naw, man.” Bo blew out a huge breath, loosening his arms and shaking out the tension. “I’m okay. I just really need to talk with you about this.” “Okay,” Dan “So…what do you want?” Bo looked like he wanted to melt into the couch, and for the first time since Dan had known him, he seemed at a loss for words. “I… uh…” he stammered, then quickly levered himself off the couch, nearly tripping over the coffee table in his haste. “Damn, is it hot in here?” He thumbed the latch on the large living room window and pulled it open to admit the breeze, but afterward didn’t seem very interested in returning to his seat. Cool, humid air brushed past them, bringing with it sounds of children playing in the parking lot, layered with sounds of distant rolling thunder and the smell of impending rain. Bo stood there at the window, breathing in the changing air and waiting, nervously rubbing his handpaws together as if hoping that Dan would change the subject. For perhaps the first time in his life, Dan felt no urge to speak. It was as if he’d been suddenly graced with the patience of Buddha. What Dan did feel was the need to do what was right for Bo, to treat what he said with respect, and to do everything he could to maintain his friend’s dignity. Eventually the silence wore Bo down. His head slumped a bit, and Dan had to restrain the urge to jump up and put a comforting arm around Bo’s shoulder. Not my place Dan thought, and he just listened. When Bo spoke again Dan could almost hear the sounds of rusty hinges grinding open, heavy doors cracking apart just wide enough to let pass the one secret that was more damning than all the rest. “I… um… I like… pinkies.” This last was almost a whisper, and Dan finally understood what it had cost Bo to share this. What Dan didn’t know about varius culture was encyclopedic. But from what Bo had told him over the past few months, and especially what he’d learned in the past few minutes, he now guessed that Bo was traveling down a road that could potentially see him ostracized by every single subspecies of varius. Dan knew that despite the sensitive nature of everything else the morph had told him this afternoon, it was in telling him this that he ran the greatest personal risk. There had been nobody in his world to whom he could tell his horrible secret; nobody in the world who would understand him. Of all the people Bo knew, only Dan, isolated from his own species by his sexual variation, stood a chance of understanding what he was going through. Bo had no way of knowing the depth of love Dan carried for him, or of knowing that, from time to time, the man had quietly despaired not for himself, but for how lonely his friend seemed to be. All Bo could possibly know for certain was that he had just dropped his guard, and now there was one man in the world who had all the ammunition that would ever be needed to betray him. And it was up to Dan to reassure him that that would never happen. Dan quietly put his bottle down and went to stand by Bo’s side in front of the open window. Fat drops of rain were spattering against the parking lot below, driving the playing children back into their homes. All was quiet save for the patter of rain and the soft rolls of distant thunder. Dan reached up to put his hand on the varius’ massive, soft-furred shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze, feeling completely and utterly inadequate. “I’d be honored to be in your Circle, Bo.” He breathed out softly and said, “I want to be your friend.” When Bo turned to look down at the man he’d finally come to trust, there were tears in his eyes. Bo Taylor, the mountainously large, scary morph who used to intimidate him into silence whenever he walked into the room…was crying, and Dan felt his own heart breaking in sympathy. Bo had been right, Dan thought. They were not friends, after all. In every way that mattered, they were brothers. Dan hated himself for having no sage words of wisdom to ease his friend’s pain, and he did the only thing he could. Putting his arms high around Bo’s waist, he gently drew him close, letting the man who was now his Circlemate cry on his shoulder as the two men listened to the soft patting sounds of rain falling against the window sill. “I’m sorry, Bo,” Dan said, sympathetic tears running down his own cheeks now, “I’m so damned sorry.” Chapter 17 “It’s Bo, right?” Bo turned his head wearily and stared at the young lion standing next to him. “Yep.” His eyes were gritty and it felt like he hadn’t slept in a week. In reality it had only been two nights, but regardless of the actual duration, he still felt like crap. Two long nights of staring at the ceiling and worrying about something that would probably never happen anyway, two sleepless nights that had turned him short-tempered and cranky. Trying to maintain some semblance of civility, Bo sighed quietly and put on the friendliest face he could muster. “Can I help you?” “Hey,” the lion said, hesitantly. “I’m Kensuke.” It was obvious that the other man was in a foul mood. As much as he was trying to mask it, Bo still looked like he wanted to rip someone’s head off. Ken just hoped he wasn’t going to be the target. Pointing to the copier the other man was using to print off his load tags, the lion asked, “Is there any way to get that thing to make halfway decent copies?” He held the sorry results of his most recent attempt, which were all but unreadable. “What’s the secret? Mine all suck.” “No secret,” Bo answered, “they’re all gonna suck, ‘cause the machine’s a piece of shit.” A heartbeat after he said that, the ancient copier repaid his ingratitude with the unmistakable sounds of a paper jam deep in its guts. Bo quietly put his hands in his pockets to keep from picking up the copier and throwing it into the parking lot. After a few deep breaths, he yanked his document out of the feeder in an angry fist. Turning, the black varius slapped his load tag on Kensuke’s chest and stomped away. “You figure it out.” Jeez, Kensuke thought, what did I do? He hadn’t pegged Bo for a jerk, so maybe he was just having a bad day. Still… He shook his head and remembered Dan’s offer. If there’s anything you need… Well, right now, Ken thought, I need a copier. He wasn’t even thinking that this was a good excuse to look in on the sapiens. Nope, not a bit. Ken gathered up his papers and walked through the break room doors, feeling a little spike of anticipation that tweaked his perception. He could hear Dan talking on the vid, and the man didn’t sound pleased. “I can appreciate that you have your own supplier issues. But you need to get this sorted out,” Dan said, obviously exasperated at the three-dimensional head floating in front of him. His professional demeanor was intact, but had worn ragged by this point. “I’ve got a twenty thousand credit order here from my customer, and he’s going to pull all of his business if you can’t get us the blanks you promised. And if he does that, we’re going to lose a half-million credit account because you can’t ship us three thousand credits worth of blanks on time.” His face was red, but he worked to keep his voice civil. “Mr. Xing, can you give me one reason why Magnum should continue to do business with a company that loses us half-million credit accounts?” Out of range of the camera, Ken smirked at the expression on the round face of the Chinese businessman on the other end of the line. Dan was so easygoing and mellow that he’d never imagined he could play hardball. Apparently, his supplier had the same misconception. “I’m not joking with this,” Dan said, staring straight into the eyes of his supplier. “Either find a way to deliver what you promised, or I’m moving all our business back to a local supplier. Thank you, and good day.” He gave a shallow bow that teetered on the razor-thin edge of respect, and snapped the connection before the other man could utter another meaningless promise. Blowing out a tense breath, he sat back in his chair, trying to force calmness when it would not come naturally. He hated conflict. He looked up at Kensuke with weary eyes. “Have you ever dealt with the Chinese?” The lion nodded. “My dad was stationed there for a few years, back when I was still in grade school.” He cleared his throat, “Qízhong youxie keyi zhuchong, ruguo ni rang tamen.” “They can be quite a few assholes, if you let them.” The slightly mechanical male voice reminded Dan that the translation matrix was still running, and he laughed as he shut it down. “Yes, they can,” he agreed, rubbing his eyes. “If they’d just tell me the truth up front,” he said, “I wouldn’t mind so much if they were late, but every day they just tell me whatever it takes to keep me off their backs for one more day. Telling our customer ‘It’ll be ready tomorrow’ every day for a week makes me look like an incompetent fool.” Frustration was creeping back into Dan’s voice. “It’s okay,” Ken said, putting his papers on the desk before turning Dan’s chair away from him and putting his paws on the sapiens’ shoulders. “Just give yourself a few minutes of peace and quiet. Just breathe…” He squeezed Dan’s shoulders and felt the knots there. The man was wider than most sapiens seemed to be, and had some respectable shoulder muscles to work on. Going back and forth with his strong thumbs, Ken rubbed the tension from them with slow, even pressure. Dan felt his head lolling forwards, finally releasing the tension that had been threatening to blossom into a nasty headache all morning long. Stretching his neck muscles from side to side, he let go of his annoying conversation and let Kensuke’s fingers massage his stress away. He felt the lion’s fingerpads work their way to his spine, then travel up to the exposed skin of his neck, gently rubbing away the annoying tension. The varius’ fingerpads were warm and pliant, and had a definite texture to them that allowed them to grip without binding against his skin. Kensuke ended with his thumb and forefinger squeezing the small muscles at the base of Dan’s skull, and held them for a moment as he knelt down by Dan’s office chair. He rested his hand companionably on the nape of the sapiens’ neck. “Better?” “Much,” Dan said, rolling his head around slowly. “I didn’t realize how badly I needed that.” He looked to his left, and Ken’s eyes were only a half-meter from his own. “Thanks.” They really did have little flecks of green in them… “I, uh…” It was Ken’s turn to stammer. Dan was so close, and his lips were parted slightly in subconscious attraction, as if he were inviting a kiss. If they’d been in a more proper setting, if he’d known the man better, if… Ken realized that he was still cradling the base of Dan’s head in his hand, and self-consciously pulled his paw back. He stood and moved back a step, re-establishing boundaries that should never have been crossed. “The, uh…” Clearing his throat, he waved the papers he’d brought with him to explain his presence. “Can you, um…show me how to use the copier in the plant? It keeps giving me this.” He handed Dan the illegible copy he’d made, glad for the opportunity to shut up and gather his wits. “Oh, hell,” Dan said, looking at the mess, “it’s on the fritz again.” He unconsciously reached up and touched the back of his neck where Kensuke’s paw had rested. It felt cold back there, now that the warmth of the lion’s hand was gone. He nodded his head towards the office machine. “You can use this one, if you want. Just don’t let Bucky see you come in here.” Ken laughed and moved to the machine. “He’s pretty rank, isn’t he? He seems like a nice guy, though.” He put his paper in the copier and closed the lid. “That machine is pretty obtuse,” Dan said, getting up from his chair. “You have to–” He cut himself off as the duplicator hummed and spit out papers. “Oh, okay…I guess you got it figured out.” “I’m good with machines,” Ken said. He looked at the other paper, the one Bo had shoved into his chest as he’d stormed off, “it’s people I sometimes don’t understand.” He handed the crumpled document to Dan. “Can you tell how many tags this needs? I might as well make ‘em for that one too, while I’m at it.” Dan looked at the paper and handed it back, then called up the file in his computer. “It’s one of Bo’s. How’d you get stuck making his tags?” “He sort of asked me to make them for him.” “Sort of?” Dan asked, wondering if Bo was looking for excuses not to be around him. Ken’s mouth tightened a bit. “Yeah, he got mad at the copier and left it behind when he stormed off. What’s up with him?” “Huh.” Dan was nonplussed. Bo always came into the office to make his own copies, and now he was having Kensuke do the job for him instead of coming in himself. “I have no idea.” “You’re friends, right?” “I thought we were,” Dan said, looking bewildered. “Maybe I did something wrong.” After a moment’s pause, Dan asked, “Can I ask you a question?” “You just did,” Ken replied, smiling. “Well, duh…” Dan grinned, but his smile faded when he asked what was on his mind. “This is kind of serious, though. I’d like to ask you a general question about varius behavior.” “No problem,” Ken answered, leaning one hip against the copier, his thick tail swaying gently back and forth. “Shoot.” “I’ve been wondering about the varius Circle, but when I look on the webs, there’s almost nothing out there about it.” “Wow.” Ken raised his eyebrows and blew out a breath. “Next time ask me an easy question, like, ‘What makes art good?’” He thought for a moment, crossing his thick arms over his chest, his eyes darting back and forth as he thought. “The easy answer to your question is, no, I can’t tell you.” Seeing the annoyed look that crossed Dan’s face, he continued, “Not because I don’t want to, but because the entire concept of the Circle is different for each tribe. Some have formal rules of belonging, some don’t. Some are as casual as friendship, and others are almost contractually binding. Each tribe has its own rules, which is confusing enough before you factor in all the elements that make up a tribe.” “Wait a minute,” Dan interjected, feeling a little lost. “You mean there’s more to a tribe than just being related?” “Oh, yeah,” Ken nodded. “Oh, yeah. And you can be considered a member of more than one tribe at a time, too. That’s where all of this gets so messed up. If your tribe has a very tight Circle with a bunch of restrictive rules, your husband or wife might not be able to be in your Circle. But if another member of that Circle has dual membership with another Circle, which isn’t all that common, but it happens, and he’s of a different tribe, then depending on the rules of the other tribe, you might both be members of that one too, and maybe not even know it.” Dan sat back, amazed not only that there were so many convoluted rules, but that he could have committed himself into a Circle when he knew so little about it. “This is more complicated than Spanish verb conjugation,” he complained. “How do you keep all this stuff straight?” Ken nodded his head in sympathy. “Varius relationships can get pretty complicated.” He chuckled a short laugh. “Even I don’t know what to do, sometimes. Oh,” he remembered, waving the paper, “how many of these do I need?” “Oh, right,” Dan turned back to his computer, feeling dazed by what he’d just learned. “Let me do it from here. It’s easier to just print all thirty than it would be to make one and have you copy it.” Buttons clicked under his rapidly moving fingers, sending data to the printer. “So how long have you known him?” Ken asked as he waited for the machine to print, absentmindedly doodling on the bad copy of the tag he’d shown Dan. “Bo? A couple of years, I guess, but we’ve only really been talking for the past six months or so.” “Mmmm…” Ken droned, pencil scratching across the paper’s surface. “Give him time. He’ll get over it.” The copier gave a quick confirming beep to signal the end of the job, and Ken turned to reach down and harvest the results. “Thanks, Dan,” he said, tossing the doodle into the waste bin. “I’ll talk to you later.” When he stood and turned, the man was right there, standing in front of him as close as they’d been before. Kensuke noticed that he seemed slightly taller at this close proximity, and he had to look up slightly to see into his grayish blue eyes. And he knew that Dan was thinking exactly what he’d been thinking just moments earlier. What would be so wrong with– A crashing noise made them both whirl and run into the break room, to find Bo standing in the middle of a spray of plastiglass and coffee, still holding the handle of the broken pot. If he was annoyed before, he was absolutely fuming now. “The fucking pot just shattered. All I wanted was a goddamned cup of coffee, and I can’t even get that.” He flung the handle away from him in disgust, his heavy, steel-toed work boots crunching through shards of plastic and puddles of dark coffee as he stomped back out onto the floor. Dan reached for the extra tags that Ken had asked for, the ones that belonged to Bo. “Let me take those out to him.” “No, I’ll give them to him,” the feline explained, pulling the papers closer to his chest. “It looks like you’ve got your hands full right now. Like I said,” he repeated himself, reaching a reassuring hand out to Dan’s arm. “Just give him time. He’ll be okay.” Dan nodded, but he didn’t know if he really believed that. He and Bo had been able to talk about everything else up to this point. What could have happened to turn him so surly? As Dan picked up the sharp pieces of plastic and mopped the coffee off the floor, he kept an eye out for the handle Bo had thrown, but it wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He finally found it, deeply embedded in the wall next to the cabinets. Working the mangled piece of plastic and steel free, he was surprised to see that the damage hadn’t been caused when it hit the wall. The handle’s thin metal core had deformed under the pressure of Bo’s clenched fist, acquiring the distinct imprint of four thick varius fingers before shattering the plastic. Tossing the useless piece into the trash can along with the absorbers he’d used to dry the floor, he was reminded of the doodle that Kensuke had tossed away after making his copies. Walking back into the office, Dan reached into the waste bin and pulled out a sketch drawn on the back of the discarded load tag. When he saw what it was, he immediately wanted to put it back in the bin. In the few seconds he’d been standing there, the lion had sketched something that made Dan cringe. It was Bucky, but not the Bucky that Dan knew. This Bucky was bone tired after a hard day’s work, ears dejectedly drooping with fatigue both physical and mental, desperately lonely, eyes filled with misery that nobody wanted to be around him because of something he could not control. It probably took longer for Dan to take in the picture than it had for Ken to draw it, and it took far longer for him to stop blushing in abject shame that he’d been responsible for any portion of this man’s pain. That can’t go on, Dan thought, drumming his fingers against the desktop. He felt guilty, about more than just making fun of Bucky. Flirting with Kensuke made him feel ten years younger, fresh and alive, and very much like he was cheating on Bo. In fact, he thought, looking at his hand, the only time he drummed his fingers like that was when he felt guilty. Dan chastised himself for his stupidity. Bo would always be a major feature of his life, but he had to be realistic. As much as he wished otherwise, nothing would ever happen between them, and if he weren’t planning on spending the rest of his life alone he should be investing at least some of his time in finding a receptive partner. He couldn’t tell where they were blowing, but he could smell the winds of change. Chapter 18 Feed… Clamp… Shudder… The ground shook under Bo’s feet as the heavy machine he fed clamped yet another alloy ingot in its hydraulic jaws and forced it to assume a shape that nature had never intended. This one looked like some sort of suspension part, but Bo couldn’t be certain. He didn’t always know what the parts were that he made, he just knew that every part his machine spat out either replaced something that had broken, or built something new. Either way, he was doing his tiny part to push back the entropy of the universe; to bring a shred of order back into someone’s life. Feed… Clamp… Shudder… Every five seconds, something new was added to the world. Every five seconds, a small portion of the chaos caused by invisible asshole aliens a hundred years ago was pushed back a little more. Every five seconds, thanks to millions of people like him all over the world, the Earth got dragged back to where it had been before the attack. Every five seconds, a miniscule piece of Bo Taylor was put back in place. At a glacial pace, order was restored. Feed… Clamp… Shudder… It was repetitive, and some people would have found it stultifyingly boring; but Bo was rarely bored. The repetitive clang and shake were just enough to take his mind off of things he didn’t want to remember, at the same time giving him time to think about the things he could. And right now, he thought about how foolish he’d been. Feed… Clamp… Shudder… He’d given a child a gun, then turned his back. When he looked back around, the kid had toddled off with his new toy, only now he had the ability to blast a king-sized hole in Bo’s chest. It wasn’t Dan’s fault, Bo reminded himself for the hundredth time that day. He just didn’t know any better. Feed… Clamp… Shudder… The cycling of the machine was usually able to induce an almost meditative calm in Bo, but today it provided little relief for his aching mind. He would like to pretend that everything was just as it was when they’d touched down in his parking lot on Sunday afternoon, but self-deception was not a luxury in which Bo Taylor indulged. The ingot he’d placed on the feed table didn’t march its way into the gaping metal maw, and it took Bo a half-second to realize his machine had stopped. He looked around. Had he accidentally bumped up against the fucking emergency-stop switch again? No. Asshole Bob had pushed it. “Break time, pretty boy,” he leered, the smile on his face more a grimace than an expression of friendship. “I’m not finished,” Bo said, reaching for the switch. Fuck Bob. He had work to do. “Don’t make me turn your power off,” Bob threatened. “Union rules, buddy.” Goddamn it. Bo huffed out a hurricane of breath and clamped his teeth shut over vicious words that wouldn’t do anything but further damage their already shaky relationship. He put the ingot on the side of the table in front of Bob and rested his hand on it. The metal block was a tiny one, only about ten kilos, and he balanced it there easily. “Fine. You win.” Bob tilted his head slightly. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He had the sly, satisfied look about him that Bo wanted to smash to pieces. He wanted to obliterate this…thing that had tried to hurt Dan, to remove it from the face of the Earth. But that would add to the chaotic side of the equation, and that must not happen. The shitsack of fur in front of him didn’t know when to quit. He always had to get in one last damaging word. “Why don’t you go in the office and flirt with your boyfriend some more?” Bob leered, obviously enjoying nettling Bo. “I saw Kensuke sniffing around in there just now, trying to horn in on your action.” Bo lifted his hand ever so slightly, allowing the ingot to unbalance. A corner of the ten-kilo blank dug into the concrete a centimeter from Bob’s right foot, causing the feline morph to jump back in surprise. “Wow, Bob,” Bo said calmly, “good thing those are steel toed boots you’ve got there. That would have hurt.” Growling to himself, tail flicking back and forth in irritation, Bob retreated to sit with his cronies in the break room. He favored Bo with a single, poisonous glance over his shoulder as he retreated, but the cold expression on the big canine varius’ face was enough to make him hold his tongue. He knew how much to push people to get what he wanted, and he knew when to quit.

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“So where’s Bo?” Jackson asked, as Dan signed himself in at the gym’s front desk. “Dunno,” Dan answered, tossing the clipboard back onto the pile. “He’s been keeping to himself, lately.” The bull morph snorted and hiked his eyebrows in an ‘oh, how well I know’ gesture. “Did y’all have a talk, or something?” he practically smirked. That made Dan stop dead in his tracks. “Sort of. What about it?” Jackson slowly shook his head, looking annoyed with himself. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” “But you did say something, Jackson.” Dan wasn’t cutting the varius any slack. He’d learned a thing or two about talking to morphs from spending time around Bo, and was more than happy to use what he’d learned against Jackson if it would get him what he needed. He planted his feet in a way that told the attendant that he wasn’t moving until he’d heard the whole story, and lowered his head, staring directly at Jackson like he was ready to come across the desk, if that’s what it was going to take. “Spill it. What’s up.” Dan felt like a chihuahua facing off against a mastiff, but after a few moments of fidgeting, Jackson continued. “It’s nothing, Dan. Nothing bad,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “It’s just… You’ve been coming in here with Bo pretty regular, and we thought he was getting this shit sorted out, you know?” Dan thought back to a conversation he’d had with Bo on the idiosyncratic nature of communicating with a varius. The number one rule was, ‘be direct.’ “Has anyone asked you not to speak about this?” he asked. “No,” the bull reluctantly admitted, fervently wishing that Dan would stop giving him the bare bulb treatment and just go work out. The sapiens thought for a moment. The number two rule was ‘don’t assume.’ “Will you get in trouble for talking to me about this?” “Maybe,” the varius said, then added, almost grudgingly, “but probably not.” He would have preferred it if he had been under a restriction. At least that way he could have claimed Privacy and had a legitimate reason to stop himself from jabbering on. After his talk with Ken about the varius Circle, Dan had gone home and spent half the night researching the specifics of what he’d agreed to. It would have been vastly easier to just ask Bo, but he hadn’t picked up the first two times Dan tried. After that, Dan’s calls just went straight to a recorded message, telling him that either Bo had turned off his comm or it had gone dead. Dan entertained the idea of calling Ken, but perhaps irrationally, that felt pushy. It took a surprising amount of digging to find information on what was evidently a cornerstone of the varius social setting. It seemed that varii categorically did not write about it, and sapiens weren’t often allowed access. Most of the references Dan did find were on how little was known about them. Dan finally stumbled upon a graduate-student research paper buried deep in a west-coast university’s department of anthropological psychology that had shed some useful light on the subject. The concept of the varius ‘Circle’ was far more involved than he’d imagined. Had Dan known, he still would have accepted Bo’s offer, but he would have thought much more carefully about it. Bo was right, it really wasn’t frivolous. Members of a Circle had true power over each other’s lives. In some ways, Dan and Bo were now more closely related than if they’d been married. If Jackson had information on what had crawled up Bo’s skirt, Dan was entitled to know about it. Dan couldn’t put his finger on the reason why, but he had the distinct feeling that in this circumstance, claiming rights as Bo’s Circlemate would be completely counterproductive. In this case, he would have to find out what he needed using strength of will alone. Raising his chin slightly and looking directly into the huge bull’s eyes, Dan spoke with a sense of conviction and self-confidence that Jackson was powerless to resist. “Tell me.” “Look, man, it’s really not all that big a deal,” Jackson said, playing uncomfortably with the pens in front of him. “He just has a rep, you know? Every time someone starts to get close, he freaks out and runs away. Hell,” he said, looking everywhere but in the sapiens’ eyes, “he did it with me. I thought we were getting to be pretty good friends, and then he climbed right back into his shell.” “Huh.” Dan grumbled. His mind raced, trying to make sense of what Jackson had said. “Like I said, it’s not really a big deal,” Jackson reiterated. “We’re still friends, you know? We’re just not what you’d call close.” “Okay, well…” Dan said, not quite knowing what to say when somebody tells you that the man you thought was your best friend might not even want to be your friend at all. “Thanks.” On impulse he held a hand out to Jackson, who shook it without hesitation. “Thanks for telling me.” The thick calluses on Jackson’s bovine palms were cool and hard against Dan’s skin. Dan started walking into the weight room, but on impulse he turned back. “Has he been in, since Sunday?” Jackson thought about it and shook his head, then paged through several days worth of sheets on the clipboard for confirmation. “Nope,” he said, flipping the pages to the front again. Dan nodded his head and was walking into the main room of the gym when the bovine’s voice stopped him again. “Dude.” Dan turned to face him, and he thought the look on Jackson’s face seemed apologetic. “I could be wrong, you know?” Bo had been training him with the same lifting routine for long enough that Dan didn't need to consult his training log to know which movements to do in what order. He went through the list with programmed efficiency, doing his best to push himself even though Bo wasn't there to chide him if he slacked off. It was difficult, though, not having his friend there to give him an encouraging boost when he needed one. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that the bull was wrong. Bo had gone so far as to ask him inside his walls, and Dan had accepted. It was done. Besides, if Bo had declined to offer Jackson a place in his Circle, the reason seemed obvious. The bull's wagging tongue might be useful to Dan in decoding Bo's current odd behavior, but the varius would never have trusted Jackson to keep his secrets. Dan thought long and hard about what was happening to his friend, and came up with a theory that made more sense to him. Men who came out of the closet seemed to belong to one of two camps - they either seemed to come out with a bang, or a whimper. They'd either overshare with everyone they knew, becoming an overnight 'SuperGay,' or they'd put up their barriers and withdraw into themselves for a time. Knowing what little he did about varius psychology, Dan assumed that Bo must be going through a similar discovery process. Since the varius wasn't coming into the office every ten minutes to show him pictures of hot pinky women that he'd found on the webs, Dan assumed that Bo had chosen the latter path. Thankfully. Seeing that many vaginas would have affected Dan's digestion in ways he didn't want to consider. Dan had driven himself through two sets of bench presses, and knowing that his third set would be a killer, he asked one of the other lifters for help. "Hey," he said, reaching out to touch the fox's shoulder. "It's Kip, right?" "Yeah," the varius said, a surprised smile on his pleasantly open face. "You're Don?" He held out a paw to the sapiens. "Dan," the man corrected, reaching out to take Kip's hand. "You're about my size - can you spot me?" "Sure," the fox said, pulling on his gloves, "where are you at?" He was flattered. Dan probably lifted more than he did, but he hadn't gone to one of the bigger guys like Sam or Dunny for help. "Where's Bo, today?" "He couldn't make it, for some reason," the sapiens answered, leading them back to his bench. Dan pushed himself hard, but crapped out on the sixth rep. "You're making good progress," Kip said, encouragingly, after helping Dan rack the weights. "Thanks, but it doesn't seem like anything, compared to what some of these guys can do," Dan said, trying to catch his breath. He looked admiringly at the other varii that Kip hung around. "Some of your friends are real monsters." "I know, right?" Kip said, laughing. "But they're really nice guys, once you get to know them." He looked at the weight Dan had loaded with an evaluating eye. "Compared to where you were that first day, your weights are way up." "You saw me?" Dan winced, embarrassed. "I could have done more, but Bo was making me start slow." Kip scuffed his feet and thought that he probably shouldn't have said anything. "It's not like you were wimpy, or anything. We just don't get a lot of sapiens in here." Dan looked around, and saw that he was, indeed, the only sapiens in the gym that day. "Huh. I guess I never really noticed," he said. "I'm usually more focused on what I'm doing." Kip chuckled knowingly. "You're usually more focused on Bo." Dan's eyes went wide, and the fox raised his hands calmingly. "Don't worry about it," he said, smiling at the nervous man. "Me and Jake are together too, and nobody here has a problem with it." Dan grinned hesitantly, wondering how much he should trust the young varius. Although he didn't know anything about Kip, Bo had vouched for the character of his entire group, and that endorsement carried considerable weight. And it might be nice to have a friend who understood what he was going through right now. "Not that I'd mind that," Dan admitted, "but I don't think Bo's on our team." "Oh," the fox said, backing up slightly and tilting his head, as if remembering something. "I guess that explains it." He lowered his voice and moved closer so Dan could hear him. "I think maybe Jackson was interested in...you know...getting to know Bo better, a while back. I thought that seemed kind of odd that Bo pushed him away. I mean, he's never given us any indication, really, but we never see him with a girl, so we just assumed. We all thought he might pair up with Jack, but..." he shrugged his shoulders expressively. "Jackson?" Dan asked in disbelief, "Really?" "Really," Kip said, looking at Dan square in the face. "I wouldn't say anything, but Jacksonlets everyone know that he doesn't care where he gets it, as long as he gets it." "Wow," Dan muttered, damned near speechless at the thought of the huge strength athlete being... "Wow." "I grok!" Kip said, a knowing smile creeping across his face. He slapped Dan on the shoulder. "Listen, if you ever need a spot, just let me know." With a wink and a wave, he went back over to his group of friends. Dan watched them in the mirrors for a few moments and none of them looked his way, so he felt fairly certain that Kip was keeping their conversation private. Giving the attendant's wide, muscular back a hard stare, Dan went back to his routine, racking weights onto the curl bar. Jackson, huh? Chapter 19 Dan carried his mug of coffee out into the plant, determined to find Bo and talk to him. He didn't need to have a full-blown discussion, he just wanted to talk for a few minutes. At first Dan had attributed the morph's emotional distance to his intensely personal disclosure, but wasn't sharing this sort of burden what being in a Circle was all about? After walking nearly the entire plant floor, Dan found Bo sitting on a pallet of material in the stock room, reading a book. True to form, he was as far away from everyone else as possible. "Whatcha up to?" Dan asked, startling Bo enough that a small growl crossed the morph's lips before he could bite it back. "Nothing," the varius muttered, sounding like Dan had just caught him doing something shameful, "just trying to catch up on my reading. I used to read a lot more, and I miss it. Just don't seem to have much time for it, anymore." Bo looked uncomfortable, as if Dan's mere presence was putting bugs in his fur. Dan was about to say something when the break bell went off, launching the varius into motion. "I'll talk to you later. I've got to get back to work." The varius shouldered his way around Dan, but was careful not to touch him. Dan fought off annoyance at this suddenly brusque treatment. "I don't have the plague, you know," he called out, but Bo didn't even look back. It was clear to Dan that the morph must be even more disturbed by his confessions than he'd thought. Four days of watching the varius treat everyone in the plant as if they didn't exist had convinced him that his suspicions were on the right track. But Dan wasn't as convinced that he knew what to do about it. It would be so much easier if Bo would talk to him, but his every attempt at communication so far had been met by a polite yet impenetrable wall. Was Bo afraid that Dan would blab his secrets to the world at large? Dan didn't think so. Bo had specifically mentioned his faith in Dan's discretion. Dan thought back on his part in the whole debacle. What kind of friend had he been to Bo in that time? He'd listened to his humiliating confession, he'd held the man as he cried his heart out with embarrassment and shame, and then he'd left him alone to drift free in a sea of uncertainty, not knowing how to handle this new world he'd thrust himself into. Dan was annoyed at his lack of strength in leadership. Bo had trusted him to help him navigate this minefield of sexual diversity, and instead of showing him the safe path to the other side, Dan had given him a pat on the rump and a few lame suggestions, then left him to fend for himself. If Bo were scared to take those first steps, it was Dan's responsibility to help him, not to minimize his fears and then walk off. It was his very first duty as a member of Bo's Circle, and he'd fucked it up. When the lunch break came around, Dan sat alone at the lunch table as he had every other day that week, hoping that Bo might finally decide to join him. When he heard footsteps, he looked around in eager anticipation, but it wasn't Bo. He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice, because he really was glad to see the friendly face coming around the corner. Even though it wasn't who he'd hoped, it was still someone he liked. "What's up?" came Ken's cheery greeting. "Mind if I join you?" Dan waved an arm, motioning the lion to sit across from him, in the spot that Bo no longer seemed interested in occupying. "Sit down, buddy," he said, "it'll be good to not eat alone for a change." "He's still not over it, huh?" Ken asked, settling onto the wooden bench across from Dan. "You ever figure out what's got him by the short hairs?" "Nope," Dan said, stuffing a potato chip into his mouth. "Not a clue." Kensuke pulled a series of small boxes out of a fitted carrying case and began opening them. Dan watched with a great deal of interest, how everything fit together like a reverse puzzle. Instead of putting it together to make a picture, you took this puzzle apart to make lunch. "What's on the menu for today?" he asked. "Sushi!" Ken answered, excitedly. As he opened each box, he displayed the contents to Dan. "I've got a couple of salmon rolls... smoked eel...seaweed salad...and some sweet rice with red bean paste for dessert." His busy fingers pulled out a pair of slightly curved chopsticks, designed to better fit his short, thick varius fingers, and a small sauce container that, when opened, smelled strongly of wasabi. "That looks awesome," Dan said, admiringly. "Did you make it yourself?" "Yep!" Ken said, with pride. "Sushi's easy. The hardest part is making it look pretty." He picked up a salmon roll with expert skill, dunked the end of it in the wasabi, and popped it into his mouth. He closed his eyes as he chewed, momentarily removed to a peaceful Japanese garden. When he opened his eyes, Dan was unabashedly staring at him. "I envy you, Ken," he said. "You get so much pleasure out of life." "There's so much out there to enjoy," the lion replied, motioning to the world around them. "It's just up to us to notice it." He looked at Dan for a moment, as if he might help him to see the world as he saw it through strength of will alone. "Here," he said, picking up a piece of smoked eel makizushi with his chopsticks and dipping it in the wasabi sauce. "Open up." Dan leaned forward and let Ken feed him the sushi, and as he felt the chopsticks slowly slide out of his mouth, he realized that they'd been between Ken's own lips just seconds earlier. Was feeding him like that just an unconsciously friendly gesture, or was the drop-dead gorgeous lion really flirting with him? That thought, along with all others, left his mind when the intense, cold heat of the wasabi smashed into his brain, momentarily obliterating conscious thought. Dan chewed vigorously, delighting in the fresh tastes of eel and rice wrapped in smoked seaweed paper. "This is fantastic! And you made it?" "Sure did," Ken said, proudly. "I can teach you to do it, too, if you want." "I do want," Dan said, swallowing. "That sounds like fun." Using his chopsticks, Ken courteously picked a small piece of pickled ginger out of its container and put it on Dan's lunch wrapper. "You might want this, if you're still planning on enjoying the rest of your lunch." "Oh, right," Dan said, popping the lemony ginger into his mouth and chewing slowly to cleanse his palate. "Nothing as disgusting as a fishy burger." He shuddered. "I love fish," Ken said, "but it definitely doesn't belong on a cheeseburger." His tone changed to one more formal when he put a rudder in the conversational waters and changed their direction. "So may I ask about you and Bo?" "You may," Dan answered. The reply was a rote response, but Dan had learned that it was an essential one. Over the past few months, Bo had taught him that when talking to a varius you didn't know well, especially about personal matters, it was necessary to ask permission before asking the question itself. And when asked, you didn't just start babbling the first thing that came to mind. Etiquette demanded that for the first levels of the conversation, you wait for a direct question, and answer only what you were asked. At first, Dan had thought that the rules seemed unnecessarily fussy, but after thinking about it for a while, he better understood the logic. As convoluted as the varius social structure was, it took a definite effort by all parties involved to keep from inadvertently causing offense. The first few exchanges in a sensitive conversation weren't idle chatter, they were a fact-finding mission to determine what could be discussed. Now that Dan no longer had his ignorance to hide behind, he realized how insulting he'd been in his first conversations with Bo, and how exceptionally patient the man had been. "Is he the reason you asked me about varius Circles, the other day?" "Yes," Dan answered, with the expected brevity. "Are the two of you in a Circle?" Dan chewed his hamburger slowly and thought about how to respond. Although it was true that Bo had spoken the words, he didn't feel any different now than he did before. He didn't even know what was going to be involved with being in Bo's Circle. For all he knew, his Circle was one of the casual ones where you could come and go as you pleased. Evidence suggested otherwise, but how was he to know for certain? There were a dozen different ways to answer Kensuke that would imply Dan's doubt in his position, but he decided in favor of blunt honesty. "Yes." Ken silently watched Dan chew for a few beats. "Do you want to talk to me about that?" This silence was longer. Dan would like to talk to the lion, but he found himself deeply conflicted. He couldn't deny that he was in love with Bo, but he also knew that he would be a fool to think that Bo could ever return that affection. He'd reconciled himself to accepting what Bo could give, but that didn't mean he didn't still hunger for romantic love in his life; love that Kensuke might actually be willing and able to provide. Talking about his unrequited love with a potential suitor seemed foolish, so Dan deferred. "I will talk to you about that," he said, still in full formal mode, "but not at this time." Ken nodded his head, understandingly. "May I ask you one last question?" "Yes." "Are you and Bo partnered?" Dan smiled quietly and shook his head, looking straight into the lion's beautiful eyes. His voice, soft and warm, carried none of the formality of his previous answers. "No." Ken looked at Dan for a moment, then nodded and spoke to him conversationally, signaling the end of his formal questioning. "I haven't been in town long, and I was sort of wanting to check out the music scene around here. Are you doing anything tomorrow night?" "I'd love to," Dan said, "but I can't." He sighed. "I really need to get this thing with Bo ironed out before it slides any further downhill." Ken nodded understandingly, trying to keep disappointment out of his voice. "Sure, I get it." He stood and pulled his lunch container open, gathering the small boxes. Dan stopped him with a light hand on his arm. "But will you give me a rain check?" Dan asked hopefully, giving the warm, golden-furred arm under his hand a gentle squeeze. "I really would like to go out with you sometime." He'd never been on a date with a varius before. "It might be kind of fun." "Hmmm..." Ken said, as if weighing his options while he put away his lunch kit. "I don't know..." Having Dan's hand resting on his arm might have slowed him down a bit, but he had little desire to pull away. Once all of the small containers were packed neatly back inside the carrier, he pulled the pencil out from its home behind his ear and quickly scribbled something on a scrap of paper. Folding it, he tapped the note onto the table in front of Dan and walked back into the plant, tail swaying languidly behind him. Hesitantly, Dan opened up the scrap of paper and saw a single word printed there in large, cartoon script, above the caricature of a smiling lion. "Yes!"

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After work, Dan picked up a box of extra-hot, tiny-spicy chicken at the House of Poon drive-through and settled into his task. He was determined to prepare himself for what might be coming the next day - to cover his bases and give Bo the help he needed. Doing that required the kind of computerized research that would have made the Human Resources people shit little pink kittens if it ever appeared on his work computer's activity log. Over the next few hours, Dan unearthed dozens of resources for varii who sought sapiens companionship. The vast majority were just hookup sites, dead links and pornography distribution nodes that provided him with ample evidence of the disdain with which the world viewed Bo's orientation. Dan had sympathized with him before, but now he was finally understanding why he felt so compelled to keep this secret. For the more common subspecies of varii, especially vulpine and lupine forms, casual sex with a sapiens seemed to be viewed as something of a lark. Cross-species bonding, though, crossed the line between behavior that was kinky and that which was deviate. It was the kiddie porn of the varius world, and for someone in Bo's position, with so few of his species on the planet, it was damned near unthinkable. After a few hours of reading reviews on the local venues and collecting data, Dan felt as if he had enough to work with. Pulling a featureless data wafer out of a box, he put it into the media slot and copied what he'd found. As he pulled it from the machine, he had an odd flash of insight. Maybe it was just that he'd finally looked at enough straight dating information to make it click, but his brain finally made the connection that Bo had grown up in varius bars where looking the wrong way at someone or laughing at the wrong time could get you stabbed. How was he supposed to know how to present himself to a respectable sapiens woman? Dan did a mental face-palm. Bo knew as much about how to behave in the typical sapiens singles bar as Dan had known about how to behave at Sam's. He was entering a completely different world, and he had no idea how it worked. It was understandable that he would be distant, Dan thought. He'd be scared shitless of making an ass of himself. By the time his head hit his pillow, Dan felt better about the situation. He had a plan of attack, and he knew what he had to do. He felt certain that he had more than enough ammunition not only to load Bo's gun, but to stand by him and help him pull the trigger, if need be. If it came down to it, he was more than willing to go with Bo to a straight nightclub or two, just to get him in the swing of things. Who knows? he thought to himself, before drifting off into a contented, dreamless sleep, That might even be fun! Chapter 20 Dan worked diligently to make sure that his duties were completed by quitting time, and when a new order came through at sixteen-fifty, instead of staying late and processing it as he usually would, he left it sitting on his desk. Bo was his priority, and nothing was going to distract him from giving his friend the help he needed. On the data solid in his pocket, Dan carried the listings for interspecies dating sites, mating sites, and the addresses and profiles of bars and meeting spots in the city. Dan drove straight to Bo's apartment and knocked on his door, suddenly nervous that he might be turned away. Instead of yelling an exuberant welcome like he had done in the past, Bo answered the door in person, his fur rumpled as if Dan had just awakened him. "Can I come in?" Dan asked, when no greeting was offered. Without a word, Bo stepped back and let him into the cool, dark cave of his apartment. Instead of the usual tidy room that Dan was used to seeing, Chinese takeout boxes littered the tables, and Dan got the impression that Bo had been using the couch for a bed. Bo looked around his living room as if seeing it for the first time, and nervously picked up the old food cartons. He started to gather a second armful after his first trip through, but Dan couldn't take it any longer. "Would you please sit down?" Silently, stiffly, Bo sat on the couch, all traces of his former easy behavior gone. Something had happened to him, and Dan didn't know what it was. He'd walked through the door confident that he could fix this, but now he wasn't so sure. It was as if something inside the varius had broken, and the link of friendship between the two men had suddenly cooled. "What happened to my friend?" Dan asked, quietly. "I haven't seen him for a few days." Dan knew that Bo was blushing, and told him so. "I don't know how," he said, "but somehow I can tell, even through your fur." The varius looked away. Damn it, he still hasn't said a word to me, Dan thought. He wanted to get up and run out of the room, to pretend that everything was all right, the way it had been a week ago. He wanted life to give him just one do-over, a chance to go back five days and undo whatever it was that had happened. And he wanted more than anything to avoid confronting Bo about this, just like he'd avoided talking to Blaine about their problems. Once again, he was living up to his reputation as a world-class chickenshit. Unable to stand the silence any more, Dan screwed up his courage and asked the first of two questions he dreaded. "Am I unwelcome here?" After a quiet moment, a single word came from Bo, accompanied by a slow shake of his massive head. "No," but he still could not meet Dan's eyes. If anything, his wonderful, velvety ears drooped even lower. Dan swallowed hard and asked the second question, putting as much backbone into his voice as he could manage. "Did I misunderstand that you wanted me in your Circle? Or what it means to be your friend?" Bo sighed deeply and opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He tried again, but it seemed like the weight of the world was pressing the air from his lungs. On the third try he made coherent words, but they were strangled, forced unwillingly from his constricted throat. "Yes, you did misunderstand." Dan's heart fell into his shoes. "But not about that." He looked up at Dan for the first time since he'd arrived, and his eyes were bright. His expression suggested to Dan that the varius was only going to be strong enough to throw out half of the answer, and would need his friend to supply the rest of it. He'd thrown himself out of the boat, and now he was depending on Dan to pick up his side of the rope and pull him to safety. Now, Dan was confused. He consciously calmed his mind, forcing himself to focus on what Bo had said. He was still welcome, and Bo considered him part of his inner circle. His spirits began to rise - maybe this situation was salvageable after all. All he had to do was to ask the right question, and things could be good again. "Did I do something wrong?" he asked, trying to keep the sounds of desperation out of his voice. "If I did, I'm sorry..." he trailed off, hoping desperately that his face would tell Bo what he found impossible to put into words. "Don't say that," Bo said, sounding angry. "How can you be sorry if you don't know what you're sorry for?" "Even if I don't know what the cause was, I can still apologize for the effect," Dan retorted, stung by Bo's rejection. He stood and paced back and forth across the thinly carpeted floor of Bo's living room. His nervous energy was getting the better of him, and he had to burn it off somehow. "I don't know if I did something I wasn't supposed to do, or I didn't do something you expected, or what. I even asked Ken about it-" "Ken?" Bo almost exploded. "You talked to Ken about this?" "Who else was I going to ask?" Dan was frustrated, and he matched Bo's agitated tone with ease. "Me!" the varius leaned forward and clapped his hands against his knees. "You're supposed to talk to me!" "You refuse to talk to me!" "You're not supposed to talk to anyone else about what we discuss!" Bo was livid. "How the hell am I supposed to know that?" Dan challenged, beyond aggravated at how Bo was acting. "Besides, what Ken an I talked about didn't have anything to do with what you told me!" The black varius growled and scrubbed his scalp with thick fingers that ached to clench into a fist and punch a hole in the nearest wall. "Would you please stop arguing with me?" he said, frustrated that this sapiens could be so obtuse. All he wanted was for this to be over, and for things to be back to normal. "Is that what it means to be your Circlemate?" Dan had driven straight past frustrated, and was well on his way to angry. "That I'm supposed to roll over and piss on myself every time you don't agree with me?" Dan felt a dangerous, self-righteous pressure rising in him. "That's not who I am, and you should know that by now. If I think you're right, then I'll agree with you. If you're not, then I won't, but I'm not going to lie to you just to make you feel better. I don't do that to the people I love." "Love?" Bo huffed, "Don't use that word with me. Don't drive the knife in even deeper." The furrow between his eyes deepened with hurt, and in his agitation, he had lost his ability to keep the thick-lipped quality out of his voice. Even so, Dan could understand every word that was hurled at him. "Every time you use it, you just hurt everyone around you." He paused and cast a quick glance at Dan's face before returning his gaze to the floor. "You should do us all a favor and just take it out of your vocabulary." 'Yes, love," Dan shot back, his voice growing louder. "I love you, goddamn it!" He sat on the edge of his chair with an aggravated growl and held his head in his hands, the wind suddenly taken out of his sails by the echoes of the words he'd just said aloud. "I love you," he repeated, more softly, moving his hands from his temples to cover his eyes, resting his face in his palms. This was not the way he had wanted to come out to Bo about this. "And there's not a damned thing I can do about it." "What about Kensuke?" Bo spat, his accusing tone catching Dan off guard. Dan's anger flared as quickly as it had died. "What, you're going to start telling me who my friends are now?" He was amazed that the morph could suddenly have such a sense of entitlement over his life. "Don't make the mistake of thinking that you're going to start controlling every aspect of my life just because we're in a Circle, buddy, 'cause that ain't gonna happen." Bo flashed Dan a disgusted look. "I've seen the way you look at him, and you're way more than friends." Dan got off the chair and walked closer to the varius, poking an accusing finger at Bo's chest. The sapiens' voice grew louder with his anger - anger that he never imagined he would feel towards Bo. "Ken is kind, and he's sweet, and he's actually interested in me," he lashed out, "so leave him out of it!" He was almost yelling, now, finally able to vent the frustration he'd been stuffing inside himself for the past six months. "He's a good man, and I deserve someone like him in my life!" Bo seemed to deflate with each poke of Dan's finger, collapsing into himself until his eyes stared at the ground and his ears drooped in abject misery. "So why wasn't I good enough for you?" His quiet words hung in the air between the two men, stopping Dan cold. "What are you talking about?" Dan said, his frustration blown away by the remorse in the morph's voice. "Just because I want to date Kensuke doesn't mean that anything between us is going to change." Bo wrung his handpaws. For all the world, he looked like a little boy who'd lost his best friend. The fact that he was a very large little boy added immeasurably to his charm, and Dan had a tough time not running over and taking him into his arms. He might have confessed himself to me as a raving pervert, Dan thought, but that doesn't mean that he's not every bit as straight as he ever was. Dan's racing brain stomped on the brake pedal and slammed to a screeching halt, leaving a hundred meters of black stripes behind it as the last of the stubborn tumblers clicked into place. Does it? "Uh...Bo?" Dan asked, tentatively. Bo said nothing, simply looking up at him with an expression as trusting and as heartbreakingly wistful as Dan had ever seen. "I think I need to tell you something." Bo looked like he was fully prepared to be crushed by whatever Dan said, bracing himself as if for a physical blow. Where was the self-assured, confident Bo that Dan had come to love? Seeing his best friend brought to his knees like this chilled Dan to his core, and made his heart pound in his chest. Or perhaps that reaction was being caused by what he was about to say. "I know you went out on a limb telling me you were attracted to sapiens. Please believe me, I haven't told a soul about that, and I never will." Bo took a quick breath and looked as if he were about to say something, but it was Dan's turn to wave Bo silent. "Please, let me finish, because now I've got something to tell you." Anxiety put a tremor in his voice that he wished would go away. Dan took a deep breath and slowly let it out. God, this was hard. "I've...never looked outside my own subspecies for a partner, and I never even considered the possibility. Until now." Dan's heart hammered in his chest, and he felt sick to his stomach. Bo's eyes, gradually falling the whole time Dan was speaking, shot up to lock gazes with his friend. "With you." The expression in Bo's warm, deep eyes told Dan that this was the last thing he'd expected to hear. He had been preparing himself for the same rejection that Dan had dreaded, and had things not been so serious right now, the irony of it all would have been laughable. Bo looked like his brain had spun off in four different directions at once. He stood up, looking thoroughly bewildered. "But I thought..." he started, then tried again. "You said..." He was terribly confused, but when Dan closed the few remaining steps between them, it cut off Bo's further attempts at speech. "I love you, Bo," Dan said, hoping desperately that he was doing the right thing, "and I'm really hoping I didn't just fuck up the best friendship I've ever had..." Further comment was quelled by a warm, soft fingerpad on his lips. The face of Dan's friend, the face of the Bo Taylor that he knew so well and loved so deeply, gazed fondly down at him. "Never, Dan." The sapiens found himself buried under a pile of warm fur and strong muscles, swept up in a bear hug that instantly took away all his cares. "Never." "I'm sorry, Dan," Bo said, his voice muffled by layers of fur, "It just took me this long to get up the nerve to say anything. And then I thought I'd said too much and scared you off." Bo put his big hands on his friend's shoulders, and Dan was glad to see that the confident varius he had grown to love was coming back. Then it all fell into place. As soon as Dan admitted to himself what was happening, he could see that all the friendly gestures between them had been more than just overtures of friendship; they had become a complex, if informal, mating ritual. Dan moved into Bo's embrace and buried his face into the warm fur of Bo's chest. This time when he smelled Bo's pheromone-rich scent, Dan opened himself up to it. He felt a pair of warm, strong arms close around him protectively, and Dan knew that he was - they were - finally in the place they were meant to be. Dan's hands, barely able to touch around Bo's massive torso, massaged what he could reach of the varius' lower back. And to his delight, he felt the morph's tail wagging happily back and forth under his shirt. Taking a cue from Sandy, he pulled the back of Bo's shirt up to expose the area just above his wagging nub, and scritched through the thick fur down to the skin, making Bo murr in pleasure. After a few minutes, Bo eased his crushing but still wonderful grip on Dan and walked into the kitchen, his feet barely touching the floor. Dan heard the refrigerator door open, and heard bottles clanking together as he removed two beers and brought them back to the couch - the same couch where they'd hashed out so many things lately. Laying down, where his pillow waited to cushion his head like it had every night this week, he scooted as far back as he could and pulled Dan towards him. "Take a load off, Pinks." "The word 'load' has a few different meanings," Dan chuckled, "but I get it." At first he didn't see how it would work, but once he got settled, the position was actually quite comfortable. Bo's head was above Dan's, and his right arm draped over Dan's body, pulling him in close. Dan could feel the rise and fall of Bo's barrel chest behind him, the heat of his body making Dan feel as warm and mellow as a lizard basking on a desert rock. After trying out a few positions, Dan found that he could use Bo's huge left biceps as a pillow, leaving his furry right arm free to drape over him possessively. When they lay like that, Bo was on all sides of Dan, surrounding him with his soft fur and exotic scent. Dan didn't pay attention to what was on the vid that night, but it didn't matter. Nothing seemed to matter as long as he was in Bo's arms. Did that make Dan weak? Okay then, Dan was weak. He didn't care. It had been decades since he had allowed himself to relax and let someone else take charge, but he trusted Bo enough to let go and let him take care of things, at least for a few hours. Dan took Bo's hand in both of his and investigated it. He'd always had a fascination for big hands, and Bo's were huge. Turning it over, Dan examined the palm and finger pads, then patiently massaged each individual digit. "So why didn't you say something sooner?" Dan asked, looking closely at the small folds that concealed Bo's claws. "I tried," Bo protested, "but when you didn't take the hints I was throwing at you, I figured you weren't interested." "What hints?" Dan asked, stunned. "If I'd known you were interested, I'd have jumped all over you! You must have been damned subtle about it." "Subtle." Bo chuckled to himself, amazed that a man as intelligent as Dan could possibly be so dense. "Remember right before we went out to eat last week?" he asked. "I was standing right behind you in my own living room, naked as the day I was born, and I couldn't even get you to turn around and look. I was practically shoving my junk in your face. 'Hey, Dan! See anything you like?'" He raised his eyebrow expressively. "If that's not disinterested, I'd hate to see what is." "Oh, God, I remember that," Dan said, grimacing. "Yeah, that just about short-circuited my brain." "And afterwards when I told you that I liked pinkies, you acted like you weren't even interested! You just said you were sorry, and then you started trying to set me up with Sandy. I thought you were telling me that you were sorry you couldn't return my feelings, and that's when it really started to hurt." As he relived the memory, a pained expression clouded his handsome face. "I thought it would go away, but every time I saw you, that hollow feeling in the middle of my chest just got worse. What was I supposed to think?" "I'm sorry, babe," Dan said, putting a hand up to touch the side of Bo's face and stroke the fur on his cheek, "I didn't understand. Why the heck didn't you just tell me you're gay months ago?" Bo looked affronted. "I'm not gay!" Dan was shocked. What had he just done? "But you said-" Bo cut him off. "When you're gay, you like other men. I don't like men. I like you." Whoops! Now Dan looked annoyed. The varius corrected himself quickly. "I mean, you're the only guy I've ever wanted to be with." "So you think you're bi?" Dan asked, thinking that this could get complicated really quickly. "No," Bo said, exasperated. "This really isn't difficult." Then he thought about what he was saying, and corrected himself. "Well, okay," he admitted, "maybe it is a little bit difficult." How was he going to explain this? "Girls are pretty and everything, and I can imagine that one of them could be a really good housemate, and sex with them is okay, but I've never wanted to bond with one. "On the other hand, most guys are about as attractive as a cow. Some of them are good looking enough, but too stupid. Most of them are ugly and not too bad to talk to, and they make good friends, but that's about it." He shrugged his shoulders expressively. "I've just never been interested in mating with anyone else. But then you came along..." Bo gave a deep sigh, and when he looked at Dan, his eyes instantly lost their stoic chill. "When I look at you, it's different. When I see you, I want to be an 'us.'" "So you want to be with me?" Dan asked, in disbelief. "You know, with me?" "Well, sure," Bo said, as if that were obvious. Still feeling confused, Dan shook his head and lay back down on the couch, pulling Bo's arm back over him. Bo responded by tightening his grip a bit, locking Dan in place. The sky was dark outside and the two were in the middle of watching an action-adventure movie when a knock on the door surprised them both. Dan would have lost his precarious perch on the edge of the couch, were it not for the big morph's arm holding him in place. "Who the hell is that?" he asked, trying to sit up without sliding off onto the floor. "Dinner!" Bo said, reminding Dan that neither of them had put anything but beer in their bellies since lunch. Padding to the door, he paid the delivery 'bot and brought a pair of large, square boxes back to the living room table. "When did you do that?" Dan asked, mouth watering at the smell of a fully-loaded, meat-lover's pizza. "While you were in the bathroom," Bo grinned. "I've got them on speed dial." Dan walked into the kitchen, bringing back a pair of plates and a jar of dried red pepper. "Great!" Bo exclaimed, reaching for the plates and forks. When Dan handed them over, the varius turned and put them out of reach on the end table. "I'm going to get you to loosen up, if it's the last thing I do. There are times," he instructed, "when cardboard is a valid serving utensil." "Heathen." Dan scoffed, shooting Bo a disapproving look that did nothing to mask his amusement. "Yeah," Bo agreed, "but heathens don't have to wash dishes, do they?" "Oh, this is heaven," Dan said, over a mouthful of the city's best pizza. He couldn't keep from glancing over at Bo every few seconds, almost afraid that this was going to end up being yet another cruel dream. "I could get very used to this," he admitted. "I hope so," Bo said, "I could too. What would you think about making this a steady thing?" As happy as he was at that moment, Dan couldn't help being practical. "Are you sure? It seems awfully sudden." Bo stuck a furry finger in Dan's ear and pushed him sideways. It was the closest he could get to giving his friend a wet-willy, and it had never failed to make Dan smile. "I didn't ask you to get married, for crying out loud," Bo protested. "I just want to know for sure that we're on the same page. I'd feel stupid chasing you if you weren't ready to chase back." Dan took Bo's large hand in his own. "Oh, I think we're on the same page, all right. But I'm also thinking that you've never done this before, and we haven't even had a real date yet. How do you know it's me you want to date?" "What do you mean, we haven't had a date?" Bo protested, sounding insulted. "It's not like we just met each other. We go to Sam's, we go to restaurants, we did the car show a couple of weeks ago...we've done tons of stuff together." In spite of his feeling that this was moving really quickly, Dan had to acknowledge that Bo was right. Not counting the past four days, they'd spent almost every free hour together over the past few months. "I guess you're right," he said. "Have we been dating since June?" Bo raised an eyebrow at him. "I think we have, sort of." "I'm sorry to be so out of it," Dan said shaking his head. "I'm just still in shock, you know?" "Yeah, I know," Bo said, looking superior. “Being with me is shockingly awesome, isn’t it?” He smiled at the look that put on his friend’s face and scooted over on the couch until his leg pressed against Dan's. "I was really afraid I'd gone and screwed things up," he said, more seriously. "What, last Sunday?" Dan asked, putting his half-eaten slice back on the cardboard. Bo didn't say anything, he just stared at Dan with soulful eyes and nodded his head. "Well, you didn't," Dan said. " You just made a wrong turn, is all." He smiled at Bo, enjoying how it made Bo's smile come back with it. "It took me a little while to find where you went, but eventually I caught up." The food and the movie held their attention for a while, but after both had finished, Dan turned and rubbed the back of Bo's thickly muscled neck. He was sorely tempted to let his hands go exploring over Bo's body, to touch the places that he'd been looking at for months, but he held himself back. "So have you ever done it with another guy?" "You'll be the first," Bo replied, giving him a squeeze. "And that's one of the things we should probably talk about." "I'm all ears," Dan said, laughing when Bo reached a huge hand up and traced the contours of his ear with the tip of a blunted claw. "Varii do things differently, you know?" "What, you don't insert tab 'A' into slot 'B'?" Dan joked. Bo poked him in the ribs, for his trouble. "If I remember my anatomy lessons, you don't have a 'slot B,' Bo joked, "I think you have a 'hole O' instead." then he turned serious again. "Remember how I told you that in the varius world, sex could be pretty casual?" "Yeah," Dan thought back to their earlier conversations, "but that's just when you're single, right?" He got a worried look on his face. "Or does that extend into dating and marriage, too?" "It depends on the couple," Bo said, absentmindedly rubbing his hand up and down Dan's chest. "Some couples stay pretty wild, but most settle down once they bond." When he teasingly didn't say anything about his own preference, Dan backed away slightly and stared at the varius with one raised eyebrow until Bo gave in. "Okay, okay!" He laughed, "Stop giving me the stink-eye!" He lovingly stroked Dan's hair like a mother bear grooming her cub. "I'll never sleep around on you, Dan," he reassured. "You're worth waiting for." "Waiting for?" Dan said, "what are you talking about? Is there some sort of bizarre varius celibacy pact written into the fine print, or something?" He scrabbled between the couch cushions, as if looking for something he'd lost. "Where's my contract? That wasn't in the contract." Bo laughed at Dan's antics, but his words were serious. "Sex means too much to you for us to jump into it, Pinks. I'm not going to be one of those incidents you regret later on." He rubbed Dan's chest, gently. "If we commit, we'll have all our lives to enjoy each other. But if it doesn't work out, we need to find out before we make unbreakable commitments." "Unbreakable commitments?" Dan asked, questioningly. "Varii don't divorce, Dan. We bond for life, and it's really going to fuck things up if you ever try to bail." Dan was surprised, and it showed. "No pressure, huh?" "It's the varius way, Dan," Bo explained, without apology. "I know it's different with sapiens, so I thought we should discuss it so nobody gets hurt. If you aren't willing to bond with me, I'd rather know about it early on." Dan gathered his thoughts for a moment. "The idea of a lifetime commitment doesn't scare me off, if it's with the right guy. I think my biggest problem has been that I jump into things too quickly. Waiting a while will probably do me some good." He looked hard at Bo. "This time I want to do it right. I want to court you. I want you to know without a doubt that I'm absolutely besotted with you, and then I want to marry you." "Marry me?" Bo interjected, "Already? Didn't you just get through accusing me of moving too fast?" "Oh, be quiet," Dan shot back. "You know what I'm saying. If it's going to be the last time I do it, I want to do it right." Bo gathered Dan up in his arms and gave him a hug that a bear would envy. "If I didn't know it before, I know it now. We're gonna be good." He held Dan at arm's length and looked at him intently. "So when you decide you're ready, you just let me know and we'll go from there." Bo gave Dan a little smooch, and released him. "But it's getting late, and I've got to hit the sack or I'll turn into a pumpkin. Do you want to go home, or sack out here on the couch?" "That was our first kiss," Dan said, sounding dazed. "That doesn't answer my question." Bo retorted, then asked hesitantly, "So how was it?" "Fuzzy." Dan smiled, reaching up with his fingertips to place them on the tip of Bo's muzzle. "But very nice." "I think I'd better go home," he said, regretfully. "The temptation to sneak into your bedroom and defile you might be too much for me to resist. See you tomorrow?" "Bet your life!" Bo's eyes twinkled as they walked to the door. They shared a chaste kiss, and he watched with amusement as Dan made his way out to his car, pausing every few steps to look back at him and wave. After he'd taken off, Bo turned back into the apartment that suddenly seemed so cold and dark without his Dan in it. Closing the door and throwing the bolt, Bo leaned back against the door and took a few quiet moments to reflect on what just happened. He'd just kissed another guy! If it were anyone other than Dan Blocker, he probably would have gone and scrubbed his teeth with industrial de-greaser, but for some reason, with Dan it was okay. Better than okay, as a matter of fact, it had made his toes tingle! Bo wondered if he'd have the same reaction with a different guy, but after thinking about it, he realized that he had no desire to kiss anyone else, male or female. He had finally found another person with whom his gears meshed, and that person happened to be another guy. It wasn't Dan's body he felt drawn to, it was his soul. He walked into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. Staring at his reflection, he couldn't for the life of him understand what Dan saw in him. Dan was so personable and handsome that he could have virtually anyone he wanted; but he seemed to want him. The morph pulled out his oral scrubber and a tube of paste, and shoved the business end of the humming machine into his muzzle. Who knew why two people were thrown together, or whether they would stay together? Chances were good, he knew, that once the dust settled, Dan would realize that he could do better, and go off to find someone more like himself. Or, he thought, bitterly, he'd just turn to his left instead of his right and date Kensuke instead. Ken was a much better match for Dan than Bo was. The lion was young, energetic, creative, intelligent, and, he had to admit, furiously hot. He sighed, hating the face that stared back at him. It was as homely as ever, and the ring of toothpaste bubbles ringing his lips didn't make it any more appealing. He rinsed his muzzle clean and scrubbed his face with a towel, returning some semblance of dignity to a face that would never be handsome. It didn't matter, really. The possibility that he could keep Dan's attention in the face of such stiff competition was probably nothing more than a fantasy, but he'd try to enjoy it while it lasted. Bo turned off the lights and opened the windows, pulling back the bedcovers by the light of the nearly-full moon. He enjoyed sleeping with a fan. The soft susurrations of air playing over his body sometimes encouraged dreams of lying in a hammock in a tropical paradise, the moving air transformed into a gentle island breeze. He loved the comforting feel of the wind rippling his fur, and hated waking up from that particular dream. The cool night air wafting over his fur often brought back pleasant memories of his childhood in the country, but tonight all he thought about was Dan. He had, in the past, entertained notions of bonding with a sapiens female, but it had never worked out. Perhaps he had been a challenge to them, a bestial thrill or a lost bar bet, but never someone they wanted to take home to mother. Never something serious. Whether he bedded them or not, they vanished the instant his back was turned, never to be seen again. Bo had always wondered why they all ran away with such vigor. He knew that his equipment wasn't as large as most of the other guys in the gym, so he assumed that they found his sexual prowess to be lacking. Was Dan going to be the same way? Would he run for the hills once his curiosity was satisfied? Somehow, he doubted it. In so many ways other than just being male, Dan seemed different than all the rest. Deliberately, Bo pushed all his doubts and fears into a closet in the back of his mind. He closed the door on them, but he wasn't about to lock it and throw away the key just yet. This was all too new for him to completely trust his feelings, but for a while he could focus on the positive. He would see Dan again in a few hours, and get to hold him in his arms at least one more time. With hope in his heart and a lightness of being that he hadn't felt in many years, Bo released himself to sleep.

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As Dan made the drive back to his own home, the return of rationality kept pace with his slowing heartbeat. Although he was on cloud nine right now, he couldn't stop his brain from replaying some of the conversations he'd had with Bo in the past, back when they were forging their friendship. One of the first times Bo had opened up to him, he'd told Dan that in the eyes of the morph community, he wasn't exactly a creature of beauty. A nagging voice in the back of his head kept asking whether Bo only wanted him because nobody in his own community would have him. Dan told himself that if someone were foolish enough to kick Bo to the curb, he would be more than happy to pick him up, dust him off and show him a good time, but what would happen if a really hot woman came along who wanted Bo for herself. He'd told Dan that he liked pinkies, but was that just because it was the best he thought he could do? How much of a future could they possibly build, with Dan constantly afraid that a single look from a pretty lady could lure Bo away? 'Unbreakable commitments,' huh? What if it were Bo who ended up wanting out? He shook his head and chastised himself. There was no reason to dwell on what the future would bring, because they hadn't even been on a real date yet, for crying out loud. A date, Dan thought, reaching into his pocket with a groan. He unfolded the piece of paper with the lion playfully sketched on it, and looked at it with a peculiar mix of fondness and dread. "Yes!" it proclaimed, looking happy and eager. He'd virtually begged Ken to go out, and the thought of bailing on his friend upset Dan more than he'd expected. Kensuke was undoubtedly one of the most attractive men that Dan had ever seen, and that knocked him off balance. He hadn't been lying to Bo when he'd told him that he'd never looked at morphs for companionship before, and it seemed ironic that now, two of them were competing for his attention. He hadn't known Ken for very long, but there was no denying the powerful chemistry brewing between them. Fuck it, he decided, brushing his worries to the side with unusual force. He wasn't going to let tomorrow concern him. He'd talk to Ken next week, they'd get things ironed out, and everything was going to be okay. For today, at least, he had a smokin' hot man to be with, and that was good enough. And, he thought, a huge smile breaking out on his face, damned if I didn't just kiss Bo Taylor! Chapter 21 Bo bounded out of bed before his alarm went off, unusually energized and feeling as if he'd signed a lease on a new, better life. He was headed for the bathroom when he remembered the reason for his chipper mood - he had a boyfriend today! As he washed his face and scrubbed away the furry little coats that his teeth had dressed themselves in overnight, he reflected that the oddest thing about having a boyfriend was how it didn't seem odd at all. Maybe it was because he didn't have just any guy for his boyfriend - he had his best friend. He had Dan. At the thought of Dan Blocker, Bo let his mind wander, his eyes pointed at the water running out of the tap and down the drain, but not really seeing it. When his dental scrubber completed its routine and stopped buzzing, the sudden silence startled him back to reality. He'd been repetitively scrubbing his second and third molars for the last...how long had he been standing there, anyway? Oh, he had it bad. Unfortunately, he had it bad for a sapiens. There wasn't the slightest bit of doubt in his mind that he loved Dan, and there also wasn't any doubt that this relationship was going to cause problems. He had no idea what kind of problems or how bad they'd end up being, but he knew there was going to be friction with others in his community. He set the scrubber for another cleaning cycle and jammed it back in his mouth, this time remembering to move it around. He sometimes got impatient and left the job half done, but today he took extra care to clean between all his teeth. He wanted to be extra clean. After all, someone might want to stick their tongue in his mouth! Spitting in the sink and rinsing, he looked at his reflection in the mirror. "Dude," he told it, unable to suppress the shadow of a smile, "you never do anything the easy way, do you?" After eating breakfast he cleaned and straightened his living space, but even though he had almost a week's worth of dirty clothing and Chinese takeout boxes to contend with, it didn't take very long. There were definite advantages to having such a small apartment. Poverty is its own reward, he thought. Looking around, he was at a loss as to what to do next. He glanced at the vid, but the marginal comfort it once gave him with its anonymous friends and faceless relationships was gone. Looking out the window, he spied his speeder where he'd parked it after he and Dan took it out for that first ride. After sitting motionless in the parking lot for so long, his bike had accumulated more than its share of dirt on the body panels, and that wouldn't do. When Dan rode it again, Bo wanted him to ride in style, not putt along on what looked like a broken-down old piece of junk. Bo popped off the panels and brought them into his kitchen, where he was busy scrubbing them clean when an energetic knocking almost divorced his front door from its hinges. "It's open!" he yelled, rinsing the soapy water off an electrical panel cover and setting it on a towel by the sink to dry. "Hey!" Dan bounded into the kitchen and gave Bo a hug from behind before turning and sticking his head into Bo's chiller, leaving the varius feeling like he'd been swept up in a category-five hurricane of happy. "Well, hello," Bo rumbled, his voice and face grave with a mock solemnity that failed to reach his eyes. "I certainly hope you don't think that just because we're dating, you can just come over anytime you want." "I was hoping that's exactly what it would mean," Dan replied, his head buried deep in the recesses of the cooler. "You know I can't get enough of you." "Of course you can't," Bo said, agreeably, "I'm downright irresistable! But you're looking for me in the wrong place," Bo told Dan's back. "I'm out here. Penguins go in the refrigerator, I stay in the house where it's nice and warm." Turning around, Dan was about to shoot back a witty reply when he saw that Bo was protecting his hands with a pair of extra large, bright yellow rubber gloves that looked woefully out of place stretched over his huge paws. "Well,” he teased, “don't we look stylish!" "Laugh all you want, Pinko. The last time I got degreaser on my hands it made most of my hair fall out." "Not pretty," Dan agreed, pulling himself to his feet and into Bo's arms. After giving him a more suitable kiss, he looked at the array of painted covers laid out on the kitchen counters. "Missed a spot," he said, pointing out a small grimy patch that had escaped Bo's notice. "You don't mind car parts in the kitchen sink?" Bo asked. "In college, I rebuilt my car's motivator in the bathtub, so I can't really say anything." Dan admitted. "As long as you're not pouring something toxic down the drain, go for it." Bo smiled to himself. If he'd known that dating another guy was going to be this easy, he'd have tried it years ago. It was going to be so much less stressful than dealing with women. Dan patted his boyfriend on the chest and announced that it was the perfect day for a picnic. "It's beautiful out there, and I was hoping we could spend some time at the lake. The weather's getting cooler, and we might not have another chance this year." "Hmmm." Bo replied, as if considering a wide range of options. "I dunno." He counted on his fingers as he listed a litany of chores, "I really should stay here and dust behind the chiller," he finished, "and the cat really does need a bath." "The chiller is fine, and unless Bob is chained up in your closet, you don't have a cat," Dan pointed out. "Yes?" "Okay, fine," Bo chuckled, "Since you've blown holes in all my carefully crafted excuses, I guess I'll have to say yes. Now get out of the way and let me make us some lunch." Bo rustled around in the cooler until he uncovered a leftover slab of corned beef, which he gave to Dan to slice. The sandwich he constructed for himself was simple - lots of meat and melted cheese between two thick hunks of bread and some horseradish-flavored mayo to glue it all together. For Dan's, he washed and drained ripe tomatoes and crisp lettuce, and layered them along with the meat onto jumbo slices of wheat bread, making one of the most beautiful gastronomic creations Dan had ever seen. Dan stopped what he was doing and stared with naked appreciation. "My God, those are gorgeous!" Bo grinned in response. "I'm fresh out of wicker baskets," he said, looking around. "I guess my gym bag will have to do." He upended his bag and dumped the contents out on the floor, then cautiously sniffed inside the bag, checking for noxious odors. Dan remembered him doing something similar with his spare speeder helmet before handing it over. "Have you ever smelled something so bad you couldn't use it?" he asked, with morbid curiosity. "Not yet," Bo said, wrapping the sandwiches in a towel and putting them into the bag, "but there's a first time for everything." He tossed some of his famous chocolate chip cookies into the bag, along with a jug of water, a bottle of wine that Dan brought, and some potato crisps. Dan turned and rummaged through Bo's refrigerator. "Do you have any milk to go with the cookies?" "Milk and I don't get along too well," Bo told him. "Sorry." "Can't process the lactose?" Dan asked, shutting the refrigerator. Bo nodded his head. "I don't know, maybe. I can eat cheese, but not milk. But that's about it, as far as food allergies. I got lucky. A lot of varii have to be on a special diet their whole lives. I just cramp if I eat ice cream." He peered into the bag of food, a concerned expression wrinkling his brow. "Do you think that's enough?" Dan looked at the varius skeptically. "We're not feeding an army, here. It's just the two of us." After looking at each other for a few heartbeats, both men simultaneously burst into laughter. Dan turned and grabbed a jar of peanut butter and some crackers off the counter, Bo mirroring him on the other side with another bag of cookies. Nodding his head over the fortified contents, Bo excused himself to change. When he came out of the bedroom a few minutes later, he was dressed in a pair of cargo-style swimming shorts and a tee shirt that stretched taut across his chest and cannon-ball shoulders, but hung loose across his midsection, making him look even more edible to Dan than the sandwiches. Once at the lake, the two piled out of the car and ran to the beach like a pair of children at the playground. After claiming their space and arranging the blanket, the varius looked down at his sapiens date. "Wanna take a swim?" With a playful punch to Bo's shoulder, Dan ran towards the water, leaving a trail of clothing behind him. Laughing, Bo followed, stripping his own shirt off his torso as he ran. Jumping into the cool, clear water, the two spent the next half hour splashing and dunking each other like childhood buddies at summer camp. After their initial blast of energy had dissipated, they floated in the water within arms reach of one another. "So tell me how I'm doing on our first date." Bo asked, "Am I passing muster?" "Absolutely," Dan said, but when Bo looked up to meet his eyes, he quickly looked away. "Why are you still doing that?" Bo said, floating closer. "Am I so hideous that you don't want to be caught looking at me?" "Oh, please," Dan said, turning his head back and forcing himself to meet Bo's gaze. "Nothing like that. I'm just used to having to hide my feelings, that's all. It's going to take me a while to get used to all this freedom." "Well you can look all you want, now," Bo said. "Even if we weren't together, we're still Circlemates. That means we're always open with one another, and always honest." For a time, they floated quietly in the cool water, until Bo broke the comfortable silence. "You know what I like most about being around you?" he asked. "I can't imagine," Dan said. "I have so many positive qualities to choose from, how could you possibly pick just one?" "Ha, ha," Bo said, tolerantly. "Seriously, though. It doesn't feel like we've always got to be talking. You're not afraid of just being quiet together." "If you like being quiet so much, why don't you do it more?" Dan joked, getting splashed in the face for his attempt at humor. "I know what you mean," he said, wiping the water out of his eyes. "My aunt Mary used to say that the best friends were the ones you never had to talk to. I used to think she just didn't like to talk to her friends, but I guess what you're saying is probably closer to what she meant." Smiling to himself, he reached out under the calm surface of the water to take Bo's hand in his own. He watched in fascination as the short fur spread out weightlessly from the morph's beefy forearm in a halo of deepest black. Running his hand up and down the varius' fur, Dan watched the hairs part for his hand, then regroup in its wake as if they'd never been disturbed. "So what do you think, really?" Bo said, watching Dan play with his fur. "In the heat of the moment last night, did you say anything you regret?" "What, am I getting cold feet?" Dan asked, glancing at Bo before turning his attention back to his toy. "Nope. No cold feet here. They might be a little wrinkly by now, but they're definitely not cold." He relinquished Bo's arm and kicked gently in the water, making a slow circle around the varius, examining him from all angles. "I've been thinking about being with you for a long time, and it really surprised me to find that you felt the same way." "I'm not sure I did, at first, anyway." Bo confided. "At first, I just thought you were really cute. For a pinky." He dodged ineffectively as Dan splashed him with water. "But then I realized that you were a really nice guy, too." Tiny water droplets had gathered on Bo's eyelashes like morning dew on the grass, and his self-conscious smile made Dan's heart ache. Bo continued, "I think I started looking at you differently when I woke up that day in the office with my head in your lap." Bo tilted his head to the side like a curious puppy. "How could I not fall in love with someone who was Prince Charming and Florence Nightingale all rolled into one? And who brought me chicken soup afterwards?" "I was really worried that you might not like chicken soup." "It could have been shrimp gumbo, which I hate, by the way, and I still would have eaten every drop." Bo admitted. "You looked so cute standing there on the porch, looking so hopeful. I don't think anyone had ever done something so nice for me before. And that was before you had to be nice to me! But you were still so in love with Blaine that I didn't think you even noticed me." "I have to be nice to you?" Dan said, shock painted across his face. "Oh, this will never work." He immediately started moving towards the shoreline, but his escape was foiled by the iron-hard grip of a varius hand on his arm. "Let me go," he said, "I'm not sticking around if I have to stop abusing you." "You're not going anywhere," Bo said, pulling the sapiens closer until they were pressed together. Locking his arms around Dan from behind, he rested his chin on top of the other man's head and rocked him back and forth for a moment. "I noticed you, all right," Dan said, pulling Bo's arms tighter around him and closing his eyes contentedly. "You're kinda hard to miss, big guy." The varius looked down at this wonderful sapiens, the man he wanted so badly to claim as his own. "Are you sure my size isn't an issue with you?" Dan shook his head "No way, buddy," he reassured, "I like big men!" Bo's voice was uncertain. "But you do realize, I'm not big everywhere, right?" Dan sighed in exasperation as he turned himself around to face the varius. "Are we on that, again?" Bo cast his eyes down in shame, and Dan instantly regretted his tone. "I'm sorry, Bo," he said, turning and taking the varius' hands in his own, "but you just don't get it. I like you being big. And as far as the size of your wiener goes, tell me right now. Is it big enough to get from you to me?" Bo shrugged wordlessly and nodded. "Then it's big enough." Dan said, with finality. "I don't want to hear anything more about it." "Damn," Dan said a moment later, looking disgusted with himself. "I shouldn't have said that." "What?" Bo said, looking concerned. Maybe size was at least somewhat important to Dan? "I should have made you show me," Dan said, ruefully. "Maybe I could have even gotten a good test drive!" "Perv." Bo put a massive hand on Dan's head and dunked him under the water. When Dan bobbed to the surface his stomach rumbled hungrily, eliciting a similar response from Bo's gut. "I guess they're trying to tell us something," Bo said, feeling a subtle hunger pang forming. "Yeah, they're calling for those sandwiches!" They both splashed their way onto the beach and grabbed their towels. As he dried himself, Dan watched Bo go through similar contortions with his larger towel, wringing the water out of it every few passes. "I wondered how you got that much fur dried off. Don't big puppies like you just shake the water out?" "What, like this?" Bo asked, shaking his head and torso violently, showering Dan with large drops of lake water. When he had finished soaking Dan, he had to stand still for a moment with his arms extended out to his sides to regain his balance, a dizzy grin illuminating his face. Dan laughed at the sudden downpour and tried to shield himself. "Yes, like that! We've been talking for months, but there's so much about you that I still don't know. It's like there's a whole other world just outside my own that I don't know anything about." "The varius world?" Bo asked, poking the corner of the towel in his ear to absorb the water that had collected in there. Dan nodded. "We're just folks, same as anybody else," Bo said, borrowing a favorite expression of his granddad's. "We wake up, we get dressed, we go to work, we love, we laugh, we cry, just like everyone else in the world." "Sure," Dan agreed, "but we're also very different, too. We might both put on our pants one leg at a time, but you've got a sexy little tail hole in yours that I don't have." "Well, that's true," Bo acknowledged, with a nod. "Can you just buy your clothes off the rack, or do you have to have them custom-made?" "Most varii can just walk into any department store and buy them, but I have to get most of mine custom-made because of my size," Bo explained. "Is that why your clothes look more like sapiens clothing than most morphs'?" "Yeah," Bo replied, "I've always liked the way sapiens clothing looks on me. But it's not all about looks. The manufacturers can't seem to put the damned tail hole in the same place twice. One time I get a pair that has the hole so high it drags my pants down every time I stand up, and the next time it's so low that they give me a wedgie." "Like your work pants?" Dan said, trying not to laugh. "I've seen your ass eating your pants a time or two." Bo groaned. "I've only got one pair that does that, and I save 'em for when I don't have anything else to wear." "Why don't you just have the uniform company alter them?" Dan asked. "We pay extra for that service, and it's a waste if you don't use it." "I don't want to be a bother," Bo said, reluctantly. "Half the guys out there have their uniforms altered," Dan told him, "and I'm not going to have my boyfriend being the only man in the plant whose got a pants-munching ass! Besides," he continued, running a hand down Bo's arm, "Your ass is amazing and should be showcased." He shook his head, regretfully. "I wish I filled out a pair of blue jeans the way you do." "Do you really think so?" Bo said, doubtfully, "I always thought my butt was too big." "Too big?" Dan asked, disbelievingly. "Ain't no such thing, my friend. You've got a handsome rump on you, buddy. A big, muscley, squatter's ass that makes you look strong." His enthusiasm made Bo grin, but when he spoke, the morph's words were serious. "What do we need to discuss, to convince you I'm going to be your perfect mate?" he asked. "Okay," Dan agreed, "if you want to talk about something, I've got a doozie for you. If you were interested in me, why in the seven flaming hells were you trying so hard to push me and Blaine back together?" Bo sighed and played with a piece of grass that he'd plucked from the ground near their blanket. He knew this question had to be coming, but that didn't mean he was looking forward to answering it. "That didn't have to do with us," he explained, "it had to do with you and where your head was." He paused and looked at Dan, and the man's eyes told him that he was still receptive. "You couldn't move on and be happy because in your head, he was still number one in your life, and he was going to stay number one until you took him out of that position. "You were never going to do that on your own, because even after he was out of your life, you were still afraid of losing him." He paused, twisting the blade of grass around his fingernail. "If being back with Blaine was what you really wanted, I wanted you to have that. If you chose something else, well..." he shrugged. "I just wanted you to be happy. And after you finally let him go, I thought, what the hell! I might as well give it a shot." Dan understood, and he knew Bo was right. "Well, thanks. If it weren't for you, I'd probably still be stuck in that rut." Bo shrugged it off. "Don't make me out to be too much of a saint. I had ulterior motives." He pulled Dan close and gave him a quick smooch to drive home just what those 'ulterior motives' were. "What's next?" "We're eventually going to have to talk about money," Dan said, hesitantly. "That was something Blaine refused to discuss before we partnered, and it was always a huge thing between us. His finances are a mess." "Might as well get it out of the way," Bo said. "You want to go first?" "Sure," Dan said, around a mouthful of his lunch. "but it won't take long. Ten percent of my take-home goes into a retirement account, I refuse to spend money that I don't have, and the only debt I've got right now is my home loan." "You're the pinnacle of responsibility," Bo teased. "When the Pope calls, you can tell him you want to be Saint Thrifty." Dan blushed. "When you grow up around a pair of investment managers, you don’t have much choice." Bo uncorked the wine and refilled their glasses. "Well, you know how much money I make," he said, "you know what I drive and you know where I live. I'm guessing that if I had to be rich, I wouldn't be sitting here." "I really don't care," Dan shrugged, "as long as you're not living in debt." He licked his thumb clean of a daub of mayonnaise that had escaped his sandwich. "I have no intention of working until I die." Now that it was his turn, Bo thoughtfully chewed his sandwich. "Remember how I was in the service?" he asked. Dan nodded, and Bo continued, "I served a full contract and another partial tour, so I get a pension from that, plus the residuals from a construction project I worked on." Dan sat up a little straighter. He was only aware of one construction project that qualified for that sort of pay structure. "You worked on the jump rings?" A single interstellar jump ring made interstellar travel possible, but it took a pair of them to make it safe. One ring by itself could throw another, smaller jump ring dozens of light years away, but not with any degree of accuracy. It was like throwing a rock at a target while blindfolded. You might hit the target, you might get close, or you might not even throw it in the right direction. If the smaller jump ring didn't appear within a reasonable distance of the target, the crew used it to jump back home and it was abandoned. If it landed in a good spot, the crew would build a larger jump ring, using the smaller ring as a receiving portal for the construction materials. For a variety of reasons, about one out of three crews never made it back home. After a few dozen losses, the only way to sign a crew was to promise them a residual, a percentage of all future traffic that jumped through the rings they risked their lives to build. If the rings led to a habitable planet or a mineral-rich mining belt, the residual alone could make a man independently wealthy. Dan guessed that the rings that Bo had worked on must have emerged somewhere far less impressive, or he wouldn't be living where he did. "Yeah," Bo confirmed, "it was right out of the service, and my crew worked on two projects. One of them jumped to the middle of nowhere, and the other one ended up just outside an asteroid belt. Anyway, the point is, the residual goes straight into a retirement account, and I never see any of it. "Wow," Dan was impressed, "that was a big risk." He was curious what the residual amount was, but it seemed crass to ask. Bo shrugged. "I didn't have any family, really, and nobody to come home to, so what did it matter?" His voice was somber. "Still, after making it back twice, I thought going out a third time would be pushing my luck so I came home and got a real job." As they ate, a group of small children scampered by, laughing as they raced each other to the water. One of them dropped the ball he was carrying and, in his hasty attempt to pick it up, stumbled and kicked it towards the blanket that the two men were lying on. "I'm sorry!" he called, automatically. Bo picked up the toy and held it out to the child, but the boy hesitated, evidently intimidated by the morph's huge size and gruff looks. Dan looked from the boy to Bo, and watched as a subtle sadness washed over the varius' face. Gently, Bo put the ball on the ground and rolled it towards the boy's feet. Picking it up, the child turned away to rejoin his friends, but then remembered what he'd been taught. Looking back, he saw that the scary looking creature was sharing the blanket with a smaller sapiens man who didn't look the least bit worried. Maybe the big one was safer than he looked. "Thank you." His polite duty discharged, he turned and ran back to his friends, who were already playing at the water's edge. Dan watched Bo's reaction with interest. "You ever thought about having kids?" Bo got a far away look in his eyes, as if he were staring back to his own childhood. "Yeah, I've been thinking about that lately. I wouldn't mind having the chance to do right what my mother did wrong." "Would you want a boy or a girl?" Dan asked. "The politically correct answer is, 'it wouldn't matter as long as they're healthy,'" Bo said, "but honestly I'd want a boy. I just don't feel like I understand girls well enough to get the job done. I think a boy can be raised by two women just fine, but I can't imagine how a girl could be raised adequately by two guys." "Just can't see yourself explaining tampons, huh?" Dan laughed. Bo shuddered and shook his head. "I think my head would explode." "You do realize," Dan said somberly, "that if we get together, it may not be so simple any more for you to have a child, even by adoption." "I didn't think the courts had any issue with same-sex parents anymore. I thought...oh." Bo cut himself off suddenly, as he realized what Dan was getting at. "You mean because we're hetero." He fell silent as he considered this new wrinkle in his plans. When Dan spoke up, Bo could hear anger brewing. "Yep. Just a couple of months ago, a mixed couple in the Montana province was denied custody, and it caused a big stink. The fundamentalists are hard at work, trying to force everyone around them into their own little mold." Bo uncorked the wine and poured some in a glass. "Here," he said, handing the glass to Dan, "you sound like you could use this." Dan gratefully took the glass from Bo and sipped at it. The delicate taste of the wine, one he'd bought specially for today, helped remind him where he was, and that he was supposed to be having fun. The two lay back on the blanket, watching puffy clouds pass slowly overhead until Bo broke the silence. "You were never going to tell me, were you?" Dan paused, uncertain what Bo was talking about. "About what?" "About the lifter coil." Dan closed his eyes and remained silent, afraid of what might be coming. "I went back to that warehouse to get the core charge for my old coil, and that wasn't a four hundred and fifty credit package," Bo said. "It was more like, eight hundred." Dan grimaced. He should have known better than to try to pull the wool over Bo's eyes. "Can we just pretend that they made a mistake, and you got a really good deal?" He rolled over and favored Bo with his best optimistic grin. "I wouldn't ever have known if the guy didn't make a mistake and try to give me five hundred credits back. You didn't tell me that you put down a four hundred credit deposit on that coil before we left the office," Bo said, quietly. Reaching out a thick paw to stroke the side of Dan's face. "You were never going to say anything, were you?" Dan smiled and lowered his head. He took Bo's hand in his own, holding it close to his face as he took a few moments to study the tartan weave of their blanket. "Probably not." The feel of the short, dense fur on the back of Bo's paw was like velvet against his cheek. He shut his eyes and brought Dan's hand closer to his face, first kissing it, and then holding it to his nose to breathe in Dan's amazing smell. "That's a huge chunk of money, and it sort of shook me," he said, eyes still closed. "For the longest time I was sure you were going to demand something in return, but you never did. Why did you do that for someone you barely knew?" Dan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He reminded himself that he didn't have anything to fear from being totally honest, now. Bo opened his eyes, and Dan looked into them so there wouldn't be any question that he was telling the truth. "Because you needed it," he said. "And because even back then, even before I thought you might ever be interested in me, I knew I loved you." And this time, Dan didn't hide the emotion that the admission brought to his eyes. The sun was low in the sky when they repacked Bo's gym bag and returned to the car, Dan nestled protectively into the crook of the varius' arm. When they were almost back at his apartment, Bo spoke again. "Will you do something for me?" "Within reason," Dan answered, "sure." Bo took a deep breath and composed himself. "I want you to go out on that date with Ken." What? "I don't have to do that," Dan said, "I'm-" He was cut off when Bo spoke a little louder than absolutely necessary. "Yes, you do have to do that. First off, you promised him." His tone quieted, "And I need to know that I'm not just here because I got to you first. I've seen the way you look at him, and it would kill me to think that, in the back of your mind, you ever wondered if your life might have been better if you'd chosen Ken instead. "Ken's a great guy," Bo continued, "and he's obviously interested in you." "Does this mean I'm going to have to go out with anyone who's interested?" Dan said, annoyed. "Don't be silly." Bo heard the heat in Dan's voice, but he kept his own calm. "Just twenty-four hours ago, you were pretty interested in him, too." Dan couldn't argue the point. Less than a day ago he was falling for Kensuke, and falling fast. He didn't like life to be complicated, but the amazing, funny, creative lion had already thrown his wooden shoes into the machinery of his simple life. "You and I just had our first date," Bo went on, "and now you and Ken need to have a first date too, so you know in your heart that what you and I have is real, and isn't just your loneliness talking." His voice caught in his throat, and he had to pause for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was calm. "Ken's a great guy, and he deserves his shot." He looked at Dan solemnly. "Promise me you'll give him a fair chance." Dan was thunderstruck, but he understood why Bo was doing this. It was honorable, it was right, and it would make sure that all three of them made choices they could live with. Silently he nodded his head, and moved to take Bo into his arms. Bo accepted the hug, and returned it with an almost fearsome intensity. He wanted this man so badly, but ultimately, he needed to do what was right. And more importantly, he needed to know that in choosing him, Dan was making a decision he could live with for the rest of his life. Pushing away from Dan, Bo gathered himself before speaking. "To make sure this is fair, we probably shouldn't see each other for a few days, or at least until you and Ken have a chance to meet." "I guess," Dan said, feeling like he was being cut loose to drift at sea. "You've got to do what's best for you," Bo said, turning to walk up the stairs of his apartment. "I'll always be your friend, no matter what you decide, but this decision has to be all about what you need." Dan watched the morph walk slowly up the stairs without looking back, then close the door behind him once inside. What Dan couldn't see was Bo leaning back against the door for a moment before putting his face in his hands and sliding slowly down to the floor, cursing himself as a fool for bowing to the demands of honor and common sense. Chapter 22a Dan had all day Sunday to think about what he was going to tell Ken about Bo and himself, and he'd come up with exactly...nothing. What was there to tell, anyway? They were attracted to each other, they'd been on a single date, and that was about it. Now, he wanted to take Ken out. Neither man held a claim on him and nobody was getting cheated on, so why did he feel like a guilty little shit when he pulled Ken aside Monday morning to ask the lion to join him for lunch? "Hey!" Ken greeted Dan as he sat down at the table. "Hey, yourself!" Dan said, smiling back at the happy lion. "How's the music scene in our lovely city?" "I didn't end up going." Ken shrugged. "It's no fun by yourself." "Oh, hey, I'm sorry." Dan felt like a first-class schmuck for tossing a wrench into the lion's evening. "Why didn't you ask one of the other guys to go with you?" Ken flicked his ears and shot him a dubious look. "Have you ever heard what those old farts listen to all day long? Who listens to Hyroop anymore?" He gestured with his chopsticks. "If I have to listen to Chester singing along to 'Road to Damascus' one more time, I'm going to shove these in my ears until they bleed." Dan made a mental note to keep his collection of Hyroop's music to himself, choosing instead to ask what Ken had brought for lunch. "Today's menu," Ken brightened, "consists of buckwheat noodles and a red chicken curry with pineapple, with baby corn and bamboo shoots, and some jasmine rice sprinkled over the top for variety, and," he admitted, "because I had to eat it before it went bad." "That's as good a reason as any," Dan mused. "Is it nice and spicy?" "Depends on how much heat you can take," Ken grinned at him, and Dan felt the challenge underneath his words. "If it was on the menu at your favorite Thai restaurant, how many stars would be printed next to it?" "Lunch, or dinner?" Ken asked, one eyebrow raised. At Dan's puzzled look, he smiled and explained, "I think they bump up the number of stars at most Thai restaurants at lunch, so the businessmen on break can brag to each other about how much heat they can take." "You know, I've noticed that!" Dan said, "I always wondered why the food seems so much hotter at night than it is during the day. That explains it." "For lunch," Ken considered, "I'd give it four and a half stars. Three and a half for dinner. Maybe four." "That's pretty ambitious," Dan said, truly impressed. Four stars would make rivers of sweat trickle down just about anyone's back. Five would give the inexperienced diner an arrhythmia. "Can I try it?" "I don't know," Ken said, with a playful smirk. "You think you can handle it?" "You know those little red peppers you pull off your plate before they accidentally get mixed in with the food?" Dan asked, rhetorically. "Candy. Gimme your best shot." "All right," Ken said, expertly twirling a mouthful of noodles around his chopsticks, taking care to dredge them through the fragrant, orange-red sauce. He held them out to Dan with one handpaw, the other held underneath to catch any drips. "I hope you know what you're doing!" Dan leaned forward to take the noodles into his mouth, and immediately promised himself that he'd bought his last meal off the roach coach. The noodles were substantial, the sauce was bold and flavorful, and the heat was spot-on perfection. Why would he want to pay too much for substandard fare when he could be eating food like this? He'd been cooking less for himself since Jim had left, and this single bite of curry reminded him how good life could be, if one were willing to invest just a tiny bit more work. "Phenomenal!" he pronounced, beads of sweat popping out on his forehead. "And you were right on with the heat - four evening stars." Ken smiled happily and, when he was through chewing his own mouthful, cleared his throat and asked, "So I guess since he's not sitting here, you still don't know what's wrong with old Crabby-Pants?" Apropos of nothing, Dan noticed that when Ken spoke, his words were slurred to about the same degree that Bo's were, but in an entirely different way. He wondered if it were due to the differences in mouth structure or regional dialect, or maybe a combination of both? He'd have to remember to ask Bo about that later. "As a matter of fact, we did a lot of talking over the weekend," Dan said, "and we got things pretty well ironed out." "So what had him so worked up?" Ken asked, looking interested. Dan had drawn breath to speak and opened his mouth when he abruptly shut it. How much could he tell Ken without betraying Bo's trust? He realized that without getting Bo's permission, there was nothing he could really say. "I'm sorry," he apologized, "I can't tell you." Instead of getting the load of defensive, offended attitude that Dan would have expected from any sapiens who'd been told they weren't trusted, Ken simply shrugged his shoulders in acceptance. "Okay." That was remarkably easy, Dan thought. Perhaps I should have tried dating a varius a long time ago. "I've been thinking about last Friday," Dan said, the slight quaver in his voice betraying his unease, "and I feel really bad about assassinating your weekend. Can I make it up to you by taking you to dinner this week?" "Gee, I don't know," Ken said, playfully, "this week's looking awfully busy." "You're going to make me beg, aren't you?" Dan groaned, in mock agony. "Come on," he said, "it'll be my treat." "Fine, fine." Ken relented, sounding as if he were doing Dan the world's largest favor as he stretched his arms above his head and stretched. "But this is starting to sound like an official date." Dan looked at him for a quiet moment. "Maybe that's because it is an official date." Ken raised an eyebrow appraisingly and slowly nodded his head. "Wednesday night then," he said. "Six p.m. Restaurant of your choice, movie of mine, and we go Dutch." "Deal!" Dan said, holding out a hand. Ken engulfed it in his own, and gave it a solid shake. His handpaw was softer than Bo's, Dan noted, but warmer, and to his chagrin, he didn't want to let it go.

---

"You're not supposed to be here." Bo had opened his apartment door to Dan, but his oversized body blocked admission. "I'm not here as your boyfriend," Dan explained, "I'm here as your Circlemate." Bo nodded his head, but didn't move out of the doorway. Dan had every right to be there in that capacity, but Bo didn't have to let him inside. He wasn't angry, he just needed to keep his distance right now, and he hoped that Dan would understand. "Shoot." "Ken and I are going out on Wednesday," Dan said. "I haven't told him anything about us, other than you've invited me into your Circle. But I don't feel good about going out on a date with him when you and I are together. It makes me feel like I'm doing something dirty and underhanded." "There's nothing underhanded about it," Bo said, patiently, "I asked you to do it. It's not like you're sneaking around on me." "It's not you I feel bad for," Dan said, a little annoyed that Bo couldn't see the obvious. "It's Ken. I feel like I'm leading him on. You made me promise to give him a fair shot, and if I'm going to do that I can't lie to him. He has to know what the stakes are. And to do that, he has to know about us. And telling him about us means telling him about you." "You could have just called and asked me that," Bo said, looking defensive. "You didn't have to come over here." Dan stared into his boyfriend's eyes, amazed at how gentle they remained, even as they peered out of such a huge sea of prickly attitude. "I needed to see you," he said, bluntly. Bo nodded his head again, satisfied by the answer. He knew Dan would never intentionally betray him, but Kensuke...Ken was a new factor in this equation. He wasn't in the habit of trusting people he didn't know, but at the same time, he trusted Dan's judgment. If Dan thought Ken was trustworthy, then he'd have to rely on that. Bo had unwittingly put Dan into a difficult position. There was no way the man could do what Bo had asked of him without telling Ken about their relationship, and no way to do that without stepping on Bo's toes. Sighing, he acquiesced. "I'm sorry, Dan, you're right. You may tell him, but please, make sure he's discreet, and knows that I don't want this to get around. Not yet, at least." It was Dan's turn to nod. "Thanks." Although he couldn't go so far as to say that this made him happy, it at least alleviated the majority of his guilt. Without another word, he turned to go back to his car. Seeing Dan turn away, Bo immediately wanted to yell at him to come back, to ask him to spend the evening with him, to allow Bo to hold him, or at least to be nearby. He wanted Dan to go back on his promise to Ken, to tell the lion that there was no hope for them, that he loved Bo and always would. All this he wanted, but a long history of not getting what he wanted had taught him the futility of wishing for the impossible. Still, he couldn't stay silent and watch the man he loved walk away. "Dan." The sapiens turned to face him, his somber expression making Bo's words catch in his throat. "I..." Bo reached a hand out to touch the side of Dan's face, stopping just millimeters shy of contact, close enough to feel the warmth of Dan's cheek. In spite of how close the morph's hand was, Dan's eyes couldn't turn and look at it, compelled instead to remain locked on Bo's face, on those intensely deep, intensely soulful eyes. He wanted Bo so badly, but knew the varius was right. For better or worse, he had to know if Ken was going to be an issue for him. For them. Hesitantly, Bo pulled his hand back, knowing that if he touched Dan now, he'd pull the man into his arms and never let go. Dan deserved better. Ken deserved better. "Thank you for asking me before you told him," he said, weakly. "I...appreciate your consideration." Unable to look at him any more, Bo quietly withdrew into his apartment and quickly closed the door behind him, hoping selfishly that Dan would choose him, and for Dan's sake that he would choose Kensuke. Chapter 22b Dan found himself both anticipating his date and dreading it, and Wednesday evening rocketed towards him with fearsome speed. By the time he knocked on Ken's door, the butterflies that had been delicately fluttering around in his stomach had turned into a pair of seagulls fighting over a single morsel of food. "Hey!" Ken said, cheerfully unaware of Dan's nerves. "Hey, yourself," Dan looked at their surroundings. "Nice neighborhood." "Yeah, I know," Ken said, looking around them. "Come on in. When I signed the lease, I didn't realize it was this nice." He backed up and let Dan in, following behind after closing the door. "It has lots of room," Dan let his eyes wander over the spare furnishings and unadorned walls, remembering back to a time when he hardly had anything to his name, and was trying to furnish his first apartment on a junior accountant's salary. "Sorry it's still so barren," Ken said, self-consciously. "I haven't really had time to put anything up." "With your talent, I figured you'd have the walls covered by now," Dan said, bemusedly. Ken scratched the back of his neck, and Dan thought he looked decidedly uncomfortable. "You know, it seems weird. I draw all the time, but I hardly ever keep anything for myself." Dan peered around the corner of the kitchen entryway, and spotted a small, carefully framed sketch, strategically hung on a wall where it could be seen from almost anywhere in the apartment. "What about this?" Dan walked closer, warmed by the detail and the obvious love that had gone into the drawing. It was of two lions, the male's arm draping comfortably over the shoulders of the female. Their bodies were turned in slightly towards one another, their affection for one another obvious. The smile that crossed Ken's face was warm and happy. "That's my mom and dad." "They look like lovely people!" Dan said, completely enchanted. "You can tell they really care about each other." He turned to Ken, mystified. "How in the world do you do that?" "What?" Ken walked up close behind Dan, close enough that his well developed chest brushed against Dan's back. "How do you put so much emotion into your art?" "I don't really know," Ken mused, "people act like it's some wonderful talent, but it's not anything I have a lot of control over. I just open up and let out what's inside. And somehow, it comes across on the paper." "It's a special gift, you have," Dan said, turning to face the varius. Ken didn't move back, leaving them standing practically nose-to-nose. "You have gifts too," Ken said, putting a hand on Dan's shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. "What?" Dan looked into the green flecks of Ken's eyes, "Nothing like you've got..." "Of course not," Ken said, "this is my gift. Yours is unique to you." He backed up slightly and gave Dan some room, but not too much. "My grandmother says everybody's got a gift. Some people just learn earlier what theirs is." Ken looked up slightly into this enigmatic man's eyes. "Trust me, you've got one." There was nothing on the surface that hinted at what a remarkable person Dan was hiding on the inside, and that drew Ken to him more strongly than if he'd been the most handsome sapiens in the world. Dan looked unconvinced of his unseen talents, and he steered the conversation back to less theoretical matters. "So how did you manage to sign a lease on this place without ever seeing it?" Ken chuckled. "I'm not all that hot at taking care of daily business, and when my military contract expired, I didn't realize how much work was involved in living life on the outside." "Like finding a place to live?" Dan suggested. "Exactly!" Ken said, ruefully. "When I realized I needed an apartment, I just signed a contract on the first place I found." He held his arms out and grinned theatrically, indicating the structure around them. "Ta-daaa!" He shrugged apathetically. "I know I sound like I'm brainless, but in my defense, I've never had to think about housing before. Growing up I lived with my folks, in college I lived in the dorms, in the army I lived in the barracks. It was all just...taken care of. I showed up at the right time, and I always had a bed and a hot meal waiting for me." He shook his head and chuckled ruefully. "You should have seen the mess I made getting the utilities hooked up. I got the house numbers mixed up, and ended up getting the neighbor's electricity disconnected." He laughed, "They weren't very happy with me for that one, but they got over it." He grinned mischievously, "It's amazing how many problems you can fix with a dozen warm donuts." "If I recall," Dan teased, "you only had one thing to remember for tonight. Did you get the tickets?" "I did!" Ken said, excitedly. "I got the last pair of seats for the new Wolfie Steele vid!" "Cold Vengeance?" Dan asked. "I've been wanting to see that one." "I was a little worried that it might not be your cup of tea," Ken said. "You seem like you might not be a big fan of action-adventure vids." "Are you kidding me?" Dan asked. "If it flies through space or explodes, I'm there!" "And in Wolfie's vids, they usually do both, right?" "Absolutely!" Dan agreed, enthusiastically. "When does it start?" "We've got a couple of hours," Ken said, checking his comm. "Where did you want to eat?" "You said you liked fish," Dan said, "and I know a great little catfish place not too far from here. We'd better get moving if we want to make the show, though." "Shotgun!" Ken yelled unnecessarily, running outside to Dan's car. Dan laughed and followed him out, closing the door behind them and listening for the sound of the automatic lock snicking into place. Dan was almost at the car when movement caught his eye. "Hold up for a second," he slowed his steps and peered down the road. "What's that?" Ken turned to see where Dan was looking, and his shoulders sagged. "Aaw, man," he said, saddened by the sight of the stray dog that had been roaming the neighborhood. "She's been coming around for a while, now," he explained. "The neighbors are mad because she's getting into their trash cans." "She's hungry," said Dan, wistfully. "She'd stop, if they'd just give her some food." Her nipples hung low, a sure sign that she'd recently dropped a litter. Keeping her puppies fed was raping her body of its nutrients, turning a coat that was once a deep, brick red into a dull and lifeless pelt. Even at this distance Dan could clearly see her ribs and hip bones. "Baby," he called out, his gentle voice barely loud enough to carry the distance, "come here, pup." She heard him, but there was no way in hell that she was going to get any closer to him or any sapiens. Dropping her tail, she circumscribed a perfect arc around him, ready to bolt and run if he attacked. Wisely, Dan stayed exactly where he was. To a pup as mistreated as this one had been, even a full food bowl would look like a weapon in the hands of a man, and any ground he lost right now would be a long time being regained. Dan had no idea where she came from or where she was going, but it didn't matter. His heart went out to her. He couldn't help thinking that at one time, maybe when she was just a puppy herself, someone had fallen in love with her and given her all the food and treats she wanted. She'd had toys, clean water and a comfortable bed, and her small, trusting mind had never imagined that she might end up like this, alone and hungry, with demanding mouths of her own to feed. He'd gladly have postponed his date with Ken if he'd had a prayer of enticing her to come to him, but years of trying to help other dogs had taught him better. Damage like hers was too deeply rooted to be eradicated in the span of a few short hours. He knew it would take weeks, or even months of coaxing to get her even to take food, and there was no point in throwing away their good evening by trying to win the trust of an animal that wasn't prepared to give it. Sighing, Dan turned back to the car, feeling guilty that he was about to eat a fine meal with a handsome man whose company he enjoyed. Ken looked at him over the roof of the car. "It's tough, isn't it?" Dan didn't trust his voice to speak, so he settled for nodding his head. He hated to see animals running wild like this, especially dogs. Even after a lifetime of being around humans, cats remained feral at their core, easily reverting to their old ways within weeks of losing their meal tickets. Dogs were different. Thousands of years ago they had formed a pact with humanity, electing to give up some of their autonomy in exchange for the food and protection provided by their two-legged partners. Humans got companionship, canines got shelter and love. With dogs like this, someone had failed to keep up their end of the bargain, and this poor creature was now paying the price for that betrayal. Dan forced himself to shake it off. He'd learned the hard way that he couldn't save every stray in the world, and that some were beyond his help. But that would never stop him from trying, and he vowed that this dog was going to be one of his successes. It might take months, but somehow he'd manage it. Somehow, he'd find her a home, and return that which had been stolen. The two men strapped themselves in, and the car took to the air under Dan's careful guidance. After merging into traffic, he programmed the navigation system and let it take over for the rest of the trip. "I've got something I need to talk to you about," he said, settling back into his seat, "before we get too involved with this. It's about Bo." "You can talk to me now?" Dan nodded his head. "He gave me permission." Ken said nothing, so Dan continued. "He says he has feelings for me." "And you said?" the lion asked, calmly. Dan looked into his eyes, regretting that he had to say this. "I said I do, too." "Wow," Ken pondered, "you really know how to start a date off with a bang." "I'm sorry," Dan apologized, "I know I don't have a lot of social skills. I'm sure there's a correct way to say something like that, but I can't think of it." He chanced a look at Kensuke, and was relieved that the lion didn't look angry. "I couldn't keep that kind of thing a secret, and I still wanted to go out with you, because I really, really like you." "Just...not in that way." Ken said, stung. "That's the thing," Dan protested, "I do like you in 'that way.' Bo and I aren't mated, you know. We've only been on a single date." "Does he know about this?" Ken asked, quietly. "You know, about you and me?" "Believe it or not," Dan said, knowing that he was sounding like a spineless wimp, "it was his suggestion. I've told him I'm attracted to you." Ken sighed and stared out the front window, a sour expression on his handsome face. "Great. More varius honor to contend with. It's like living in a world full of Buddhist ninjas who refuse to release their stress by killing each other off on a regular basis." Dan chuckled at Ken's perspective. "You have the most wonderful way of looking at things," he said. "That's one of the things that I like best about you. Bo knows that I'm attracted to you, and says he wants me to give you a fair chance." "Do I really have a fair chance in this?" Ken asked, "You've known him a lot longer. We've just met." "Time doesn't dictate my affection," Dan said, "and it won't determine who I love." Ken considered this before answering. "So I still have a chance?" "If you want it," Dan said. "Just because two great guys walked into my life at the same time doesn't mean that I should have to give either of them up. Life isn't that simple, anyway." "You've got that right," Ken muttered. "I'm just tired of getting curveballs thrown at me." "I'm sorry to be one of those curveballs," Dan said, reaching out to put a hand on Ken's knee. "I'd hoped this could be a lot more straightforward." Ken took Dan's hand in his own and gently squeezed it. "Did I ever tell you the last guy I was with was sapiens, too?" "Oh, really?" Dan said, "so this isn't new ground for you, or anything?" "Nope," Ken said, sadly. "He ended up leaving me for someone else, and it just about broke my heart. After a while, some of my buddies kicked me out of my shell and convinced me to start dating again, so here I am. Again." "You're not there, again, you're here, now," Dan said, reasonably, "and the most important thing right now is to just be friends and see if it goes somewhere." "I guess you're right," Ken said, brightening. "I might not even like you!" "That's right," Dan agreed, happily, "I might absolutely disgust you." "Oh, my," Ken said, as if feeling something growing deep within him, "I think I may already be starting to dislike you." "Don't get carried away," Dan said, smiling as he reached over and took Ken's paw in his hand. "We've still got the rest of this evening to get through."

---

"How did you ever find this place?" Ken asked, his voice a whisper. "Everyone working here is a thousand years old!" "I know!" said Dan, trying hard not to laugh. "Didn't the greeter look like he should be working in a funeral home?" "He did!" Ken agreed, looking around for the dark-suited host. "And our waitress has to be at least a hundred," Dan said. "Where did she get that hair?" "My God, it's huge!" Ken looked around carefully to make sure nobody was within earshot. "A family of four could be living in that wig, and nobody would ever know it." "It's a wig?" Dan said, surprised. "How can you tell?" "Of course it's a wig, and not a very good one, either." Ken answered, "I'm scandalized. What kind of gay man are you, anyway?" "One who doesn't wear wigs," Dan lowered his voice. "Here she comes. Look busy." Ken chuckled and picked up the menu, studying it intently. Their waitress put the water glasses on the table none too gently. "What can I get you two gentlemen?" She asked, sounding weary. "Two fillet, three fillet, or unlimited?" She looked them over critically. "Or would you young gentlemen prefer the salad bar?" Dan raised an eyebrow but said "Three fillets. And will you bring us your hottest pepper sauce, please?" Her pad was at the ready, but she wasn't writing anything down. "And you?" Ken handed her the laminated menu. "Unlimited, please. Extra hush-puppies." She sighed dramatically and tucked the menus under one flabby arm. "I'll bring you three. If you're still hungry, I'll change your ticket." She popped her chewing gum between large, bovine teeth that looked oversized in her otherwise sapiens mouth. "Be out in a minute." Ken watched her lumber away. "Such an effervescent personality," he said, too quietly to be overheard. "I hope the food is better than the service." "It is," Dan assured him. "At least, it has been every other time I've been here." He took advantage of the lull in conversation to steer the talk to something he'd been wondering about. "I'm curious about your ex. You said he was sapiens?" "Yeah," Ken replied, ruefully. "I'm going to try to not hold that against you." "Thanks," Dan said. "My last boyfriend was sapiens too. They can be difficult, can't they?" "You said it, not me," Ken replied, laughing. "No, that's not fair. Ben's not a bad guy," he said, sobering, "he was just..." he waved his arms, absently, "...looking for something else, I guess. We met in college, and I think he just lost interest once the novelty of dating a varius wore off." The lion was silent for a moment, and Dan suspected that there was more to the story than Ken was telling. "That doesn't sound like a recipe for so much heartache," he said, hoping his voice sounded compassionate and not prying. "I think there must be more to it than that." "Sure," Ken said, suddenly finding it hard to look at Dan. "There's always more to it. But you don't want to hear about old boyfriends on our first date, do you?" Dan thought about it for a moment. It would be easy to just discuss simpler things, but inside he thought that Ken probably needed to talk about this. "The people we've lived with helped shape our lives, so they're important to understand. You wouldn't be who you are today, if it weren't for Ben." "Hmm." Ken said, and was thinking of what else to say when their waitress saved him from further comment. She returned bearing a tray loaded with the first course of red beans, coleslaw and cornbread hush-puppies, and the two men's conversation was put on hold. The catfish was everything Dan had promised, and to Ken's consternation, the waitress had been right. Three fillets had been enough to pleasantly fill his belly, and by the time they had to leave for the movie, both men were satisfied. "So where's the theater?" Dan asked, clicking the car doors open as they approached. Ken clambered in and wrestled his stubborn seatbelt into the buckle. "It's the MA theater on Bayview." he checked his chrono. "We should have just enough time to get there before it starts." "See?" Dan said, encouragingly. "Everything's on schedule. You're better at planning things than you thought!" He entertained the possibility of bringing up Ken's relationship with Ben, but he realized that the earlier interruption had probably been for the best. If things with Ken worked out well, there would be plenty of time for questions about the past. If they didn't, then it wasn't his business anyway. After waiting in a short line at the theater, it was their turn to access the kiosk and retrieve their tickets. They were surprised when the machine delivered nothing but an apology and an offer to buy two more seats on opposite sides of the theater. "I've got the confirmation number right here," Ken said, consulting his comm. "4255137." "That's what I entered," Dan said, double-checking the screen. The sounds of impatient coughing and shuffling of feet behind them encouraged them to give up their place in line and consult a live employee for help. It only took a few seconds for the pretty, dark-skinned sapiens girl to locate the problem. She took one look at Ken's comm and said, "Those tickets aren't for our theater. They're for the downtown location." "You've got to be kidding me," Ken moaned, feeling the heat of embarrassment reddening his eartips. He'd tried so hard to get everything right, and now this... "I can get you two seats," the girl said, sympathetically, "but they won't be next to each other." Ken looked at Dan for direction. "Thanks," the sapiens said, "but we'd like to sit together. Is anything else showing soon?" She consulted her screen and found several other shows, but none of them held much appeal for either man. "Thanks anyway," Dan told her, before turning to Kensuke. "It's okay, big guy. Mistakes happen, right?" He could tell that although Ken was calm on the outside, on the inside he was seething. "I hate it when I do shit like this," the lion said, arms crossed defensively across his chest. "If you're determined to beat yourself up over it, go right ahead," Dan said, "but I'm really not all that upset." "You might not be," Ken said, "but I am. Every time I try to plan anything, it ends up crashing and burning. Ben said the same thing - he said it didn't matter, but I knew it really drove him crazy." "Everyone has things they're good at and things they're not," Dan said, unlocking the car. "This just isn't your thing." Ken remained silent as Dan pulled away from the theater, lost in his own thoughts. He was pulled back to the world when Dan initiated a landing after being airborne for only a few minutes. "Where are we?" "The way I figure it," Dan said, "considering the length of the movie, the commercials, and the upcoming features, I'm still entitled to about two more hours of your time. And I," he said with finality, "intend to use them." He settled the car to the ground at a small, wooded park near the outskirts of the city. "I used to come here with my friends when I was little," he said, pointing at a playground a few dozen meters away, "and we'd play over there until way past when we were supposed to be home, until one of our mothers would get tired of keeping dinner warm and come collect us." He smiled at the memory. "It's been years since I've been here." They walked over to the deserted swings and sat, gently rocking back and forth as they talked. "So you grew up around here?" Ken asked, his annoyance and shame gradually evaporating. Something about this sapiens demeanor made it difficult to stay mad when he was around. "It's a couple of kilometers over that way." Dan pointed up the street. "My folks still live there." "Wow," Ken said, "my dad's job moved us all over the place. I don't think we stayed in the same house for more than a couple of years." "That has to change the way you see the world," Dan said, "don't you think? Not being able to call the same place 'home' two years in a row has to have an effect." "It might have been a bad thing to some people," Ken agreed, "but no matter where we moved, my folks never treated it like a burden. It was always an adventure," he smiled and held one arm out with a dramatic flair, "something new and exciting over every horizon!" Dan looked at the smiling lion and felt his own spirits lift. "Nothing much gets you down, does it?" "Not for long," Ken said, pulling back and forth on the swing's chains until he was spinning around like a top, winding the two lengths of chain around each other in a long twist. Underneath him, his tail traced a graceful helix. "Life's too short to waste it on a bad mood." Dan heard a rustling noise and looked up. "What's that?" "What?" Ken said, quietly. "Something's in the bushes." Ken slowly turned, and saw the leaves of the bushes along the edge of the park settle to stillness. "Just an animal, you think?" "Maybe," Dan said. "Whatever it was got really still when you turned to look." "Mmmm," Ken hummed, nonchalantly. "Time to take a walk." Standing, he headed not for the car, but for the source of the noise. "Wait a minute," Dan said, putting a restraining hand on his arm. "Let's just get out of here. I don't want to put you in any danger." "Danger?" Ken said, grinning at his sapiens friend. He held up one of his soft, warm hands and flexed muscles deep in his forearms. Even in the fading twilight, Dan could see translucent white claws extending almost three centimeters from his fingertips. "If someone attacks us, we're not the ones in danger." Dan found his quiet smile intimidating. "All that combat training had to come in handy eventually, right?" He slid out of the swing and quietly padded over to the thinly wooded area encircling the park, Dan following close behind. Dan thought that Bo's footfalls had been quiet, but compared to Ken's feather-light steps they seemed positively clumsy. Seen from behind, Ken was even more impressive, his wide shoulders and tight core giving him a lithe, athletic look. Even in the face of possible danger his movements radiated strength and confidence, telling whomever had been watching them that he was ready, willing, and able to either play or fight - it was their choice. Ken halfway extended the claws of his left hand and pulled back the closest of the shrubs, one eyebrow raised high enough on his forehead to be almost obscured by his unruly shock of hair. "What is it?" Dan whispered urgently, from behind him. Ken matched his whisper with one of his own. "A pervert." "Huh?" Dan peered around Ken's broad shoulders, and saw another set of eyes peering right back at him. "Can I watch?" Ken turned his head to Dan. "It's a stoat." "Stoats aren't native to North America," Dan said, annoyed by the interruption. "He's a weasel." "I just want to watch." Jacked up on something, the weasel's words came out quick and nervous. "We don't get a lot of mixed couples here. I don't need to touch or anything, I just wanna... you know..." he giggled nervously, "watch." "Watch what?" Ken said, turning back to the voyeuristic varius who was kneeling in the bushes with his... oh Jeez... with his pants around his knees. Dan huffed in exasperation. "Good God, is this..." he realized he was talking loudly and lowered his voice to little more than a whisper, "...is this a cruise park, or something?" "Well, sure!" the weasel said, quickly, his hands wandering down to his junk. His attention turned back to Ken, a perverse leer spreading across his face. "When you get it on? I wanna watch." Ken rubbed a hand over his face and let the bushes spring back to hide their budding naturist. "We're not doing anything," he told the foliage, exasperated. "Watch away." He turned and walked back to the picnic table, determined not to let this ruin his opportunity to get to know Dan better. "So," he said, sitting on the aluminum table top, "where were we?" Dan laughed quietly. "You were buying us tickets at the wrong theater, and I was bringing us to a pickle park. This is classic." His shoulder pressed against the lion's. "So you were in the military, huh?" he asked, gamely trying to get their conversation back on track. "Oh, uh... yeah." Ken tried to flush unwelcome images out of his mind. "Right out of college. I got my degree in biomedical engineering, and they couldn't wait to get their hands on me." "I didn't know they wanted their recruits so brainy," Dan said. "You'd be totally wasted as a dumb grunt." "That was my one requirement," Ken explained, "I told them I wouldn't enlist unless they let me use my brain." He smiled, "As it turned out, they were looking for someone with my background, so I got to skip most of the bullshit. I still had to go through basic combat training, but after that was over I never had to touch another blaster." "Lucky you," Dan said. "What did they have you doing?" Ken shied away from the question uneasily. "I can't really talk about it in detail, but I can tell you I walked out of there with enough experience in biomedical implants to open my own company, if I wanted to." Dan whistled. "Sounds interesting." "It was," Ken said, "And in a way, I was sorry to leave. The way the military throws around R&D money is unbelievable. But the projects I was working on were about to wrap up anyway, and I was ready to get on with my life. It was time for me to stop helping the Army hurt people, and start finding ways to help them." "So you started a satisfying career at Magnum, feeding a press and listening to Chester sing love ballads?" Dan joked. "Uh...no," Ken said, ruefully, "That was just about the furthest thing from my mind. I've got a really great job lined up at BioStar, but the guy whose job I'm taking ran into some snags with his retirement." Ken shrugged his shoulders. "If he leaves now, the entire project he's running goes back to square one, BioStar loses five years of research and he loses a healthy commission." He looked at Dan. "I get it. I don't have to like it, but I get it." "Is this such a great job that it's worth putting your whole life on hold?" Ken grinned at him. "It's not my life, it's my work. They're two very different things. But yes, it is worth waiting for. I'll be working for one of my buddies from college, and they're doing really ground-breaking work with implanted, cybernetic augmentors." "Why does that sound familiar?" Dan asked, knowing that the term had passed through his brain at some point, but unable to remember details. "It's a simple idea," Ken explained. "Implant tiny computers that take their input from your nervous system, then shoot outputs to your muscles faster than your body can." He looked around, searching for a real-world example. "It's like landing a car. If it senses the ground coming up too fast and you don't change direction hard enough to keep from crashing, the computer intervenes and does it for you. Nothing happens until you initiate, but once you do, the car's computer helps the vehicle react in a way that matches your intent. This does the same thing, but from inside your body. Pretty cool, huh?" "It is," Dan said, "it's like having super-quick reflexes." "Yeah, we're still years away from it being practical, but it'll open up a whole new world for people who can't control their own muscles. The work I'm doing could help paraplegics who can't tolerate gene therapy, for example." "Wow," Dan said, nodding his head, "I've gotta agree. That sounds totally worth waiting for. But there's no way Magnum can match the money you were expecting, so let me know if you need any help. Maybe I can find you some overtime, or something, until the other job comes through." Ken smiled at him and pressed their shoulders together more tightly. "That's sweet of you to worry, but I'm okay. My granddad did pretty well for himself, and he left us with a trust that pays me an allowance every month. It's not enough to live on by itself, but with my Army pension, it's enough to let me live a step above where I could without it." Dan nodded, relieved that Ken wasn't knocking on poverty's door just yet. "Most of the varii I know were in one branch of the service or another. Does everyone join?" "It's not mandatory," Ken said, "but with the pension, the medical benefits, the training - you'd have to be either wealthy or foolish not to. And I may be a lot of things," he said, putting a warm, muscular arm over Dan's shoulder, "but I'm not a fool." Dan looked into Ken's handsome, expressive face, and was glad they missed the movie. Maybe it was just a trick of the light, but the tiny green flecks in his eyes seemed to move, whirling like tiny little galaxies. A gentle pressure on his shoulders drew him closer to that face, to the eyes, to those lips... The nervous giggle that came out of the rustling bushes was a complete and utter mood-breaker, stopping the two more completely than if they'd been doused with a bucket of ice water. Dan looked at Ken significantly, and the annoyance he felt couldn't mask his amusement. "Let's get out of here before he finishes."

---

Dan was concentrating on making a smooth landing when Ken's whispered words pulled his attention away. "Oh, God, no..." "What?" Dan asked, an instant before he spotted it himself. The car's landing lights helped his sapiens eyes to see what the deep dusk's fading sunlight did not. The drizzling rain had returned the deep red gloss to the dusty fur, but Dan would rather it have been dull and alive than beautiful and dead. And she was, most certainly, dead. No dog would willingly stay outside in weather like that, especially when it had pups to tend to. Dan landed quickly, and was running towards the heap of fur and bones that lay by the side of the road before the lifters had spun down. Kneeling beside her, it was obvious that there had been no need to hurry. Dan sat cross-legged on the wet grass beside the limp body and pulled her onto his lap, tears spilling freely from his eyes as he quietly wept for a life ended so thoughtlessly. Nobody had been there to hold her as her life slipped away, nobody had eased her fear as she lay on the cold, wet earth, frightened and confused as her world grew dark. Nobody had afforded her the respect she deserved in her final moments. Dan doubted the existence of an afterlife, but right now he hoped fervently that he was wrong. He hoped that somewhere, the soul of this poor dog could look down and see that someone did care about her; that she hadn't been as alone as she'd felt. Dan rocked back and forth, cradling the pitiful creature in his lap as the rain soaked his clothing. Gradually, he became aware of Ken sitting next to him, one gentle paw on his shoulder, quietly humming what sounded like a child's lullaby. When he drifted off to silence, Dan wiped his eyes and took a deep breath. "I need to bury her." Ken didn't tell him it was a silly idea, wanting to stand out in the rain and dig a hole to bury a dog you didn't even know. He nodded his head silently and went back inside the house, emerging a few minutes later holding a fluffy, white bath towel. It was new, Dan thought, maybe used just a few times. It probably hadn't been cheap, but Dan would gladly have paid ten times its cost to lend this poor dog in death some shred of the dignity she'd been denied in life. Without the slightest hint of protest, Ken helped Dan position the dog on his towel as if she were sleeping, then wrap her carefully in the makeshift shroud. Understanding how important this was to the man, Ken never took the job away from him. He was always there to support, always there to help when needed, but never intruding on the spiritual gift Dan gave. The lion helped Dan pick up the too-light bundle and made sure it was securely in the sapiens' arms. "I called the maintenance guys," he said, quietly, "they said there's a shovel we can use in the shed out back." Dan nodded and followed Ken's lead, hoping that the varius didn't think he was a nutball for wanting - no, needing to do this. An hour later, the job was finished. The two men hadn't spoken while digging, but once back in the dry warmth of Ken's apartment they felt able to talk again. "Here," Ken handed Dan a twin to the towel they'd just buried. "You're a mess." "Thanks." Dan had retrieved a dry set of gym clothes from his trunk, and between them and the absorbent towel he'd been handed, he almost felt human again. Ken had blown most of the water out of his hair and had changed into some loose fitting clothes that didn't bind his damp fur. When Dan came up behind him with the towel and massaged the remaining water from the fur on his head and shoulders, he was immensely grateful. "I'm sorry," Dan said, as he scrunched the lion's ruff hair in the towel to pull more of the water out. "I appreciate your helping me with that. I'll bet burying a strange dog probably isn't on your short list of favorite things to do on a date." "That was a first," Ken admitted, "but I'm glad we did it. It felt right." He poured Dan a mug of cocoa he'd just made and put it in front of him, but not before tossing in a small handful of tiny white marshmallows. "Do you know anything about the ancient American Indian tribes?" "Not a lot," Dan admitted, inhaling the rich, sweet aroma of hot milk and sweet chocolate. "Just what I learned in History class, and that wasn't much." Ken nodded his head and poured himself a mug. Most people knew little about the tribes of historic America, so he wasn't surprised. History only reported the winners, and they'd been in the losing camp. "Each tribe was different, of course, but as a whole, they believed that man was inseparably tied to the land, and that you make connections with everything around you. It wasn't a religion, it was pure spirituality." He shrugged. "You seem to share a lot of their traits, is all." He looked into Dan's eyes. "Apologizing to her spirit was nice." Dan nodded and sniffled back a little of the snot that had been draining out of his nose in a constant stream for the past hour. Ken reached over to Dan's face, using a broad thumb to wipe away the tear tracks that had formed. "I think we found your gift, Dan. I've never met anyone as compassionate as you." "Trade you," Dan said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He was annoyed at himself, and felt more than a little silly. "I'd rather be able to draw." "Speaking of which," Ken said, "let's play a game." Reaching into a kitchen cabinet, he pulled out a pad of drawing paper and a soft-leaded sketch pencil. Dan raised an eyebrow. "Art supplies in the kitchen?" "Sure," Ken said, grinning as he sat down across the table from him. "If I put them in the medicine cabinet, I wouldn't have room for my socks." He flipped open the sketch pad and, angling it so that Dan could not see what he was doing, began drawing with smooth, sure strokes. "When I moved in, I just put everything away where the movers dropped the box." Pulling the sheet loose, he placed it in the middle of the table, then immediately went back to drawing. Dan saw that it was a picture of the artist, and pulled it closer to get a better look. This image, the first serious drawing he'd seen of Ken, radiated a calm, controlled power that knew when it was time to get down to business, but most often preferred to live in a world of sunshine and bellyrubs. Intelligence, kindness, and love were this man's hallmarks. The sounds of the scratching pencil had been momentarily interrupted by the flipping of the page, but were now back in full swing. A few moments later, Ken ripped a second sheet off the pad and placed it on the table, in the same spot where he'd put the first one. Dan had been correct in his assumption that it would be Bo, and when he picked it up, the man's personality jumped off the page. It spoke of stubborn strength and native intelligence, and maybe it was just Dan's mind filling in the blank spots, but he also saw unshakable loyalty and a deeply hidden inner pain. The two men could hardly have been more different. Ken was a man who lived in the light with occasional forays into darkness. Bo lived in a somber world full of hurt, punctuated by brilliant rays of light that brought him unaccustomed joy. He struggled to live in the world that Ken occupied so naturally. One was black words on a white page, the other white on black. The cessation of scratching noises made Dan look up to see Ken pulling two sheets off his pad before setting it aside. He put the first sketch on top of the picture he'd drawn of himself. "This is you when you saw my picture." Dan smiled when he saw the sketch, how it had captured the feeling of warmth and caring, how it had eased the lines on his face. Ken had made his life a bit lighter, a bit happier, and a little more trusting. "And this," he said, carefully placing the second sketch on top of Bo's picture, "is how you looked when you saw the one of Bo." Dan's decision was made the instant he set eyes on the paper. If he looked relaxed in the first picture, in this one he looked...satisfied, perhaps? "I liked you when you came in here tonight," Ken said, "but after seeing how you reacted to that picture of Bo, I think I just might love you." He smiled gently at Dan's bemused expression. "That man's a real handful, and I don't know what he would have done if you hadn't come along. He's got a lot of personality and I like him. I just don't think very many people could handle someone like him. "You never see it," he continued, "but when you're not around, he's a completely different person. He's..." Ken groped for the right way to say this. Not wanting to offend, he chose his words carefully. "He's not angry, exactly, or bitter, more like he's just...annoyed with the world, maybe? And more than a bit distrustful. But when he sets eyes on you, the exact same thing happens to him that happened to you when you saw his picture. His whole demeanor changes. Not on the outside where anyone can see, but on the inside." Ken's eyebrows quirked up. "He definitely softens up when you're around." "And?" Dan said, sensing that there was more Ken wasn't saying. "I'm not saying this to be ugly," the lion prefaced, "but let's be honest. He's not the best-looking guy in the world." Dan bristled, and Ken held up a placating palm. "I'm not making any value judgments here, I'm just going by cultural standards." Dan settled down, and Ken continued. "The point is, for whatever reason, none of his flaws are visible to you. You see him for the man he is on the inside, and it's that ability that makes you so unique." Padding around to the other side of the table, Ken lifted Dan out of his chair and gave him a huge hug. Resting his chin on the sapiens' shoulder, he rocked him back and forth. "You're an amazing man, Dan Blocker, and Bo is lucky to have you. And he does have you, doesn't he?" "Yeah, Dan said, running his hand through the thick, mane-like hair on the back of Ken's head. "I guess he does." There was a gentle smile on his face when he said this, and he was pleased to see that it matched the one on Ken's muzzle. "You're not mad?" "Oh, hell, no!" Ken said. "We'll probably get along better as friends, anyway." He pulled out of the hug, but left one arm behind Dan's back as they walked to the door. "Much as I hate to admit it, old Crabby-Pants is pretty smart." Dan laughed, softly. "Yeah. I'm glad we did this." "Me too," Kensuke said, putting his large, gentle paws on either side of Dan's waist. "Now, get back to your man." Impulsively, Dan leaned forwards and gently kissed Ken on the end of his muzzle, feeling the soft, warm fur moving slightly under his lips before pulling the other man into a short, fierce hug. "Thank you," he whispered into Ken's ear before letting him go. When he was a few steps down the front walkway, Ken's voice made him turn back around. "Hey!" Ken stood just outside his doorway, one hand on his hip. "You're too old for me anyway!" he said, smiling roguishly. He spun around twice on the ball of one foot, tail twirling around him, and planted his feet in an action-hero pose, his forefinger pointing at Dan like a gun. Dan smiled and waved back, happy that he could call this man a friend.

---

Bo was usually in bed by ten, but the thought of Dan out with another man kept him awake. He had camped out on the couch for almost a week after he thought Dan had rejected him, and it looked like he would be spending another sleepless night on it. Sighing, he got up and poured himself two fingers of the rum he kept in the upper cabinet. He was a big man, and he had big hands; two fingers of liquor almost filled the glass. Sam told him it was a good brand, but he hadn’t really cared. Rum wasn’t his favorite drink, but it was the hardest thing he had in the house right now; so rum it was. He threw a couple of ice cubes into the glass, then dug a straw out of the drawer and went back to the couch. The apartment was too quiet, but he stubbornly refused to turn on the vid. He didn’t want to chance that someone might come on who sounded happy and cheerful. It didn’t seem right to him that anyone in the world should be happy while he was sitting at home, miserably thinking about the man he loved being out on a date with one of the most handsome varius he’d ever seen. A few moments later Bo remembered the glass in his hand and stuck the straw between his lips, but sucked only bubbles of air. When had he taken the first sip? He couldn’t remember. Sighing in disgust at his maudlin attitude, he put the empty glass on the end table and continued his lonely vigil. He was contemplating getting a beer out of the refrigerator when his ears perked at the sound of someone coming up the staircase to his apartment door. It was Dan. He could always tell, because he took the stairs two at a time, with a certain cadence that no one else shared. Before the man even had a chance to knock, Bo had the door open. The effort to keep from shouting the question was nothing short of heroic. “So how did it go?” “Well, hello to you, too,” Dan said, looking as fresh as a daisy despite the late hour. “It was illuminating.” Gently, he put his hands on Bo’s chest and pushed him backwards into the apartment. “Ken’s an absolutely amazing man.” “You can’t just push your way in, like that,” Bo huffed, “It’s rude.” Dan ignored him. He was toying with the idea of making Bo believe he’d chosen Ken, but a single glance at the anxious look on Bo’s face was enough to dissuade him. He wasn’t beyond teasing someone, but doing something like that to Bo when he was so vulnerable would be cruel. Instead, he walked over to where Bo was standing and embraced him. “I love you,” he said, simply. Underneath Dan’s arms, he felt the morph’s body relax, and it wasn’t long before he felt two warm, fur-covered arms wrap around him in return. “I love you too, Dan.” There was so much more to say, but it could wait. Chapter 23 “A stoat?” Bo stirred his coffee absentmindedly. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” “No!” Dan laughed, “He was right there in the bushes, just whacking away like his life depended on it!” He looked at the mug of hot coffee that Bo had his hand wrapped around. “How can you drink that stuff right before bed? You’ll be up all night, and we’ve got work tomorrow.” “Nah,” Bo said, sneaking a shy look at the man who’d come back to him. “I’ll sleep like a baby.” He grinned and turned away before his appreciative glance could turn into a creepy stare. “It sounds like you had a pretty good time, in spite of everything.” His voice carried no recrimination or malice; it was just a statement of fact. Dan was surprised at how natural it felt to talk to Bo like this, like he was a friend or a brother who would not judge him, not a boyfriend whom he felt compelled to impress. It felt like he could talk to the varius about anything, which had certainly never been the case with anyone else in his life. “It was good,” Dan agreed, “I think if you’d never come out and told me how you feel, I’d probably have been more than happy to date Ken.” Regardless of the fact that it was he whom Dan had chosen, Bo was still uncomfortable discussing Kensuke’s better points. Nevertheless, he had to give respect where it was due. Reaching across the table, he put his coffee-mug-warmed handpaw on top of Dan’s. “I’m really sorry about the pup, Dan. I’m glad Ken was there to help you.” Sensing Dan’s mood, Bo got up from the table and pulled Dan to him. “You’re so…” Bo trailed off, unable to think of any single adjective that could adequately describe Dan. “Unusual?” Dan offered, grinning up at him. Ah, Bo thought; now he knew. “Uncommon.” Dan laughed. “That’s better than ‘weird,’ I guess.” Bo rocked the sapiens gently back and forth, savoring his unique smell and not wanting to let him go. “So, you know…you could sleep on the couch tonight, if you wanted to.” As much as he did want to, Dan knew that it probably wouldn’t be the wisest course of action. His feelings for Bo were too volatile to be toyed with like that. He had no doubt that given sufficient encouragement, he’d be on top of the varius and wiggling his way towards glory in no time flat. On the other hand, he told himself, it was very late, and he could always swing by his house in the morning to pick up a fresh change of clothes. And he was so tired that he probably wouldn’t be able to do anything anyway. Bo cupped Dan’s face in hands the size of baseball mitts and gently turned the man’s head upwards, stroking his cheeks lovingly. “I know it’s going to be more trouble for you in the morning, but I…” He trailed off, unable to ask Dan for even something this simple. “Bo?” Dan said, taking the varius’ hands in his own and feeling an unexpected tremor deep within them, “Being together means trusting each other enough to say what we’re feeling. I don’t want you to ever think you have to think twice about telling me what’s going on inside your head.” He wrapped his arms around the morph and gave a good squeeze. “I can only come as far into your life as you let me.” Bo remained a Sphinx, but Dan could tell that in his mind, he was at war with himself. Now it was Dan’s turn to rock Bo as he rubbed his back as best he could through cloth and fur. “What do you need, babe?” he asked, softly. Bo snuffled his nose in the top of Dan’s hair, disliking that what he must say was going to make him sound so weak and vulnerable. But Dan was right; his shields had to come down sometime. The words that finally escaped him were gravelly and rough. “I can’t watch you walk away again, so soon. I just…” A sound escaped him that he once vowed he’d never again hear coming from his own lips. After his mother left, he’d heard it coming from his muzzle often enough that he’d come to loathe it. Now the low, animalistic whine of pain and need were back. “I need you to be close to me, tonight.” His voice lowered to a whisper, but Dan still heard it clearly, even over the agitated hammering of the varius’ strong heart. “Please… Please stay.” Dan could count on one hand the number of times Bo had asked him for anything, and he wasn’t about to deny any request he made, especially one this simple. Smiling up at him, he took Bo’s hand in his and led the morph to the couch. “Stretch out, buddy.” The bed was too risky, but with both of them still wearing clothes, the couch might be workable. Lying down in front of him, Dan put his back against Bo’s chest and pulled the big man’s arm over him, resting his head on Bo’s arm as if it were a warm fur pillow. As Dan’s head pressed against Bo’s meaty biceps, the morph looked down and wondered at how little this sapiens weighed. For all his toughness, for all the fight that was in this man, he should have been heavier. Reaching up, Bo motioned off the lights in the room and pulled Dan in closer against his chest. It wasn’t enough. Rearranging his hips, Bo angled one of his legs over Dan’s, enshrouding the man in his warmth and weight. His need for physical contact satiated, Bo finally allowed himself to relax. Despite being almost buried underneath Bo, or perhaps because of that, it took only a few moments of stillness before Dan was contentedly snoring in Bo’s embrace. It had been a huge day for him, and the combination of physical labor and emotional stress had left him exhausted. Bo smiled down at the peacefully sleeping sapiens, amazed at the direction in which life had taken him. He’d never imagined he’d be with a sapiens, especially a male one; but this all seemed so perfect, so right, that he didn’t question it. Underneath him, Dan’s sleeping body unconsciously burrowed more deeply into the warmth of Bo’s lower belly and crotch, causing primal urges within Bo to stir hungrily. Bo hadn’t shared with Dan how strongly those needs had begun making themselves felt. For the first time in his life, Bo didn’t want sex, he needed it. For weeks he’d been slipping away in the middle of the day to pound out a quick load between orders, and the first thing he wanted to do as soon as his shift was over was to run home and crank out another one. And all the while, his thoughts were of Dan. As a rule, Bo didn’t fantasize while he masturbated.At first, his thoughts of Dan were an aberration, but lately they had become the norm. For months, his thoughts had been consumed by this man. The loss of mental control was disturbing, but at the same time, it was a relief to finally experience the passion that he’d always suspected was missing from his life. It was an affirmation that he was as normal as the next guy, and not some emotionless freak. Unfortunately, at that moment, his lustful feelings were seriously misplaced, and it took all Bo’s self control to keep from rubbing one out by dry-humping his best friend. Sighing, Bo relaxed and let himself enjoy the pleasant sensations. Dan was his, he knew, and everything else would come in time. With his Dan wrapped up safely in his arms, the varius fell into the sort of peaceful, restful slumber that he thought he’d lost.

---

At work the next day, Dan pushed his chair away from his terminal and blew out a breath of annoyance. The contented joy that he’d felt that morning at waking up for the first time in Bo’s arms had been overshadowed by work frustrations, and he wasn’t happy about that. No matter how many times he went over the financial sheets, they refused to balance. Each time he totaled his figures a different number glowed back at him tauntingly from the display screen. He scrubbed through his hair with his fingers, wishing for the hundredth time that his boss would hire a licensed accountant to do jobs like this. “This should not be so difficult,” he muttered to himself. The comm on his desk rang, providing welcome relief from his task. A quick glance at the display showed ‘audio only - identity blocked,’ and Dan suddenly wanted to go back to his financial sheets instead of picking it up. He had a good idea who it was on the other end, and he wasn’t looking forward to talking to them. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he answered. “Magnum Metals, may I help you?” The voice on the other end of the line was brusque to the point of rudeness, and it did not request, it demanded. “Let me talk to Bob.” Bob had been getting two or three calls a day for the past couple of weeks, and it was getting tiresome. Company policy was to not pull employees off the floor to answer calls except in case of emergency, and as far as he was concerned, being an asshole didn’t qualify. And after the hell Bob had put him through lately, Dan wasn’t inclined to bend the rules for him. “Bob’s on the floor. I can get a message to him, and he can call you back on break.” “Tell him to call Sydney.” A half-second later, Dan heard the faint click as the circuit disconnected, and he was left staring at a dead screen. “Rude son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you?” Dan said, determined to express his opinion even if the anonymous caller would never hear it. He wrote up a message slip to Bob, put it in the employee break room where he’d find it, and went back to his accursed balance sheets. Two hours later, the comm rang again. “Bob,” was the one word demand. Well, hello sunshine, Dan thought. What he said was less sarcastic. “I put the message on his locker. Did he not call you back?” “You know fucking well that he didn’t call me back, you little cock gobbler,” the voice shot back. “Now go get him and bring him to the comm!” Dan was astonished, as much by the caller’s rudeness as by the fact that he knew something personal about him. It didn’t even occur to him to answer with a smart reply. He had the distinct impression that the man on the other end of the line was dangerous, and not someone who would take kindly to Dan’s style of sarcastic humor. Instinctively, and for reasons he could not name, he lied. “Bob can’t hear me page him when he’s out on the floor, and I can’t leave my desk.” The angry voice talked to Dan as if he were a slow-witted child. “Lock up the office and go get Bob. I need to talk to him. Now.” Dan wasn’t the most patient man at the best of times, and being patronized did nothing to enhance his mood. “I’m not going to leave my desk and lose my job because Bob won’t answer your calls. That’s between you and him. Even if I found him out there, what makes you think he’d follow me back in here?” “Are you talking shit to me, little man?” the bellicose voice demanded, “Walk your ass out there and tell him I’m on the line, or you’re going to have a lot bigger problems on your hands than your boss getting mad at you.” Dan realized then that there was not going to be anything good coming of this unless he did what the man wanted. He was caught in the middle between a large rock and a very hard place, and the situation was rapidly spinning out of his control. Seeing no option, he gave in and put the man on hold. Two minutes later, he handed the slip of paper with Sydney’s name on it to Bob, and watched as the panther morph’s face went blank. “He’s on hold,” Dan said. Much as he disliked Bob, Dan was too much of a nice guy to enjoy being the bearer of bad news. “Come inside or not, it’s your choice.” He walked back into the office without looking to see whether or not Bob followed him. Back at his desk, he picked up the line. “Bob knows you’re waiting for him. I can’t do anything more than that.” He heard breathing on the other end, but the unpleasant man did not speak. Dan could think of nothing else to say, so he put him back on hold and watched the amber light blink on and off. Five minutes later the light went out without being answered, and Dan knew that trouble was brewing. He only hoped that whatever infection was growing between Bob and Sydney would not spread into his world.

---

“What’s going on, guys?” Bo and Dan were so involved in their conversation that the voice startled both men, but they relaxed when they saw that it was Kensuke approaching. One of them relaxed, at least. “What’s up, Ken?” Dan asked, well aware of Bo’s discomfort, but unwilling to feed into it. He was determined that neither man would view the other as a rival. The matter of pairings had been decided, and now it was time to work on being friends. “Will you join us?” “Gladly,” Ken replied, brandishing his lunch pail. “Today’s lunch special is Ethiopian, and I think you’re going to want to try it!” “Mmmm…goat…” Dan made all the appreciative noises, but Bo stayed conspicuously silent. After a few unsuccessful attempts to draw the varius into conversation, Dan finally relented. If Bo wants to be a grump, Dan thought, then let him. Ken, however, had different ideas. “Dan,” he asked, politely, “would you excuse us for a few minutes?” Much as he wanted to be involved in this conversation, or at least be a fly on the wall, Dan knew that his presence would be far more of a hindrance than a help. With a good grace that he didn’t really feel, he smiled at both men and took his lunch back into the office to eat. Ken waited until the sapiens was out of earshot before speaking. “Dan’s quite an amazing man, isn’t he?” “He’s different from anyone I’ve ever met before,” Bo said, his voice a little dreamy, before remembering that Ken was supposed to be a threat and clamming up. “May I speak freely with you about all three of us?” Ken asked, with the confidence of one Alpha male to another. “I don’t think I have much of a choice,” Bo grumbled. “Go ahead.” Ken decided to make his opening salvo a good one, and he steeled himself, prepared for the situation to become ugly. “I think last night, Dan felt the same chemistry between us that I felt.” Bo growled menacingly and leaned heavily against the table, which groaned in protest under his mass. He was absolutely ready, willing, and able to take Ken apart at the first hint that the lion might attempt to take Dan away from him. Ken calmly waved him back into his seat. “Sit down, Bo. I’m not even going to try. But if you drive him away, I’ll be around.” He looked into Bo’s eyes, noticing that the antipathy he’d seen there was slowly hardening into dislike. Maybe he’d gone too far with his comments, but he thought they needed to be said. Now, he hoped he would be able to repair the damage he’d done, and rebuild Bo’s shocked, threatened feelings into something stronger and more positive. “Dan loves you completely, you know.” “He told you that?” Bo asked, almost suspiciously. Ken blew out a disgusted sigh. “He didn’t need to. It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? The two of you could be in a room with a hundred other people, and he wouldn’t see anyone but you. And,” he added, “unless I miss my guess, the same thing’s going on inside your head.” Hearing that took the fight out of Bo, and he finally relented, running fingers through the close-cropped hair on his head as he dropped his blast shields a bit. Ken was right. “God, it’s horrible. And it’s wonderful. And it scares the holy crap out of me.” Ken reached over the table to put a soothing hand on the other man’s cannonball-sized shoulder, and his voice was gentle. “Is this the first time you’ve done something like this?” Bo looked annoyed at the question, but to do anything other than nod his head in reluctant admission would have been a lie. He peered at the lion, ruefully. “I’m sorry, Ken. You’ve been a good friend to Dan while I’ve had…problems, and I appreciate it. Really, I do. But last night when you went out, I spent the entire evening going back and forth between wanting to crawl into a hole, and finding the two of you and ripping your arms off.” He looked up at the lion, who was listening to him carefully, his eyes full of unwarranted compassion. Dan trusted this man, so maybe he could, too. “I’ve never had anything this important in my life, Ken. I’ve never had this much to lose.” Ken smiled softly. This was starting to make more sense. “Bo, you’ve got something wonderful here, and the only thing that can fuck it up is you. If you don’t lighten up and enjoy him, you’re going to squeeze him out of your life like squeezing a bar of soap.” Ken stared into Bo’s eyes, and was very careful that what he said didn’t sound like a challenge. “We’re going to be friends, he and I. Maybe close friends. I hope you can handle that, because we both know that there’s no faster way in the world to lose Dan Blocker that to tell him who he can have as his friend.” Bo rolled his eyes. “You have no idea how true that is. He’s about as stubborn as an old mule.” “Or an old war-varius,” Ken chuckled. Bo gave him a dirty look, but then relented, grudgingly shrugging his shoulders in acceptance. What Ken said was true, and both men knew it. “The way I see it, you can do one of two things. You can either accept that our friendship isn’t a threat to you and we’ll all be fine friends, or you can pitch a fit over it and see how far that gets you.” The lion looked carefully at Bo. “Believe it or not, I actually kind of like you. I’d like to be your friend, too.” He chuckled. “You’re going to have your hands full with that one, and you could probably use some help.” Bo’s eyes drilled into the lion for a moment before he extended a huge black paw. “Friends?” “Not there yet,” Ken said, putting his golden handpaw into Bo’s jet black one and giving it a firm shake, “but we’re working on it.” His words seemed dark, but his eyes sparkled with light. Bo laughed and returned the pressure evenly, seeing more and more what Dan found appealing about this particular lion…

---

“Does the name ‘Sydney’ mean anything to you?” Dan asked Bo later, as he layered rich, meaty tomato sauce between layers of noodles and cheese. Lasagna had always been one of his favorite dishes to make, and like most of what he cooked, over the years he’d developed his own recipe. He told Bo that the secret ingredient was pepperoni, but didn’t mention that the other one was a surprising amount of anchovy paste stirred into the sauce. If he liked it, then all was good. If he didn’t, Dan figured he could adjust it later. Wrestling the heavy pan into the cooker, he silently cursed the obstinate machine. “Are we talking about the guy who’s raking Bob over the coals?” Bo asked, as he made designs with his ball chain. A star, then a spiral, then an old style rocket ship… He noticed how the corners of Dan’s mouth quirked downwards every time he put something in the TurboCooker. He hated that it was on the fritz, but he hadn’t said a word about it, so maybe Bo would just fix it when he wasn’t looking. Dan nodded. “That’s the one. I was going to ask you at lunch, but somebody chased me back into the office. What did the two of you talk about, anyway?” Bo pointedly ignored him and pulled out his communicator, scrolling through the speed dial list. “I don’t know much about Sydney, but I can find out.” He found the number he was looking for and hit the ‘send’ key. Dan shot him a dirty look for ignoring him, but Bo ignored that, too, deflecting Dan’s death-beams with his invisible shields. Take that, puny sapiens. “Heya, Max! I’m looking for some info on a guy named Sydney. He’s got something going on with Bob here at work.” Bo motioned to Dan for a stylus, and began writing on the back of a scrap of paper he’d pulled out of the recycling bin. He didn’t stop writing for a long time, and Dan was beginning to think that this was some sort of lame joke. But when Bo disconnected, his expression was anything but amused. “Stay as far out of this as you can, Dan.” he warned, “This isn’t something you want to be in the middle of.” “So what’s the story?” Dan asked, all the more curious thanks to Bo’s warning. “Max knows everyone that owes anyone money in this town, and he says that Bob’s in to the mob for more money than he can come up with.” “What can they do to him?” Dan asked, “They can break his kneecaps or something, but they can’t kill him. They can’t get their money back from a dead man.” “Actually, they can.” Bo said, and there wasn’t a trace of a smile on his face. He explained. “When you borrow enough money from these guys, you get signed up for a life insurance policy to cover the debt in case you die before you can pay it back. And if you don’t die on your own, they’ll help you along.” He looked at his notes, “What’s a double indemnity clause, anyway?” Dan remembered something about them from some crime novel he’d once read. “It means that if you die in an accident, the policy pays double. I don’t think it covers natural death, though. It has to be an accident.” He frowned. “But who’d underwrite life insurance on an unsecured loan like that?” “Nobody legitimate. It’s one of the ways they launder dirty money,” Bo said. “And from what Max told me, it gets worse from there. Apparently there have been a number of bad loans lately, and the boys back east are looking to make an example of someone. Bob’s perfect for them. He’s pissed a lot of people off, he’s well known in their circles but not well liked, and he owes them a bunch of money. That makes him a perfect target.” “So what do we do about it?” Dan asked, catching the varius off-guard with his question. “Do about it?” Bo echoed, disbelief evident in his voice. “What do you mean, ‘do about it’?” “We can’t just let them kill him,” Dan protested, noticing that the cooker had turned itself off. He gave it a solid whack with his palm and watched it turn back on. “Not to ask a stupid question, or anything,” Bo said, “but…why not?” Dan sat back, stunned. “I can’t believe you said that.” “Dan, I can think of a dozen reasons to stay well clear of the situation, and not one to interfere.” “How about, because he’s human and deserves compassion?” Bo breathed out, and Dan could tell from the look on his face that he was organizing his thoughts. When he did speak, he chose his words carefully. “I admire the hell out of you, Dan. I really do. Bob hates your guts. He’s tried to pound you into dust, and still you’re concerned for his well-being. That says a lot about the depth of your character and about the kind of man you are. In fact,” he said, considering his words, “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as honestly good as you are. Bob wants to abuse you in any way he can, and you’re still willing to help him.” Dan blushed at the praise, but stayed silent as Bo ticked off points on his thick fingers. “One, Bob is not a nice man. He is involved in things you have no knowledge of. Two, he has made some extravagantly bad decisions involving some truly evil people. Three, these people will kill you without ever looking back if you get in their way. They will stomp you like a roach and not think twice. You’re already in deeper than I’d like, but I think you’ll be okay if you say as little as possible and just do what they tell you to do. This is not a vid show, buddy. These people are real, and they are not just mean, they’re evil.” “By not doing something to help, we’re consigning him to death,” Dan protested weakly. “No,” Bo countered, “Bob did this to himself with no help from you or anyone else.” Dan looked at Bo with an unsatisfied expression, but said nothing. “You know as well as I do that if we did find some way to get him out of this mess without getting ourselves killed in the process, in six months he’d be right back here again.” As much as he hated to do so, Dan had to agree that Bo was probably right. No matter how much energy they put in to getting Bob out of this mess, he would never stop being Bob. Whatever choices had led him to this point would almost inevitably lead him here again. “And if that’s not enough to convince you,” Bo added, trying his best to influence Dan without sounding like he was trying to do exactly that, “guess who it was that convinced Chester it would be a good idea to file that harassment claim against you?” “Oh, Jesus,” Dan groaned, resting his face in his hands. “Why did you tell me that? Now I’ll feel like an asshole no matter what I do.” “You need to know what kind of person you’re dealing with, Dan,” Bo went on, relentlessly, “before you jump off a cliff to save him. If you’re going to do something rash, make sure he’s worth what it’s going to cost you. Actually,” he reconsidered, “make that, what it’s going to cost us, because there’s no way I’d be able to let you go into this alone.” Bo chucked Dan on the shoulder with one meaty fist as he got up from the table. “Come on, buddy. There’s always the chance Bob will find some way to stoat his way out of this on his own.” “You mean, ‘weasel,’” Dan said, smiling at Bo’s playful turn of phrase. In spite of his worry, Bo couldn’t help grinning back. “That’s the smile I love so much.” He touched Dan’s face before pulling him into a quick hug. “Let’s just sit back and see how things play out.” Chapter 24 Despite everything Bo had told him about the trouble Bob was in, Dan couldn’t help feeling compassion for the man. Nobody turned into that much of a shit unless they’d been plagued by a massively crappy past, and Bob’s personality suggested that his childhood had been a doozie. Dan didn’t feel comfortable sharing this outlook with Bo, because he was pretty sure he knew what the other man’s reaction would be. Bo’s childhood had been pretty horrible and he’d turned out okay, so why couldn’t Bob manage to pull it together? That logic made a kind of sense, but Dan still wasn’t certain that he bought into it. The calls from Sydney still came, Dan still did as he asked without comment and delivered his messages out to Bob on the floor, the ‘hold’ light still blinked, and Bob still ignored it. After two weeks of the same drill, the look in Bob’s face whenever he was handed a message had decayed from fear to anger, and since Sydney wasn’t the one handing him the messages, he thought maybe he could just get mad at Dan, instead. Snatching the message slip out of Dan’s hand, Bob crushed it into a tight little ball and threw it back at the sapiens’ chest. “Stop bothering me!” he shouted. “Does it ever do any good? Do I ever come in and talk to your precious, goddamned Sydney?” Dan bore the abuse stoically, reminding himself that Bob was under pressures he’d never understand. “He’s not my precious goddamned Sydney, he’s your precious goddamned Sydney, and he’s the one making me do it.” Bob sneered in Dan’s face. “You’re a fucking tool, you know that? Do whatever your masters tell you, like a good little pinky.” He gave Dan the look of pure disgust that was normally reserved for a soft piece of dog shit that got smashed into the treads of your shoe. “Get the hell away from me.” Dan shrugged his shoulders and turned to go. “He’s waiting. I’ll tell him you’re aware.” It was the exact same thing he’d said every time he’d delivered a message to Bob for the past two weeks, but this time Bob had a reaction. “Hey!” he yelled, stopping Dan in his tracks. “What else are you telling them about me, faggot?” Dan had had enough, and he rounded on Bob. “What’s the big deal with my being gay, anyway, Bob? Do you think you’re spilling the beans on some big secret? Because you’re not. Everybody out here knows, and nobody cares.” He turned to the plant at large. “Hey, everybody!” he shouted, at top volume so he could be heard over the din of machinery, “Is there a single person in this whole fucking plant that doesn’t know I’m gay?” A few people turned around at the commotion, but after seeing that it was just Dan reacting to Bob, nobody paid any real attention. “I’m usually a bottom, too!” he yelled. “Anybody give a rat’s ass?” Not even Bob’s cronies, once inseparably close, turned to look. When Bob’s fortunes had changed, so had their affections. When nobody bothered to answer, Dan turned back to his tormentor. “There! Now it’s official. You’re the only person in this whole goddamned plant who gives a shit who I fuck. And I’m not the only sapiens out here, I’m just the only sapiens you treat this way. What’s wrong with you, Bob?” Dan yelled at the panther his voice hoarse with anger, “Is your life so miserable that you’ve got to take everyone else down with you?” Bob’s expression had changed during Dan’s tirade, but surprisingly it wasn’t for the worse. Still, his voice was hard. “You don’t have any idea what’s going on in my life, so stay the fuck out of it!” Dan saw the moment of vulnerability and pounced on it. Moving closer, he pitched his voice low so that only Bob could hear. “I do have some idea what’s going on in your life, Bob. I don’t know the details, but I know it’s not good.” He searched Bob’s face, hoping to see some shred of sanity in the middle of the wall-to-wall despair. “But there’s got to be some way out of it!” “There’s not!” Bob snarled, unconsciously baring one long fang in his agitation. “I am fucked ten ways from Sunday, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it!” He didn’t look angry now, he looked pursued and frightened, almost feral. Dan looked quickly around them. From where the two men stood, most of the other workers could see them, but the only one Dan was really concerned about was Bo. Sure enough, his sensitive ears hadn’t missed the altercation and he was obviously keeping an eye on them as he did his job, but since Bob hadn’t yet acted aggressively and Dan wasn’t in immediate danger, he wasn’t moving towards them. Dan fervently hoped that at this distance, even with his varius hearing, he wouldn’t know that Dan was doing what he’d been expressly asked not to. Moving closer to Bob and leaning in slightly, Dan lowered his voice so he wouldn’t be overheard and spoke quickly. “There has to be something you can do.” He finally had Bob talking to him, and he was going to make the most of this opportunity. “What about the police?” Dan asked urgently, throwing out the first random thing that flew through his head. “Maybe you can cut a deal with them, or something?” Bob lost any vulnerability he’d exposed and derisively laughed in Dan’s face at the suggestion. “Are you trying to get me killed just that much faster? You have no fucking idea what you’re doing.” He shook his head, and when he spoke again, although his voice was once again spiked with its familiar sarcastic chill, it might not have been quite as frigid as it used to be. “Just shut up, Dan. Just shut the fuck up and go back to your perfect little world where nothing ever goes wrong.” And just like that, their conversation was over. Dan stood rooted to the spot for another few seconds, watching as Bob turned his back and resumed his work as if Dan had already gone. With a disappointed sigh, he turned and walked back toward the office. Ten steps later, a heavy paw placed on his shoulder made him whirl in surprise, prepared for more of Bob’s abuse. He blew out a relieved breath when he saw it was Ken. “Dude!” Dan said, trying to slow his heart rate. “Don’t do that!” “Sorry,” Ken said, apologetically. He looked concerned. “You okay? Bob didn’t do anything to you, did he?” “No,” Dan told him, “I’m okay. But I’ve gotta go. Listen, I’ll catch up with you later, okay?” The lion nodded uncertainly and glanced back at Bob. “If he ever lays a finger on you,” he said, speaking to Dan in a low tone before turning back to his machine, “let me know.” He raised an eyebrow. “Promise.” Dan nodded somberly. “I will, Ken. Thanks.” “Hey!” Ken called, walking backwards. “You’re a bottom?” Dan blushed, and Ken immediately started to chuckle. “That’s hot.” The leering wink he gave Dan as he turned was pure innocent fun, and was exactly what Dan needed to pull his flagging spirits out of their nosedive. He hurried back to the office, where Sydney had been waiting with atypical patience. “Sydney?” “That took longer than usual.” Dan chuckled. “Since you’re not here to take the heat, Bob felt compelled to yell at me for a while instead.” Sydney’s voice was gruff, but at least he said something. “Huh. Sorry ‘bout that, Kid. Just business.” “Yeah, I know,” Dan replied, “I get it. Say,” he asked, only now thinking about it, “do you spell your name with an ‘i’ or a ‘y’?” There was a slight pause, and Dan wondered if he’d overreached. “It’s a ‘y,’ like the city.” “Oh,” Dan said, apologetic. “All this time I’ve been spelling it wrong.” He paused a beat, then did something he wouldn’t have dreamed of two weeks before. He cracked a joke. “Maybe he didn’t know it’s you?” For the first time, he heard the faceless man on the other end of the line bark a laugh. It wasn’t the happiest laugh Dan had ever heard, but it was a laugh, nonetheless. “You’re pretty funny. Want a job?” Dan smiled, in spite of himself. “No, thanks, Sydney. I like my job here too much. Thanks for the offer, though.” The unpleasant man’s parting words had a chilling air of finality about them. “Have a good life, Dan Blocker.” And the line went dead.

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Bo had been doing his job long enough that he could tell to the minute how long each order would take, and he scheduled himself so that he fed his last ingot into the machine five minutes before the shift bell sounded. With five minutes to spare, he didn’t need to hurry to get to the changing room before everyone else. Before Kensuke. “Ken.” “Bo?” The lion stopped with one hand on the locker room door, looking surprised, but not alarmed. “Why speak Dan?” Bo asked. “Interest?” “No such,” Ken replied, moving towards Bo and meeting his gaze without shame. “His benefit.” He looked annoyed. “We don’t have to talk like that anymore, you know. We can speak proper English.” “Waste.” Bo said, but he didn’t last a full second before dipping his head. “I’m sorry. I usually don’t fall into it unless I’m stressed.” “And you’re stressed now?” Ken asked. “Yes, I’m stressed,” Bo said, annoyed. “Why were you talking to Dan like that?” “You could hear us from all the way over there?” Ken asked, almost disbelieving. Bo had been at least sixty meters away, with a half-dozen sources of noise between them. If Bo’s weren’t the most sensitive varius ears Ken had ever known, they came damned close. Bo crossed his arms in front of his chest, more to give his arms a place to rest than anything else, but the posture still made his chest look intimidatingly thick. “I hear a lot more than anyone knows. Why are you flirting with Dan? You said you weren’t going to pursue him.” Ken looked affronted that Bo would question his word, but Bo didn’t care. Propriety be damned, he needed to know. Ken did them all a favor and let the potential insult slide by without remarking on it. “Did you see the look on his face when I said that?” “Yeah,” Bo practically growled, “and that’s why I’m here.” “It made him smile, Bo,” Ken said, earnestly. “He was feeling down, and it made him smile when he was having a really rotten day. That’s what friends do.” He looked around to make sure they were alone before he pulled Bo over to a vacant corner of the building. “Come over here.” The last thing he wanted was for an audience to overhear what he was going to tell Bo. When they were out of earshot of everyone else, Ken sat on an empty barrel and made himself as comfortable as he could. Bo stood stiffly, and Ken wasn’t the slightest bit surprised. Parade Rest seemed to be as relaxed as this man ever got. “Bo, I’m not saying that what you’re doing to attract Dan is wrong, because everyone has their own style, right?” Bo looked uncomfortable, but he nodded. Romance had never been his strong suit, and now he was trying to woo a partner who was not only a sapiens, but a male one. Talk about uncharted territory. He knew that Ken had partnered with a sapiens male for a time, and he knew that if he had the sense of a goose, he’d pay close attention to whatever advice Ken could give. “I’m going to give you a suggestion,” the lion continued, “take it or leave it, it’s up to you.” Bo said nothing for a moment, but finally relented, nodding his head. Ken continued, “If you don’t make that man feel like he’s the world’s greatest catch, someone else is going to.” He pointed a thick, golden-furred finger towards his own chest. “I did it today and he knew I was just playing. But Bo,” he looked at the varius significantly, “The next person that comes along and massages his ego the right way might not be playing.” “You already said he was mine,” Bo said, obstinately. “Why should I have to keep fighting for what’s already mine?” Ken came within a whisker of trying to be funny, but he restrained himself. Was it really possible that a grown man in their day and age could be so naïve? Bo was serious, and Ken thoughtthat the man needed serious help. “Yes. Until you’re bonded, the wooing process won’t stop. And after that, you probably won’t want to. Seeing the distinctive gleam of, ‘if some is good, more is better’ sprouting in Bo’s eyes, Ken hurried to temper his enthusiasm. “It requires pacing to be effective.” He groped for an appropriate simile. “It’s like water – too little and you’ll die of thirst. Too much, and you’ll drown. Get it?” Thankfully, Bo did seem to understand what Ken was getting at, and the golden varius thought that maybe Bo was loosening up a bit. “So…what do I do?” “Show him you’re interested, but in small ways. The two of you haven’t actually mated, right?” Bo looked affronted, and Ken hurriedly added, “Don’t be mad at Dan, because he didn’t say anything. I can just tell.” Damn, this is one crusty varius, Ken thought. Positively old-school. “You saw what I did today? A little nod and a wink, a bit of sexual innuendo. That sort of thing goes a long way. Show him that you’re interested. Let him know you’re eager for something to happen. Look like you’re anticipating having a really, really good time with him, not like you’re about to go to the dentist, or something. Loosen up!” Bo, listening intently, rolled his shoulders around in an effort to loosen them. “Good!” Ken said, “Stay loose, and let him know you care. Right?” “Right,” Bo said, trying to commit the advice to memory. “When was the last time you bought him flowers?” Bo scoffed. “What flowers? Dan likes pizza.” Ken rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dan loves pizza. But he’s a romantic at heart, and even if he hasn’t told you that he wants traditional romance gifts from time to time, he still wants to get them.” Bo looked momentarily stricken, before his mask of cool reserve descended on him again. “What about magazines?” “What?” Ken was puzzled. “Magazines? What are you talking about?” “He bought me a subscription to Engineering and Space Digest.” He sounded uncertain. “Are magazines traditional romance gifts?” Bo suddenly realized that he had no idea what sapiens gave each other to show interest. “Oh, crap…” Ken stifled a groan, rubbing his face with a weary paw. It really should not be this difficult. “Actually, for you two, they just might be.” He thought about it for a moment. “Bo,” he announced, squaring his shoulders and talking to Bo with the authority of a drill sergeant, “tomorrow morning, I want to see flowers on that man’s desk. They should be waiting for him when he gets here. Roses are trite, go for something simple.” Bo nodded his head, feeling stupid that he’d missed something so obvious. “No roses, got it.” He had a thought. “What about candy? Maybe I should do candy, too?” Ken would have laughed, but Bo was so earnestly sincere that it would have felt mean. Flowers and candy would have been too much. “Drowning.” “Oh…right.” He looked so confused that Ken was compelled to help him. “In your case, forget the candy altogether. Give him a different food item, one that’s meaningful to him.” “Like protein shakes?” Bo asked, hopefully. “I was thinking about pepper sauces,” Ken laughed, “but for you guys, a case of protein shakes is actually a hell of a lot better. You know what his favorite flavor is?” “Chocolate,” Bo said, as if it should be patently obvious. Ken looked satisfied. “Then in three days, put a case of protein shakes on his desk, wrapped up in a simple bow.” Snapping his fingers, he grabbed Bo by the arm. “No! Don’t put them on his desk, hide them in the office, but put them where he’ll easily find them, so he can be surprised.” Bo started to turn away, but Ken grabbed him again. “And don’t get all chocolate – buy one pouch of vanilla, and a strawberry to go along with them. That’ll show him that you’re not afraid to try new things.” “Somewhere he can find them, one vanilla, one strawberry,” Bo said, trying to commit the instructions to memory. He sighed in consternation. “No wonder sapiens can’t manage to stay together. This is a lot of work.” Ken smiled at him and clapped him on the shoulder as the two walked back to the changing room. “You’ve gotta pay to play, Bo. But let me tell you what,” he reassured, “he’s totally worth it.”

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No way in Hell was Bo going to buy Dan flowers. There were some things a man had to do for himself, Bo figured, and you weren’t worth much if you couldn’t give the man you loved a bunch of flowers you’d picked with your own hands. Buy them in the store? Bah. An hour after leaving work, Bo was close to regretting his choice. Clouds were rolling in and the sky was getting dark, and still he had no flowers. It should have been light for at least another hour, but Mother Nature obviously had other ideas and was hurrying him along. The cooling seasons had left every flower he’d come across so far looking weathered and dreary, completely unsuitable for romance. But then he’d spotted it – a small patch of brilliant yellow that guided his car down to settle beside what looked like an empty pasture. Bo had lived in the country long enough to know a cow pasture when he saw one. About ten meters away, Bo saw the object of his desire – nestled up against a lightly wooded area, he could see a small stand of what looked like daffodils or lilies or something, waving in the misty breeze. For a moment Bo hesitated. He knew it was rude to go traipsing across other people’s land without getting their permission, but there was no house in sight and the sun was on its way down. And he really wanted the flowers. If somebody let the cows back into this pasture they’d probably run over and turn the flowers – Dan’s flowers, he amended – into bovine salad. That would be a waste. And since waste was a sin, that meant it would be a sin for him to not pick the flowers. And Bo might be many things, but he was no sinner! Satisfied with his logical argument’s conclusion, he was content to leave it to someone more qualified than he to determine its theological fitness. Between his dry shirt and his fur, Bo had all the electrical insulation he needed to not worry whether the fence was electrified. He pressed the wire down with the tail of his shirt just to be sure before swinging his legs and then his torso through the opening. Careful to avoid the patties of fresh manure, Bo picked his way over to the edge of the woods. Bo had no idea what the flowers were, he only knew that they were beautiful. He felt no compulsion to pidgeonhole that which he enjoyed, he simply enjoyed it for what it was. He was as likely to be enthralled with a weed as a precious orchid, and he liked being that way. These flowers wouldn’t have been here to greet him, if it weren’t for their good fortune to have sprouted up surrounded by a protective ring of bullnettle. Bo remembered the weed vividly from his childhood. Its stinging branches reached out to slap against unprotected arms and legs as he and his playmates ran through the meadows, bringing first yelps then curses as the toxin caused first burning pain, then incessant itch. Carefully, Bo used a stick to push back the nettle bushes and expose the treasure they protected. This sure was a big pain in the ass, but it was definitely worth it. The flowers he’d found put their store-bought, hothouse-raised cousins to shame with their vivid petals and firm, lush foliage. These flowers, the ones Bo had found to woo his Dan, were real. Satisfied that the nettle bushes were securely restrained, Bo reached through the small opening and used his sharpest claw to razor off a half-dozen of the most beautiful blooms. Success! Standing, Bo began to turn but was stopped by something Kensuke had told him. It was something about being personal, being original. Looking at the flowers in his hand, Bo was realized that although each one was perfect, they told no story. Then it occurred to him that he and Dan had been building their relationship for the past seven months, so it was only logical to give him one flower for each. Carefully, Bo held the six flowers in his left hand as he stretched his right towards their seventh brother. A quick flick of the wrist, and the job was done. Unfortunately, the ground underneath him, the same ground that had seemed so stable just a moment earlier, had grown damp enough in the mist to become slippery, and Bo was on his way down. The way his highly tuned military mind saw things, there were three possible outcomes. One was to save himself by throwing out his hands and crushing Dan’s flowers – not an option. The second, even less appealing possibility, was to save the flowers and plant himself face-first into a bush full of poison nettles – also, not an option. The path Bo chose was to attempt to roll himself onto his back as he fell, the thicker skin of his back saving both the flowers and his face. It was unfortunate that Bo was no more adept at gymnastics than he was at romance. With time to practice he might have pulled off something more graceful, but given the circumstances he was lucky to get out with his skin intact. Bo let out a grunt of pain as the back of his shoulder hit the ground, atop what felt like the largest and prickliest of the nettle bushes. Overall, he was satisfied. His back might be a muddy mess and he had a toxic plant pumping burning, itching fluids into him, but at least the flowers had been spared, as had his eyeballs. His situation could have been much worse. The bush trapped underneath him dug itself deeper with every move he made, and he soon came to the conclusion that trying to be gentle was only making things worse. And his growling, as impressive as it was, had absolutely no tactical benefit since his opponent was a plant. It was time to swing himself up, endure the pain, and get on with it. Taking a deep breath, Bo lifted one leg, and swung it forcefully downwards in a bid to lever his torso upright. Although this worked, it also had the unpleasant consequence of jarring loose the biggest bullnettle bush, the one that he’d pinned back to gain access to the flowers in the first place. As soon as the stick came loose, the plant became an excellent science demonstration in how potential energy could turn kinetic as it came flying toward his face. Bo had no time to do anything other than flinch and squeeze his eyes shut, but for once this evening, fortune seemed to favor him. Most of the plant missed his head, but where it hit, it spread fire. He yelped and grabbed his ear, which felt like an army of Sams were standing behind him, flicking it with their bar towels. Miraculously, he was still holding seven flowers in his hands, all in remarkably good condition. He was also being watched by roughly forty huge, brown eyes, attached in even pairs to cows who were contentedly chewing their cud. At some time during his flailing, the curious herd had returned to find out what all the fuss was about. With all those eyes on him Bo felt like he should give a speech. Or at least say a few words. But he settled for, “Ladies…” as he began to walk through them, eager to escape this farce. Cows have the uncanny ability to know exactly what someone wants them to do, and then do the polar opposite. Bo was well acquainted with this behavior, and was pleased when it seemed to be lacking in this group. Flowers held protectively above his head, he gently pushed his way through the milling herd using his chest and body to prod them out of his way. When he was halfway through the small herd, their natural behavior reasserted itself. Since Bo wanted to get through, they milled around him in a giant pinwheel. It was like a crop circle, Bo thought, only with cows instead of wheat… The cause of their unrest became apparent when Bo spotted their bull headed towards them. Coming on faster with each passing step, the unevolved bull looked annoyed that someone else was interacting with his ladies. Bo was big, but he really didn’t want to tangle with another man’s unevolved bull. Those things were just plain crazy. Seeing an opening, Bo forced his way outside the perimeter of the circle and made a beeline for the fence. Looking back, he saw what he’d expected. As soon as the varius wasn’t in the middle of the harem anymore, the bull had lost interest. Bo smiled to himself. Every now and then, something worked out in his favor. Bending over, he threw one beefy leg through the fence, made an opening by pushing the red wire down with his now-wet shirt tail, and felt twenty thousand volts frying through his wet fur and into his skin, making his eyeballs jiggle. If he hadn’t already been more than halfway through when the jolt of electricity hit, he might have fallen back into the pasture. But then, if he hadn’t already been more than halfway through, his nose might not have made contact with that damnable red wire… Bo thought that the sparks flying around inside his eyeballs were quite pretty, but the throbbing pain in his hand and neck convinced him that it was time to let go of the wire, drop to the ground, and rest for a while. After sitting for five minutes in the drizzling rain, he’d regained his breath and his heartbeat had slowed sufficiently to gather up the mercifully untouched flowers and drive home, letting the autopilot do most of the work. He sure hoped that Dan liked his flowers, because they were probably the last bunch he’d ever get.

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Ken was honestly shocked at what he’d found. He had been prepared to come in and find a dozen cheap-assed flowers in a dime-store bouquet, probably not even removed from the plastic wrapping they came in; but what Bo had delivered was considerably more impressive. Each of the seven yellow flowers had been carefully cleaned and trimmed to an even length, then put into individual zombie glasses, weighted down by a handful of river pebbles in each. The array had been carefully placed at the back of Dan’s desk, each one spaced apart from its neighbor with mathematical precision. Bo may not have known the first thing about arranging flowers, but it was obvious that he had an innate sense of style. As much as he hated to admit it, Ken was impressed. Walking out to Bo’s station, his tail twitching happily behind him, Ken felt like a proud father going to talk to his son. “You did a great job there, Bo!” Reaching over, he slapped the other man on one huge shoulder. He had expected to get a happy smile in return, not the pained grimace that Bo served him. “Hey, what’s wrong?” “Nothing.” The word wasn’t out of his muzzle before Bo regretted saying it. Or rather, how he’d said it. Annoyed at his own foul temper, he shook his head and tried again, attempting not to be as prickly as that damned nettle bush. “I got attacked by a bush when I was picking those flowers yesterday.” “You picked those yourself? I’m impressed.” Ken grabbed the collar of Bo’s shirt and gave a little tug, curious to see what was happening underneath. Bo gently swatted his hands away and pulled back. “Stop it,” Ken said quietly, reaching a second time for the shirt’s opening. Recognizing the command voice, Bo tightened his lips and complied. He didn’t have to, he just knew it was going to be the easiest way to emerge from this situation with any dignity. Walking around the plant with Kurious Kitty hanging onto his collar would only cause a stir, and pretty soon Martha would be wanting to take a look, and then Mona, and then Silas… Ken pulled Bo’s collar down far enough to run an extended claw against the grain of his fur, peering through the hair to the skin underneath. What he saw looked red and inflamed, but was not infected. “Huh.” “Is that your professional medical opinion?” Bo asked, lobbing a ball of sarcasm at him. Ken hit the comment back with better humor than Bo could manage. “My professional medical opinion is that I’ll bet that itches like a son of a bitch.” “It’s fine,” Bo insisted, belatedly realizing that his paw had strayed up to his neck and was scratching for the hundredth time that morning. It was time to ask for help. “Okay, it’s not fine. You got anything?” “Is your chemistry B3 or B5?” Ken had thumbed open a lock on a compartment of his backpack and was rummaging around for something. “B2.” Bo said distractedly, watching as Ken dug around inside his bag. “What do you have in there, anyway?” “Everything,” Ken grinned, pulling three wrapped pills from the depths of his pack. “I was a backup EMT in the army, and I saved a ton of samples.” Bo whistled through his teeth. “Med techs can make a ton of money. Why are you working in a shitheap like this?” Ken shrugged his shoulders. “Just waiting for my dream job to come through. I’ll tell you about it sometime.” He handed the pills to Bo. “Take two of them now, and save the third one for lunch. It should be better by the time you go home tonight.” “Thanks.” Bo turned to fill his glass with water to wash the pills down, and saw the lion turning to leave. “Ken.” The lion turned, his backpack slung over one shoulder. The expression on his face was neutral, like one he’d probably worn when he’d treated any number of busy grunts in the field. You did the job, you got your minor thanks, and you moved on without expecting gushes of gratitude. But Bo did feel grateful for all Ken had done for him. For them. The time Bo was able to spend alone with Dan was precious. It seemed ironic that they could work all day within a hundred meters of one another, then go to the store, then to the gym, then cook dinner or eat out somewhere public, and often go to bed right next to each other feeling like they’d never really spent any time together. Was that what love was, Bo wondered? To never be able to have enough? Bo coveted their lunch times, guarding them jealously. Many times, they seemed to be an oasis in a day full of crazy, a time when they could sit down near each other and just be still. Maybe even, if nobody was around to object, to quietly hold hands for a few minutes before diving back into the frenzied crush of work. Interlopers had been gently pushed aside, until everyone just got the picture and left the two alone. “I know it’s getting cooler outside, but, uh…” Bo hesitated, afraid to ask this, but at the same time, feeling compelled. “Maybe, you know, you could tell me at lunch. About your job, I mean. “ Ken regarded Bo for a moment. He’d heard mutterings in the break room about Bo and Dan, and how possessive the morph had become of that little wooden picnic bench. Some of the workers, the more clueless ones, even seemed to think that Dan was lucky not to get kicked out himself. Rumor had it that any day now, Bo was planning on ejecting Dan so he could sit there all by himself. Ken thought it fascinating that from an external perspective, running towards someone could look very much like running away. He’d respected the men’s privacy and found other people to eat with during his break, but he still felt a little lonely, being kept at arm’s length like that. He’d had the feeling that Dan was going to ask him to join their little party, but he would have turned him down. He would have felt like a tool for Bo’s socialization therapy. But it hadn’t been Dan who had asked, it had been Bo, and that made a huge difference. “Thanks, Bo,” he said, his pleasant grin electrifying his already handsome features. “Don’t mind if I do.”

---

Dan was cleaning up the last of the paperwork when Bob sauntered into the office. To say the least, Dan was surprised to see him. Normally the panther took pains to avoid the office, but today, he was here. Discretely, Dan looked at the security camera tucked into the corner of his office and verified that it was on and recording. “What’s up?” “Nothing.” The way Bob spat out the word was almost enough to turn it in to an accusation. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but whatever it was, the words were so alien to his mouth that he didn’t have any idea how to make the sounds. His gaze flicked about nervously, the tip of his tail batting a restless tattoo against his legs. He opened his mouth again and took a breath, and Dan hoped that he might be breaking through his wall. Instead, Bob pulled back inside himself. Gathering himself, he turned and walked toward the front door as if that were the reason he’d come in here. Pausing for a moment at the side of Dan’s desk, he said only one thing before he left. He pointed a thick, heavily callused finger towards Dan’s desk. “Nice flowers.” His voice was kind, something Dan had given up ever hearing from him. And then he was gone. Dan felt like calling after him, telling him that it was okay, that he could always come back later, that they could talk after Bob had a chance to think of what he wanted to say. But he never had the chance. Nobody saw anything suspicious, and the security cameras pointed at the plant’s parking lot recorded nothing out of the ordinary. They showed Bob’s car sitting in its usual spot all day long. Then they showed him getting inside after the end of shift, slamming the door shut, and heading off to a bar to meet his friends for a few drinks. They gave no indication whatsoever that the lifter coil in his three-year-old car would suddenly give out two hundred meters in the air, dropping his car to the ground with sufficient force to bury it halfway up to its windows. The furry sack of shattered bones that used to be Bob Pritchett was laid to rest on a rainy Tuesday in front of a half-dozen people, four of whom did not want to be there anyway.

---

“I’m glad that’s over with,” Dan said, pulling off the red gloves that polite society had suddenly decreed necessary to show respect at funerals. What had happened to basic black, anyway? And it wasn’t like he could wear them anywhere else. At least, not unless he wanted to go somewhere dressed up like Little Red Riding Hood. “I’m surprised you went,” Bo said, looking up only briefly before returning his attention to the piece of machinery he had halfway-disassembled on Dan’s coffee table. “Bob was a gold-plated asshole.” “Wasn’t really my idea,” Dan said, “it was Ellis. He thought someone from Magnum should represent, and he had a golf tournament to go to, so he asked me to stand in. His mother was there,” Dan added, sadly. “She looked so lost.” “Huh,” Bo grumbled under his breath, ignoring the bigger issue in an attempt to brush away the cloud of despair before it could pollute his Dan. “I’ve never understood the appeal of golf. If I want to put a little white ball in a cup, I’ll pick it up and put it there.” He twiddled something in the middle of the mass of wires and metal tubes he was holding and gave a satisfied grunt. “Whacking it in there with an asymmetrical stick just seems inefficient.” “Sort of like pool, huh?” Dan chided. Bo enjoyed shooting pool, so the bias against golf seemed odd. “Oh, hush,” the varius rebuked, examining the…whatever it was he was holding. “Pool is different. You play golf, but you shoot pool. Grown men shoot. Children play. Speaking of which, since you’re home, let’s grab a workout and hit Sam’s on the way back.” “Sure,” Dan said, “sounds good. But what about that?” He pointed to the hunk of junk in Bo’s hands. “What is that thing, anyway?” Bo stuck a screwdriver into the middle of the mass and gave a firm twist. “It’s your fusion core.” Dan’s eyes just about popped out of his head. “What are you…” With an effort, he reigned himself in. Surely Bo knew what he was doing with such a delicate and expensive…No, he corrected himself, fucking expensive piece of machinery. They were designed to last a lifetime, which was a very good thing considering that most people had no desire to buy more than one. His was only ten years old, and not due for its first scheduled service for at least another decade. But something was wrong, here. “If you’re holding my house’s power supply in your hands, why are the lights still on?” “You’re running off the one from my apartment,” Bo said, preoccupied with what he was doing. “Will you hand me that oscillator?” Dan swallowed his annoyance and handed Bo the tool. “So what are your neighbors doing for power?” “You mean to tell me you’ve been coming over for this long without realizing I don’t have any neighbors?” Bo asked, one eyebrow raised. “I make it a point to let prospective tenants know that they’re about to sign a contract on a unit that’s next door to a hundred and seventy-five kilos worth of lead-footed varius. And for some odd reason,” he concluded with a knowing grin, “nobody ever wants to move in.” “As to why I’m doing this, it’s because no matter what they tell you, these things need to be back-purged every couple of years. You can only shove so much deuterium through microscopic pinholes before they get clogged.” He made one last adjustment. “There! Finished.” He handed the unit to Dan, who inspected it with a dubious eye. “I hope I’m not supposed to see anything,” Dan said, skeptically. “My eyes are good, but they’re not that good.” As he was handing the unit back to Bo, something in the middle of the metallic tangle gave a loose, clattering rattle. “Uh…” “Don’t worry,” Bo laughed at the dubious expression on Dan’s face, “it’s supposed to do that.” “They all do that, huh?” Dan looked at Bo doubtfully. “Yes,” Bo grinned, “they all do that. Trust me. It’s loose until you connect the injector, then that fills the empty space and it stops rattling.” “Where did you learn to do this stuff?” Dan asked, his skepticism quieting a bit. Bo certainly sounded like he knew what he was doing. “Army,” Bo said, offhandedly. “I was surrounded with technical manuals, so when I got bored one day, I read the book on generator repair. The parts are different, but the concept is the same.” “One day, huh?” Dan asked, his trepidation returning. “It wasn’t a very big manual,” Bo said, sounding a little exasperated. “Go get changed.” Behind him, Dan heard the back door bang shut, and he hoped Bo was busy putting his house back together. He thought that it would be nice if Bo would give him some warning before he did things like this. A week ago he’d come home to find his cooker disassembled. Bo had already ordered pizza for dinner that evening so they didn’t go hungry that night, but still… Dan had much the same problem with Blaine, the difference being that when Bo put something back together, it usually worked better than it did before he took it apart. Usually. The turbo cooker hadn’t quite recovered yet, but it was the exception, and Bo had assured him that it would be fixed as soon as the parts arrived. In any case, it would take a considerable string of successes before Dan would feel comfortable with his home handyman abilities. Dan was in the middle of washing his face when the water pressure died, along with every light in the house. Repressing a groan, Dan groped for a towel and wiped the soapy water from his face. He winced at the sound of something metallic hitting the utility shed’s floor. “Sorry ‘bout that!” Bo’s muffled apology made it through the closed bathroom window. After listening to about twenty seconds of Bo’s highly creative cursing, the lights came back on and the water pressure returned. Dan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Telling himself that things could be worse, he pulled out his comm and, with a sense of foreboding, connected it to the house’s data grid. The information it delivered surprised him. The generator was a builder-quality unit and its efficiency had always been fairly low, but whatever Bo had done to it had knocked its efficiency all the way from a measly twenty percent up to almost twenty-three. By the quick math in his head, this was going to save him a couple of hundred credits a year. Now back inside the house, Bo peeked his head into the bedroom. “Everything okay in here?” “It’s all good,” Dan said, waving his comm at Bo as he walked towards him. “According to this, whatever you did just paid me back for the lifter coil.” He looked up into his boyfriend’s eyes. “With interest.” The way he said it attempted to confer interest of a different, more carnal sort. “Oh, right,” Bo smirked, standing so close that his large body eclipsed Dan’s. “Let me see that.” Taking the comm from Dan, he fiddled with a few buttons. “I just need to fine-tune a few settings. Aaannnnddddd…” The lights went out. “Oops,” he said, sheepishly. “Wrong direction.” He moved the last setting back to where it was and the lights came back on, revealing Dan’s glowering face. Bo fixed that problem by kissing a smile back onto it, a technique that worked far more reliably than anything he fixed with screwdrivers or wrenches. He gazed down into the unique blue-gray eyes that had never been truly angry at him, no matter how much he’d done to deserve it. “Are you ready?” “Yeah,” Dan said, breathlessly, wondering if the bottle of lube was still in the nightstand drawer. It had been a while, and he’d probably need it. Seeing Bo turn and walk out of the bedroom, he remembered. “Oh, the gym…right.” Reluctantly, Dan cast one last, longing look at his bed before turning off the bedroom lights and following Bo out the door. This man is going to be the death of me. Chapter 25 “What say we skip Sam’s this evening?” Bo’s ears had perked into little points, the way they always did when he was excited about something. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Dan was surprised that Bo would even suggest such a thing. Friday nights at Sam’s had become their regular routine, and perhaps it was just wishful thinking on Dan’s part, but he thought they’d almost become as expected as Charlie and Mark. “You’re not giving up your favorite old haunts, are you?” “No,” Bo chuckled, “It’s just been a busy week, and I thought maybe we could just order up a pizza from Giovanni’s and spend the evening here.” Dan’s interest was piqued. He loved pizza. As much as Ken loved sushi and Bo loved a good roast beef, Dan loved pizza. Whether it was a deep-dish, meat-lovers topped with everything but the kitchen sink, or thin-crust with nothing but fresh mozzarella and a few slices of really good pepperoni, it was all good. The idea of spending the evening curled up with Bo on the couch with no interruptions was as seductive as it was impossible. With a regretful sigh, he explained. “We have to go. It’s Sandy’s birthday today.” Bo’s ears returned to their normal position. “Aw, crap,” the corner of his mouth quirked downwards in annoyance as he remembered their commitment. “I forgot about that.” Sam’s sapiens waitress was practically a sister to Bo, and was fast on her way to family-status with Dan as well. Ever-ready with a joke or a smile, even in the seas of testosterone in which she sailed, Sandy’s pleasant disposition never capsized. “Do we need to get her something?” “‘Only our presence is required’,” Dan quoted from memory. “Notice the ‘required’ part. She told me that she’d be crushed if we weren’t there.” “Crushed?” Bo asked, doubtfully. “Crushed.” “She really said ‘crushed’?” Dan sighed. “We’re going. Get your hat.” “I can’t wear a hat,” Bo grumbled, but he grabbed his jacket. Dan noticed that his tail had stopped wagging, a sure sign of his disappointment. Whatever he’d been planning for them this evening, he’d really been looking forward to it. Dan met him at the front door, and was about to open it when two huge hands that were every bit as gentle as they were inescapable grabbed him from behind. Like a tractor beam, they pulled him inexorably towards the varius’ huge, ultimately snuggle-able chest. “Let me go,” Dan said, utterly without conviction. “Thank you,” Bo ignored Dan’s protests and pulled him close. “For what?” Dan asked, laughing as Bo’s nose whiskers tickled his ear from behind. “For remembering this.” He rocked them back and forth, loving the way Dan’s warm, firm body felt in his arms. “It means a lot to Sandy, and I would have forgotten it if you hadn’t reminded me.” He loosened his hold on Dan and turned the sapiens male around in his arms so he could stare down into his intriguing blue-gray eyes that were neither blue nor gray. Like Dan, they were unique. “Have I told you how much I depend on you, buddy?” “Maybe a time or two,” Dan grinned. “You take care of the big things, and I’ll take care of the little ones. I’m happy to do it.” “Oh, you do more than just take care of the little things,” Bo said, his hands resting loosely at Dan’s waist. “Did you notice yesterday that when Chester was inviting me to the get-together, he spent ninety percent of his time talking to you?” “That’s because he knew I’d have to remind you anyway,” Dan teased. “No,” Bo corrected, “it’s because, like everyone else, he assumes that if he invites either one of us, the other one’s coming, too. “Really?” Dan perked up. “They want me there?” “Of course,” Bo said, perplexed. “Why wouldn’t they? You’re as much a part of the group as anyone else.” “Have you told any of them about us?” Bo shook his head. “Not in so many words,” he reached down and unlatched his front door, respectfully holding it open for Dan, “but somehow, everyone seems to know.” “Nobody’s thrown any rotten tomatoes at you yet?” Dan asked. Bo scratched behind his ears, looking sheepish. “I guess I thought they’d have a worse reaction.” He shrugged. “Nobody really seems to care.” “All that worry over nothing, huh?” Dan raised an eyebrow. “That was a lot of wasted energy.” “I wouldn’t go that far,” Bo said, looking at Dan significantly. “I still haven’t told any of the guys at the bar. “Huh,” Dan huffed. “Maybe you should hold off telling them.” He looked at his fingers as if searching for something. “I still don’t see a ring.” He looked at Bo from under an arched eyebrow. “I could still get away.” “An oversight,” Bo said, walking towards Dan’s car, a smug grin plastered all over his muzzle. “One that I was going to rectify tonight, before we got sidetracked. I had a romantic vid all picked out and everything.” “And a pizza.” Dan said. “You are the last living romantic, aren’t you?” “So now you’re telling me that pizza isn’t your favorite food? And Giovanni’s isn’t your favorite pizza?” Dan reconsidered. Giovanni’s had a thin-crust mushroom pizza to die for. It was cracker-thin, and their large pie was as big as a manhole cover. Maybe pizza was the best choice, after all. “Okay,” he admitted, “you’ve got me there. So, back to this proposal thing…” “Proposal?” Bo said, sounding surprised. “I was going to do more than propose, Pinks.” He opened the passenger door of Dan’s car and wedged himself into the seat. “I was gonna do it.” ‘Doing it’ meant having sex. With Bo. Dan sat dumbly with one hand on the ignition switch for a moment before opening his door again and starting to clamber out. “Sandy’s a big girl, and I’m sure she can wish herself a happy birthday.” Again he was stopped by Bo’s strong hand, this time grabbing the belt at his waist like a warplane’s arrestor hook. “Sit back down, buddy,” Bo chuckled. “We’ve waited this long, and it won’t kill us to wait another hour.” “What if we crash?” Dan asked, sounding almost frantic. “What if one of us has a heart attack, or we get attacked by a pack of wild dingoes before we get home?” He looked at Bo earnestly. “I don’t want to die a virgin!” It was an utterly ludicrous thing to say, full of inaccuracies and illogic, but coming from Dan, it made Bo smile. “Let’s just stop in and say ‘Hi,’ have a quick drink, and then we’ll come back here for that pizza.” “Forget the pizza,” Dan said, casting a significant gaze down at his crotch, where a sizeable bulge had developed. “I’m more concerned about the sausage. You really expect me to wish your spiritual sister a happy birthday sporting a boner like this?” Bo smirked. “Maybe I should tell Sandy her present’s in your pants.” Dan looked aghast, so Bo cranked the harassment up to eleven. “She does like you, you know,” he said, inspecting his claws. “I’ve seen how many of those tequila shooters she brings you.” “She brings you just as many,” Dan protested. “Yeah, but I weigh twice what you do, so she’s getting you liquored-up twice as fast.” “She’s not the one I’ve been keeping my present wrapped up for,” Dan argued, but then he thought about it. “But now that you mention it, she does have a nice ass on her.” He tapped his chin with one finger, contemplatively. “Hmm…I’ve always been something of an ass man, you know.” “The only time you’re an ass man is when it’s a man’s ass,” Bo laughed. “This is your sister you’re talking about, you dirty perv.” Dan looked over at Bo, and underneath all the joking, he could see the hot embers of raw lust that lay banked just underneath the morph’s calm surface. “If you shut up and drive,” the morph said, seriously, “we can be back here in thirty minutes.” Dan drove. The two all but ran into Sam’s, with every intention of wishing Sandy a happy birthday, giving her a hug and a peck on the cheek, and then getting the hell out of there. Unfortunately, life had other plans. Sandy was well-liked in their community, and this meant two things. Not only was she almost impossible to find among the throng of fellow celebrants, but many of the people who were there to wish her well were also friends of the two men; and every one of them decided that tonight would be an ideal time for them to catch up. Dan tried his best to look passably interested in what each of them had to say, but that was difficult to do when the soundtrack running through his mind kept playing the ‘Oh-Won’t-You-Please-Shut-Up-So-We-Can-Get-Out-Of-Here’ song. Fortunately, the same people who insisted on talking to them also insisted on buying them drinks, so their attentions didn’t go entirely unappreciated. Dan’s empty stomach was happily absorbing its second stiff bourbon when a welcome voice came from behind them. “There he is!” Dan turned just in time to save himself from being buried under an avalanche of beautiful woman. He thought that in the entire history of the world, probably only a dozen times had this much woman been squeezed into this small a package. Sandy’s athletically built frame was in constant motion, and like a songbird, you didn’t realize how beautiful she was until you finally caught her standing still. But you’d better appreciate her beauty quickly, because before long she was going to be off and running again. “Shooters!” she cried, a pair of shot glasses in her hands. She pushed one into Dan’s hand and kept one for herself, then pressed a lime wedge into his palm and gave him a ramshackle salute that would have been acceptable in no man’s army. Dan took the opportunity to glance over at Bo, whose face was covered in an ‘I-told-you-so’ smirk. Sandy hadn’t given anyone else in the room a glass, had she? Sam gave Dan a rogue-ish wink and remedied the oversight by banging a matching pair of glasses and limes onto the counter next to Bo’s arm, a huge smile lighting up the bartender’s primitive face. He was no fool – he knew exactly what was going on between Sandy and Dan, and he was loving every minute of it. His intelligent eyes were drinking in every aspect of the scene, prudently filing it away in case any one of his adopted children needed blackmailing in the future. When Dan’s attention turned back to Sandy, Sam discretely reached over and put a hand on Bo’s forearm. He hadn’t needed to get Bo’s attention; the morph was already looking at him. He just wanted a little physical contact with the man who was like a son to him. “He’s a good man, Bo.” Regardless of the acuity of his hearing, Bo wasn’t certain he’d heard Sam right. The words were clear, but they seemed so out of context that Bo wasn’t certain he’d heard them correctly. Cocking his head to one side, he put a finger behind his ear and pushed it upwards to better catch Sam’s words. “He’s a good man,” the bartender repeated, not raising his voice by a single decibel. His words were for Bo’s ears alone. He inclined his head towards Dan, who was laughing at one of Sandy’s more outrageous comments. “You done good.” “Bottoms up!” Sandy yelled, and all four men joined her in sucking limes and slamming back tequila. Dan’s head spun, and after the momentary sense of vertigo passed, he was surprised to find that Sandy was in his arms. Even more, he was surprised to find that she was kissing him. It smelled like agave and tasted like citrus, and it was…nice. Quite nice. Standing on the bar rail to gain a little elevation, her warm, curvaceous body was pressed up against his in all the right places. As Dan maintained the kiss, he felt his erection coming back on like a freight train. And it was pressing up against Sandy’s…whoa, Whoa, WHOA! Dan’s mind screamed at him, as images of men jumping out of airplanes peppered his mind faster than he could dispel them. BAIL OUT! Mayday! Mayday! Once again, Dan’s bacon was pulled out of the campfire by the tremendous bowl of awesomeness that was Bo Taylor. The brawny morph peeled Sandy off of Dan, and turned her around to give her a warm, brotherly, distracting hug that allowed Dan to make his shaky escape. As he made his way to the door, he heard Bo giving Sandy their best wishes before their voices faded into the milling crowd. Crossing the threshold, Dan stepped aside and waited patiently for his heart to settle, and for his man to emerge. Given the look of sexual interest he’d seen brewing in Bo’s eyes, Dan estimated that it should take the varius less than thirty seconds to catch up with him. Bo made it in twenty-two.

---

The two stumbled into Bo’s apartment, clumsy from impatience more than inebriation. They’d been in Sam’s for less than an hour, not even long enough for the sun to set, but the entire time they’d been working their way through the crowd, Bo had been intentionally pressing himself up against Dan’s back. Each touch made Dan’s knees wobbly, knowing that the warm mountain of brains and fur and muscle was going to be his tonight. But that didn’t stop Dan from harassing Bo in equal measure by pressing himself back against the swelling in the varius’ pants at every possible opportunity, keeping the waters within both men rolling along at a slow boil. Bo dug into his pocket and pulled out two foil-wrapped Alco-Gone tablets. “Here,” he said, handing Dan a glass of water to wash it down, “I think you’ll want to be awake for this.” “No doubt,” Dan said, eagerly ripping off the foil and downing the pill. He wished it were wrapped in a big hunk of pizza or something, but his hunger would have to wait. He had a different hunger to feed. “You were driving me crazy in there, Boo,” he said, breathing more heavily than could be accounted for by a simple sprint up a flight of stairs. “I was going to ask you if that was a banana in your pocket.” “There’s no fruit in my pants, Pinks,” Bo smirked, flashing bedroom eyes at Dan. “That was pure meat.” Dan closed the distance between them, bumping playfully against Bo’s immovable mass. “Are you hitting on me?” he asked, rubbing the side of his face up against Bo’s cheek. “Yes, as a matter of fact I am.” Bo said, reaching over and running his thick, padded fingers through Dan’s hair, lovingly massaging his scalp. “Is it working?” Dan’s answer was completely non-verbal. Pulling back a little, he reached his own hands around Bo’s thick neck and began kneading the knots from it. After a few moments he pulled Bo close and kissed him. Hesitantly at first, Dan could feel Bo’s thick, pliable lips moving against his own. Dan parted his teeth slightly and gently nibbled the thick, warm skin of his lover’s lips, eliciting a rumbling purr from deep within Bo’s chest. After a few seconds, he angled his head slightly and stuck out the tip of his tongue. Dan first licked across it, then slowly drew it into his mouth. Bo’s tongue was amazingly long, muscular and agile. Warm and velvety, it probed the corners of Dan’s mouth with relentless curiosity. They had kissed before, but knowing that they weren’t going to go all the way, they hadn’t really given it their best. All bets were off, now, and they attacked each other’s mouths with tender ferocity. When Bo wrapped his tongue around Dan’s and gave it a gentle squeeze, Dan was left wondering why the depictions of heaven he’d read had omitted mention of this. Eternal happiness and light, twenty-one virgins, ultimate knowledge and understanding, and Bo Taylor’s tongue. With a frustrated rumble from deep within his chest, Bo pulled back and tenderly nuzzled Dan’s ear with the tip of his nose. “I hope you’re not conservative in bed,” he said, “We may have to improvise to get things to work.” “I’ve been around the block a time or two,” Dan laughed at the tickling sensation, “I think we can work things out.” He took Bo’s hand in his own and pulled the varius towards the back room. “Let’s try out your bed.” He didn’t have to ask twice. Bo got his arms underneath Dan and easily lifted his hundred kilos off the ground. Dan didn’t at all mind being carried by Bo, one of his arms thrown over the morph’s neck for balance. After getting playfully tossed onto the bed, Dan levered himself off the platform and pushed Bo toward the middle of the room. He wanted room to explore… Slowly, teasingly, Dan unfastened Bo’s shirt one button at a time. When it was open to the waist, Dan parted the fabric like a curtain and ran his hands over Bo’s big barrel chest, enjoying the feel of his muscles playing under the skin. He liked Bo’s muscles best when they were like this, not hard and unyielding, but relaxed, yet firm. This wasn’t the first time he’d touched Bo’s body, not by a long shot, but it had never been like this. The sexual tension humming through the air like high-tension electricity brought a keen awareness to Dan’s senses, making every sensation seem new and fresh. When Bo pulled Dan’s shirt off and casually tossed it to the floor, he let out a soft moan of appreciation and caressed Dan’s belly and chest with huge, warm paws. The skin – all this skin, pink and obscenely absent of fur, was almost too much to bear. The waiting was over now. He’d won, and the prize was his to claim. He leaned over and gave Dan’s neck a long, languid lick with his raspy tongue. Moving lower, he traced a trail up across Dan’s shoulders and ended up circling his ear. Bo nibbled gently around the perimeter, and felt the man shiver under the touch of his pointed canines. Dan pulled Bo’s shirt all the way off and threw it into a corner, then rubbed his nude belly against Bo’s furry one. Dan loved the contrast between their skins, and found it to be more than a little stimulating. Rubbing over Bo’s amazing pelt, he felt like he might shatter into a thousand happy pieces at any minute, and he never wanted it to end. Dan moved his hands inside the waistband of Bo’s shorts, the soft hair against his fingers making it feel as if he were putting on a fur lined glove. Bo’s hair was short and luxuriously dense, cool to the touch at first, but soothingly warm when you let your hands lie still. He slowly ran his fingertips around the sides of Bo’s boxer shorts then began pulling them down. A resistance in the back caused Dan some confusion, but when he realized the cause he mentally slapped his forehead. He had forgotten about Bo’s tail poking out the rear! He lifted the fabric over the thick, stubby nub and continued pushing at the cloth. There was another resistance in the front, but there was no confusion whatsoever about what was causing that. The large bulge in his underwear was obvious and was obstructing further progress. Bo put his hands down to his waistband to pull the shorts off, but Dan’s firm touch stopped him. He was enjoying this first discovery, and didn’t want to rush it. He knew that this first time would come only once, and he was savoring the moment. Hugging the varius close, Dan’s face pressed into the tan fur of Bo’s belly, separated from his junk by only a few centimeters of empty space and a vanishingly thin layer of silk. He pressed the side of his face to Bo’s boxer shorts and could feel the large, firm, cylindrical shape inside pulse in time with Bo’s heartbeat. Dan didn’t think it was strong enough to be called a fetish, but it might have qualified as a kink. Whatever it was, he definitely had a preference for men in underwear. As he felt the varius’ hardening member through the thin cloth, Dan felt a momentary rush of worry that maybe furries did things completely differently? What if the same things that worked with a sapiens were absolutely wrong with a morph? Oh, shut up, he chastised himself. Even if the tools were shaped a bit differently, they all did the same job. His biggest concern was that Bo got off. If his partner were satisfied, then Dan would be, too. Enough of this fucking around. Dan leaned back slightly and ran his fingers inside the waistband of Bo’s shorts. When his fingers got to the bulge in front, he ran his fingertips lightly across the sides of Bo’s sheath, eliciting a low rumbling growl from his partner. The sheer aggressiveness of the sound almost stopped Dan in his tracks, but one look at Bo, his eyes closed and his face turned slightly upwards, told him that he was indeed on the right track. He rubbed for a few moments longer, then he took hold of the elastic and pulled it away from Bo’s belly. Bo’s smell was dark and natural, masculine and strong, but not overpowering. Dan pulled the underwear down to Bo’s feet, where he accommodatingly stepped out of them and kicked them out of the way. Bo was now standing in front of him totally nude, and the effect was absolutely breathtaking. Dan looked up and down his best friend’s body with a sense of awe. Stoutly muscular and covered in glossy fur, Bo was the most magnificent creature Dan had ever seen. His proportions were aggressively male, with thick thighs, wide shoulders, and sturdy hips. His sheath, usually relatively small and unimpressive, had swollen to a considerable size to accommodate his growing interest. At the tip, Dan caught a glimpse of shiny pink flesh, making his heart thunder in his chest. Bo shifted his weight as if posing for his new lover’s inspection, spreading his legs slightly so that his two large testicles had room to swing back and forth. Dan had read sapiens pornography where the men reportedly had balls the size of lemons, but he had dismissed such descriptions as hyperbole. In Bo’s case, it was absolutely true. They were large and hung low in their jet-black, velvety sac, and they were in perfect proportion to the rest of his body. On a thinner man they would have looked oversized, but on Bo they were perfect. Dan weighed them in his hand, wishing that he had something so grand to offer in return. He gave the sac a gentle squeeze, eliciting a rumbling groan of pleasure from Bo and making the tip of his penis emerge another centimeter or so. “You don’t have to be gentle with them,” Bo said, his voice thick with desire, “you won’t hurt me. Give ‘em a good squeeze, buddy.” Dan cautiously increased the pressure, and Bo’s sighs of contentment told him he was on the right track. The sighs soon became groans, and thick, clear liquid wet the hair of Bo’s sheath. With one hand, Dan encircled the skin of Bo’s scrotum and pulled his balls away from his body, and with the other he massaged Bo’s shaft through the thick skin of his sheath. “I don’t know what you’ve been comparing it to,” Dan said, appreciatively, “but this thing ain’t exactly small.” “Maybe to you, but you’re not as big as me,” Bo said, uncertainly. More than a few of the women he’d bedded had gotten to this point and made some comment about liking guys who were smaller than average, saying that they were easier to take. They meant well, Bo was sure, but none of them had been sincere. He’d disappointed them all. “That’s the point, big guy,” Dan said, “If you were any bigger, you’d rip me apart.” He gave the thick, furry tube of man-meat a squeeze, and shook his head in disbelief. “This is fucking awesome!” Five or six centimeters of Bo’s cock were out, and from his vantage point, Dan had an excellent view. Bo’s dick had a thick, blunt head attached to a shaft a little thicker than Dan’s own penis, which was just a shade bigger than average for a sapiens. About fifteen centimeters down from the head, still hidden inside the sheath, Dan noticed a growing bulge. He ran his hand over it and gently rubbed behind it, eliciting a gasp and a shiver of pleasure from Bo. “Does this do the same thing it does in dogs?” he asked. “Yeah,” Bo replied in a husky voice. “It ties us together after I blow.” “How big does it get?” Dan asked, a hesitation evident in his voice. “Will I be able to take it inside me?” As he was watching, a clear drop of pre emerged from Bo’s penis, running down the exposed length to be absorbed by his sheath’s fur. Bo knelt down and looked Dan in the eyes. “I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about, babe. It goes in smaller and swells up once it’s inside. It’d hurt like hell for both of us if you pulled it out before the swelling went down, though!” In his eyes, Dan could see compassion and tenderness, and also a deep hunger that needed to be fed. Bo stood up, put one huge handpaw on either side of Dan’s torso and pulled his partner up with him. He gathered his friend in his arms, and held him in a furry bear hug while he enjoyed the simple feeling of being close to someone he loved. Dan burrowed his face into the soft fur of Bo’s chest, more content than he’d ever been in his life. “It’s my turn.” Dan felt Bo’s muscles thicken and move underneath his fur as the varius shifted his center of gravity, bending to lift his partner onto the bed as if he were light as a child. The smell of freshly-cleaned linen sheets activated sense memories of trust and security within Dan, taking him back to a time in his life when his every need was attended to by capable people who loved him more than life itself. Weaving through, Dan could detect Bo’s own scent, a smell that was as subtle as it was distinctive. It reminded Dan of exotic spices one might find in a Far East marketplace. It was a blending of ancient tradition and new energy, frightening power and complete control. Nothing had ever smelled like that to Dan, and nothing had ever smelled as good. Dan knew that this was a moment he would remember for the rest of his life, and he wallowed decadently in it. Each sensation was recorded indelibly in his memory as if carved into marble: the hammering of his pulse in his chest, the cool smell of the sheets, the soft pillow underneath his head, and the almost unbearably exquisite feel of the fur on the insides of Bo’s thighs sliding across the nude skin on either side of his waist as the burly morph straddled him. Sitting atop Dan, most of his weight supported by his folded legs, Bo rubbed his handpaws against Dan’s chest and torso. “Just relax, buddy. Let me be in control for a while.” Long, firm strokes worked out tensions that Dan hadn’t realized were even there, and left him completely relaxed and alert. Bo worked his way from the nape of Dan’s neck downward, systematically squeezing, pulling, rubbing and stroking his way down. He took one of Dan’s arms in his hands, kneading his way from shoulders to wrist. When he got to Dan’s hand, he slowed. Almost reverently, he took Dan’s hand in his handpaws and pressed it between them. The calluses on Bo’s palms were warm and dry, a reminder to Dan of the hard-working life the man had carved out for himself. The flat pressure against his hand was great but even, and Dan watched as Bo’s chest muscles bunched as the varius pressed his palms together. The passing of time was a blur as Dan gave himself over completely to Bo’s touch. It could not have been very long, Dan thought, before Bo placed his frying-pan-sized hands on either side of him and eased his bulk off Dan’s hips. Out of the corner of his eye, Dan saw that the quality of the light that had been shining through the window when they’d begun had dimmed considerably. Although it had seemed like only minutes, they must have been in Bo’s bedroom for at least an hour already. Bo saw the surprised look on Dan’s face, and knew exactly what he was thinking. Reaching down, he lovingly stroked Dan’s cheek with the side of his thick forefinger. “You’re not in any hurry, are you?” Dan smiled up at him and shook his head. “No, babe. I’d be happy as a clam if this took all night long.” His hands worked their way down Bo’s broad back, finally resting on his tail just above his butt. Dan worked his fingernails through the hair and scratched the skin underneath, eliciting a soft moan from the varius. In exchange, he gave the hollow of Dan’s neck another slow, sensual lick. Keeping his partner in place with one meaty hand in the center of his chest, the varius shuffled his way down to Dan’s legs. Holding on to the waistband of Dan’s pants with his teeth, he hooked a claw through the zipper and pulled downwards until the man’s barely contained erection spilled out. With an aggressive yank, Dan’s pants were stripped away, leaving Bo only a single layer of clothing away from touching what he’d fantasized about so often over the past few months. Although Bo could appreciate Dan’s fondness for teasing himself, he personally wanted none of it. He hooked his fingers inside his mate’s underwear, gave a gentle tug downwards, and in one smooth motion, Dan’s cock slapped against his belly in the cool night air. “Whoa,” Bo muttered appreciatively, grabbing Dan’s tool by the base and experimentally pulling the foreskin back. “Not bad.” Then, questioningly, “How do you pinkies get through life with your cocks hanging out all the time and not walk around with perpetual boners?” “I guess we just get used to it,” Dan laughed, “Since yours stays covered most of the time, I’ll bet it’s really sensitive.” “Yeah, whatever you do, don’t scrape it with your fingernails,” he looked Dan directly in the eye, “or your teeth.” “Oh…” Dan’s eyes glazed over for a moment at the thought of giving Bo a blow job, and the varius barked a short laugh at his reaction. The gentle movement of air across his belly, the belly that had until very recently been covered with a large amount of fur at body temperature, brought his own nudity back to the forefront of his consciousness. After seeing Bo’s perfect body, Dan was suddenly overly conscious of his own. Sensing Dan’s unease, Bo temporarily abandoned his prize, travelling north to kiss him first on the mouth, then on the neck, then to run his tongue down the cleft in Dan’s chest all the way to his belly. Nuzzling his face against Dan’s stomach, he made contented noises as he explored his new lover’s body. “Mmm. Babe, you smell good,” Bo buried his sensitive nose in Dan’s pubic hair and breathed in the smell of his lover. He could pick out a dozen distinct smells, all of which he’d smelled before. Some were good, some were not so good, but this particular combination was what Dan smelled like, so this combination was good. And then, as Dan was playing with the morph’s velvety ear leathers, Bo did the unimaginable. In one smooth, decisive stroke, he took Dan deep inside his muzzle, making Dan gasp in surprise and pleasure. In disbelief, Dan looked down to watch as Bo’s fierce mouth, with its large, sharp teeth, engulfed the entire length of his cock in the most gently enthusiastic blow job he’d ever received. The length of Bo’s muzzle meant that he could comfortably deep-throat Dan without gagging himself. Lucky bastard, Dan thought. He didn’t mind sucking on a cock, but he really hated gagging on one. Bo coiled his magnificent tongue around Dan’s shaft and slowly slurped upwards, simultaneously sucking and tonguing as Dan groaned in awe. He’d been on the receiving end of his share of oral sex in his life, but he’d never been really impressed by it. Until now. Everything that even the most creative lover had tried paled in comparison to what Bo was doing to him. Considering that this was the first time Bo had ever gone down on a man, his technique would do nothing but improve with time and, Dan hoped, lots of practice. Dan found himself on the edge of blowing his load down Bo’s throat, but he wasn’t nearly ready for that. “My lips are getting lonely up here, stud,” he joked, pulling Bo back up into another kiss. Supporting his weight on his arms and legs so he wouldn’t crush his lover, Bo ran his furry belly up and down over Dan’s smooth one. Bo enjoyed the feel of Dan’s virtually hairless skin as much as Dan enjoyed Bo’s fur. Every few strokes, Bo would move up high enough that the warm, damp tip of his penis rubbed against Dan’s belly, shocking them both with the intensity of the sensation. Bo’s natural lubricant was pumping out in considerable quantity now, and Dan’s belly was slick with a puddle of his pre. With a groan of sexual frustration, Bo stopped rubbing against Dan and lay down on top of him, kissing him deeply and passionately, stroking his face with his warm, furry handpaws. Suddenly Bo broke the kiss. “I read something in a book, once,” he said, a playful look on his face. Kissing his way back down to Dan’s crotch, he hooked strong fingers under Dan’s knees and forcefully pushed his legs in the air. “What are you…” Dan started, then gasped as Bo’s wide and powerful tongue gave his rear end a substantial lick. Dan’s reaction was encouraging, and Bo gave him another slower, more aggressive tonguing, making his partner writhe and groan in pleasure. In his wildest dreams, Bo never imagined that this would be the sort of thing he would enjoy doing. In fact, he thought as he wormed his tongue around, and even a bit inside, Dan, it was conceptually unappealing. But the fact that it was turning the man he loved into a babbling idiot actually made it sort of fun. The fur on Bo’s face tickled the insides of Dan’s butt cheeks with every move he made, and he was moving around a lot. By the time Bo’s tongue grew tired, Dan was aching for release. Having his butthole tickled and teased that way made him horny as an old goat, and he was ready for action. Bo gave one last deep lick that went all the way from back to ballsack, then wedged his knees between Dan’s thighs and insistently pushed the other man’s legs apart. If Dan had ever wondered who would be the top in their first sexual encounter, he had his answer. Dan opened his legs to his partner, watching intently as the black varius worked himself into a comfortable position. He ran the inside of his legs up and down the outside of Bo’s, relishing the feeling of the taut muscles under lush fur. Dan flexed his legs and pulled Bo closer to him. The morph responded by running his arms underneath Dan and curling his thick fingers over the top of Dan’s shoulders, pulling him close. The wet, tickling sensation of Bo’s sheath was cool between Dan’s butt cheeks as it moved around until it bottomed out very near his hole. With a little adjustment of his hips Dan centered Bo’s sheath on its target, and Bo pressed upwards without ever touching himself. Dan felt strong arms pulling him down at the same time he felt the tip of Bo’s penis pushing inside, and with a mutual groan of pleasure, Bo entered Dan for the very first time. Shoving himself inside Dan was the most incredible thing Bo had ever felt. So tight and hot, yet so slippery and resilient. His head swam, and he fought to keep his animal instinct at bay – fought to keep from driving into Dan with all his strength and breeding him like a mindless animal in rut. This was what he had always hoped he’d feel when he lay with a woman. This was the passion, the heat, the emotion. This was the feeling that made men fight wars and kill each other in the street over the love of a mate. In spite of the passion that rocked the foundation of his world, Bo pulled back. His own lust did not – and would never – override the most important man in his world. The roughness in his voice surprised Bo as much as it enthralled Dan. “Are you good?” he asked. “Oh, yeah…” Dan’s voice trailed off. Had he been asked his own name at that moment, Dan would likely have been unable to give a coherent answer. The flood of sensation was simply overwhelming. The contrast of Bo’s tenderness and his strength, the softness of his fur and the steel of his muscles, the gentle warmth of his embrace and the blistering heat of his lover’s desire all combined in a rush of feeling that left Dan floating in a new and wonderful place. Now that he knew what warmth and comfort existed, how could he ever be happy again without it? Without thinking, he reached his head up and instinctively gnawed on Bo’s chin. Bo dipped his head slightly in accommodation, and growled deep in his chest with undisguised lust. Deeper and deeper Bo drove into him, sliding deliciously against Dan’s prostate and making his semi-hard cock leak a puddle of pre onto his almost hairless belly. Dan felt the warm, slick bump of Bo’s growing knot spreading his butt cheeks and bumping into his hole, and he wanted nothing more than for them to be tied. The feeling of his own erection sandwiched between his stomach and Bo’s fur was ecstasy itself, and Dan had to do something he’d never had to do with any other lover. He forced his mind to think of things to distract himself, giving Bo a chance to catch up before he blew his load. With love, and a passion he’d never felt before, Bo gazed into Dan’s eyes. Their faces were entirely open and honest, sharing trust and love in a way that gave the experience a dignity that Bo had never imagined that sex could have. But then they weren’t just rutting, they were making love. That phrase had previously seemed childishly pompous to Bo, but now it made perfect sense. That was what he was doing with Dan – making love. There was so much that he didn’t understand before Dan came into his life, he realized. Dan showed him how to love, how to trust, how to care, how to live a full life again. And he knew without a doubt that what was about to happen was the right thing to do. Before he satisfied himself, there was one last thing to be taken care of, a matter of confirmation that Bo hadn’t been looking forward to, but could no longer avoid. Still inside his partner but now quite still, he said, “Dan, remember how we talked?” Bo held his lover tightly in his arms, stroking his soft hair. “About how once we tie with someone, they’re our mates for life?” He pulled back enough to look Dan in the face again. “I need to be sure that you’re absolutely certain this is what you want, too. This is it, buddy. Last chance to pull back.” As much as he desired Dan, as much as he physically needed him to be a part of his life, he had to give the man one last chance to refuse, one last opportunity to take another path. The thought that he might not say yes was terrifying. What would I do without him in my life? Bo wondered. He’d faced armed enemy soldiers on the battlefield and 250-kilo rampaging leviathans in bars, but he’d never been as scared as he was at that instant. What would happen to me if Dan says no? Dan thought for a long moment about what he was being asked, and it touched him to his very core that Bo would even consider mating with him in that way. Sapiens marriage was not what it used to be, and partnerships were now a time-based contract instead of a lifetime commitment. It was almost unheard of for a couple to be married for life, at least for the first marriage. What Bo was offering was different than what other sapiens had, and was undeniably what Dan wanted and had spent years waiting for. Dan looked up at Bo with such trust and love that it made Bo’s heart pound in his chest. And he said, “Yes.” Every barrier, every defense that Bo had ever formed to wall himself off from others and protect himself from hurt crumbled pitifully before this sapiens male. The power Dan had over him was frightening, and the man didn’t even realize he held it. So badly he wanted this man to be his mate, but only if it was something they both wanted. He could refuse this man nothing, even if his answer had been “no.” But the answer had not been “no,” it was “yes;” gloriously and wonderfully “YES!” Bo growled in response, and had to exercise every shred of self-control that was still within him to keep from ramming into Dan with all the aggressive sexuality that his genetics demanded. He hung on to rationality, and, panting, pulled back from the edge. What was about to happen was too important, too life-changing to be done haphazardly. Bo leaned down into Dan’s embrace, inhaling the intense smells of this remarkable sapiens man. Then he pulled back slightly and, with a look of intense concentration on his face, he forced himself to withdraw from his partner and pull back inside his sheath. Oh, it was difficult to pull out of him! Dan looked surprised but did not object, and Bo kissed him soundly. When Bo felt the swelling at the base of his penis subside, he pushed forward until his furry sheath was once again pressed against Dan’s hole. Then the tip of his swollen cock pushed out slightly, bridging the gap between them as it burrowed its way into Dan’s warm flesh. It was everything Bo could do to keep from blowing his load right there, but he reined in his passions and concentrated on pushing himself into his lover. With a deep, guttural moan, he buried himself inside Dan in one slow, irresistibly strong push. Dan threw his head back and groaned in ecstasy as all of Bo’s meat slid inside him, rubbing itself against Dan’s prostate as it squeezed past. This time Bo’s knot was smaller, and Dan forced himself to relax in Bo’s arms and let his partner do the heavy lifting. He could feel the muscles in Bo’s arms bunching as he pushed his knot inside Dan’s body with short powerful thrusts, his hips moving from side to side as he wedged the swollen gland inside. Each time the knot hit Dan it seemed to go in a little further, until with one last, solid push, Bo went rigid and held steady pressure against Dan’s opening. Bo might be the one in control, but this was definitely going to have to be a team effort. Dan forced himself to relax, and at the moment Bo went still, he felt his ring conform around the knot as it slid inside, joining them together. As the knot swelled it pulled itself deeper inside his belly, and Dan felt fuller than he’d ever been. For the first time in his life, he could actually feel his lover moving around inside him. Bo’s insistent thrusting turned to constant pressure as he pushed himself as far inside Dan as he could go. The deeper his knot went into his mate, the more pleasurable it would be for both of them when he came. Bo had grabbed onto the base of his knot a thousand times before in a false tie, intensifying his orgasm when he masturbated, but it had never felt like this! Now that he was completely inside Dan, all the sensitive nerves in his penis and his knot were being stimulated at the same time, and the feeling was overpowering. Bo felt ancient and powerful drives welling up inside him, guiding his actions. The varius’ warm, velvety balls pressed up against Dan’s bottom as he squirmed and pushed, instinctively trying to get himself even one millimeter deeper inside his partner. The extra length of the knot and the shaft behind it added a good seven centimeters to his already substantial cock, and feeling it all stuffed inside him caused Dan an astounding amount of pleasure. Dan felt hot breath against his neck and he opened his eyes halfway, to see Bo baring his sharp white teeth. In a ritual as old as time, Bo leaned down and put his jaws around Dan’s neck, softly squeezing his vulnerable throat. Dan felt adrenaline rush into his bloodstream as instinctive fear shot through him, then as quickly as it had come, the fear was gone and he felt himself submitting to the man he’d chosen as mate. Not the helpless submission of a victim, but a willing and conscious transfer of authority, the sort of submission that can only come through trust and love. At that moment, Dan knew that a part of him now belonged to Bo Taylor. Bo continued thrusting with short, insistent pushes, twisting gently back and forth in a way that caused him to push against Dan’s prostate again and again. When he pulled his jaws away from Dan’s neck there were light bruises in each indentation his teeth had made. When Bo next looked into Dan’s face, his eyes had a needful, almost predatory look in them warning Dan that his orgasm was approaching. “Look into my eyes, Dan,” he said, his voice thick and raspy with passion. “Whatever you do, don’t look away.” Dan fell into the comforting warmth of Bo’s eyes as easily as a fish slips back into the waters where it was spawned. Willingly, he released the conscious world and paid attention to nothing but the feelings coursing through him. The soft fur rubbing between his thighs and against his junk, the warmth and pressure of his lover deep inside him, the impressions of security and warmth, and of Bo’s amazingly strong arms wrapped around him. Dan swam comfortably in the rich, warm waters of Bo’s eyes, embracing the intimacy that was growing between them. Whenever he looked into Bo’s eyes he felt that way, as if he was only a silk-thin layer of personality away from being able to share his thoughts. The almost imperceptible tightening at the corners of the varius’ eyes told him that his lover’s orgasm was imminent, and in response Dan tightened himself around Bo’s knot as much as possible, and ground himself into Bo’s crotch, giving his lover as much pleasure as he could. Bo put his right arm up to Dan’s face, and at the same time as he pulled Dan’s wrist to his own nose, he put his palm on Dan’s forehead, the pulse point of his wrist pressing against Dan’s nose and mouth. Again, Dan was bathed in that rapturous scent, the scent of his morph, his man, his partner, his mate, his… oh, my… Dan’s life changed. As abruptly as if the hand of God had thrown a switch, it was all different. He could see himself like he was looking in a mirror, only his hair was parted on the wrong side, and he was definitely more handsome than he’d ever looked before. He realized with a shock that he was seeing himself as Bo saw him! confusion The link intensified, and suddenly his cock was deep inside the tightest, most passionate lover he’d ever had, shoved up to the hilt, deeper than anyone had ever taken him before, and Dan knew without a doubt what pleasure he was giving his mate. Somehow he knew that Bo was inside his mind as well, and they were sharing the sensation with each other in a way that neither of them had ever dreamed possible. In that instant, Dan also realized something he’d never imagined. When he had submitted to Bo moments earlier, when the morph’s teeth were at his throat, so too had Bo submitted to him. While it was true that he now belonged in part to Bo, it was also true that he owned a similar interest in the soul of Bo Taylor. For both men, the world had just expanded exponentially. Dan moaned. The intensity of their joining had made mere orgasm seem trivial by comparison, but the satisfaction demanded by flesh could only be ignored for so long. And this one, Dan thought, was going to put every sexual experience he’d ever had to shame. As he felt his balls draw up to his own body, he also felt what it was like for Bo to shove his too-small but just-perfect cock into him. Every shared erotic sensation compounded the effect. Dan tightened his abused hole as much as he was able around the somewhat slimmer shaft behind Bo’s swollen knot, pulled gently against it, and pushed his mate over the edge. With a massive push and a foundation-shattering roar, Bo claimed Dan as his mate. Dan could feel the varius blasting his load inside him from both perspectives, and he yelled his own primal scream as orgasm took control of his body. Without ever touching himself, Dan blew seemingly endless streams onto his belly. Bo felt Dan’s orgasm as if he’d had it himself, and each man’s knowledge that he’d satisfied his partner made both of their experiences more intense than they ever thought possible. It was a cycle that fed on itself, threatening to swallow both of them before its power overwhelmed Dan and he blacked out. A few moments later the fog parted, and Dan looked up into the relieved eyes of his partner. Bo smiled gently, then leaned forward to rest his huge head on Dan’s chest. Dan could feel the pulsing of Bo’s knot as the man continued shuddering, pumping his semen inside him. Dan felt a tenuous brushing against their newly-formed mental link like wind against a bowstring, and he knew that Bo was exploring their newfound intimacy. “Are you all right?” concern ?are you alright? worry “Oh…” stunned confused content !oh my god! !i can feel it pulsing inside of me! !that is so fucking hot! bliss relaxed Bo had felt something of a mental linking with his mother when he was young, but that faded quickly after his third year or so. A much more powerful bond now existed with Dan, and almost everything Dan felt, Bo did as well. Eventually they would learn to put up mental barriers protecting their private thoughts, but for a short time it would be extremely confusing, not knowing if what was running through their heads was one’s feelings or the other’s. For now, virtually nothing was hidden. So soon after the bonding, they were unimaginably intimate. A part of Bo did not want to know, but a larger part compelled him to dispel his ignorance. What sort of animal did Dan see when he looked at him? How much fantasizing did he have to do to achieve his orgasm? Bo was afraid to find out how ugly he really was to Dan, but deep down he was driven to know. He pushed his way deeper into the link, and dared to truly see himself. hesitant curious Seeing his own face through Dan’s eyes was like looking in a fun house mirror. The details were all there, but they seemed to be arranged differently, in a way that worked far better than they did in reality. None of the flaws that Bo saw in himself were visible to Dan. He could not see the slightly jagged tooth, the too-flat nose on the wide, fat face, the curl of hair on his jaw that never would lay quite right. All of those flaws were missing. ?confusion? In their place, Bo saw a noble-looking face, one full of strength and grace. A face with eyes that were dignified and solemn, yet laughed easily. Lips that kissed tenderly, a nose that snuffled under Dan’s armpit when they were kidding around… At that point Bo knew without a shadow of doubt that the fire he sensed deep in Dan’s heart had little to do with sexual heat. Dan truly loved him. broken Dan felt Bo’s incredulity through the link, and saw tears forming in his mate’s eyes. bliss “Is that really how you see me?” Bo asked in wonderment, “You really think I look like that?” disbelief ?true? need “Buddy,” Dan replied, a wide grin splitting his face, “I think you’re hotter than thruster exhaust.” truth ?you really don’t get it? passion love For the first time in his life, Bo felt handsome. Bo snuggled up to Dan and allowed contentment to wash over him. Their difference in height made the position perfect, Dan’s head positioned so that his nose nestled into the hollow of Bo’s throat. Occasionally Dan would tighten his grip on the thick piece of Bo that was still lodged deep inside him, sending waves of pleasure through both of them. When Bo’s knot finally shrank enough to withdraw from his body Dan felt oddly empty, like it belonged there. “Please,” Dan asked, “Stay inside me.” desire please don’t leave so soon need amused Bo pushed back slightly and rubbed Dan’s chest with his paw, admiring how his friend was putting muscle back where it belonged. nice “Babe,” he said out loud, “I don’t think you realize how much of my goo you’ve got inside you right now.” truth “When we’re both asleep and I slip out of you, well…” aversion “I’ve only got one set of sheets, and I don’t think you want to wake up covered in that mess.” nasty disappointment resignation Dan nodded his head in agreement, and slowly pulled himself off of Bo’s meat. hot !oh god it feels even longer coming out than it did going in! amazement When Dan at last felt the tip of Bo’s warm, chubby cock tickling his backside, he still felt full. Too full. !whoops! “Whoa, man, you’re right,” he said, hurriedly. “I’ll be right back.” He climbed off the bed, carefully not jolting his body hard enough to upset the delicate containment he’d achieved. Without Bo’s thickness plugging his hole, Dan felt fortunate to not be leaking like a sieve right now. careful embarrassment Dan might have been on the other side of a door, but his thoughts were still in the room with Bo. don’t be embarrassed buddy it’s just biology ha ha mirth this is embarrassing but it’s still so freakin’ funny childish !my god there’s a lot of it! exciting “You’re right,” Dan said, coming back into the bedroom a few minutes later, “That would have left one hell of a wet spot.” He snuggled up to Bo, and felt his wet hardness pressing against his belly. desire “Can you put it back in me, now?” need please desire hot Bo was more than happy to comply for this man who’d given him everything, resuming their position and sliding the first part of himself back inside his partner until he fell asleep. As night fell and his new mate softly snored against his chest, he wrapped his Dan up in his arms with no intention of ever letting him go. Chapter 26 Dan awoke to the smells of coffee and bacon, feeling lazy as a cat and unusually well rested. As he stretched his muscles back to life, the memory of the previous night’s lovemaking put a grin on his face that war would have been hard pressed to obliterate. Somehow, against all odds, he had landed the hottest man on the planet! He pulled on his shorts and was on his way out of the bedroom just as Bo was coming back in. The mental image that shot out of him upon seeing Dan was unmistakable. !mine! The varius looked utterly edible in his cargo shorts and a welcoming smile. He looked absolutely amazing, nothing covering his arms and chest but shiny, black and tan fur. And those cargo shorts were being held up by only a string, desire a string that, if he were to give it the slightest of tugs… affection “I thought you were supposed to be an early riser,” Bo teased, locking Dan in a warm, furry hug before his partner could act on the impulse to give that inviting string a good yank. smooth furless warm affection “Usually I am, but something kept me up half the night,” Dan replied, giving Bo a playful squeeze. hunger “Mmmm. Do I smell breakfast cooking?” he asked, rhetorically. “Let’s see,” Dan sniffed the air, “I smell coffee and bacon, and where there’s bacon there’s sure to be eggs somewhere. And judging by this,” Dan picked a small lump of batter out of Bo’s chest fur, and after verifying that it was free of hair, popped it into his mouth. “I’d say we’ve got pancakes, too.” mirth pleased Bo laughed. “Actually, they’re waffles, and they probably taste a lot better cooked than they do on my fur.” trepidation “I can’t wait to try them,” Dan said, out of polite habit. Bo’s ear twitched when he heard that, and Dan realized with a start that this was what happened whenever Bo felt like he wasn’t being told the truth. He felt utterly dense for never having picked up on that. He’d seen Bo’s ear twitching a dozen times, but had always attributed it to ear mites or dry skin. confidence Bo chuckled even as his ear settled down, and leaned over to nuzzle Dan on the cheek. “Yeah, I know you’re not being completely honest with me, but thank you.” He butted Dan’s face gently with the side of his, much the way an affectionate cat might. “Don’t let my cooking scare you, Pinks. I think I might surprise you.” “You haven’t failed to surprise me yet,” Dan agreed, “but I stink. Do I have time for a quick shower before we eat?” “Yes, you do,” stink “and yes, you do,” have time ha ha humor Bo answered, heading back into the kitchen. Over one large and impressively muscled shoulder, he called, “Towels are in the cabinet. Just holler if you need anything.” ?lick you dry? Dan laughed, more at how much pleasure the silly little joke had given Bo than at the joke itself. “I think I’ll do it the old-fashioned way.” He walked into the bathroom on pleasantly wobbly legs and closed the door behind him, momentarily relishing the impression of privacy, even if it weren’t real. Looking around him, Dan saw the bathroom as if for the first time. He’d been in there before, but it felt very different now. Before, he had been a guest. Now, perhaps due to their shared link, he felt that this space sort of belonged to him, too. He tightened the clamps on his thoughts, not wanting to give Bo the impression that he felt entitled to anything, or that his curiosity might turn to snooping. pleased what’s mine is yours Shit! It was harder than Dan had imagined to keep his idle thoughts from leaking out. He wasn’t used to this, and the thought was out before he could restrain it. Thankfully, Bo didn’t respond, giving Dan a chance to settle down a bit. Dan turned the water control in the shower, and was relieved to find that, except for the fact that the head was on an extension raising it up another half-meter or so, it looked perfectly normal. Curious, he bent down and examined the drain trap. He smiled. Yup, there was hair in it. Why was he not surprised? Good thing I’m not a neat freak, Dan thought to himself, or all this hair would probably drive me crazy. mirth better learn to deal with it pinks cause i ain’t shaving happy Dan shook his head in frustration. It seemed that there was to be no more ‘thinking to himself.’ He loved the idea that Bo was just a thought away, and that he was now more intimate with his mate than he could ever be with anyone else in the world. There could be no secrets between them, it seemed, no hidden agendas or deception. But on the other hand, it was as if he’d been walking around his house buck-naked, and suddenly all of the blinds were thrown open so that a giant unblinking eyeball could peer into his life and watch his every move. As if that weren’t bad enough, his worst habits and vices weren’t going to be seen by just any giant unblinking eyeball, they were going to be scrutinized by the one giant unblinking eyeball that he most wanted to impress. He trusted Bo with his life, but he wasn’t sure he trusted him to see his secrets, some of which seemed pretty black. Dan felt foolish for his misunderstanding of what Bo had told him about the bond. But, thinking back, had Bo really said anything? They’d talked about commitment and how each of them would know what the other was thinking, and Dan had imagined being an established couple who knew each other so well that they could finish each other’s sentences. He’d thought the varius was being metaphorical, not describing the literal blending of their thoughts. Bo had always been brutally literal with him, and he should never have written off such atypical hyperbole as linguistic indulgence. He’d spent the past six months of his life doing everything he could to impress Bo, and now the real Dan was going to have to come out. Last night he’d been too preoccupied to think about any of this, but now that the rubber was in firm contact with the road, so to speak, Dan felt like a dog turd that had been frosted up to look like delicious birthday cake; and the man he loved was only a few licks shy of breaking through the frosting and discovering the fatally-flawed man hiding underneath. Dan was a very private man to begin with, and knowing that someone, even Bo, was tromping through his thoughts was disquieting. He’d always tried to treat those around him with respect, but internally, the smart-assed part of his personality asserted itself fairly aggressively. Self-editing had become an essential tool for Dan. His inner dialog was often quite different than what he allowed to pass his lips. If he thought something uncomplimentary about Bo, would his partner realize that it was just a private joke, or would he be offended? It was now painfully clear why varius tended to be brutally honest with people they were closest to. Dan didn’t know if there were other instances where mental bonding like this might occur— childbirth and !oh shit! sorry withdrawl Fuck Now Bo knew that he had things to hide. The more Dan tried not to leak, the more he failed, and he was quickly working himself into a panic. It was like someone telling you to not think about elephants. As soon as the words escaped their lips, pachyderms started waltzing through your thoughts. How the hell could he possibly get through this without Bo realizing that the Dan on the inside wasn’t the nice guy he was on the outside? He was royally fucked. concern A polite knock on the door interrupted his agitation. “Babe? Can I come in?” anxiety please don’t be mad at me The door cracked open and Bo’s face peered around the corner. Although he was wearing his usual stoic expression, Dan didn’t need their mental link to know that underneath, the varius was as wracked with worry as he was. Dan couldn’t think of anything to say. He just stood there in the middle of the small, unfamiliar bathroom that was now half his, feeling unexpectedly incompetent. Bo came in and quietly pulled one of the large towels from the bathroom’s linen closet. Carefully wrapping it around Dan’s naked body, he established a makeshift physical barrier to take the place of the mental ones that had been so abruptly stripped away. He put down the toilet’s lid, sat down, and guided Dan into his lap. concern “It’s okay, buddy.” love “A lot of people have feelings like this at first, babe. It’s really common.” worry confusion Dan curled up in Bo’s lap, feeling scared. Part of him wanted to go back to the way things were, but he knew that wasn’t possible. If there was one thing Bo had impressed upon him, it was that their bonding was a one-way street. Bo gently turned Dan to face him so he could look into his mate’s eyes. regret “I’m sorry, Dan. This is my fault, not yours.” He reached up and tenderly stroked the side of his mate’s face fear “I should have sat you down and told you about this a long time ago, so you’d know what to expect,” guilt “but I was so afraid you’d freak out that I just fooled myself into thinking you’d know how to handle this,” sadness “but you didn’t have any way of knowing, did you?” dissatisfaction “I’m not mad at you, Boo.” Dan shook his head and did his best to corral what he was feeling inside his own head. insecurity fear “What if…you don’t like who I really am inside?” fraud love “What if I do?” Bo soothed, stroking Dan’s hair. “What if I love you even more? You’ve got to trust me.” hope “You can’t spend the rest of your life running away from who you really are.” He gave Dan a small grin of encouragement, “That wouldn’t work anyway, because no matter where you go, I’m always going to find you, and I’m always going to love you.” Dan nodded his head, but Bo could feel that he was still desperately trying to keep parts of his mind walled off. He was going to explode if he kept trying to do that. “Babe?” Bo asked, trying to break the ice, “I’m going to share something embarrassing with you.” He looked into Dan’s face and concentrated, opening the distant memory like an old box found in a dusty attic. i fucked a cow when I was twelve and it was one of the hottest things i’ve ever done !erotic! Dan looked surprised. !desire! The shared memory of a young but still massively-built Bo, plowing away on one of the farm’s milk cows in the middle of the night while his grandparents slept not a hundred meters away, feeling his super-sensitive but inexperienced length of meat sliding in and out of the hot wetness, was enough to make him throb beneath the towel. “See?” Bo said, relieved “That wasn’t so bad, right?” hopeful He caught a transient image flitting back and forth of one of Dan’s own youthful escapades, and imagined that Dan had something similarly embarrassing to share. “What was yours?” encouragement buster Dan sounded resigned. “I let the family dog mount me.” shame untruth i wanted the family dog to mount me Through the tsunami of guilt and shame, Bo also felt not-so-subtle waves of Dan’s pubescent desire. “Wow, that’s pretty heavy. So…did you like it?” he asked, smiling at Dan encouragingly. Dan blushed hard and nodded his head. It hadn’t been anything he’d planned, it had just happened. The dog had started licking him, and then one thing had led to another, and before he knew it, they were fooling around. “Yeah, but I—” He cut himself off. Now that Bo could see into his thoughts, excuses were pointless. Bo understood exactly how horny Dan had been, and how hot it was to feel Buster’s fat, spurting cock getting off inside his young hole, feeling dirty and perverted, yet completely alive as the dog eagerly pounded his rump. It wasn’t anything he’d done before and he’d never done it since, but to this day, Dan remembered exactly how it had felt. “Yeah,” he admitted, a shy smile creeping over his face, “I did.” Instead of disgust, Dan felt waves of pride and encouragement coming from his mate, not because he’d fooled around with an unevolved canine, but because he’d trusted Bo enough to bring him in on the experience. “See?” Bo said, “We can trust each other.” truth hope Theatrically, he looked up towards the heavens. “Thanks for breaking him in for me, Buster!” happy Ruffling Dan’s hair, Bo knelt down in front of Dan and gave one last piece of advice. “They say it’s easier if you concentrate on building our bond instead of building walls. Reach out to me as much as you can, and let’s see where we can go with this, okay?” encouraging honored Seeing the smile breaking across Bo’s normally reserved face lifted Dan’s spirits. That he could do that for Bo when so few other people could made him feel like the most amazing man in the world. “I love you.” unworthy “I love you too, Pinks.” Bo ruffled Dan’s hair and put him back on his feet. “Now get cleaned up.” eager “If you’re not out in ten minutes, I’m throwing it out!” love disbelief “You? Throw out food?” Dan scoffed. “I’ll believe it when I see it. Eat it all yourself, maybe, but throw it out?” He shook his head. “Never.” Feeling a lot better, Dan got into the shower stall and wet down his body, then looked around for a bar of soap. Nothing. Well, that was probably to be expected. He spied a rack of pump bottles hanging from the shower wall, and he dispensed a small amount of each into his palm. The first one was a white goo that smelled like Bo after a shower and didn’t foam up, and it seemed logical that this one was conditioner. The middle one smelled exotic and burst into bubbles, so Dan assumed it to be soap. The third one was thin, green and smelled medicinal, and he had no idea what that one was used for. annoyed fur bugs aversion Dan instinctively clamped down on his thoughts before remembering Bo’s advice and reaching out to him with a single thought, of a line of monkeys picking the lice off one another. From the feelings he received in return, he got the idea that Bo found the image as humorous as he did. Washcloth? No such luck. Dan guessed that a varius would have about as much use for a washcloth as a duck would have for socks. haha He lathered himself up with the soap, then conditioned his hair with the white goo, enjoying the thought that he would smell like the man he loved so much. affection Turning off the water, he yelped in surprised when strong jets of warm air suddenly whipped around his body, blowing most of the water off his skin, and making his junk flap around uncomfortably. He jumped out of the shower and the air jets quickly shut off, their noise not quite covering the sounds of Bo’s laughter coming from the other room. startled !that was different! And even more different was the fact that he was hearing Bo’s laughter inside his head, as well. It was, Dan thought, quite like music, and any irritation he might have felt quietly floated away without comment. giggle sorry babe on automatic i forgot to warn you mirth Dan picked up the towel that Bo had wrapped around him and used it to dry the rest of the water from his hair and body. “You’re just…” he said aloud, then thought better of it. Bo had asked him to play with the link, so he concentrated. ?you’re a regular laugh riot aren’t you? yup i’m a funny funny man smirk Dan thought he might be able to do one better. Going for pure imagery this time, he concentrated, and drew a careful mental picture of Bo suspended from the ceiling, held aloft by only a thin rope wrapped around his testicles. !alarm! hesitation intrigue might be sort of fun “Pervert!” Dan yelled, but he was still laughing when he emerged from the bathroom, damp but happy, and feeling much more at ease about their situation. He walked back into the kitchen, where Bo had almost buried the counter under piles of food. Dan looked at him in wonder. “Is that all for us, or were you planning on having a rugby team over for breakfast?” hopeful “You’re a big boy,” the varius observed, “I thought I should cook accordingly.” He handed Dan a plate, and looked at him expectantly. hunger All of a sudden, the smell of the food and his empty belly joined forces, and Dan felt ravenous. Over the years he had experienced many cooks who could make food that looked good but tasted otherwise, and he didn’t expect to be blown away. doubt Although his mother might be a staunchly conservative stick in the mud, she was an amazing cook, and Dan was admittedly spoiled by her talents. After seeing Bo’s lack of skill at something as simple as heating snack food, Dan wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d tried to cook eggs in a blender. Still, he gamely stabbed a waffle, smothered it under a bunch of chopped fruit, and rounded out his plate with a half-dozen sausage patties. Dan cut a square out of his waffle, and gingerly lifted the bite to his mouth. He chewed once then stopped, sitting absolutely still. surprised oh my amazed “This is good.” Dan was amazed. “This is really, really good!” Dan closed his eyes and resumed chewing, obviously satisfied by the crispy, tender waffle. Coffee mug in hand, Bo wore a contented smirk as he watched his mate devouring his handiwork. happy “I told you you might be surprised.” curiosity “Why would you think I’m incompetent in the kitchen?” There were definite advantages to having a mental link. Dan didn’t even have to stop chewing to send Bo his remembered image of the varius dumping the whole bag of cheese puffs onto the cooker pan and stuffing it into the heater. “You’re getting pretty good at that,” Bo commented. defensive i was drunk Dan remembered the half-empty bottle of liquor that he’d found concealed under the ice in the cooler, and watched as Bo nodded somberly. At the time he’d been worried that his friend might be cultivating a drinking problem and he’d been meaning to talk to Bo about it, but in the hustle and bustle of their lives, the subject hadn’t come up since. Now that he understood what had happened, he burned with guilt. It had been Blaine. regret Trying to push them back together had almost killed Bo, but he hadn’t wanted Dan see that. Not able to confide his worries in anyone he knew, Bo had instead found the anaesthetic he sought at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. pain regret i’m so sorry my love Through their link, Dan experienced Bo’s fear of him leaving, the shame of wanting Blaine and him to stay apart, and underlying it all, his ultimate goal that Dan enjoy the best life he could possibly have, even if that life didn’t have room in it for a big, homely battle-varius. loyalty embarrassed Bo gave Dan a little shrug. “You do stupid things when you’re in love, right?” satisfied affection “That wasn’t stupid at all. It was damned sweet.” And in return for Bo’s remembrances, Dan offered up his recollection of their first lunch, how he had been so intimidated by the varius, how uncertain he was of his own abilities to hold up his end of a conversation, and how awestruck he was that Bo would deign to talk to a nobody like him. And in his mind, Dan felt Bo’s heart melt all over again. Once their frenzy of eating had slowed, Dan took some of the larger plates to the kitchen and refreshed their coffees, his in a normal sapiens-style cup, and Bo’s in an odd, wide-lipped mug that had a built-in slurping platform. curious “What is it, Pinks,” Bo asked, good-naturedly. “Spill it.” Dan’s forehead wrinkled. “I’m not sure how exactly to ask this, so let’s try this…” He shot Bo an image of what he’d done the previous night, balancing on the edge of Bo’s oversized commode, his toes barely able to scrape the ground. Then he concentrated on an image he’d created of Bo sitting on the sapiens toilet in his house, similarly mis-sized but in the other direction, knees up around his ears. “How are we going to do this?” It felt rather odd to be discussing living arrangements the morning after their first sex act, and Dan had to remind himself that they’d been courting each other for months. Maybe Bo was happy where he was. Maybe he didn’t want to move in with Dan just yet. “Are you kidding me?” Bo asked, yanking Dan’s chain mercilessly. “Give all of this up? You must be crazy.” He smiled and poked Dan in the ribs. “Of course I want to move in with you, Pinks. Half the reason I married you was for the bitchin’ house.” He got tickled for it, but the comment made Dan smile so it was worth it. “I’ve seen adapters before,” Bo said, going back to their original subject. “They just bolt on in place of the regular seat. But with the way your commode is situated between those two walls, maybe we should just replace the one in the guest bathroom with a full varius toilet. I could just use that one.” Dan nodded. “If you don’t mind going down the hall to pee, that’s probably the most economical solution.” Then he had another question. curious “Not that you have to worry about it, but how does a varius with a tail manage to use a toilet?” Dan asked, puzzlement in his eyes. “Very carefully,” Bo said somberly, nodding his head as if imparting sage wisdom. When Dan bounced a raisin off his forehead, the varius chuckled and continued. “The ones who have a tail sometimes have to sort of squat over the bowl.” The mental image Dan caught was one of Bo accidentally walking in on a feline in the bathroom stall at a sports stadium. !oops! “Anatomical differences dictate how you attack the problem. Felines can use most regular toilets better than most men, because everything’s already pointing backwards on them.” surprised “Backwards?” Dan asked, incredulous. “Wow, that opens up a whole new avenue of questions, doesn’t it?” Bo served up a mischievous little smirk, and put Ken’s face on the man caught squatting on the toilet. “Stop it!” Dan said, trying hard not to laugh, especially when Bo made the man in his memory wrinkle his nose and stick out his tongue at the unwelcome interruption. “It’s like seeing my grandmother naked!” “Yeah, but you’re not attracted to your grandmother,” Bo said, enjoying Dan’s discomfort. “You think Ken’s hot.” “Yes, I do!” Now that Dan couldn’t get away with any prevarication at all, he might as well learn how to swim the seas of absolute truth. With a sense of surprise, he realized, “But you think Ken’s pretty hot, too, don’t you.” “For a guy, yeah,” Bo admitted. “He’s okay.” never like you Dan raised an eyebrow at Bo’s comment, but said nothing. He could tell that on one level Bo’s words sounded authentic and honest to himself. But deep down, where even Bo might be unaware, he really did find Ken attractive. “I kinda like that he’s got that long, swishy tail action, going on,” Bo offered. intrigue Dan thought about their date, and how Ken had wrapped that warm, strong tail around him and pulled him close. exciting “How do you feel about him, anyway?” Bo suddenly asked. threatened Dan didn’t bother speaking. He knew Bo felt insecure about his relationship with the lion, and instead of trying to answer him in words, he opened up his mind and thought extensively about what they’d done on their date, anticipation and how Dan had felt about Kensuke. respect affection There was nothing between Ken and Dan other than mutual admiration and a deep, abiding respect. He liked Ken, and thought that he might even be on his way to loving him. But both men knew that there would never be anything more than that between them, as long as Bo Taylor was alive. Dan’s affection for Kensuke would always be there, in much the same way that he would always have a place in his heart for Blaine. But physically, mentally, and spiritually, he had forever bonded with Bo, even before last night. “Speaking of tails,” Dan steered the subject towards less emotional matters, “tell me about yours. Were you born with it that short, or was it a surgical thing?” Bo stirred another teaspoon of sugar into his coffee. For a split-second Bo felt self-conscious about his unattractively stubby tail, but he loosened up when he realized that Dan actually liked it that way. “It’s natural. I’ve got a good number of genetic additions in my mix,” he explained. “The gene for the tail is on the same DNA string as the ursine components for durability and bone structure, so I was born with a tail that’s more like a bear’s than a dog’s. I got lucky,” he added, “it’s about the same length as a docked tail. There are guys out there who ended up having a tail that’s really thin, or mid-length. That’s sort of embarrassing, like you came out half-baked, or something. “The retractable claws are feline, and the ears are obviously canine.” Bo perked up his ears, swiveling them first in one direction, then the other, making Dan emit an amused chuckle that matured into a full-blown laugh attack when Bo made them swivel in opposite directions. “For the most part, I’m just like I came from the factory. I’ve got a few surgical additions, but they’re minor.” At Dan’s inquisitive glance, he elaborated. “When I was in the military, they asked if they could make a small addition.” He reached up and twisted his ears in a peculiar manner, and they stood straight up on top of his head, much like the docked ears of a schnauzer or a doberman. He folded them back, and they looked like normal again. “I couldn’t see any harm in it, so I agreed. It helps me locate sounds when I need to.” Dan reached out in curiosity, and Bo patiently leaned over to allow the inspection. Bo’s ear leathers were soft as velvet, and even knowing that something was different with them, Dan couldn’t feel anything odd. Bo explained, “It’s a trick with the cartilage at the base of the ear. When I twist it one way, it sticks out. Otherwise, it tucks in at the base of the skull and I never know it’s there. “The only other thing they did was to put an asset management tag in the back of my jaw so I can be found if they need to. It’s powered by my movements, and it’s small enough that it doesn’t even show up on med-scans unless you know what you’re looking for. Everyone gets one,” he explained. “They spend about three million credits training each varius soldier, and I’m sure they don’t want to lose any one of us behind enemy lines. aversion “So they always know where you are?” Dan asked, not liking the sound of such an invasion of privacy. calm “I wondered about that myself, so I checked it out. It doesn’t have a receiver built into it, so it can’t be under outside control,” Bo explained, feeling Dan’s distrust of government intrusion. “It’s a smart enough piece of technology to turn itself on if I’m incapacitated. Otherwise it just sits there, waiting.” “If you were in a car crash, would it call for help?” Bo thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “If I were hurt badly enough it might call out, but I don’t think anyone’s listening. If we were at war things might be different, but as far as I know, nobody’s monitoring those frequencies right now. So it’s still up to you to keep me safe.” Much to Dan’s surprise, he realized that Bo was only partially kidding about that. In spite of his considerable size and strength, the war-varius considered Dan to be one of the few people who could keep him safe if the going got rough. honored Bo grinned at Dan for about a hundred different reasons and sipped his coffee, happy to have found someone to be able to talk to like this, unashamed of his differences and, at long, long last, completely proud to be who he was. After they had cleaned up the breakfast mess, Bo kissed Dan on the forehead and pulled him into his arms. Dan didn’t want to leave Bo’s company, but he had things to do back at the house that didn’t require Bo to be around. In spite of his profound love for his new mate, he didn’t want someone, anyone, around him all day long. And he was certain that Bo felt the same way. Both men were fiercely independent, and part of their love for one another was the instinctive knowledge that their relationship was not an anchor that tied them down, but a homing beacon that drew them together. Each man could go his own separate way during the day, knowing with full confidence that the other would be waiting for him when he returned at night. Besides – Dan had some calls to make. Calls that would be best made without Bo overhearing him telling his friends what a wonderful catch he’d made. “You gonna be okay without me for a few hours?” Dan asked, jokingly. affection “I think I’ll manage to survive,” Bo answered, pulling Dan close to him for one last kiss, “but it’s going to be tough.” “So what do we do now, anyway,” Dan asked, rocking back and forth in Bo’s arms. “Do we exchange diamond studded collars, or what?” “Don’t be demeaning, “ Bo’s tone suggested that his dignity had suffered grave injury, but on the inside he was laughing. In the image he sent back it was Dan who was at the end of the leash, a rhinestone collar ringing his pretty little neck as he pranced and frolicked around the feet of his disinterested master. He got a friendly punch to his ribs in thanks for his creativity. “That’s for rocks stars and celebrities,” he chuckled, rubbing his side. “I can’t wear a ring when I’m working, but I can wear a necklace. What would you think about that?” “Hmm…” Dan considered, as he pictured Bo wearing the traditional heavy chrome choke-chain sported by aggressive breeds for hundreds of years. Bo smirked, added a metal tag with the name “Buster” engraved on it, and shot the image back, making Dan nearly choke on the sausage he was snacking on. The look Bo was giving him was absolutely filthy, and Dan liked it. Regretfully, Bo noted the time. “I’d better get cleaned up,” he said, gently pushing clear of Dan. “I got pretty spooged up last night,” hot “and I know you don’t particularly like the way I smell, anyway.” regret confusion “What makes you say that?” ?curious? The way he said it made Bo’s ear twitch, but he couldn’t feel deception through the link. There was definitely something unsaid, though… ?curious? “You never want to get close to me. It’s like you’re always holding your nose whenever I get too near.” The sparkle in Dan’s eyes was wonderful for Bo to see, but Bo could tell that the man was carefully clamping down on his thoughts. He had something in mind. “Come back here.” anticipation Bo closed the distance between them, and was surprised when Dan took his hand, and, eyes closed, pulled the varius’ wrist to his nose. Dan opened his mind fully to the experience, and concentrated on showing his mate exactly what he was feeling as he inhaled decadently. love warm sex furry comfort swoon !!!!! “Oh God,” Bo said, moving his free hand to Dan’s shoulder for support. “Is that really what I smell like to you?” disbelief “Like the hottest man on the planet?” Dan asked, nuzzling Bo’s wrist with his nose, his eyes still closed. “Yup.” He couldn’t resist giving the thick wrist a light nibble, as long as he was there. The man was so freakin’ edible and he was so close, and Dan’s heart was suddenly pounding in his chest. “I think it’s maybe a pheromone thing.” “Oh, God,” Bo repeated, feeling his member pushing out of his sheath, “I had no idea. How did you keep from…well, you know…” embarrassment “…molesting me?” “That’s why I had to keep you from getting too close,” Dan said. “Up until a month ago, as far as I knew, you were straight. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship by bending you over your machine and fucking you stupid in front of everyone else in the plant.” The image of an extraordinarily lewd sex act shot out of his mind, and this time he made no effort to stop it. Let Bo see what he’d been living with for the past six months! “I appreciate that!” Bo said sincerely, his eyes wide. truth Witnessing Dan’s mental image of himself stripping Bo’s work pants off and raping his tailhole was enough to cause Bo’s junk to swell in his sheath. !hot! Dan slowly moved closer to his mate, his heart pounding in his chest. “Buster wasn’t nearly as sexy as you are, Boo. He never made me feel this way.” He did his best to project what he was feeling over their link, and when Bo realized what Dan intended, he couldn’t stop his thick stub of a tail from wagging. Dan reached between them and grabbed that damned string, the one that had been taunting him all morning, and this time Bo didn’t make the slightest effort to stop him. “I’m not sure our bonding worked the first time, Mr. Taylor.” desire He gave the string a firm tug, unfastening Bo’s cargo pants and letting them drop to the floor. “I think I might need…another treatment.”

Chapter 27 “Ken!” Dan practically yelled into his comm, “We did it!” “Hey, that’s great!” Ken didn’t need to fake his excitement. Being around Dan when he was so happy was like letting sunshine pour into a dark room. It was pure, it was brilliant, and it was infectious. The sapiens man had the most amazing ability to bring out the best parts of people, apparently even die-hard curmudgeons like Bo Taylor. “Was this last night?” “Yeah,” Dan said, knowing that he sounded completely vapid but refusing to worry about that. Ken would understand. He was one of the few people Dan felt comfortable opening up to like this; one around whom he’d permit himself to drop his guard and be a bit silly. Although they’d only known each other for a short time, they were as comfortable around one another as brothers who’d grown up sharing a bedroom. “So how was it?” Dan didn’t need to ask to know that Ken wasn’t talking about the sex. Besides it being uncommonly gauche to ask about your husband’s nocturnal performance, the sex was almost irrelevant when compared to the power of a lifebond. “It was amazing,” he replied. And then, as if he almost couldn’t believe it himself, “He loves me.” The mere thought of his mate made Dan’s junk spasm in his pants, a detail that he did not feel compelled to share with Ken. “Don’t be stupid,” Ken scoffed, “of course he loves you.” He sighed and rested his chin in the palm of his hand. “You’re the luckiest men on the planet, you know that?” He was smiling, but Dan thought that his tone sounded a little forced. Dan realized how selfish he was being, and tried to pull himself out of his reverie. Ken had invested heavily in the hopes and dreams that he would bond with Reuben, but that hadn’t worked out. Bragging about how wonderful his own bond was wouldn’t do anything but make his friend feel bad. Suddenly, Dan felt awkward, and for the first time since he’d met Ken, he didn’t know what to say. Taking a page from Bo’s book, he took the direct approach. “I’m sorry, Ken. I didn’t mean to wave this in your face.” “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s all right.” Ken waved off the apology, but Dan could see the hurt he’d brought to the lion’s eyes. “I feel like a jerk for not thinking about it.” Dan knew that he wasn’t the most perceptive man on the planet, especially when he was excited. “Are you okay with it? With us? With me and Bo, I mean?” Ken blew out a long breath, considering his words. “Even though I know you have to be with Bo, I’d just sort of hoped…” His hands mimed vague circles in the air in an attempt to convey what he was embarrassed to say. “…that maybe things wouldn’t work out?” Dan finished for him, nodding understandingly. Unable to bring himself to lie, Ken just shrugged and stared into a corner of the screen. Dan didn’t want to have this conversation over vid. He wanted Ken here, in person. “Why are we doing this? You live five minutes away. Get your ass over here, kitty!” “Give me ten,” Ken said, managing to sound simultaneously relieved and apprehensive. “I’ve gotta get fluffed.” Dan chuckled to himself as he snapped off the vid. Nine months ago, he’d have sworn that “getting fluffed” was something that happened when shooting a cheap porno movie. Now he knew that it just meant getting your fur straightened up by either combing through it, or spending a few minutes in a drying cabinet to pull out any unpleasant odors you might have picked up. It was the varius equivalent of pulling on a clean shirt instead of taking a shower. He couldn’t believe how much his life had changed in the past year. Twelve months ago, he felt stuck in a dead-end relationship with a man he could barely stand, enslaved by a vain hope that one day his ex-lover would return to him. This time last year, he was busy buying end-of-year presents for in-laws he didn’t care for, just so they wouldn’t denigrate him in front of all the other in-laws that he similarly didn’t like. He sure hoped Bo’s parents were going to be easier to deal with, when the time finally came for that. Dan carefully measured the proper amount of dark-roasted coffee beans into the grinder, but after a moment’s consideration, he impulsively dumped in an extra scoop. He would not have done that a year ago, either, he realized. Everything had been measured, before. Everything in his life had been regulated and controlled. And then Bo had come in and knocked down all of his carefully constructed preconceptions about what life was supposed to be. Dan had learned from him that an occasional moment of chaos could lead to delight, and that the smallest, simplest things in life often carried the greatest joys. A stray bean escaped his fingers and dropped to the floor, skittering halfway across the kitchen before coming to a wobbling halt. He bent over a little too quickly to pick it up, and got a sharp reminder from his backside that sudden movements weren’t a wise idea after having wild monkey sex. He might be somewhat sore down there, but it was nothing that threatened to wipe the smile off his face. Loading the ground coffee into the basket, he filled the reservoir with water and pushed the button to start the brewing process. As the machine contentedly gurgled away, he pulled two clean cups out of the cabinets, a regularly sized mug for himself, and one with an extra-large handle on it that had been designed to fit oversized varius fingers. Popping a plate of frozen cookies into the freshly repaired TurboCooker, he was about to sit down and relax for a few minutes when the door chimed. Either he’d taken more time than he’d realized, or Ken was early. “Come on in!” he yelled, in the general direction of the front door. Ken padded in, and although he might have taken a few minutes to fluff himself out, Dan thought he still looked a little rumpled. “Hard night?” Ken smiled wearily as Dan filled his cup. “I finally found some guys to go out with last night.” Dan offered Ken one of the special glass coffee straws he’d bought for varius guests. Each one had a small hole in the side that allowed air to circulate through a portion of the hot liquid. When it was cool enough to drink, a fingerpad placed over the suction hole let the drinker pull the liquid into his mouth. “Good time?” Ken waved off the straw and nodded. “Brutal.” Dan shook his head, bemused. “I can’t figure out language, these days. Is ‘brutal’ good, or—Oh, fuck!” He lunged for the cooker, but was far too late to avoid culinary disaster. The smell of scorched chocolate and burned dough filled the kitchen as Dan pulled the pan out of the cooker, the smoke from a dozen smoldering lumps trailing him to the sink, where the charred cookies received an impromptu aquatic burial. “Damn it.” oops…sorry “Problems with your cooker?” Ken asked, smirking playfully at Dan. Dan’s annoyance, minor to begin with, evaporated in the light of his mate’s contrition. “Bo fixed it.” Ken raised an eyebrow. “I can see that.” Dan took a cautious look inside the still-hot oven, and the lion bent down to join him, curious to see what Dan found so interesting. Ken was careful to keep his coffee level as he bent down to peer inside the appliance. “I have absolutely no idea what I’m looking at.” “He put the sensor in upside down.” *embarrassed * “Oh.” Ken had a knack for tinkering with things, but he’d never worked on an oven before. “I guess this makes a difference?” “Only if you want cookies and not charcoal briquettes,” Dan groused, digging through the junk drawer for a screwdriver. “Grab another pan of cookies out of the freezer, will you?” Ken shook his head, trying his best not to laugh. “You and Mr. Crabby-Pants are perfect for each other, you know that?” “How so?” Dan asked, distractedly. He had knelt in front of the oven and was trying to use the small, Japanese paper fan that he cooled his sushi rice with to cool the sensor enough to touch it, but it didn’t appear to be working very well. Ken thought Dan looked absolutely ludicrous, waving his little pink and blue fan like that. “Nobody else on the planet would put up with half the shit you do from that man,” Ken mused, thoughtfully, “but it just rolls right off your back. You don’t even seem to notice it.” “He’s trying,” Dan said, looking up from his task. “He means well.” “Why don’t you just let that cool down on its own?” Ken recommended, watching Dan contort himself into a different but equally cruel position from which to fan. Dan sounded exasperated. “Because I want cookies now, damn it.” guilt Dan closed his eyes for a moment, wanting to close the giant eyeball while he talked to his friend. He didn’t want to slam the door on Bo, he just wanted to put a little mental distance between them for now. He visualized a set of Venetian blinds between his mind and Bo’s, and pictured them slowly shutting until the mental back ground noise was at a tolerable level. Bo understood, and Dan could feel him making a conscious effort to retreat, giving the two men a little privacy. He could punch through if he needed his mate, but unless he had to, he’d steer clear until Dan gave the ‘all clear.’ “You’re one of the very few men I’ve ever met who are willing to give full marks for trying,” Ken pointed out, taking the screwdriver from Dan’s hand. His paw pads were far less susceptible to heat than delicate sapiens skin. Carefully, he reached into the hot oven and loosened the sensor in its mount. It was a simple design, and it didn’t take Ken long to see how it should fit. One quick twist had the sensor properly seated and ready to go. Dan hadn’t ever really thought about it, but now that Ken mentioned it, perhaps his friend had a point. Was he too accommodating? He sat down on the floor next to the oven and leaned back against the cabinets. “In ten years,” he said, “or even two, I’m not going to remember that the cooker was broken, or the dish washer leaked, or the vid is still making that buzzy noise. What I’m going to remember is that he tried to make my life better.” He looked at Ken significantly. “In the long run, that’s what really matters, isn’t it?” “So not getting mad at Bo when he makes you burn your cookies is your way of filling up your cosmic Karma jug?” “I guess,” Dan allowed, “but it’s more than that, too.” He pointed vaguely around the house. “The cooker, that chair over there, the generator… Everywhere I look, I see evidence of things he’s done to try to make my life a little better. That’s his way of telling me that he loves me. Even if he doesn’t always succeed, trying is how he shows me he cares.” “Even if he occasionally makes you cringe when he breaks something?” Ken teased. “Yup,” Dan said, proud of his mate. “Even when he makes me cringe. In fact, that’s probably when it’s best, because it gives me the chance to forgive him.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Even a broken appliance can be a love letter, if that’s how it was intended. “Look at me, Ken,” he said, indicating his all-too-average sapiens body. “I’m not anything special. He could have anyone he wanted. I’m just the only person he’s ever met who speaks his language where love is concerned. I think everyone he ever tried to date probably took his love letters and ground them into the dirt every time he wasn’t perfect.” He swirled the dregs of his coffee, watching as a few stray coffee grounds whirled silently in the bottom of his cup. “All anybody wants is for someone to love them for who they are, right?” The instant the words were out of his mouth, Dan wanted them back. Not because they weren’t true, but because he could see the havoc they wrought inside his friend. Putting his cup down, he moved to the kitchen stool where Ken was sitting, tail hanging despondently behind his chair. Quietly, Dan put his arms around his friend and held him close, gently rubbing his shoulders through his shirt. “I’m sorry, Ken.” “It’s okay,” the varius snuffled into his shirt, “we’re going to be even better friends, right?” His voice trailed off, strong arms pulling his face into Dan’s broad chest. This hurt. Not only had Dan bonded with someone else, but his friend’s happy occasion only served to remind Ken that he’d failed in his attempts to bond with Ben. So much time invested, so many hopes and dreams forged, all tossed away when someone more convenient and, Ken suspected, more normal, came along. Ken knew that Dan was different. On his bonding day, when he should be cozied up next to his mate exploring their new world together, he was standing in his kitchen trying to comfort a crying lion who was making a big wet spot on his shirt, proving to Ken that his monster crush on the man was justified. But was Dan really the reason Ken was crying right now? Or was he still in love with Reuben? No, he thought, breathing in air warmed by Dan’s body, a body that now smelled disappointingly like Bo’s fur. No, he’d come to terms with his failed relationship with Ben. He was just lonely, and he’d had such good chemistry with Dan that he sort of jumped the gun, emotionally. He had made the mistake of casting the seeds of his hope on rocky ground, and now he was paying the price for that indiscretion. Ken’s head fur was like golden velvet under Dan’s touch as he unhurriedly stroked the tension away. A man as wonderful as Ken didn’t deserve heartache in his life, and Dan felt like he was responsible for this pain. “That’s right, buddy,” he promised, softly, “we’re going to be in each other’s lives for a long, long time.” They stayed like that until Ken’s shoulders steadied. “Now, come on,” Dan said, patting the big cat’s back. “Sit up.” Ken nodded his head and gave his nose a good sniff, giving Dan one last hug before turning him loose. He knew he was being foolish. He and Dan were friends, and Dan wasn’t the sort of man who abandoned his friends. He had just needed one last bout of childish angst to get his disappointment out of his system. “Can we talk about this like it’s normal?” Dan asked, hopefully. “I really don’t want it to grow into something weird between us.” Ken nodded his head and used one of Dan’s kitchen towels to wipe a drip from his nose. “Don’t forget your cookies.” Dan laughed and dove into Ken’s arms for another quick hug, this time as good friends. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’re doing for me.” Dan retrieved the properly baked cookies from the oven and set the pan on the stone counter top to cool. “And I guess I’d better thank you in advance for answering all the stupid questions I’m going to ask, because I have no earthly idea what I’m doing with this whole varius bonding mess.” Ken stiffened in his chair, then visibly relaxed. “So you did that, too? You two bonded?” At Dan’s nod, he looked back down at his handpaws, then dabbed carefully at the corners of his eyes with a folded napkin. “Most mixed couples can’t, at least not for a while.” He chuckled low in his throat. “So is it what you expected?” Dan’s eyes widened. “Expected? Hell no! I had no idea what was going to happen!” Ken shook his head. “We don’t talk about it, so I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. Ben didn’t really know anything about it, either. Every time I tried to bring it up, he just called it ‘varius voodoo’, or something.” He played nervously with his napkin. “I wonder if that’s why he bailed? I wonder if he just got scared of having me see what was really going on inside his head?” Dan shrugged. “Could be, I guess.” Dan lightly patted the metal pan, but it was still too warm to pull the cookies off without breaking them. “I sort of freaked out myself,” he remembered, thinking back to earlier that morning. “It was a little overwhelming, knowing that he could look inside and see everything I was thinking. ‘Cause there’s a lot of stuff up there that really doesn’t need to be seen, you know?” “Oh, please,” Ken scoffed. “You’re the nicest person I’ve ever known. Your closet can’t have that many skeletons in it.” “You’d be surprised.” Dan raised an eyebrow for emphasis. “I might not have very many of them, but some of the ones that are there still have meat on their bones. It’s disconcerting,” he said, pulling a cheap magnifying glass out of the junk drawer. He held it in front of his face to make one eye look huge. “It’s like there’s this giant eyeball following me around, staring inside my brain.” “But it’s good too, right?” Ken said, hopefully. “Oh, yeah, sure” Dan said, considering while he refilled his coffee. “I think the best part about this whole thing is that even now that he knows about my bad parts, he still loves me.” Dan saw that the sugar bowl was getting low, so he pulled the bundle of sugar out of the cabinet and refilled it. “And now, he knows how much I love him, too.” He paused for a beat, the expression on his face turning momentarily wistful. “It was kind of sad, how, all this time, he never really believed it.” He smiled to himself, quietly satisfied. “But now he knows.” “And on that note,” Dan said, his tone brightening noticeably, “I’m going to change the subject, ‘cause I’ve got a question.” He consciously shifted gears and settled into the formal mode. “May I ask you a question about your infancy bond?” Dan recognized the look Kensuke gave him as the one he usually got from Bo after he’d accidentally stepped beyond the bounds of propriety, but the lion didn’t deny his request. “Sure,” he said, casually. “Ask away.” Dan took a deep breath and thought carefully about how to approach this subject without offending his friend. “All varii have a bond with their mothers, right?” “Yeah,” Ken said, smiling. “That’s the joke; bonding happens at two points – when you’re coming out, and when you’re trying to get back in.” He reminded himself that Dan was completely ignorant of these things, and tried to think of him like a little brother who was just learning. “Almost all varius babies bond with their mothers, to some degree.” Ken remembered how his mother was always there, always encouraging him to try new things and make new friends. “When you’re a kid, you can’t wait for your link with your mom to go away so you can get away with stuff, but when it finally does start to fade, you miss it.” He chuckled at a memory. “I remember when my bond started dissolving. I was with my mother at a shopping mall in Beijing, and I got lost for the first time in my life. I had no idea where she was or what I should do, and I ended up just sitting on a potted plant until she found me.” He laughed, “I fell in and got covered in dirt!” Smiling, Ken took his mug over to the tray of cookies and set it down. Dan watched as Ken fished a spatula out of the drawer, and started transferring cookies from the pan to the cooling rack. “I didn’t think you liked to bake.” Ken shrugged. “Man’s gotta learn to make his own cookies sometime, right?” He looked at Dan and winked, a tiny bit of residual sadness persisting in his eyes. Like a bitter aftertaste on his tongue, his disappointment would take time to fade. Dan nodded. He knew what he meant, and it went far beyond baking tasty little sweets. With uncharacteristic tact, he left that conversation untouched. “So did you want to be free from your mom?” “Sort of,” Ken said, turning back to the cookies. “But we didn’t have the same kind of relationship a lot of kids have. She and Dad always used to tell me that obeying them wasn’t as important as understanding them. So at those rare times when one of them demanded raw obedience, I always did whatever they asked just because it seemed so odd.” “And you could hear your dad through your mom?” “Oh, yeah,” Ken said, smiling at the memory. “I still remember. He’s loud!” “So the more strong-willed you are, the louder your…voice?” Ken shrugged. “They say there’s no correlation, but it kind of makes sense, doesn’t it? If it’s true,” he said, offhandedly, “old Crabby-Pants is probably deafening.” Dan laughed. “I don’t have anything to compare him to, but yeah, he’s pretty loud.” Dan scooped a couple of cookies off the rack and put them in front of Ken. “I can hear him from here, if I want to.” “You’re funny,” Ken said, shaking his head. Dan toyed with his coffee, stirring it unnecessarily to give his hands something to do. “I’m glad you’re here to talk to, buddy. It really means a lot to me.” Ken nodded his head slowly. “You know you can ask me anything, but why don’t you just talk to Bo about this stuff? I’m sure he’s had just as many experiences as I have.” Dan shook his head, regretfully. “Bo doesn’t know much about maternal bonds because he didn’t have a very good relationship with his mother.” Ken’s eyes widened as missing pieces clicked into place. So that’s why Bo is so isolated. “Dan,” he said, his voice urgent, but as gentle as he could manage, “you can’t tell anyone about that, okay?” “What?” Dan was confused. “What did I do?” “You didn’t know, so it’s okay, he won’t be mad.’ Ken looked really worried, his tail flicking nervously back and forth as he toyed with his coffee cup. “You didn’t really tell me anything anyway, I just put the pieces together. But you can’t talk about that, okay?” “What?” Dan repeated, frustrated that Ken wouldn’t just tell him what the deal was. He’d made enough mistakes regarding varius propriety that he had become comfortable with the occasional fuck-up from time to time. “You’re freaking me out, here. Just tell me what I did.” Ken chewed his lower lip as he tried to settle himself. “Maybe I’m overreacting. I just don’t want you to get in trouble.” He nodded his head to himself after a moment’s contemplation. “I think we can do this. Hold on for a second.” He reached for Dan’s communicator instead of his own and dialed Bo’s code. The varius picked up on the first ring, and Dan could hear the tinny echo of his mate’s voice emerge from the comm a half-second after he heard the whisper of each comment in his mind. The time delay was more distracting that he would have imagined, so he tried to concentrate on listening to Ken’s side of the conversation. “Hey, it’s Ken… Yeah… I need to talk to him about something… I think you might want to trust me on this.” The sounds of Bo’s voice stopped coming through the little box, but Dan could still hear the echoes of his thoughts whispering through his mind. The feelings he was getting from his mate weren’t of distrust, exactly. His curiosity had a tint of suspicion to it, and of concern. Dan tried to project feelings of “okayness” through their link, but he wasn’t sure they could travel all the way to Bo’s apartment. Finally the tinny voice resumed, and after hearing what he needed, Ken quickly signed off. He traded Dan’s comm for his freshly warmed coffee cup and gathered his thoughts. “So what’s up?” Dan said, “I’m assuming Bo gave you permission to tell me what I stepped in?” Ken nodded his big feline head, looking a little less worried than he had before. “Sorry for the freak-out, but I think you’ll understand.” He slurped his coffee and made a face. “Aaah! Hot!” Blowing on it, he continued. “I’m going to guess that you looked up the varius bond before you…before last night, right?” Dan reached into the drawer where he’d stashed the special straw Ken had rejected, and nonchalantly slid it into the lion’s mug of scalding hot coffee. Nodding his head, he broke one of the cookies on the plate in half. “Yeah, but I didn’t really find anything.” As soon as he said that, a glimmer of understanding broke through the clouds. Now that he understood how huge a thing bonding was, why wasn’t it all over the place? There should have been tons of information out there, instead of this black hole of silence. From the change in his friend’s expression, Ken knew that even though Dan couldn’t see the overall picture yet, at least he was getting a feel for the scope of the matter. “Exactly. Nobody talks about this. Ever.” Ken grabbed the other half of the cookie and stuck it in his mouth. “But now that you’re involved, you need to understand what’s going on.” Dan’s mind had gone into overdrive as Ken was talking, and one at a time, more pieces to this insanely complicated puzzle clicked into place. Not very long ago, Bo had helped him to understand how important it was that nobody else know that his intelligence had been enhanced. Some people might be upset by the knowledge that some morphs were smarter than they were, possibly upset enough to call for their eradication. How would these same people react if they knew varii could read minds? The fact that their ESP was restricted to two mated varii or a mother and child wouldn’t matter to those who were already wearing foil-lined hats to keep aliens from reading their minds. It was no wonder that Bo had been so alarmed when Dan had joked about “secret varius powers” on their first visit to Sam’s. “Oh, yeah,” Ken said quietly, watching as Dan’s expression clouded over. “You’re getting it.” “But now I’m confused all over again,” Dan said, “you were just telling me about your bond with your mother, and that was okay.” Ken opened his mouth to explain, but paused to slurp his coffee instead. “That doesn’t seem very logical, does it?” he admitted, as he pushed the plate of cookies away. “Those are so damned good they’re going to make me fat,” he complained. Grinning, Dan took the plate away and stowed the cookies into a bag before reaching into the kitchen drawer and pulling out the length of ball chain that Bo liked so much. He tossed it onto the table in front of Ken, who immediately put out his claws and began pulling it into shapes. “First off, I can tell you about my bond because it was my bond. I wouldn’t tell anyone what I know about my mother’s thoughts, not even a blood relative. Not even my dad. Around non-varii, you really can’t say anything at all about the bond.” Ken shrugged dismissively. “Even if something minor does happen to slip out, sapiens almost always chalk it up to ‘instinct’ or something like that.” His voice turned low and sonorous, like a vid announcer on a nature show. “No matter where they go, the mother lion always knows where her cubs are…” They chuckled, but both of them knew how serious Ken was being. “Since you already knew about bonding, and since I was talking about my side of my maternal bond, I could tell you everything I thought was appropriate. Up until that point, no matter how much I liked you, no matter how much I thought I could trust you, you were still on the outside.” “How much other stuff am I still on the outside of?” Dan asked, feeling shut out. “Not all that much,” Ken shrugged. “I hope you’re not offended, but that’s just part of life. You’re always going to be on the outside of something, right? In our world, the lines are just drawn more clearly.” Dan thought about Ken’s words, and realized how pointless it was to be offended by the truth. “I guess so. And I’m guessing that this is why Bo was so rabid about making sure I wasn’t going to cut and run before we bonded?” “Oh, yeah,” Ken confirmed, nodding his head understandingly. “Knowing Crabby-Pants, there was no way he was going to let you in until you satisfied all of his requirements. All his requirements,” he reiterated. “And speaking of whom,” he put one of his warm paws on Dan’s forearm,” that’s the other thing we need to talk about.” Now that they’d been talking about this for a few minutes, their conversation flowed more easily. “Sorry about the freak-show,” Ken said, “it just caught me off guard.” He put a wide paw on Dan’s forearm, trying to impress on him the gravity of what he was saying. “Telling me that Bo didn’t have a good bond with his mother…” he paused for a moment, waving his half-empty coffee mug expressively, “it says so much about their relationship. It gave me access to information I shouldn’t have, and that I really don’t want.” “Like what?” Dan asked, curious. Ken got up to pour more coffee into his cup and stirred a spoonful of sugar into it, “Like, he could be emotionally dysfunctional, in ways I can’t even express. Psychology isn’t my main area, so all I know comes from basic courses and the occasional daytime vid show.” Ken shifted on his chair, rearranging his tail into a more comfortable position. “When a child doesn’t have that maternal bond to rely on, it’s like being locked out of the conversation. They have to pick up social cues secondhand by watching other people react. Language comes slower, personal relationships are damaged…it’s like growing up deaf in a culture that worships music. You might get the gist of what’s going on, but you’d never really have a full understanding of a lot of things.” Ken spread his hands. “That’s probably a really crappy example, but it’s the best one I can come up with right now.” He toyed with his coffee cup while Dan digested what he’d been told. “Do you know why adoption is so rare in the varius world?” Dan shook his head. He’d discussed adoption with Bo when they were dating, but not in any depth. “I didn’t realize it was any different than in the sapiens world. “Varius kids who’ve never had a bond are…” Ken struggled to find a word that wasn’t horrible. Finally he gave up and admitted defeat. He closed his eyes, unable to even look at Dan as he said the words. “Damaged goods.” He sighed deeply. “They’re considered damaged goods, and nobody wants them.” Dan was shocked. He’d ask about that later, but right now Bo was foremost in his mind. “But he had a bond. It just wasn’t a good one.” Ken winced involuntarily at his bluntness. “That’s a good thing, then. At least, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. But keep in mind, that’s still the stigma he grew up with. If his mom just didn’t want to get close to him that way, it would have hurt him pretty bad. Look,” he said, obviously uncomfortable, “think about it for a while, share your feelings with Bo, and if you need another perspective on things, you can come ask me about it. But,” he cautioned, “first let him know you’re coming to me for clarification. Never, ever go behind his back.” Dan nodded his head. “See? I told you I don’t know anything about this stuff. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to not talk about.” “The varius way isn’t an easy one,” Ken told him, getting up from his chair. “All I can say is, Bo must have trusted you a lot to let you in to his world. You’ve got to respect him for that.” He turned at the door and gave Dan a warm hug. “I’m just a few digits away, if you ever need me, right?” “Right,” Dan agreed, returning the embrace. “Thank you.” He didn’t regret his decision to bond with Bo, but knowing what he knew now, he had to wonder exactly what it was that he’d gotten himself into. Chapter 28a “You coming over any time soon?” Dan held his comm between his shoulder and his ear as he did his best to keep the onion he was slicing from spitting in his eye. “It’s my turn to cook.” “Mmmm…” Bo murred into his comm, twenty-five kilometers away. “What’s for dinner?” “I’m not telling,” Dan was coy. “It’s a surprise.” happy Bo’s voice was enthusiastic, even over the tiny little speaker. “Yum! I love pot roast!” Dan sighed in resignation. “How am I ever going to surprise you if you keep doing that?” love “I’m sorry,” Bo said, trying his best to be the solemn picture of contrition. Dan wasn’t fooled for an instant. He felt Bo giggling in the back of his mind, an innocent, childlike feeling that made it impossible to be annoyed with the man. “Just get over here so you can help. And bring me my presents. I read a website that says I’m supposed to get presents.” “It’s the bride that gets the presents, doofus,” Bo protested, “and you said you didn’t want to be the bride.” “That was before I knew there were gifts involved.” Bo chuckled. “I’ll be there in ten.”

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Dan was quartering red potatoes into a large pot when he heard Bo’s speeder landing. The varius was polite enough to try not to offend the neighbors by blasting his way down the street, but he couldn’t resist purging the emitters with one final twist of the throttle as the speeder settled to the ground in Dan’s driveway. Dan looked out the window and saw Bo climbing off his bike, careful to avoid burning his leg on the hot machinery. The front door automatically unlocked at his approach, and Bo walked inside the house exactly like he had a hundred times before, only now something felt different. Now, this wasn’t just a house where the furniture and clothing all smelled like Dan, where the kitchen held wonderful food and the bed smelled irresistibly attractive. It had, over the course of months, become something much more than the sum of its parts. It had been a quarter century since Bo had felt like there was a place he could call his own. Ever since the first time his mother ran away, every place he’d laid his head had been borrowed, assigned or rented, but had never really been his. A warm sense of contentment spread inside Bo’s heart as he realized that at long last, he had his port in the storm. He finally had a home. Smiling to himself, Bo quietly walked back outside, closed the door behind him and rang the announcer. Dan’s voice carried over the link at the same time it came out through the front door’s speaker. “Come on in.” Without speaking, Bo reached over and once again rang the announcer. He could hear the water that had been running in the house stop, and a pair of feet tread over to the doorway. A click and a whir of the door, and Dan was standing in front of him, a confused look on his face. confusion “Why didn’t you just come in?” Bo looked at him expectantly. “I think you still have a job to do, Pinks.” Dan looked more bemused than ever. amused “Aren’t you supposed to carry me over the threshold?” Bo spread his arms wide and threw his head back, waiting for Dan to sweep him up. “I’m ready.” Dan groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Oh, crap, I forgot about that.” He turned to walk back into the house. “Let me get the wheelbarrow…” !mine! Bo grabbed him by the shoulder. “Or maybe we can do this instead.” Pulling him into his arms, the varius gave Dan a kiss that left him feeling dazed and a bit wobbly-legged. “Okay, good enough.” He spun Dan around and, with a pat on the rump, pointed him in the direction of the kitchen. “Now, go make me some dinner.” playful Dan didn’t bother protesting as he made his way back into the kitchen. He’d never seen Bo like this, and he liked it! His partner was virtually flooding their link with feelings of well-being and contentment, and Dan was completely grooving on it. His mood had been good before, but now that Bo was home it was like waking up all over again. His senses were pretty good for a sapiens, but were nothing compared to his mate’s. Even when Bo was in the other room, Dan could smell the potatoes and onions he’d washed for their dinner. And the smell of the meat, raw though it was, was positively mouth-watering. Dan was back to chopping vegetables when Bo’s soft muzzle hairs brushing against the back of his neck made Dan shiver. “I’m not going to tell you to stop, but that tickles!” He turned off the tap and dried his hands before turning in Bo’s arms to face him, a happy smile on his face. “So where are my presents?” affection “I’ve got a present for you” Bo said, warming to Dan’s touch. “In fact, it’s unwrapping itself right now.” God! When was the last time he’d felt like this? Had he ever? Dan felt Bo’s growing excitement, and although he shared it, he made a valiant effort to control himself. “We’ll get to that later, love. For now, chop these.” He handed Bo a bunch of carrots, which the morph handled with obvious distaste. regret “What, you don’t like carrots?” Dan asked. “They’re vegetables.” Bo answered, as if that explained everything. He held the bunch of carrots away from him like they were toxic. affection It came out “wegetables”. Dan would never say anything about it, but he was charmed by how, when Bo was most relaxed, his V’s sounded more like W’s. He loved hearing those misplaced W’s, because their emergence meant that Bo had dropped his shields and was lightening up. “You’ve eaten plenty of vegetables when I’ve cooked before, and you’ve always seemed to like them.” truth Bo had to admit, albeit grudgingly, that Dan was right. “Yeah, you’ve done a pretty good job with them,” he conceded, “but…carrots?” stubborn “Yes, carrots. They’re good for your eyes. And even if they weren’t, they’ll give the pot roast a good flavor.” concession Bo’s ears perked up at that. “Oh yeah, pot roast.” He contemplated the hunk of meat sitting in the heavy cast iron Dutch oven. “Okay, I’m in for the carrots, I guess.” chop chop chop chop chop chop chop… When Dan looked over a few moments later Bo was chopping carrots with abandon, the tip of his pink tongue making a surprise appearance out of the side of his muzzle as he concentrated on his task. To Dan’s consternation the slices were of a seemingly random thickness, and Bo could obviously not have cared less about it. !protest! Dan opened his mouth to say something, then shut it abruptly. Just because HE was nearly obsessive about slicing vegetables to an even thickness, that didn’t mean that Bo was doing it wrong. In fact, the larger chunks of carrots might actually be a nice change! He’d asked Bo to do a job, and Bo was doing it. Whether he was doing it the same way Dan would have was irrelevant. comprehension This came as something of a revelation to Dan. Had he been so controlling in other relationships? With a start, it became obvious to him that, yes, he had! And until he’d watched Bo chop carrots, he had never realized it. concession Bo looked up in surprise from his appointed task. “It’s the funniest thing, this link between us. I could feel you getting antsy about something, like I was doing something wrong. Then it just…stopped.” He grinned. “Thanks.” “For what, Boo?” “For letting me be myself.” Giving Dan a roguish wink, Bo turned a carrot and sliced it along its length. playful “Aack!” Dan cried in mock horror, “You’re doing it all wrong!” Tossing the halves into the pot, Bo sauntered over to his mate and put his arms around him. “I know we’re both pretty set in our ways, and this is going to be a change for both of us.” He kissed Dan lightly on the forehead. “As long as we keep in mind what’s really important, like you just did, we’ll be okay.” love Dan hugged the daylights out of Bo, amazed that another man could understand him so well, yet still love him without regrets.

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hope desire Dan yawned expansively, stretching his arms out to either side of him with a sense of decadence normally reserved for felines. Reaching a hand down to his mate, Dan declared, “I’m tired!” desire Reaching out to Dan’s extended hand, Bo pulled himself upright and stretched, his muscles pulling against one another until his joints popped. “I hope you’re not really tired,” he said, the significant expression on his face telling Dan almost as much as their mental bond did. desire Dan merely smiled as he led his partner to the bedroom. Bo had been in here before as a friend, but never as a lover. Even though they’d slept at each other’s house on a number of occasions, they’d never done anything erotic in Dan’s house. Now that they had bonded, all bets were off. They were two healthily horny men in the primes of their lives, they’d spent the last month trying their best to keep their hands off each other, and they’d built up a mutual load of sexual frustration that even the previous night’s mind-blowing bonding couldn’t relieve. That morning’s slap and tickle had done nothing but stoke their fires. Dan brushed his teeth, then retreated to the bedroom to give Bo privacy to do whatever he needed in the bathroom before retiring. Dan lay in bed, listening to Bo go through his evening routine. He closed his eyes in anticipation, re-living the previous night in his mind and feeling the echo of his desire in Bo’s mind as well. The varius had something else in mind tonight, but Dan wasn’t sure what. Either Bo had re-established a good portion of his mental barriers with unexpected speed, or Dan wasn’t as sensitive to his partner’s thoughts as he would have wished. Dan’s mental ruminations came to a speedy close with the sound of Bo spitting in the sink and rinsing his mouth out, events that usually signaled the end of his ablutions. Dan self-consciously critiqued himself and quickly rearranged his body on the bed to best effect. Still not pleased with the result, he was contemplating just pulling the covers over him when Bo flicked off the bathroom light and bounded into the room. Bo had been eavesdropping through the link. “Don’t you dare,” he said, carefully climbing onto the bed and straddling Dan. “I like you just…as…you…are.” He kissed Dan gently between each word, and through the link, Dan knew he was telling the truth. desire Dan reached to turn off the table lamp, but a touch from Bo stopped him. “I want to see you,” he said. Dan lay back and gave Bo control. The huge morph sat up, bearing his weight on his legs so he wouldn’t crush his Dan underneath him. He ran his big hands over Dan’s body, massaging first his shoulders, then his biceps, then moving lower on each arm to rub his forearms and hands. Bo was pleased to see that after six months of working out together, Dan had built back quite a bit of his lost muscle mass. Dan felt himself relaxing, and began his own exploration of the parts of Bo’s body he could reach. Dan ran his hands up the outside of Bo’s thighs, denying himself the pleasure of exploring Bo’s thick sheath and testicles, which hung low and rested tantalizingly on his belly. He could feel the muscles bunching under Bo’s coat as he ran his hands up his stomach to rub his chest. The fur was soft under Dan’s touch, thick and richly colored. Suddenly, he was glad Bo had wanted the light on. Just looking at his new partner was a thrill. He gently flicked the small nipples on Bo’s pecs, smiling when he heard the catch in Bo’s breathing. In response, Bo reached down and took Dan’s nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, pinching and playing with them until they stiffened. Bo could feel Dan’s penis gathering itself underneath him, insistently pushing at his taint. He levered himself off of Dan for a moment, allowing Dan’s cock to spring up to attention before settling his massive frame back down. Now Dan’s prize was trapped between Bo’s large balls, which tickled softly at the sides of Dan’s shaft. Dan reached between them to touch himself, but Bo gently intercepted his wrists and pushed them out to either side, forcing him to lie submissively while the big morph continued his exploration. Bo leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on Dan’s lips, then another. Then he parted his muzzle, and his limber tongue pressed its way between Dan’s lips and into his mouth, happily doing things that would have been impossible for any sapiens. It wrapped around Dan’s tongue and squeezed as he withdrew from the kiss, leaving his partner panting and fully aroused. With agonizing slowness, Bo traced a line of kisses down Dan’s chest and belly, slowing further to enjoy rubbing his face in the valley between Dan’s chest muscles. When he shifted his weight down to straddle Dan’s knees, their link transmitted a hopeful image of himself through Dan’s eyes. anticipation Dan had really liked something last night, and what Dan liked, Dan got. Bo leaned over and gently, lovingly, took his mate inside his mouth. Desire rocketed through Dan’s mind as Bo ran his long, wet tongue over his shaft and glans, then lowered his head to encompass it again in his mouth’s wet warmth. Dan was in heaven, and couldn’t have moved even if he’d wanted to. The rhythm of Bo’s gentle but insistent nursing had wiped out all but the most superficial thoughts from his mind, and time ground to a halt. He couldn’t tell whether Bo stayed down there for one minute or ten, but however long it was, it was definitely the most satisfying blowjob he’d ever received. “You’d better pull off,” Dan panted, “I’m getting close…” Bo slowed, easing his assault but not completely withdrawing. He pulled back just enough to let his mate regain control, and no more. Several times he brought Dan to the brink, but didn’t allow him completion, all the while running his hands over his sapiens lover’s erotically smooth body. lust skin… Dan’s penis pulled out of Bo’s mouth with a satisfyingly obscene slurp and slapped against his comparatively hairless belly. The black varius moved back up Dan’s body, tracing kisses and licks along the way as if marking a path for later exploration. His fur rubbed against Dan’s swollen member, and as his tongue reached his mate’s lips, his heavy sheath reached Dan’s testicles. Bo gyrated his hips, making the tip of his own penis poke out of his sheath and rub up and down over Dan’s balls, eliciting groans of pleasure from the man he loved. For someone who’d had hardly any experience making love to another man, Dan thought that Bo was doing an incredible job. As Bo let more of his weight bear down on Dan, he rubbed their organs together, and Dan could feel Bo’s penis emerging more fully from his sheath. When the varius’ warm, slick length pushed out and slid against Dan’s belly, Bo gave a quiet rumble of satisfaction from deep in his chest. Dan looked up into Bo’s eyes, falling upwards into their immense depths as Bo pumped back and forth, rubbing against Dan with slow determination. With one long pull upwards, Bo slid his arms underneath Dan’s torso and pulled him close. Dan felt a shudder, but the two men were so close he wasn’t sure whether it came from himself or Bo. Hot, muscled arms pulled Dan’s face into the furry hollow of Bo’s throat where he could feel the varius’ pulse thrumming against his cheek, reaffirming his mate’s strong life force. Bo relaxed his hold and put Dan back down on his pillow. Sliding upwards, he pushed his own cock between Dan’s chest muscles. Dan slid himself a little downward, and with one smooth motion he wrapped his lips around the head of Bo’s emerging cock. He felt a shock through their link, but not a negative one. Clearly, Dan had misinterpreted Bo’s actions, but Bo wasn’t about to complain! Dan used his lips to push back the furry sheath, exposing the smooth, pulsing organ that looked much like his own, but was also so different. It was thicker than his own for most of its length, but was more pointed at the tip. He could feel the bulbous knot growing at the base, still inside the sheath and centimeters from his lips. He moved a hand up between Bo’s thighs and rubbed the base of the knot while he moved his head up and down over his lover’s cock. Bo enjoyed Dan’s attentions immensely, and soon had to pull away. concern “Is something wrong?” Dan asked, worried that he hadn’t done it quite right. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Bo said, running his fingers through Dan’s hair, “That was incredible! Nobody’s ever done that for me before. I just have something else in mind, that’s all.” He elevated himself up on his knees and reached behind him for Dan’s penis. desire When Bo’s slickened handpaw rubbed up and down his shaft, Dan realized he must have put some lubricant on it while Dan was blowing him. Surely he’s not going to... Dan thought to himself, Holy cow, he IS! curious “When I shared your feelings last night, this felt so good to you, I thought I’d try it myself.” Bo slowly lowered himself backwards, pushing the head of Dan’s penis into his tight hole. His body stiffened as a jolt of searing pain ripped through him. !PAIN! “Go slow, big guy!” Dan cried out, feeling Bo’s pain as much as the varius did, “They never talk about that in porno flicks, they just dive right in.” He calmed down and gave Bo a little coaching. “Just relax, and take some time to adjust.” Bo nodded his head, wondering what made someone find this sort of painful experience erotic. If the first couple of centimeters felt that bad, why the hell would he want to follow it with a dozen more? He pushed himself up, then slowly rocked back again, only to be greeted with another stab of pain. The head of Dan’s dick pushed its way out of him, and he resolutely put it back in, trying hard to relax. He wasn’t a quitter, and he’d worked his way through worse pain in his life. anxious “How do you do this?” Bo asked, sounding annoyed. Dan thought for a moment, then concentrated on feeling specifically what muscles he relaxed when he had someone back there. Bo thought for a moment, then nodded his head. He tried his best to duplicate what Dan was feeling inside his own body, and the head went in much easier the third time. It dawned on Bo that he’d been clenching his sphincter for so long it had become second nature. Bo was going to have to learn to relax muscles he’d worked all his life to keep tight. He concentrated on releasing his ring, and he felt himself slowly slide down Dan’s rock-hard member. Through the link he felt Dan’s intense pleasure as his dick was buried in Bo’s soft, warm depths. Dan groaned as he felt himself slide inside his lover, his rock-hard cock pressing against Bo’s velvety insides. As the last of Dan’s penis pushed inside Bo, the varius relaxed enough that it could wedge itself against his prostate, and Bo suddenly discovered ‘what made someone find this sort of painful experience erotic.’ He groaned softly in newfound pleasure before pulling up slightly, then settling back down with his full weight, grinding his furry bottom into Dan’s crotch. Up and down he went, each stroke causing a wave of pleasure to explode inside him. After a dozen strokes, Bo leaned back and made circular motions with his hips, losing himself in the amazing sensation. Dan had given other men pleasure this way before, but it was always something he did for them and not for himself. His foreskin was loose enough that a lot of sensation was lost in translation, but this…this was amazing. With each stroke he could feel not only the sensation from his own body, but echoes of Bo’s pleasure as well. With this level of stimulation he knew it wouldn’t be long before he lost control and blew his load inside his mate. Dan reached out and massaged Bo’s half-hard cock. Within seconds it was hard again, pulsing hotly in Dan’s hand with each beat of Bo’s strong heart. Every few seconds, Bo’s tool tensed in Dan’s hand as he put out another clear stream of pre. From this vantage point, Dan was too far away to put it in his mouth, but he could still reach it with the tip of his tongue. Dan slowly squeezed it from the base to the tip to help milk out more clear liquid, which he eagerly lapped up as soon as it made an appearance. Bo’s pre was different than any Dan had ever sampled. It tasted different than sapiens lubricant. It was slightly thicker, a bit sweeter, and had very little aftertaste. Bo groaned deep in his throat and tried to thrust into Dan’s hand at the same time as he fucked himself on his lover. His knot thickened and Dan’s attention turned to that, gently massaging the mass of tissue inside the sheath. Clear, slick liquid oozed out of the tip whenever Dan rubbed the knot or the length of cock behind it, running down over Dan’s fingers and puddling on his belly. Back and forth Dan stroked, up and down Bo rode, each man helping the other climb higher than he could have on his own. To his surprise, Dan felt his release approaching. He’d never completed inside another man before, but the pants and moans coming out of his own mouth left no doubt that he was fast approaching the point of no return. Hearing his mate growl deep in his throat in his own pleasure was all Dan needed to push him over the edge. With a primal yell, Dan grabbed Bo’s hips and shoved himself balls-deep into the varius’ belly and blew a load of sperm inside his partner, marking Bo as his mate for life. The raw aggression of Dan’s orgasm pushed Bo into his own. Bending forward slightly, he pushed his paws hard against Dan’s chest as his balls tightened up. With a series of short, woofing grunts, Bo released a flood of semen first into Dan’s hand, then all over his chest and face, with a series of powerful shots. His head swam with the intensity, making him lightheaded. In twenty years of masturbating and ten of having sex, Bo couldn’t ever remember having had such a powerful orgasm. Each wave felt like he was trying to push his entire body through the head of his dick, and after a dozen powerful contractions he felt his leg muscles begin to cramp. Even their sex the night before, as wonderful as it was, didn’t begin to compare to this physical sensation. Bo gently pulled Dan’s wet hand off his hypersensitive penis, and dried it and Dan off with a towel he’d put by the bedside. “Hey,” he said, shaking his lover’s hand, “you awake? Or did you pass out again?” Dan opened his eyes just enough for Bo to see that he’d crossed them, groaning in exhausted pleasure. Bo put Dan’s hand down on the bed and cleaned up the mess he’d made on Dan’s chest and belly. And the sheets. And the headboard. And the nightstand. And…good God, was there anything in this room that didn’t get soaked in his cum? Cautiously he looked at the acoustic texture of the ceiling, and was relieved to see that it had been spared. “Bo Taylor is a bottom,” Dan laughed. “Wait till the media gets a hold of this story!” “Never happen,” Bo shot back, “I like your ass too much to be a bottom.” Then, remembering how good it felt, he amended, “I might give it up for your birthday, though. And maybe our anniversary. “What about Christmas?” Dan teased. “I want Christmas, too.” “Not this year, Pinks,” Bo rumbled, leaning over to nibble at Dan’s earlobe. “You’ve been bad.” Chapter 28b The terrain was unfamiliar to Dan, so there was no reason for the emotional baggage it was carrying. Something about the trees struck him as odd, the way they bent the light, shaping it into familiar, yet disturbingly alien forms. As the breeze blew the canopy far above his head, the shadows from the individual leaves moved around him like small fish, or a huge flock of tiny birds disturbed from their rest. Was he dreaming? As he walked, the forest of trees abruptly gave way to a field of golden wheat the color of a lion’s fur stretching to the horizon. The breeze was brisk, making rippling waves that raced away from where Dan stood. He marveled at how the wheat seemed so substantial, so solid, until his legs effortlessly parted the stalks. Looking behind him, there was no sign that he’d ever traveled across that ground. That’s the way life is, he thought. You think you’re leaving your mark on the world, but it’s all an illusion. After you’ve gone, the world doesn’t remember where you’ve walked. Suddenly he felt strong, like he had back in school when he would sometimes break into a full run for no reason other than the sheer joy of stretching his legs. Dropping the backpack he didn’t remember picking up, he sprinted through the seamless blanket of beautiful, perfectly formed stalks like a thoroughbred horse at full gallop, loving the feel of the hard wheat heads beating impotently against his thighs as he passed. His strides grew longer and fuller, until each one passed a dozen meters of ground underneath his athletic body. His confidence grew with each step. He knew this – he knew what he was doing now. He just had to squeeze out a little more speed, a little more height, and he could do it. Dan pushed himself, and his steps turned to bounces, like he was running on the moon, making fantastic leaps through the air that gained altitude and distance with each step. And with one last heroic leap, Dan took to the air like a bird in flight, a one hundred kilo albatross that could barely get in the air, but once aloft, commanded the sky. Dan cried out in joy as he triumphantly swooped and soared through the cool, clear air of the pristine September sky. THIS was what he’d been made for! THIS was where he belonged! THIS! THIS! THIS! But the hearty green trees he weaved his way through soon turned dark with contagion and disease. The air around him grew cold and unwelcoming, reminding him without pity that he was in an environment where he did not belong. Losing altitude, he fell to the ground in a shallow dive. By the time he reached the ground he was moving too fast to make a controlled landing, instead tumbling through tall grass in a controlled crash. Flying was always a lot of fun, he thought, but landing was usually rather rude. Picking himself up and dusting off his clothes, he noticed with interest that he was now in a thin, flexible space suit, watching as five other suited figures picked through ruins. To Dan’s surprise, he knew all their names. Roddy was the tall one with the old-fashioned Union Jack flag stuck to his helmet; Butch was the shorter one who told funny stories; Jack almost always got drunk on leave and threw up someplace inconvenient, but his undying loyalty bought him a lot of tolerance. Two of them were working diligently behind a stack of wooden crates – Mindy, who had a young husband and a little girl waiting for her back at base; and Jody, a tall, thin sapiens who, for all of his difficulty relating to adults, had an uncanny knack with children. He had trained with these people, showered with them, eaten, slept, laughed and cried with them, and over the past three years they’d evolved from teammates to friends, and from friends into the closest thing he’d ever had to family. They were all he had in the world. He loved them, and he would gladly have given his life a dozen times over to protect theirs. Mindy was yelling excitedly! They’d found a chest behind the crates and were pulling it out. It looked just like the pirate’s treasure chest that had sat at the bottom of the aquarium he had when he was a child, complete with rotted leather straps and a string of pearls hanging out of the half-open lid. As they excitedly dragged it back to the boat, they left behind them a trail of dropped doubloons that gradually sank back into the lunar dust, shivering back into their resting places like flounder burrowing just beneath the sea floor’s soft, silty soil. Who would have imagined? Dan thought. Treasure on the moon! As he watched his friends wrestle the heavy chest up the transport’s gangway, a few coins and jewels jostled loose, rolling and bouncing down the steel ramp to be lost in the surrounding underbrush. His heart pounded in anticipation of how his life would change. He could get a new car, pay off his grandparents’ farm, and maybe convince someone that he was worth loving. With all that money, he could convince a beautiful woman to marry him so he could carry on the family legacy. What a relief, he thought, watching his crewmates wrestle the heavy chest up the gangway, to know that he would never again have to worry about his damned duty to his unappreciative species. Safely back in the transport now, the treasure awaited him. He wanted to see it, to run his fingers through it and bury himself underneath a kingdom’s worth of jewels, but first there were chores to be done. Any responsible camper knew that you had to clean up your area before you left so it would be nice for the next person. Grabbing a broom, he diligently swept up their campsite, careful even in his haste to sweep around the legs of the aluminum picnic table where they’d eaten their lunch. Task finished, he left the broom leaning against a tree and walked back to the ship. He punched his code into the airlock door, waited for the machinery to cycle the air out, then eagerly stepped inside the small, dark room. Aah, to breathe fresh air again! You could only breathe the recycled crap the suits put out for so long before your lungs started to ache. Pulling off his helmet, his nose was immediately assaulted by the sweet stench of burned hair and putrefying meat. The smell was bad enough to make his stomach lurch and his eyes water. Was there a dead animal in here? He was confused. How had a wild animal gotten inside the ship? The inner door unlatched at his touch, but before his glove could grasp the handle it slammed open with explosive force, a few wisps of foggy smoke curling evilly around its edges. Jumping back in surprise, Dan narrowly avoided the long-dead corpse of the woman he’d seen outside. It was Mindy, he knew, only now she didn’t have a daughter, she didn’t have a recent marriage to a man she loved dearly, and she didn’t have a face. Blown apart by the explosion, what sat on her shoulders had become a horror of blood and ripped flesh. All that was left in the weeping cave of her mouth were a few yellowing shards of teeth and a tongue that waved listlessly back and forth like seaweed caught in the endlessly-moving ocean tide. And to Dan’s horror, with the ominous grace of the Hindenburg, her corpse floated up off the deck and took slow flight towards him. Dan backed away as quickly as he was able, his space suit having become unexpectedly cumbersome. He felt guilty running away from her, because in spite of the fact that she was mutilated, he still loved her. Dan knew that you didn’t run away from the people you loved, even if they weren’t pretty anymore, and although he felt horribly guilty for doing so, he couldn’t stop himself. Was Mindy’s corpse drifting on the moving air, powered by the ship’s climate control systems, or was she actually chasing him? Frantic to get away without having to touch the rotting corpse, Dan backpedaled into the hallway, his feet leaden and clumsy in the dank air. If he could just get to the ship’s bridge, he could call for help! But where was it? Turning to run, he stumbled over a dead body, and then another, and then another. He only wanted to get away, but in his stumbling haste his heavy, booted feet kicked his friends’ bodies. The toe of his boot broke the crusts of their skin, letting out cruel puffs of thick, dusty air that reminded him of the dark spores that drifted out of mushrooms that had hidden for too long in the dark. I’m so sorry, he thought, trying to get away from the floating harbingers without desecrating the bodies of his dead friends. I don’t mean to do this. I love you! “You don’t love us,” the bodies hissed at him, in answer to his unspoken apology, “you left us to die.” One by one they turned their gruesome heads in his direction, their eyeless faces seeing past his façade like they’d never been able to do in life. Only now could they see the weak and worthless person he was on the inside. Only in death could they truly know him. “We’ve been waiting for you on this cold, cold moon,” they whispered, “and all you can think of is taking the money for yourself!” “No!” he screamed, his voice rising to a tortured wail. “No, that’s not true! I don’t want the money! Take it back!” he cried, tears blurring his vision, “I need you back! I don’t want the money!” And then, as if motivated by a hunger that even death could not satisfy, the bodies all around him rose as one and began to shamble towards him. !TERROR! “No!” Dan jolted awake as if slapped. His heart was pounding like he’d just run a marathon, and he had the motherfucker of all headaches. Sweat poured off him, soaking the sheets of his…bed. Yes, he was in his bed. His bed, in his house, and, he realized, he was in the arms of his mate. !protect! “Shh…” Bo cooed, rocking him gently. “Shh… it’s okay, Dan. It’s okay. You’re safe. I’m here. Shh…” In spite of the fact that Dan was soaked to the skin, Bo drew his mate closer, trying to wrap him in mental waves of gentle comfort at the same time he surrounded him with hard bone and warm muscle. It was like holding onto a piece of waterlogged wood, but Bo didn’t give up. Gently rubbing Dan’s back, he reminded his mate that he was back in the real world now, a world that was loving and kind. acceptance Finally, Dan released his panic and allowed Bo to pull him close, his muscles trembling with adrenaline-fueled fatigue. “I’m sorry, Boo,” he whispered, sinking into his mate’s warmth. love “It’s okay,” Bo soothed, “Bad dream?” relief “Oh, my God,” Dan moaned, putting a hand to his face. “It was the worst.” At least the headache was receding. “It started out to be a good dream, but then I was camping on the moon, and then when I went into the ship a bunch of dead bodies came after me, and… Ugh…” He clamped down hard on his thoughts, trying his best to keep Bo from witnessing the horrors he’d seen. Nobody deserved to see those faceless heads. The worst thing about nightmares, Dan thought, was how disorientingly real they could seem. Dan was getting fairly good at setting up his mental barriers, but in his dazed confusion he wasn’t quite fast enough to keep Bo from seeing what had been going on in the theater of his mind. no… remorse guilt As Dan was beginning to relax into Bo, he felt his mate shaking beneath him. Silent sobs wracked the varius’ huge body as he carefully held his Dan in his crushingly powerful arms. “Oh, babe,” he whispered, through lips thickened by emotion. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know this was going to happen.” fear please Dan forgive me i’m sorry… Dan pulled back just enough to see what was happening to his mate’s face. oh god no don’t cry please don’t cry Dan was frantic. He’d never seen Bo like this. It was like the man’s heart was breaking, and it ripped him apart to see it. Changing positions, it was now Dan’s turn to hold Bo. Gently rubbing his partner’s ears, Dan calmed him as best he could. “Babe, please,” he implored, “tell me what’s going on.” sorrow Bo clung to Dan like a limpet, holding on to his arms as tears of shame and regret soaked into the fur under his eyes. “I didn’t think…I’m sorry, Dan,” he snuffled, “I hoped since you weren’t a varius, this couldn’t happen.” Tentatively, Dan probed their link and saw, floating at the very surface of Bo’s thoughts, what had happened. realization horror That horrible dream, the one he’d trade a bunch of something he loved to never have again, was a carbon copy of what Bo had screamed himself awake from every night for almost three years after the accident. Therapy, meditation, and some damned strong pharmaceuticals had allowed Bo to build up walls that trapped the dreams where they couldn’t hurt him any more. And now, since they were powerless to hurt Bo, they spitefully attacked the man he loved. And Dan knew that this was not the only one – there was a whole Greek chorus of horrifying nightmares knocking each other over for the opportunity to be the next one to crawl into his mind. forgiveness guilt Bo had made a solemn pledge to never allow anyone to hurt Dan Blocker, and now it was he who was responsible for the assault. Worst of all, he had no way of protecting the man he loved from the satanic terrors spawned by a subconscious mind beyond his control. authority “You’re not responsible for this, Bo.” The fact that Dan sounded almost angry shocked Bo from his self-flagellation. “Stop being so silly.” Seeing that he had Bo’s attention, Dan allowed his voice to soften. “It’s not your fault, Boo. It’s just something that’s happening, and we’re going to live through it. It’s just a dream, right?” He kissed Bo on the top of the head, then rubbed the kiss in with his cheek. “It’s just a dream.” Chapter 29 !mine! “Damn, you look sharp tonight!” Bo whistled as Dan walked into the living room. “Not that you don’t always.” He’d never seen a sapiens as handsome as Dan, and again he was struck by the fact that Dan was his lifemate. That wonderful-looking man, the one in the tan slacks and snow-white shirt, the one who was almost always the smartest man in the room and was certainly always the kindest, was his mate. Just watching Dan walk towards him was enough to send shivers down Bo’s spine. How he’d gotten so fortunate in the game of love was completely beyond him. For the first time in recent memory Bo felt complete. And tonight, he was going to meet Dan’s family for the first time. By mutual consent the men had agreed that it was probably best not to mention their relationship for now. Let the folks get used to Bo as a friend before introducing him as Dan’s mate. Besides, explaining the bonding process would have been embarrassing to say the least. Later, when the time was right, they would bring them up to speed. Dan refused to lie to them, but he attempted to treat his parents’ conservative values with respect. In this case, ‘respect’ meant treading lightly around the issues they’d rather not face. He knew that in this case progress would have to be made in a series of small steps instead of in a single world-rocking revelation. desire Dan found himself sneaking peeks at Bo out of the corner of his eye. How he wished his parents were a little more open-minded, so he could present Bo to them with all the pride and love he felt for the man, instead of minimizing their relationship as if what they shared was something perverted and kinky. His parents would have preferred that Dan bring home a sapiens woman, but after realizing the futility of that dream they seemed willing to settle for a nice, ‘normal’ son-in-law instead. Dan had brought several candidates to meet his folks over the years, and unfailingly his father found them lacking in moral character. Either they were not hard working enough, or they seemed emotionally underdeveloped, or they possessed some other failing that made his father’s approval impossible to obtain. His choice of a man as hard-working and intelligent as Bo should make his dad happy, after he got to know him well enough to get over the whole varius thing. Dan sighed. He knew he did not need his parent’s approval, but he was close to his family and he would like them to share the joy he felt in being partnered with Bo. It would be so much easier if they could accept Bo into the family without a fuss, and Dan was confident that once they got to know him, they would love him as much as he did. Bo walked up behind Dan and put his arms around him, lacing his fingers together and resting his hands on Dan’s belly. “Nervous?” he asked, leaning down to nestle his chin into the hollow of Dan’s shoulder. “A little,” Dan replied, “are you?” “Terrified,” Bo admitted, chuckling. “Don’t be, Boo,” Dan reassured. “They’ll love you as much as I do. Dan turned in Bo’s arms, and locked his arms around the bigger man’s neck. “I doubt that,” Bo smiled and pulled his partner into a quick kiss. “Come on, we’re going to be late.” They climbed into Dan’s car, which gleamed in the afternoon light. Bo had applied himself diligently that morning, spending hours buffing out the paint and cleaning the interior so that if you looked at it with your eyes half closed, it almost looked new. Almost. Dan settled back into the fresh-smelling upholstery with contentment, and punched his parent’s location into the computer. The car pulled away from the curb, joining the traffic pattern with polished smoothness. It might be a couple of years old, but his car still got the job done. He looked over at the passenger seat and watched Bo wriggle himself into a comfortable position. He seemed almost too large for the seat, but he never complained. “Do you think the car is listing a little bit to the right?” Dan asked with mock seriousness. “It never seemed to do that before…” Bo looked at him with one raised eyebrow. “We’ll have to check that when we get back, won’t we?” He moved a hand over to Dan’s side of the cab and gave him a playful pinch, then took Dan’s hand in his own. “I’ve got to get my physical contact now, if I have to be good all through dinner. It wouldn’t do to lose control and throw you over the dinner table.” “That probably wouldn’t be the best way to introduce you,” Dan admitted. “Mom would freak out if you broke her antique gravy boat.” The car’s computer started its descent right on cue, and they swooped down onto Dan’s parent’s parking area. The Blocker family house was neither huge nor new but it was clean and well maintained. Dan’s father took obvious pride in the maintenance of the lawn, which was deep green, strictly trimmed and, Dan noticed with chagrin, without a single weed. His own lawn should look so nice. Peering into the link he shared with Bo, he was amazed at how much of the world escaped his own notice. Through Bo’s eyes, the house Dan grew up in looked larger, and was a little intimidating in a way he couldn’t define. The same smells he’d grown up with were still there – recently-cut grass and magnolia blossoms– but they were sharper and more defined, and there other new ones blending with them. Dan had never realized that even when it was dry, housepaint had a smell. Bo felt mixed excitement and apprehension as he followed Dan into the entry foyer, and he couldn’t help looking around like a tourist in a foreign land. So this was the life he’d never had. This comfortable world might have been his, if his own parents had been different. Bo thought he might envy Dan, but he wasn’t quite certain he was ready to commit to that just yet. Too many things in the world that looked good on the outside weren’t all that great when you scratched past the surface. But Dan had turned out all right, so his parents couldn’t be too bad. Maybe this was going to be okay. They found Dan’s father on his usual perch, resting in a recliner in front of the vidscreen, a Scotch in one hand and the remote control in the other. When he rose to greet them, Dan’s early training took over. “Dad, I’d like you to meet Bo Taylor,” Dan said, feeling foolish conducting the age-old ceremony. “Bo, this is my father, Frank Blocker.” “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mister Blocker.” Bo said, taking the offered hand and giving it a quick, firm shake before returning it to its owner. “The pleasure is mine.” His father’s voice was friendly enough, but he had not offered to let Bo call him by his first name. Dan was not encouraged, but he gamely played through in the hope that things would soon improve. Dan’s mother entered the living room drying her hands on her apron, and the ceremony was repeated with similar results. Dan had to wonder to himself what was going on with his parents, why they seemed so reserved and distant. Bo felt his consternation through the link and gave him a quick look. Mild confusion was the order of the day, it seemed. Dinner was served after drinks and appetizers, and as Dan seated himself, he felt relief at having made it to this point. If anything, he thought he was growing more nervous as the evening progressed instead of relaxing, like he’d expected. On the surface the conversation was polite, but Dan could tell from years of experience that something was not quite right. Dan had the feeling that his parents were treating Bo as if his presence in their life were a temporary condition, and they didn’t believe they’d ever be seeing him in their home again. After failing several times to catch Dan’s eye, Bo tried to pull his mate into a mental link that might explain the chill he felt in the air, but Dan remained closed to him. More so, in fact, than he’d been at any point since they’d bonded. Bo said nothing, but this was not a good sign. That Dan could shut himself off like this meant that his walls were strong, and had been intentionally built to keep his thoughts private. Bo’s proper use of cutlery and appreciative comments about the quality of the food had failed to chip holes in Dan’s mother’s wall of correctly polite behavior. If anything, his actions seemed to be reinforcing whatever views she held, and Bo didn’t know what to do to ease the tension. A lifetime of being pushed outside of the social circle had thickened his skin, and Bo had very much fallen out of the habit of catering to difficult people. But years of being around Sam had taught him the importance of accepting the people who were important to your mate. Sam had warred with his wife’s parents for years, somehow managing to miss the fact that every successful pot shot he took at them blasted a hole in his own relationship as well. Bo was wise enough to know that he didn’t have to make every mistake himself. He’d learned valuable lessons while watching Sam rebuild his own tattered relationship, and he’d be damned if he were going to take Dan down that road. If it wasn’t in his power to make Dan’s parents like him, he could at least treat them with respect in the hopes that they’d eventually warm up. “May I have the gravy, please?” Dan’s father asked the table at large. Bo recognized this opportunity to serve, and his hand shot out to the white porcelain bowl. With deftness that belied his size, he picked up the bowl and ladle and delivered them to Dan’s father. “Thank you, Bo.” Bo’s eyes had been scanning the room for ten minutes now, trying to figure out something about Dan’s parent’s interests. His mother remained a total mystery. The house had been decorated sparsely, mostly with images of friends and family in locations and poses that gave little clue to the personality of the subjects. There had been a few clues as to Dan’s father’s interests, though. Bo had glimpsed a prominently displayed hunting rifle, several collectible items from America’s civil war, and a few golfing mementos scattered here and there. Since he had strong opinions on hunting and war, when he took another stab at engaging the man in conversation, he chose golf as the topic. “I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve golfed all over the continent,” he observed. He paused a moment, then recalled, “In your living room, I saw mementos from courses in Hawaii, Florida, and Denver, and unless I miss my guess, Bermuda and Mexico.” Dan’s father paused a moment in his chewing, then responded cautiously, almost as if he were expecting to be tricked. “Yes, I’ve been fortunate enough to golf on some of the best courses in this part of the world.” He stabbed at his steak and sawed carefully with his knife. His eyes cut to meet Bo’s. “Do you have any interest in golf?” The big morph answered with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Golf isn’t the sort of activity I’d do well to pursue, I’m afraid. The last time I tried to hit a bucket of balls, I ended up bending the club.” He thought for a moment, then said, “I do have a friend who enjoys playing, but he will probably not be welcomed into any of the clubs.” “Why do you say that?” Dan’s father asked, more out of propriety than interest, it seemed. Bo considered his words carefully, hoping that he could find a way to tell the truth without offending his new father-in-law. “He tried to join one of the local private clubs a few months back, but his application was rejected.” “Rejected?” Dan’s father replied, “On what basis”? “He never found out for certain.” Bo said, “but the official answer was that there were no openings at the club at that time, and that his application would be kept on file for future consideration.” “That’s not unusual,” Mr. Blocker said, “the private clubs are highly popular. They often have long waiting lists.” “That’s probably true,” Bo agreed. “but I’d be very interested in seeing exactly who is kept on the waiting list, and who is granted quick admission. Less than a week later, another man who applied after my friend did received his acceptance letter. The only difference we could tell was that my friend is a feline varius. The man who was accepted is sapiens. Go figure.” Dan’s father looked irritated by this, as if Bo were intentionally trying to annoy him. “There’s much more involved in club membership than credit scores or income. Its not that simple.” “No,” Bo agreed, “it’s not simple at all. What it boils down to is old-fashioned racism and bigotry, and those are highly complex issues that have been plaguing mankind for thousands of years. They’re not likely to be solved overnight.” “Racism is a problem we conquered years ago.” Mr. Blocker’s voice had gained an edge, and Dan could see a blush of red creeping up his dad’s neck where his collar didn’t quite cover. “Even before the war, the charter in our club was modified to disallow bigotry in any form. We have members in our organization from every walk of life.” He leaned forward slightly as he warmed to his subject. “We have women, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, Hindi, and any other religion you could think of. We have members from all economic backgrounds, too. Last week, I teed off with a pair of schoolteachers and a city councilman. In fact, you might be surprised to learn that we even have a number of same-sex couples on the roster.” “That does surprise me,” Bo admitted, “but it doesn’t alter what I’m saying. Rather, it reinforces the injustice. You’ve got a selection committee who will allow anyone through the door, as long as they aren’t a varius.” “We have varii,” Dan’s father retorted, “I know. I’ve seen them on the greens.” Bo shot back, “Yes, I’m certain there are a token few. Enough to satisfy federal exclusion standards, but not enough to achieve parity.” From where Dan was sitting, he could see the hair on the back of Bo’s neck begin to bristle. An outsider would never have known that anything was amiss, but Dan could tell he was annoyed, bordering on angry. He also leaned forward, matching Dan’s father’s assertive posture evenly and with a total lack of fear. “Which club do you belong to, Mr. Blocker?” Bo asked, civilly. “I play regularly at several clubs, but I’m a member of Rolling Wood.” Bo picked up his fork and toyed with the food on his plate, thinking for a moment. “My friend happens to be a lawyer, and a damned good one. He’s compiling the data for a class action lawsuit as we speak. He let me look at the data he’s gathered so far, and the results were rather illuminating. If I recall correctly, Rolling Wood is on that list. “I don’t have an eidetic memory, but I do seem to remember seeing that you currently have somewhere around eight hundred and seventy-five members. The number of genetically engineered members is eight. Let’s just say that one percent of your club’s population is of hybrid stock, versus three percent of the population as a whole.” He put down his fork and looked straight into Frank Blocker’s eyes. He could see they were the same color as Dan’s but they were much, much cooler. “You are probably aware that the median income at your club is a hundred and twenty-five thousand credits a year. “What you may not be aware of is that the average income of the eight varius members is double that, and all have made substantial financial gifts to the institution. Considering that the average varius makes ten to fifteen percent less than an equivalent sapiens working the same job, this suggests that the few varii who were approved for membership are considerably more affluent than their sapiens counterparts, and implies that they bought their way in.” “I don’t know where you got your data,” Dan’s father began, and was immediately stopped by one of Bo’s pie plate-sized hands in the air. “It’s not ‘MY’ data, it came from the National Tax Office. And their main source was the membership information that your club was required by law to provide.” “I don’t make that much, and they let me in!” Dan’s father steamed. “That, sir,” Bo replied with quiet dignity, “is because you are not varius.” Picking up his knife and fork, he turned his attention back to his meal. He knew that his facts were accurate, and he knew he was remembering them correctly. He also knew that, morally, he had the high ground. “This really is delicious beef, Mrs. Blocker. Do I taste sage?” Conversation after that was a slowly dying consent on both sides to say as little as possible in order to make it through the evening. Finishing dessert was a relief, and Dan was glad to escape from the confines of the dinner table. As his mother cleared dishes from the table, deflecting offers from Bo and Dan to help as adroitly as she had avoided offers for conversation during the meal, the men moved into the living room. After a few minutes watching the local news channel, Dan’s father got up from his chair and asked Dan to help him in the garage for a moment. “Please, Bo, make yourself comfortable,” he said, “We’ll be right back.” As the two men walked out of the room Bo tried to get a read on Dan’s emotions, but the other man had clamped down tight on his feelings. Bo was both surprised and impressed. In the weeks since he and Dan had bonded, Dan had never completely shut him out. The fact that he could do so now, with such a lack of practice and with Bo sitting so close, was astonishing. It took most varii months, or even years, to develop the sort of mental control that Dan was maintaining with a natural ease. Dan followed his father into his workshop, and was surprised when he closed the door behind them. Staring hard into his son’s eyes, Frank Blocker quietly exploded. “Dan, you’ve made some harebrained decisions in your life, but this takes the cake,” he seethed. “What were you thinking, bringing a dog to dinner?” Dan was shocked, not only at his father’s parochial attitudes, but that he would voice them in such an outspoken manner. For a moment he was speechless, feeling the heat of indignation rising to his face, but Dan’s silence did not deter his father. “What do you think you’re doing to your mother with such a stunt?” he asked, pointing a finger in the direction of the kitchen. “They’re not like us! They have their own culture and their own needs, and you’re trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole bringing him out of a world he knows and trying to get him to act human. It’s bad enough that you’re gay, but is your life so miserable that you can’t even find a sapiens to be with?” Dan noticed that he didn’t say ‘…be friends with,’ he said ‘…be with.’ So they knew. Well, he thought morbidly, at least that bridge didn’t have to be crossed. Dan ignored the cheap shot at his sexuality and addressed the bigger issue instead. “I think you just missed the fact that he was more than able to engage you in conversation at dinner. In fact, from where I was sitting, he won! Even if you don’t agree with him, you have to admit that he’s smart!” Dan couldn’t help pleading. “Get to know Bo, and I guarantee you’ll like him. You don’t know him.” “You don’t know him, either!” His father shot back with quiet intensity, poking an angry finger in Dan’s direction. “You think you do, but you don’t. This is just a passing fancy that will be gone in a year or two, then what will happen to him?” His father bored on relentlessly. “You’ve never held onto anything in your life, and this is no different. You play around with relationships the way you played around with school and you’re playing around with work. You need to commit yourself to things, son.” Dan’s mouth dropped open in shock, but he recovered quickly. “You’re talking about my past relationships like it was my fault they didn’t work out,” he accused. “It wasn’t?” his dad said acidly. “No, it wasn’t,” Dan said, anger leaking through his emotional walls, “I did everything I could to keep them together, but even I can’t prevent the inevitable. I can commit all I want, but if the other party won’t do likewise, I can’t do anything about that, can I?” “This relationship with Bo won’t last, and you know it!” “Why are you so sure of that, Dad?” Dan asked, stung. “Why do you assume we’ll fail?” “Because no relationship you’ve ever had has worked out!” the older man answered without hesitation. “Recombinants and humans are fundamentally different. This relationship may seem exciting right now, but soon you’ll hunger for the company of your own people. Face it, son, as much as you may like him now, Bo isn’t human.” At that, it was like the floodgates of rationality were torn asunder, and Dan’s father’s bigotry came slithering out of its den. “They were created to serve mankind, and they should have been put away after the war, instead of competing with us for jobs, for resources, and now they’re competing to take away the stability of our families!” Dan’s knuckles whitened on the corner of the workbench. His father’s face was growing red with emotion, and for an instant, through his own anger, Dan was afraid his dad was going to have another heart attack. “Look,” he said quietly. “Let’s talk about this later.” He stared his father in the eye. “Your walls aren’t all that thick,” he said, coldly. “Do you really think it’s appropriate to be discussing this with Bo in the next room?” At the reminder of his impropriety, Dan’s father visibly gathered together the tattered rags of his dignity. “We just don’t want you to settle for something less than the best, son. We both feel this way.” “Settle?” Dan’s voice had adopted a decidedly icy chill, “Bo is the most amazing person I’ve ever met, sapiens or varius. He’s smart, he’s kind, he’s got a work ethic that puts the two of us to shame, and he is completely invested in our relationship. He loves me, and it’s a complete blessing to have him in my life. And,” he said, one hand on the doorknob, “if you want me in your life, you’ll have to accept him too. Not tolerate him, accept him! We’re a package deal, and if you can’t manage to get over your bigotries you’ll be seeing a lot less of me in the future, too.” Turning on his heel, Dan pulled open the door and walked back to the living room. He couldn’t tell whether his father was following him, but at that moment, he was disinclined to turn and check. let’s go When Dan stalked back into the room Bo stood, knowing it was time to go back to the world he was familiar with. All of a sudden, the life he grew up in didn’t seem so bad after all. His partner said nothing, but the aura of anger surrounding him was so palpable that Bo didn’t need their link to tell that he was virtually speechless with fury. Walking straight to the front door, Dan all but slammed it open in his haste to leave. Remembering his manners, Bo detoured to the kitchen and thanked Dan’s mother for her hospitality before following Dan out the door. Perhaps the fading evening light was to blame, but as he strode across the immaculate lawn on his way back to the car, he thought that it looked quite a bit less green than it had on their way in. The five-minute ride back to Dan’s house seemed to take much longer, Dan fuming in silence. Although Bo didn’t know precisely what had happened between Dan and his father, his sensitive hearing had picked up raised voices, and he could feel through the link that Dan was the angriest he’d ever seen him. Bo knew that his partner wasn’t one to hold on to anger for long, so he kept his own counsel for the time being and let Dan simmer down. True to form, as Dan calmed, Bo could feel the walls that had suddenly sprung up begin to collapse, brick by emotional brick. By the time they pulled into the driveway that Bo had begun to consider theirs, Dan’s anger had mellowed considerably, being replaced by disappointment and embarrassment at both his father’s actions and his own. The two men got out of the car, but neither headed indoors just yet. Neither of them wanted to bring this issue’s negativity inside their home. “That went well!” Bo said brightly, leaning against the car. “Do you want to talk about it?” “I had forgotten my dad’s bigotry ran so deep,” Dan sighed, feeling his face redden in shame. He moved to stand between Bo’s splayed legs, quietly leaning his cheek against the varius’ broad chest. “Well, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” Bo answered, putting his heavy paws on Dan’s shoulders and rubbing gently. “It didn’t even seem like they tried, though,” said Dan, disappointedly. “I’d hoped for so much more from them.” There was nothing more Bo could say, and he knew it. Wrapping his arms around Dan’s shoulders, he did the only thing he could think of, quietly rocking him back and forth in his warm, loving embrace.

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“Come on, Ken! Bo’s waiting!” “He’s not going anywhere without us,” Ken protested, his voice echoing as it worked its way out of his bedroom and into the living room of his apartment, where Dan had waiting with fading patience through two costume changes. “It’s been two months since I’ve caught a good workout, and my ass is huge.” “You’re a lion,” Dan’s voice was tinged with exasperation. “Your ass is supposed to be big. It’s your best selling point.” He shrugged, “It’s hot.” “I dunno…” Ken was peering over his shoulder at the reflection in his bedroom mirror, apparently unconvinced. “This is just the gym, Ken. Nobody gives a damn what you look like.” “I do,” Ken said, petulantly. “I’m walking,” Dan turned and headed out the door, gym bag in hand. “Fine,” Ken harrumphed, grabbing his own bag and following Dan outside. Dan remotely popped open his car’s passenger door and slung his bag into the back seat, inviting Ken to do the same. “What does it matter, anyway? The gym’s pretty much varius only, and last I checked, you’re not into fur.” “Oh, I don’t know,” Ken groused. “Hope springs eternal, I guess.” Dan chuckled. Even when he was in a frumpy mood, Ken was as entertaining as a basket full of kittens. Ten minutes later, after waiting for a very large man dragging a tractor tire behind him to clear the way, they made a smooth landing in the gym’s parking lot. Even if he hadn’t been able to see Bo’s jalopy with his own eyes, Dan would have known through their link that his mate was here. Contrary to what he’d been told to expect, several aspects of their link had actually grown stronger over the past month or so. There had been times when Dan could locate Bo in a crowded store as easily as if the varius had a giant red balloon tied to his wrist. And although Bo’s voice inside Dan’s head did grow softer, it was also becoming clearer. It was less intrusive, but easier to understand. Right now, Bo was waiting for them in the locker room, and as Dan had predicted, he was mildly annoyed with Ken. Dan smiled as he signed their names on the gym’s tattered sign-in sheet. Six months ago, Bo had been the one signing Dan’s name on the clipboard and tossing it back on the pile, and now Dan was getting to do it for Ken. He hoped the lion was going to have fun here. It would be nice to have another gym buddy, especially when Bo had something else to do. If he was smiling when they were in the office, Dan almost laughed out loud as they worked their way back through the tangle of equipment. Just like the first time he was there, Jackson was hidden behind piles of old machinery, repetitively (and noisily) banging out deadlifts with the mechanical regularity of a well-oiled machine. Dan waited for a pause in the noise, then yelled out, “I brought a friend!” And just like his first time, a voice called out over the machines… “Sign in!” “Good God,” Ken said, unknowingly mimicking Dan’s first reaction when he felt the floor vibrate. “How much is he lifting?” “That’s Jackson,” Dan said, “He’s probably got about four-fifty on the bar right now.” “No kidding,” Ken whistled, impressed at the display of raw power. Dan was amused to see his mouth drop open just the slightest bit in an unconscious hormonal reaction. “That’s…” “Yeah,” Dan nodded his head and shot Ken an understanding look, knowing exactly what Ken was talking about. “Smokin’ hot, ain’t it?” That kind of strength was sexy, even if you weren’t into morphs. If he didn’t think it was a waste of time he’d try to hook the two up, but he knew Jackson wasn’t Ken’s type. A pity… “Come on,” he said, sensing Bo’s impatience through the link and pulling Ken toward the dressing room. “It’s time for your date with pain.” Their workout was brutal, and by the time it was finished, all three men were dripping with sweat, and Dan thought that Ken was smelling only marginally better than Bucky. Felines often had a funk about them that got stronger with heat and exertion, and Ken’s was really no worse than anyone else’s. Every now and then when Dan looked over at Bo, the thought of Bucky would jump between them and Bo would snigger under cover of a cough or a sneeze. Finally, Kensuke grew weary of Bo’s covert giggles. Mopping up as much of his armpit sweat as he could in his gym towel, he waited until Bo was looking the other way, then wrapped the foul smelling cloth around the bigger varius’ head. Uh-oh… Dan thought. Big mistake. With a speed that should have been impossible given his size, Bo whipped around and blindly stiff-armed Ken in the solar plexus, driving the breath out of the lion. Ken wasn’t hurt, but he was surprised. “Hey, you jerk!” he wheezed, trying to catch his breath. “I was just playing with you!” He looked at Bo with no small amount of annoyance. “Why are you always in such a fucking grumpy mood, anyway?” Bo pulled the sweaty towel from where it had fallen around his shoulders and wadded it up, careful to not extract any of the liquid from it. Taking careful aim, he tossed the sodden cloth straight into Ken’s face. It was an uncharacteristically coarse move, one that painted him as something of an asshole. If he’d done something like that to someone on their first date, Dan thought, there likely wouldn’t have been a second. Belatedly, he realized that the thought had probably gone out through their link, but Bo didn’t react to it. Ken recoiled from the impact, wishing he’d just smacked Bo in the head with a 22-kilo weight when he’d had the chance. Sometimes a tire iron in the face did what diplomacy would not, after all. Since he didn’t have a tire iron handy, he used hard words instead. “Don’t be such a goddamned jerk, Bo,” he peeled the towel off him and tossed it to the ground. “It’s a wonder Dan can stand you, sometimes.” He hadn’t meant to say something that nasty, but he was angry and it had spilled out. The fact that it was true just made it that much easier for the words to slip through his lips. The small amount of good humor that had been on Bo’s face flashed off like alcohol on a hot pan. Getting up from the bench he was resting on, he had mayhem in his eyes, the likes of which Dan hadn’t seen since Bo had given up fighting in bars. The monster was back now, straining against a very thin leash and itching to be set free. To his credit, Ken didn’t flinch. He was prepared to meet Bo’s charge head-on when a figure larger than either man stepped between them. “Take it to the ring.” Jackson’s deep voice was calm, but brooked no argument. To keep things clean, the owner had installed a sparring ring in the back where differences between varii who weren’t intelligent enough to solve their problems with words used fists instead. With a glare Bo stalked off to the ring, not bothering to see if Ken followed. The lion was left with the choice of either fighting Bo in the ring and probably getting the snot knocked out of him, or refusing to fight and looking like pussy supreme. Even though he had the heart of a lover, a poet and an artist, Ken had never in his life backed down from a fight, and he wasn’t about to start now. He confidently followed Bo, matching the larger man stride for angry stride. Dan shook his head as he followed, carefully keeping his feelings of annoyance at bay, as much as Bo was keeping his own thoughts and feelings to himself. His bondmate wasn’t in the habit of doing things frivolously, and even when he behaved in ways that Dan didn’t understand, Dan trusted him. The two men had something they needed to work out, and if he didn’t understand it right now, it was probably because it was some cryptic varius ritual like what had happened with Chester, and Bo would explain it to him later. For right now, he didn’t want Ken to get banged up too badly on his first, and possibly last, trip to their gym. Sure, Ken was a man who could take care of himself, but to fight Bo? Damn. Bo shucked into the ring with ease, bouncing casually on the balls of his feet even after the killer workout they’d just had. Tossing his shirt to the corner of the ring, he waited impatiently for Ken to settle in. The energy in the room had turned sour and angry, tainting the mood of everyone in it. This sort of thing happened about once a week, sometimes even between close friends, and the other gym rats were used to it. Usually only a few bored people who were cooling down between lifts gravitated over to watch the impromptu match, but this time all other activity in the gym had stopped. Bo was one of the largest guys in a gym full of huge men, and Kensuke was a fresh face. Nobody knew him, and nobody had any clue what he’d done to be challenged into the ring by a battle-varius. It didn’t really matter why. There was going to be a fight, and if it wasn’t a good one, it at least would be interesting. Ken fearlessly strode up to Bo, and got casually pushed back to the other side of the ring. Bo’s shove didn’t look particularly violent, but even with Ken’s feline reflexes, it threatened to overbalance him. Bo was not the sort of man you wanted to fuck with, and Ken reconsidered his strategy. This wasn’t a fight for love, and it wasn’t truly a fight out of anger either. Ken was fighting for Bo’s respect, and like every other challenge, he intended on fighting to win. “This was your bright idea, pup,” he said to Bo, “why are you making me come to you? You gettin’ lazy on me?” “You don’t belong here, Ken,” Bo said, talking just as much smack as the lion did. “This gym is for men, not boys.” In typical fashion, Bo cut straight to the chase. “Dan is mine,” he said, smirking confidently as he stared into Ken’s eyes, “not yours.” The shit-eating grin faded when he said, quite seriously, “Back off.” With that one comment, any lingering doubts that anyone in the gym might have had that Bo and Dan were a couple vanished, and in one smooth move, every eye ringing the fight turned to look at Dan, who was quietly watching both men without visible expression. He wanted to protest this bullshit swaggering and put an end to this puerile pissing match, but everything about his mate’s mental state told him to butt out. His ultimate goal here was to stay out of the way, and if the pieces of either man were large enough to do so, to pick them up afterwards. “You’ve already got Dan,” Ken said, without rancor or fear, drawing the eyes back to him. “Nobody can take him away from you. You’re just not smart enough to see it.” “I see plenty.” Bo swiped a mammoth paw at Ken’s head, and if his reflexes hadn’t been so sharp, the cat’s skull might have been knocked from his shoulders. Ken walked swiftly towards Bo and raised his arms as if to attack, but he jerked to a stop a hairsbreadth outside Bo’s reach. When Bo reached out to block the non-existent attack, Ken leaned slightly forward and, with lighting speed and an almost delicate grace, took Bo’s wrist in his handpaw and helped him to overbalance. With a crash Bo slammed into the floor, wind driven out of him by a solid punch to the chest that was there and gone before he’d ever seen it coming. Damn, he thought, trying not to show weakness by wheezing, this kid is good. Springing to his feet, Bo vowed to not be caught by that sort of move again. The next time Ken came close, Bo let him. A full frontal assault would do nothing against an opponent twice Ken’s size, so it had to be a bluff. Bo moved backwards to deceive Ken’s sense of depth perception, then he sprang forward and landed a bone-crushing blow to the center of Ken’s chest, where a hard punch was less likely to cause significant damage. Ken was sent spinning into the ropes, but not before the lion inflicted damage of his own. In the same instant he struck, Bo felt a searing pain in his side. Kidney blow, he thought, analyzing the source of the pain before pushing it into his mind’s garbage disposal. Most of the people who’d been unfortunate enough to fight Bo would have sworn that the man didn’t feel pain, but that wasn’t true. He did feel pain; he was just too stubborn to let it get in his way. Ken coughed raggedly, his chest sore from the repeated blows. As much as he wanted to take Bo down a notch, he wasn’t arrogant enough to think that something like that was going to happen easily. Circling the bigger man, Ken noticed something in his eyes that he ached to draw. Hidden behind his granite walls of varius reserve was a crippling fear so mammoth that Bo had been forced to wall it off in order to function. It was contained so ruthlessly that not even Dan could see it, and was so skillfully hidden that Ken thought Bo might not even know it was there. Clearing his mind of hostility, Ken knew what he had to do. He’d grown up around the martial arts, and had the privilege of learning from some tremendously talented men. Although much of his early instruction had leaked out his ears by this point, there were definitely things he remembered, the most important of which was when to follow tradition, and when to break from it. Moving closer to Bo, he settled into a classic defensive posture. “Come on, Crabby-Pants,” he grinned, twitching his fingers enticingly, “give me your best shot. I have a workout to finish.” Bo smirked and grew still. Like lightning about to strike in a field with only one tree, the question was not what would happen, but when. Silence screamed through the gym, testing the nerves of both men. Bo broke the tension by relaxing his body, casually moving a few steps closer to Kensuke. Trojan Horse, Ken thought to himself. Classic. When Bo was inside Ken’s defensive circle, the lightning struck. Bo’s arms flew out in a bid to grab the lion and throw him out of the ring and onto his ass in a Sumo-style win. But a very startled Ken overbalanced and fell backwards, barely managing to evade the larger varius’ grasp as he went down. At least, that’s what Ken wanted Bo to think. As he flailed his arms and fell backwards, he twisted his body and braced his shoulders for impact. As soon as his upper back hit the mat, Ken unleashed the power in his coiled legs and sent them rocketing out underneath Bo’s defenses. Catching the larger man underneath the rib cage, the kick was magnificently effective at driving the air from Bo’s lungs and pushing him off his center of gravity. A fast foot-sweep from Ken, and Bo was lying on the ground, momentarily vulnerable. Cat-quick, Ken sprang up and put a knee on Bo’s chest, wasting no time in grabbing the canine’s throat with one paw. Razor-sharp claws peeked out of their sheaths, ready to do all the damage that was necessary. For now, though, they merely touched the surface of Bo’s skin. Ken struggled to breathe evenly, and vowed to himself that he’d pass out from oxygen deprivation before he let Bo know that he’d been affected in the slightest. “We’re done.” Both men knew that it could have gone further, and both of them knew the pointlessness of doing so. Bo looked Ken in the eyes and nodded, cultivating a new respect for the man. “Done.” Ken could have given Bo something to think about by pushing his knee into the black varius’ chest as he got up, perhaps even cracking a rib or two, but he had no desire to add to the pain he’d seen in the man’s eyes. Carefully climbing to his feet, Ken extended a hand down to Dan’s mate. Bo took the proffered hand and levered himself upright, then grabbed the smelly kitty in an almost bone-crushing hug. His voice was pitched for no ears but Ken’s. “I’m sorry.” They were only two words, but spoken with such intensity and sincerity they meant the world to Ken. The lion clapped the canine on the back. “Friends?” Bo gently pushed Ken out to arms length and considered him carefully. The lion wasn’t asking for mere social friendship, and even though they weren’t in the most private venue for such a thing, Bo considered it appropriate. Nodding his head slowly, Bo agreed. “Friends.” “It’s about damned time,” Dan said loudly, from the sidelines. “Can we get back to work, now?” Chapter 30 “So this is where you brought Dan?” Ken looked over the façade of the Indian Republic restaurant that Bo and Dan had brought him to, nodding his head in approval. “Gotta love ratholes like this. It smells amazing.” “Yeah,” Bo said, “it’s our special place. Or at least, it was.” His grumbling suggested how much he resented having to share their secret spot with someone else, even if that person was going to be invited into their little family later that evening. “Brought me?” Dan asked, “for what? What are you talking about?” “Having a big celebration on the day you invite someone into your Circle is a varius tradition,” Bo explained, instantly losing the grumpy demeanor he enjoyed inflicting upon Ken in favor of one that was far more patient and relaxed. “Most folks throw a big party, but since we’ve only got three of us, it would be kind of sad to try that. So we brought him to our favorite restaurant instead.” Bo shot Dan a mental picture of the three of them sitting on folding chairs, wearing pointed party hats and staring at each other while the clock ticked. “Let me guess,” Ken said, glancing between Dan and Bo,” Casanova here didn’t bother telling you about that tradition when he brought you here the first time?” “I’m his little mushroom,” Dan said, grinning lightheartedly as he gave Bo’s beefy arm a carefree squeeze. “He keeps me in the dark and feeds me bullshit.” “Ha ha,” Bo. said, sounding far more annoyed than he really was, “you are a very funny man.” He entered first to hold the door open for Dan, and then, to both of the other men’s surprise, for the lion as well. “I didn’t make a big deal about it because I didn’t know whether or not you were going to freak out on me.” That made as much sense as anything, but Dan still would have appreciated being included in decisions that affected his life. Bo had gotten somewhat better about opening up and trusting Dan since their bonding, but Dan sometimes wondered if that was only because it was almost impossible to keep him totally in the dark. Bo’s initial response to any situation, Dan had learned, was to keep his cards close to his vest. Even with their link, if Bo didn’t feel like telling Dan something, getting information out of him was an exercise in frustration. The food here had been so good on that first visit that their faces had become well known to the restaurant’s staff; and as usual, the owner greeted them at the front. The look on her face was sunshine itself as she asked, with a knowing nod and a smile, “You are three today?” The tiny silver bells on her earrings and bracelet made delicate music as they jingled softly with her every movement. “Yes, Joti,” Bo. replied, solemnly, “we are three.” Dan thought that this sounded like some sort of varius call-response ritual, and he was in the process of congratulating himself for recognizing it as such when Bo burst his bubble. sorry, babe i was just making fun of her accent disappointed sometimes it’s more fun to not know the truth Bo put a warm hand on Dan’s back as they followed Joti to the table that the men had begun to regard as ‘theirs,’ feeling the minor annoyance disappear from his mate’s mind after giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze. Remaining as respectful as he’d been through the rest of the process, Ken waited for the other two to choose their accustomed cushions before seating himself on the floor between them. Bo had been far less respectful of Ken, Dan knew, calling unnecessary meetings and asking for volumes of extraneous information for the simple pleasure of watching the lion jump through hoops. While Dan had chastised Bo for being such a prick to their friend, he couldn’t help but grin at the fun it gave his partner to yank Ken’s chain. Ken wanted to be a member of their Circle, and Bo, being the de facto head of their little group, was going to make sure that he worked for the privilege. “It makes good sense,” Bo had answered Dan’s silent protestations, sounding uncannily like an elderly sociology professor Dan had studied under in college. “People who have to work to join an organization are forty-six percent more likely to highly value their membership.” In return for his mate’s tolerance, Bo had eased up on Ken, withdrawing his request for a three a.m. meeting at which he was going to do nothing more substantial than request a copy of the lion’s professional resume. Bo stubbornly refused to deliver any apologies, for this or any of the other rigors he’d put the lion through. “He knows I’m just kidding.” Dan would never have allowed Bo’s hazing to continue, except that underneath all of his barking and growling, Dan could sense in Bo’s mind that the man felt a growing affection for Ken as well. He might damn-near torture the lion himself, but Dan knew that if anyone else even thought about lifting a finger against Ken, Bo would be the first to stand between them with fists cocked. Ken reclined comfortably at the low table, propping himself up with pillows as naturally as if he’d been doing it all his life. “This place is really great,” he said, appreciating the way the restaurant was laid out. “Why haven’t I read about it in the guides?” “It’s not in the best part of town,” Dan guessed, “but the food’s great, it doesn’t cost a lot, and the service is always immaculate.” “So it’s cheap, huh?” Ken said, constitutionally incapable of resisting any opportunity to tease Bo. “No wonder he brought you here.” The grin on his face was unashamedly devilish as he aimed his wit cannon and took his best shot. “Did you remember to bring your coupon?” Bo opened up his mouth to shoot back a smart reply, but before he could say a word Dan had pulled his second-favorite distraction out of his pants pocket and tossed it onto the table in front of him. !ooh! fish… snake… star… Ken shot Dan a disgruntled look. “Is that my chain?” He rather enjoyed playing with the chain, and didn’t like seeing Bo pawing over it with his big, hairy meathooks. And the more he watched Bo play with it, the more it became Ken’s favorite toy. Ken was showing obvious signs of preparing to lean over the table and grab the chain away from Bo when Dan sighed loudly and reached into his other pants pocket. He pulled out another shining lump of ball chain, this one still in the protective plastic pouch it came in. With a sly grin, he tossed the package over to Ken. “Happy Circle Day.” Ooh! Ken thought, Mine! Kensuke wasted no time in extending a claw and slitting open the plastic, liberating a full meter of his very own ball chain. Spreading it out on the table in front of him, he started making his own shapes; windmill…sabre…bunch of grapes… Ken was in the middle of forming a caricature of Bo that had a huge head and two tiny little ears when Joti returned to the table bearing their drinks on a silver tray. Both varii were so engrossed that neither looked up from their creative play. “You seem to have discovered the secret to entertaining children,” she said, her long, elegant tail swaying back and forth in amusement. “What,” Dan asked, “throw away the toy and let them play with the box?” “Definitely,” she shook her head in amusement as she watched the two thickly-muscled men play. “Aah,” she crooned, voice thick with irony, “they are so cute when they’re little.” Dan smiled at how well she understood the situation. “I used to only have one child to keep up with, but after tonight I’ll have two.” She looked at him with surprised delight, then turned to Ken. “You are…” she saw that he was far too engrossed in his activity to respond, and turned back to Dan for her confirmation. “He is new to your Circle?” Dan nodded, the smile on his face peaceful and contented. “Today?” Joti reiterated, putting a paw to her chest. “You chose us?” She looked touched, Dan thought, as if she might break out in happy tears at any moment. “You do us great honor, Dan. But, Bo…” she pointed at his partner, confused, “why did he not call? We would have prepared something special for the occasion!” “Your food is always special, Joti,” Dan soothed. “It’s the best in town.” “I will make a dessert for him,” she decided, “something extra special for his extra special day! What sort of cake does he like?” “Please,” Dan said, “don’t go through any extra trouble for us.” “It’s not for you,” she said, dismissing Dan as casually as if he were one of her own sons, “it’s for him! He deserves to have nice things on his special day.” She looked at him expectantly, one eyebrow raised as she waited for her answer Dan was stymied. He had no idea what kind of cake Ken preferred. In fact, he couldn’t even remember seeing the lion eat cake before. He seemed so damned healthy… “Pineapple upside down cake.” Bo said quietly, not looking up from his chain. “The kind with the red cherries in the middle of the rings. It’s gotta have the cherries.” Dan was dubious. “How did you know that?” Bo looked up just long enough to meet Dan’s eyes before shrugging and turning back to his toy. “It was on application number three.” aircar… saturn… shoe… Joti scurried back to the kitchen, leaving Dan patiently waiting for his friends to lose interest in their toys. A minute went by, and then two, before Dan’s hunger outweighed his patience and compelled him to abandon the two varii and head off to the buffet. When he got back to the table and saw the two men still engrossed in childlike activity, he reached out and took both chains away, storing them in his pockets. “Go eat!” Bo and Ken shot Dan similarly aggrieved looks, affronted that he would take away their playthings. “That’s not fair,” Ken protested, before turning to look at Bo. “Is he always like this?” “Usually,” Bo shot Dan a hurt look before turning his attention back to Kensuke. “Sometimes he’s not the easiest person in the world to live with.” Continuing to grumble about Dan’s hard-hearted behavior, the two men commiserated as they made their way to the buffet tables, oversized plates hanging dejectedly from their paws. Dan smiled at the sight of their retreating backs, careful to keep his thoughts contained inside his own head. The two men really did look good together, he mused. He loved them both, but in very different ways. Each was special in his own way, and Dan loved each man so deeply that at times he thought his heart might burst. Life before them had seemed so full and rich, but looking back, he now saw how empty it had been. Friendships like this had probably been staring him in the face all his life, but he’d been too scared of the unknown to take advantage of them. Dan forked saag paneer into his mouth while he watched Bo and Ken attack the buffet in ways that fit their personalities. Bo approached the task with methodical precision, moving from station to station with analytical care. Ken, on the other hand, was like a butterfly sampling nectar in a field full of flowers, bouncing back and forth between tables, taking a bit of anything potentially delicious that caught his eye. He was glad to see that Ken and Bo were forging a friendship in their own unique style. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like Bo was taking Ken on as the little brother that he’d never had, and Ken appeared to be comfortable settling into that role. They might not always (or ever) agree with each other on the surface, but deep down, he knew they were growing to care about one another. Dan was hopeful that with a little careful cultivation on his part, that care might even turn into love.

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“Hey, Boo! I think I may have found something.” Over his morning coffee, Dan was tapping away at the keyboard of the kitchen vid. His mission as of late, Bo knew, was to find other gay varius and mixed couples they might be friends with. Mated, gay varius couples were few and far between, he had found out, and mixed varius/sapiens couples were rarer still. “You still looking?” Bo said, wandering into the kitchen in a sexy little bathrobe that was so short, it almost exposed the lower curve of his muscular rump. “I thought you’d given up on that by now.” “Not quite,” Dan said, taking a noisy slurp of his coffee. Underneath what Dan said aloud was what his mind communicated before he could pinch it off. ?what else am I supposed to do when zombies wake me up in the middle of the night? Bo knew that Dan didn’t hold him responsible for the nightmares, and he also knew, after trying several different approaches, that the best thing to do was just pretend like nothing had happened. Dan could feel how much Bo cared, even if he didn’t say a thing. What he couldn’t feel, because Bo had clamped down hard on it, was the crushing guilt that Bo carried over doing this to the man he loved. “You were right,” Dan continued, “I found a whole bunch of gay couples, about two percent of whom are varius. Five percent of those were committed enough to be bonded, and of those three hundred or so bonded, gay, varius couples, only thirteen are hetero. And most of them,” he raised one eyebrow, “are just a little freaky.” Reaching a hand out to pull up one window that was hiding behind the others, he brought the image of one varius couple into sharper focus. “I dialed back my search to just bonded gay morphs, and I found these guys. They seem normal enough, don’t they?” Bo leaned over Dan’s shoulder and read their profile, and thought he might be on to something. Jack, a hulking ursine morph, was an unusual mix of arborist and carpenter who wove live trees and vines into organic living spaces. His website showed images of projects he had made – porch coverings, pagodas, and most interestingly, a treehouse high above the ground woven from the tree’s own branches. It was beautiful work, and it resonated deeply with Bo. Jack’s partner, a canine morph named Doug, made his living by catering to Denver’s rich and famous in the high-pressure world of home improvement contracting. They made an interesting pair, had been together for over twenty years, and were very up-front and specific that they did not ‘play’ with other couples. “Why don’t you send them a message and ask if they might want to meet up?” Bo asked, blowing on his too-hot coffee. “I thought you might say that.” While Bo was looking elsewhere, Dan reached over and dropped a slurp straw into his coffee. Switching focus to another screen he hit a single button, and Bo saw the message that he’d already composed go out for delivery. “Done.”

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Dan’s tennis shoes were in the back of his car. He knew they were. He was very organized, and if his workout shoes weren’t on his feet, they were always either in his closet or in the back seat of his car. Dan bent lower and spotted them, accidentally shoved far beneath the passenger seat by Ken’s gym bag. He pulled them free, and a scrap of paper stuck to the sole of one shoe caught his eye. From the image adorning the surface of the pale yellow sticky note, there was little doubt where it had come from. Dan looked at it for a long moment before a wide grin split his face. His first inclination was to add it to his collection of Ken’s scrap art, but inspiration had suggested a much more productive use for the doodle.

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Dan reached for the clipboard, which lay partially hidden beneath the dog-eared copies of Living Big and Earth Today that littered the top of the desk. “Did you know Ken draws?” he asked, eyes drilling two parallel holes in Jackson’s face. In an odd turning of the tables, Dan never failed to disconcert Jackson. Usually it was the other way around, especially where sapiens were concerned. Even with their long lashes, his gentle brown eyes usually weren’t soft enough to dispel the fearsome quality his face held for most pinkies. And the horns didn’t help much, either. Most bovine varii had rudimentary horns at best, but Jackson was blessed with a full set. It was some odd double-recessive trait expressing itself, or something, but for whatever reason they were there, Jackson liked them. They made him look like a big, mean bull, and not some silly little cow. He was a man’s man and was not accustomed to being stared down, especially not by a sapiens whom he outweighed three to one. But there was something about Dan Blocker’s eyes that Jackson found…not unsettling, precisely. Compelling, perhaps? There was a sense of authority behind them, a gravity belying his physical size. They reminded Jack of his father’s eyes, minus the cruelty, and the fist they were ultimately connected to. Perhaps it was that kindness that the bull found so compelling, and why they were impossible for Jack to look away from. But Dan had asked him a question, and the man looked like he was ready to stand there all night if that’s what it took to get an answer. “No,” Jackson said, uncertain of where this was going. And then for some reason, instead of just shutting his mouth and ignoring Dan until the man went away, he asked, “Why?” “I was just curious,” Dan said, looking down at the clipboard and signing his name to the bottom of the list. “You might want to ask him about it sometime.” He put the clipboard back on top of the pile next to the two large rear hooves Jackson was using to hold down the mess. Picking up his gym bag, Dan turned and walked towards the locker room, a yellow scrap of paper fluttering to the floor behind him. “Hey, hold on!” Jack called, levering himself up out of the chair to pick up the errant note. It took him a few seconds, long enough for Dan to move out of earshot, so it was understandable that the sapiens didn’t return. Jack gave a casual glance at the yellow paper he was holding. He hadn’t been all that curious about what was written on it when he picked it up, but now that he’d seen it, he was mesmerized. “Hey, Jack!” Ken said, startling the bull out of his reverie. “What’s up?” Jackson was sure that he looked like a deer caught in headlights. How long had he been standing there, staring at that damned piece of paper? He guiltily shoved the paper into the pocket of his gym shorts, then stuck his other hand in its pocket as well in a desperate attempt to look like he wanted them there, and not like he was hiding something he wasn’t supposed to have. “Nuh…nuh…nothing,” he said, a little too quickly. “Wh…wh…uh…what’s up with you?” Goddamn it, why did his stutter choose now to come back? “I’m okay,” the cat said, giving Jackson a calm smile, and looking as cool and collected as he always did. “You got the sign-in sheet?” “Oh!” Jackson lunged for the clipboard, managing to knock it off of the pile and onto the floor in a flurry of papers, outdated mail and muscle mags. Jackson would have given one of his huge balls to be as confident in himself as Ken was. “Duh…Duh…Damn it,” he cursed, disgusted with himself. He felt like he couldn’t do anything right when he was nervous. Crouching down to pick up the mess, he was surprised by a warm hand pressing against his shoulder. Startled, he turned his head quickly, almost skewering the friendly lion with his horns. “Whoa! Look out, dude!” Ken said, good-naturedly, “Almost turned me into a shish kebab there.” “Oh, hey, I’m suh…sorry,” Jack apologized, horrified that he’d almost hurt someone. He reached his huge hands out to grab Ken’s shoulders, reminding himself to be gentle. “Are you okay?” “Yeah, I’m okay,” Ken said. “Let me give you a hand, here.” “That’s okay,” Jack said, pulling his hands away before the lion got annoyed. “I’ll get it.” But he didn’t try to stop Ken from helping him pick up the mess. He’d been really impressed by the way Ken had stood up to Bo Taylor. Not many people, varius or sapiens, had cojones big enough to do that. On the day of their fight, Jack had decided that this lion was either admirably skillful and brave, or pitifully stupid and luckier than he had any right to be. At first he’d been leaning heavily towards the stupid and lucky side of the equation, but the more he watched the lion, the more convinced he became that what he’d seen had been skill and not just dumb luck. “I dig your horns, Gongniu,” Ken said, reaching up and giving Jackson’s rack a gentle shake back and forth. Hey, he thought, they’re warm… “Gun you?” Jack said, confused. “What’s that?” As overly familiar as Ken was being, he really didn’t want the lion to stop touching his horns. Ken chuckled. “My family spent a lot of time in China when I was little. ‘Gongniu’ is Chinese for a big, strong bull.” “Gong new,” Jack said, rolling the word around in his mouth. “Gongneeoo.” He nodded his head approvingly, a self-conscious smile tugging at the corners of his wide mouth. “Cool.” “I’ll see you later,” Ken said, getting up from his crouch. “Take it easy.” He started walking into the gym, but was stopped by Jackson’s low-toned bark. “Hey,” the bull called, making Ken turn around. Kensuke was hoping that Jackson might say something inspired, like, “Is it true what they say about felines?” or better yet, “Let’s go out on a date,” but all he did was reach for the ever-present clipboard. “Duh…Duh…D…Don’t forget to sign in.” Disappointed, Ken reached for the sign-in sheet that the bull was handing him. To his surprise, there was more on the clipboard than the wrinkled sheets full of smudged signatures that Ken had come to expect. At the top of the board, clipped to the top of the stack of papers where it was impossible to miss, was the little yellow piece of notepaper that Ken had been doodling on the other day. He had no idea how it came to be in Jackson’s possession, but it had never been meant for anyone’s eyes but his own. Ken turned bright red under his fur, his cheeks burning in shame. Many people didn’t take well to being drawn or photographed without their knowledge, and the picture he’d drawn of Jack really showed off his ‘assets.’ It wasn’t inaccurate or disrespectful, merely admiring. Jackson had a beautiful body and an endowment to be proud of, and Ken had only drawn what he’d seen. He hoped Jack wasn’t offended. Looking up, the face Jackson presented to Ken was anything but annoyed. With a timid expression that looked curiously out of place on his broad, handsome face, the bull held up his right hand in an unexpectedly shy little wave. “Hi.” Chapter 31 16:52. Jackson stared intently at the clock on the wall, trying to force the red second hand to move faster by force of will alone. After sixty seconds worth of strenuous effort, the clock’s minute hand had progressed precisely one tick mark to 16:53 and Jackson gave up. He hated Thursdays. Nothing interesting ever happened on Thursday. He used to work out seven days a week, but after his coach finally pounded it into his head that he needed at least two days a week for his body to recuperate, he’d pared seven days back to six. Six days of building his self-esteem by throwing around iron weights like they were hollow, and one day sitting on his ass and feeling completely worthless. Thursdays. Even though he was alone in the office and nobody was around to hear it, Jackson snorted in disgust. When he was moving heavy weight, his brain snapped into focus and if he couldn’t yet concentrate on his future, at least he could work on forgetting his past. When his kneecaps were shivering under the pressure of seven hundred kilos of cold iron weights, there wasn’t room left over in his brain for memories of cruel taunts, or of a father whose fist looked cartoonishly large as it raced towards his head. And later, after he’d overloaded the bar with so much weight that it sagged and swayed with every rep he pounded out; after he’d proved to everyone in the gym, and more importantly, to himself, that he was worthy of respect; after he had finally exhausted himself and squeezed every fucking drop of endorphin out of his brain; only then could he sit still for a few hours and rest without memories plaguing him. On Thursdays he had to find something else to occupy himself, and that wasn’t easy. He’d read through every muscle mag in the place at least three times, amusing himself by circling the errors in the articles. He knew more about building muscle than most of those idiot writers knew about breathing. Over the past few months, he’d tried just about everything to keep his mind busy on his day off. For a while he’d even gone back to school to get his physical trainer license, but studying hadn’t turned out to be something he was any better at as an adult than he had been as a child. His dad had laughed at him, telling him at length what a waste of money it was for someone as stupid as he to even try, but Jackson knew he wasn’t stupid. He just had trouble concentrating, was all. 17:20. The bored bull leaned back in his oversized chair and was thinking about taking a peek at one of the titty mags he kept in the lower desk drawer when the unmistakable sound of the incline leg press sled slamming against its safety stops started his mental countdown. Three…two…one… Sure enough, someone hollered his name from the weight room. Jackson knew what happened, because it happened at least once a week. Some overly-enthusiastic doofus who didn’t know his limits had loaded so much weight onto the bar that he couldn’t lift it, and now he was stuck inside the machine. At first Jack had been annoyed by the newbs, but later his annoyance had turned to laughter, and he’d had assloads of fun laughing at their ineptitude until Dunny pointed out that when he was making fun of someone else, his laugh sounded just like his dad’s. Now he just tried to remember that he’d been there before himself, and helped whoever got stuck get free of the machine. “Hold on, I’m coming,” he yelled, levering himself out of his chair. The guy in the machine looked like he couldn’t decide whether to pass out or throw up, and Jackson hoped he wouldn’t do either one. As he walked up to the machine, out of habit he noticed how much weight had been loaded onto the bar – a little over three hundred kilos. It would have been little more than warm-up weight for him, but it wasn’t bad for someone just starting out. “Hold on, there, big guy. We’ll get you out of there.” He stood in front of the weight and put one meaty hand on either side of the bar before looking expectantly at the machine’s most recent victim. This one was a lanky lupine varius. Not too bad looking, Jackson thought, but not nearly big enough to catch his interest. His knees were pressing against his chest, effectively trapping him under the weight. “Push!” he encouraged. “Just lift it off,” the man said, in a voice that was almost panicked. “I’m done.” Whoooosh! thought Jackson, watching his respect fly out the door. He couldn’t hold it against this dude that he tried and failed. Hell, he respected people who failed. In the world of lifting, the only way you got stronger was by pushing yourself to failure over and over again. What he didn’t respect was people who gave up. But he didn’t allow his feelings to show up on his face, he just swung his feet onto the machine and casually dead-lifted the loaded sled back into position. The man started to crawl out, and Jackson had to remind him. “Dude, put on the locks.” “Oh, yeah,” the guy muttered, “right.” Reaching over with a shaky hand, he flipped the stops back to the locked position, giving the bull some place to rest the weight. With a soft thunk, the weight slid into the stops and Jackson hopped off the machine to help the guy stand up. He was wobbly legged, but other than his pride nothing appeared to be damaged so Jackson headed back to the front desk. “Don’t forget to unload the bar, dude.” His chair hissed and creaked as he sat back behind the desk. 17:32. Looking over the sign-in sheet for the previous week and comparing it to that night’s list, he notice that Ken, Bo and Dan hadn’t been in yet. If they kept to their usual schedule, they probably wouldn’t be in for another hour, at least. Flipping the list back to the front page, Jackson tossed the clipboard back onto the pile, his mind wandering back and forth between those three guys. He’d sorta had a thing for Bo for a while, and he started to think that Bo was maybe a little bit interested in him too, but that hadn’t worked out. He’d all but convinced himself that Bo was always going to be a lone wolf, and then all of a sudden he started bringing Dan to the gym with him. At first, Jack had thought maybe Bo had hired himself out as a personal trainer or something, but that misperception hadn’t lasted long. The way they watched each other as they went through their workouts had been revealing. If Jackson hadn’t known Bo pretty well he probably never would have seen it, but after watching them work out together for a couple of weeks, it seemed pretty obvious that Bo’s interest in Dan was more than just friendly. Dan had been a little more obvious, but only because its harder to hide a blush when you don’t have any fur. It had amused Jackson to watch them go through their routines over and over again, each of them trying his damnedest not to let the other one know that he was interested. He knew something was brewing between the two when Bo didn’t come into the gym for a week, and Jackson figured that Bo was just doing what he always did – getting friendly with someone, then dropping them like a hot potato when they got too close. Surprise, surprise, less than a week after disappearing, Bo returned to his normal gym schedule, and now when Dan came in he smelled like varius shampoo. It made Jackson feel a little less hurt by Bo’s rejection when he realized that it didn’t have anything to do with him personally – Bo was just into pinkies, was all. Even so, the bull thought that Dan had caught himself a big bag o’ crazy with that one. And then Dan had started bringing Ken with them. That, Jackson thought, absentmindedly scratching his crotch, had been odd. Dan and Ken had more chemistry than a high school science fair, yet it was Bo that Dan had chosen to be with. Why Dan would choose a homely battle varius over a knock-out like Kensuke was beyond him. Jackson liked women okay, and his supply of them seemed never-ending. As many of them as he’d already fucked, there were just as many more lined up to take their turn. His friends joked that no matter where Jack went, women were completely unable to keep themselves from jumping on top of him. He once got laid at a funeral, for Christ’s sake. But while he loved sticking his face between a nice, big set of tits as much as the next guy, he also liked the feel of rubbing up against a strong man’s body. Sex with a guy was a completely different ball game. Women made him feel all protective and soft inside. Men made him want to strip off all his clothes and get to fuckin’. And the best thing about fucking a guy was that you didn’t have to take it easy like you did with a girl. Bam! Bam! Bam! Most of the guys Jack had been with had liked it hard and fast, and he hadn’t gotten himself the nickname of JackHammer for nothing. Hot, steamy, no-holds-barred, no-strings-attached sex with a man always got Jackson off faster and harder than he ever could with a woman, but it never even crossed his mind that he might be gay – not that it would matter to anyone if he were. He wasn’t some rare varius remix like Bo, with a duty to his tribe. There were a million other bulls out there, so nobody gave two shits if some of them turned out queer. Only he wasn’t. The only reason he kept having sex with guys was that he was waiting for the right woman to come along. Most of the females he bedded started trying to tie him down after the third date, and he just wasn’t interested in that at the moment. Elma Cheevers had been a different story. She wasn’t much to look at, but damn, that was one farm girl who knew how to ride a bull. But that time it had been she who’d disappeared after a dozen dates, her apartment empty and with no forwarding number. Too bad, Jackson thought. Sapiens or not, she could really take the hits in bed. Idly, he wondered what it would be like to hold Ken down against the mattress and take a turn at his tail? It was unlikely he’d ever find out, especially after he’d completely locked up when the lion had talked to him the previous Monday. Ken’s mere presence had turned him into a stuttering fool, and he’d had to run into the bathroom to escape his shame. And to make matters worse, while he was in there, he had thrown his guts up with half of the other gym rats listening from the locker room. He’d told the boss that he must have gotten a hold of some bad protein powder or something, but really it had just been nerves. Whoops. Jackson realized that his casual crotch-scratch had turned into a squeeze and a grope, and his sheath was swelling. Regretfully, he let go of himself and tried to concentrate on something other than a golden, velvet kitty. Picking up the clipboard, he leafed through the pages, idly looking through the names until he realized that what he was really doing was looking for Ken’s signature. The clipboard stayed where he’d thrown it for a good ten minutes before he relented and walked across the room to pick it up. Sighing in resignation, he gave in to his curiosity and scanned the names on each day’s list. Wednesday – nope. Tuesday – nope. Monday. There it was, where he remembered it being. Ken’s signature, right where he’d signed it after snatching the picture of Jackson off the clipboard. It wasn’t a scrawl of letters, or just a random mark like some varii who couldn’t manipulate a stylus had to make. Ken’s handwriting was clear and well considered, neat without being prissy. Jackson noticed that he wrote out his entire first name, too. Kensuke Katayama. It sounded exotic. There was nothing exotic about the name Jack Winters. It was regular and, to his ears, boringly common. Jackson sighed. There was little chance the lion would ever return his interest. Ken had everything going for him, and Jackson had… He sighed. Jackson had nothing.

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Steve and Doug were everything their profile suggested. Down-to-earth and kind-hearted, the two men took an instant liking to Bo and Dan, accepting them into their home like family. To the young couple’s surprise, they both felt completely at ease in the two older men’s company. It was as if the four had known each other for years instead of days, and stepping into Steve and Doug’s house for the first time made Bo and Dan feel like they were coming home. As the two couples sat around the breakfast table in Doug’s antique kitchen eating homemade coffee cake and drinking Steve’s soberingly strong coffee, they regaled each other with stories, some of which, by the look in Doug’s eyes, had already been told too many times. “It’s good to know that there are other normal couples out there,” Dan said, wiping the tears from his eyes after one of Steve’s more enthusiastic tales of their youthful mayhem. “When you find them,” Doug joked, “let us know. We’d like to meet one.” “Well, you know what he means,” Bo said, “you go looking online for other same-sex couples, and it’s a wall-to-wall freak show. It seems like everyone out there is either trying to get us in bed or start up a knitting circle.” He shook his head, regretfully. “One look at my picture is enough to scare off the ones who just want sex, but the knitters are tougher to shake.” “Perhaps you should consider taking up knitting,” Doug suggested. “You could expand your social circle and make your own tube socks at the same time.” He looked at them encouragingly. “They’d make great gifts.” Other than giving him a reproachful look, Steve studiously ignored his partner. “Bo,” he said, sympathetically, “there’s nothing wrong with the way you look. Don’t worry about it.” He shrugged, “It’s what’s beneath the skin that counts. Just look at me,” he gestured to his own large shape, puffing out his barrel chest to emphasize his point. “I’ve been hefty all my life, but through witty conversation and my astonishingly effervescent personality, I snagged the best-looking man in a hundred kilometers.” The majority of Doug’s attention was fixated on a squirrel that was happily bounding across the grass in their back yard. “Yeah,” he said, distractedly, “Witty conversation.” He craned his neck to get a better look at the scampering rodent. “And he’s really well hung…” The unexpected comment made Dan snork coffee through his nose, and Bo took it as the perfect time for a conversational segue. Handing his partner his napkin, Bo ventured forth. “One of the things Dan is curious about is how other couples experience the bond.” “I just thought it might be good to get to know them before we go asking personal questions,” Dan said, wiping a drip of coffee from the tip of his nose. “I was trying to be polite.” “Ooh,” Bo said, turning to Steve and Doug, “he must really like you. He doesn’t usually even try to be polite.” “Oh, God,” Steve rumbled, reaching out to stroke his mate’s cheek affectionately, “they sound just like us, don’t they?” “Yeah, they already sound like an old married couple!” Doug looked at them fondly. “But we don’t argue any more.” “No, dear,” Steve agreed, “not since I finally accepted the futility of it and just shut the hell up.” Doug smiled sweetly and took a sip of his coffee. “Mother always said you were the smart one.” “May I ask you a question that may be sensitive?” Bo asked, formally. Dan thought that the question seemed somewhat superfluous after as much sharing as the men had already done, but he trusted that Bo knew what he was doing. “You may,” Steve immediately responded. Bo looked distinctly uncomfortable. “We have no close family to answer our questions. Would either of you think it rude of me if I asked you to be our older brothers? For an afternoon, at least?” The two men looked at each other for a moment, silently consulting. Older siblings had a special role in the varius culture, often acting more like pseudo-parents than fellow children. This close relationship often carried into later life as well. What Bo was casually requesting was, beneath the surface, potentially much more serious. Bo and Dan’s position was unique and their need was great, and there was no way either Steve or Doug could pass up this opportunity to serve. They came to a simultaneous decision. “Sure, Bo,” Steve said, “We’d be happy to help you out however we can.” “Now that Bo has so thoughtfully broken the ice,” Dan said, favoring Bo with an indulgent smile before switching over to formal varius mode, “if it will not cause offense, I would like to ask you questions dealing with your bonding experience.” “Sure,” Steve said in his deep bass voice, “we took off our clothes and I got on top of Doug…” “No, no,” Dan waved his hands energetically, stopping the disappointed-looking ursine in mid-sentence. He wasn’t sure if the big bear was serious or not. “I don’t mean that! Afterwards, I mean. How strong was your bond at first, what did you learn about each other, how much emotion came through, that sort of thing.” “As I recall, I was the one on top,” Doug corrected, stirring his coffee thoughtfully. “We’ll answer your questions, but first I’d like to know what’s prompting you to ask. Are you having trouble with your bond?” shame “I’m honestly not sure,” Bo admitted, fidgeting nervously. He took a deep, slow breath, and Dan knew that even though he would have much preferred to remain silent on the subject, for Dan’s sake he’d endure the embarrassment. “I didn’t have the best family life growing up, and there aren’t a lot of people I can ask about this.” As much for Dan’s comfort as his own, he gently took the sapiens’ hand in his warm, dry paw and rubbed it with his thumb. “Dan’s new enough to our culture that he doesn’t realize how important the bond is, and how many ways it weaves through our society.” “I’m sorry,” Dan said, looking nervously at the other couple, “I hope I haven’t offended you.” “Not at all,” Doug said, “it’s an outdated attitude that deserves to be forgotten. How are we supposed to know if there’s ever a problem if nobody talks about it?” “So I guess this means you can’t talk to your parents,” Steve asked Bo, shifting his huge frame in his chair. “They…never bonded,” Bo admitted, feeling the flush of deeply-rooted shame warming his ears. His voice became quick and light as he tried his best to deliver all of the important details without becoming emotionally involved in them. “Mom wanted Dad to settle down with her, so she opened herself to pregnancy even though they weren’t mated. I guess she thought he’d bond with her if she had his child.” He moved to snag another piece of the addictively delicious coffee cake, and Doug helped by pushing the plate towards him. Bo’s seemingly carefree shoulder shrug only conveyed his extreme discomfort. “She was wrong.” “How was your experience with her?” Doug asked quietly, leaning forward and giving Bo his full attention. Bo took a moment to gather his thoughts before replying. Although he had been able to share a basic emotional link with his mother when he was very young, he never really trusted the validity of the emotions she emanated. Her feelings regarding her son were as complex as they were chaotic and fragmented. In her eyes, he was simultaneously a mother’s pride, a daughter’s guilt, a wife’s duty, and a free woman’s burden. His mother loved him because nature and society demanded it. Dan, on the other hand, loved him because he couldn’t keep himself from doing so, and that made all the difference in Bo’s corner of the world. “She was aloof in the bond,” Bo said, surprising Dan by pulling him close to his side and almost cuddling against him. “It was a byproduct of the birth of her child and she accepted it, but she never reveled in it the way some mothers do. She never used it to grow our relationship.” Bo fiddled with his napkin, his ears burning with a shame he knew he should not feel. “I could tell that she was motivated by parental obligation, but that she craved her freedom and resented how a child had interfered with how she lived her life.” The other three men were quiet for a moment, respecting Bo’s honesty. Dan put a hand on Bo’s thigh and leaned gently against him, willing to share whatever portion of his mate’s burden he could. pride Turning back to Dan’s original question, Doug directed his attention at the sapiens man and took a stab at answering. “Every bonding experience is different,” he said, getting up to freshen everyone’s coffee. “Some couples can hear every word the other is thinking, some just get emotions, and sometimes one hears more than the other. Everyone gets something out of the deal, but it’s always different.” He turned his gaze to Dan as he refilled his mug. “You’re the wild card in the mix, Dan. As yo’veu’ve noticed, there aren’t very many homosexual varius pairs out there, and most of them either don’t choose to bond, or can’t. I’ve heard a lot of bonding stories in my time, but never from a heterospecies couple.” He favored Dan with a regretful smile, “You’re going to have to tell me how it goes, I’m afraid.” “How long have the two of you been together, again?” Steve asked. “About four weeks,” Dan replied, feeling like a newlywed bride with the jitters. “Oh, shit,” Steve exclaimed, throwing up his brown-furred hands. “It hasn’t even settled down, yet! It took a month before Doug and I stopped yelling at each other to be quiet.” Whether it was a polite subject or not, Dan could tell that the big bear enjoyed telling this story. “It was like having someone whispering in your ear the whole time. I’d hear, ‘remember to buy milk’ and ‘get the cat fixed’ and ‘where did I put my underwear?’ Finally our shields came up and we could filter out the everyday chatter.” Dan looked a little worried, “That first week was tough because I didn’t know what to expect, but after that, it seemed really easy to keep our thoughts separate. Do you think that means we won’t end up with as strong a bond as you two have?” Doug smiled as he tried to ease Dan’s mind. “Try not to worry about it too much, fella. Like I said, everyone’s different. Sapiens aren’t supposed to be all that psi-sensitive anyway, so you’re already way ahead of the curve.” He stirred his coffee, made a face, and stirred in another couple of teaspoons of sugar. “Some bonds get stronger with time, and some get weaker. You might just be better than others at learning how to shield your thoughts. Doug leaned over to Bo and whispered something, then looked at Dan expectantly. Dan shrugged his shoulders, not certain what Doug expected of him. “What?” “Tell him?” Doug asked Bo, who silently tilted his head slightly to the right and concentrated. “Forty two bananas?” Dan said, confused. “What? Did I get that right?” “Yeah,” Doug chuckled, “you got it, all right.” He waved his hand dismissively. “You’re fine, Dan. You can hear what he’s thinking, and he’s not leaking stray thoughts to you. Stop worrying about it. Even if the two of you didn’t have a strong mental rapport, you’d still be bonded. It doesn’t take any mental tricks to tell that you love each other like crazy. Oh,” he remembered, clicking his nails together in the varius version of a finger snap. “I almost forgot to ask. How’s your range?” “You mean how far apart can we hear each other?” “Yeah,” Steve confirmed. “If your range is good, things are probably okay.” Dan shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s pretty good, I guess. Twenty or twenty five klicks?” He looked towards Bo for confirmation and received a silent nod and shrug in return. “Sounds a little low, but still okay,” Steve said, encouragingly. Still, Dan drooped a little. He didn’t want to be below average. “You really need to learn how to talk less and listen more, Steve,” Doug chastised his mate. “He said ‘klicks’. Kilometers.” For a moment Steve’s face went slack, but a moment later was back to his normal, cheery expression. “That’s silly,” he chided Doug, “you didn’t hear that right.” “Is that pretty bad?” Dan said, suddenly feeling somewhat inferior. Steve looked at Dan with renewed interest, and he spoke carefully. “Dan, most varii have a range of between thirty and forty meters. A few of us can go a couple of hundred.” He cocked his head to one side. “I don’t mean to be insulting, but are you sure you’ve got that right?” Bo stared at Dan, apparently as surprised as he was. “It was the same way with my mother,” he said. “I didn’t think it was all that odd.” Dan turned to their hosts. “If we both want it to happen, I can hear every word he says when he’s in his apartment and I’m in my house.” Doug looked unsettled at hearing this. “No, Dan, I don’t think you have a problem with your bond.” Steve’s expression turned worried. “I know I just told you that we shouldn’t be so secretive about our bonds, but I’d think twice before I told anyone else that you can do this. The military tried for years to unlock whatever genes control exclusivity and range between varii, but they never succeeded.” “By exclusivity, you mean how varii can only read one other person?” “Yeah,” Steve confirmed. “Imagine how valuable it would be to be able to read your enemy’s mind in battle?” “And somehow,” Doug said, looking worried, “on your own, the two of you can do what they’ve never been able to accomplish with decades of time and billions of credits of funding.” Bo knew the answer to the question Dan was going to ask before the sapiens even parted his lips, but he let him ask it anyway. Better to hear the answer from friends instead of hearing the same negativity from him, over and over again. And, he thought, it would let Doug and Steve see what a wonderful person his partner was on the inside. Dan had the most generous spirit in the world, and Bo loved him for it. Sure enough, Dan honestly sounded confused. “I know I’m probably going to sound stupid for asking this, but why wouldn’t we want to help the military? Anything we can do to keep the aliens away is a good thing, right?” Steve felt Doug’s hand on his shoulder, and through their shared link, he understood how grateful Doug was that Dan had come to them before anyone else had learned about this. But he also felt sad, like he’d been chosen to tell an innocent child that Santa Claus didn’t really exist. They both knew that Dan was anything but stupid, but he carried about him an almost child-like naïveté about the world. His brand of universal trust and kindness was all too lacking in the world, and they hated diminishing it. Doug was the one who spoke. “It does sound like a good thing, doesn’t it?” He sat down next to his mate, comforted by the feeling of Steve’s heavy thigh pressing up against his own. “Dan, today you’re living in a world you were unaware of six weeks ago, even though it was all around you. And now that you know a little about our culture, you’re smart enough to know that there’s a ton of stuff you don’t know, right?” Dan nodded his head in understanding. Being told that he was ignorant was unpleasant to say the least, but he knew Doug was right. He didn’t even know most of the questions, let alone all the answers. Bo was about to continue where Doug left off, but a quick look at Steve silenced him. Years of dealing with easily upset sapiens clients had taught Doug how to communicate difficult truths to those who didn’t want to hear them, and Steve’s nonverbal suggestion to let him handle this was a good one. Bo settled back, not wanting to be the bearer of this bad news, anyway. “Dan,” Steve said, reaching over the table and putting a warm paw on Dan’s hand, “right now you’re like a child running around with matches. I feel that you’re a good person, but you could go around inadvertently setting forest fires left and right without ever knowing it.” “But you’re learning fast,” he continued, “and with Bo as your liaison to the varius world, I think you’ll be all right as long as you don’t get over-excited and accidentally throw yourself into the gears of the machine.” He suddenly sounded tired. “You can’t tell the military because if you did there’s a significant chance that you and Bo would be locked away ‘for your own protection,’ and for the rest of your lives you’d never step foot off an army base.” disbelief Dan looked stunned. “Why would our own government do that to us?” “Oh, it really would be for your own protection,” Steve chimed in, “because you’d have an entire planet full of sapiens and morphs royally pissed off at you.” At Dan’s confused look and Doug’s annoyed one, Steve let his mate continue. “If the military learns what you can do, they’ll try to find some way to replicate whatever is happening between you two. And if they managed to do that, fifty years from now, there wouldn’t be a free varius walking the planet.” “We’re as accepted as we are because we’re not threatening,” Bo said, gently. “We’re a little stronger, a little faster, we heal a little more quickly and we look a little different, but most people don’t think that we’re dangerous. But look at how your own father reacted the other night. He has a hard enough time accepting me when he thinks I just look a little funny. Imagine what a fuss people like him would put up if the military started cloning telepathic killing machines. No way would the public let us out into safe society. And since killing us after we’ve served our time would be unethical, they’d just build in a thirty-year lifespan instead.” “They can’t do that,” Dan protested, recalling his history lessons. “The varius Repatriation Act said there can’t be any more tampering with the varius genetic code.” “True,” Steve said, “but that only applies to the genetic lines as they stand today. They don’t say anything at all about newly created species. Deep down, you have to know that they’d jump at the chance to make psychic warriors. And while we’re protected, they wouldn’t be.” He sat back and clasped his hands over his big, ursine belly. He couldn’t push Dan into making his conclusion, but he knew they’d thrown enough information at the man for him to make up his own mind. Dan turned his attention back to Bo. “And you had no idea how weird this was?” “Hell, no,” Bo protested, looking as surprised as Dan felt. “I had quite a bit of distance with my mother. And like Steve said, we never talk about it.” He fumbled for a suitable analogy. “It’s like you asking your dad to take a peek at his asshole.” “Eew,” Dan said, somewhat mollified, “that was an image I don’t want to have.” Another thought occurred to him. “Could this have something to do with the dreams?” “You’re sharing dreams, too?” Steve said, raising an eyebrow when Dan nodded his head. “Now that’s weird.” “So you two don’t see what each other is dreaming?” Doug shook his big, shaggy head. “Nope. I’ve heard of a few folks who could do it, though. It sounds pretty cool.” Dan shook his head slowly. “Not when they’re nightmares.” The comment got him a swift and slightly panicked response from Bo. !privacy! Dan shut his mouth, and the look on his face told both Doug and Steve that he’d blundered into an area that was not to be discussed. Graciously, they allowed the remark to drift away without further comment. “At this point,” Steve said, “I have to admit that I’m out of my depth. The only person I can think of who might be able to answer some of your questions might be a Kenzine.” “Good luck finding one,” Doug harrumphed. “They’ve become damned near invisible lately.” “You mean a Protector?” Dan asked. “I didn’t think about that.” “They’re supposed to understand things about the way the mind works that make them seem almost supernatural,” Doug said, dubiously. “I have my doubts about whether half of what they say about them is true, though.” “Still,” Steve said, “if you happen to run across one, you might want to ask his advice.” And then he added, “Discreetly.” Chapter 32 Dan had known that he would have to make changes to their house when Bo moved in, but he hadn’t realized how extensive those changes would be. So far there hadn’t been a single room that hadn’t needed to be upgraded or modified in some way to make it possible for them to live comfortably under the same roof. He didn’t object to the cost, he was simply surprised at the sheer number of things that morphs had to do differently than sapiens. Some of the changes, like building a support matrix underneath the bed to hold Bo’s extra weight, had been easy. His sapiens bed hadn’t been designed to bear the weight of a full-grown male battle varius, and Dan imagined that the mattress probably wouldn’t last very long, especially considering the punishing workouts they were giving the poor thing. Other changes, like modifying the master bathroom, had been more involved. For someone as large as Bo, using the sapiens-sized shower that the house was built with was like showering in a broom closet. As long as the plumbers were there to move the shower’s water pipes and drain lines, Dan bit the bullet and had them move the septic line as well, then install a toilet large enough to comfortably seat a varius as big as Bo. After all, he reasoned, what good was it to have your own house if you couldn’t comfortably drop a deuce in your own bathroom? For Dan’s needs a footrest swung down from the front, and a metamaterial seat reduced the opening to a more manageable size. Without them, he would have had to perch on the edge of the oversized commode like a toddler making his first bam-bam. The projects they were working on today were simple ones. They’d already replaced the knobs on the stove with larger ones that Bo’s thick fingers could more easily grip, put in a larger water heater and cleared space in the garage for Bo’s speeder. And now they were finishing out the changes to the kitchen with new drawer pulls for the cabinets that were large enough that Bo could put his thick fingers through them. Dan pulled out his comm and sent a picture of their kitchen to the home improvement center’s wall-mounted display, and the two browsed through what felt like a thousand different handles. Wanting to break Bo in to the world of home ownership, Dan had entrusted him with the job of picking out the hardware. Bo was taking this initial step very seriously, and Dan had to bite back his thought they might have to look at every single drawer pull on the planet before he finally picked one. Bo hadn’t considered how many handles the entire kitchen needed until they were ready to check out, and when he realized that Dan was about to drop over four hundred credits on the ones he’d selected, Bo gently took them out of his hands, put them all back, and chose a less expensive type. Dan had a great poker face, but Bo knew he’d been just as shocked at how much his first choice had cost. They were cool, but they weren’t that cool. “Card.” Dan said, before he waved his credit chip in front of the detector. Bo passed his ID in front of the sensor, and the total amount due on the screen dropped by half. Bo chuckled. “Did you marry me just so you could remodel your house?” “Of course!” Dan chuckled. “It’s going to cost me a little more to do it this way, but that’s okay.” He leaned over and gave Bo a quick kiss on the muzzle. “It’s going to be a really awesome kitchen.” Dan would have happily paid whatever it cost to bring Bo into his house, but the discounts Bo got for being a veteran, along with help from the government’s varius adjustment fund, had combined to bring the out-of-pocket costs down to a reasonable level. Since varii had been unceremoniously dumped into a society ill-equipped to handle their unique needs, most people didn’t begrudge refunding them the extra costs they incurred to live a normal life. But now that they were into their fourth and fifth generations, some less charitable people were making disturbingly public noises about morphs having ‘unfair’ rights, conveniently forgetting that sapiens wouldn’t have had any rights at all, had varii not stood between human civilization and alien invaders. “Come on, babe,” Dan said, handing half the bags to Bo before taking the other half himself. “Let’s go grab some lunch, then get finished with this damned project.”

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Dan was feeling slightly peevish without knowing precisely why, and it was almost an hour before he realized that what he was feeling wasn’t originating inside his own head. Finding Bo in their bedroom, he reached a hand out to his mate. “Hey, buddy.” Bo gazed down at him with warm eyes. “What’s wrong?” resignation Bo sighed. “Nothing’s wrong, really. I’ve just never lived with anyone before. At least,” he amended, “nobody I really cared about. There were the guys in the Army, but they don’t really count.” He was trying to find the words to express what was going on in his mind in a way that wouldn’t hurt Dan’s feelings. “I guess I’m just thinking about the permanence of it all, maybe?” anxious Dan suddenly felt sick inside. “Are you the one getting cold feet now?” he asked, not certain he could handle an honest answer, if that answer were ‘yes.’ “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” From what Bo had told him, the bond between them, once formed, was nearly impossible to sever. fear “No,” Bo said quickly, eager to allay Dan’s anxiety. “I want to be with you more than ever. It’s just…” he was at a loss for words, and ended up shrugging helplessly. concern Dan reached a hand out and gently cupped Bo’s cheek in his palm. Bo dropped his mental shields, allowing Dan to know what was going on inside his mind, and what Dan felt there put him at ease more than any verbal explanation that Bo might have given him. Words you could fake. Emotions you couldn’t. Dan thought about what was going on inside Bo’s head and matched it up against his own perspective. “You’re almost pathologically independent,” he started, stating what both men already knew, “and there’s a part of you that’s happy to stay that way.” relief Dan chuckled. “Sometimes I forget that this is the first relationship you’ve ever had where you’re emotionally invested.” He reached a hand out and scratched the exposed patch of fur on Bo’s chest. “Being partnered means giving up total control over your world. But,” he emphasized, “giving up total control isn’t the same thing as totally giving up control.” Dan put his arms around Bo to pull him into a hug, and was a little surprised when Bo gently picked him up and swung him over to the bed. Once Dan was settled, Bo climbed down next to him and snuggled close, resting his head in Dan’s lap. “For the first time in your adult life,” Dan said, running his fingers through the longer, slightly shaggy hair between Bo’s ears, “you’re in a position where someone else has a vote in how you feel, and that’s not very comfortable for you. That’s normal,” he reassured, rubbing the back of Bo’s neck. “I’ll never do anything to hurt you, babe, and one day your subconscious will have enough evidence to believe that and you’ll start unwinding. Until then,” he leaned forward and kissed Bo on the forehead, “just relax, Boo. It’ll work itself out soon enough.” Dan leaned back against the pillows, enjoying this quiet moment of intimacy with his partner. Bo had clamped down on his emotions again, but Dan didn’t take offense. He’d known from the start that his husband was a very private man, and the glimpses he’d been given into Bo’s inner world were more than anyone else would ever see. Bo reached out and took Dan’s hand, bringing it close to his nose for a good sniff. satisfaction Gently, he opened Dan’s fingers and rubbed his mate’s palm and wrist against the sides of his muzzle, merging their scents until they became one, a unique blending of their chemistries that could never be imitated. Dan’s smell had subtly changed since their bonding, and Bo knew that this was only partially because of their shared toiletries. After a bond, it was common for the biochemistry of both bondmates to change into something new, each taking on certain characteristics of the other. In some cases, even the color of a varius’ fur would change to a shade closer to their mates. Dan’s new scent was a constant reminder to Bo that they had both changed, and he liked that. Dan had been willing to change his life in many, many ways to accommodate him, and all Bo felt that he’d done up to this point was invade his mate’s space with all his stuff, and invade his mind with nightmares. Bo knew that it was time for him to start reciprocating, but didn’t know how to go about changing himself to meet someone else’s needs. This was new territory for him, and like Dan had inferred, it was a bit scary. As Bo picked up Dan’s hand and played with his almost hairless fingers, he wondered how painful it was going to be to balance the scales of compromise as he knew he eventually must.

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Three…two…one… Silence. Jackson put down the latest issue of MuscleMag he’d been reading and waited for someone to call his name, but nobody did. He’d heard the sound of the sled on the leg press bottoming out, and that meant that someone had overloaded the bar and was stuck in the machine again. So where, he wondered, was the cry for help? He’d just about talked himself into believing that he’d imagined the sound when he heard it again. Curious, the big bull heaved himself out of his chair and lumbered into the weight room. If a big enough guy was trapped under enough weight, it was possible for their chest to be so compressed that they wouldn’t have enough spare air to yell with. As he turned the corner to the leg press, he saw that it was back in motion, and whoever was in there was going deep. He saw how many plates were on the bar, and his brain automatically did the math. Five hundred kilos, even. Not too shabby, but from this angle he still couldn’t see who was under there. He walked closer and saw the sled slide all the way down, making a quieter version of the noise that had pulled him in here as it bottomed out. It made the journey back up slowly, as could be expected with more than a half-ton of weight on it. But that was going to be the final rep for whoever was in there, and Jackson waited to hear the sound of the safeties clicking into place, locking the sled at the top of its travel. Instead of hearing that, what Jackson heard was another great, heaving intake of breath as the sled began another descent. Ambitiously, whoever was in there was trying to squeeze out one more rep, and Jackson knew that there wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening. The big bull knew the signs of exhaustion when he saw them, and it had arrived. This was the sort of lifting that Jackson admired – balls to the wall, no-holds-barred, lift-’til-you-puke training. He approached the lifting rack with a smile on his face, but stopped in his tracks when he saw the tail weaving back and forth underneath the machine. He must have come in the building while Jack was in the bathroom. The tail’s flexibility marked it as feline. The color and the mop of longer hair at the tip marked it as Ken’s.

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Ken hadn’t had a shitty day. His personality precluded that from happening on all but the rarest of occasions. After giving it some thought, he decided that what he’d had was a lonely day. He was in touch with his feelings, and wasn’t afraid to admit to himself that watching Bo Taylor whistle and smile as he fed his machine all day long had reminded him of what hadn’t happened between Dan and himself. He didn’t resent either man for their bonding, but he did envy their happiness. He’d had that sort of happiness, once. He’d had that with Ben. But Ben was long gone, and now Ken was spending his Saturday evenings in a nearly empty gym, moving iron to keep from thinking too much. Tonight, it wasn’t working. Ken ran through a quick set of stretches before walking over to the bench press and sliding a pair of twenty-kilo weights on either side of the bar. He reached down for the locking collars, then realized what he was doing. It wasn’t chest day. He knew it wasn’t chest day. The only reason he was loading up the bench press was that it was squat day, and he hated doing squats more than he hated getting his teeth cleaned. Sighing, he unloaded the bar and racked the plates. He knew that if he started slacking off now, he’d be disproportionate before he knew it. He’d turn into one of those guys with a huge chest and arms, and pitifully skinny little legs. As much as he hated squats, he hated the possibility of getting skinny legs even more. In a minor concession to his negative mood, he decided to treat himself by substituting leg presses for squats. They might not be quite as effective but he hated them less, and tonight, that was a concession he was willing to make. He wasn’t stupid enough to want Ben back in his life, he thought as he loaded plates onto the weight sled. Pining away for someone who wasn’t interested would just be asking for more heartache. He was lonely, he reminded himself, not stupid. No, he didn’t want Ben. He wanted the feelings he’d had when he was with Ben. He wanted that rush of affection when someone’s name showed up on the screen of his comm. He wanted to buy them little gifts to make them happy. He wanted to see things during the day and think to himself, ‘gee, I’ve got to remember to tell them about this.’ Bo and Dan had that, and he wanted it too. Climbing down into the recessed seat, Ken wriggled into position, snaking his tail between the hip pads before putting his feet against the sled and giving a good push. Two hundred kilos went up easily, and he smoothly cranked out a dozen warm-up reps before locking the machine and climbing out to rest. Five solid minutes of rest was what he insisted on between sets. Five minutes to do nothing but breathe and think. He wasn’t in the habit of feeling sorry for himself, and he was afraid that his condition was devolving into that. He needed to find someone to get his mind out of this over-considered rut. Dan had seemed like a perfect candidate to do just that, but that wasn’t going to happen now that he’d decided to partner up with Bo. In spite of that, the sapiens man hadn’t been much of a contributor to any pity party that Ken might want to throw. Dan hadn’t been kidding when he’d said that he still wanted to be friends. Usually when a sapiens said, “we can still be friends,” that was code language for, “I’m interested in someone else now, so please go away quietly without making a fuss,” but Dan had really meant it. They were closer now than they’d ever been. Breathing deeply to restore his body’s oxygen supply, Ken put four more fat plates on the sled to bring the total up to three hundred and sixty. He usually held back when he was in here with his friends because he didn’t want to alienate Dan, but now that he was here alone, he could let loose. Push. His experiences with Ben’s friends had taught him that although most sapiens considered it exotic to be different, being too different could push you across the line that separated exotic from strange. And being strange was not a good thing, in those circles. Push. He wanted people to see his friendly and fun side first, so he kept this small part of his life behind a curtain. Push. Sapiens guys loved the look and feel of his muscles, but when they learned how strong he really was, it tended to polarize them into two camps. Push. The ones who didn’t run away as fast as their little legs could carry them were usually either nerds who loved his brain or meatheads who loved his body. Push. The meatheads couldn’t get enough of his muscles. They got a rush from his strength, and either wanted him to dominate them, which Ken found boring – Push. – or they wanted him to wrestle them and let them win, which could be cute for a short time, but eventually ended up being pretty monotonous. Push. The few nerds whom he didn’t manage to scare off liked his muscles just as much as the meatheads did, but they were usually much more versatile. Push. In the bedroom they were eager to live out the fantasy that they were getting fucked by the college jock that they’d spent four years of their life masturbating over. Push. But when the sex was over, they could spend the other ninety-five percent of their time together engaged in stimulating conversation. Push and…rack. He was sweating now, finally getting into the zone where he wanted to be, where his body would reward him with a shot of the calming endorphins that made the world slow down, and allowed him to put a dimmer switch on the few troubles he had. Reaching up and grabbing the sled’s thick crossbar, he pulled himself out of the seat and stepped out of the machine. A little too quickly, it seemed, as the world around him faded to black. Putting a hand on the nearest support, Ken steadied himself until his vision returned. The fact that enough oxygen-rich blood was flowing to his legs and his core that there wasn’t quite enough left to run his eyes meant that his workout was going well. When he could again move without threat of running into something or falling over on his face, he put another thick plate and one more skinny one on each side, for a total of four hundred and eighty kilos. Four eighty was about as heavy as he ever went. He had no idea what the absolute maximum weight he could lift with his legs was, because he wasn’t really interested in bragging about numbers. He was far more interested in how those numbers translated into muscle mass. Ken’s head was clear again, and he was about to settle himself back down into the machine when the number four-hundred and eighty began gnawing at him. His O.C.D. hadn’t made a showing for quite a while now and he’d thought that perhaps it was gone for good, but tonight a touch of it was back to annoy him. Something about the number four-eighty seemed incomplete. It was a marvelously flexible number, Ken knew, being evenly divisible by twenty-four different numbers, but that also made it feel spiky and unpredictable in his head. It practically paled in comparison to a nice, even number like, say, five-hundred. Five-hundred was a nice, round number. It felt soft in his mind, comforting and safe. The situation was quickly rectified with the addition of a single thin, twenty-kilo weight to the center pole of the sled, and Ken felt much better about swinging himself into the seat. Pushing the sled up to move the safety stops out of the way was easy – the last few centimeters of the sled’s travel was always child’s play because leverage was on your side. It was the depth of the squat that separated the men from the boys, and Ken took great pride that his squats were always, always full-depth; none of this load-the-bar-up-and-only-go-down-a-quarter-meter bullshit. He always let the sled come down far enough to count as a regulation squat before pressing it back up. He might be a lot of things, but he wasn’t a cheater. But holy fuck, five-hundred no longer seemed quite as friendly when he let the sled obey the pull of gravity and compress his legs. He didn’t think he’d pressed anything this heavy before. It wasn’t going to be impossible, he thought, just difficult, and he was up to the challenge. When his thigh bones were parallel to the footplate, he clenched his teeth and pushed it back up, his belly straining against the thick lifting belt strapped around his waist. Expelling a whoosh of air that he knew he shouldn’t have been holding, he locked his knees at the top of the lift. Damn, that was tough! He momentarily considered racking the weight and pulling some off, but that seemed too much like giving up. Fuck it, he thought to himself, go big or go home. Unlocking his trembling knees, he let the sled descend, but in his fatigue he let it come a little too far and it hit the bottom safety stop. No matter, he’d push it back where it belonged. Straining hard, he remembered to breathe out this time as he lifted, and with a growl deep in the back of his throat, the weight went up more smoothly. The tightness in his belly told him that too much of his precious energy was being used by his core. On his third rep he did his best to release the tension he was holding in his abdominal muscles, depending on the lifting belt to do its job as he focused all his attention on pushing iron instead of worrying about keeping his guts in place. He still locked out, but it wasn’t nearly as easy this time. He had his hands on the safety lever and was about to throw it when he had an idea. He knew he could get at least two or three more if he just let the sled rest at the bottom for a few seconds while he caught his breath. Ken breathed in as deeply as he could, unlocked his knees, and let the sled come all the way down. It was only, he noted, a couple of centimeters or so below where he would have stopped it himself on any other lift, so he wasn’t all crunched up in the machine like a taller man would have been. In this instance, being shorter than average was a distinct advantage. The engineering portion in Ken’s brain wondered why the designers would build a machine like this that could be loaded down with varius-appropriate amounts of weight, but didn’t build it large enough to hold the varius that could lift that much. Bad design annoyed him wherever he saw it. After ten seconds of deep breathing, Ken focused himself and gave a massive push. At first the sled seemed welded in place, but Ken ground his teeth together and, with a low growl deep in his chest, he forced it to move. He made it all the way up, the last few centimeters going smoothly enough that Ken convinced himself that he could do at least one more. This time, the sled didn’t just settle onto the stops. It rammed against them loudly enough to make him wince. He hated it when people abused the machinery like he’d just done. Breathing in as much air as he could, Ken saturated his body with oxygen in preparation for one last push. I can do this, Ken thought to himself, his tail whipping erratically back and forth under the machine, I can do this. After three more deep belly breaths and a series of short chuffing blows, he screwed his eyes shut, filled his lungs to capacity and pushed with all his might. The weight moved, but it only went up a few centimeters before his legs could go no further. This time, growling didn’t help. Fuck! But then the sled started moving again. Throwing his head back, pushing with all his might, he was determined not to just get the sled to an intermediate stopping point, but to push it all the way back to the top. It was two-thirds of the way up, well past the first set of safety stops, when he ran out of steam. The voice of God chose then to thunder down on him, and what it said was not at all what Ken would have expected to hear from a well-respected deity. “Push, you stupid motherfucker! PUSH!” Ken was not one to disobey a direct commandment from the heavens, off-color though it might be, and he pushed with all his might until his quivering knees locked out at the top of the lift. Opening his eyes to witness the miracle of God’s Earthly return, he was greeted instead by the sight of Jackson, his big feet planted on either side of the sled, pulling just enough of the weight off of Ken that his trembling legs could finish the job. Ken was reaching for the safety levers to lock the sled at the top of its travel when a single word from Jackson stopped him cold. “Again.” It was not a suggestion. “Oh, Goddamn,” Ken groaned, but he obeyed the command. Unlocking his knees, Ken let the bar descend to the proper depth before gathering the very last shreds of his energy and pushing. If he’d been in an optimistic mood, he might have guessed that his muscles were responsible for lifting half of the weight. Jackson took the rest of it on himself, and even with his assistance, by the time Ken had the weight halfway up, he thought he was about to lose control of his bladder and piss all over himself. With a feral roar, Ken pushed the weight into position, and this time, Jackson didn’t stop him from slamming the safeties in place. “Good job, man,” the bull said, climbing down from his perch, “you didn’t guh…guh…give up.” “I never…give up,” Ken said, breathing as deeply as he could, but otherwise not moving. “I might not be…smart enough to stop…when I should…but I don’t…give up.” His eyes followed the massive bull as he moved around the machine, and even though he was exhausted, he couldn’t keep from grinning. When his breath had recovered enough to speak again, he said. “Thanks for the assist, Gongniu.” Jackson had knelt down on one knee beside the bench, one arm resting comfortably against the machine’s cold steel frame. He shrugged. “That’s what I’m here for, man. We’re all supposed to help each other.” He saw the smile on Ken’s muzzle and his heart suddenly lightened. A quote sprang into his mind, one that his uncle Tony had invented for this sort of situation. “No man is an island, right?” “John Donne?” Ken replied, automatically. “Wh…Wh…What?” Confusion began chasing the smile away from Jackson’s face. “John Donne,” Ken explained. “He was a British author.” Ken shook his head sadly and laughed, wanting very much to put the happiness back on the bull’s face. “I can remember stupid crap like that, but I usually can’t remember what I ate for breakfast.” “Yeah,” Jackson chuckled, “I’m like that too.” He felt a little of his confidence returning, now that he’d found something he had in common with the handsome lion. His smile returned, and the tension eased from his shoulders. “People th…think I’m stupid, but I just have trouble remembering some things.” Standing, he offered his thick-nailed hand to Ken. Ken honestly wasn’t ready to get up just yet. His head may have stopped spinning, but he knew that his blood pressure hadn’t yet stabilized. If he got up now, he might do more than just black out for a few seconds. But it would have felt awkward to turn away the offer of assistance, so Ken reached his paw up and took the offered hand. Jackson’s touch was surprisingly gentle, and Ken was pleased that the bull knew where to stand and how to pull so that he actually helped Ken to get out of the awkwardly positioned machine instead of getting in the way like Dan probably would have. Despite the man’s best efforts and kindest intentions, Dan wasn’t the best spotter in the gym. In almost no time Ken was standing upright, and in even less he felt himself falling back down. Strong arms wrapped around him, lowering him to the ground as gently as a proud new father might lay his baby in its crib. Once again, when Ken’s vision cleared, the first thing he saw was Jackson, only this time the bull was sitting on the rubber matting next to where he’d laid the lion down. He settled one heavy hand on Ken’s chest, encouraging him to stay where he was. Without intending to, he’d rested his hand high enough that only half of it was on the fabric of Ken’s low-cut tank top. The other half of his hand was half-buried in the lion’s gloriously soft chest fur. “I’m sorry, dude,” he apologized, trying his best to resist the urge to stroke Ken’s fur with his thumb, “I should have known better.” “That’s okay,” Ken groaned softly, closing his eyes. “Don’t worry about it.” The warm weight of the bull’s hand pressing against him barely penetrated his disorientation. Ken moved a hand up to press against his forehead, and when he removed it, it felt quite natural to bring it to rest on top of Jackson’s oversized hand. His oxygen-starved brain didn’t think about what it was doing, his body was running on automatic. In the middle of the gym, not thinking or caring what anyone else thought, his thumb started to gently stroke the chestnut fur on the back of Jackson’s hand. His voice was quiet. “You saved me again, Gongniu.” Jackson chuffed an odd bark of a chuckle, and didn’t think for a second of moving his hand from underneath Kensuke’s. “I like when you call me that.” The stroking felt good. It was gentle and kind, soothing and unhurried, and Jackson felt comfortable returning the gesture with his own thumb, riffling through the slightly longer hair that grew at the center of Ken’s chest. It was damp with sweat, but still plenty nice. When Ken stopped moving his thumb, he was momentarily surprised when the sensation of something rubbing against his chest fur didn’t immediately stop as well. This implied that he hadn’t been the one doing the rubbing. Opening his eyes with a clearer head, he realized that it must be Jackson who was responsible for causing the pleasant sensation. He had his hand on top of Jack’s, and Jack had his hand buried in Ken’s chest fur. On the floor. In the middle of the gym. The gym with other people in it. “Oh, crap!” Ken said, suddenly levering himself into a sitting position. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. His head was spinning from the sudden motion, but at least this time he was already sitting down. “I don’t know what I was doing.” Jackson carefully reached a hand out to Ken’s shoulder, steadying him and buying himself a little more physical contact with this amazing man. “It’s okay, dude.” Jack’s heart was pounding in his chest. As the strongest man in the gym he had no fear of physical assault, but that didn’t make his heart any less vulnerable. “I don’t mind.” When Ken looked into his eyes, Jackson gave his shoulder a squeeze and favored him with a shy smile. “Uhr…R…R…Really.” One stuttered word. That’s all it took for the smile to go from shy to frightened to sad to disgusted, emotions flashing across his face with lightning speed. Pulling his hand off Ken’s shoulder, the great bull turned away in disgust. He started to get to his feet, but his hand wouldn’t move. As firmly stuck as if implanted into hardened concrete, his hand stubbornly refused to follow the rest of his body. Looking back in annoyance, he found that the mechanism behind the restraint was a set of strong leonine fingers wrapped around his wrist. “What’s wrong, Gongniu?” Ken asked, carefully maintaining his casual tone of voice as if nothing Jack was doing was the slightest bit odd. The expression on the lion’s face wasn’t the jeering laugh that Jack had expected to see, and the hard edge of his anger softened. “Let guh..guh…go.” Jackson couldn’t hold Ken’s gaze, and he found himself staring at the floor. Ken took some of the steel out of his grip but maintained his hold on the bull. It was a dangerous place to be if the other man really wanted to be set free, but Ken thought that since Jackson wasn’t trying to pull away, he was safe. Gently, Ken leaned forward and tried to move Jackson back to face him, but it was like trying to use his fingertips to move a boulder. If the mountain will not come to Mohammed… Ken thought. Summoning what strength remained in his exhausted legs he scooted around to Jackson’s front, where he sat cross legged, facing the much larger man. “Jackson?” The big bull’s gaze had a firm lock on the chalk-smeared, interlocking, black rubber squares that covered the gym’s floor. It would have been the easiest thing for him to withdraw inside himself like he used to do to escape the bullies, to escape his father, to escape the world whenever the waters grew cold. Only this time, there was a warm, compassionate voice that made taking refuge inside himself the less attractive option. A voice that seemed to care. Maybe he could trust it… Ken’s heart lifted when he saw the big bull’s eyes rise to meet his, and when they looked into his own he understood the man’s pain. The trust he saw there was by no means complete. On a hunch, he threw out a red herring. “Did I do something to make you mad?” Bingo. Jackson’s face practically crumpled at the suggestion. “Oh, no!” he said, hastily. “No, you’re fuh…fuh…fine. I’ve just got this fuh…fffffucking stutter, and it makes me ssssound like a f…fucking idiot that’s… that’s all.” It was getting much worse, now. Jack’s eyes squeezed shut every time his speech got blocked, as though force of will might push through the words that finesse could not. It broke Ken’s heart that someone as nice as Jackson could be brought to his knees by something as minor as a stutter. “Dude,” Ken said, gently squeezing Jackson’s wrist, “everybody in here likes you, right?” He shook Jack’s arm up and down for emphasis. “Nobody else is beating you up, so why are you doing it to yourself?” Ken liked Jackson, and thought that if he’d been sapiens, or more white-collar, or just plain smarter, he might have been a fun date. On a playful whim, Ken shook the meaty arm he was holding sideways for a while, then in a circle, until Jack pulled it back, laughing. “Stop it.” His strong, wide teeth stood out in bright contrast with the dark brown, almost sable hair surrounding his mouth, and Ken found them surprisingly attractive. Jackson pursed his lips, about to say something when the ringing of the gym’s comm brought him back to reality. “Whoop. Gotta get back to work,” he said, clambering to his feet. He dusted the chalk from his pants as he walked toward the front. He snuck a look back at the patch of floor where he’d been sitting with Ken, but the man had already moved. Jack punched open the comm and answered the way he always did, “Carl’s Gym. ‘sup?” A voice on the other end spoke, but Jack wasn’t really paying attention.

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“I knew you’d come back.” “It’s good to see you too, Doc.” Bo replied uneasily, as he ducked into the low-ceilinged room. “Must be your winning personality that keeps me coming back for more.” Coming back on base for any reason made Bo’s skin crawl. Being in this particular room made his brain itch. The Army doc almost looked pleased as he leaned back in his ancient desk chair. “Come back for a tune-up?” Small, round spectacles sitting on his sharp nose made his beady eyes appear freakishly large. “No.” Bo said, automatically, hating that the flat statement made the psychologist grin. He hated the man’s expression, he hated the man’s clothing, and he hated the man. Knowing the doctor as well as he did, Bo thought the smile had probably been installed for the sole purpose of annoying him. If so, it was remarkably effective. Only thirty seconds in the man’s company, and Bo already wanted to rip his throat out. It used to take the man a good forty or fifty minutes to get under his skin that way, but that was years ago. Bo had obviously fallen out of practice. The scary thing was how easily Bo could have killed him. He hadn’t thought about killing another man in years, but now it all came back, just like riding a bike. A firm grip here, a deceptively gentle-looking twist there, and it was done. He thought that if he tried hard enough, he could possibly use his longest claw to pith the man. If he pushed it out as hard as he could, his longest claw was almost three centimeters long. Would that be long enough to lacerate someone’s brain stem without leaving a noticeable mark? ‘I don’t know what happened – maybe he had a heart attack, or something.’ Bo gathered his wits. Doctor Arthur had been good enough to see him on short notice, and the last thing he should be doing was thinking of ways to end the man’s life. “Thank you for seeing me, Doc. I appreciate it.” “Not at all, Mr. Taylor. Not at all. Please,” he motioned to the army-issue chair on the other side of his desk, “have a seat.” Bo remembered that chair, and he most certainly didn’t want to sit in it. It was where he’d spent endless hours all those years ago, after the tribunal had forced him to meet with the shrinks. He’d sat across from this man and told him his troubles, and subsequently been shuffled off to a minor army of third-rate psych school dropouts who he’d burned through in rapid succession. He’d sat in this chair and been assigned to the others one by one until he’d reduced the number of people willing to work with him from a dozen, to one. Doctor Arthur had been the only one left who would have Bo in his office after the rest had been frightened off by his volatile temper, and that was because he just plain didn’t give a shit. He responded to Bo’s tears and his torment with stunning indifference. Once, the son of a bitch had even left Bo sitting in this very chair, wracked with despair and shame, while he walked into the other room and popped a bag of popcorn. Bo came closer that day to killing a man than he’d ever come before, and to this day, not a moment passed in this man’s company that Bo didn’t harbor that secret desire. He was a gentle man by nature and resented that anyone could bring out his negative side like that. Bo didn’t want to sit in the chair, but he also didn’t want to stand for as long as this was going to take. Grudgingly, he pulled the seat out from under the desk and turned it around, straddling it as he sat down. “You got a new chair,” he observed. “No,” the doctor corrected, “I sent that one to be reupholstered, and it came back in the same olive drab vinyl as it had before. I’ll bet the army saved ten cents a yard by buying a warehouse full of that stuff two hundred years ago, and they’re still trying to get rid of it.” Bo chuckled. The Doc might be a cold little prick, but he could have a good sense of humor when he wanted to. “Yeah, right.” The Doc looked at him for a moment, and Bo had the feeling that he was nothing more important to the man than a bug being observed under a microscope. “None of my patients have ever come back after they’ve been discharged. But then again, none of them ever hated me as much as you did.” He squinted his eyes at Bo, who was sitting and watching him quite placidly. “Do,” he corrected. “You still want to come over this desk and punch my lights out, don’t you?” Bo smiled dangerously. “Absolutely. But don’t worry,” he added, “I’ve got it under control.” “Good for you,” the doctor’s smug reply did nothing to lessen Bo’s desire. Like everything else the man said, it seemed designed to belittle and humiliate. “But,” he said, gently slapping the top of his desk with his palms, “enough small talk. I suspect you’re not here for my witty repartee.” He eyed Bo with curiosity. “What do you want from me?” At last the uncomfortable small talk was over. Wanting to give away as little as possible, Bo tried to keep his voice clear of the emotions that roiled within him. “I’m not having the nightmares any more, but my mate is.” “Sapiens?” For once, the doctor was admirably direct. Bo followed suit. “Yes.” “Predictable,” the doc sighed, pursing his lips as if disappointed that he’d guessed correctly all those years ago. He shrugged, most of his attention on the notes he scribbled onto a small yellow data pad. “It should fade with time.” “How much time?” Bo asked, impatiently. The doctor shrugged a second time, unconcerned. “How should I know? I’m not talking to your mate, I’m talking to you. If this is such a big deal, you should have brought her with you. The fact that you didn’t…” He raised an eyebrow expressively. “What does that say about your ability to trust?” Bo forced himself to not grind his teeth together in frustration. “He’s hurting, and I want it to stop.” This made the doctor look up in surprise. “A male?” Bo looked away, but did not deny. The psychologist immediately bent over his notepad and scribbled something as he muttered. “Didn’t see that one coming.” Tossing his pen down on the desk, he put his hands behind his head, exposing his fragile windpipe. “If you brought him in, after a half-dozen sessions, I might have some idea of how long these will last.” He shook his head, ruefully. “But even then, it would only be a guess. sapiens have less control over their subconscious than varii do.” He gestured vaguely with artistically slender hands. “Could be weeks, could be months… If he’s weak-willed, it could be years. Or never. But given your personality, I doubt he’s the weak-willed sort. Hmm,” he mused, talking to himself as he picked up his pen and scribbled more notes, “partnering with another male makes a lot of sense, now that I think about it. Strength of will, lack of maternal expectation…” his voice trailed off as he concentrated on his note taking. “What is it you’re always writing down?” Bo asked. “I’m not even seeing you anymore, and you’re still at it with the fucking notes.” He seriously considered reaching over and snatching the pad out from under the Doc’s nose, but decided against it. Like it or not, he still needed things from this man. The Doc paused his writing and glanced up at his old patient. His mouth opened, then shut again as he changed his mind. Wordlessly, he got up and pulled a ring of keys out of his pants pocket. Using one of them to unlock an antique metal filing cabinet, he opened a drawer and pulled out a box filled with hard-copy printouts. Turning back to Bo, he set the box on top of his desk with a resounding thud. He motioned to it with a sweep of his hand. “First this will serve as my doctoral thesis, and five years later, I will make it into my best-selling book. Then the book tour scene, then the movie rights.” The doctor stared at Bo shrewdly. “There’s too much that goes through this office to not write it all down.” Bo felt ill. “So you’re turning the suffering of hundreds of soldiers into a benefit for yourself.” The doctor shrugged, picking up the box and putting it back into the cabinet, careful to lock it behind him. “Look at it that way, if you want to. The way I see it, if nobody knows what’s wrong, nothing will ever improve.” He shrugged his shoulders noncommitally and sat himself back down in his chair. “If I happen to benefit along the way, then all the better. The more famous I am, the more people will hear about what needs to change. If nobody studies your suffering, then all those years of pain were pointless, weren’t they?” Not ‘their’ suffering, Bo noticed. ‘Your’ suffering. Everything in that box was all about him. The psychologist’s smile was as enigmatic as any in Michelangelo’s portfolio. Bo was silent. Perhaps coming here had been a mistake. Standing, he leaned over the Doc’s desk and picked up the silver pen he’d written all those notes with. With thumbs and forefingers, Bo delicately bent the instrument into a perfect right angle and gently placed it back down on the doctor’s desk. “I’ve always wanted to do that. Without saying a word, the doctor slid his desk drawer open and pulled out another pen. Turning the page in Bo’s file, he returned to his scribbling. Bo couldn’t win. The varius walked out of the room the way he’d come in, but at the door he turned back around. His pensive look was enough to make the doctor pause his note-taking. As if coming to a decision, the varius walked to the nearest filing cabinet, a twin to the one containing his records. Curling thick fingers around the handle, he grunted as he pulled the locked drawer open, sending shards of the broken lock skittering across the floor. He softly closed the drawer without looking in it. He hadn’t wanted to see inside, he’d wanted to make a point. “Good bye, Doc.” Chapter 33 “So what’s the big news?” Dan asked, sipping his coffee. “Big news?” Ken snagged a donut off the plate in the middle of the table as he sat down. He loved that Dan always kept him and Bo so well fed, but if he weren’t careful he’d end up at the fat farm. “Who said anything about big news?” “You don’t refuse to tell me what’s going on over the comm unless you have something big to share, so…” Dan shrugged, “spill it, Kitty.” Ken toyed with the snack on his small plate, and was wondering how much he should say when Bo strode into the room and made the point moot. “Is this about your dating Jackson?” “I’m not dating Jackson!” Ken protested, a little too energetically for his denial to be believable. “Oh, this is getting good,” Dan said, settling into his chair and getting comfortable. “When did this start?” “About two weeks ago,” Bo answered, before Ken had a chance to get a word out. “No shit!” Dan exclaimed, excitedly. “Why didn’t you say anything?” “He was embarrassed.” Bo interrupted again, impervious to Ken’s withering stare. “I was waiting for the right time,” their Circlemate said, casually. Bo pulled a coffee mug for himself out of the cabinet and joined the two men at the table. “He was embarrassed,” he repeated. “I am not!” Ken said, perturbed. “How can I be embarrassed by something that isn’t even happening?” “Seriously,” Dan said, “why am I the last one to know about this?” “Because you’re as perceptive as a fence post, my dear,” Bo supplied, his deep rumbling voice in contradiction to the love Dan sensed. “Am I even here?” Ken chided, patting himself gently to make sure his body hadn’t evaporated when he wasn’t looking. “You can let me tell my own story, you know.” He’d have been annoyed at the constant interruptions, except that the two were so much fun to watch. “Not true!” Dan said, ignoring Ken, but his protest was purely pro-forma. All three men knew that Bo was right, Dan had the social perception of a goat. “It’s absolutely true,” Bo confirmed, “Everyone else at the gym has known for at least a week. Haven’t you noticed how busy Jackson’s been not telling everyone?” Bo smirked, enjoying himself immensely. “He’s practically waving a big flag that says, “I’ve got a secret” on one side, and “I’m dating a lion” on the other.” “He is not,” Ken harrumphed, folding his arms in front of him. “He’s doing his best to be discrete.” “Discrete about what?” Bo sniped back, “I thought you said the two of you weren’t doing anything to be discrete about?” “You know that Bo dated Jackson for a while, right?” Dan interjected, interrupting their banter before Ken could get angry. “We didn’t date,” Bo corrected, “I was just evaluating him for the Circle.” “Did he take you to an all-you-can-eat buffet?” Ken asked. “Yeah,” Bo said, shrugging his shoulders dismissively, “we had dinner a couple of times. So what?” “Hmmm…” Ken raised an eyebrow. “Did you talk about anything more significant than lifting weights?” “No,” Bo said with renewed confidence, “definitely not.” “Well, then,” Ken sighed, shaking his head sadly, “it sounds like you went on a date with Jackson.” Bo opened his mouth, then shut it again. Raising his coffee mug in surrender, he admitted defeat. “When you put it that way, I guess maybe we did.” “Oh, come on,” Dan protested, defending the big bull, “he’s just talking about something he knows. All men like to do that.” “Huh,” Ken huffed, obviously unconvinced. “So men like to talk about what they’re good at? Your first conversations with Bo must have been pretty one-sided.” “He didn’t talk much,” Dan joked, then laughed when Bo tossed a retaliatory piece of cookie at his head. “Okay, I’m just kidding. But seriously,” he returned his attention to his friend, “if someone isn’t comfortable, they’ll go back to talking about the same things over and over again. It doesn’t mean he’s stupid, he’s probably just nervous.” “You both freak Jackson out,” Bo said, flatly. Two sets of eyes turned to him. “What makes you say that?” Dan beat Kensuke to the punch. “Everybody knows you make him nervous,” Bo said, to his mate, “but nobody really knows why.” “It’s true,” Ken backed him up. “You really do. And I don’t know why, either.” “Hrmph,” Dan said, “I thought he was looking at me funny because he caught me cheating on my squats a couple of weeks ago.” “Well, that, too,” Ken nodded his head, “but I’m pretty sure there’s more to it.” “It doesn’t really matter,” Dan said, “because I’m not the one dating him.” “I’m not dating him either!” “Okay, fine. You’re not dating him,” Dan allowed, taking a sip of his coffee. “So is he big all over?” “Yes.” Ken said, then quickly recanted his statement. “No! We’re…We’re not doing that.” “Oh.” Dan and Bo said, simultaneously. They were clearly not convinced. he’s even starting to stutter like jackson be quiet “Okay, fine. You’re killing me,” Ken conceded. He looked disgusted with himself, but he told them what they wanted to know. “We’re going to go to the game tonight, then we’re going to get cleaned up and go to a restaurant—” “Not our restaurant?” Bo interrupted, sounding concerned. “No, not our restaurant,” Ken responded with a huff. “It’s not your restaurant, Bo, it belongs to the world.” His expression turned disappointed. “He can’t eat spicy food anyway. I think it’s a bovine thing.” “You’re not stuck eating salads, are you?” Dan was horrified. He was well aware of Ken’s love for exotic food. “No, he can eat all sorts of other things,” the lion explained, “but we mostly stick with vegetarian restaurants, and maybe fish or a bit of chicken.” The look he shot Dan was positively comical. “Beef is definitely out.” Bo and Dan glanced at each other before speaking in unison. “Ewww…” “Wow,” Dan said, “I never thought about that.” He popped a corner of his cookie into his mouth. “I guess it must be tough getting enough protein when your system is set up to eat mostly plants. “The number of protein shakes that man drinks in a day is epic.” “I’ll bet he farts a lot,” Dan said, remembering his own experiences with protein powders over the years. Some of them could turn you into a methane production factory. Ken laughed. “Now that you mention it, he does.” He shook his head. “That’s not a really big selling point.” “But still, you really like him,” Dan persisted. “Well, yeah,” Ken said, “who wouldn’t like him? He’s a really nice guy. He’s just…not what I’m looking for, that’s all.” “Why not?” Dan asked. “What are you looking for, anyway?” Ken sighed and leaned back in his chair. “First off, they’ve got to have a brain. Actually,” he amended, “that’s first, second, and third. Gotta have the brains. They’ve got to have a good work ethic, they’ve got to be independent, and they have to clean up well.” He ticked off points on his fingers. “They should be tidy, enjoy travel, be out to their family, and be proud of who they are. And they’ve got to like music, that’s an absolute must.” “Not that you’re picky, or anything,” Bo said, with a chuff of laughter. “I’m not picky,” Ken argued, “I just know what I want. It saves time for everyone, that way.” Dan tilted his head to one side in that way that Bo found so endearing. “Maybe it’s time you broke your pattern and see what happens.” “What, like with Jackson?” Ken scoffed, shaking his head “That’s not going to happen.” feel free to do this as long as you want because its going nowhere “I’m going to go work on the lawnmower,” Bo announced, drinking the last of his coffee and getting up from the table. Passing Ken’s chair, he reached down and gave the cat’s left nipple a pinch, making Ken flinch and leaving his right nipple open for attack, a fact which Bo promptly took advantage of. After the double assault, having two beefy arms wrap gently around Ken’s torso to hug him from behind was completely unexpected, as was the heavy chin that rested on top of his head, placing a canine varius muzzle near his feline ear. “We’re both in your corner, right?” Bo said, quietly enough that without their link, Dan would not have been able to hear him. “No matter what you choose, you’re family and we’re behind you.” Then came a quick squeeze and a pat on the chest, and Bo was out the door without another word, leaving behind a stunned Kensuke and a smug Dan. “I told you he likes you.” “Huh,” Ken said, absentmindedly rubbing his freshly-tweaked nipples. He honestly didn’t know what to say.

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As Dan held open the door for him, Bo walked into the house and put down the last armload of boxes in the middle of the floor. Dan thought that it seemed like an awfully small pile for a man Bo’s age. It had been over a decade since everything he owned would fit in the back of his car, and suddenly all the things he had accumulated during his life, all the things that he imagined made his life better, seemed like vulgar excess. Bo seemed perfectly content with what he had, and Dan wondered when he himself had succumbed to the marketing tactics of the popular media. When had he lost his focus? Dan shook off his ruminations and picked up the box containing Bo’s clothing. Since Magnum supplied everything Bo wore at work, most of what he owned was casual wear. Dan had cleared out half of the dresser drawers in preparation for Bo’s arrival, but he thought it best to let his partner put his own clothing away. Let him feel the experience of moving in thought Dan. He knew some folks were sensitive about how their things were put away, and he didn’t want to unwittingly offend Bo on his very first day in his house. Our house he corrected himself. This was indeed the first day of the rest of their lives together. He had lived with other men before, but there had never been a commitment with them the way there was with Bo. The sense of stability was a comfort, as was the feel of his new partner in the back of his mind. Idly, Dan wondered if they would always be so closely linked. “Probably not,” Bo said, entering the room, “but I hope so.” Dan gave a startled yelp. “Man, it creeps me out when you do that!” no it doesn’t you like it Dan moved around behind Bo and dug his thumbs into the varius’ shoulders, kneading out the knots that all the lifting and carrying had put there. Bo groaned his appreciation and rolled his thick neck from side to side. Pivoting around so Dan’s arms remained on his shoulders, Bo faced him and wrapped his arms around Dan’s waist. “Thank you,” he said, giving Dan a quick peck on the lips before pulling him into a hug. “For what?” Dan asked. content “Mmm… Oh, just for being you. That, and for thinking of the house as ours, instead of yours.” Bo replied, and they rocked back and forth as if slow dancing to music that only they could hear. After a few minutes, Dan gently disengaged from their embrace. “We’re burning daylight, big man. You need to finish unpacking, and then you promised you’d take me out tonight.” playful Bo groaned. “Do we have to?” “Oh, stop complaining. You’re as curious about the night life in this city as I was when I first came out.” “True,” Bo admitted. “I guess it wouldn’t do any good to pretend otherwise.” “Nope. Besides, I’m curious how some of my old friends are going to react when I walk into the bar with such a stunning example of masculine pulchritude on my arm.” “Pulchritude?” Bo asked. “Where did that come from?” “Would you like me to look it up for you?” Dan asked solicitously. smartass “Dancing, huh.” Bo threw a sock at him and continued putting his clothes away. “Does that mean Ken’s coming with us?” kitty loves to whirl “Nope. We’re it. Ken’s got that date with Jackson tonight.” Dan reminded him. “He’s not dating Jackson,” Bo said, solemnly. mirth “Yeah, I forgot,” Dan chuckled. “And afterwards, maybe he’ll break Jackson in.” “Doubtful,” Bo scoffed. “Jack’s an exclusive top.” His mate looked at him with surprise, and even without their link Bo knew what he was thinking. “You’re kidding.” Dan groaned. “Nope. Ken’s a top, too. Exclusive.” Laughter bubbled out of Bo. “I’d love to be a fly on the wall while they have that discussion.” “Maybe they’ll compromise,” Dan suggested. “Or maybe… Did you say feline varius’ wieners point in the other direction? Maybe they could, you know,” he made his hands into “V” shapes and fitted them together, “do each other at the same time…” His voice trailed off as his eyes glazed over at the sordid thought. possessive “Don’t get too excited,” Bo said, bringing Dan back to the present with a finger in the belly. “Not all of them are that way. Depends on the genetic mix. Some of them are arranged like mine, others come out just in front of the butthole.” He looked at Dan curiously. “You shower with him at the gym three times a week. Haven’t you ever looked at his junk?” “Heck no,” Dan said, “That would be sick, like looking at your sister’s tits, or something. Besides, I’m too busy trying to not look at your junk.” He paused for a moment, considering whether he’d been missing out. “Is it a nice one? Should I look, next time?” “I’ll spare you the trouble,” Bo rolled his eyes. “It faces forwards, and it looks like it would get the job done. Other than that, you’ll have to ask Jackson. playful “He’s not dating Jackson,” Dan reminded him, with a solemnity that he didn’t feel. “Yeah, I forgot,” Bo chuckled, giving Dan a loving swat. “There. Done.” Bo straightened his back and surveyed his work. Satisfied that everything was in its place, he closed the drawers and began dressing for the evening. Dan was already clothed in blue jeans and a retro-style button down shirt. Bo chose a pair of khaki pants and a brightly colored shirt that on anyone else might have looked childish, but on a man Bo’s size, was unexpectedly amusing. Checking his watch, Dan gave a little sigh. “When you were out getting that last load of stuff from your place I called some old friends, and they want to meet us for dinner before we go out. It’ll be a good way to introduce you to the group, but we’re going to be late if we don’t hurry.” happy “Well I guess I’d better drive, then!” Bo grabbed his keys and bounded out of the house like his tail was on fire. Dan locked the front door to the sounds of Bo revving the lifters, and within minutes they were headed for the city’s gay ghetto. Less than a minute before the car touched down, Dan’s comm beeped. After a quick glance at the display, Dan had to repress a sigh. Joel habitually called him just before he arrived at their meeting place to reassure himself that Dan was coming, and Dan found that sort of neediness annoying. He shoved his negative feelings into a corner and keyed his comm on. “Hellooo!” came a decidedly swishy voice from the other end. Bo looked at Dan in horror, but continued his descent into the parking lot next to the restaurant. Dan laughed nervously, and turned down the volume so Bo could concentrate on his landing. embarrassed “Yes, we’re still coming.” He said, marshalling his patience. “Yes. No, I’m less than a minute away. I’ll see you in a minute. Joel? Joel – hang up the comm. Bye.” Dan clapped the comm shut with more force than was necessary, and Bo could feel him striving for control over his impatience. “This Joel fellow must be a real hoot, if you go through this much trouble for him.” Bo observed. “He was around when I needed him, and he was one of the few friends I had that didn’t head for the hills when Blaine and I separated.” Dan explained. “Even though he irritates the crap out of me sometimes, I could never bring myself to write him off.” They climbed out of the car and made the short walk to the restaurant, meeting Joel on the way in. A short, rather used-looking man, Joel was every gay caricature rolled into one skin-tight, pink latex wrapper. He gave Dan a huge hug and a wet smooch on the cheek, before pulling him into the restaurant, leaving Bo to follow in a breeze of French cologne. Dan felt Bo’s confused amusement through the link, and guessed that his partner was wondering what Dan saw in this man. Joel was unique. He could run around like a toy poodle on amphetamines, or he could sulk for days like a woebegone child. He was a Mercurial man of either sunshine or rain, rarely living in the land between the two. But no matter what his personal mood was at the time, he would move heaven and Earth for any of his friends. Dan tuned in during the middle of Joel’s current tirade. “…and let me tell you, he’ll never hear the last of it. That girl was too young and too cute for a bitter old troll like him, he should have seen it coming. But people like him never do.” Dan let whatever words followed waft off into the air. Long ago, he had realized that it was easier to not listen to every word Joel said. By putting him on a back burner and letting him simmer, after a while you’d still get the same story, but without the headache. Coming up to the table where his friends were sitting, Dan pulled an extra chair from an adjoining table and sat down. Bo did the same next to him, and Dan merged them into the conversation with a round of introductions. “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Bo. Bo,” Dan said, pointing to each person in turn, “this is Jamie, Richard, Stephen, Joel, and Lloyd.” Bo went around the table and greeted each man in turn, taking care to remember their names. It may have been a small thing to most, but to Bo, names were important and deserved attention. When he got to Jamie, the man had an expression in his eyes that Bo couldn’t quite pinpoint, although he found it disquieting. “How do you know Dan?” Jamie asked, drilling holes into Bo with owlish eyes that were a little too large to be proportionate with his head. “We both work at Magnum,” Bo said, taking care to enunciate his words. He knew that some sapiens had trouble understanding varius speech, and he wanted to leave Dan’s friends with a good impression. “He works in the office, and I work out in the plant.” “You work where?” Jamie asked, putting a finger behind his ear. “In the plant,” Bo said, annoyed that he had not tried hard enough. “Oh.” Jamie was either disinterested or he still did not understand what Bo was saying, but perhaps the morph’s nerves were to blame for that perception. Then the mood of the table shifted as they switched gears. The gossip machine was now in full overdrive, and was bearing down on Dan. “So,” Jamie started, usually the first to ask a question, “you’ve been spreading the word that you’re off the market. Tell us about him!” Before Dan could answer, Stephen piped up. “Yes! He’s supposedly some hot stud muffin. It’s about time, girl! You’ve dated enough losers. Remember Victor? And Evan?” The entire table shrieked in laughter at the memory of two of Dan’s more interesting but less attractive boyfriends. Dan felt his ears redden with annoyance. He liked both Victor and Evan, and still considered both of them to be close friends. Lloyd favored Bo with a significant look. “Just hang around us for an hour, and we’ll tell you more about this man than you ever wanted to know!” “I’m sure you will.” Bo said, agreeably, but the smile that had brightened his face dimmed in consternation. He’d spoken too quickly again, and Jamie again had that finger behind his ear and was looking at him expectantly. Bo sighed imperceptibly and repeated himself more slowly. Jamie nodded his understanding, but his sly smile told the varius what was really going on. He hadn’t been slurring his words and Jamie wasn’t hard of hearing. Jamie was just being an obnoxious little cunt. Jamie turned his large eyes to Dan. “So! Tell us what this new guy’s like?” “What’s his name?” another asked. “Where is he? He isn’t already chained to the bed, is he?” They were like hyenas on fresh kill, peppering him with questions. Dan couldn’t get a word in edgewise, and finally he gave up trying. Silently, he put an arm around Bo’s massive shoulder and left it there. One by one, the men stopped talking and gaped as Dan’s implication soaked in. Dan had said he had a new love, one that was exciting and different, but he didn’t say a thing about…this. It was one thing to bed a varius when you were horny, but to pair up with one? Stephen, the most gullible of the lot, broke the silence with his braying laughter. “Holy Christ, Dan, you kill me! For a minute, I thought you were serious! So where is he, really?” He wiped his watering eyes with his napkin, clearly amused beyond measure at the joke that only he could see. “God, Dan, quit it!” shrieked Jamie, half his attention on Dan, the rest still carefully focused on Bo so he wouldn’t miss his reaction. uncertain At first Bo grinned, willing to go along with the joke even if he didn’t completely understand it. But it didn’t take long, a second or two at the most, before it dawned on him that his relationship with Dan was the butt of this joke. No, scratch that. He was the butt of this joke. Bo was no stranger to being laughed at. In school, his unusual looks had made him the object of ridicule for both sapiens and varius children, and the hoots of laughter around the table brought long-dormant feelings of insecurity roaring back with the fresh intensity of a scab ripped off a wound. Maybe he had been wrong back in the bar that night with Dan. Maybe you couldn’t change who you were after all. Suddenly he felt foolish, and vulnerable in a way that was frighteningly new. Looking around quickly, Bo saw faces at nearby tables turning to watch, everyone within earshot wanting to get a good look at the freak-show so they could tell their friends. Reaching for security in his link with Dan, he recoiled like he had grabbed a live electrical line instead. What he felt in that split second of contact before he slammed his shields back into place hadn’t been the sympathy and strength he was expecting. shame humiliation Dan, the man he had committed his life to, whose opinion meant more to Bo than anyone else, was ashamed of him. He could hear Dan speaking to his friends, but through the rush of blood in his ears, he couldn’t make out the words. Right then, he knew nothing except that he needed to be somewhere, anywhere, else. The last thing he saw on his way out of his chair was a red-faced Dan waving his arm dismissively, laughing along with the joke. Laughing at him. Bo’s throat constricted, obstructed by a hateful lump of shame and fear. Standing up quickly, he tried his best to get away from his tormentors, frantic to get outside before he hurt someone. “Look, guys, I guess this was a bad idea,” Dan said, getting up from his chair to follow his partner. Bo was already long gone, storming towards the door before Dan was even clear of the table. Dan shot a glare of loathing at a smugly self-satisfied Jamie before following Bo out the door and down the street. “Hey, slow down!” he called after Bo, breaking into a jog until he had caught up. But Bo didn’t slow, his pumping legs driving him forward with great, distance-eating strides. His shoulders rolled as he walked, a furious Leviathan seeking ships to smash. confusion “Please stop!” Dan almost begged. “I know they acted like jerks, but we’re out of there now. It’s just you and me out here!” anger Bo whirled, and Dan almost collided with him. The morph who had been so full of love for him back in their home was gone, replaced by a hard-edged, dangerous animal, and for the first time since he’d known Bo, Dan felt fear. “No!” the varius shouted, the points of sharp canine teeth exposed by lips that had pulled back in a growl. He pointed his finger at Dan’s chest, and the man noticed with alarm that the tips of Bo’s razor sharp claws had slid free of their sheaths. “It’s not you and me, it’s just me!” Dan was speechless in the face of such rage. “I’ll come by tomorrow and get my stuff,” Bo yelled as he whirled and strode away. Dan felt dizzy. He could understand that his partner would be angry and hurt by the biting comments and ignorant laughter of the others, but he hadn’t expected Bo’s anger to be directed at him this way. “No!” he shouted at Bo’s retreating back. In desperation, he ran to catch up to him. Knowing what Bo was capable of, he stayed just out of arms reach. “What did I do? For the love of God, at least tell me what I did!” Without looking up, Bo stated flatly. “If you don’t know, it still doesn’t change anything. Remember,” he said, spearing Dan with an angry glare, “I can tell what you’re thinking!” “What?” Now Dan was completely confused. “Are you mad because I didn’t stand up for you in the right way?” Frantic tears threatened to spill from his eyes, but he pinched them back. Bo turned and took another half dozen steps away from him, and Dan didn’t see that he had any option. He’d been waiting for Bo all his life, and he wasn’t about to let him get away now. After all they’d gone through, a stupid misunderstanding over the behavior of a group of bar queens was not going to split them up! Dan did the only thing he could think of. In desperation he put on a burst of speed, running ahead of Bo and planting himself like a lone defensive tackle facing the entire onrushing offensive line. “Move!” Bo thundered. A second later, they were both on the ground, Dan wrapped around Bo’s body so tightly that the varius’ blows had little effect. A few of the punches connected, making Dan see stars, but he wasn’t about to let go. He tucked his head against the chest of the man he loved and gasped in pain as a frantic fist caught him in the side of the head, making his ear throb. He grabbed two handfuls of Bo’s fur through the fabric of his shirt and hung on like a limpet, weathering the hurricane of blows as best he could, his resolve strong but his body weakening. If Bo didn’t run out of fight soon, Dan feared he’d be knocked unconscious. fury Through the red haze clouding his vision, Bo realized Dan wasn’t fighting back. “Let go!” he shouted. !no! Dan’s chest heaved, but his voice wouldn’t come. There was so much he wanted to say, but nothing came out. He buried his face in Bo’s chest, shielding himself from the blows as best he could. He tried his best to push feelings of love through their shared link, but he had no idea what he was doing. For all he knew he was doing it completely wrong, because all he perceived in return for his efforts was a smooth wall of polished steel. !stop it! “Let go!” Bo said again, some of the heat gone from his voice. Dan held on. Incapable of doing anything to defend himself, he simply battened himself down and weathered the storm. anger Finally the blows stopped, and Bo lay still, his chest heaving from exertion and, Dan knew, sobs of frustration. Dan shifted his weight, moving from clinging to Bo to holding him gently. Passers by took notice of them, but turned away when Dan waved them off. Bo’s shoulders shook soundlessly as he gave up trying to hold the storm of feeling inside him. “What’s going on?” Dan asked gently. “Come on, babe. Please, talk to me.” pain Bo gently disengaged himself from Dan and sat up, no longer trying to escape. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself and looked at Dan, his eyes full of hurt, “Why were you ashamed of me? I thought you…” He couldn’t complete the sentence. He’d emerged from bar room brawls with broken ribs and missing teeth, but no physical injury had ever hurt him this much. Finally, he simply looked at Dan through bewildered eyes dark with emotion. “Why?” With a start, Dan realized what had happened. “No,” He shook his head vehemently, “no!” He spoke slowly so there would be no possibility of misunderstanding. “I will never be ashamed of you.” Dan reached over and took Bo’s hand in his own. “I was embarrassed by them. I told you they were my friends and they hurt you. I trusted them to treat you with as much respect as I feel for you, and they let me down. And I felt like I failed you for introducing you to them.” The remaining heat in Bo’s eyes cooled instantly, replaced by a cautious hope. “Really?” He looked so forlorn that Dan’s heart broke all over again. “Really. Look inside me and see it for yourself.” open Bo reached up to Dan’s face and gently cupped his cheek with a hand that could crush rocks. He opened his mind to Dan, and immediately knew the truth. horror “Oh, God, Dan!” Bo brought both hands up to touch Dan’s face, horrified by what he’d just done. “Oh, God… I’m so sorry,” Bo’s voice trailed off into a miserable whimper, feeling smaller than he ever had for hitting this wonderful man whose greatest sin was in daring to love him. fear !oh god! !DON’T LEAVE ME! Bo’s frantic plea ripped through Dan’s heart with stunning force. “Shh…” Dan implored, pressing Bo’s palms to his face, then kissing them with tender love. He slowly stood, then drew Bo to his knees so he could hold the larger man’s head to his chest so that his mate could hear his beating heart. “I love you, babe. There’s no need for sorry. Shh…” Bo’s huge arms wrapped around him almost desperately as he silently cried out his fear and sorrow, Dan constantly nuzzling the hair on the top of his head, whispering a cool stream of forgiveness down to his ears. When his mate was on solid ground again, Dan pulled him over to a nearby park bench and sat down with him. despondent Even though the two of them were on the same side again, Bo’s voice was near to despair. “Great. First your mom and dad hate me, then you can’t even get a good night’s sleep because of me, and now your friends think I’m a freak.” Dan didn’t need their link to feel the pain simmering behind his mate’s liquid brown eyes. “You know how that makes me feel?” Dan reached out and slipped into Bo’s mind, and he almost wished he hadn’t. Seeing his husband, his lover, his best friend in this much pain was horrible. Sharing thoughts with Bo was usually like basking in the warm sun on a cool day, but now it was more like standing in the rain at a funeral. Bo felt…diminished. In spite of the dismal mood, Dan could feel what he needed to know. He thought Bo’s question might be rhetorical, but he answered anyway. “You’re afraid I’m going to start listening to them and I’ll think that being with you is a mistake.” pain reassurance By the way Bo squeezed his eyes together to hold his emotions in check, Dan knew his interpretation was right on the money. He reached out and put a hand on Bo’s cheek, stroking away the insecurity. “Being with you is not a mistake in any way, shape, or form,” he said, meaning every word. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Bo, and I will never let you go. They’re the ones who are wrong, and one day, they’re going to open their eyes and see past their stupid little noses, and see what an incredible man you are.” Bo gave a nervous little laugh, and Dan formed a happy picture in his mind of puppies rolling over each other in a wicker basket. The tension was broken, and Dan couldn’t stop a bark of his own laughter. The next instant, they were both laughing and rolling around on the grass in each other’s arms. Ignoring the stares of passers by, they lay on the ground, cloaked in their renewed love. Bo rarely leaked his thoughts, but his agitation had weakened his shields enough that Dan could know his thoughts without even trying. His mind had wandered back to that lunch they’d spent on the dock, watching the rain come down as they ate. Through his mate’s eyes, Dan saw the trust it had taken for Bo to open up to him about his youth and his family. He remembered the warmth that had spread inside the strong varius’ heart when Dan had accepted him completely and without question, and had reached out that first hand of friendship between them. This, Dan knew, was one of Bo’s most treasured memories, one that, when life was especially difficult, he would bring out and replay to remind himself that his struggles were all worthwhile. Dan ran his fingers through the unruly, black hair on Bo’s head and looked deep into his beautiful brown eyes. “Let’s go get some dinner somewhere far away from here.” Bo got to his feet and offered a large black-furred paw to help Dan off the ground. Once on his feet Dan kept hold of Bo’s paw, and they walked to the car holding hands as proudly as any of the other partnered couples they passed. Chapter 34 Ken’s voice was scratchy from all the yelling the two had done at the game. His eartips were sunburned, he was hungry, and he was probably more than a little drunk from the seemingly endless string of beers that Jackson kept buying. Every time the beer vendor came near, Jack bought two more V-3 cups, the largest the stadium offered. “It’s important to stay hydrated,” he’d rationalized, circumventing Ken’s protests. The beers weren’t all that expensive after their discount was factored in, but the sheer number of them was staggering. Jack took at least six of the liter-sized commemorative plastic cups home with them, and they’d left at least a dozen rolling around underneath the stadium seats when they’d left. When Ken refused to guzzle his drinks to keep time with the bovine, Jack pulled the half-finished brew out of his paw, drank it down, and replaced it with a fresh, cold one. It was, Ken thought, a damned good system. It provided Ken with a continual supply of fresh beer, and Jack with all the ‘hydration’ he wanted. Now that they were back in Jack’s apartment, Ken realized how blissfully relaxed he was. “You hungry?” the big bull asked, slinging one huge arm over the back of his couch, his hand resting on Ken’s shoulder. It no longer felt odd for the two of them to touch, and Ken had started leaning into the contact whenever it happened. And it had happened a lot that day. Even though the stadium seats had been designed to comfortably hold an average-sized varius, nothing about Jackson was average-sized. With the armrest between them flipped up so Jack could spill over into Ken’s seat, they’d still spent the last three hours crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder. In the summertime their physical proximity wouldn’t have been workable, but now that the temperatures were starting to cool, the physical contact suited both men just fine. As a bonus, nobody thought it was odd when you were plastered up against a man as big as Jackson. You could completely cop a feel in front of a church matron, and she’d only cluck her tongue sympathetically that you’d been inconvenienced by having to sit next to someone so large. “Yeah,” Ken replied, absentmindedly scratching his belly. He hoped Jackson wasn’t going to suggest that they invade another all-you-can-eat restaurant. “You want to go to the Happy Family?” Ken groaned. “Oh, God, no. Not another buffet.” “I’ll pay, if you want,” Jackson said, hopefully. “It’s not the money,” Ken said, “it’s the quality. Or lack thereof.” He looked towards Jack’s kitchen. “Don’t you have anything here we could cook up?” “Not really,” Jack was doubtful. The look on his face suggested that cooking for himself was an all-but-alien concept. “I duh…duh…don’t keep much but protein shakes in there.” His stutter was back for the first time that day, signaling the return of his nervous anxiety. Ken was tired and didn’t really want to leave Jack’s warm apartment, but this could not continue. Standing, he gave Jackson a playful slap on his enormous biceps. “Come on.” “Where are we going?” Jack hoped Ken had changed his mind about Happy Family. He thought that a plate of their egg rolls would go down pretty smooth right now. “To the grocery store,” Ken said, with determination. “Tonight I’m cooking dinner for you.” “Oh,” Jackson tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “Okay.” He liked restaurant food better than homemade, but he wasn’t about to rain on Ken’s parade. They climbed into Jack’s oversized truck and went to the store like they went everywhere else – with Ken nestled against Jack’s side, tucked beneath his beefy right arm. It might be the typical redneck-girlfriend posture, but the bull was so big and warm that snuggling up next to his bulk held irresistable appeal to Ken’s feline half. Shopping with Jackson proved to be far more of an adventure than Ken had imagined. When asked to grab a head of cabbage, the bull had stood at the entrance to the produce department looking like Ken had just asked him to shut down a nuclear reactor. “You’re going to have to shuh…shuh…show me,” he stuttered, answering the feline’s inquiring look. Jack stood in front of Ken, twisting his fingers together nervously, as if he expected Ken to start yelling at him at any minute. His deep, quiet voice was almost ashamed. “I don’t cook much.” The look on the bull’s face was pure, humiliated defeat, and Ken’s heart would have had to be made of stone for him to be annoyed. My God, he thought to himself, the man doesn’t know what an unprocessed head of cabbage looks like. “Here,” he said, calmly taking his friend by the arm and leading him to the leafy vegetables. “It looks like we’ve got a choice of red or white. It doesn’t really matter for what we’re doing,” he explained, “so let’s just get whatever’s cheapest.” He showed Jack how to check for bad spots, then tossed the cabbage into their basket. Ken took another look at Jack’s size, and a second head followed the first. “You got a big pot at home?” “Not really,” Jack said, but then turned hopeful. “I’ve got a pretty big pan, though.” “How big?” Jackson held his hands about thirty centimeters apart, and Ken directed them to the housewares aisle to pick out a cheap steel wok. “Grab one of those bases, too,” he told Jackson, pointing at the lower shelf. “It comes with the pan.” They bought a brick of pressed tofu, broccoli, peppers, udon noodles, and a half-dozen spices and sauces that Ken was positive Jack wouldn’t have in his cabinets. If the man didn’t even have solid food, he thought, it would have been unreasonable to think that he might have fish sauce. They walked out of the store thirty minutes later, loaded down with more bags than Ken had anticipated. The sun that had warmed them at the stadium that afternoon was gone, replaced by a chilly, early winter drizzle. Their purchases took up the space to Ken’s right in the cab, and if their presence inside the truck pushed him farther underneath the warm arm of his…of Jackson on the ride home, Ken didn’t mind at all. The drizzle had strengthened by the time they touched down in Jack’s parking lot, urging Ken to dash from the dry truck to Jack’s front door. Jackson, however, endured the rain with typical bovine indifference, plodding through the falling water without care as Ken waited for him under the building’s awning. Jack unlocked the door and let them in, but Ken stopped with a hand on his chest. “Stay here,” Ken instructed, once they were inside. Jack obeyed, a series of small puddles blooming on the tile beneath him as Ken retrieved a towel from the bathroom. The lion emerged a moment later with an amused smile on his face, carrying a clean but rather thread-worn towel that was covered in stylized daisies. After using it to clear the drops of water from his eye glasses, he reached up and passed the towel over Jackson’s head and horns, drying them carefully before going over his friend’s torso. Wiping the water off the bull’s huge back, Ken imagined, felt very much like it would to dry the side of a barn. “Am I good to go?” Jack asked, when Ken appeared to be finishing up. “Yup,” Ken confirmed, swatting the bull’s rump with the towel. “Get thee to the kitchen. But kick your shoes off, first.” He dried the floor as best he could, then took the damp towel back into the bathroom and hung it over the shower stall to dry. “You really don’t mind getting wet, do you?” Ken asked, as the two men pulled their purchases out of the bags. “Naw,” Jackson opened a cabinet to put away the groceries, but stopped himself when he remembered that they were going to use everything in a few minutes anyway. “There’s always going to be rain in your life, so why fight it?” “Spoken like a true stoic,” Ken observed. “Here,” he said, handing Jackson the cabbage. “Get your biggest knife and chop this into strips about this thick,” he held his paw pads about a centimeter apart. When Jack looked uncertain about even this simple direction, Ken had to chuckle. “You really don’t cook very much, do you?” “I can heat soup,” Jackson said, quietly, allowing Ken to take the head of cabbage from him. He watched with minimal interest as Ken washed it before cutting it in half and setting the flat side on the cutting board. “Here,” Ken said, handing the knife back to Jack. “If you cut it in half first, it won’t roll around when you chop it.” Jackson concentrated on cutting the vegetable to Ken’s specifications. The dull knife made the unfamiliar task harder that it should have been, and Jack felt embarrassment at the wretched quality of his cooking gear. He’d always depended on his girlfriends to cook anything he didn’t eat out, so he saw little purpose in upgrading the pitiful tools that he owned. But if it would make Ken want to come over and cook, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to at least buy a few new knives, and maybe even a pot or two. “So where’d you learn to cook?” Ken’s voice came out muffled from underneath the kitchen sink. “I taught myself.” He was rooting around for something to clean the wok before he used it for the first time. “You got something to wash dishes under here?” “Maybe,” Jack answered uncertainly, “but I might have used it all to wash my truck.” “Aha,” Ken declared, triumphantly pulling a sticky, half-used bottle of green dish detergent out of the cabinet’s depths. “I think this’ll work.” “Oh, hey,” a surprised Jackson commented, looking over while he chopped. “I forgot I had that.” “Pay attention to what you’re doing, Gongniu,” Ken advised. “Don’t want you chopping your fingers off.” He washed and dried the new wok, rubbing the inside with oil before setting it on the stove. While it heated, he gave Jack’s question a more complete answer. “When I got out of boot camp, the food at Fort Masters was so bad, I bought a couple of books and taught myself.” Adding a bit more oil to the wok, he threw in the chunks of tofu to crisp them up, stirring them constantly to keep them from sticking. “So why didn’t you go into the military?” “I tried, but they wouldn’t take me.” Jackson carefully gathered the shredded cabbage into a pile. “They said I was too big to fit any of the emergency equipment. But since I tried to serve I still get my discounts.” “Wow,” Ken said, impressed. He’d seen some pretty big varius in the service, a few that made even Bo look small. “You always been this big?” “Not always,” Jack said, chopping the pepper that Ken handed him. “I guess I started lifting when I was eight or nine, after I got tired of getting picked on.” “I get it,” Ken said, sympathetically. “The other kids picked on me all the time, too.” “You’re still pretty shrimpy,” Jack joked, giving Ken a gentle shove. They both knew how beautiful the well-built lion was, so the comment was a bee with no real sting. “It wasn’t…” the bull trailed off to silence, apparently deciding not to say whatever he was thinking Ken had noticed that, from time to time, Jack’s voice would trail off like that, sometimes ending with a tired-sounding sigh. He had the feeling that Jack’s filters might be a bit slow, and his self-editing process was kicking in a bit too late to completely stop whatever was crossing his mind from crossing his lips. Previously he’d let it pass, but this time there was a note of sadness in the bovine’s voice that tugged at Ken’s heart. “You know it’s safe to talk to me, right?” he asked, as he stirred the chopped vegetables into the mix. “What you tell me won’t ever get to anyone else.” “Yeah,” Jack said slowly, not looking up from his task. “I trust you, Ken. I just don’t want to talk about it right now. Maybe later.” “Okay,” Ken said, simply. He did the varius thing and continued on as if nothing had ever been said. He grabbed the garlic and the mushrooms, stirring them in along with the vegetables and tofu. Next in were onions and broccoli, followed in short order by the bell peppers and the small mountain of cabbage that Jack had chopped. “You sure you want to put all of that in there?” Jackson asked, sounding concerned. “It’ll wilt down,” Ken assured him. “You’re an herbivore anyway, right?” “I’m omni,” Jack reminded him. “What’s your chemistry? C3?” Ken guessed. “C3, C4. Somewhere in there.” “Any problem with MSG?” “Other than drinking water like a camel after I eat it?” Jackson chuffed a laugh. “Naw – go ahead and put it in.” “Good,” Ken confirmed, “because it’s already in there.” He looked apologetic. “I’ve got to get better about asking that beforehand.” “No worries,” the bull reassured, coming up behind Ken to wrap his arms around the lion. He leaned down and nuzzled Ken’s mane affectionately. “That smells good.” “My hair, or the stir fry?” “Yes.” Jackson really enjoyed the way the kitty fit against his body, the curve of the lion’s back molding perfectly against his belly. Ken was the perfect size and shape to hold like this, the sunny yang to his shady yin. Even his tail passed between Jack’s legs at the perfect height to just barely tickle his balls through his shorts. Jack brought his thighs together, trapping the constantly waving appendage. Ken smiled. “Thanks.” He usually didn’t care to have his tail confined like that, but in this case, with a mountainously large man doing the confining, he found the sensation to be mildly erotic. “If you let my tail go,” he said, a moment later, “I could kiss you.” “No,” Jack said, quietly. “I think I like you like this,” he squeezed Ken’s tail between his thighs, “facing the stove and cooking my dinner.” “Lovely,” Ken said, unfazed, “just how I wanted to end up – as someone’s cooking bitch. You got any plates in here?” Jack chuckled as he backed up to retrieve a pair of plates out of the cabinet. “You’re not just any someone’s cooking bitch, you’re my cooking bitch.” Ken shot him a warning look and poked him in the chest with one of the oversized cooking chopsticks. “I’m not your bitch,” he said, seriously. “Friends, with a benefit or two thrown in, right?” Jackson held up both hands in surrender. “Absolutely.” He reached up to scratch and then smooth the dense fur behind Ken’s ears, and when he spoke, his voice was soft and serious. “I didn’t m…mean to rile you up, man.” “No big deal,” Ken answered, piling food on a plate. “Just remember your place and we’ll be just fine.” He stuck a pair of chopsticks into his dinner, and found a large fork for Jackson to use. Jackson didn’t say anything more about it, and since he wasn’t acting weird, Ken felt comfortable sitting next to him on the couch while they ate. Jack flipped the vid to a college football game, and Ken was thankful he’d sat nearby when the bull exploded off of the couch, bellowing excitedly when his team scored a surprise touchdown. Ken was barely able to catch Jack’s half-finished plate before it flew off his lap and onto the floor. Handing the man’s dinner back to him, Ken was surprised that he wasn’t annoyed. Jack was such a pure and simple jock that he couldn’t help smiling at his antics. He wasn’t out to hurt anyone, he wasn’t malicious or pretentious, he was happy just being Jackson. Thirty minutes later the game was over, and Jack looked expectantly down at Ken, who had moved from leaning against the bull’s arm to laying flat on the couch with his head pillowed upon Jackson’s great thigh, relaxing unapologetically after a long day and a good meal. “I’m tired,” the cat remarked, with a yawn so wide it exposed his molars. “I’d better get going before I fall asleep.” He started to sit up, but Jackson stopped him with a heavy hand, the bull’s thick fingers gently rubbing Ken’s chest. “Why don’t you just stay here tonight?” he asked, quietly. “I’ve got plenty of room.” Ken wanted to say yes. He wouldn’t have minded continuing their snuggle. Heck, he wouldn’t complain if it turned into a wet snuggle, for that matter. But he didn’t want Jack to get the wrong idea. As if reading his mind, the great bull said the words that made the decision an easy one. “Just friends, right? With a benefit or two thrown in?” It had been a long time since Ken had enjoyed a benefit, and faced with this very pleasant possibility, he had little trouble agreeing. His answer to Jackson was nonverbal. A strong hand reaching behind the bull’s corded neck brought thick bovine lips close to his, and Ken let a kiss be his answer. Jackson’s muzzle had a few wirey hairs sticking out of it, but that didn’t stop Ken from enjoying the feeling of warm, soft lips moving against his own. The two had spent quite a bit of time together over the past few weeks, but Ken hadn’t been lying to Dan when he’d told them they hadn’t been intimate. Ken was very concerned about misleading Jackson, but the kiss they were sharing was so perfect, so right, that he couldn’t bring himself to end it. Ken watched himself as if from a distance, unable to stop pressing his lips against this powerful man’s face. He knew that what he was doing was dangerous, but he couldn’t break the spell. Instead, he found himself angling his head in a way that could be considered nothing but provocative, inviting Jackson to take the kiss to a deeper, more intimate level. Sure enough, the tip of Jack’s thick tongue rasped gently against Ken’s lips, requesting permission for what it wanted instead of rudely driving its way into his mouth. Ken parted his lips slightly, enough to loosely grasp the bull’s tongue while his own explored the taste and texture of his…friend. Ken pressed himself against Jackson’s muscle-swollen chest more aggressively, wanting to feel the heat of this huge man against his own fur and skin. Regardless of what he thought about Jackson’s lack of qualification as a mate, Ken found him incredibly attractive as a man. Many people did, and Ken knew that his string of sexual conquests was impressive. And yet, something about the way Jackson was treating him elevated this experience beyond the status of just another casually friendly roll in the hay. Ken felt like he was the most important person in Jack’s world right now, and something about that was disconcertingly attractive. Jackson broke off the kiss to plant a pair of solid licks across Ken’s muzzle. They weren’t slobbery, they were warm and damp, and made Ken feel as if he were being cared for. Jack stared into Ken’s eyes for a few heartbeats before pulling him into his arms and lifting him bodily from the couch. Once standing, a flex of his arm brought the lion’s handsome face up to his again, and they resumed their kiss as Jackson carried him to his bedroom. For a man of Jack’s strength, Ken’s weight was almost insignificant. He walked unhurriedly into his bedroom, enjoying the feel of Ken’s tongue exploring his mouth. It was smoother than he’d expected, not at all like the raspy tongue of an unevolved feline. It was muscular and capable, and it had a wonderfully sensual texture to it. Jack rarely kissed another man because he usually felt weird afterwards, but this time…this kiss made him feel strong and alive, like a man instead of a little boy pretending to be a man. Breathing in Ken’s narcotic scent, he felt powerful forces swelling within his chest. He laid Ken down on the bed, his heavy breaths having very little to do with the physical exertion. The powerlifter backed up a step or two and stripped off his shirt, exposing thick slabs of muscle that left Ken speechless. “Take your clothes off, kitty,” he rumbled. “I want to be next to you.” Ken kicked off his sandals and stripped off his shirt and shorts, not caring if his quick compliance made him look overly eager. He wanted to feel this man’s muscles rubbing up against him as much as Jack apparently wanted him. Ken’s affection for sapiens partners meant that he’d never before been the weaker bedmate, but tonight, that was going to change in a hurry. “Wait,” Ken asked, as Jack’s hands fumbled at his waist. “Leave your shorts on for a minute, Gongniu. You look…” Ken’s head shook slowly back and forth in stunned appreciation, momentarily struggling to find his voice. “You look so hot like that.” He wished like hell that he had his sketch pad right now. Jackson slowly swayed back and forth, muscles flexing just enough to make them ripple beneath the rich, dark-brown fur without making the man look narcissistic. He loved the look in Ken’s eyes, like the kitty was drinking in the sight of the big, mean bull who was willing to play nice tonight, just for him. Jack’s stretchy shorts were practically painted onto him, showing off every hill and valley in his oversized thighs, and the sizeable bulge growing between them. Ken wasn’t into head games. He had very definite opinions regarding what constituted a ‘real man,’ and physical strength wasn’t part of his definition. Or at least, it hadn’t been before tonight. A part of Ken’s primitive brain was definitely responding to Jackson’s strength. It encouraged the feline to throw himself face-down across the bed and present himself to the bull, and Ken thought that there was only one thing to be done about that. Getting off of the bed, Kensuke walked slowly across to Jackson, tail flicking languidly back and forth in anticipation of what was to come. Reaching a paw out, Ken took Jackson’s hands away from where they rested on the closure to his shorts and placed them on his own narrow hips. He wrapped his arms around Jackson’s waist and drew the man into another kiss, this one using every trick he’d learned to bring out a sex partner’s most passionate feelings. This kiss was not about romance and tenderness, this kiss was pure sexual desire. It was hot, it was sloppy, and it was highly effective. As Ken pulled back, he watched carefully as Jackson’s eyes opened, revealing fires of passion now actively burning within the man. Ken moved his hands around to Jack’s front without ever losing physical contact. When his hands had to part company with warm fur to loosen the man’s shorts, Ken’s face took their place by pushing into the valley between his pecs. Constantly touching, always there, never leaving the man’s delicious heat. Jackson’s extra-large shorts were open now, one flap hanging to either side. Ken slid his paws inside and cupped the bull’s sturdy ass, massaging, pressing, rubbing against the smooth brown fur, hands knowing exactly what they were doing down there. Moving his elbows outwards, he levered Jack’s shorts over his hipline, and the next sound he heard was cloth hitting the floor. A second later Ken was pulling Jack towards him, rubbing the bull’s thick, damp-tipped sheath into his lighter yellow belly fur, feeling the tube of flesh hidden inside growing longer and thicker, pulsing insistently with each beat of his huge heart. Jack leaned down and reclaimed Ken’s mouth, moaning his pleasure into the lion’s maw as his tongue pushed inside Ken the same way he wanted his cock to. Ken was a prize worthy of presidents and kings, and tonight Jackson would have him. Ken rotated them around, pushing the mountain of heavy flesh, warm fur and male hormones onto the bed. Before Jack could right himself Ken jumped on his back, obeying his primitive internal lion as he nibbled playfully at the bull’s ears while his crotch determinedly pressed against Jack’s thick backside. “I…uh… “ Jackson began to protest, but again, nothing came out. He was always the one on top. He’d never even let another male climb on top of him like this, for that matter. But this was Ken. He’d never thought of the lion as submissive, and he sure didn’t seem to be that way in bed. He wanted Kensuke in the worst way, and if that meant giving up the ass, then…well, he might not like it, but he’d do it. For Ken. “Hold on.” Hearing his friend’s serious tone, Ken loosened his grip enough that Jackson could rotate around halfway, looking the lion in the eye without breaking the butt-to-sheath contact that both were finding pretty damned exciting and neither wanted to give up. “What’s up?” He hoped Jackson wasn’t about to tell him that he had some weird disease that required him to wear a condom, or something. Ken hated those things. When Jack screwed around with other guys he always gave it to them hard and fast, and there was usually quite a bit of yelling going on for the first few minutes, before things settled down to a good rhythm. The second time, if there was one, they always came to him already stretched out and lubed up with something greasy, ready for what Jack had to offer. He knew it had to hurt, but the fact that they always got off made it easy for him to think that wasn’t all that bad. He’d even started to get off a little on dishing out the ‘punishment,’ but now that he was the one on the bottom, he was having definite regrets about being so callous. “I’ve never done it this way before,” Jackson said, sounding like a shy boy asking for a favor. “You’re gonna have to go easy back there, okay?” He was a virgin? Ken swooned. Fucking Jackpot, man! He smiled gently at his friend. “Don’t worry, babe. Just trust me.” Ken bent down and gave the side of the bull’s handsome face a slow, sensual lick. “I’ll treat you right.” Jack closed his eyes and nodded his head as he turned back around, ready to take whatever pain Ken needed to give in order to get himself off. Whatever happens, he told himself, it was completely worth it because Ken just called him ‘babe’. He gritted his teeth and braced himself, preparing to be violated. To Jackson’s surprise, the weight pressing against his back eased, replaced by strong, warm hands that gently smoothed the fur on his back. Ken’s erection maintained a constant pressure between his ass cheeks, but that wasn’t the lion’s focus anymore. To Jackson’s surprise, he hadn’t even tried to shove it in yet. Ken gradually increased the pressure of his paw strokes on Jackson’s back until they chased away the uncomfortable muscle tension that was every lifter’s constant companion. Jack didn’t even realize how uncomfortably tight he’d been, until his muscles were expertly loosened up like this. One by one, Ken patiently found and destroyed every cramp, every knot his fingers encountered. And when the bull was so relaxed that he was almost asleep, Ken moved lower, bringing Jack’s muscular rump into the game. It was big, it was strong, and it was one hundred percent Jackson. Ken could tell by the way the bull had looked at him that he wasn’t looking forward to this, he was only allowing Ken to take what he wanted. Since Ken was not in the habit of having sex with unwilling partners, he decided it was his responsibility to make Jackson willing. Ken took one huge ass cheek in each hand and rubbed, squeezed, and stroked them until they were as supple and relaxed feeling as loaves of warm bread dough. Spreading them, Ken looked hungrily at Jack’s virgin pucker. Such a stud, Ken thought. Stroking a gentle finger across the bull’s hole, he watched in fascination as it clenched in nervous anticipation of what was to come. Ken wet one finger and rubbed over the spot in much the same way he’d massaged Jack’s back, with friendly, patient strokes. Soon Ken was able to slide the tip of one finger inside Jackson, teasing the ring until the bull groaned and writhed under his touch. He pulled back, leaving Jack’s rump swaying gently in front of him. “Don’t move, babe.” Ken clambered off the bed and went to his backpack, retrieving the bottle of multipurpose lotion he kept in there. It wasn’t as slippery as lube, but Ken thought it would work just fine, especially given their size difference. Squirting some onto his fingertips, he once again turned his attention to his partner for the night. Jackson gasped in surprise when the cool lotion made contact with his puckered ring, but he said nothing. Ken took this as assent, and slowly pushed his finger inside Jackson’s warm passage. “Damn, Gongniu,” he said, appreciatively, “You’re tight.” While the one hand was busy loosening up Jack’s butthole, the other was happily fondling the heavy pair of nuts swinging ponderously between the big bull’s thighs. Ken knew they were full of hot seed, seed that would be liberated from its prison by the time he was finished tonight. One finger was going in without resistance now, so Ken graduated to two, his other hand rubbing everywhere on the big bull’s body that he could reach, not only to distract him from what was happening at his back door, but because Ken simply loved the feel of this man’s rippling muscles beneath his fingers. Jackson turned his head to watch Kensuke, staring at him in the semi-darkness of his bedroom with eyes suddenly gone soft with worry. “Are you gonna do it?” “What?” Ken asked. “Am I going to do what?” “You know…” Jackson said, embarrassed to even say the words. “Tell me.” Ken said, dominating the bull. “Are you going to… to fuck me?” Jack’s face burned with shame that he was even saying such a thing. “I sure want to,” Ken said, his voice husky with desire. He gave his erection a solid push in the valley of Jackson’s rump. “I think that’s pretty obvious. The real question is, do you want me to?” He added, gently, “I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to, Jack. If you don’t want to do this, or if you just want to wait for a while, it’s okay,” he reassured. “We’ll find something else to do.” There was a long pause, long enough that Ken thought Jack was going to say no. “Yes.” What he said next surprised both of them. “I want to feel you inside me, man.” Jackson was surprised that he wasn’t just saying the words now, he actually meant them. “I want you to be my first.” “You want me to fuck you?” Ken asked, his voice growing husky. “Yeah, man. Come on, do it.” “I’m gonna shoot my load in you, you know that, right?” Ken warned, his voice ominous. He rubbed the big, solid rump that gently swayed back and forth in front of him. “Once I start fucking this big, hot ass, Gongniu, I’m not going to be able to stop.” “C’mon, Ken,” Jackson sounded like he was ready and willing. “Don’t make me beg for it.” His meaty rump swayed back and forth, eager now to feel Ken’s length sliding inside him. “I’m ready.” “Okay, then, let’s do it.” Ken gave Jack’s lower back a firm pat, then got up on his knees. “Hand me one of those pillows, will you?” He knelt on it, bringing him up to a level that would be more pleasurable for both of them. “Spread your legs.” Jackson did as he was asked, his balls swaying obscenely beneath his swollen sheath. Ken angled his own erection towards its target, rubbing the head of his cock against the center star of Jackson’s shiny, well-lubed pucker. Moaning in anticipation, Jack pressed backwards hard enough that the slippery knob of Ken’s cock pushed inside him. “Oh, fuck,” Jack groaned, pulling forward enough that Ken popped out of him, “it hurts.” “It’s okay,” Ken said, understandingly, “You’re just trying to go too fast. Let me do the work, okay?” After a second or two, Jack nodded. Ken’s well-lubricated fingers went back to teasing his hole and pushing lotion inside him, and in a few minutes, the momentary pain was nothing more than an unpleasant memory. Ken slathered the liquid on his junk the way he might have put mustard on a hot dog – and he loved mustard. This time, he gripped his cock by the base and started by rubbing his slick head back and forth over the crater of Jackson’s entrance, teasing it the way his finger had, relaxing it and convincing it that he was a friend and not an intruder. Ken aimed himself at the ring and gave an experimental push. He put the tip of his head inside, not nearly enough to hurt, then pulled back out again. It was more like kissing than penetration. Every time he pushed against the bull he went in a little farther, and the head was soon popping in and out with ease. Given enough time, that feeling alone would have been enough to get him off, but he had plans for far better things. “I’m working it up inside you now, man,” Ken purred, seductively. “You feel that?” “Oh, yeah,” Jackson groaned, sounding relieved “It doesn’t hurt any more. Shove it in.” Ken laughed, rubbing Jack’s wide rear end. “I want to, babe. God, I want to fuck you so bad. But if I did that, you’d walk funny for a week.” With each little stroke, he went in a little farther. “I’m not all that long, but I’m pretty thick.” He gave another easy shove, and two-thirds of his cock was inside Jackson. “Oh, God, you’re hot up there.” Reaching down, he rubbed Jackson’s ass, pushing his cheeks together so Jack would feel the feline cock that was moving in and out of his body. “You ready to take it all, buddy?” Ken asked, grinding the base of his cock into the short hairs surrounding the bull’s asshole. “You ready for me to fuck you?” It was a purely rhetorical question. At this stage of the game, Ken had played nice for as long as he was able. He wasn’t kidding that once he started working on this man’s ass, he’d be unable to stop. And he hoped Jackson was ready for it, because one way or the other, he was about to get fucked. Hard. “I’m ready for it,” Jackson practically begged. “You’ve gotta do it, man.” Ken saw Jack’s arm moving toward his cock in a bid to pleasure himself, and with a swift, sure movement, he swatted the bull’s hand away. “That’s mine, Jack,” he admonished. “No touching.” He eased his voice. “I promised you I’d take care of you, right?” “Yeah, man,” Jackson said, after a pause. “You gonna do me right?” “I promise,” Ken said, rubbing the bulls’ back as he pushed the last of his cock into his partner. “Don’t worry, babe,” he assured the bull. “I’m gonna make you come harder than you ever have, before.” He chuckled knowingly. “You’re gonna paint the fuckin’ walls.” Kensuke ground his hips into Jackson’s furry ass cheeks, making sure that the man underneath him was well aware that every bit of another man’s cock was inside him. “You feel that, Gongniu? I’m balls-deep inside you now.” His deep, quiet voice was almost hypnotic. “I’m all the way inside my big, strong, handsome bull.” Jackson honestly hadn’t been expecting this. In the movies he’d watched, part of the game with mounting another man was either ignoring him like he was just a warm hole, or telling your sub what a bitch he was. Ken didn’t seem interested in doing any of that. Instead of humiliating him, he seemed intent on building Jack up! Ken drew back halfway, then immediately slid back in. The motion of his head pushing against Jackson’s prostate made the bull’s long, relatively thin cock shoot out a clear glob of pre that wet the comforter underneath them. “Ungh…” the bull grunted. “Holy fuck, that feels good.” Ken grinned. Another bottom was born today, giving another heavenly angel its wings. He slid half of his shaft out and put it back inside, then two-thirds. Before long he was pulling his entire cock out, all but the head, pushing it deep inside where it belonged. To put it bluntly, Ken was in heaven. He wasn’t a slut by any measure of the term, but he was a healthy, male, feline varius in the prime of his life, with all that implied. His biology and his society encouraged a variety of sexual partners, and his psychology quite willingly went along for the ride with absolutely no feelings of guilt or repression. He’d had quite a few sex partners, but none of them had been as mind-blowingly satisfying as Jackson. When Ken had first bent down to look at Jack’s hindquarters, his examination hinted at a rather lackluster ability to perform. Jackson’s hole seemed disappointingly large, looking far more suited to satisfying the sexual needs of an equine cock than a feline one. Ken’s first impression was that the bull was going to be loose, and fucking him should have been like throwing a sausage down a hallway. But to his delight, Jackson seemed to have as much control over his big, puffy asshole as he did over every other overdeveloped muscle on his body, and the way he was squeezing it in time with Ken’s long, regular strokes was positively milking the come out of him. Ken’s balls bounced against the top of the bull’s long scrotum, giving him an idea. He loved fucking with his legs splayed so his balls were free to swing back and forth in time with his thrusts, but by putting them together, pushing harder and slowing down a bit… Oh, fuck, yes! Now he had Jackson’s warm, heavy balls bouncing off the front of his thighs with every stroke, giving Ken a constant tactile reminder of exactly who it was he was fucking, here. Ken was an accomplished top and could control his orgasm better than most men, but this was starting to feel far too good to ignore. He felt his tip swelling, and knew that his orgasm was fast approaching. “We’ve gotta slow it down, babe. I’m about to blow my load inside you, and I’m not ready for that just yet.” Ken’s cock was thicker at the base than it was at the tip, and when he paused his thrusting, he was shoved all the way inside Jackson, giving that marvelously talented asshole enough of a stretch that Jack wouldn’t forget where he was; face-down on his own bed with another man’s sexual equipment stuffed inside him. Jackson rumbled a deep groan, grinding his ass against Ken’s golden-furred loins with a circular motion. The tight, wet sucking of his asshole against the base of Ken’s shaft wasn’t quite enough to bring him off, but it kept him hot and bothered. “You like having me inside you, don’t you?” He cupped Jackson’s large butt cheeks in his hands and gave a little bump for emphasis as he pushed his already hilted cock forward. He wanted to hear an answer. “Yeah, Dude,” Jackson said, feeling like he was about to shoot his load even though nobody was touching his dripping cock. Looking down, he saw that it was fully exposed now, red and hard, a thin trail of his natural lubricant extending from the tip to the large, dark stain on the comforter. He moaned when Ken gave his rump another little bump. “Oh, God, I love it. I don’t know what you’re doing back there, but don’t stop, man.” “Don’t worry, Jack,” Ken said, as he reached out to run his hands over Jackson’s broad back, tracing the muscles that ran under the short, rough fur. “I’m gonna keep going as soon as I cool down,” he promised. “But your ass…man, it’s hot.” Ken slowly withdrew from Jack’s warm depths, pulling all the way out and leaving the bull feeling lonely inside. Jack couldn’t keep a quiet, lowing whine from coming out. “C’mon, Ken,” he begged, his head lolling from side to side with this strange, new desire, “you gotta put it back inside me. Please.” Ken teased him by rubbing the head of his cock over the thick, muscular ridge of Jack’s well-lubricated hole, and then across the bridge separating his tail from his butthole before pushing just the head inside him. The head was all Jack got, and it made him groan with desire. “You like that, don’t you?” the lion asked, stirring the head around. For good measure, Ken wrapped his hand around the base of Jack’s thin tail and gave a firm tug a the same time as he pushed all of his cock back inside in one smooth motion. “Oh, fuck yeah,” Jack gasped, eager to have Ken’s cock massage his prostate. He tried pushing back, but the lion just moved back with him, denying him the satisfaction of being filled once again. Ken chuckled affectionately. “I’m the one in control here, Jack.” He pushed Jackson’s hindquarters up again. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he explained, firm but patient. “I’m going to fuck you as hard as I can, and I want you to make that magic asshole of yours suck the come out of my balls.” Slowly, provocatively, Ken slid all of himself back inside the bull as he alternately rubbed and scratched the athlete’s back. “I’m going to breed you hard, Jack, and then I’m gonna dump my load deep inside you.” It wasn’t a request from a gentle lover, it was a statement of intent from a dominant top, and Jack knew he had little choice in the matter. Fortunately, what Ken was proposing was exactly what Jack wanted him to do. “I’m ready.” He’d wanted it to come out strong and assertive, but the words carried with them a hint of uncertainty. Jack had thought that Ken had been fucking him before. If that was just the warm-up, he’d better hold on tight for what was coming up. Ken pulled mostly out of Jack’s ass before pushing back inside. He’d been going easy on him before, loosening the bull up like any considerate sex partner would. This time, though, his loins bumped against Jack’s loosened ass with some force, sending shock waves through the bull’s meaty body and, most importantly, through his prostate. The grunts of pleasure that Ken could feel reverberating through Jackson’s body told him that he was getting the bull off, and the thought that he was going to make this huge, powerful man blow his load pushed Ken deep into his fugue of lust. The lion started fucking with a solid rhythm, ramming in and out of Jack’s ass like the piston on a machine. “Aww…Aww…Aww…AAW!” Jackson grunted in time to Ken’s thrusts, resting his forehead on the arms he had clasped in front of him so he wouldn’t forget and disobey Ken’s order to not touch himself. This was nothing like what he’d expected to feel! Ken wasn’t just shoving his dick inside him, he was fucking him. Jack was being utterly dominated, and he was begging for more! Oh, this was utterly goddamned hot… He lifted his head and arched his back, and Ken took the bait. The horns coming towards him looked so much like handlebars that Ken couldn’t resist. Taking one warm, smooth horn in each hand, Ken pulled towards himself. At first he was gentle, but seeing that it caused his Gongniu no distress, he increased the force of his thrusting until he was using the full strength of his arms with every thrust to help slam himself that much deeper into the bull’s tailhole. Watching Jackson’s muscles bunch and strain underneath him was the world’s most powerful aphrodisiac, and knowing it was he who was driving Jack out of his mind with pleasure like this was even more exciting to Ken than the physical sensations. This was it, Ken thought. No pulling back now… “I’m gonna come, Jack,” he grunted out. “If you don’t stop that, you’re gonna make me shoot my load inside you.” Of course Jack didn’t stop. He didn’t think he could have stopped if someone put a blaster to his head. Squeezing his butthole and sucking in his guts, he milked Ken’s cock for all he was worth as his low-hanging balls begged for their own release. He was so lost in the blissful sensation that he almost didn’t feel it when Ken let go of his horns, but he definitely felt it when two muscular arms wrapped around him from behind, one paw slicked up with his own pre running up and down his shaft, the other reaching a finger up to rub his belly button, stimulating the forgotten nerves there that were still attached to his urethra. It was all too much, and with a crazy loud bellow, the writhing bull blasted over the edge. Semen exploded from Jackson’s nuts, shooting trails of milky white spooge over the bed, the pillows, his own chest and arms and, when he bent his head down in absolutely blissful release, his face as well. Jackson felt like a dirty whore when he opened his maw and shot part of his load inside his own mouth, but he loved it. A split second after Jack’s bellow woke the dead, Ken felt the warm, slippery shaft in his hand pulse with the bulls’ orgasm and he could no longer hold back his own. Battering the man’s asshole with every bit of strength in his body, Ken used the arms that wrapped around Jack’s torso to pull him tight, burying his cock as deeply inside as he could, firing off round after round into the massive powerlifter’s guts. It was like fucking a slab of warm beef, only this slab of warm beef was trying to suck every last goddamned sperm out of his balls. Seven. Eight. Nine blasts deep inside the big bull, and Ken chuckled happily. It had been so long since he’d come with this much force. So long… Rocking back and forth, he gently slid in and out of Jackson’s relaxed body until the last of the toe-curling aftershocks had passed. He didn’t let a drop of his precious fluid out of Jack’s guts, plugging his hole until the man’s body accepted them. Like the considerate top that he was, Ken didn’t immediately withdraw from his partner. He stayed inside Jack until the bull was deep in the afterglow, gently rubbing every spot he could reach on the muscular man’s body. His strong fingers massaged Jackson’s upper back and shoulders, relaxing him until he collapsed in a heap underneath the lion. Ken moved with him, ending up lying on top of the huge man, deflating penis still lodged deep inside that wonderful asshole. When he finally did pull out, Jackson gave a soft groan of disappointment underneath him, and Ken’s heart gave a little jump. I was his first, he thought, and now it’s over. But then he realized that it didn’t have to be over just yet. Rolling the big bull onto his side, Ken rearranged himself on the bed so they were belly to belly, Jackson’s long penis leaving a trail of slime across the lion’s golden belly fur. The ultimate luxury of being a top was that you never had to get sloppy unless you wanted to. Give your cock a quick wipe, and nine times out of ten you were good as new. Now Ken was lying in a huge wet spot, but at this point he didn’t really mind. Dried come was hell to wash out of fur, but the opportunity to make Jack’s first time perfect would only come once. Ken pulled himself up so that he was face-to-face with the much larger man, and what he saw made him grin. “My God, you come a lot,” he chuckled, using his finger to wipe a line of semen off Jack’s chin. “That’s hot.” “Of course,” Jack replied, smoothing the shock of hair between Ken’s ears. “I’m a bull.” He looked more relaxed than Ken had ever seen him. “That was nice.” “No,” Ken disagreed with him, “that was naughty.” He looked at the string of bull spooge on his finger pad for a moment, then licked it off without another thought. “But it was also amazingly good.” That first taste of Jackson was something Ken could have spent the rest of his life trying to describe. Although it wasn’t something that made him want to dive to the wet spot the bull had left in the sheets and start sucking, it wasn’t a bad taste at all. More than anything the flavor simply rested in his mouth, reminding him of what they had just done, and making him want more. Leaning forward, Ken tasted where the line of semen had been, then he began grooming the bull’s face with his tongue. It was a more intimate move than the situation demanded, but since it had been Jackson’s first time, Ken thought that it wasn’t unwarranted. This was no random sex partner, after all. Jackson was a good friend, and Ken wanted this experience to be special for him. Jackson moved his head slowly back and forth to expose otherwise inaccessible parts of his face to Ken’s tongue, and when Ken was halfway through with the task, two large hands came up to gently grasp his face. “I’m going to let you finish, but there’s something I want to do first.” Ken thought that Jack was going to get out of bed and go to the bathroom or something, and was surprised when a pair of gentle hands carefully pulled the glasses off his face. Jackson turned away for a moment to put them on the bedside table, then turned back to him, their warm lips meeting in a tender, caring kiss. It wasn’t like the passionate kiss they shared earlier; it was gentle and soft, in complete contrast to the rough, tough jock image that the bull usually wore like a suit of armor. His guard was down now, and Ken was inside the walls. “Thank you,” the bull rumbled, before reaching two huge fingers into his mouth and pulling something out. “Heh,” he chuckled, flicking whatever it was into space. “Hairball.” Strong arms wrapped around Ken and pulled him close, into a kiss that he was strongly disinclined to break. Thick, muscular lips danced back and forth, trading scent, tongues, semen and spit until they both fell asleep, noses touching, wrapped contentedly in each other’s arms. Chapter 35 The next morning found Bo and Dan drifting in and out of a lazy doze as the bright morning sun streamed through the curtains, the smell of freshly-brewed coffee wafting tantalizingly from the kitchen. The sound of the doorbell shattered the morning silence and rousted them fully awake. “Just ignore it,” Bo groaned, pulling a pillow over his head. “Maybe they’ll go away.” Dan gave a quick glance at the door monitor as he pulled last night’s shirt over his head. What the hell is he doing here? He opened the door to find Richard standing on the porch with a paper bag in one hand and his hat, quite literally, in the other. “I came to apologize,” he said before Dan could open his mouth. He held up the bag. “And to bring a peace offering. Can I come in?” A dozen catty comments rushed through Dan’s mind, but in the end he stepped back and wordlessly held the door open. Richard stepped inside, not yet certain he should remove his coat. He wouldn’t have blamed Dan for throwing him out on his ear. “You know I love you, buddy,” Dan said, closing the door behind him, “but I’m not thrilled about what happened last night.” Richard’s face flamed with shame. “Yeah, I kind of guessed that.” Dan turned to look at his friend, and watched as his eyes wander to the side of his face. In the span of a heartbeat, Richard’s voice went from apologetic to angry. “What happened to you?” Dan yawned and blinked his eyes, hoping they didn’t have nasty little crusts in them. Belatedly, he gave his arms a quick sweep to make sure there weren’t any other nasty little crusty things attached to him somewhere, telltale evidence of last night’s even-better-than-usual bedroom romp. “Huh?” he asked, wishing his brain would wake up. “What are you talking about?” “This,” Richard said, reaching his free hand up to carefully move Dan’s head to the side. “Your cheek’s all bruised up. Your ear, too.” Dan put a hand to his ear, and sure enough, it was tender where Bo’s hand had struck it during their altercation. “Damn,” he said, giving it a series of quick prods. “Does it show?” “Yes, it shows,” Richard said, coolly. “What happened?” Although Dan didn’t care for Richard’s tone, he let it pass in the interest of mending fences. “After you guys got finished humiliating my partner, we had a little…” Dan sighed, wondering how he was going to explain this to his friend in a way that he would understand but wouldn’t say too much. He couldn’t very well tell him that Bo had misunderstood the emotions he’d felt through their link. In the end, he decided on simplicity. “We had a fight.” “And he hit you?” Rick was on course for a royal meltdown. Of all Dan’s friends, Richard was the one most likely to come into a fight with his thrusters hot, fists flying instead of hitting you with his purse. “Where is he?” He looked into the living room over Dan’s shoulder. “Is the son of a bitch here?” “It’s not like that,” Dan said, but Richard was trying to get around him. “Bo!” he yelled into the house, over Dan’s protests. “Get your ass out here!” Dan shot Bo an urgent message. stay in the bedroom until i get him calmed down mirth what’s he going to do nip my ankles until i bleed to death serious it’s not for you dummy it’s for him Dan grabbed his friend by the arms and held him in place, frustration at having his attention pulled in two directions at once beginning to show in his voice. “Will you shut the hell up and sit down?” Dan almost never cursed like that. It got Richard’s attention, but it didn’t stop him completely. “Is he here?” “Yes, he’s here,” Dan said, not sure whether to be annoyed or touched by his friend’s behavior, “but you’re not seeing him until you listen to me and get your facts straight.” He gave his friend’s arms a squeeze and guided him toward the couch. “Sit down and let’s talk.” Warily, Richard took the seat closest to Dan and leaned closer. “I’m not going to let anyone do this to you, Dan.” Dan cut him off with a stern look and a growled, “Hush.” Richard looked annoyed, but complied. “He thought I set him up, and was laughing at him.” “That doesn’t give him the right to—” “It was my fault!” Dan raised his voice to cut off Rick’s protests. “He told me to stay back, but I didn’t listen to him. I tackled him, and he was just trying to get me off him.” Now that Rick was quiet, Dan lowered his voice as well. He didn’t want to call attention to the bruise, but he was curious how large it was. Finally, he gave in to the temptation and probed it gingerly with his fingers. “He wasn’t trying to hurt me, but you saw how big he is. I didn’t think he even got me hard enough to leave a mark, but I guess he did.” He winced when his fingers encountered a particularly tender spot near his cheekbone. “Trust me,” he said, looking Richard square in the eye, “he feels ten times worse than we do about this.” come on out babe The reaction he got back was the tiniest bit impatient. i’ll be out in a second i’m pooping A microscopic grin tugged at the corners of Dan’s mouth. i didn’t need to know that He continued talking to his friend. “I appreciate your concern, but I outweigh you by twenty pounds. If he needs a good beating, I’m in a better position to do it.” Now that his eyes weren’t dazzled by the morning sun, Dan could see that Richard wasn’t looking all that fresh himself. “I should be asking you what happened,” he said, turning the attention back to his friend. “You look like shit, buddy.” Self-consciously, Rick handed over the bag of pastries. “Yeah, well…” Bo came out from the bedroom pulling a shirt over his powerfully muscled torso. He fixed Richard with a glare so cold it could have shattered glass. “Richard.” Dan’s friend returned the glare for about two seconds, taking great care to look straight into Bo’s eyes. He’d always considered himself a fair judge of character, and was a staunch believer that the eyes did not lie. Looking into Bo’s, he thought he saw disappointment and injured pride, but there was no anger. Even though Richard had wronged him, the varius’ eyes held no malice. Rick loosened the grip on his own anger and pushed it away, choosing to trust that what Dan had told him about the bruise was true. He squared his shoulders and took a couple of steps towards Bo. “I’m, uh…” He took another breath and started again. “I’m sorry for my part in what happened last night.” He sounded disgusted with himself. “It was inexcusable, and I’m here to apologize.” Bo silently examined Richard for a time before nodding his head and walking away, disappearing into the kitchen. Dan sat silently on the couch, not reacting to either man. His message was clear – this rift was between Richard and Bo, and he wasn’t about to get in the middle. Richard heaved a sigh as his shoulders slumped. He turned towards the door and made to leave, wondering why he’d even tried to heal a wound so fresh. He was reaching for the door handle when a deep voice stopped him. “Where are you going?” He turned to see Bo holding a cup of coffee out to him. “Apology accepted, but you’re not off the hook yet.” He hooked a thumb towards the kitchen. “Take off your coat and stay a bit.” Richard took the mug of coffee in one hand, awkwardly shaking Bo’s extended paw with the other. Bo looked at Dan. “What’s in the bag?” “Donuts,” said Dan, with a pleased smile. “Peace offering?” Bo asked Richard. disappointment it’s a pretty small bag !hush! Dan mentally kicked him under the table. “Yeah,” Richard said ruefully, ignorant of Bo and Dan’s mental exchange. “I figured it couldn’t hurt.” Dan pulled out the donuts, arranged them on the first plate that came to hand and set it on the table between them. “I was up all night thinking about what happened,” Richard said, “and the more I thought about it, the worse I felt. Even though it was mostly Jamie and Stephen doing the talking, I shoulda sacked up and told them to shut up about your friend.” Bo usually took what sapiens said in a situation like this with a grain of salt. He’d heard the mothers of far too many toddlers tell them to “say you’re sorry” to believe that the words were anything other than a manipulation. Usually they meant, “I’m sorry I didn’t get away with it,” more than, “I’m sorry for what I did.” This time, however, he sensed no deceit. Richard was genuinely remorseful. Richard was glancing over at Bo more frequently, his unease gradually dispelled by the varius’ lack of wrath. “Dan caught us by surprise,” he explained, “he never mentioned anything about you being varius. The rest of the guys were talking about how they’d done it with morphs when they couldn’t find a guy to, uh…” he realized what he’d just implied and took a quick step backwards, “I mean, when they couldn’t find a sapiens guy to go home with.” Bo’s expression didn’t change, but Richard was still afraid he’d offended him. “Jesus, I’m sorry,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m dead tired, and I’m not thinking real clear.” He looked at Bo imploringly. “Everyone else seems to have varius friends, but you’re the first one I’ve– “ Richard cut himself off when he saw Bo lose interest in him. The varius had been looking at Dan, and when he saw the side of his mate’s face, whatever Richard was saying was no longer of the slightest interest to him. !concern! “What happened to you, babe?” Bo knelt in front of his partner, reaching a huge hand up to tenderly cup the side of his face, careful to not push against the bruised skin. “Oh, man,” he sounded miserable. “Did I do that?” guilt comfort “It’s okay, babe,” Dan reassured him, taking his huge paws in his hands. “It was an accident. I didn’t even see it myself, until Richard pointed it out.” Bo looked at him imploringly. ?truth? truth Bo closed his eyes and almost imperceptibly nodded his head before slowly returning to his chair. “I’m sorry I interrupted you, Richard. It’s just that I…” even though the man’s demeanor was as calm and collected as when they’d first sat down, Richard could tell that he had been badly shaken. “I hurt Dan last night.” “He told me about it,” Richard said, now knowing for certain that what Dan had told him was true. Even the best actor would have had a hard time faking Bo’s reaction. “He said it wasn’t intentional.” Bo nodded his head, somberly. “It wasn’t, but still, I shouldn’t have done it. But anyway,” he said after a pause, wanting to get their conversation back on track, “I’m sorry. You were talking about not having any varius friends?” Richard was reaching for a jelly-filled donut from the plate, but at the last minute he changed his mind in favor of a plain glazed one. It would have been gauche to bring a bag of donuts as an apology, then take the best one for himself. “Yeah, well, the more I think about it, the more I realize that most of what I know about you guys is complete bullshit, and I know it. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is. And until I get the bullshit separated from the facts, I’m gonna fuck up from time to time, so…” by this point his voice was almost a mumble, “I’m sorry.” “Finally,” Bo boomed, his own voice carrying the confidence that Richard’s lacked, “a sapiens who says what he thinks!” He had to chuckle at the man’s confusion. “That’s the way we operate, buddy. Most sapiens don’t ever really get it, but it seems like you might.” “Uh,” Richard was still trying to get his mind to reboot. “It’s okay if I insult you?” He hadn’t expected Bo to react this way. “I wouldn’t go that far,” Bo said, his grin turning predatory, the tips of pointed white canines peeking out from under dark lips. “If you do it on purpose I’ll knock your teeth in.” Feeling that his point was made, his face softened back to its usual friendly expression. “But not for an honest mistake. Just about every varius on the planet will cut you a lot of slack, if you’re trying your best.” At this, Richard visibly relaxed. Dan had questions of his own he wanted some answers to. “You’re thirty-five years old. How could you have never known a varius?” he asked, “They’re all over the place.” Bo looked at Dan. “Why are you acting so surprised?” he asked. “I was your first varius friend.” “That was different,” Dan protested, “I knew the guys out in the plant. I just wasn’t close to anyone before you. But, yes,” he turned to his friend, “I did make a lot of bone-headed mistakes at first.” Richard sounded defensive. “The town I grew up in was really small, and we didn’t have any around. Well,” he amended, “that’s not really true. There were a few, but they mostly kept to themselves and didn’t mix with hu–” he cut himself off before he completed the word ‘human,’ trying valiantly to escape his early prejudices, “…sapiens. I knew they were around, but we never needed to talk. Last night changed that. Besides,” he said, looking at his friend, “I figured that Dan could help me through any weird spots.” “What weird spots? You mean, like this?” Bo asked with a mischievous glint in his eyes as he extended a claw to its full length and stabbed a donut. He popped the whole pastry into his mouth at once, chomping it down whole. A glob of raspberry jelly squirted out the corner of his muzzle, prompting a frantic grab for a napkin before the transparent, red goo could drip onto the table. Richard’s eyes went wide and his jaw went slack. “Son-of-a-bitch!” he exclaimed, and Dan couldn’t help laughing at his friend’s reaction. Bo sucked his claw clean and rested his hand on the table palm up, giving Richard a chance to have a good look. “They were originally intended to be weapons, but the only thing I’ve ever killed off is a good meal. They come in handy for that, especially sweet stuff like donuts.” He smiled. “You wouldn’t believe how tough it is to get sugar glaze out of my fur.” “Pickles too,” Dan added, helpfully. “He’s really good with pickles. And olives.” “No kidding?” Richard asked, turning Bo’s huge hand back and forth and examining his claws. It was a good ice breaker. “Yeah,” Bo said, pulling his hand back and retracting his claws. “They’re good for lots of stuff like that. My fingertips are way too big for the buttons on most things, but I can usually use the tip of a claw instead.” He tried not to sound bitchy. “At least I’ve got built-in tools.” He smoothed the hair over his claw pockets. “A lot of guys have to carry a stylus around, just in case they come across a button that needs pushing.” Richard shook his head. “That’s wild. It seems obvious that you’d have problems in a world built for smaller people, but I guess I never really thought about it.” Bo slurped at his coffee. “So where did you grow up, anyway? Dan’s right, there aren’t many places where you don’t see varii, these days.” “Western North Dakota,” Rick said, thinking back to where he’d been born, “a little town called Yazoo City. It’s got one traffic light, a Dairy Queen, and a lot of dairy farms. There were only seventeen people in my high school graduating class. Most of us were happy enough to stay there and work the farms or the local stores. Except for the fact that it gets ass-biting cold there in the winter, it’s not all that bad, really. I might have stayed there if I didn’t feel like I was the only gay guy within a hundred kilometers. I knew if I ever wanted to find someone I was going to have to expand my horizons, so I packed my bags and went in search of something bigger and better.” “Have you found it?” Bo asked, genuine curiosity in his voice. “Bigger?” Richard chuckled. “That one’s not hard. Yazoo only has a couple hundred people in it, so almost any place is bigger. Better?” He paused for a moment, staring at the swirling dregs of his coffee as if they held the answers he’d been seeking for most of his life. “I don’t know. Maybe. I haven’t really figured that one out yet.” Bo favored him with an honest smile. “Well, good luck. I hope you find what makes you happy.” “Thanks.” He downed the last of his coffee. “I guess I’d better go. I need to get at least a little sleep if I don’t want to get my days and nights completely mixed up.” He picked up his jacket and started for the door. Bo stood and walked him to the door, casually resting a large hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Thanks for stopping by, buddy. It means a lot to me that you came over here.” His voice was quiet. Dan could hear every word they said through their link, but Richard didn’t need to know that. “You’re the only one in the group who didn’t say anything nasty, and still you’re the only one who bothered to apologize.” The paw on Richard’s shoulder stopped him just short of the door. Bo lowered his voice and shielded his thoughts enough that Dan wouldn’t hear what he said, but probably not enough that he’d realize he’d been cut off. What he had to say was between Richard and him. “I know you were willing to fight me to protect him.” His eyes found Richard’s and locked onto them. “Dan needs more friends like you.” He extended his paw. “Come back soon.” Richard took it and shook warmly. “Thanks, man. I’ll be around,” he promised. Bo listened for the sound of a car door shutting and lifters powering up before turning back to the kitchen, shaking his head. “You pinkies never fail to amaze me.” He filled up his coffee mug and, having felt the chill in the morning air, started another pot brewing. “There’s always so much going on beneath the surface. It’s never simple.” mirth “You think we’re pretty complex, huh?” “More like, needlessly convoluted,” Bo corrected. “Why not just say what you mean all the time and be done with it?” curious “You mean, be as open and honest as you are?” Dan sat his mug down and gave Bo his full attention. “Well, yeah, sure. Why not?” “Like, about where you went a week ago?” worry “I never lied about that,” Bo said, defensively. comfort “No, but you’ve been real quiet about it. And you’ve definitely been hoping I wouldn’t find out.” unsettled Dan had made a conscious effort to abandon the sapiens custom of asking for things he didn’t really want. It would have been silly to ask if his mate wanted to talk about it when the answer was obviously no. “Will you tell me about it?” Bo shook his head slowly from side to side, not to deny Dan’s request, but with regret. He didn’t want Dan to be burdened by his past, but now that they were bondmates, it was impossible to insulate him completely from the legions of things he’d rather not expose his partner to. “I’ve already given you my worst nightmares,” he said, bitterly, “What else could you possibly want?” Bo sat quietly for a moment, and Dan tried not to fidget while waiting for him to make a decision. He would live with it either way and try his best to accept whatever his mate could give, but he hoped Bo trusted him enough to let him in. With a quiet sigh, Bo filled his cup and stirred a fat tablespoon of honey into his coffee. “I went to see my old army shrink to find out if there’s anything we can do about the nightmares.” Dan nodded his head and took a sip of his coffee. “Since you haven’t said anything about it, I’m guessing his answer was no.” Sitting down next to Dan, Bo put a hand on top of his partner’s. “I’m not sure going out there didn’t do more harm than good.” Rubbing the back of Dan’s hand with his oversized thumb, he asked, “Are you sure you really want to know?” Dan considered. “Not if it’s going to hurt you.” He inhaled deeply, wanting to use the right words even though Bo was feeling his intent through the link as well. “I have…an interest in your life, Boo. I love you and I want to know who you really are inside, and that can’t happen if I don’t know about the bad parts, too.” He spoke carefully. “Even if I can’t help you, it would mean a lot to me if you’d let me try.” Bo was silent for a long moment before pushing his chair back and getting to his feet. Extending his hand to Dan, he silently made the offer. let me show you Dan stood, and Bo gently took the coffee mug from his hand and placed it on the table. Dan wasn’t expecting to be picked up and carried to their bedroom, but he didn’t object. Carefully, Bo worked loose the fasteners of Dan’s shirt and pants, undressing the man he loved down to the underwear. His own clothes followed, and he carefully pulled his mate back into their bed. Dan was uncertain what was happening, but through their link he could feel that although everything Bo was doing was very pleasant, it wasn’t intended to be erotic. “Come here, babe,” Bo rumbled, gently pulling Dan towards him. The varius carefully avoided doing any of the things that he knew aroused his mate. His kisses were dry, and he concentrated on making physical contact with areas of the man’s skin that produced pleasure without being overtly provocative. It was a walk in the springtime sun with no destination in mind, a journey to be enjoyed instead of completed. Bo wrapped himself around his partner, cocooning him in a protective world of soft fur and rich scent. When Dan was feeling relaxed and content, immersed in his mate’s warmth and strength, Bo reached out to his mind as well. i love you dan oh god i love you so much And then… absolute silence. protect Tears spilled from Dan’s eyes at the depth of feeling within Bo; how the man would have gladly given his own life ten times over to keep harm from befalling him. There existed no words that could express the sheer power of what Bo felt for him. Even their silent mental conversations, as frankly honest as they were, paled in comparison with the absolutely naked truth encapsulated in this emotion. What Bo was sharing with him was pure and good, and Dan felt their link stretch, swelling to accommodate the flood of love. Once he understood the depth of Bo’s feelings for him, Dan felt something else, something that he’d never before felt from his mate, even during the emotional storm of their bonding. Bo was giving him what Dan had begun to think might never be possible – permission. come with me dan see who i really am Dan couldn’t remember closing his eyes, but he must have because he… dreamed? Was that the right word for what was happening? As in other dreams, he flew. Bo’s love for him, energizing and comforting, was the giant, white cumulus cloud through which he soared. It was his shade from the harsh sun, it carried the water that made life possible. It was innocent and light and expansive, but it was not the world. In fact, large as it was, this peaceful environment was only the portion of Bo’s soul that the varius wanted Dan to see. This, Dan knew, was the peace that Bo struggled to maintain. Dan increased his speed and flew to the cloud’s perimeter. As it thinned he could see through the vaporous fog to the dark lands below, where, separated by time and force of will, lived what Dan had asked to see. Reaching out, he took hold of a tendril of the cloud and squeezed it into a cool, thin rope. Running it through a belt loop (when did he start wearing pants with belt loops?) he tied himself to the love and brought it with him, trailing away from the mass behind him like a weaver spinning yarn from a pile of wool, a safety line leading back to the world he never wanted to leave. Flying low, he set down onto the cruel, dry earth with far more finesse than he did in his dreams. The building he faced was small and run-down, looking somewhat like the haunted house at the end of the block in children’s cartoons. Strong stuff, he knew. Powerful juju. The colors in this land were muted, as if he’d walked into an old photograph that had faded in the sun. Reaching down to touch the silvery white threads of cloud at his belt, he took comfort from their unbreakable strength as he opened the squeaking, rusty-hinged, wrought iron gate and walked up the overgrown path to the house. The poured concrete walkway, once straight and proud, had cracked with age, and opportunistic weeds now grew eagerly through the fissures. The porch and the steps leading up to it were in dire need of paint, and Dan had doubts about its stability. But even if it did collapse under his weight, Dan had utter faith that the cloud-colored lifeline trailing behind him would pull him back to safety. This alone gave him the confidence to walk across the creaky boards and open the front door. The handle was unnaturally warm in his hands, as if what lay behind the door might be something that burned. As he turned the knob, the cloudy rope became less resilient, pulling him back slightly in warning about what lay within. But Dan knew that this was nothing more than a conditioned response, and he soothed the rope with a few gentle strokes like one might smooth down the fur of an alarmed cat. When it had relaxed enough to regain its flexibility, he pushed the door open and walked inside. A threadworn oriental rug covered the bare wooden floorboards of the spacious entryway, muffling its protesting squeaks as Dan walked inside and looked around. Frames on the walls contained pictures of people and places that Dan couldn’t see through the obscuring layers of dust. His curiosity, great though it was, was not sufficiently compelling to make him want to clean them enough to see what lay beneath. This dirt, he feared, might not wash off. Directly in front of him, a sweeping plantation staircase led up to the second floor. An open doorway to his left exposed a formal dining area, the table set elegantly for a party of eight, patiently waiting for guests who would never arrive. The contents of the dining room held little interest for Dan, but the room next to it was intriguing, if only because the door leading to it had nothing more than an elaborate lock where the handle should be. Looking closely, Dan saw that there wasn’t even a keyhole, and he knew without understanding how that this unopenable door led to Bo’s subconscious. Abandoning it, Dan moved to the other side of the stairway to a door that seemed framed in more vibrant colors. It was a more recent memory, Dan thought. Dan tried the knob and found it locked, but this did not bother him. Reaching to his waist, he spun a tendril of his cloudy rope into a thin thread and fed it into the keyhole. The mechanism clicked open, and the knob now turned with ease. Showing signs of being more well-used than any other portal he’d seen so far, the door swung noiselessly open on well-oiled hinges. Peeking his head inside, Dan saw a short sapiens man toiling away at an industrial metal desk that looked old enough to predate the house. His lifeline gently guided him to stand in a glowing circle that had appeared in the far corner of the room, and as soon as he’d occupied his place, the action commenced. Dan watched in fascination as the scenes from that day replayed themselves. Bo had been in this room so many times before and had seen it from so many angles that constructing a 3D image of it in his mind was child’s play. The exceptions to Bo’s accuracy seemed to be limited to the morph himself - the back of Bo’s head looked fuzzy and indistinct, and the features on his face seemed craggy and less attractive than they really were. This, Dan thought, was how Bo perceived the world. Dan watched the memory unfold before him. The dual view of both Bo’s perspective and his own was disorienting at first, like trying to understand speech that had a bad echo behind it, but he quickly got used to it. He immersed himself in his mate’s first-hand impressions, and quickly realized why Bo hadn’t been eager to tell him about this visit. The emotional force behind the encounter was staggering. By itself, the effort for Bo to resist his urge to kill the doctor was almost incapacitating. Combined with the nagging annoyance of discourtesy and the fury of the doctor’s betrayal, Dan was certain he himself could never have managed it. So much pain had been explored in this one room, so much anger, so much loss, that being back here had been all but overwhelming. The discomfort had Dan at the point of withdrawal when he realized with indignation that there was no reason he should allow himself to be driven away. This was his dream, and he could handle the imagery in any way he wanted to. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the pair of summer sunglasses he knew he’d find there. Putting them on, he found the reduction in mental ‘glare’ to be considerable, but still not sufficient to make it comfortable. Rejecting them, he reached into his other pocket and pulled out a pair of welding goggles that he just happened to be carrying. Dan felt somewhat silly strapping them to his face when he wasn’t holding a torch, but they allowed him to attenuate Bo’s emotions sufficiently to share in them without drowning. Bo’s nearly overwhelming urge to kill his doctor was confusing at first, but after examining the other memories and feelings that coursed through Bo while the men talked, Dan understood it. When Doctor Arthur pulled out the box containing Bo’s records, Dan noticed that the contents were indistinct and blurry, telling him that although Bo knew what they were, he’d never seen the contents. He had no clue that the doctor he’d been spilling his heart out to would do something like that. Although it was difficult to believe that his partner could ever be murderously violent towards anyone, Dan could understand it with this man. The Doc’s cavalier attitude toward Bo’s condition made Dan want to cheer when Bo bent the man’s pen, but even this small victory was annulled when the shrink pulled a seemingly identical pen out of his desk drawer and used that one instead. There was no winning with this man, Dan realized. No matter how much you achieved or how hard you struggled to heal yourself, he would make absolutely certain that if you didn’t lose, it was impossible for you to win. The rope was thicker now, and had wrapped itself around Dan as if Bo was protecting him from the feelings. It formed a sheltering cocoon of peace and contentment that swaddled him, but not so thickly that he couldn’t see. It was there for Dan to lean against, dependable and strong, yet it did not interfere. When Bo left the room and closed the door behind him, Dan was instantly on the other side of the door with him, walking silently beside his mate as he left the building. When Dan looked over at Bo and saw a single tear soaking into the fur beneath his right eye, he knew that in spite of how much sorrow his mate had to bear, the tear was not for himself, it was for Dan and what he was being put through. It was uncertainty that Dan would want to stay with him. It was fear that his mate would become weary of the constant struggle and leave him. It was intense regret that Bo had caused the man he loved so much grief. It was impotence and rage and fury, bottled up and tightly corked, constantly threatening to explode if not handled with the greatest of care. And today, it was a hunter’s humiliation at coming back empty-handed to face the damnably understanding eyes of his hungry clan. He had come back to this hateful place to find help for his mate, and had utterly failed. Dan’s soul cried out in sympathy when he understood not only how Bo had heaped more hurt upon his own shoulders in order to help him, but why he’d maintained his silence. Dan trusted Bo enough that he’d never really thought of his mate’s attempt to keep him from learning about this as a deception, but he’d also never realized how much it was yet another act of love. Bo was prepared to bear all of this himself to keep the slightest trace of it from tainting Dan’s happiness. With a tug so gentle that he almost didn’t feel it, the wispy line anchored to his belt pulled him back into the sky. Dan couldn’t help looking down one last time to watch the most important man in his world as he trudged back to his car. As tempting as it was to hold on to Bo’s past grief and make it his own, Dan let it go. He knew that in the physical world he was wrapped safely in his mate’s arms, and he knew that hanging on to past injury was like inviting a poisonous snake to live in your bed. He relaxed his body and allowed his mate’s enveloping love to draw him back into the cool clouds overhead, where a much-needed refuge from the painful world waited patiently for him with arms open wide.

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Seated in a comfortable chair at the perimeter of the rotating Chandelle club, high atop the city’s tallest skyscraper, Ken was in his element. Working at Magnum and spending so much time with Bo and Dan had forged an alternate persona for Ken. He was a white-collar man living a blue-collar life, and at times it was all too easy to forget which world he belonged to. Dressed in an impeccably starched, white shirt and a pair of fashionable linen harem pants, Ken looked the part of the youthful, intelligent bioengineer that he was. Ken enjoyed living like this. He enjoyed being in a clean environment where people dressed well, spoke softly, and didn’t occasionally try to knife each other like they did at Sam’s place. It was a good thing that he enjoyed the environment, because he’d been sitting here for a half-hour already, waiting for his date to arrive. Raising his wine glass to his lips, he noticed that he was down to his last few sips and signaled the waiter with a raised finger. Not a yelled out, “Hey, Sandy!” Just a single, discreetly raised fingertip accomplished the task when you were in polite company. He would have one more glass of the superb Cabernet while he waited, and if his date hadn’t shown by the time he finished that, he’d switch to water and eat his dinner alone. Ken saw the waiter approaching and drew breath to ask for a second glass, but he might as well not have bothered. The waiter breezed past like he hadn’t seen him, walking behind the lion to serve a couple at a nearby table. Ken sighed, disappointed by this lack of common courtesy, but not really surprised. He couldn’t keep his tail from giving a quick flick of annoyance. He knew how many things he had going against him right now. He was young, he had consumed little more in the past half hour than a single glass of wine and a basket of complimentary bread sticks, he was alone, and he was varius. None of these factors hinted that the tip Ken would leave would be anything other than substandard. Some of Ken’s cohorts in college had been the types to leave a two credit tip after a three-hour-long, post-cinema coffee-drinking session, but he wasn’t like that. He knew that, but the young waiter didn’t. “Sir,” the lion said as the waiter was sweeping past again, in a well-modulated voice designed to catch the attention of both the man and the occupants of the three nearest tables. He could not possibly be ignored now without the neglect being blatantly obvious. The waiter turned, prepared to brush the varius off with a quick, “I’ll be right back in a moment,” but stopped when he saw that the quietly smiling lion was holding something out to him. To his surprise, it was a ten credit note. “Yes, sir?” he asked, automatically taking the note. “For your troubles,” the lion explained. “And when you pass this way again, will you please bring me another glass of the Cabernet? The ‘22 Errazuriz, if you please.” “Yes, sir.” the waiter said, quickly. “Right away.” Ken didn’t consider himself a wordsmith, but he took the time to wonder whether, when he later told Dan about the way his server moved off, it would be more accurate to use the term ‘scamper’ or ‘scurry.’ In any case, Ken thought that perhaps now the waiter might remember to fill their water glasses during dinner. Ken was halfway through his second glass of wine when his dinner companion appeared, followed by an ice-cold glass of bottled water and a fresh basket of steaming hot bread sticks. “I’m sorry I’m late,” the man apologized, before he’d even settled into his chair. He cautiously held a hand out to Ken. “Jacob Black.” “Kensuke Katayama,” Ken responded, “but please, call me Ken.” This guy seemed timid, but on paper at least, he was so perfect in so many ways that Ken was willing to cut him a lot of slack. Something about the way his date was sneaking furtive looks at him was disconcerting. “You look uncomfortable, Jacob. Are you all right?” The man absentmindedly toyed with the salt and pepper shakers. “You’re much larger in person.” Ken chuckled quietly. “My mother says the same thing. When I call her from my studio, she says it looks like I’m shrinking.” He shook his head. “I think it’s just the wide-angle lens on my camera, and how it’s pushed all the way back on my drafting table.” He looked sharply at his date. “Is it a problem?” “I don’t think so,” Jacob’s nervous laugh skittered uncomfortably across the table. “You’re very direct.” “Varii do tend to be,” Ken observed. He grinned fondly, thinking of Bo. “One of my Circlemates would have just said, “What’s wrong with you?” and then glared at you until you either answered him or ran away.” Jacob appeared interested, and peeked his head a few millimeters out of the shell. “Circlemate? What’s that?” “A Circle is like a group of close friends,” Ken answered, after thanking the server who brought them a small loaf of rye bread on a wooden trencher. “They’re the family that you choose for yourself, and you’re very close.” “Oh,” Jacob said, paying closer attention. “That’s interesting.” He inclined his head, apologetically. “I’m sorry for being late.” “It’s okay,” Ken responded, graciously. “Believe me, I understand the pressures of running a business.” “You had a business?” Jacob asked, placing his napkin in his lap and pulling his chair closer to the table. “No, but my ex did,” Ken explained. “He started his own biogen company, along with some of his college buddies.” “Is that why he’s an ex right now?” Jacob asked, curious. “Oh, no,” Ken said, pulling one of the hot bread sticks out of the basket, claws slightly extended to keep the buttery sheen from transferring to his fur, “nothing like that. The armed forces made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, so I didn’t.” He smiled. “I enlisted right out of college, and started working on projects for the military. He and I just went in different directions.” “Wow,” Jacob said, loosening his tie, “you ever go off-planet?” “For my training,” Ken said, glad for the diversion, “but my unit was based on the moon.” He laughed. “I guess technically that’s off-planet, but it’s such a short commute back and forth that it hardly counts. What about you?” “I’ve taken a couple of cruises around Jupiter, and one to Mars,” he said, “but nothing really exotic.” “No jump rings required?” “Nope,” Jacob chuckled. “Those things scare the heck out of me.” “We had to go through a couple in training, just so we could see what they were like,” Ken remembered, “and it wasn’t really fun. It’s like getting seasick with your brain.” They were both loosening up now, and Jacob seemed like he might not be a bad sort of guy. Ken peeled back the white linen covering and offered the bread basket to his companion. “Would you like some bread?” “Oh, no,” Jacob deferred, “I’m afraid I’m allergic to wheat.” “Oh.” Ken returned the basket to the table, trying to mine the memories of their previous online discussions for conversational topics. Surely, he thought, there was something they could talk about that could cut through poor Jacob’s tension. He was almost thankful when the other man’s communicator beeped, politely but insistently. “I’m sorry,” Jacob said, after glancing at the display, “I have to take this.” Angling his body away from Ken and the other patrons, he began sealing the deal on a business acquisition. Watching his date’s reflection in the window, Ken remembered what it was he had found so intriguing about the man. It was, oddly enough, his posture. When he was concentrating, he looked very much like Ben. Not in a superficial way, but in the set of his eyes, and the way his head canted over to one side when he was deep in thought. Ben used to do very similar things, and Ken could have just sat and watched him for hours, engrossed by everything the man did. But now that the motions he saw were not attached to someone he loved, they seemed sadly out of place. They had been sufficient to momentarily catch his attention, but would never be enough to steal his heart. And this, he thought, was going to be a long evening… Chapter 36 Ken shook his head ruefully.”And then he snapped his fingers to get the waiter’s attention!” Dan looked scandalized. “You’re kidding me, right? This was Jacob?” Dan asked, trying to keep the names straight. “No, Jacob was just timid,” Ken said, grinning as he remembered. All things considered, Jacob wasn’t looking so bad right now. “And delicate,” Dan reminded. “Don’t forget about that.” “This guy last night was Dick. Hmm…” Ken said, ruminating, “I guess that should have been my first clue…And that was just the tip of a very large iceberg.” Ken stirred his coffee with the end of a slurp stick. He looked very much like he was hung over. “How much did you have to drink, anyway?” Dan asked, concerned. Ken looked like he’d been beaten with a stick. “One. Glass.” “How big was that glass?” “Standard size pour,” Ken said, wearily scrubbing his face with his paws, “it was the company that wore me out. Get this. He ordered a prepared beef and noodle dish, but he made them put all his sides on separate plates so they wouldn’t touch. He made the waiter go back to the kitchen and make sure it was gluten-free, and…” he held two wide paws up for emphasis, “he had them pull out all the onions.” “He expected them to pick all the onions out of a prepared dish?” Dan asked, stunned. “Why not just order the broiled chicken and be done with it?” “He said he liked the taste of the onions, but he didn’t like the texture,” Ken looked amazed. “Why make them go through all that trouble just for him? And then, in the middle of that sea of noodles and sauce, which was delicious, by the way, he found a lone piece of onion masquerading as a noodle and sent the whole damned thing back.” “Let me get this straight,” Dan said, certain he must have missed something, “he ate two-thirds of the meal, then sent it back because he bit into an onion? What’s the textural difference between a cooked onion and a noodle? Last I checked, they were pretty much the same.” Ken shrugged, helplessly. “What did they do?” Dan asked, befuddled by Ken’s date’s lack of couth. “Oh, they were very professional about it. They tried to make it right, but since there wasn’t anything wrong with his meal in the first place, there wasn’t anything they could really do.” Ken looked embarrassed. “They gave us a free dessert, which might have been what he was aiming for. Oh! And then – “ Ken couldn’t believe that he almost forgot to tell Dan this part. “Then he asked them to take his main course off the bill. And, he didn’t even tip on the full amount!” Dan looked impressed. “Did he try to pay with a coupon, too?” Ken shook his head. “After we left, I went back inside and tipped our waiter double. I was so embarrassed.” He rubbed his eyes, tiredly. “I can’t ever go back into that place again.” “So when are you seeing him again?” Dan smirked. “Hardy har har,” Ken huffed. “Very funny.” He pulled the chain out of his pocket and started playing with it. “That’s what I get for letting myself be attracted to the wrapping.” He sighed. “He was gorgeous, though.” “Maybe he was just nervous,” Dan said, helpfully. Dan hated that Ken’s chain was outside the camera’s view. He loved to see what shapes the feline came up with. “You say that about everyone, Dan. You’re too damned generous.” “Why don’t you just cook for them at home?” Dan asked. Ken looked at him archly. “Would you want any of those nutbags to know where you lived?” “Oh,” Dan said, sheepishly withdrawing his question. “I get your point. At least with Jackson you don’t have to worry about stuff like that.” Dan smiled at the thought. “You might have to keep him from eating the centerpiece, though…” “Stop it,” Ken grinned. “He’s sweet.” “He must be,” Dan said, sipping his coffee and refusing to look in Ken’s direction. “He sure put the bounce back in your step last week.” Peeking over at the lion, he was surprised to find that his friend was blushing. “We had fun,” Ken confirmed, but then resolve stiffened his spine. “But that’s all it was – fun. Nothing more.” “Are you going to his meet?” “The powerlifting meet?” “No, the ballet recital,” Dan said, sarcastically. “Yes, the powerlifting meet. He’s defending his title from last year.” “No kidding?” Ken asked, surprised. “He didn’t tell me that part. It’s on Saturday, isn’t it?” “Yeah,” Dan confirmed, “but it’s all the way out at the Midwest State campus, so it’s going to be an all day sucker.” “Huh,” Ken toyed with his chain some more. “I’ve already told him I’m not going, but it’s not like I’ve got anything else planned. The last time I went to one of those things was with Reuben, and I was bored out of my fur.” “Trust me,” Dan promised, “It’s way different when you know someone who’s competing. And,” he said, a knowing twinkle in his eyes, “it’s waaay different when you’re single! There’re going to be some astoundingly hot guys there.” “Watching, or competing?” Dan’s grin was smug. “Yes.” “Varius only, or sapiens too?” Dan’s grin turned positively lewd. “Both.” “I don’t know,” Ken said, indecisively. He really did want to go, but he also didn’t want to give Jackson the wrong idea about their relationship. “Look,” Dan said, “You’re not going to do anything else but sit at home in front of the vid all day long and jerk off to SoFurless anyway, so you might as well come along. Jack’s your friend, and he needs our support.” “I don’t jerk off,” Ken said, prudishly, giving Dan a stern look before favoring him with his best impression of the Cheshire Cat. “I rub one out.” He sobered, and asked, “So you and Bo are going?” Dan had put so much effort into building up Ken’s interest that he’d accidentally talked himself into going. “Yeah, I guess we are! Or at least, I am. I don’t know if Bo’s going to be interested.” i’m interested came Bo’s response, from out of the ether. “Correction,” Dan said, “we’re both going. So are you in?” “What the hell,” Ken relented, “why not? Just don’t tell Jack about it. That way we can surprise him.” Surprise him, huh? Dan thought to himself, happily. That sounded suspiciously like romantic behavior to him!

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Dan recognized every building, every fence post, every sign he passed; which might not have seemed odd, except for the fact that he’d never laid eyes on any of them before. It was slow going, but he was gradually becoming accustomed to remembering things that he’d never seen. When Dan realized it was happening, his first impulse was to try forcing the random bits of memory that floated through his mind into some sort of coherent, recognizable pattern. That had failed miserably, leaving him feeling disoriented and confused, with a nasty headache that hadn’t gone away until he stopped trying to make the errant memories behave. Once Dan stopped trying to impose an order on them, the random thoughts started falling into place by themselves, and what began as nothing more helpful than intense feelings of déjà vu had gradually gelled into memories as solid as any his own brain had created for itself. Apparently, the rogue engrams were as stubbornly independent as the mind that spawned them. What he had swimming around in his brain were not actual memories, he thought, but psionic resonances left behind from sharing the other, more specific memories with his mate. That had happened over a week ago, and although some of what he’d been shown had begun to fade, other memories had actually strengthened with time. The ones he carried with him now, the ones directing him to the front gate of the security compound, had been collateral acquisitions. They weren’t part of the specific memories Bo had intentionally shared with him. They simply had come along for the ride and remained behind, remoras left swimming through the grottoes of his mind after their hosts had left. Unfortunately, along with the beneficial remoras came some nasty parasites as well. The nightmares that had begun to ease had come back in full force, and were stronger than ever. The closer he got to his mate, it seemed, the more strongly he would have to embrace his demons as well. There was one person in the world who might be able to help him, one person who understood the workings of his partner’s mind, and this was the person Dan had made an appointment to see. As he pulled up to the gate, the canine varius on guard first glanced at Dan and gave him a little pass-through wave, then did a double-take and stopped his car with a raised hand. “I apologize, sir,” he explained, “I thought you were someone else.” He grabbed a red clipboard from where it hung on the wall. “Identification, please?” “That’s all right, Sergeant Dixon,” Dan said, pulling out his wallet. “My name is Dan Blocker, and I’m here to see Doctor Arthur. And,” he smiled companionably, noticing the color of the clipboard, “you’ve got the wrong board.” For a moment the sergeant looked in confusion between the clipboard he was holding and the man in the car. All returning servicemen, retired or otherwise, were on the red board, so why would it not be correct? Belatedly, he looked at the ID that the sapiens man had handed him. Sure enough, the field indicating military service was blank. “Again, I apologize,” the Sergeant said, shaking his head at his error. His gut instincts were certain that this man was military, but they had apparently led him astray. He exchanged the red clipboard for the blue one, and located ‘Blocker, Dan’ on the visitor’s list. Checking off the name, he noted the destination and returned the man’s ID card. “Take this road to the first intersection, make a left, and the medical building is the third one on your right.” He followed the car with his eyes as it drove off, wondering what it was about the man that made his senses tingle. There was something odd about him. Not suspicious, exactly, just…odd. He’d known how to read rank insignia and the difference between the red and blue boards, and he certainly had a military bearing, yet his ID was civilian. He looked up again, but the car had driven out of sight. As Sergeant Dixon walked back into the warm guard shack, a thought occurred to him. Could the man be some secret agent with a doctored identity? “Hey, Henry, “ he said, then caught motion out of the corner of his eye. He turned just in time to awkwardly catch what his friend had tossed at him. “You better get your plate fixed before someone who ranks you catches you not wearing it,” the other soldier advised, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back in his chair. Dixon stared at the name tag in his paw. If he hadn’t been wearing it, how had that man known his name? He tapped the plastic tag with a claw, thinking. “Henry. You hear anything about special forces coming through here?” Dan didn’t need the guard’s directions to find the building, and he didn’t need to consult the building’s directory to find his way to Doctor Arthur’s office. He relaxed his mind and let his feet find their own unerring way through the labyrinth of hallways that comprised the base’s psych ward. He even, feeling thirsty, made a side trip to a water fountain hidden in a blind corner and then to the bathroom, walking to each with the sure steps of a man who’d made the journey a hundred times before. At precisely 11:30am, Dan rapped twice on the gray metal door, paused for exactly two seconds, then let himself in. The room was, not surprisingly, exactly the way it had been in the memory he’d shared with Bo, right down to the dust on the leaves of the artificial plant standing in the corner. His mate’s attention to detail was amazing, but one difference caught Dan’s eye. Everything in the room was about twenty percent larger than Bo remembered it, a fact that made Dan smile. He walked purposefully across the too-warm room and sat in the metal chair that faced the doctor’s desk, waiting patiently for the other man to acknowledge his presence. Watching the man’s bald spot reflect the room’s light emitters held about thirty seconds worth of entertainment value for Dan, after which he decided that he might as well amuse himself until the doctor deigned to notice him. He pulled out his comm and tuned in to the Super Mechemono Wars game he’d been playing when he left the office. Thanks to the base’s security field he was restricted to single-player mode, but he was still capable of playing a full-featured game while he waited. One of the reasons Dan had chosen this particular model of personal communicator was its audio fidelity, and today he was exceedingly glad for his decision as sounds of death and mayhem blared from the comm’s small speaker. Dan thought that it was loud, but most people would probably not consider it obnoxious so he turned the volume up another two notches. When that didn’t have the desired result, he turned it up two more. “Do you mind?” The doctor finally asked, annoyed beyond his ability to ignore. “Oh!” Dan exclaimed, as if surprised by the doctor’s sudden attention. “I’m sorry.” He stood and extended a hand to the doctor. “Dan Blocker. I’m your 11:30 appointment.” The doctor’s expression did not lighten, but he gave Dan’s hand a perfunctory shake. Silence having returned to the room, he favored Dan with a reproving look, adjusted his spectacles and returned his attention to his notes. Dan grinned to himself and picked up his game where he left off, the sounds of shrieking blasters and overloaded thrusters once again filling the room. It was no accident that this was the most acoustically jarring game in Dan’s collection. “Would you turn that damned thing off?” The doctor asked, raising his voice to be heard over the din. Dan turned the sound down a few notches but did not turn his comm off, letting the electronic noises fill the space between them. He looked into the doctor’s eyes with the pleasant optimism of a chess player who was two moves from checkmate. “I can play this game as well as you can, Doctor.” He smiled affably. “I own this chair for the next half-hour. If you’d like, we can reschedule for a time that’s more convenient for you and I can come back to bother you again, or…” he shrugged, “we can just handle this today and be finished?” The doctor’s stare was devoid of emotion, but Dan could sense the underlying annoyance. Relenting, the psychologist tossed his pen onto the desktop and folded his hands in his lap. His query to Dan was impatient. “What do you want?” Dan folded his comm and the game instantly went dead. The ensuing silence was nearly enough to make Dan’s ears ring. “I’m Bo Taylor’s mate, and I’m having his nightmares. You know his brain better than anyone on the planet, and I’m here to ask if there’s anything you can do to help me.” The doctor leaned on his desk and glowered at the insouciant man sitting across from him. “Coming into my office and annoying me probably isn’t the wisest course of action, if you’re planning on begging me for help.” “Perhaps,” Dan allowed, maintaining his friendly affect, “but it beats the hell out of sitting here bored out of my skin while you scribble notes that likely have nothing to do with my condition.” He leaned forwards and rested his elbows on his knees. His pleasant expression remained, but his eyes were dead serious. “Let’s cut the shit, Doctor. Although you find my mate to be a fascinating case study, you don’t particularly care for him, and you’re getting caught in the trap of letting your personal feelings interfere with your sense of clinical detachment.” He looked at the doctor, expectantly. “Am I wrong in this?” The doctor’s glare lasted only a moment before he gave in with a quiet sigh. “Probably not.” He pulled his glasses off his face and rubbed his eyes. It was too early in the day to feel like this. Working with Bo Taylor had never failed to exhaust him, and his partner was turning out to be cut from the same cloth. “I’m not going to waste both our time trying to convince you what an incredible man he is, Doctor Arthur,” Dan said. “You have every right to your opinion, and I feel no compulsion to change your mind. I’m completely aware that he can be a difficult man.” The doctor chuffed a bark of laughter at this, but did not interrupt. “There are some things I do feel compelled to tell you, though,” Dan went on. “If it weren’t for the help you’ve given him, he and I would never have been able to make our relationship work. He doesn’t realize that, but I do.” Doctor Arthur was staring at him now, a brooding suspicion fermenting underneath his heavy brow. “It’s true that he dislikes you,” Dan admitted, “but if it weren’t for the fact that you focused that animosity on yourself, he’d either be out there right now resenting the world, or worse, watching his life go by from the inside of a locked facility.” Dan leaned forward slightly, perching on the edge of the metal and vinyl chair. “You gave him a shot at life, and I’m forever grateful to you for that. Week after week, you somehow pushed him to the breaking point without having him rip your throat out.” Dan looked at the doctor knowingly. “You’re either very good at what you do, or you’re an incredibly lucky man.” “And you know about our sessions because he told you?” the doctor suggested, toying with his pen. Dan nodded slowly, not taking his eyes from the doctor’s face. He took his time in replying, careful what he said around this man. The advice of Steve and Doug foremost in his mind, he decided that to offer up the entire truth to this man would be foolish. “Yes.” Doctor Arthur removed a cloth from his shirt pocket, snapped it open, and used it to clean the lenses of his thick, army-issue glasses. “That’s a lie.” He evaluated his work and, finding it satisfactory, put his glasses back on and resumed staring at Dan. “How do you expect me to help you if you lie to me?” “I expect you to ask pertinent questions,” Dan answered back without hesitation. “The source of my knowledge isn’t relevant to our discussion.” The doctor leaned back in his chair, staring at Dan over his steepled fingers. “If you knew what was relevant, Mr. Blocker, you wouldn’t be sitting in that chair like a supplicant beggar, would you?” Dan shrugged. “Perhaps not.” “The mere fact that you’re sharing his nightmares is proof that you’re bonded, so trying to conceal that fact from me is a waste of both our time.” “I was correct, then,” Dan nodded his head agreeably, not allowing himself to be baited. “You already have the information you need.” “Oh, no, Dan. There’s so much more,” the doctor leaned back in his chair to appear casual, but his eyes pounced. “If you’re this hesitant to tell me what I obviously already know, then that’s just the tip of the iceberg, isn’t it?” The look he shot Dan bordered on contempt. “I’m not stupid, Mister Blocker. From what you’ve told me and what I know of Bo, I already know quite a bit about you.” He opened up a blue file folder on his desk and read aloud. “Predict that the partner will make an appointment within the next two weeks. Highly intelligent, Caucasian, possibly a strength athlete or other physically active type. Grew up in stable household with at least one highly conservative parent. Given much freedom as a child, but had no pets. Did not reveal sexual habits to parents until late in life… String of sexual partners, but was serially monogamous, drinks but not to excess, financially stable, has few varius friends, dated for months before bonding… How am I doing?” Dan found the man’s shit-eating grin to be exceedingly annoying. “I had a dog.” “Aah,” the doctor said, making a notation in the folder before flipping it shut. Dan couldn’t help asking, “Bo told you all this?” “The source of my knowledge isn’t relevant,” the doctor mocked, and Dan understood how his mate could dislike the man so completely. “Varii almost never bond with sapiens, you know.” the doctor threw out. “I know very little about the process,” Dan admitted. “Is that because they don’t choose to, or because they can’t?” “Are you special, you mean?” Dan shrugged. “If you want to put it that way.” He restated his question. “Am I special, doctor?” “If you were a female varius sharing his dreams, I would say you were. Only about one-tenth of one percent of bonded varii ever do that, and that’s only after they’ve been together for decades.” He leaned back in his chair again. “Since we’re talking about numbers and such, I’ll throw out a few here. Of all the varii who mate, about ninety percent bond. Some of those who can’t are primary homosexuals who are trying to live a heterosexual life. Some are too physically different from their mate to achieve a bond, and some remain unbonded by choice, for whatever personal reason.” “The point is that not every varius who wants to can bond, and I was quite certain that Bo Taylor would never be able to. Now that I know he’s homosexual as well, that makes it even more remarkable that he’s managed it.” Doctor Arthur recapped his points, emphasizing each one with a tap of his pen against the desk. “Bonding at all, ninety percent. Homosexual, two percent. Heterospecies, two percent. Sharing subconscious imagery, one in a thousand.” “There is absolutely nothing in his genome or his upbringing that would lead me to believe he’d ever be able to pull this off, and yet he has.” He looked at Dan analytically. “This suggests that he’s not the one responsible for it. Yes, Mister Blocker,” he said, leaning back in his chair and contemplating Dan through his spectacles, “I would say that you are special.” Dan looked away, uncertain how to react to what he’d just been told. It had never occurred to him that it might be he who was responsible for the extreme range of their bond. “I can’t imagine how that’s possible,” he said, uneasily. “I’ve never had any sort of psychic ability. Why would it start now?” The doctor shrugged. “That’s what we need to find out. If it can be brought out in you, maybe it can be brought out in other sapiens, too. This might end up being important.” Dan shivered as if the room had suddenly grown cold. He looked at the doctor, who was observing him with great interest, but could not hold his gaze. “Would you get me a cup of coffee, please?” Without a word, the doctor stood and walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind him. He was barely clear of the door when Dan practically jumped out of his chair and opened the blue file folder the doctor had left laying on his desktop. It held few documents, but Dan thought they would be enough. Scanning them with his eyes, he made little attempt to understand what information the printouts contained. He was far more interested in slowing his eyes down and having them focus on all parts of the page. Ten seconds later, when he could stand the tension no longer, Dan closed the folder and sat back down, waiting impatiently for the doctor’s return. “I guessed that you’d prefer it black.” A disposable cup full of murky-looking liquid was placed in front of Dan. “Thanks, Doc.” It tasted like swill, but Dan gulped half of it down in a few swallows. The lukewarm cup felt comfortable in his hand, easing the chill he’d felt. The doctor sat back down in his chair, looking at Dan expectantly. “I would imagine you have some questions?” Dan shook his head. “That’s the problem. I’ve got so many questions flying around in my head right now that I can’t grab on to any one of them.” He set the coffee cup down on the corner of the doctor’s desk. He knew that he didn’t trust the doctor, that much was certain. But how should he act? Up until now he’d been acting on instinct, but it was time to stop flying by the seat of his pants and put a plan together. This all seemed to be unfolding like Doug had warned him it would, and if he weren’t careful, he and his mate could end up the unwilling guests of the armed forces for the rest of their lives. Doctor Arthur could probably free him of the nightmares, but at what cost? “I think…” he stared off into the distance again, then looked straight into the doctor’s eyes. “I think I need time to wrap my mind around this, Doctor. My brain’s going a thousand kilometers an hour, and there’s no way I’m going to remember anything you tell me anyway.” He nodded his head, his confused expression only partially contrived. “I need time to sort all of this out.” Standing, Dan once again extended his hand to the doctor. “I’ll be in touch, Doctor Arthur. Thank you for your time.” Ignoring the doctor’s sputtered protests and assurances that his condition must be studied in order to relieve the nightmares, Dan walked out of the office. The relief he felt at being out of that stuffy, confined space was more than balanced by an increasing sense of panic that someone in a military uniform was about to grab his arm and force him to stay for “just a few tests,” – which would turn into a lifetime of needle jabs and psychological evaluations. Was this sense of foreboding nothing more than his own unfounded fear, or was something in his stolen memories crying out a legitimate warning? The corridors began to look the same to him, all painted in the same institutional gray-green that had been applied to thousands of post-war government buildings, with the same tile on the floor and the same acoustically absorbent tiles on the ceiling. With a groan, Dan realized that what made this place so nightmarish wasn’t just the similarity of one hallway to another, it was the fact that he did recognize it. This was the same endless corridor he’d raced down a dozen times in Bo’s nightmares, fleeing invisible monsters bent on stripping the flesh from his bones. Dan refused to give in to his impulse to run. He was stronger than that. He forced himself to walk at a normal pace, and even visited the water fountain on his way out as an act of defiance. This is just another government building, he thought, and I’m just another citizen who’s using the services that my tax dollars pay for. His conscious mind was a mess, but his feet found their way out of the building as confidently as they’d brought him in. Dan had never been as glad to see a pair of exit doors as he was when they came into view. Ten more meters, and he could breathe easier. “Mr. Blocker!” Dan whirled, filling his lungs with air that might be used to yell a warning to his fellow soldiers, to fight an enemy, or to fuel his body on a mad dash to freedom. The soldier before him wasn’t an alien creature bent on his destruction, but one of his own; a young sapiens woman with brown hair tied back in a ponytail. She was consulting her data pad to confirm his identity as she walked closer, and Dan felt the river of time flowing around him slow to a glacial pace. Come a little closer, he thought, against his will. Two stiff fingers jabbed in your windpipe will incapacitate, and if you show me a weapon, a fist in the same location will kill... “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, her tone polite but assertive, “your car is parked in a military-only spot. You’ll have to move it.” Time restored itself, and Dan very nearly collapsed, flooded with confusion and relief that he struggled to conceal. The look on the young woman’s face told Dan that he wasn’t as good at hiding his feelings as he would have liked to be. “Yes,” he said, shakily. “I’m sorry,” he explained, taking a calming breath. “I’m not feeling well.” The base had seemed imposing and cold when he drove in, and it was far less welcoming on his way out. He’d had enough of this place, he thought, and would do quite a bit to avoid returning here in the future. This far away from his mate, there wasn’t even a trace of their bond for him to lean on for comfort. As soon as he was outside the base’s security perimeter and could get a signal, Dan pulled out his comm and hit the speed-dial he’d stored there in case of emergency. The voice that picked up on the other end of the connection was gruff but friendly, and Dan breathed a little easier. “Sam? This is Dan. I think I fucked up.” Chapter 37 “So what do we do now?” Bo curled one great hand around a cold, dark beer, supplied to him by the closest person to a father he’d ever really known. When Dan told him what had happened, Bo had immediately reassured him that his decision to call Sam first had been the right one. Bo had left work early, closed up the office for Dan, jumped on his bike, and headed for Sam’s bar. The skidplates of his bike had barely touched the tarmac of the parking lot when Sam intercepted him. “Come on,” the barman said, over the descending whine of the emitters. “Leave your comm on the bike. Don’t want nobody listening in on this.” Without waiting for a response, he walked into the fenced area behind the bar, leaving Bo to follow. Sam usually reserved the grassy back yard behind the bar for special occasions and family get-togethers that were too large to fit inside his house. But today it was only Dan, Bo and he, sitting at a wooden picnic table that reminded Dan of the one where he and Bo had eaten their lunches when they had first met. The weather was unseasonably pleasant, and was probably one of the last mild days before winter grabbed the city by the scruff of the neck and forced it indoors. If he weren’t so tense Dan might have appreciated it, but the nagging unease that had taken root in the pit of his stomach saw to it that he barely even noticed. Part of his trepidation was his own and part was radiating from his partner, and Dan would have been hard-pressed to tell which was more intense. The two had spilled their guts to Sam, telling him about their bond, the nightmares, Bo’s trip to his psychologist, and the memories he’d shared with Dan. At that point Dan took over, telling both men about that day’s trip to the army base. “I thought hearing a different perspective might help him figure out what’s going on,” Dan explained, “but now I think he’s just going to use this the same way he’s used everything else you’ve ever told him.” “The hard copies ain’t gonna be such a problem,” Sam said, “It’s the computer files I’m worried about. If he’s as invested in this as he says, there’s no way he hasn’t made backups, and no way to know where they are.” “I’m actually more concerned about the hard files,” Dan said, his own beer glass only half-full by this point. “With Bo’s help, I think I can recreate everything I saw in that folder, including the electronic link information at the bottom of the page. If I’ve got that, I’m pretty sure I can get into his system and kill off our information without affecting Bo’s official records.” Sam looked skeptical. “You really think you can get into a military server?” “Sure,” Dan said, shrugging his shoulders unconcernedly. “Unless they’ve made some pretty major changes in the past couple of years, it should be easy enough.” Bo stared at him, not quite sure whether his mate was just bragging until he tapped their link and remembered a few of Dan’s high school experiments with hacking, one of which caused a military tracking satellite to fix its gaze on a nude beach in France. “Oh.” He looked over at Sam, not surprised to find that the man was staring at him expectantly. “Don’t ask.” Sam nodded his head. “Everything needs to disappear at once. As soon as either the printouts or the electronic files disappear, he’s going to lock the other one down where we can’t touch it.” He looked at Dan. “I think the timing’s more on your shoulders, kid. How long is it going to take you to do whatever it is you’re gonna do?” Dan thought about what would be involved. “It’ll probably take a couple of hours to set up, but once everything’s in place I can trigger it from anyplace I can get a comm signal out. I’ll let you know when I’m ready.” Years ago when he was in the service, Sam used to drink like a fish. Many a night of drunken debauchery had ended under the arm of Bo’s daddy, shutting down, or getting thrown out of, the bars in whatever city they happened to be in. But since buying his own place, he almost never drank anymore. With so much liquor staring him in the face every day, it seemed safer not to indulge. He made a rare exception today, and his own glass held four fingers of what he considered to be the finest Scotch whiskey on the planet. He looked at Dan apologetically. “Kid, I’m sorry. I wanted to keep our relationship simple.” “It still can be, Sam,” Dan said, putting a hand on the bartender’s forearm. In the past few months he’d become accustomed to the ease with which varii touched each other, and reaching out for physical contact was coming more naturally to him now. “I don’t need to know details. As far as I know, we’re just sitting here, talking. Besides,” he said, “You’re the one helping us out. I should be apologizing for dragging you in to this mess.” “You should have dragged me into ‘this mess’ weeks ago.” Sam’s voice was filled with compassion and understanding when he spoke to Dan, but the way he looked at Bo could have curdled milk, and the other man’s ears drooped. “What, you didn’t trust me enough to let me know what was happening to Dan? It had to come out like this?” Sam looked disgusted. “You spent more than your share of nights on my couch screaming your head off, so I know how bad the nightmares can be. You’ve been letting him go through that without getting him help?” Bo was crestfallen. “I didn’t know where to go. That’s why I ended up going to the army doc.” Sam got up from his seat and waddled over to Bo’s side of the table with the rolling gait that looked to Dan like his hips hurt. He pulled Bo into a hug from behind, where the great varius could not see the exasperation and sadness on his face. “Goddamn it, Bo, you don’t have to do it all by yourself any more. You can ask for help, you know?” “Yeah, I know,” Bo said, softly. “I’m sorry.” Dan could feel through the link that he really was sorry about the length of time it had taken him to get help, and was ashamed that he hadn’t asked Sam for his advice. Sam knew that he’d made his point, and made a fast tactical retreat before Bo could become defensive. “Well don’t get too down about it,” he said, not wanting his adopted son to sink back into the depression that Dan had been so successfully pulling him out off. “I got some good news today, too.” curious Bo’s ears perked. “What?” “I got a comm from your dad this morning. He’s coming back for a little R and R.” “No shit?” Bo exclaimed, looking unimpressed. “He’s finally coming back from Mars?” Dan knew that the calm face Bo was showing Sam was a total façade. Inside, he was jumping up and down like a little puppy, their current troubles all but forgotten. “Is he going to stop in?” Bo asked, unable to stop the slight wagging of his stubby tail. “I don’t see why not,” Sam said. “He’s got some business to take care of first, but after that I’m sure he’ll be around.” The expression on Bo’s face was pleased, and it saddened Dan when his mate remembered him, looked over, and had to work to keep his smile from turning into a frown. worry Dan tried his best to keep disappointment off his face and out of their link. “It’s all right. You don’t need to tell him anything about us.” “Yeah,” Bo said, feeling every bit of Dan’s hurt. “Yeah, I do.” He could no more deny Dan’s presence in his life than he could deny the nose on his face, but explaining to his father that he wasn’t going to carry on the family line wasn’t something Bo had been looking forward to. “I’ll find something to tell him.” he said, and for some reason, examining the dead and dying grass around them seemed far preferable to looking Dan in the eye. “Tell him the truth, Bo,” Sam advised. “A man never goes wrong with the truth.” A crease developed on Bo’s forehead. worry “He’s gonna treat me like some sort of sick pervert.” “You don’t know that,” said Dan, wanting more than anything to ease Bo’s worry. “I’ve heard a lot of ‘coming out’ stories, and the one thing they have in common is that you can’t predict how someone’s going to react when you tell them. Maybe he’ll be cool about it.” “Maybe,” Bo said doubtfully, “but that doesn’t stop me from worrying about it.” He turned to Sam. “Do you think Dan can be there when I tell him?” “Why are you asking me?” the bartender asked, pointing at Dan. “Ask him.” “I’m asking you because you know Dad a hell of a lot better than anyone else does. What do you think he’s going to do?” Sam had just chastised Bo for not coming to him with his problems, and then thirty seconds later he was doing just that, and Sam had no idea how to respond. He blew his breath out. “Your dad’s not the warm and fuzzy type, you know,” he started. “Maybe Dan could sit at the other end of the bar. That way he can be there and see what’s going on, but Rob won’t feel like he’s being ambushed.” “And that way,” Dan added, “if your dad’s thrusters misfire, he can get himself sorted out before we meet for real.” Bo wished there were a better way to do this, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of a better plan. In spite of his initial misgivings, he felt better that Dan could be nearby to lend his support. At least this wasn’t something he was going to have to do all on his own.

---

Ken rolled over in bed, laughing his tail off. Jackson might have taken offense at this, except for the fact that he was laughing just as hard. Their mirth had grown from a shared grin to a quiet snicker, through a chuckle and a belly laugh, all the way to this absurd, side-splitting exercise in madness that was way out of proportion with the situation. No noise made by the varius body could possibly be this funny. In spite of the fact that all Jackson’s windows were thrown open to let in the cool autumn air, the two were sweating pretty heavily, a fact that only served to extend the life of Ken’s giggles. “One of these days,” he said, between laughs, “We’re going to spend twenty-four hours in each other’s company without getting sweaty.” “Not likely,” Jackson rumbled, tickling Ken playfully. “Unless you caught me on a Thursday.” “The one day a week when you’re not Superman?” Ken teased. “I’m not?” Jackson asked, a look of horrified astonishment on his face. “Only for a day,” Ken said, grinning back at him. “You get your cape back on Friday morning.” “Oh, good.” Jackson whooshed out a relieved breath of air. “You had me scared there for a minute.” He laid back still and pulled Ken closer. “You really do like to stay dry, don’t you, Kitty?” “It’s not so much that,” Ken said, leaning back against Jackson’s bulk, “I don’t like stinking like this.” “Stinking?” the bull looked down at the top of Ken’s head. “If one of us stinks, it’s probably me.” “Oh, no,” Ken said, twisting so he faced his friend, “don’t try to pull that one on me. I know I get funky when I’m all sweaty.” He bent forward to give Jack’s chest a good whiff. “You really don’t smell bad. I mean, sure, you’re sweaty, but it’s not as nasty as I get. With you, it’s more…oh, I don’t know,” he leaned in and gave another quick sniff, “more like a clean, athletic smell.” When Ken was bent over and couldn’t see, Jack brought his great head down and nuzzled the top of his head playfully, using the opportunity to snuffle his kitty. “You don’t smell so bad, dude. Actually, I kinda like it.” “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Ken said, in disbelief. “Ain’t no way.” Jackson rolled over on top of Ken, grabbing the feline’s wrists and pinning his arms above his head in one smooth motion. Jack knew he was much stronger and heavier than his partners, and he took the greatest of care, especially with Ken, to never use that strength against them. The slightest hint from Ken that his advances were unwelcome and he’d instantly stop. He listened carefully as he moved, paying attention to both verbal and nonverbal cues, but the lion offered no protest. Once Ken’s arms were firmly restrained, Jackson worked his knees up underneath him and straddled the damp kitty. Most of his weight rested on his knees, but there was still a substantial amount of weight left over to press against his sex partner’s crotch and belly. Even though Ken had just blown his load Jack could feel him stiffening, and a slow, confident grin passed over the bovine’s face. Still holding Ken’s wrists, Jack leaned down and forcefully snuffled his nose through the sweat-dampened hair at the base of Kensuke’s neck, running his wide nose through the dense, yellow fur first on one side, then on the other. Ken threw his head back, groaned, and thrust his pelvis up to grind against the bull’s underside. It all felt so damned good… Jack leaned back up again, staring at Ken through eyes that looked drunk with lust. His eyes slid over the handsome face and the tautly muscled body, the body of an ancient God. Not like his overly-thick mountain of flesh and bone, but sculpted and classic, the perfect balance of power and aesthetic. Angling his head so that his horns didn’t do damage to his bedding or his kitty, Jackson leaned back down and managed yet again to surprise Ken. The bull suckled on one of Ken’s nipples until the man underneath him writhed in pleasure. Then he moved sideways, wide, flat teeth gently nipping a trail across the outside of Ken’s well-developed pectoral muscle. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he liked the way Ken smelled, a fact that he proved to his kitty when he aggressively jammed his nose into the lion’s armpit and began nibbling, licking, sucking, snuffling, and chewing his way through the fur there. Ken was a basket case. He knew he smelled funny - he had since he’d gone through puberty. He was aware of it from the moment he woke up in the morning to the moment he went to bed, making a point to keep his arms down and not get too close to anyone after he’d gotten sweaty, for fear of offending them. And here this guy was, nosing around in his pits like they were a pile of spring flowers. Having someone rooting around in his armpit was gross, and Ken wasn’t into it. Or so he told himself. His body’s visceral response, on the other hand, was telling a very different story. And Ken had to admit, it felt abso-fucking-lutely spectacular. Not only was he apparently into this sort of thing, he was going to get on his comm profile and add it to his list of preferred activities. At least, he would after Jack got finished…

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“You can do this, right?” Dan asked, sitting in front of his mate. “I guess I should have checked first, huh?” If Bo couldn’t help him retrieve the codes he wanted, Dan thought he could still get the job done, it would just be a whole lot harder. “It doesn’t make any difference,” Bo told him, smoothing Dan’s hair. “We’re really no worse off than we were before you went there. If you want to call this whole thing off, it would probably save you a lot of risk.” Dan shook his head. “I didn’t like the idea that he had any information about you before I went there, and after meeting the man, there’s no way in hell I’m allowing it.” He took his mate’s paw in his hands. “Let’s do this.” Much as before, the two descended into the unreal world they shared, only this time it was Dan’s mind they culled from. Dan was glad to see that this time Bo flew next to him, and he reached out to hold hands with his mate as they glided down to land at the derelict house. Now that Dan had a better idea what he was doing, he felt more confident in manipulating the image in front of them. “Hold on for a second, babe.” Dan would have been hard-pressed to put what he did into words, but if he had to, he might have said that he ‘applied’ himself to the mental image. As Bo watched, the ramshackle house steadied and grew more confident, shoring itself up and blooming a fresh coat of paint before his eyes. Drawing strength from his mate for the raw materials, Dan shaped them into a manicured front lawn and shrubs that glistened with good health. For fun, he even laid in a flower bed that wrapped around each side of the porch that had become sturdy and inviting. Bo was here with him now, and Dan could do anything. A refreshingly cool breeze replaced the desiccating wind whispering through Bo’s fur. “This is our house now, babe,” Dan said. Bo looked down at his mate, and saw him surrounded by a faintly glowing white aura. “We can do anything we want to with it.” And Bo knew that it was true; together, they could do anything. With Bo’s raw materials and Dan’s finesse, anything was possible in this space. This time the two walked into the house with determination, headed straight for the door leading to the doctor’s office. Dan didn’t slow, but as he passed through the foyer the rug cleaned and straightened itself in his wake, and the dusty pictures transformed from opaque relics into clear, vibrant images of the beautiful things they’d done together. The seven small vases of flowers that Bo had given to Dan sat on the windowsill where they would never die, remembrances of their shared lunches and time spent with friends, all hung proudly on the wall, memories to be treasured instead of repressed. The door was open, as it had remained when Doctor Arthur had gone to get Dan’s coffee, and the two walked straight in. “Wow,” Bo said, able to feel the memory of Dan’s emotions, “you really didn’t like him, did you?” “Nope,” Dan said, simply. He stared over his doppelganger’s shoulder as he looked at the papers in the blue file. Most of what he’d concentrated on was at the very bottom of the page, a thirty-digit computer code that was unique to this document, identifying where it was stored on the computer’s mainframe. “Do you have it?” Dan asked Bo quietly. “Yep,” Bo said, straightening. “It’s only thirty digits, not any worse than remembering a couple of comm codes.” “If you say so.” Dan could barely remember his own comm code after having it for years. Remembering two new numbers after seeing them just once wasn’t something he could relate to. After coming out of the memory, Bo wrote down the number for Dan and did his best to immerse himself in a book, trying to keep his mind as clear as possible so his partner could work without distraction. As Dan got deeper and deeper into his work, Bo permitted himself to skim over what he’d seen inside Dan’s mind, and saw that his mate’s rationale behind his visit to the good doctor wasn’t quite what he was saying. Dan wasn’t lying, exactly, but Bo had spent enough years of his life fooling himself to know what it felt like. Dan’s real reason for going to see Doctor Arthur had far less to do with mental health than it did with reconnaissance. He’d been scoping out the place, with every intention of breaking back in there and liberating whatever records he could. Once he had been made aware of Bo’s problem, his subconscious attacked it with tenacity, not willing to let go until there was some sort of resolution. Hearing Dan move around in his chair, Bo cleared his mind and went back to the book he was trying to read. Hacking into a network was, Dan thought, much like falling into a link. His mind became so focused that it was all too easy to forget about his corporeal body. Now that he’d had a number of experiences with Bo in the mental realms, he found that it was even easier to dive into the data streams and swim around than he remembered. Dan had told Sam that it would be easy to hack into the defense grid, but he apparently wasn’t remembering how much hard work that hack entailed. He was confident he could do it, but it was going to take some time. After an hour of typing at his normal breakneck pace, Dan felt so constrained by the limitations of his typing ability that he abandoned the traditional keyboard for a more sophisticated input device that he dug out of the closet. The three dimensional symbolic interface he plugged into his computer had never caught on with the general public and Dan hadn’t used one in years, but he was pleased to find that he had retained enough proficiency to make his current task easier. The perimeter defenses were easy to deflect, and the middle levels were only slightly less so. Using a hundred lines of code he’d written a decade ago, he buried a virus in an email that deployed as soon as it was read by the server. Acting as a grappling hook anchored inside the system, it let out a virtual rope that allowed Dan to climb into the protected zone. Once inside, Dan broke into the all-but-unprotected air handling systems, then used the office’s wireless systems to leapfrog where he wanted to go, using the office’s peripheral devices as his lily pads. From keyboard to mouse to printer he jumped, carrying his precious cargo with him. A few wanted to authenticate him, but he skipped those and chose other less-demanding devices instead. One last jump, and he was inside the good doctor’s desktop. Grinning to himself, Dan initiated a search for the thirty-digit number that Bo had written down for him. Bingo. The document he’d been looking at in the doctor’s office popped up on Dan’s screen, confirming that he was where he needed to be. After activating his payload he carefully backed out of the system, cleaning up after himself as he went so there could be no possibility that the pet supply store in Persia he was using as a blind proxy would be discovered. Deactivating his interface, Dan shut down all his connections, returning their simple home computer to its usual state. “So that’s it?” Dan jumped. He’d been so engrossed in the process that he hadn’t heard Bo walk up behind him. “Sorry,” he said, “You startled me. That part’s done, at least. Right now, the little program I left behind is busy pretending that it’s part of the indexing subsystem. It’s finding every place the doctor has ever mentioned either of us. As soon as Sam gives me the word that the hard copies have been taken care of, I’ll send the doctor some spam e-mail about penis enlargement. That’ll trigger the system to delete everything about us, just before it destroys itself.” “It sounds complicated,” Bo said, a scowl on his face. “That’s the beauty of it,” Dan said, his smile infecting Bo, “All I did was to very politely ask the computer to do what it was already doing. It’s amazing what you get when you ask nicely, instead of trying to force your way in.” “Riiiiight.” Bo pulled Dan closer to him and snuffled the top of his head. “Have I ever told you that I think nerds are hot?”

---

“Sam?” Dan’s voice echoed through the empty bar. Dan had wondered why Sam had given him the code to the front door, but right now he was thankful that he had. The bar was a very different place when it wasn’t overflowing with people. It was a warm and inviting space, with dark wood paneling and warm light coming in through the multicolored glass of the front windows. “I’m out here, kid,” the gruff voice answered, sounding far away. Dan walked toward the sound of his voice, and found the barman standing outside, next to a leaf-burning barrel that was merrily swallowing his lawn refuse and…something else. “Hey!” “Hey yourself,” the varius replied, managing to look satisfied even though his face hadn’t changed. One by one he tossed papers into the fire barrel, alternating a few documents with a handful of sticks or leaves. Only when the paper was almost completely consumed did he put another few pieces in. “Whatcha doing?” Dan asked, knowing perfectly well but curious what Sam would say. “Nothin much,” Sam said, shrugging his shoulders, “Just getting rid of some old records.” Dan nodded his head and kept his distance. “You wanna throw some in?” Sam asked. “It’s kinda fun.” “No thanks,” Dan said, “I think it’s probably a little too hot for me.” “Aah…” Sam chuckled, amused at Dan’s turn of phrase. “Bo told me you’ve got a degree in accounting,” he said, out of the blue, “my last bookkeeper turned out to be a crook. You wanna do ‘em?” He looked up from his work and did a double-take at Dan’s expression. “What?” “Did Bo already talk to you about that?” “No,” Sam said looking into the barrel. Seeing that a few of the papers weren’t completely burned, he pushed a long stick into the mass and stirred it around. “Why ask?” “I told him I was coming out here to volunteer to do that for you.” “All quiet.” Sam replied. “Still do?” Dark brown eyes peered intelligently from beneath his wide brow ridge. “Still,” Dan said. “Payback.” He didn’t notice that he’d fallen into milspeak, but Sam did. “No need,” came the varius’ truncated reply. “Want.” Sam considered for a moment. “Okay.” He threw in a handful of brown leaves to keep the fire going, and slipped out of the pidgin speech pattern as easily as he’d adopted it. He’d satisfied his curiosity. “It’s not much, really. I just need someone to keep track of the forms for my taxes.” He shook his head. “They can reform the tax codes as much as they want, but I still can’t figure out what number goes in which box.” They stood silently for a few minutes, quietly watching Sam obliterate the physical evidence of Bo’s dysfunction. Finally, Sam could contain his curiosity no longer. “So how’d you do it, anyway?” “You sure you want to lose your deniability?” Dan asked. “Not really,” Sam admitted, “but it’s killing me to not know.” Dan grinned. “Yeah, I get that way too.” He thought of what he could tell Sam that would least compromise the barkeeper’s innocence. “Since all computers are linked to each other, getting into anyone’s system isn’t really all that hard. It can’t be, or nothing would work like it does. The trick is, you have to keep the security system from realizing what you’re doing. If you disguise yourself as one of the thousands of routine data packets that swim back and forth every second of the day, the security measures won’t notice you.” “That’s pretty smart,” Sam admitted, “but what about his backups? If he has anything at home or online, he’ll just use those files instead, right?” “That was a little harder,” Dan said, moving closer to Sam and taking a handful of the papers. “But in a way, the fact that he’s employed by the military made it easier. You know how the government monitors the web for certain phrases? Like, if you send out mail that says you’re going to do something nasty to a head of government, in an hour or so, you’re going to have a bunch of men in cheap suits knocking on your front door?” Sam nodded. “I put Bo’s name on that list, and attached my own set of responses. There’s ten thousand names on that list, so nobody’s going to notice if one more shows up on there.” “If he tries to pull a backup from a data solid using any military computer in the world, the system will corrupt the entire solid. Since he’s part of the government, even his personal computers are included in that security chain. His vid, his comm, anything he’s got that will hook into the network is monitored.” Dan reached for the stick and stirred the fiery embers. “Any other computer hooked into the civilian net would take a bit longer to recognize it, five or six seconds, maybe, before it killed it. The only chance he’d ever have would be to read a backup on a totally non-networked computer, but since what he’s doing is illegal, I really doubt he’s got more than one or two copies of the real evidence lying around, and by the time he figures out what’s going on, it’ll be too late.” “What about remote storage?” “Any document that ties the doctor to Bo on any networked computer has already been deleted. There are still backups of those, of course, some of them encrypted, but they can’t be brought online without getting wiped, too. And no matter how important they were to him personally, I seriously doubt the good doctor’s going to raise a big stink over the loss of records that he wasn’t supposed to have in the first place.” “Huh,” Sam barked a laugh. “If I understood half of what you just said, you’re fucking brilliant.” “Not brilliant,” Dan demurred, “just highly motivated.” He held up a brain scan of his mate and studied the incomprehensible picture. “Whoever this guy is, he’s got a huge melon.” The two men stood side by side, feeding the fire for a few moments before Dan spoke again. “Sam?” “Huh?” he grunted. “You know I don’t know a lot about varius protocol, right?” Sam chuckled. “I think it’s come up a time or two, yeah.” Dan looked at him seriously. “Can I ask you something that might end up being rude? Without getting all formal about it, I mean?” “You know how I feel about Bo, Dan. You’re practically family.” He reached out and patted Dan on the shoulder, not the excessively and almost insultingly light pats that some varii gave sapiens for fear of breaking them, but a warm, authentic contact that let Dan know that he was welcome here. Dan gave him a cautious smile, then jumped into the waters. “You probably know more about his dad than Bo even does. Why didn’t he call him? To let him know he’s coming back?” Sam blew out a heavy breath. “Yeah, asking a varius about another man’s family relations could get you shunned, but that’s okay. Since it really has more to do with the kind of man Rob is, we’ll just forget about that.” He stirred the fire and wondered how he got himself into these situations. “Rob is…different,” he explained, cautiously. “He’s one of the smartest men I’ve ever met, but his logic systems are wired up different from everyone else. At one point, Lorena got so fed up with him that she had a restraining order drawn up that prevented him from directly contacting her or Bo.” “But that had to run out years ago,” Dan said. “I know Bo spent time with his dad when he was growing up.” “Like I said,” Sam said, stirring the fire again, “it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I haven’t asked Rob or Bo about it, and if you’re smart, you won’t either. It’s their relationship and it works for them, so,” he shrugged his shoulders, “leave it alone.” Dan shook his head in confusion. “In some ways varius society makes a lot of sense, and in other ways it seems completely insane.” “Yeah, I know,” Sam chuckled, “It ain’t easy, even when you were raised in it. But don’t worry,” he said, reaching up and giving Dan’s shoulder a fatherly squeeze, “you’re doing fine, kid.” Chapter 38 Dan signaled at Ken’s door until it finally opened up, revealing a rumpled feline who looked like he hadn’t had enough sleep. “You ready to go?” “Sure,” Ken said, stifling a yawn. “Just let me get my backpack.” As he shuffled back into his apartment, Dan followed him inside. i’ll be right out he thought to Bo, who was waiting in the car. hurry up we don’t have time for you to do each other’s hair hush i love you i love you right back now hurry Over the span of the week, Dan had worked hard to psych himself up for Jack’s powerlifting meet. He’d started out feeling like he was only going so Ken would see Jackson succeed brilliantly at something he excelled at, but his natural enthusiasm had quickly taken over. Even though he’d had to get up at oh-six-hundred on a weekend to get there on time, he was actually looking forward to the experience. Looking around the apartment, Dan noticed Ken was in the process of packing some of his belongings into boxes. “What’s going on? You moving out, or something?” “Yeah, I told you about that.” “You didn’t say a word.” “I’m sure I did,” Came Ken’s muffled reply from the bedroom, “Last week… Oh, wait – maybe that was Mona.” “How could you get us confused? I don’t look anything like Mona.” “Right you are,” Ken shot back, “your tits are bigger.” “Oh fuck you,” Dan retorted, purely out of habit, before remembering that he no longer had man-boobs. He moved to the mirror hanging in the foyer and flexed his chest, admiring how his developing pectoral muscles jumped when he flexed them. They weren’t nearly as big as Bo’s, but they were coming along nicely. “You’re just jealous.” “You’re taking supplements,” Ken accused, playfully. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and shuffled towards the door. “I am not,” Dan said, indignantly. He gave his friend a quick once-over. “Shoes.” “Shit.” Ken rolled his eyes and went back into his bedroom. “I know juice when I see it.” When he came out again, carrying shoes this time, he gave Dan’s chest a solid poke with his finger and leered. “You might not be using a needle, but I hear from a reliable source that you’re getting the hot beef injection on a regular basis.” “Yuk yuk yuk,” Dan said, “always the comedian. Did you bring a white shirt?” “In the backpack.” “Black marker?” “In the back— Shit.” He shuffled back to the dining room and opened an antique paperboard cigar box that rested on the living room table. Picking out several broad-tipped markers, he sniffed them and put all but the freshest two back. The ones he kept got stuffed into his backpack’s front compartment, along with God-only-knew what else. Dan watched his friend with amusement. “There must be a black hole in there that swallows all the shit you feed that poor thing.” “No,” Ken said, his face adopting a naughty smile. “I’ve just had a lot of practice at stuffing large things into small spaces.” Dan groaned and pushed him toward the door. “Come on, hornkitty, let’s go.” As Ken clambered into the car, Dan reminded him, “You still haven’t told me about the moving boxes.” “Oh, yeah,” the lion said, casually. “Apparently, my assets aren’t as liquid as I thought. There’s something going on with the executors of granddad’s estate, and things are up in the air right now. The funds are there, but I can’t use them. And by the time they’re available, I won’t need them anymore.” “So you’re running out of money?” “Oh, heck no. I’m not running out of money,” Ken said, shutting his door and reaching for his seatbelt. “I’m dead broke.” “You don’t seem too worried about it,” Dan observed. Now that Ken was somewhat settled, Bo leaned over the seatback and handed him the large coffee they’d bought on the way over. “Watch out – it’s hot.” “Thanks, Bo. You’re a life saver.” Ken accepted the sealed cup gratefully, pinching the small bulbs in the lid that released sugar and double dose of cream into the brew. “Worried?” Ken mused, “Nah. Life’s too short for that. I’ll just move into a cheaper place until my other job opens up.” “If he wanted to,” Bo explained, “he could always live in government-subsidized housing until he got established in his new job.” “I’ve seen varius housing,” Dan remembered driving by the city’s federally funded housing complex a couple of times. It was a little ways out of town, but it always looked well-maintained. “It actually looks pretty nice.” “Yeah, but I don’t want to go down that road if I have any other options,” Ken said, licking around his muzzle. “I know there’s nothing wrong with using something like that from time to time if you really need it, but it just seems like the lazy way out if you have alternatives.” Dan set the autopilot, and after the steering wheel retracted he reached into the crumpled bag wedged between the seats and pulled out a chocolate cake donut. He held it out to Ken. “How about this as a… What the…?” As if by sleight of hand, he was no longer holding a delicious chocolate cake donut. “That’s mine,” Bo said, accusingly. “You got him the blueberry one. And the cruller.” Dan sighed. “We’ve got a whole bag of donuts. It won’t kill you to give one of them away.” mine Bo smiled pleasantly at his mate and licked the top of the donut. Dan rolled his eyes and picked up the whole bag, presenting the open end to Kensuke. “Pick one.” While Ken was selecting a pastry, Dan continued. “Like I was saying… How about this as an alternative. I’ve been thinking about renting out our extra bedroom for a while now. Maybe you could do that instead of getting your own place?” “Mmm… I don’t know,” Ken said, pulling a strawberry-iced donut with sprinkles out of the bag. “Living with friends?” “We’re not friends, we’re family,” Dan protested. “Even worse,” Ken smiled, “but I think we could get along. And that way you wouldn’t have a stranger digging through your sock drawer when you’re not home.” He munched on his donut, a few bright pink crumbs clinging to the short fur around his mouth. “How much were you thinking of asking?” Dan handed him a napkin. “Are you kidding? We wouldn’t think of… kick Hey!” He turned to face Bo, indignant that his mate had just given him a mental kick to the shin hard enough to actually sting. oops !sorry! he’s varius dan an offer too low will be an insult to his ability to care for himself Dan looked back at Ken, and saw that the lion had one eyebrow raised, as if waiting for Dan to stick his other foot in his mouth. He recomposed himself and started over. “I’m sorry, I got distracted. Like I was saying, we wouldn’t think about renting it out to anyone else, if you’re interested. As far as rent goes, since I don’t have a lot of experience being a slumlord, what about market rate for the square footage of the bedroom? kick “…and the guest bathroom?” kick Dan sighed, “and a third of the common areas,” he said, staring daggers at Bo, “and that’s it!” Ken chuckled. “I’m almost tempted to tell you that it’s too high, just to watch you get back at Bo with a few good brain pinches of your own. Oh, yeah,” he said, grinning at Dan’s expression, “I could tell what he was doing. My mom used to do that to my Dad all the time.” “Oh, I’ll get back at him,” Dan promised, “trust me. But if you want to do some artwork in exchange for rent, just figure out what the going rate is for whatever you do and we’ll make a trade.” “Fair enough,” Ken said, yawning widely. “Now, give me your shirt.” Ten minutes later, Dan’s formerly plain tee-shirt had, “TEAM JACKSON” written in neat block letters over his heart, his name in collegiate script across the shoulders, and a picture of Jackson doing an almost impossibly heavy bench-press drawn on the back in Ken’s bold, sure strokes. Ten minutes after that, Ken’s shirt had his name across the back, and a sketch of Jack squatting so much weight that the heavy-duty bar sagged at the ends. “You got Bo’s shirt?” he asked Dan. What he was handed stymied him. “What am I supposed to do with a pup tent?” “Bite me,” Bo said, from the passenger seat. “I’m a healthy man.” “Yeah, right,” Ken said, uncertainly, spreading his arms as wide as he could, he still saw no end to the sea of white fabric. Finally he gave up. “I’m just going to have to do this one while you’re wearing it.” Curling up in the back seat, Ken put his headphones on, pulled the huge shirt over him like a blanket and was fast asleep before they reached the state line. “Stand still.” “I am standing still,” Bo said, twisting around to face Kensuke. Ken sighed in exasperation and looked at Dan. “What’s up with him today? He’s like a seven-year old with a sugar buzz.” “No idea,” Dan said, placidly. “Sometimes he’s just like this.” “Great,” Ken muttered. “Can you hold him still so Jackson doesn’t end up with two different sized eyes?” Dan smiled. Ken’s talent was considerable, but even he couldn’t work on a moving canvas. He walked up to Bo, “Put your hands on my shoulders, Boo.” Looking into his mate’s face, he made a silent offer that put a twinkle in Bo’s eyes. they’ll all know were together what do I care, Dan smiled up at Bo, feeling like the luckiest man on the planet. my mate’s the strongest, meanest guy here not by a longshot in this crowd Bo thought back, but he acquiesced, reaching one large thumb up to lovingly stroke his mate’s cheek. Through the clouds they flew, fingertip to fingertip, the cool dampness flowing over their skins like water over a fish. Bo loved being here with his mate, feeling the wind against their nearly bare skin at the same time Dan enjoyed the sensation of wind blowing through their fur. It was so peaceful up here, so tranquil, that time in the real world passed quickly for both of them. It felt as if they’d barely left the ground when Ken gently tapped them on the shoulder. “Guys?” he said, looking a little concerned. “Guys.” “We’re here,” Dan said, sounding dazed, like he was just getting up from a long, satisfying nap. “Nothing to worry about.” “You were both just standing there, not moving. It was like you had a seizure, or something.” Ken looked between them nervously, then turned and examined their surroundings, wondering if anyone else had seen them. Since they were still in the parking lot and it was relatively early, nobody had bothered to look. Besides, people did all sorts of weird things to psyche themselves up for a meet. Surely they couldn’t be the first two guys to stare at each other for minutes on end. “Hey, great job!” Dan had walked behind Bo and was looking at the back of his shirt. “I love it!” “What is it?” Bo said, suspiciously. “He didn’t write “kick me” or something, did he?” Dan fed what his eyes saw into their link, and felt Bo’s appreciation for Ken’s talents swell. There were three lifts in a powerlifting meet – Bench press, deadlift, and squat. Jack always looked the most impressive when he was deadlifting, and that’s the one Ken had saved for his largest canvas. In the sketch, the bull was straining as he pulled well over a ton of weight off the ground, veins popping beneath the short fur on his forehead, teeth bared in a primitive battle cry. It was a magnificent display of strength, and was even more striking in that it wasn’t an exaggeration. Ken had very deliberately drawn only as much weight on the bar as Jackson had actually lifted the previous year, leaving room on the end of the bar to add more plates if the bull broke his own record today. “Good job, furbag,” Bo remarked. “I’m impressed. Now let’s get inside, so I can get something to eat.” “Oh, Jeez,” Dan grumbled. “Here we go.” “What?” Bo said, stopping a passing hot dog vendor to buy one. Changing his mind at the last minute, he bought two. Dan raised an eyebrow. “You just got through eating an entire bag of donuts, and we’re not even in the front gate, yet.” “He ate the whole bag?” Ken protested. “My cruller was still in there! I was saving that for the trip back!” “I’ve got a fast metabolism,” Bo said apologetically, as he munched on the first of his meaty treats. “Stop crying. I’ll buy you something to eat on the way home, okay?” “Fine,” Ken said, still looking grumpy. Dan paid their admission fee, and the three walked into the throng. Dan sidled up to the lion, and spoke quietly into his round, furry ear. “I believe you’ve forgotten the primary reason we’re here.” “What, to encourage Jackson?” “No, dingbat,” Dan said, giving Ken’s shoulder a playful bump, “to cruise.” “Oh yeah…” He took a quick look around him, and realized that he was swimming in a sea of testosterone that was populated by some very large men. Bo couldn’t repress a grin. “Your mouth’s hanging open,” Ken snapped it shut. “Aren’t you supposed to be eating a hot dog, or something?” he said, annoyed. Bo smirked. “Right now, I’m not the one who’s hungry for a wiener.” “Jackson goes under the bar in thirty minutes,” Dan interrupted. “Can you please wait to torture each other until after that?” “It’s more fun to do it now,” Bo grumbled, but he stopped poking fun at Ken and headed toward the coliseum’s central arena. “There he is!” Ken said, the excitement in his voice bringing a smile to Dan’s face. He knew Ken really liked the big bull, he just wished he’d admit it to himself. The lion strode ahead of the group, making use of his smaller size and his greater agility to weave a path through the forest of large men. “Come on.” Bo grabbed Dan by the hips and unceremoniously lifted him up onto his shoulders, eliciting a surprised yelp of protest from his mate. “Geez, give me some warning!” Dan complained, but once he was comfortably seated on Bo’s shoulders he took advantage of his elevation to look around the arena. Vendor booths surrounded the competition areas, which were arranged so that if need be, three competitors could lift on different platforms. The meets Dan had lifted at were too small to require such a fancy setup, but this was a world-class event with competitors from as far away as the Jupiter moons, and at times they probably needed to use all three stages at once to work everyone through. Dan’s sudden, flailing ascent had caught Jackson’s eye, and after staring in their direction for a moment, the bull recognized him. The stern look that he’d been wearing fell away, and the happy smile that illuminated his face instantly made the whole trip worthwhile. He was so busy watching him and Bo make their way through the crowd that he didn’t even notice Kensuke until the lion was almost under his nose. As Dan watched, Jack’s expression instantly went from happy, to stunned, to ecstatic. They weren’t quite close enough to hear his voice over the din, but Dan could still read the bovine’s lips. “You made it!” Dan’s heart swelled at the sight of Jack’s shy smile, and he felt Bo’s paws tighten slightly on his thighs as they shared the emotion. you’re a softie sure am Dan returned, reaching down to lovingly stroke Bo’s ear leathers. “Turn around, guys!” Ken was saying, and Bo’s last two steps were like a dance move, ending up with their backs facing Jack so he could see Ken’s artwork. “That’s great!” Jack said, wanting very much to clap his hands in childlike glee. Nobody had ever done anything like this for him before! None of his friends had ever traveled any distance to watch him compete, and his dad certainly wouldn’t have. He’d consigned himself to sharing the company of his competitors for the entire day. They were nice guys, sure, and he knew most of them from previous competitions, but the conversational choices were usually limited to buffets, bars and boobs. Excitedly, he asked, “Are you going to stay and watch me lift?” Then he immediately felt silly. “Yeah, yeah, you wuh…wuh…wouldn’t have come all this way if you weren’t uh…guh…going to, right?” “We wouldn’t miss it, buddy!” Ken said his tail whipping back and forth in lazy S-shapes. For the first time that day he looked genuinely happy to be there. “Where’s a good place to stand, Gongniu? There’s no more seats on the front row.” Jackson looked around, as if seeing the spectator area for the first time. Since he hadn’t expected to see Ken there, he hadn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to what lay outside the lifting area until now. He walked over to the large PA speaker that was just outside the barricade separating contestants from spectators and, with a cocky smirk, he pushed it a half-meter back, making just enough room for two of them to stand. Since Dan was quite happy to sit on Bo’s shoulders, it was a perfectly workable arrangement. pragmatic it would have been a lot easier to just move the barricade hush Dan thought, giving Bo’s ears a gentle tug, it was a nice gesture “When are the rest of your lifts?” he asked Jackson, before the bull walked away. “Here,” Jack said, reaching up to hand Dan the schedule. “I gotta get ready.” He spared a few seconds to look at Ken. “Thanks for being here, Ken.” He reached out a thick-nailed hand to rest for a moment on the lion’s arm. “It means a lot to me.” “Make me proud, Gongniu!” Ken called out, slapping the bull on his broad shoulder as Jack turned back to the contestant’s waiting area. Dan examined the wrinkled sheet of paper that Jack handed him. There were columns trailing off into nothingness, time notations made at seemingly random intervals and weight classes that were impossibly out of order. Whoever had laid out the schedule must have been hopelessly disorganized. “I can’t read this thing,” Dan complained. “It’s like it’s written in Sanskrit, or something.” “Gimme,” Bo said, reaching up. Dan shoved the paper into his paw and fiddled with his mate’s ears while the canine inspected the paper. “Geez, the way you were carrying on, you’d think this was unreadable. The first event is squats, and he’s up in ten minutes.” “How did you…” Dan began, then realized that it didn’t matter. “Never mind. I’ve got to go to the bathroom.” “Why didn’t you go when we came in?” Bo asked, perturbed. “If you stop complaining, I’ll get you a corn dog,” Dan offered. ooh “I love corn dogs,” Bo said unnecessarily, immediately kneeling down to let Dan clamber off his shoulders. “You might as well feed all of us, so get four of them,” He pulled out his ID card and handed it to Dan. “And get whatever you and Ken want, too.” He stepped back to let Ken get by. “You want me to hold your purse?” he snickered. Ken hitched his backpack on his shoulder. “No,” he said, irritated. “It’s not…” he sputtered. “Don’t be an ass!” The organizers apparently knew what they were doing when it came to meeting the snack needs of large numbers of hungry strength athletes. Dan left Ken to stand in line for them while he used the bathroom, and was barely back before it was their turn to order. The sapiens girl who took their order for seven large corn dogs, three energy bars, four V-3 drinks and a bag of fish jerky looked at them oddly when he ordered, and seemed suspicious when Dan ran Bo’s ID card through the machine, as if he were perpetrating some great fraud. She stared at him with narrow eyes. “You sure that’s your card, mister?” “Of course it’s not my card,” Dan said, jamming his thumb against the authorization window. “I stole it, and instead of wasting my time going after this guy’s assets, I’m using his card to steal corn dogs.” The machine beeped its approval and the food was handed over, but not without an extra helping of dirty looks. “Good job,” Dan told Ken, as they walked back to where Bo was standing. “I can’t believe we actually got away with it!” He took a satisfied slurp from Bo’s soda. “You sure can be a smartass when you want to be,” Ken observed. “I think you’re picking up Bo’s traits as much as he is yours.” “It’s a gift. Hold on for a second.” Dan sidled up to a covered trash container and carefully balanced their food on top. He handed Ken one of the snacks. “Hide your energy bar or Bo’s going to eat it.” While Ken was stuffing the bar into one of his backpack’s side compartments, he watched Dan dig a small, white package out of his pants pocket. Carefully opening the lid of Bo’s drink, he dumped in the contents of the packet and stirred it gently “What’s that,” Ken asked, “a tranquilizer?” “No,” Dan chuckled, “but that’s probably not a bad idea. We’ve got to share a closed car with Bo after a junk food marathon, and since he won’t remember to take the pills, I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start dosing him with Gassy-Gone.” Ken smiled in open admiration. “You really are genius.” Dan grinned back. “I know my man.” They got back to their spot in plenty of time to watch Jackson lift, and although their yells of encouragement seemed lost in the noise of the cheering crowd, Dan felt that somehow, their presence made a difference. Ken was working on his second corn dog when the competitor onstage made what might end up being the last mistake of his powerlifting career. He’d been overly-ambitious when choosing his weight, and had to ditch the bar halfway up. Unfortunately, instead of placing his hands in the recommended position so that his pawpads were safely out of the way, he’d hooked them over the bar. Dan watched in horror as the weight slid off his shoulders, pulling the man’s arms backwards along with it. The arc his shoulders described was anything but natural, neatly pulling them out of joint on the way down. Dan’s hands reflexively closed around the warm, cylindrical object that had been pushed into them. Looking down, he saw that he was now holding a half-eaten corn dog, and that Ken was no longer standing next to him. Not wanting to drip mustard onto the floor, and knowing how Ken hated food gone cold, Dan considerately began finishing it off for him. Replaying the scene later in his mind from both his perspective and Bo’s, Dan saw Ken make a rather astonishing standing leap, vaulting the barricade they were leaning against to rush to the man’s aid. Before the dropped weight had even rolled to a stop, Ken had opened his backpack and was kneeling beside the man with an analyzer in his hand, his air of quiet professionalism calming the athlete better than anything else would have. Bo slurped his drink. “Wow.” “Yeah,” Dan said, watching Ken pull open his backpack to expose a cornucopia of mostly illicit medical gear hidden within. “Wow. I hope he doesn’t get arrested.” “Good Samaritan law.” Bo said, poking the straw around in the bottom of the huge cup to vacuum out the last bits of liquid. “I’m not certain that counts when the coliseum has a medical team on-staff for stuff like this,” Dan worried, but the med techs weren’t there and Ken was, so he resumed his snacking. About two minutes later, a white cart pulled up to the stage and two uniformed sapiens medics rushed out, practically tripping over themselves in their haste to get past the barrier and up on stage. “What is he –” Dan started. hush Bo silenced him. listen Reaching up, Bo gave his ears that peculiar twist that made them stand up on their own. Dan, listening in through the link, heard Ken talking to the aides. “See this right here?” he said, turning a potential conflict over jurisdiction into a learning opportunity. “Spread the fur so you can see the skin underneath. See the bruising already starting up at the site of swelling?” He moved back slightly to let the med techs see what he was looking at. “The subclavian vein is too short in some subspecies, and when it’s bent backwards like this it can tear.” “You,” he said, looking at the female tech, “Call the closest ER and get an ambulance here fast. You,” he indicated the male, “get the stretcher up here, then clear a path to the door.” The woman was already on her comm, waiting for the hospital to answer, but the man seemed rooted in place. Ken gave him a gentle push, and a quiet but urgent, “Move!” and the man un-stuck. “Jackson,” Ken called out to the air, hoping the bull was nearby. “Here,” came the reply, from behind his right ear. “Get three guys to help you carry the stretcher out of here,” Ken instructed, calmly. “You’ve got ten seconds. Go.” Jack disappeared from Ken’s sight, and had returned with helpers before the stretcher made it back to the stage. Ken expertly rolled the groaning athlete onto the thin, plastic emergency stretcher and backed up enough to let the other men pick it up. “Use one arm only, guys. Walk this way.” Ken stayed at the head of the stretcher as they walked it out the large double-doors at the end of the auditorium, talking a steady stream of distracting dialog to the injured man. Dan started to follow him, but was stopped by Bo’s paw on his shoulder. “We need to get his backpack.” “Oh,” Dan said, giving a quick look to the lifting platform that had just been vacated, “yeah.” Bo lifted him over the barricade, and Dan walked purposefully over to where Ken had left his backpack splayed open. Gathering the contents as best he could, Dan zipped it shut and carried it back over to Bo, thankful that nobody challenged him. Ken squinted as he walked from the muted indoor light of the arena into the harsh sunshine. Looking down at the man on the stretcher, he knew how much pain he must be in. “You know,” he said, over the whine of the ambulance’s emitters, “This is one of the most painful injuries, and you’re holding up really well. Most of these guys would probably be bawling their eyes out right now.” It was an exaggeration, but the grateful look on the athlete’s face made him feel that the lie was well worth whatever payment he’d eventually have to make for it. Ken was so deeply buried in his own thoughts that he didn’t hear Jackson coming up beside him. “Man, that was awesome!” Jack said, sounding like an excited little boy. “You didn’t even hesitate, you just jumped right in there and saved him!” Ken wanted to tell Jack that he didn’t exactly save the guy’s life or anything, but for some reason he didn’t. Perhaps it would have felt too much like stomping on his enthusiasm. Instead, he just pushed Jackson off balance with a shove to his shoulder. “I didn’t do anything.” Jack ruffled his hair, gave him one last smile, and went back to talking to the three guys he’d recruited to help carry the stretcher. “Yeah, I know him,” he overheard Jackson telling his buddies. He’s my…friend.” Ken had to wonder if the hesitation he’d heard in Jackson’s voice was the bull having to stop himself from calling Ken something else, or was it just his stutter? Jackson snuck another look over at Ken, walking so confidently back to the arena. He’d have given his eyeteeth to be as sure of himself as the big cat was. He would have stood there, staring dumbly at the injured man without knowing what to do, but Ken was much smarter. He hadn’t hesitated at all. He was all business, and to Jackson that was sexy as hell. Jack sighed. He wanted to be more, but they were only ‘friends with benefits.’ But the way Ken had looked at him as he’d walked up suggested some amount of interest on the lion’s part. Maybe his coming all this way just to watch him lift had been a signal, of sorts? Making up his mind, Jack put a bit of distance between himself and the other competitors. He wasn’t here to make friends, he was here to win a competition, and maybe in doing so, he could also win the attention of a certain lion.

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“Hey, Jackson.” Dan said, greeting the bull on his way into the gym the next day. “How does it feel to be the new world champion?” “That’s only because Magnus didn’t show up,” Jack grumbled. The Australian rhino was the crowd favorite because he could comfortably outlift anyone in the world. Dan looked back at Bo. “I’ll sign us in.” i want to talk to him for a minute “Okey dokey,” the varius said, grabbing his bag and hauling it into the recesses of the gym without a single look back. He liked Jackson well enough, but he wasn’t about to coddle the bull through another one of his surly fits of emo. good luck Dan looked around the office and made sure nobody else was within earshot. “Jack,” he started, but the bull was staring at his shoes. “Would you please look at me?” For a moment the bull stubbornly refused, then blew out a discouraged sigh and caved in. “Don’t let someone else take away your accomplishment, man! You pulled twelve hundred and fifteen kilos. Do you even realize how huge that is? Nobody in your weight class has ever come close to doing that!” “Yeah,” Jackson said, clearly unconvinced. “Why are you comparing yourself to Magnus, anyway? He’s in the unlimited class, and those guys will shoot themselves full of drain cleaner if they think it’ll make them bigger.” He stood back a step and looked at Jackson analytically. “Which world record holder is only at the top of the heap because they’ve done more crazy steroid stacks than anyone else?” “Magnus,” Jackson said, grumpily. “And who’s on so much junk that their balls are the size of marbles?” “Magnus.” Jackson said, the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “And who hasn’t had a hard-on in six years because they’ve taken so many synthetic hormones?” “Okay, okay,” Jack said, smiling shyly, “I get it.” Damn the man for making him feel better. “You’re in a great place, my friend,” Dan said, shaking his head. “You’re young, you’re healthy, you’ve got a great set of friends who’d move heaven and earth for you,” he looked around again, and even though they were alone, he lowered his voice anyway, “and you’re completely hot! Cheer up, dude!” “Yeah, I guess.” Jack said, the smile on his face faltering. “Talk to me, man. What’s wrong?” Jack sighed, hesitant to air his troubles. He had to tell someone, or he’d blow up. Even though he knew he could trust Dan, the man was friends with Kensuke, maybe even Circlemates by now… But then, maybe that made him the perfect person to talk to. Throwing caution to the wind, he dived in. “You probably don’t know this, but I’ve got a thing for Ken.” Dan smiled kindly. “Oh, okay.” He almost added, ‘I think everyone at the gym knows that,’ but he decided against it. “He says he just wants to be buddies. We spend a lot of time together, and we always have a blast, but he keeps on dating those fucking pinkies.” He glanced up at Dan, as if only now realizing he wasn’t covered with fur. “Sorry, no offense.” Dan shrugged. “None taken. It’s frustrating to you. I get it.” start without me boo this might take a while Dan put the clipboard on top of the counter where it would be seen by anyone coming in the door, then grabbed Jack’s coat off of the rack and handed it to him. “Let’s go for a walk, Jack. We need to talk about this.” Jack pulled himself out of his chair and shoved his arms into his coat, feeling relieved that he was finally going to be able to get this off his chest, but also a bit intimidated by the fact that the person he was talking to was Dan Blocker. Why did the man have to be so fucking nice? It would have been so much easier to understand if Dan treated him with the same subtle derision as other pinkies did, instead of always being so nice and respectful. It threw Jack off. But now wasn’t the time for thinking about such things. Dan was holding the front door open to him, and the heat was getting out. Jack ducked his head so his horns wouldn’t catch on the door frame and followed the sapiens man outside. It was chilly out, maybe four degrees, and he was glad Dan had handed him his coat. He was so eager to talk, he probably would have run out the door without it and frozen solid. “First off,” Dan said, “I need to make sure we’re clear on some things.” He caught Jack’s eyes and saw that he was listening. “Ken’s my Circlemate, and he’s my best friend. I love him, and I won’t do anything to put him in a bad position.” “Sure,” Jack said, wondering why Dan felt like he even had to say something like that. “Second,” Dan continued, “unless it’s something harmful to Ken or Bo, whatever you tell me is going to stay between us. Bo won’t know what you tell me, Ken won’t know, nobody. If it is harmful to them,” he said, his voice deadly serious, “I’ll find a way to pull every square centimeter of skin off your body.” “No!” Jack said, sounding agitated, “I don’t want to hurt him. I just…” he got quiet for a moment, gathering his courage. “I just want him to love me, that’s all.” Dan sensed the honesty in the bull’s heartfelt admission, and in spite of the chilly weather, his heart melted. “Here,” Jack said, walking over to his truck and pulling open the tailgate with a rusty squeak, “you want to sit down?” “Sure,” Dan said, eyeing the cold metal dubiously. He felt better about the idea when Jack pulled a moving blanket out of a storage compartment and spread it out over the scarred, painted metal surface. He was wondering how to get himself up there with minimal loss of dignity when Jack solved the problem for him. When weighed down under 250 kilos of bovine varius, the truck’s tailgate sank much closer to the ground. Dan sat closer to Jack than he would have another sapiens, both for cultural reasons and to share some of his warmth. Jack was a little unbalanced by how close the sapiens man sat to him, but he tried not to let it show. In spite of his lack of fur, the man seemed to be far more varius than sapiens. It didn’t really matter, he guessed, and thought maybe it would feel less awkward if he just treated Dan like a petite varius with a skin condition. “Why won’t he take me seriously?” “You do know the type of guys he dates, right?” Dan asked, raising his eyebrow. “Yeah,” Jackson admitted, kicking the ground with his feet. “I got him to show me some pictures, once.” He reached down to the ground and picked up a well-worn steel bolt that must have fallen out of someone’s car. He fiddled with it, nervously. “They don’t look much like me, that’s for sure.” Dan angled his head and gently head-butted Jackson’s shoulder. “It’s not your looks, Jack,” he said, “or your personality. He’s just locked into the idea that he needs to be with a certain type of person if he’s going to be happy. But you know what?” The bull turned and faced him, looking into those mesmerizing blue eyes. “I think you’ve still got a chance, because I don’t think he’s going to find the type of person he thinks he’s interested in.” That was probably saying too much, but now that it was out, Dan refused to worry about it. “You really think I’ve got a chance?” Jackson asked, doubtfully. Dan sighed, wishing he could give the bull better news. “All I can tell you is, it’s never smart to just give up before the game’s over. You can’t win if you give up, right?” The big bull nodded his head somberly. “Right.” “And even if you haven’t won him over yet,” Dan pointed out, “there’s only one man in the world he sees every Friday night, so right now you’ve got the home-court advantage.” The bull turned to Dan, and even though varius expressions could be difficult to read, the hope in his eyes was obvious. “Can you help me?” The bull reached over and gave Dan’s shoulder what was meant to be an encouraging squeeze. It was a little too rough to be pleasant, but Dan didn’t discourage it. Jack’s request hurt him far more, because Dan knew he’d have to deny it. The minute he told Jack how to behave, he’d stop being Jack and start being someone else, and that would end up being a monumental disaster. If Dan had learned anything about varius relationships from his time with Bo, Ken and Sam, it was the importance of honesty. Regretfully, he shook his head. “What you’re asking would put me in a bad position, Jack.” “I’m sorry,” Jackson said, shifting his weight to climb off the tailgate. His voice had grown quiet and sad. “I don’t want to screw up your friendship.” Dan caught Jack’s coat, and was thankful that he had a good grip when the bull started to walk away. The bull had taken three steps before he noticed that Dan had his fists wrapped tightly in the cloth and was tugging him back towards the truck. “Come back here.” As they sat back down, Dan, feeling like the coach of a little league team, asked, “I didn’t just see you give up, did I?” “No,” Jackson lied, transparently. “Good,” Dan said, rubbing some feeling back into his fingers. “Ken doesn’t like quitters, and I don’t, either.” He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets to warm them. “I can’t tell you exactly what to do, but I can still give you some pointers that are true for anyone.” Jack looked doubtful. “Like what?” “Do you know what his favorite restaurant is?” “No,” Jack admitted, “but I’m pretty sure it’s not Happy Family.” “I’m pretty sure you’re right,” Dan said, with a chuckle. “Would that be where you took him for a date?” “Sure,” Jack said, with obvious enthusiasm. “You can get plenty of whatever you want there, and it tastes pretty good.” Dan was exceedingly careful to hide any trace of a smile. The last thing he wanted was for Jackson to think he was being laughed at. “This is the biggest thing I’m going to teach you, so listen up. You listening?” The bull nodded his head, somberly. “You do not take dates to your favorite restaurant.” When Jackson looked sufficiently confused, Dan continued. “You take them to their favorite restaurant.” He let that sink in for a few seconds before continuing. “That’s the biggest mistake guys make when you plan a date. If you make it about your favorite things, it turns into a four-hour-long advertisement for how great you are.” Dan bugged his eyes out. “Bo-ring! Not that you’re not interesting,” he amended, “but the first dates are all about getting to know them, by doing things that they like to do.” Dan pointed to a spot a meter to Jack’s left. “Can I get you to scoot over there?” Jack complied, and Dan moved into the windbreak the bull’s bulk created. “Thanks. I was getting chilly over there. Now,” he said, absentmindedly, “where was I?” “Do things they want to do,” Jackson supplied. “Good!” Dan beamed, “You were listening!” Jack felt pride welling up inside him at the praise. If his teachers in school had thought to encourage the big, dumb bull, he might not have turned out to be so dumb after all. “How much do you know about his family?” It seemed so obvious that he should know about Ken’s family that Jack was embarrassed to have to admit that he didn’t know the first thing about them. “Do you know where he grew up, or any pets he used to have?” Jack’s ears lowered in shame. How could he not know about such basic things? He was certain that Dan was going to start haranguing him at any moment now, peppering him with questions he’d be unable to answer. “Stop it.” The angry tone in Dan’s voice caught Jack up short. Surprisingly, it didn’t breed a similar anger inside him, the way his father’s anger always did. Maybe that was because he somehow understood that Dan was angry at something Jack had done, and not at Jack himself. “Stop what?” “Stop beating yourself up, Jack,” Dan stated, commandingly. “I never want to see you do that again.” Taking hold of the bovine’s huge shoulder, Dan shook it gently, his voice rich with compassion. “You’re not supposed to know those things yet because those are the sort of things you talk about on a date, and you—” “Haven’t been on a date,” Jack said at the same time. “Exactly!” Dan said, pleased that Jackson understood. The bull gave a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry, Dan. I’m just…” his fingers toyed with the rusty bolt. “This stresses me out, you know?” “That’s because it’s important to you, buddy.” Dan felt such sympathy for the bull. He knew that Jack was feeling completely out of his element right now. “It’s okay. You’re going to do fine.” “So I should find out what his favorite restaurant is, and take him there?” “Yeah, that’s a really good place to start,” Dan said, then hesitated. “You get a discount, right?” “Yeah,” Jack said, looking almost sheepish for some reason that Dan didn’t understand. “Even with that, it’s probably going to be kind of pricey,” Dan warned. “High-class restaurants aren’t cheap.” “I got some saved up,” the bull said, sounding a bit worried, now. Even though he had the military option on top of his standard discount, it only covered about twenty credits for each meal. A varius who was happy to eat inexpensive food could eat for free his whole life, but if he wanted to get fancy, it was still going to cost a bunch of money. He got a couple of exemptions per year, and he thought he had a few left. Jack hoped he had enough saved up to cover the difference. “Find out what else he likes to do, and go do that after dinner. Keep it friendly, keep smiling, and whatever you do, be respectful.” “Respect, huh?” Jack nodded his head. “Yeah, sure. I can do that.” He thought about it for a moment and smiled. “Yeah, I can do that!” When the bull turned his smile on Dan, the man thought that for probably the first time, he was seeing the real Jackson. “Thanks, Dan.” The affectionate head butt he gave Dan knocked the man out of the truck, but Jack didn’t think he acted like he minded very much. As soon as he got home, Jackson sat down at his computer and went to work. With his thick fingers he’d never been much good at using a keyboard, so he called out to the verbal interface. “Computer. Research topic.” He took a sip of his drink and spoke clearly. “Sapiens dating rituals.”

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Ken opened his front door to find Jackson waiting for him, hand raised to knock. This time, when the bull spoke to him, there was no hesitation, and no stutter. “I want to go out on a date.” Chapter 39 Jackson sighed, got down on his hands and knees, and fished the titanium horn cap out from underneath the cabinet where it had skittered after escaping from his grasp on his third attempt to apply it. He stood up and carefully placed the metal cone next to the sink, wondering what he was doing wrong. The instructions sounded simple enough, as he read them through one more time. Clean his horns, apply the primer, let dry… Oh crap, he thought. That’s what I’m doing wrong. “Stupid, stupid, st—” he muttered, then forced himself to stop. Ken and Dan had both told him that they didn’t want to hear him beat himself up any more, and he’d agreed. Even though they weren’t around to hear, he’d given them his word. With a sigh, he took the tiny piece of sandpaper that was part of the capping kit and used it to clean off the traces of glue and primer that remained from his last attempt. The last thing he wanted was for the cap to fall off in the middle of the soup course. The tiny tube of primer was almost empty, so this was going to be his last chance. He swabbed the light blue chemical on the end of his right horn, and while it was drying, he ran the abrasive pad over the inside of the metal cap to make sure that it was clean, too. “Apply adhesive to the inside rim of the Lil’ Dandee horn cap in a strip no more than one-half centimeter wide,” he read aloud, to himself. “Once the primer has completely dried, firmly press the cap onto the tip of the horn as shown in diagram B…” he searched the instruction page for “diagram B,” but found nothing. He shrugged his shoulders and dismissed it. There was only one way it could go on, after all. Carefully, he put the cap on his horn, wiggling it back and forth gently to make sure it was seated properly. That was what the guy at the body accessory shop told him to do, so he did it. After a few seconds the cap stopped wiggling, and Jack let out a relieved breath of air. He held it in place for a few seconds more just to be sure, but this time it really had stuck like it was supposed to. Lowering his hand, Jackson admired the deep blue titanium cap that now adorned one horn. It wasn’t super-traditional looking, but it wasn’t trendy looking, either. He’d wanted a set of these for years, but it had never seemed like the right time. The titanium caps were simple, yet seemed like an elegant finishing touch. As he ran his finger over the transition between his own horns and the metal caps, he could barely feel the seam. The man at the shop had convinced him that it was a good idea to have the tips of his horns ground down so the caps would fit flush. At first Jack had balked at the extra expense, but now he was glad he spent those extra credits to have it done. The process itself was simple and quick but it had felt bizarre, the vibrations from the computerized grinder making his scalp feel like a thousand tiny ants were running around up there. Remembering the sensation made him shiver. Turning his attention to the other horn, he had more confidence. Uncle Tony had been right – go slow and read the directions, and you’ll be all right. Removing the matching cap from the other box, he was actually starting to feel a bit smug about his newly developed horn-cap-application abilities…when he had to go find a tool to help him retrieve the second cap from where it had fallen into the toilet.

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“So what’s the deal with Bo’s dad, anyway?” Ken said, changing the subject to something – anything – other than his latest dating misadventures. “He’s going to be at Sam’s on Friday,” Dan said. “Bo’s going to meet up with him after work.” “You gonna be there?” Ken asked. “Yes, and no,” Dan said, thinking that this explanation might take a while. “Hold on for a minute.” Dan disappeared into the bathroom and came back out holding a long-toothed comb and a spray bottle of conditioner. Before he and Bo had asked Ken into their Circle, Dan invested quite a bit of time in learning about traditions exclusive to the feline culture. One of the tidbits he’d picked up was that communal grooming was a regular occurrence in a lion’s household. Even though he and Ken weren’t related, he thought that since Ken was so far away from his biological family, the gesture might be appreciated. “I’m going to be at the other end of the bar, so I’ll be able to see what’s going on without getting my nose bitten.” Pulling up a barstool behind Ken’s chair, Dan loosened the samurai topknot that Ken occasionally pulled his mane into and gave his golden hair a generous spritz of conditioner. “I know girls who would kill to have hair like this. I don’t know why you trim it down so short.” “I like it that way,” Ken said. “It makes me look young and innocent.” Dan used his fingers to work the conditioner through the lush mahogany-brown fur of Ken’s ruff. “Innocent?” He scoffed. “You haven’t been on the honest side of ‘innocent’ since you were five. Maybe it’s time you started going for ‘worldly and dignified.’” “It’s time for another trim,” Ken complained. “When it starts getting this long, I start looking like my dad.” Dan had to chuckle. “From the pictures you’ve shown me, your dad looks pretty hot.” “Eew,” Ken squirmed. “I just can’t think of my Dad that way.” Ken leaned back in the chair and relaxed, enjoying the feeling of being groomed. He knew that Dan had done quite a bit of research into varius behavior, but as with most subjects, the information on the webs was incomplete. Dan had seemed so pleased with himself when he first showed up with the conditioner and a purple plastic ruff comb that Ken hadn’t had the heart to tell him that interpersonal grooming was a function reserved for his clan’s wives and widows. On the other hand, Mom wasn’t here to do it and he didn’t want to embarrass Dan, so he’d just let it go. Now that they’d done it a couple of times, it no longer seemed odd. Dan distributed the product through Ken’s hair as best he could with his fingers before he used the comb. Ken let his eyes slide closed, reclining his head against the seat back. He gave himself over to pleasant sensations with the abandonment that only a feline could manage. “It’s good you’re going to be there to support him, dude,” Ken said, sighing contentedly. “It might be tough.” Ken heard Dan shifting on his seat, but the man said nothing. Dan was even more gentle than usual, working out the minor kinks without ever pulling his hair, and Ken found the repetitive stroking extremely soothing. After a few minutes of peace, Ken asked, “What does his dad look like, anyway?” “Sam showed me a picture of him and Rob,” Dan said, his voice golden with laughter at some private joke, “I think he looks a lot like Bo, just a little shorter, a little thicker, and with a little grey starting to show on his muzzle.” “Wow,” Ken chuckled, “Two of them in the same room. That’s a critical mass of crabby, all in one place!” A stern tap on his forehead made him jump a bit, and what he saw when he opened his eyes made him jump again. Bo had his meaty fists wrapped in Ken’s hair, and Dan was watching the two of them from across the table. The black canine gave the lion’s mane a gentle tug. “Be nice to me, Kitty.” Gently, Bo picked the comb through Ken’s hair, meticulously working out the minor tangles that had developed there. “I can serve too, you know,” he said, absentmindedly. After a moment, Ken relaxed and let Bo work, touched that he would do this for him. Give him a hundred years, and he didn’t think he would figure out Bo Taylor. Dan looked at Ken with curiosity. “So I guess we know where you’ll be on Friday.” Ken and Jackson had been doing the regular Friday ‘thing’ for almost a month now, and it seemed to be a pretty satisfying arrangement. “You going to be with Jack?” “Surprisingly enough,” Ken said, “No.” “Why not?” Ken scooted up in the chair so he was a bit more upright, but didn’t discourage Bo’s ministrations. “He turned me away!” The lion sounded incredulous. “He says he didn’t want to sully me before our date.” “Aww,” Dan said, smiling happily, “that’s sweet!” “Yeah,” Ken agreed, “I’ve got to admit, it really is.” “Where are you going?” Bo asked. “I didn’t know Happy Family took reservations.” “Not that it’s any of your business,” Ken replied, “but he says he’s taking me to the Chandelle club.” He opened one eye and glared suspiciously at Dan. “You wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would you?” “Heavens no,” Dan answered, then gave a little grunt as Bo ‘kicked’ him. better tell him now or he’s going to be pissed off when he finds out later “I did give him some general dating advice,” Dan admitted, “part of which was, to make the evening about your date instead of about yourself.” “That’s pretty generic,” Ken said, somewhat mollified. “I’m not giving away your secrets,” Dan reassured his friend, hoping his efforts at playing Cupid weren’t going horribly awry. “Trust me.”

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Dan walked into Sam’s a few minutes ahead of Bo, and sat in the chair that Sam had saved for him. He hadn’t thought that Bo’s father would be difficult to spot, and he was right. No one would have had trouble picking Rob Taylor out of a crowd, and not only because of the family resemblance. The morph exuded a sense of power and charisma that you couldn’t miss, and Dan immediately understood Bo’s hesitation to bring him bad news. Rob didn’t exactly look mean, but he didn’t look friendly, either. He doubted that Sandy was about to run over and give the man scritches behind his ears like she did with Bo. Dan reached for his beer, a dark brew that was so cold, tiny ice crystals floated lazily through it like an amber snow globe. He was on his third sip before he realized that he hadn’t asked for it. Yet again, Sam had come to his aid before Dan had even realized he needed it. He looked around for the gently smiling bartender, and saw him serving another patron at the other end of the bar, but looking in his direction. Dan hoisted his glass in gratitude. “Thanks.” “No problem, kid.” The gorilla morph stood there looking at him, polishing glassware that was already so clean it sparkled. His eyes appraised Dan, much like they had when they first met. “Those deductions you found for me paid for all the beer you can drink.” “That wasn’t anything,” Dan demurred, “anyone would have caught those.” Although he was aware of the barman’s gaze, the focus of Dan’s attention was the table in the middle of the room where Bo was pulling out a chair. “Don’t stare, kid.” “Huh?” Dan found his attention ripped from the two men and pulled back to Sam, who had quietly moved to a spot across from Dan. “If you stare at them long enough you’re gonna catch Rob’s attention, and right now, you probably don’t want to do that.” “Why’s that?” Dan asked, as he tried to follow the man’s advice by watching the interaction between Bo and his father in the mirror hanging over the bar. That plan came to an abrupt end when Sam stepped directly into his line of sight. “If you can see him, he can see you,” the bartender explained, quietly. “If the conversation between Bo and his daddy goes like I think it will, the last thing Rob’s going to want is an audience. He doesn’t have anything against sapiens,” he added, “but let’s not tempt fate.” A pair of raised voices drew his attention back to Bo’s table, and he winced as he heard some of the words that were spoken. They weren’t complimentary. “Rob’s got a thick skull,” Sam said, staying near Dan’s ear so he could keep his voice low, “but he’s a reasonable man. He’s probably going to…” He broke off, his voice tinged with bedraggled patience. “Stop staring, son. Pretending to tie your shoe won’t work.” When he had Dan’s attention again, he continued, “Rob will probably storm out of here, and take a few days to calm down.” The argument was beginning to escalate, and Dan thought it might come to blows. He wanted to get as close to the arguing men as possible in case Bo needed help, and thought maybe he could get nearer to their table by pretending to walk to the bathroom. He was starting to rise when, under the guise of reaching over from behind him to grab a bowl of pretzels, Sam pushed him back into his seat with one gentle but irresistible hand on his shoulder. How had the bartender gotten behind him? The half-smile Sam wore came as something of a surprise. “Don’t even think about making a fake trip to the shitter, Dan,” the man said, quietly. “That would only make things worse.” Sam shook his head wearily. “They’ve been doing this for years, and they’ve got it down to a science by now.” “How long have you known him?” Dan asked, after Sam had returned to his spot behind the bar. “Rob?” Sam dug around underneath the bar and fished out a fresh bowl of the spicy little snacks that were so hot that only Dan and a few other patrons ate them, and sprinkled in a few roasted peanuts for good measure. “Since I was about six, I guess.” He glanced over at their table, but didn’t allow his eyes to linger. “We weren’t exactly friends back then, though.” Sam squeezed out a rag wet with cleaning solution and started wiping down the beverage station. “Rob was older by a couple of years, and he used to push me down ‘cause he said I was funny-looking.” Dan scowled, feeling his hackles rise. “You were younger and he still picked on you?” Sam did the unthinkable and actually stopped moving. “You’re mad about that, aren’t you?” He shook his head back and forth slowly. “You’re actually mad at him.” Dan’s eyes were unrepentant. “You bet your ass I’m mad. What kind of jerk picks on a little kid?” Sam’s eyes glinted with mirth. “If you can find the nine-year-old cub who used to do that to me you can feel free to chew him out, but I don’t think he lives there anymore.” He stole a glance towards their table and winced as angry words lashed out. “He’s pulled my ass out of the fire a hundred times since then, kid.” Bo’s father ended their discussion when he levered himself out of his chair and made a beeline for the front door without looking back. A moment later Bo followed him outside, and Dan was about to join them when he was stopped again by a massive but gentle hand on his arm. Even though the touch was light, Dan could feel Sam’s rock crushing strength. “Let them have a minute to themselves, huh?” Dan knew that the bartender wouldn’t stop him if he were determined to interfere, but he trusted the man’s judgment and sat back down. Sam raised an appreciative eyebrow. “Good. You know how to listen to your elders. Maybe that’s something you can coach Bo on.” He smiled, but this time Dan was unable to return it. Concern for his mate was evident in Dan’s face, and Sam had no trouble reading him. “Give him some happy, kid.” Dan was momentarily confused, “Give him… what? What are you talking about?” “You two are linked,” Sam explained, quietly, “so send him some warm fuzzies.” Sam might as well have been talking Greek, and Dan felt his ears redden in embarrassment. Sam started over, a sympathetic look on his face. “Oh, come on, Dan. There’s no reason to be embarrassed. You weren’t raised in a varius home, so there are a lot of things you don’t know that we take for granted. Cassie,” He stopped a passing waitress, “Table three needs some pretzels.” He looked around to make sure there were no other sapiens within earshot before turning back to Dan. “There’s a lot of shit you can do with your link,” he said, quietly, “I’m not going to tell you all about the birds and the bees, but right now you need to know that it works both ways. The same way you can tell what Bo’s feeling, you can project your own feelings towards him. If he’s riled up, you can calm him down. If he’s sad, you can cheer him up, that sort of thing. Try it.” “I’ve tried that before,” Dan admitted, thinking back to their knock-down, drag-out fight after introducing Bo to his friends, “but it didn’t really work.” Dan concentrated and tried to project feelings of security and well being to his mate, but no matter how hard he tried, he didn’t feel the slightest difference. He felt a warm hand on his arm and opened his eyes. “You’re trying too hard, son,” Sam’s eyes were gentle. “Thoughts are easy to project, but emotions are delicate, and what you’re doing is like trying to move a pile of jelly where you want it to go by pushing it with a straw. The harder you push, the less you accomplish.” He leaned forward, so near to Dan’s cheek that the man felt his breath. The thought passed through Dan’s mind that before meeting Bo, being this close to a man who was shaped like a gorilla would have freaked him out. Now, though, he saw Sam as nothing more than just another person. “Relax your mind and think about something wonderful.” He nodded encouragingly, and Dan closed his eyes. He thought about Bo and he flying through the clouds together in their happy, tranquil state. “Now,” Sam said, his voice smooth and calm, “without opening your eyes, put a part of what you’re feeling on a big, white china plate. Tilt up your thoughts, and let that plate gently sliiiiide into Bo’s mind.” The sense of relief Dan felt when Bo got his…delivery? was almost enough to make him laugh out loud. In return he felt his own anxiety diminish, and he realized that almost all of the tension he had been feeling had belonged to his mate. By helping to calm Bo, he calmed himself as well. He opened his eyes and flashed Sam a quick smile of gratitude. Sam grinned. “That’s one of the best things about being linked. It gives you a handle on emotions that you couldn’t control before. You can make yourself feel better just by making someone else feel good.” “Thanks, Sam,” Dan said, sincerely, “I appreciate that. But Bo’s still feeling pretty bad. Do you think I can go to him now?” “Is Rob still out there?” Sam asked. Dan concentrated for a moment. “I don’t think so. Bo’s just pacing back and forth in the parking lot.” “Don’t let anyone tell you that what you and Bo have isn’t the real thing,” Sam said, dismissing Dan with a deceptively offhanded wave. “Now get outta here and make room for a paying customer.” Dan pulled his coat on and went outside to find Bo in the parking lot, leaning against the car. On the outside he looked cool and composed, but on the inside, Dan knew he was seething. Dan pulled the key fob out of his pocket and thumbed open the car doors. Without a word, he and Bo climbed into the cabin and strapped themselves in. After a few minutes in the air, Bo broke the silence. “I can’t believe he can be such an ass,” he said. What difference does it make who I love?” “It makes a big difference to me,” Dan said, reaching over and taking one of Bo’s hands in his own. Bo chuckled, “Well, that’s true, I guess. But seriously, he wasn’t very happy.” “Sam seems to think he’ll get over it in a few days,” Dan ventured. Bo sighed, frustrated. “I don’t know. He was pretty upset. It might take a while for this to blow over.” He picked at a bit of dirt stuck to the car’s dashboard. “What kills me most is how disappointed in me he seemed.” Bo sounded despondent. “I didn’t even bring up the subject of introducing you.” Dan nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think that would have been a great idea.” He thought a minute. “I know he wasn’t exactly thrilled, but it could have been a lot worse, you know? He’ll eventually come around when he realizes you haven’t really changed any. It just takes some folks longer than others.” Reaching over, he put a comforting hand on Bo’s thigh. “He still loves you as much as he ever did, Babe.” “Yeah, I’m sure he does.” Bo said, resting the side of his head against the cool glass of the car’s window as he watched the scenery speed by. “But how much was that, anyway?”

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Jackson showed up at Dan’s house at exactly eighteen on Saturday evening. Instead of ringing the announcer, however, he opened his comm and sent a written message to Dan. “Hey, buddy! What’s up?” The sapiens man sized up Jack, eyeing the bovine’s horns with appreciation. “Nice caps, dude! You just get them done?” “Yeah, thanks,” the bull said, nervously. “I’m here to pick up Ken. Oh, here,” he said, patting his pockets, “I almost forgot this.” From the breast pocket of his jacket, he retrieved an engraved business card with such care that Dan was certain he’d only brought one. He straightened his spine and presented the card to Dan. Dan looked closely at the card, which had only two words printed on it in an elegant script. Jackson Winters. He smiled encouragingly. “Your calling card?” “Yeah,” Jack said, looking skeptically at the small piece of white paper. “Is it okay?” Dan handled it carefully, as if this sweet man’s entire ego was wrapped up in the nine-by-five centimeter rectangle of cardstock. He nodded his head. “It’s perfect, Jack.” He reached up and slapped the bull on his mammoth shoulder. “You’re doing fine.” He turned to take the card to Ken, but on impulse, returned to the bull. “Chin up.” Reaching up, he loosened the big man’s tie just enough to smooth it under his collar, then cinched it back up again. “Don’t touch your collar,” he warned as he backed up, “you don’t want it to get wrinkly.” He walked slowly around Jack, gently patting his weak spots. “Shoulders back, but relaxed. Chest out, back straight. Remember how you stood when all those other lifters were around?” Jack shifted his weight, and Dan walked around front to look at him with a fresh eye. “Damn…” He didn’t look like the same man who’d walked through their front door two minutes earlier. This man was full of confidence and poise, ready to take on the world. “No matter what happens, Jack, keep your chin up and your back straight. You look…” Dan had to chuckle as he shook his head, amazed at how well the bull cleaned up. “You look awesome.” Dan gently tapped the card with his fingernails. “I’m going to let Ken know you’re here, Jack, and I’ll be right back.” As he was walking down the short hallway to Ken’s bedroom, Dan shot a quick thought to Bo. The response was fast in coming. do I have to indignant yes you have to now get out there and do it sullen okay Dan knocked on Ken’s door, and was not surprised to find that his friend was only half dressed. “At least you’re wearing your shoes,” he teased. “Come on, mom, can’t I have some privacy?” Ken whined loudly, in his best imitation of a thirteen-year-old girl. “I can get dressed by myself.” Dan looked pointedly at the bare spot in the room, the spot where a bed should be. “Where’s your bed, anyway?” “I broke it,” Ken said, sounding embarrassed. “Or rather, we broke it.” He turned to Dan. “Jackson’s kind of...heavy. I’m just tossing the old one and having a better one delivered here.” Dan’s attempt to smother his laughter was ineffective. “I hope the new one’s rated for mating elephants.” After he’d regained control, he gave Ken the card Jack had handed him. Ken sobered, looked at the card Dan handed him. “What’s this?” “It’s his calling card,” Dan said, watching as Ken’s ears swiveled around. “It might be three hundred years out of date, but it’s a nice touch, right?” Ken looked touched, and to Dan’s ears, he sounded almost sad. “He’s trying so hard, isn’t he?” Dan nodded. “He really is.” “How is he dressed?” “Business formal,” Dan replied, Brown tweed blazer, white shirt, khaki pants, red tie, brown shoes and belt.” He looked at Ken significantly. “All brand new.” Ken whistled. There was no such thing as a man of Jackson’s size buying anything off the rack. His shoes and the tie, maybe, but everything else had to be custom tailored. “How does he look?” Dan didn’t lie. “Stunning.” “Wow,” Ken said, looking pensive for a moment before pulling off his white undershirt and rooting around in his closet for another one. “What was wrong with that one?” Dan asked, looking puzzled. “Wrong color. I refuse to look like a pair of bookends. Aah, here.” He straightened, and pulled a bright yellow undershirt over his torso. “Better.” “Take your time,” Dan said, hand on the doorknob, “we’ll be in the living room, pumping up his confidence.” “Is he nervous?” Ken asked. Dan rolled his eyes. “Just be gentle with him, okay?” Bo was dutifully walking by the foyer in accordance with Dan’s wishes, fully prepared to carry out his little theater act. Dan wanted him to help pump up Jackson’s self-esteem by commenting, “My, you look stunning tonight, Mr. Winters,” or some other bullshit. What actually came out of his mouth when he saw Jackson standing there, looking one step removed from presidential, sounded far more authentic. “Goddamn, Jack, you really clean up nice!” “Hey, Bo,” Jack said, trying to make his voice sound as confident as his body looked. “Thanks.” Dan walked around the corner and was again amazed at how buff Jack looked in business attire. His clothing said success, his bearing relayed self-confidence, and all of his massive muscles pushed out in just the right places… !down boy! Bo thought, playfully. He looked at Jack and nodded his head towards the sapiens. “Dan thinks you’re hot.” !aargh! stop it stop it stop it Bo just laughed and led Jack to the living room “You’re not in training any more, so how about a beer?” “Sure,” Jack said, gratefully. “I could use one.” He looked at Dan and admitted. “You probably couldn’t tell, but I’m a little nervous.” “Oh, right,” Dan said, nodding his head as if seeing this for the first time. “You’re doing a good job of hiding it.” liar !hush! and bring the man his beer ?do you want one too? yes please and would you— “Hey! What the hell are you doing?” Dan looked over at Jack, confused by the bull’s outburst. “You two are bonded!” “Well, yeah,” Dan said, not understanding what Jack was getting at. “So what?” Jackson looked betrayed. “You said Bo and Ken wouldn’t know anything about what we talked about, but you’re bonded to Bo!” “Yeah,” Dan shrugged his shoulders in confusion, “So?” “So now he knows everything we talked about!” Jack hissed. “No,” Dan corrected, “he doesn’t.” “You can’t keep stuff like that from your mate!” the bull accused, “Now he knows everything!” “No,” Dan said again, patiently, “he doesn’t. I don’t know anything he doesn’t want me to know, and he doesn’t know anything I don’t want him to know.” He reminded himself that his and Bo’s partnership was anything but typical, and with his inferior maternal bond, even Bo didn’t know what was to be expected. Perhaps other bonded couples could hear everything their mates thought. “Maybe it’s because we’re hetero,” Dan suggested, “I don’t know, maybe that makes a difference, but after we learned to put up our shields, we don’t leak to one another like that.” Jackson sat back, mollified, but still looking a bit puzzled. “Really?” “Yeah, really,” Dan said. “What was it like between…” he caught himself. “Oh, sorry. That was rude. I shouldn’t have asked that.” He averted his eyes in embarrassment at his lack of propriety. Jackson looked at the sapiens man sitting in the chair next to him, so perplexed that he almost didn’t notice Bo coming back into the room and handing him a beer and a coaster. He’d just jumped down this man’s throat and practically accused him of lying, then of spreading secrets, and of God only knows what other evil things, yet Dan was still treating him like a respectable human being. He’d just apologized to him for almost saying something impolite, for fuck’s sake! Jack had to admit that when Bo had first started going out with Dan, he’d thought it was strange. He thought that with Bo’s ragged looks, maybe all he could get was this little pinky, and that Dan had to be some sort of perverted little weirdo for wanting to partner with someone as crusty as a battle-varius. But it seemed like every day he knew Dan, every day he learned about who the man was and what he believed, the more it seemed like Bo had really lucked out. Jack kept his voice as calm and composed as his face. “No, Dan, it’s okay. It’s my fault for assuming so many things, and I’m sorry.” He sighed. “You deserve an answer.” His fingers played with each other, nervously. “That’s the way the bond was between my mom and dad. She died when I was four, and it really ripped my dad up.” He stared down at the carpet, away from the discomfort caused by their sympathetic eyes. “For a long time, after my bedtime stories, my dad would tell me all about her, and about their bond. It sounded pretty wonderful, being able to know everything someone else thinks, but then he started going a little crazy. He said it was because he missed her so much, but…” Ken’s ears might not be as good as Bo’s, but he could hear Jackson nervously spilling his guts from the end of the hall. If anyone had ever needed someone to save them with a distracting entrance, it was Jackson. “Hey, Jack!” he said, coming around the corner. “I’m sorry I’m late. You look…” Now that Ken had rounded the corner and could get a good look at Jackson, it took a while for his brain to register what his eyes were seeing. When the image did finally work its way through, he had to look again to make sure what he saw was right. He nodded his head in appreciation. “You look awesome!” The smile that lit up Jack’s face was radiant. “You do, too!” It might not have been the most original response, but it was accurate. The brown linen slacks and deep-green, short-sleeved shirt that Ken had picked accentuated his fur handsomely, and he’d taken Dan’s advice not to trim his hair, giving him a short, tight mane that emphasized his athletic build, making him the perfect foil to Jackson’s brutish strength. Bo had never seen Ken dress up for a date before, and the fanciest thing he’d ever seen Jackson wear was a pair of track pants. He was more than a little surprised at how presentable the men standing in front of him were. He got the chance to speak first, because Dan was still trying to find the right words. “Uh… Dan’s right, guys. You two really do look hot.” Dan didn’t bother protesting his injured dignity. He simply gave the pair a palms-up shrug. “What can I say? He’s right.” And then Dan did what his mother used to do when he still lived at home; something he swore he’d never do if he ever had children. He pulled out his comm and made his friends pose for a holo. Dan made them repeat the exercise until Ken stopped scowling, then ushered the two out the door. “Have him back by midnight, Jack. He’s still has packing left to do.” “I will,” Jack promised, earnestly. “Mom!” Ken whined, loudly. “You’re ruining my life!” Dan couldn’t repress his smile. “I’m kidding, Jack. You two have fun.” As he closed the door behind them he crossed his fingers, hoping Ken was wrong about Jack’s chances. Ken thought that it felt odd to walk out to Jack’s truck with his arm on the bull’s, dressed for a first date when they’d already… Oh, he couldn’t even think about all the things they’d done in bed without giving himself wood, so he just settled for thinking that it felt peculiar. And was this well-groomed, mannered man by his side really the same powerlifting jock who couldn’t find Alaska on a map, and didn’t even own a toaster? He snuck a glance at Jackson out of the corner of his eye and had to admit to himself that the boy cleaned up spectacularly. Jack opened the passenger door for Ken, then felt awkwardly stuck. The information he got on the webs seemed to point to helping your sapiens date into the truck, but all the illustrations showed the dates in question as girls who wore dresses. Ken wasn’t wearing a dress and he’d gotten into the truck a hundred times before without needing assistance, so after standing there for a moment warring with his uncertainty, Jack settled for a step back and a bow, one arm raised to indicate the truck’s seat. Ken could not stop smiling. It didn’t matter that whichever Emily Post Jack had latched onto was seriously out of date, he was trying his best to be gallant, and Ken would be damned if he were going to say something negative about anything the man did. He was like a little boy taking his very first date to the freshman prom – so indecisive, so genuinely innocent and fresh – that Ken found it absolutely endearing. He still didn’t think this would go anywhere, but watching Jack go through all of the motions that he thought were correct was eye-opening. None of the sapiens men he’d dated had come to his house to pick him up. Well, Dan had, but that seemed different somehow. Perhaps taking the time to bury a dead dog that neither of them knew removed that particular incident to another arena entirely. None of them had taken anywhere near the time and effort that Jack had to make sure things were perfect. Keeping his emotional distance from Jackson was proving to be a challenge to Ken’s resolve. “I like the caps,” he said, hoping the bull would relax before he popped a blood vessel. “Thanks,” Jack raised a hand to finger one of them nervously, his other hand carefully on the wheel. “They were suh… sort of tough to put on the first time, but I think I have it down, now.” “I like how you got the fitted ones,” Ken said, reaching up to run a hand gently along the end of Jack’s right horn. “The ones that just stick on the end look sort of tacky, like you’re not really committed to it. Like getting clip-ons instead of a piercing.” Jackson’s horn was thick and warm under Ken’s paw pads, the lightly striated surface tickling as he ran his hand over them. He realized that he was only about one step shy of fondling the warm horn, and regretfully pulled his hand away. “Where’d you get them?” “Herd Logic, downtown. You ever been there?” “That place in the middle of all the speeder repair shops and tattoo parlors?” “Yeah.” Remembering his experience in the shop brought a smile to Jack’s face. “There were a bunch of kids running around in there, and they just about freaked out when they saw my horns.” Ken grinned. “Did they think they were extensions?” “Yeah,” Jack said, “they asked where I got them.” He looked over at Ken. God, the man was handsome! “For once in my life I’m fashionable, even if it was accidental. Oh,” he said, remembering, “I saw a shaver there, too!” “No kidding,” Ken said, fascinated. “In this weather? That’s pretty hardcore.” Not all varii enjoyed the amount of fur they were born with. Some few counter-cultural varii sculpted or shaved patterns into their hair, and a few even went so far as to shave it all off. Shavers might look out of place for a few months, but eventually hair grew back. Deps, on the other hand, took a more permanent track, killing the hair cells in carefully contrived patterns. If you had the right kind of fur and you were highly selective about the follicles you killed off, the pattern would show up when the hair was shaved short, yet be all but invisible after it grew out. “Yeah,” Jack chuckled, “he spent most of the time I was there shivering.” “He have any skin tats?” “Oh, yeah,” Jack said, “tons. Did you know they’ve got permanent dyes for black fur now, too?” “I’ve seen some guys in the club with those,” Ken thought of long evenings out, dancing the night away. That was something he was probably going to miss, once he partnered up again. None but the most sturdy of sapiens were safe on a dance floor full of wildly dancing varii. “Have you seen the bioluminescent ones that glow in the dark?” “No!” Jack said, disbelieving. “That’s wild.” He looked at Ken with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Maybe after dinner we can go and get tattoos.” Ken laughed at the thought. “Not on your life! My mother would kill me.” “You’re a big boy now,” Jack said, reaching over to trace a thick finger over Ken’s muscular shoulder. “I can see you with a tribal whorl right here, like you just came off the African plains, or something.” Ken fought not to shiver at Jack’s touch. “You’d better concentrate on your driving, bub. We’re almost there.” Jack’s gaze lingered for a moment on Ken’s face, but he said nothing as he turned back to his task. Ken knew that the bull saw the door to the restaurant, because he watched Jack’s great head turn and track it as they passed. The same thing happened the second time, but still Ken said nothing. When they drove by a third time, the very confused lion finally had to say something. “What’s up, Gongniu?” he joked. “Are we going in or are you just casing the joint?” Jack’s voice was exasperated. “Where the hell do you park?” Oh my, Ken thought to himself silently. He pointed out the valet stand, where a uniformed vulpine was getting into a luxury sedan that probably cost twice as much as Dan’s house. “On your next trip around, pull in right there. They park the car for you.” “Oh,” Jackson said, sounding unconvinced. “How are you supposed to find your car when you’re ready to go?” Ken had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing, covering his mirth with an improvised coughing fit. When he had recovered, he reminded himself that this was Jack’s first time in this setting, and it was his responsibility to introduce his date to the procedures. “You give him the keys, and he’ll give you a numbered ticket. When you come out, you give whoever is standing there the ticket, and they’ll bring the car back.” “Oh.” Jack felt silly. Of course they’d do something like that. A fancy restaurant at the top of a big building like this must have a thousand people eating there, he reasoned. No way could everyone just park on the street like he was used to doing. He turned the corner and saw that the fancy car was gone, leaving just enough room for him to squeeze his industrial-sized truck into the space. The valet barely looked up from his podium as the huge truck pulled under the canopy. “Service entrance is to the rear,” he barked, in a no-nonsense tone. The sound of emitters whining down to idle spurred him to action. Grumbling, he abandoned his book of puzzles and walked toward the work truck, hoping he wasn’t going to have to call the towing company. “You can’t park here,” he shook his head at the shadow of the driver’s head, concealed behind tinted glass. He could see the man’s head nodding as he conferred with his passenger. The man looked big, a rhino or possibly an elephant or a bull. God, he hoped the driver wasn’t a bull. They were the worst to deal with. They always thought they were right, even when they were dead wrong. Unfortunately, the man didn’t put the truck back into gear and lift off like he was supposed to. The thrusters remained at idle, and the door unlatched. The valet tried again, hoping the worker wasn’t going to be unreasonable. “This is parking for the Chandelle club. You’ve got to… Oh.” As soon as he recognized the lion getting out of the passenger side of the truck, the valet backpedaled furiously. He hadn’t realized that the bull driving the truck was a patron. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t recognize your…” he looked at the truck again, noticing for the first time that although it was old and a bit battered, it was immaculately clean. “…vehicle.” He cleared his throat and self-consciously smoothed his lapels, reasserting his professional demeanor. “Your keys, sir?” The bull examined the ring of keys in his hand for a moment, wondering whether he was expected to disconnect the truck key from the ring, or just give the man the whole thing. Ken noticed him staring as if he’d forgotten something, and he realized that the bull was stuck. “Can I borrow those for a moment, first?” he asked, gesturing to the keys. Jack handed them to him without a word, and Ken leaned back into the truck and fiddled with nothing for a moment. When he emerged, he handed the entire bundle of keys to the valet with no explanation, taking the implied blame for the delay on his own shoulders. “Sorry about that.” “No problem at all, Mister Katayama,” the valet said, waving the bundle of keys in front of the reader built into his podium. Frowning, he cleared the system and waved the keys a second time. “I’m sorry, Mr. Winters. Would your reservation be under another name?” He paused and looked up expectantly. An ice cold lance of fear raced through Jackson. “Reservation.” He turned slowly and looked at Ken, certain in his knowledge that he’d be facing a very angry feline. But Ken didn’t look angry at all, or even disappointed. Or even, Jack was surprised to see, mildly annoyed. To Jack’s astonishment, Ken looked almost shy as he stepped forward. “I’m sorry, James,” Ken explained, reading the name on the valet’s tag, “I realize this is very last-minute, but I was hoping that there might be some room to accommodate us.” He put on his most apologetic look, hopeful that in this instance at least, while talking to a vulpine, their both being varius might actually help. “I’ll see what I can do,” the valet said, doubtfully. “They’re pretty full tonight, but it’s still early.” He reached out, and Ken handed him his ID card. The fox waved it in front of the reader and handed it back, then picked up his comm. “Bridget?” he said, careful to enunciate, “Mister Katayama is visiting us, with…” he shot a quick glance at the well-dressed and even better-built bull who was he thought he remembered being a sports figure of some kind, but he could not for the life of him remember which team he played for, “…a person of some importance. Can we accommodate them tonight?” He glanced at the two, a pleased expression growing on his face. “That’s wonderful. Thank you.” Disconnecting, the valet pushed a few buttons, then handed Jack a slim rectangle of flexible plastic the size of a bankcard. “Your ticket, Mr. Winters. Please,” he said, indicating the entrance to the building, “enjoy your evening.” He shook hands with Mr. Katayama before the two left, and although he’d been glad to help, the ten-credit note the lion had discreetly passed to him did not go unappreciated. Looking at the battered truck, the vulpine shook his head in amusement. People living so far beneath their means always screamed “old money’ to him, and he wondered if, in a way, it was just another kind of pretension. When racing each other to the top ceased to entertain, some men raced each other to the bottom. Regardless of whether Mister Katayama’s companion was new money or old, the truck needed to go away. Clicking his claws, he summoned one of his minions. “Take it away,” he said, handing the young man the keys. “I’ve got just the spot for it,” the man said, eyeing the truck suspiciously and wondering if it would make even that short trip, “right behind the dumpster.” “No,” the valet corrected, “park this one somewhere safe.” His tone told the young man how much he wasn’t kidding. “But,” he conceded, quietly, “out of sight, if you please.” Jack held the door open for Ken, the warmth of the building washing over them welcomingly. He wasn’t thrilled to leave his truck in the hands of a complete stranger, but if Ken trusted them, he supposed he could, too. The ride up to the hundred-and-twentieth floor was a bit lengthy, but with one of his arms draped protectively over Ken’s shoulders, Jack didn’t mind at all. “Simon.” The female sapiens caught her best waiter as he passed. “Ma’am?” He hoped she’d be quick – he had bar drinks for three tables to deliver. She gestured to her monitor, which was pointed away from prying eyes. “Remember this guy?” “Sure,” not many lions made it into the Chandelle club. The one on her screen had been a semi-regular lately. He’d brought in a string of different men, and although Mr. Katayama wasn’t brazen about it, Simon had seen enough awkward dates in his life that he recognized what was going on at table thirty-eight. “Mister Lonely Hearts.” He grinned at the curious look his boss gave him. “He has plenty of first dates, but rarely a second one.” “Oh, God,” she said, horrified, looking around them self-consciously to make sure nobody overheard. “Is he that much of a prick?” Accommodating regulars was one thing, but she hoped she hadn’t just given one of her three coveted spare tables away to a difficult client. “No,” Simon said, hastily, “he’s never a problem, and he’s a good tipper, too. It’s the guys he’s with that can be…challenging,” he ended, diplomatically. “Well, he’s on his way up, and James says he’s got someone big with him.” New interest sparked behind Simon’s eyes. If the service was exemplary, ‘big’ people weren’t shy to leave big tips. But more than that, Simon enjoyed the feeling he got from providing top-tier service to the city’s most well-known and influential people. “You’re giving them to me?” Bridget nodded, pointing at the screen. “He usually sits with Stan at thirty-eight, but if the guy he’s with is someone big, I’d rather you take him.” She tapped the screen and deftly rearranged the seating charts. She moved the Sullivans away from table twenty-two to a three-top at the center of the room. “They’re crappy tippers, anyway,” she muttered. She touched Mister Katayama’s picture and dragged it over to table twenty-two. “Go prep the table for varii,” she told Simon, reading the notes left by previous servers. “Red wine list, leave the water, and a double bread basket with extra butter. No poppy seeds.” She ripped off the printout and handed it to her best server. “Got it. Slow the elevator down, if you can.” Simon didn’t waste time chatting past that point. He knew he only had about two minutes to replace the chairs with heavy-duty ones, replace the silverware setups and meet his guests at the door. “Mister Lonely Hearts, huh?” Bridget smirked, typing her own notes into his file. “Let’s see if the best seat in the house can’t get you that second date…” The elevator doors slid open without a sound, revealing the Chandelle club’s red-velvet-lined waiting area, where he never spent much time, and a mature sapiens waiter whom Ken did not recognize. Ken wasn’t surprised to have someone new. He had built a rapport with Stan, but hadn’t expected to be seated with his regular waiter on such short notice. “Good evening, Mister Winters, Mister Katayama,” the waiter said, pleasantly. “My name is Simon. I’m afraid Stan’s unavailable, so I’ll be serving you. This way, please?” Jackson was boiling with curiosity, as he quietly leaned down and whispered into Ken’s ear. “How does he know my name?” “The valet sent our information up,” Ken answered, nonchalantly. “This place really has it down.” Ken settled into his comfortably padded chair, but saw that Jack was just sitting on the edge of his. “What’s wrong?” “I think someone’s already sitting here,” Jack hissed, pointing nervously at the basket and drinks that had been sitting on the table when they arrived. Ken smiled. “It’s okay, Gongniu, it’s there for us. They keep all your information on file, so the next time you come in, they know how you like things.” He put the bread basket between them without opening the linen cloth. “This is going to have a loaf of wheat bread, a sourdough roll with sesame seeds, two crescent rolls, and an extra scoop of butter.” He passed it over to Jack, who cautiously peeled back the fabric, as if the basket might contain high explosives instead of baked goods. Sure enough, the contents were exactly as described. “Son-of-a-gun,” he muttered, finally settling back into his chair. Even for his overly large frame it was a perfect fit, and he found a grin stealing across his face. He wiggled his rump back and forth a few times, enjoying the thick cushioning. “This is nice.” “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Ken assured, as Simon came back with menus for them. “Herbivore selections are on the left side, carnivores are on the right,” the sapiens explained to Jackson as he handed Ken an abbreviated wine list that had been tuned to his preferences, “appetizers and desserts are on the back.” With a polite nod of his head, he left them to make their selections. Jack looked at the front of the short menu, then flipped it to the rear. “There’s not a lot of stuff on here,” he noticed, sounding a bit disappointed. “I thought a fancy place like this would have more choices.” Ken smiled at him. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but since they make everything fresh, they have to keep the choices limited.” He smirked, knowingly. “But I promise you, any one of those for choices will have you daydreaming about it for months.” He gave the vegetarian options a quick glance. “I’ve never had any of these, but if you really don’t want anything on the menu, they’ll do their best to make whatever you’d like.” “Okay,” Jack said, hesitantly. He didn’t want to be a bother by asking for something special, but he didn’t know what most of these things were. And those he did recognize were soberingly expensive. “What’s a terrine?” “Think of a cold meatloaf.” Ken said, but that didn’t sound very appetizing, even to his own ears. “It tastes a lot better than it sounds.” “Hmmm,” Jackson said, “maybe not.” He returned to his menu. “Is there fish?” “Ooohhhh,” Ken sighed. “That’s a great question.” He leaned sideways slightly and asked Simon, who had appeared there as if by magic. “It’s hard to get really good fish this time of year so he won’t put it on the menu,” their server explained, “but if the chef can find a good fish he’ll buy it, and it goes to the first person who asks.” “Did he get one today?” Ken asked, almost pleadingly. Simon lowered his voice conspiratorially and looked around them carefully, as if he were divulging state secrets. “It’s a salmon, Mr. Katayama. Looks like he’s got enough for the two of you. If you want it, that is.” That last was said teasingly, for he’d seen the way the lion’s tail was flicking back and forth in eager anticipation. “What makes this so special?” Jack asked, wondering at Ken’s response. “It’s just fish.” “Just fish?” both men said simultaneously, looking at Jack as if he’d just escaped from the loony bin. “Just fish?” Ken chuckled, shaking his head, and looked up at Simon for help. “Would you like to explain it to my friend?” Simon shared Ken’s expression. “I was lucky enough to have the salmon before, and it isn’t just any old fish,” he explained. “It was caught and cleaned early this morning, and it’s spent the last six hours marinating in the finest rice wine, soy, and herbs. Chef fire-grills it on a cedar plank, and serves it with three sauces on the side. In fact,” he folded his arms over his chest, confidently, “if it’s not the best fish you’ve ever eaten, I’ll buy your dinner.” Jack snapped his menu shut and shrugged his shoulders. “Done.” Anything that made Ken happy made him happy, and judging by the way his kitty’s eyes had glazed over, this was definitely going to make Ken happy. Simon gathered the menus, refilled their glasses and started back to the kitchen. James had been wrong about Mister Katayama’s companion. The man might carry himself with a great deal of self-confidence, and he was certainly easy to look at, but Simon had worked tables long enough to know that the big bull was seriously out of his element in a place like this. He could spot first-time jitters from a kilometer away. He chuckled to himself. “Just fish.” He gave each table under his care a quick once-over and, finding them all adequately supplied, headed into the kitchen to beg his case. Pushing his way through the kitchen’s double doors, he did what few servers dared by bypassing the expediter and entering Chef’s domain. In his earlier days he once had a cleaver thrown at him for displaying such cheek, but Chef eventually recognized that Simon always approached his staff as a supplicant rather than a patron, and as a result of their cooperation Simon’s tables almost never insulted the cooking staff by returning Chef’s food. It was a good relationship. Simon stood respectfully in front of the sous-chef, a large man with hairy, knotted forearms and just enough of a French accent to intimidate those without one. His name was Savoy, and he bit back a sneer. Just because the servant standing before him was tolerated in the kitchen did not make him welcome. “What.” “Table twenty-two has been loyal to us,” Simon said, without preamble. “He and his companion would properly appreciate the salmon. But…” he paused for a moment, looking uncertain, “his companion is rather…large…” at that point he sighed and threw tact out the window. He didn’t have time for this. “Oh, hell. He’s a bull, and he’s huge.” Simon dared to look the sous-chef in the eye. “He’s new to fine dining, and I don’t want the cost and the portions to scare him away.” He looked pleadingly at the chef, all pride thrown out the window. “Can you help?” Savoy merely grunted as he pushed back from his station. He walked into the cooler, and returned with a large pressure vessel full of marinating fish. Unsealing it, he pulled out a beautiful slab of salmon that must have weighed at least two kilos and slapped it on the clean counter, spattering the dark, fragrant marinade in every direction. “Look.” Thankful for the stain-hiding properties of dark uniforms, Simon ignored the droplets of liquid on his shirt and dutifully looked at the fish. He immediately saw that it was prime, as nice as any he’d seen in the restaurant. Savoy turned the fillet over in his hands, expertly weighing it without ever having to resort to using a scale. “This is almost two kilos of the best salmon the world has to offer. Market value,” he appraised it carefully, “eighty-five, maybe ninety credits.” “I think it’s their first date,” Simon added, hopefully. Savoy sighed disgustedly and pulled a filleting knife from his drawer. Simon flinched in case it was to be thrown at him. He relaxed when Savoy used the knife’s tip to trace fine lines on the surface of the fish as he explained, as if to a child. “In the case of varii, our reimbursement is determined by weight, not by portion. If I portion this for a vulpine instead of an elephas, we can get eight servings out of it instead of two. Although we would be reimbursed the same for the cost of the protein, we sell four times more appetizers, sides and wine, and your servers would earn more in tips.” His voice was derogatory. “And you think that your friends out there deserve to have the majority of this slab of fine fish all to themselves, just because it is their first date?” The question dripped contempt. Simon looked down, as if embarrassed at having asked. “Whatever you decide is right, Chef Savoy,” he said, giving the sous-chef an honorary raise in rank while he was at it. Savoy grumbled under his breath and sliced off a larger portion than expected. “This is the size of portion your elephant will require.” “He’s a bull,” Simon corrected, meekly. “How do you expect me to un-cut meat?” Savoy asked, petulantly. The fillet knife clattered against the cutting surface, apparently carelessly, but always handle-first. “Just give them the whole thing, then.” “Thank you, Chef Savoy,” Simon said, almost reverently, backing out of the kitchen. A date, Savoy thought to himself, as he washed his hands. Curse my romantic heart. He dried his hands, grateful that at least this request wasn’t coming from the asshole on thirty-eight who wanted all the onions picked out of his sauce. “May we please have more bread?” Ken asked, “Double croissants, and I think my companion would appreciate the pumpernickel.” As he made the request, Ken saw out of the corner of his eye that Jack’s ears were drooping a bit. Not that they ever stood straight up, but they were adopting a decidedly dejected attitude. “What’s wrong?” he asked, after Simon had retreated. Jack perked up his ears and put his happy face back on. “Not a thing. I’m just happy to be here!” He turned and looked out the window, admiring the way the clouds caught the light of the late autumn sunset. “It’s beautiful from up here, isn’t it?” Ken thought he caught the whiff of distraction, but he let it pass. “Sure is. The world’s a different place, from a quarter-kilometer up.” Simon brought their bread, and Jack took advantage of the distraction to ask about the bathrooms. The waiter led him to the lavatory, which was unexpected, but when Jack peeked out the door a few seconds later the man was nowhere to be seen, so Jack relaxed. At least he didn’t have to rush to finish so Simon could get back to work. Jackson unfastened the unfamiliar buttons and hooks of the dress slacks and hauled out his junk, feeling like a fish out of water performing even this, the most common of bodily functions. This was going to bottom out his bank account, he was certain of it. They were all going to look at him like he was some sort of deadbeat when the charge came back ‘declined,’ and Ken was going to have to bail him out. He leaned forward until his forehead touched cool ceramic tile, resting for a moment before going back and playing happy. He loved Ken, but this fancy eating shit was stressing him out, big time. The bread alone was so good that it was probably going to cost him ten credits for each basket. Shaking off, he thought it odd how new clothes always felt strange until you got used to them, and then you hardly noticed them. He was washing his hands when the feeling came over him again that something seemed odd. He checked the mirror and saw nothing amiss. He hadn’t touched his tie since Dan had adjusted it, so it still looked good. He double-checked his zipper and saw that it was all the way up. Had he missed a belt loop? He was feeling around his waistline when his elbow hit that odd feeling in his jacket again. Patting his pockets, he found something that didn’t belong there: an envelope. It was smaller than he was used to seeing, but it had his name across it in the angular handwriting he recognized as Dan’s from seeing it on the clipboard at the gym almost every day. Reaching into his pocket, Jack pulled out a stylus and used it to pull up the flap sealing the envelope. It was barely tacked down, so at least he didn’t have to rip it open. He unfolded the small sheet of paper carefully. Jack, I missed Kensuke’s birthday last time around, and the best gift I can think of to give him is the gift of your company. Would you please do me the favor of taking him out to eat? This probably won’t pay for the complete bill, but maybe it will pay for his part of the meal, and maybe some frozen custard afterwards. He really likes vanilla. Remember to ask questions!! Dan p.s. Please don’t mention this to Bo or Ken. I want it to be a surprise. In the envelope was a small bundle of twenty credit notes. Jack felt as if he should have been affronted, but the way Dan phrased his request didn’t leave much room for that. Allowing Dan to pay for Ken’s meal was a favor to Dan, after all. Jack was helping Dan by getting him out of a jam. Jack happily stuffed the notes into his wallet and marveled at his good fortune. Uncle Tony had been right. Just stay calm, and things will work themselves out. When Jack returned to their table, Ken was relieved to see that whatever had been bothering his date had evaporated. Maybe the bull had just had a full bladder? “Feeling better?” “Oh, yeah,” Jackson said, sounding enormously relieved. He reached for his napkin, but hesitated when he saw that it had been re-folded and put back on his plate. He thought he remembered taking the napkin out of his lap on the way to the bathroom, but… Ken laughed. “You’re not going crazy, Gongniu. Every time you leave the table, they sneak up behind you and replace it with a new one.” The bull smiled at Ken, loving how the lion could read him so well, and educate him without making him feel stupid. “So, Mr. Katayama,” Jack said, snapping open the fresh, clean, new napkin and placing it in his lap. “Tell me about yourself.” The two talked contentedly until the food arrived. Jack’s anxiety occasionally rose to the forefront, but reaching into his jacket pocket and touching the bills that Dan had given him soothed his nerves. He knew he had enough to cover this, and maybe even have some left over to share a frozen custard, if Ken wanted. Jack had to force himself to smile when the platter of fish was placed in front of them. It wasn’t fried, like he’d hoped, but broiled. The only way he’d ever eaten salmon before was in little fried patties, and this wasn’t anything like what he was expecting. About two seconds after he put the first forkful of salmon into his mouth, however, Jack stopped pretending to enjoy himself. The façade was blown away, and he threw himself into the culinary experience with the fervor of a religious convert. Ken had been absolutely right. Jack had to fight the urge to pull out his comm right now and call everyone he knew, to tell them how wonderful this tasted. He smiled when he heard the distinctive rumbling sound of his kitty softly purring. This, Jack thought, must be what heaven is like. Chapter 40a “They have the nicest people there, Dan,” Ken said, shaking his head in wonder. “I’ve eaten at some pretty nice places in my life, but they really take the cake.” “Really?” Dan said, intrigued. “I’ve never been there. Bring me up to speed.” “First off, they didn’t say a word about it, but I know they cut us one hell of a deal on that meal. The fish alone should have been a hundred credits.” Dan’s jaw dropped. “Are you out of your mind? A hundred credits for a fish?” “But you should have tasted it,” Ken crooned. Then his eyes got wide as a thought hit him. “Wait a minute, I’ve got some left over!” He practically jumped out of his chair and ran for the cooler. “This fish is. The. Bomb,” he emphasized. “What is it with you and archaic language?” Dan said, amused. “Last week, everything was ‘groovy.’” “It’s fun to mix things up,” Ken said, pulling the box out of the warmer. “Here,” he said, grabbing a pair of chopsticks out of the holder and using them to pull off a bite-sized hunk of the salmon. “Open up, baby bird.” “That’s disgusting.” Dan leaned forward and dutifully opened up, allowing Ken to put a bit of Nirvana in his mouth. The sapiens man’s eyes got wide as the flavor, faithful to Ken’s arcane figure of speech, exploded in his mouth. “My God,” he said, not wanting to swallow. “I want to rub that all over my body.” “I know, right?” Ken sounded delighted, his tail twitching back and forth beneath him with unrestrained happiness. “There’s at least a full meal’s worth, there,” Dan observed, peeking into the container. “Did Jack not like his?” “This isn’t even half of my portion,” Ken told him. “And then, they brought us dessert, too. On the house.” “Who do you know to get deals like that?” Dan asked, disgusted. “I think I got half off of a salad once, and that was only after I found a razor blade in it.” “I think they took the remnants of every dessert they had in the place, and brought them to us as a tasting platter. It didn’t end up being all that big,” he thought back, fondly, “but it didn’t have to be. We were stuffed by that point anyway.” He sighed and pinched a bit of salmon off for himself, popping it into his mouth as he talked. “I think they just wanted to do something nice for us.” “So what did Jack think?” Dan asked, taking the container out of Ken’s hands with a warning. “If you eat something this rich for breakfast, you’ll be farting all day long.” He took a marker out of the drawer and wrote KEN on the container, in big, capital letters. “Hopefully that’ll keep Mister Crabby-Pants out of it.” Rethinking the food-security issue, he opened the drawer back up and pulled out a stapler, sealing the lid shut so his mate couldn’t snack out of it without Ken’s permission. “He wasn’t too sure of it at first,” Ken said, grinning, “but by the end of the evening, he sure warmed up to it.” He chuckled, remembering Jack’s reaction. “I thought he was going to blow a gasket when they started taking away the leftovers to box them up for us.” “What, he got mad?” Dan asked. This seemed odd, knowing what he did of the bull. “Oh, no,” Ken was quick to correct the misperception. “That’s the funny thing. He looked…” Ken played with his coffee for a moment, searching for the right word, “anxious?” Dan searched Ken’s face for signs that he might be joking, but found none. “Like he was scared?” “Sort of,” Ken mused. “He looked like they were taking away his last meal. And I knew for a fact that he was as stuffed as I was. After all the bread he put away before the real food got there, he had to be.” He shook his head and pulled a ball chain out of its holder in the middle of the table. “Jack’s the biggest bundle of contradictions I’ve ever seen, Dan. He’s one of the strongest men in the world, but he refuses to squash a bug. He eats like a horse but doesn’t cook, he’s fucked a million girls but he wants to bottom for me. He’s not smart, at least, not in the way I’m used to seeing it, but he’s adaptable like crazy.” The lion shook his head. “Can’t quite figure him out.”

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Rob headed straight for his favorite bar stool, two from the end of the polished mahogany slab. The fact that it was currently occupied mattered little to him. A few well-placed glares made the current occupant evacuate it with haste, and he slid into the red vinyl bucket as if he owned it. Without looking at him, Sam filled an ice-cold pilsner glass with dark-brown ale and sent the glass sliding towards him with the accuracy of a champion shuffleboard player. Rob had only to put his furry paw out in the correct spot, and the glass slid comfortably into it like the practiced embrace of an old lover. “You okay?” Sam called down to him from where he standing at the middle of the bar. It was a generic greeting, one which could mean anything the recipient chose it to mean. “Yeah, yeah,” Bo’s father grumbled, sucking what little foam there was off the top of his beer. His words came slowly, as if he thought carefully about each and every one before letting it out of his mouth. It was an illusion, Sam knew. Rob Taylor thought no more about the words that came out of his body than he thought about the air that went in; his odd speech patterns were among the man’s many unusual aspects. “I’m getting used to it.” The bar was nearly empty and they had at least a half an hour before the lunch crowd started to trickle in, so he didn’t feel so awkward talking about his son’s deviation. Sam stood polishing the bar while Rob Taylor poured his heart out in the only way he knew how. Bitterness flowed from him in a wash, and through it all, Sam listened patiently. People often ascribed psi tendencies to the big bartender because he appeared to be so perceptive, but he scoffed at the notion. If people would just pay more attention to what was going on around them, to what was being said, they would find that they too had acquired his ‘gift.’ Rob spoke of his son’s sexual preference like it were some sort of bizarre tropical disease. “What did I do? Or was it something Lorena did while I was away? Her folks were good, god-fearing people so he couldn’t have picked it up out there. Could he?” This is getting out of hand, Sam thought. Soon Rob would be blaming his son’s orientation on the liberal media, fluoridated water, and wearing briefs instead of boxers. “Rob.” The other man kept up his tirade, oblivious to his friend. “Rob!” Sam hadn’t raised his voice, but his intensity penetrated Rob’s foggy mind and he looked into the other morph’s face. Now that he had his friend’s attention, Sam was direct. “Did you love Bo before he told you?” Rob saw immediately where Sam was headed with this line of questioning and he cut it off with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Shit, Sam, I still love the little bastard, I just can’t believe he’s queer. How would you feel if one of your sons told you that he was a fruit? Huh? How would you feel?” Sam stopped polishing the glass he held and set it carefully on top of the bar. Moving deliberately, he leaned over and put his big hands on the bar top, leaning on them heavily and bringing his head closer to Rob. “Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking I don’t love Bo as much as either of my own sons.” His voice was strong and sharp, but remained private. “When you’re not here,” which is most of the time, he added to himself, “he is one of my own sons.” Seeing in Rob’s eyes that the warning had been received and understood, Sam backed up and resumed his normal, friendly demeanor. “Do you wanna know what I think?” he asked. Rob’s voice was resigned. “Would it stop you if I said no?” “Probably not,” Sam shrugged. “This is new territory for you, buddy. You know how to act when your son finds a girlfriend, but you have no idea what to do when the new girl in his life is a guy.” He leaned in closer, voice lowered to ensure their privacy. “Look, Rob, you couldn’t share a parental bond with your son, and I think you were hoping you could relate to him on this sort of thing, at least. Now that you know you can’t, it’s messing up your head. Your cage has been severely rattled, my friend.” Rob stared at his empty beer glass for a long moment. “Am I supposed to act like I’m happy?” “No,” Sam sighed. Rob could be astoundingly obtuse when he wanted to be. “You’re not supposed to act, you’re supposed to be yourself. And you’re not supposed to punish your son for something he can’t change. That’s dirty pool, and you’ll regret it if you do.” He filled a glass with a mixture of fruit juices and put it in front of Bo’s father. Rob took a sip, and made a face when he realized it was non-alcoholic. “So I guess I have to get used to the idea before he brings his first pansy of a boyfriend over.” “You know, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.” Sam said, “I think you’re going to like the guy he chose.” He smiled, shaking his head slowly back and forth as he thought of Dan. “I like him, and he sure as hell ain’t a pansy.” Rob sputtered, blatantly ignoring the praise for Dan. “You knew? You knew Bo was gay and you didn’t tell me?” He was quickly working up a rage, and Sam was not looking forward to the consequences if Rob reached full boil. “Settle down, Rob. I didn’t know myself until a few months ago, and you were off-planet anyway.” Sam spoke in a calm voice, trying to dial down the situation before it got out of hand. “Hell, up until then I was trying to get him hooked up with Betsy. Not to mention the fact that it wasn’t my place to tell you. Bo’s a grown man, and he has the right to tell you himself.” “You could have given me a hint, or something,” Rob grumbled. He knew Sam was right, but admitting that he was wrong wasn’t something he did well. At least, he thought, this wasn’t something that the rest of the world had known for months while he was left in the dark. He still felt a bit foolish for not knowing sooner what Bo had only told him two days ago. What sort of parent was he that something like this could get by him? Asking that question was pointless, because he wasn’t a parent. He’d never been a parent. His only significant contribution to parenting Bo had been to donate sperm, a realization which slammed home with unexpected force. Now that it was out in the open, it became clear to him that he’d always been more concerned with his career and his own life, and had only been around for Bo when it had been convenient to do so. Refusing to bond with Lorena, or even to marry her, had been just another in a long line of spontaneously petulant acts on his part. She’d forced the issue of bonding and he’d rebelled, never once considering how his decision might affect his son. And even though he’d been a selfish, platinum-plated bastard about the whole thing, Bo still stubbornly refused to deny him as a father figure. Fuck him, Sam was right. He had never felt like he’d known his own son, and if he kept acting like such an asshole, Bo would probably realize that he didn’t owe Rob Taylor anything more than a passing nod for the donation of a couple of ounces of semen at an opportune moment. Bo didn’t have to be so nice to him, and now that this other guy had come along, maybe he would stop trying. Was that the real reason he hated the thought that Bo was gay? That another guy could just waltz up and take his place in Bo’s life? For one of the few times in his adult life, Rob Taylor felt regret for his choices. If he’d only been a better father to Bo, maybe this would never have happened. Maybe Bo could have had a normal life. Maybe he’d be bouncing a grandbaby on his knee right now, instead of sucking down fruit juice and beer at oh-ten-thirty in his best friend’s bar. Sam stopped washing glasses, dried his hands on the little white towel that was always hanging from his belt loop, and leaned onto the bar. “Rob, you’ve got that look in your eyes. Tell me you’re not thinking you could have changed any of this.” Rob’s silence told Sam more than what words would have, and the bartender sighed quietly. “Let me know when you find life’s rewind button, because I haven’t found it yet. You did what you did, and there’s no going back. You can’t change yesterday, but you do have the choice of what you do from now on. Yesterday is over and you can’t touch it, but tomorrow…” Sam sighed quietly and shook his head. “Look, Rob, even if there are a few things about him you’d change, Bo turned into a great man. Be proud of who he became, even if you don’t think you were the best dad in the world.” “You think this guy he’s with’s an okay kid?” Were it anyone else Sam might have been frustrated by these abrupt changes in conversation, but he was used to them with Rob. He cocked his head to one side and looked at his friend for a moment before answering. “Yeah,” he said slowly, “Yeah, I do. Bo probably didn’t tell you, but a couple of months ago, this guy probably saved his life by knocking in the skull of some asshole who jumped them.” Rob sighed, rubbing his eyes with his hands. “What’s his name, anyway?” “Dan,” Sam said, pleased that his friend had asked. Mental flexibility wasn’t Rob Taylor’s strong suit, and that he would take even this small step towards a better understanding of his son was encouraging. “Dan…” Rob spent a few moments rolling the name around in his mouth, trying to remember why it sounded familiar. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Extracting his credit chip, he snapped it down on the table. “Ten creds says he was the guy you were talking to Friday night, the fella with the brown hair that kept staring at us.” “No bet,” Sam said, wondering which direction Rob was going to go with this. Flip a coin. Heads, it’s good. Tails, it’s bad. The coin came up heads, and Bo’s father chuckled. “No wonder I kept getting the vibe that he wanted to rip my arms off.” Sam nodded his head. “Yeah, that would be him. And if he thought you were going to hurt Bo, the fact that you outweigh him two-to-one wouldn’t have stopped him from trying.” Rob took another sip of his juice, this time without the nasty expression. “He seems okay, I guess. You like him, huh?” Sam didn’t have to think about it this time. “Yup,” he nodded. “Why?” Rob asked simply, looking as honestly perplexed as Sam had ever seen him. He took his time answering, thankful for his friend’s patience. The two had known each other long enough that long pauses in conversation no longer seemed awkward, and Rob didn’t push. Sam filled several orders and came back to his old friend, speaking as if no interruption had occurred. “Dan’s good folks, Rob. He’s emotionally mature, he’s stable, and this isn’t his first walk around the block.” “This is a good thing?” Rob asked with one eyebrow raised. “Pinkies fall in love like they change their underwear.” Sam stopped polishing the glass in his hand and considered. “I wouldn’t usually think so, but I’ve been asking around, and from what I hear, Dan’s not a slut. He finds one other person, and he’s loyal to them as long as they’re together.” “Ooh, you know so much?” Rob said, feigning surprise. He knew that Sam’s arm of information was lengthy, and he would never seriously think to question his knowledge. “I have my sources,” Sam said with a look of satisfaction. “The last guy he dated was a bit of a flake, though,” his face clouded. “Nobody could figure out why Dan was with him. He was out of character.” He shrugged. “Everyone else he’s ever dated has been pretty stable, and they’ve gone on to other long-term relationships.” “So what makes Bo any different?” His father asked, “What if Bo isn’t what he’s looking for either?” Sam shrugged. “What if Dan isn’t what Bo’s looking for? How can I answer that? Sure, either of them could decide it ain’t working for them and go their separate ways.” Shrewdly, Sam chose not to tell Rob that the two men had already bonded. “From what I hear, Dan’s been waiting for the right guy to come along. I think he’s pretty picky, but when he partners up he gives the other guy every possible chance to be the right one.” Sam busied himself straightening the rows of bottles on the wall behind the bar as he talked. “He’s definitely looking for the right man, and he’s not going to settle for less. And you know,” he said, as he pulled on the tap and poured a beer for a patron, “I think he’s found what he’s been looking for.” “Great for him,” Rob said, “but what about Bo? This is all new to him.” Sam jabbed a sausage-thick finger in his friend’s direction to emphasize his point. “That’s why I think it’s a good thing Dan’s been around the block a time or two. But he’s not a tramp,” he reiterated, “and he sure as hell ain’t stupid. This way, Bo doesn’t have to do this all by himself. He’s got a friend with him to show him the way. Dan’s been through it, and knows the mistakes. Bo won’t have to make them all, as long as he’s got someone like Dan around.” “Look,” Sam said, wanting to wrap the conversation up, “In the end, it doesn’t matter whether Bo’s with a man or a woman. Love is all the same. Just like you wouldn’t ask Bo about his sexual technique with a woman, don’t feel like you have to ask about what he does with another guy. Just be happy for him.” Sam picked up another glass from the seemingly endless supply and began drying it. “Just talk to him about everyday guy stuff like you always have, and treat Dan like a good friend of the family, which,” he leaned over the bar a few millimeters for emphasis, “he is.” He leaned a bit further, and the look in his eyes carried no small amount of warning. “He’s got my respect, so you treat him good.” Chapter 40b Ken almost overlooked the small package on Dan’s front doorstep. He would have missed it, had a blowing bit of flotsam not drawn his attention downwards. He picked up the parcel without a second thought and used his other hand to punch the unlock code for Dan’s house into his comm. He placed the package on the foyer’s small table, next to the ceramic key-bowl where Dan was sure to see it. He’d walked halfway to the kitchen by the time his curiosity overcame him, compelling him to see who sent the package. You never know, he rationalized to himself, Dan might want to know who it’s from. A more careful inspection revealed no pre-printed label. The name that had been neatly hand-written onto the paper wasn’t Dan’s or Bo’s. It was his, and now he was intrigued. The package had been wrapped with meticulous care. Whoever left this had found what looked like real twine to wrap around the brown paper covering, and it took only a single tug at the loose end of the string to free the contents of its bondage. After removing the paper, Ken found himself holding a small, elegantly finished wooden box that was tied shut with a red silk ribbon. A small card fluttered to the floor, and when he picked it up and read it, his heart lurched. “Artisan Sweets for my gourmand Kitty” Ken had been on a prodigious number of dates in the past few months, and many of those dates had involved fine dining. Still, there was no doubt in his mind who had sent the chocolates. Or were they chocolates? he wondered. He hadn’t yet looked. It could be something else. Gently pulling loose the ribbon, Ken opened the lid of the box and stared dumbly at what was revealed. Mice. It was a box of assorted chocolate mice in all shades of brown, from the deep, almost black, cocoa-color of 92% Peruvian dark chocolate, to the almost milk-color of white chocolate, and every shade in-between. Each one had a tiny little chocolate ball for a nose, and each had a slender tail made of red silk cord. Ken had heard of these, but he’d never been fortunate enough to eat one. They were too expensive to buy on a whim, and nobody had considered that they might be the perfect romance gift for a feline varius with a sweet tooth, who devoutly adored chocolate in whatever shade it came in. And they were from Jackson. Slowly, Ken pushed the bamboo lid back into place. He even went so far as to re-tie the ribbon, putting the gift back in its original, pristine condition before walking into his room and placing it on his drafting table with care people normally reserved for things that might explode without warning. It was a perfectly lovely gift from a sweet man whom he liked very much. So why, Ken wondered, could he not bring himself to eat one?

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“Ken!” Dan’s raised voice finally caught the lion’s attention. “Huh?” Ken asked, stupidly. “Dinner’s ready,” Dan said, in a tone suggesting that this was not the first time this information had been imparted. “You coming out of the cat-cave to eat it?” “Yeah,” Ken said, distractedly. Dan turned and walked off, leaving Ken to wonder how long he’d been sitting there, staring at that damned box. He picked it up as he walked past his desk, goaded into a decision by Dan’s presence. Pulling open his underwear drawer, he put the box at the very back, where he wouldn’t see it unless he wanted to.

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Dan tossed his gym bag under the wooden bench at the back of the gym and pulled a single 50-kilo weight onto each end of the deadlift bar. He wasn’t fond of flying solo in the gym, but Bo was busy at a gathering of his speeder club buddies, Ken was away at a conference on cybernetic prosthetics, and Dan was tired of sitting at home, bored. “Be sure to put collars on that.” Dan had thought he was the only person in the back of the gym, and the unexpected voice made him jump. His alarm was unfounded – it was only Jackson. “I always use collars,” Dan said, defensively. “Why would you think I wouldn’t tonight?” “I’m just saying.” The bull held his hands up in supplication and went back to pacing around the gym. Dan was concentrating on his second set of lifts when the bull meandered around again. “You should stay hydrated,” he called out. “Want me to bring you some water?” Startled, Dan almost dropped the weights he’d been lifting. “Jesus, Jack,” he complained, “how can a varius who’s supposed to have hooves walk so damned quietly?” “I don’t have hooves,” Jack said, sitting down. Oblivious to Dan’s exasperated look, he pulled off one of his shoes and showed him. “See? I’ve got regular feet like everyone else’s.” “Jack,” Dan sighed, “Please. I’m trying to concentrate, and you’re not helping.” The big bull cringed, and his ears drooped dejectedly. “I’m sorry.” He picked up his shoe but didn’t bother putting it back on before shuffling back toward the front desk. Dan squeezed his eyes shut in annoyance at himself. “Jack,” he called, his heart going out to the other man. “I’m sorry.” He sat down on the bench recently vacated by the bull and patted the empty space next to him. Each pat of his hand stirred up a tiny cloud of white chalk dust. “Why don’t you come sit down and we’ll talk for a while.” Jack looked unsure. Had Dan noticed how badly he’d wanted to talk? The bull was certain that he’d been very circumspect in his overtures, so maybe it was just good timing. “I don’t know,” he said, suddenly unsure of what to say. “It can get pretty busy up front.” Dan looked around them at the nearly deserted gym floor. “We seem to have hit a lull,” he said, reassuringly. “I think we’re okay for a few minutes.” For good measure, once the bull was seated, Dan reached out and rubbed Jack’s bowling-ball-sized shoulder. He’d only seen the bovine this unsettled when Kensuke was involved, so he thought that might be a good place to start. “I haven’t really had a chance to talk to you since your date with Ken.” The bull finally looked up when he mentioned the lion’s name. “How did that go?” “Oh, it was swell!” Jack brightened like a switch had been tripped, but as soon as he realized how excited he sounded, he turned down the volume on his enthusiasm. “Yeah, we, uh…we both had a lot of fun. Thanks, by the way,” he added, “for letting me help you out with Ken’s dinner.” Dan’s face softened in a sincere smile. “You’re welcome, Jack,” he said, diplomatically. “Thanks again for helping me celebrate his birthday.” When the bull only nodded his head and nervously twisted his fingers, Dan pushed a bit harder. “Are you okay?” Jackson didn’t answer Dan’s question, instead choosing to nervously ask one of his own. “Where is he tonight?” Aah, Dan thought, this is why he’s pestering me. “He’s at a medical conference,” Dan said, wondering if he was overstepping the bounds of varius propriety. “Oh,” the bovine said, sounding hurt. “He didn’t tell me about that.” “You know how absent-minded he can be,” Dan reassured him. “Maybe he thought he told you all about it. Or maybe he said something about it a month ago and it slipped your mind.” “Maybe,” Jack said, uncertainly. It would not have been the first time he’d forgotten something. But Ken leaving town was a big thing, and he should remember that sort of stuff. “How long has he been gone?” “A couple of days,” Dan told him, scratching the bull’s muscular forearm reassuringly. “He’ll be back on Sunday.” “Did you…did you maybe pick up a package for him after he left?” Jack asked, hopefully. “No,” Dan shook his head. “I haven’t seen anything.” “Oh.” The bull’s ears drooped even lower. This was bad. It meant that Ken had received the chocolates, but hadn’t thought highly enough of them to respond. Then Jack had another thought. Perhaps Ken hadn’t realized who the mice were from? Jack’s father had often accused him of being too smart for his own good, so maybe he’d been too subtle. Using that fancy foreign word he’d gotten from the computer probably hadn’t helped any. “Did you send him something?” “It wasn’t anything,” the bull demurred, “just a little thank-you for going out with me.” Now, Dan understood. If Ken had received a package from Jack, it would have been rude not to at least thank the bull for it. “Look,” he said, “I think he probably would have known if he got something, right? I’ll look around and see if maybe we’ve just missed seeing it.” “But what if he got it, and still hasn’t said anything?” Jackson wrung his huge hands worriedly. “I can’t answer that, Jack.” Dan was dying to know what Jack had given Ken, but he knew this was none of his business. “This is just something you’ll have to ask him about,” he advised, “not over the comm, but when he gets back.” He rested his hand on the other man’s arm in a gesture of comfort. “I know this is tough for you, Jack. Just keep talking to him, okay? Maybe call him and talk about other things for a while?” Dan scrutinized the man sitting next to him, but for once the bull’s face revealed nothing. Chapter 41 “Good trip?” Dan asked, leaning against the frame of Ken’s open door as he watched his roommate unpack his bag. “Man, it was incredible!” the lion enthused. “There was a group from the Shinzan Clinic showing off a new technique for encouraging nerve integration, and you wouldn’t believe the work they’re doing with neutrally-phased prions these days!” “I’m sure it’s quite amazing,” Dan said, drowning in the flood of biomedical jargon. Ken caught his confused tone. “Sorry,” he grinned. “It’s really pretty simple.” He put his unpacking on pause and moved over to the large pad of paper he kept on his drawing table. Motioning Dan closer, he drew a quick picture of what Dan understood to be nerve fibers, then proceeded to litter the drawing with chemical formulae, and a bunch of X’s and O’s running between the nerves. As Ken talked, Dan took the opportunity to look around his room for anything new, anything that might have come from Jackson. “Okay,” Dan said, feeling even less illuminated than before Ken had tutored him. He motioned at the different molecules that Ken had listed. “So which one of these is the hugs, and which is the kisses?” “Hardy har har,” Ken rolled his eyes. “Very funny.” He went back to unpacking, next pulling out a fistful of boxer shorts. “Why is it I always either bring way too much underwear, or none at all? Five days plus four workouts is nine pairs, right?” He shook his head in puzzlement. “It’s always the same, so how come I have four pairs left over?” He sniffed the underwear gingerly, then shrugged and tossed it back into his dresser. “Whatever.” When he opened and closed the drawer, he could hear that damned wooden box sliding back and forth. The lion grimaced at the sound. “What,” Dan asked, “you look like you just sucked on a lemon.” Wordlessly, Ken opened the drawer again. He pulled out the box and placed it on the corner of his desk, where Dan could easily see it. A few moments later, the big cat had to chuckle. “What?” Dan asked, after seeing the look on Ken’s face. In answer, Ken pulled the tablet of paper towards him and drew a quick sketch of the neatly-wrapped box, being stared at intently by a caricature of Dan, whose eyes were about to pop out of their sockets with barely contained curiosity. “Fine,” Dan grumbled. “If you don’t want to show me what’s in the box, then just put it away.” Ken took a deep breath and unbound the lid, then swung it open and displayed the contents to Dan, who whistled softly when he saw the contents. “Are those from Jack?” Dan asked, receiving a nod in return. “I’ve heard of those,” he said, enviously. “They say it’s like eating angels.” Each little mouse was in its own partition, so it was easy to tell that they were all still there. “You haven’t even tried one?” Dan was puzzled. “You love chocolate.” Ken closed the lid without looking inside. “I can’t even think about eating one of them without feeling sick to my stomach,” he confided. “I should be gobbling these things like no tomorrow, but I just can’t do it.” Dan would never tell Ken as much, but he thought he saw the same brand of lonely sadness in Ken’s eyes that he’d seen on Jack’s face. Carefully, he reached over to the box and tied the ribbon shut. “There’s no hurry,” he said. “Chocolate mice won’t suffocate if they’re closed up for a while.” He reached over and smoothed the lion’s mane with his hands. “Open it when you’re ready.” Ken stared at the box for a long time, alternating between being touched that the bull would get him something like this, and angry that he’d spent his money on something so frivolous. Several times, he almost allowed his rage to get the better of him, picking up the box and nearly dashing it to the ground before relenting and putting it back on the table. This is stupid, Ken thought, I don’t need this much stress in my life. Wordlessly, he picked up the box of chocolate mice and, quite carefully, placed it into the trash can. Done, he thought, Now I don’t have to worry about them any more. Satisfied with his decision, Ken turned off his bedroom lights and climbed into bed. He lasted almost an hour before insomnia forced him out of his bed and over to the trash can, where he pulled out the stupid box and put it back into his dresser drawer. He’d probably throw it away tomorrow, he grumbled to himself, but for tonight it could stay where it was. They wouldn’t come by to pick up the trash until Wednesday anyway.

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The comm in his pocket buzzed, and when Dan looked at the display he was surprised to see that it was Sam calling. This was odd – the man always called Bo. “Sam?” “Yeah, it’s me,” The voice sounded jovial on the surface, but Dan thought it sounded a bit forced. “What’s up?” Dan hoped Sam would just tell him what was wrong without him having to dig, but that wasn’t about to happen. “I tried calling Bo’s comm, but it’s dead. He there?” “Yeah,” Dan said, getting out of his chair. “Hold on.” He decided to risk being told to mind his own business. “You sound tired, Sam. Something wrong?” He wasn’t nearly as close to Sam as Bo was, but he knew the man well enough to tell that something wasn’t right. “Sorry, son,” the bartender said, “I’ve gotta talk to Bo first.” Dan shrugged. “Okay. Can you hold on for a second?” Taking the grunt as an affirmative, Dan switched back to Kensuke. “Gotta go, buddy. Stop procrastinating and get the rest of your stuff packed up.” He switched back over to Sam’s call and walked the handset into the bedroom, where Bo was getting dressed. “You forget to turn your comm on again?” Bo glanced down to his handset in surprise, and looked abashed when he saw it had turned itself off. “Sorry. I think I forgot to put mine on the charger.” “Again,” Dan shook his head as if he were bothered, then gave his mate a quick peck on the cheek. He walked out of the room, but something in Bo’s mind made him hesitate after only a few steps. Turning, he walked back in. He approached the varius, but didn’t completely close the distance between them. He didn’t fear his mate, but right now he was about as interested in touching Bo as he would have been in touching the blade of a running chainsaw. He said nothing, choosing instead to sit on the bed and wait until Bo was ready to come to him. Bo was furious. He disguised it well under his practiced façade of calm indifference, but even if they hadn’t had the link, Dan would have known it was there. “Thanks, Sam,” he said, calmly. “I appreciate your calling.” He turned off the comm and gently set it down on the nightstand, and Dan gained new appreciation for his mate’s degree of self-control. On the outside Bo didn’t look any different, but from the heat emanating from Bo’s mind, Dan suspected that if he hadn’t been standing there, Bo would be picking tiny pieces of his shattered comm out of the wall plaster right about now. Bo thought about pacing, but dismissed the idea as counterproductive. He yearned to throw a tantrum of some sort, but would never allow himself to be so juvenile in front of the man he loved. Instead he lay down on the bed next to his mate, close to him, but not touching. “Fucking bastard ran away last night.” Eventually he gave in to his need for comfort and rolled onto his back, using Dan’s thigh for his pillow. “Your dad?” Dan guessed. “Yup. He took the redeye shuttle and didn’t even say goodbye.” Dan wanted to say horrible things about Bo’s father, about how he wasn’t deserving to have such an amazing man as his son, about how stupid he was, about any of a hundred other things that sprang to mind, but he kept his mouth shut. Regardless of how close he was to Bo, he had no right to question the relationship between him and his father. That was sacred ground that Dan knew he could either respect or ignore, but should never impugn. “I’m sorry, Boo.” “I shouldn’t have expected anything else,” Bo said, annoyed that he continued to expect any degree of consistency from a man who never delivered it. “Sam says he’s been in a couple of times since last week and they’ve talked, but…” he raised his hand expressively, but ended up dropping it back to his side, not knowing what he could say. Dan placed a hand on Bo’s chest, watching it rise and fall in time with his mate’s measured breathing. He stifled the urge to try to put some happy into Bo, somehow knowing it would have been inappropriate. No matter how much Dan wanted to help, Bo had a right to feel his pain. After a few minutes of brooding silence, Bo rolled off the bed and stood up, giving Dan a hug and a quick kiss on the forehead. “I’m going to go for a walk by the lake.” Dan wanted to go with him, but understood that Bo needed time alone. “I’ll be here,” he promised, gracing his mate with a wan smile. “Take your coat. It’s cold outside.” “Yes, dear,” Bo said, infusing the two words with an astonishing amount of tenderness as he reached out to touch Dan’s face one last time before wandering out the door.

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Bo plodded along, trying to reconcile his love for a man who didn’t seem to care about him. His father had always been something of an enigma to Bo, someone whose arrival was always met with unparalleled excitement and joy, and whose departure was almost always equally traumatic. In the confusion of youth, had he gotten the anticipation of his father’s homecoming and his own fear of abandonment confused with love? The park he walked through had been his regular stomping grounds over the years, especially when he was lonely and sad. The winding concrete path traced along a large body of water, too big to be a pond, but too small to be a real lake. It wasn’t large, but it was quiet, and in the springtime it was actually quite pretty. Now that the plants were all hibernating for the winter it seemed desolate and unwelcoming, a perfect place for Bo to chew his cud. In warmer months, every happy couple he had walked past was a reminder to him of how unlovable he was, of how nobody existed who could see past his faults and flaws to the man buried under the charred rubble of his past. That had all changed when Dan Blocker had excavated his heart, helping to reassemble the shattered remains bit by smoking bit until it was stronger than ever. At one point when his future seemed impossibly bleak, Bo had even gone so far as to consider weighting himself down under the lake’s murky waters and breathing his life away. Now, the thought of doing something like that sent shivers of dread racing through him. Had he put action behind those dark thoughts, he would never have met Dan. Life without love would have been sad, but life without Dan would have been tragic. He hadn’t been back here since he and Dan had shared that first roast beef sandwich. He hadn’t needed to. His Dan was an excellent sounding board, someone to talk out his problems with. When an outright solution to a problem wasn’t possible, Dan helped him find better ways to cope. Bo touched their link, and felt his bondmate’s presence through the invisible thread binding them together. Paying a little more attention, Bo probed a bit more deeply, but still so gently that Dan wouldn’t realize what he was doing. Under the tranquil surface he could feel Dan’s deep, abiding love, as well as something that Bo found even more comforting. Loyalty. Bo instinctively leaned on that, knowing deep in his heart that Dan was a good man, a strong man who would never leave him alone, like everyone else he’d ever dared to love had done. Dan was a man he could trust. Something shiny just off the path glinted in the hazy sunlight, catching Bo’s attention. When he investigated, Bo found a metallic fizzydrink pouch that had been carelessly left behind by one of the children who played there. Bending over with a grunt of annoyance, he picked it up. As long as he was down there, he also gathered a nearby scrap of paper and a discarded beer bottle. The bit of paper reminded him of the drawings Ken made, and that, in turn, reminded him of the man himself. Kensuke Katayama, Bo thought, yet another of life’s unexpected twists. The remembrance of the lion brought forth another quiet smile. Two. He had two friends. Most varii would have considered a Circle of three to be laughably small, but to Bo it represented wealth beyond measure. The two other men in his Circle were worth a hundred in anyone else’s, and Bo dared anyone to say otherwise. Chocolate? Bo could swear that he smelled not only chocolate, but walnuts too. Brownies, as a matter of fact. But the chocolate wasn’t the way he smelled it, it smelled the way Dan smelled it, and he couldn’t keep from smiling. Dan was baking brownies. Although he had the common courtesy not to invade Bo’s privacy at a time when he needed to think things through, he wasn’t above baking a pan of Bo’s favorite treats and taking a good whiff of the results in the hopes of cheering him up a bit. Just in case the varius was listening in. Like he almost always was. asshole Bo thought, lovingly. jerk Dan shot back. love Fuck Dad, Bo thought, crudely. Fuck him in the mouth. I need him like I need another goddamned hole in my head. I’ve got Dan, I’ve got Ken, and I’ve got Sam. So there. Nodding his head in satisfaction at his resolution, Bo was walking back to his car when an eerie scream made his ears tuck in close to his head. He knew that sound, but he wished he didn’t. It was the noise emergency thrusters made when they were about to fail. He swiveled his head around, and after a few moments searching the sky he spotted a lavender airbus trying desperately to make a controlled landing. Gauging the tilt of the bus and the speed of its descent, Bo knew the driver wouldn’t be able to recover in the small amount of time he had left. Impact was certain, the only question was what the bus was going to squish when it hit. Bo quickly looked around him and knew that unless the pilot had a better idea, the water was going to be his only option. Ripping off his heavy winter coat, he sprinted towards the section of shoreline that instinct and tactical training suggested would be the most logical choice. Although the shore dropped off steeply just a few meters from the waterline it was infinitely preferable to the unyielding earth. The pilot apparently came to the same conclusion, for the bus began struggling to reach the shore. With an ear-splitting bang, machinery pushed far past its limits finally failed, and the bus hurtled towards the water’s surface from thirty meters up. Bo saw the black lettering on the side as the bus tumbled, and groaned in despair. Joy Bus. Adults didn’t ride the bus to church, he knew, they took their cars. Bo flung off his shoes and threw himself to all fours in a desperate attempt to increase his speed, rear claws ripping into the ground with each catlike lunge. By the second stride, his thin shirt had huge rips in the back and shoulders where it had been unable to stretch across muscles in the way his movements demanded. Dan’s gonna freak, he thought, irrelevantly. Bo reached the edge of the lake only moments after the bus hit, spraying frigid water in all directions. He timed his final leap so that his rear claws dug into the last bit of solid earth at the lake’s edge, propelling him over the water. Although physics dictated that he could not have been airborne for more than a second or two, his mind expanded that time considerably, dilating it and slicing it up like slides in an old fashioned projector. Although his ears were tucked in against his head, Bo could still hear the bubbling sounds of air rushing out of the bus’s passenger compartment mixing with the sounds of steam boiling off of the red-hot emitters under the hood, but that was only for a moment. Those sounds were almost instantly drowned out, first by a single shrieking scream, then another, followed by a dozen more in a chorus of mindless terror. The wind blew through the rips in his shirt, fair warning of the cold water he was about to enter. The water smelled a bit fishy, like a few too many of the pond’s inhabitants had died without anything eating them before they rotted. The sun was peeking out from behind clouds. It hung low in the sky, making it feel later in the day than it truly was. Flying through the air, Bo could see that the automatic safety systems had failed and water was quickly filling the bus; water that was bone-chilling at this time of year; water that was now almost touching his extended fingertips. The instant the first hair on his hands touched the surface of the lake, time sprang back to normal. The slap of the icy water was cruel, making Bo feel like he’d been smacked in the back of the head. His fur made him somewhat resistant to cold in the air, but immersed in water this cold he would have only a precious few minutes before hypothermia set in. He forced his muscles to unclench, and swam his way towards the children’s screams. In a matter of seconds he had his handpaws on the handle of the emergency exit, but the impact had jammed it shut. The frantic cries of the children assaulted his ears, and he knew if he didn’t do something fast they were all going to die in the swiftly rising water. He made a decision, abandoning the crumpled emergency hatch in favor of the main entrance door. Wedging a thick finger under a crack in the weather seal, Bo pulled with all his strength. It opened enough for him to wedge three fingers into the opening, and he felt the door hinges beginning to give way. A jagged edge of the metal door sliced deeply into the skin of his fingers, but he refused to give up. Bracing his feet against the body of the bus, Bo used his legs and back to increase the force of his pulling. Growling from the pain and exertion, he felt the first of the door’s hinges pop loose. Suddenly, just as the bus slipped beneath the surface of the water, the rest of the hinges popped apart like a zipper and the door fell away. Bo took a deep breath and swam his way into the body of the bus. Gods, there were so many small bodies there! Many of the children had unbuckled themselves and were greedily sucking at an air pocket that had formed at the rear of the cabin, desperate to keep as much of their bodies out of the cold water as possible. Some of the children who were trapped under the water had been knocked unconscious by the impact but others had not, and were flailing impotently as the water rose to cover their faces. Bo’s first priority was to free the ones who were trapped, but still conscious. One by one, he slashed through the seatbelt webbing with an extended claw and gave them a firm push towards the back of the bus and the other children. Once the conscious children were out of danger, Bo stole a huge lungful of air from the pocket at the back of the bus and dived beneath the surface again. Two of the three children closest to the front of the bus were sapiens, and he worked to free them first. The varius child trapped next to them was more durable, he thought, and stood a better chance of living than these fragile sapiens children did. Released from their confinement, the children were like giant rag dolls in his arms, floating limply in the cold water. He grabbed them inelegantly and pulled them to the back of the bus. Emerging into the air pocket, Bo pushed the unconscious children into the hands of the two oldest-looking kids. He spoke quickly and forcefully, but with a calmness that sounded alien to his own ears. “Hold them above the water. I’ll come back for them in a minute.” Without waiting for a reply, he went back for the trapped varius child. On the way out the door he freed another unconscious sapiens child, then pulled them out the door and headed towards the shore. He wrapped one huge arm around both of the small bodies, trying very hard not to crush them as he swam to shore as fast as he could. When he stumbled out of the water, he saw that a few people were running towards the accident and were close enough to hear him. “Take care of them!” he shouted, laying the limp bodies of the children on the ground in front of the oncoming adults, “Come as far into the water as you can!” Without stopping to hear their response, he turned his back to them and swam as fast as he could back to the bus. Time after time he blindly repeated the motions, pulling children out of the bus and handing them first to a middle-aged sapiens man who braved the cold as best he could, then to a helpful red vulpine varius wearing what looked like insulated coveralls who waited for them in chest-deep water. Without knowing how many children he pulled out, Bo still knew that there would be some who would not survive. Each time he went back to the bus the air pocket grew more fetid, until it contained little more than carbon dioxide and the stench of panic. The water was incapacitatingly cold to any sapiens without special equipment, and the only things that kept Bo going was the insulation of his fur and fat, and the inbred determination that did not understand the concept of giving up. After his fourth trip into the bus – or was it his fifth? – Bo almost stopped. He was so tired. He could hardly lift his arms, and his injured hand felt like someone had put a thick wool glove on it. But then he got another burst of energy, and he knew he could never stop. One of the sapiens children was determined to make it out on his own, but cramped when he was only a meter or so from the door of the bus. By the time Bo handed him off to the vulpine, he was as unconscious and waterlogged as all the others. Finally, the choice of whether or not to continue was made for Bo. Rescue crews arrived on the scene. How long had it taken them? They were supposed to be there within a very few minutes. Was that all the time it had taken? To Bo’s exhausted mind, it seemed as if hours had passed. As his muscles cramped and his vision dimmed, the last thing he saw before falling face-first into the dark lake was an emergency crew in rescue gear diving into the water above the bus. Chapter 42 “Martha!” Frank Blocker called, staring at the vidscreen like it had grown legs and walked around the room. “Get in here! You’ve got to see this!” Martha emerged from the kitchen, impatiently drying her hands on a dishtowel. “What is it, Frank? You don’t have to yell.” He ignored his wife and pointed mutely at the screen, where an attractive, young news announcer was going through the day’s events. Frank pushed a button on his remote, and the newscast backed up to the beginning of the previous story. “‘Our top story in local news, a church bus crash kills eight off the coast of Central City.” The pretty face was replaced by footage showing the crumpled frame of a lavender airbus being pulled from the water, looking like a toy that had been stepped on by the careless foot of a child giant. “Mechanical failure is blamed for the death of seven children and the driver of this church bus, and Intermodal Transportation is denying any responsibility for the crash. Company officials are taking the position that not all accidents are avoidable, and even the most rigorous maintenance schedules can leave room for mechanical failure. Officials at the Mount Zion Interdenominational Church on the Rock could not be reached for comment.” “Information is just now coming in, but witnesses at the scene report a large canine varius diving in and saving a number of the children before succumbing to the cold himself.” “God, that’s awful,” Martha said, a worried crease furrowing her brow. The morph who was on the screen at that point looked more like a fox and was just standing there. A moment later the oversized head and shoulders of a black battle varius emerged, but only for the few seconds it took him to hand off the two thrashing children he carried. After gasping a few deep breaths, he dove back under the water. Frank shushed her and poked at his remote control again, raising the volume another notch. The recording changed to an angle taken from dry land, and the half-naked varius man was now shown stumbling back towards the water’s edge, shaking off the people who held him back. The announcer continued, her cheery voice lending a surreal feeling to the scene she reported. “Here you can see exclusive footage of the local hero after bringing out several of the victims. It looks like he’s trying to go back for more, and here we can see two other citizens pulling him back to the shore as fire and rescue teams dive in to pull the remaining survivors to safety. The view changed, and one of the men who had dragged the morph back onto dry land appeared. “He tried to fight us off and go back in, but he was just about dead himself by that point.” He looked over to his friend, who nodded in agreement. “He was real heavy, but me and Sonny here managed to get him back to shore before he drowned.” The newswoman’s voice changed to one of hushed solemnity as the view altered to show an enlarged view of the unconscious morph’s face, distorted from the extreme angle but still quite recognizable. “Details about the identity of the varius have not been released, but we do know that he was taken to City Hospital where doctors report that his condition is stable.” Frank pushed yet another button on his remote, and the image of the morph was frozen and enlarged to fill the screen. “Oh my God,” was all Martha said, covering her mouth with her hand. She watched the rest of the story in stunned silence. When it was over, she returned to the kitchen, conflict and concern written across her face. She thought back to the dinner fiasco with Dan and Bo the month before. When her son had introduced his varius “friend,” her thoughts had gone wild with bigoted feelings that even her well-manicured manners hadn’t proved sufficient to handle. But despite her prejudice, she had noticed during the course of the evening that Bo’s eyes held an authenticity, a devotion to her son that had been absent from her son’s previous romantic interests. That observation had troubled her, so much so that she’d been pre-occupied for much of the rest of the evening. When she had heard the door to the garage slam in the way that only Dan could manage, she had a pretty good idea of what had transpired. She had expected that they’d both storm out, and when Bo had stuck his head back into the kitchen and thanked her for her hospitality, it was almost impossible to cover her surprise. She responded automatically to his thanks and then sat down, waiting for her husband to come back into the house. Frank had harrumphed and let fly with a few epithets regarding Bo’s parentage, and Martha had wondered about the truth in what he’d said. She had always tolerated Frank’s bigoted attitudes, largely because his assertions had proven themselves correct more often than not. Lately, Frank’s negative attitudes towards the furred population had begun to bother her. That evening had been a catalyst, calling into question many of her own attitudes. She realized that her first-hand knowledge about varii was scant, and the more she thought about her feelings, the more she realized that they were based on the opinions of others instead of any real experience of her own. After watching the news, something suddenly became very clear to her. What she had seen in Bo’s eyes was something she’d been looking for in all of Dan’s previous partners; they held a love and respect for her son so profound that only two soul-mates could share it. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that Bo was going to be a permanent addition to their family, and the more aware she was that she and Frank were clearly in the wrong. Now, seeing that that the life of their newest family member was in danger, all her mothering instincts came forcefully awake. Anger welled up in her that Frank would not let go of his prejudice towards someone who was going to be part of the family, someone who had done nothing wrong, and was now in danger. Her decision made, she continued to put away the dinner cookware, but anger and worry forced an edge to her actions. She was only barely able to restrain herself from damaging the cabinetry as she slammed the pans into their cupboards. Frank could hear his wife banging around in the kitchen more forcefully than usual. He levered himself out of his easy chair and peered around the door, curious what was going on, and was surprised to see that his wife of forty years, the woman with whom he’d signed a non-revocable marriage contract, was practically throwing pots and pans into the cabinets. “Get your hat, Frank,” she said, snapping off the kitchen lights and tossing the dishtowel on the drainboard. “Where are we going?” he asked, confused. “Where do you think?” she replied impatiently, as if talking to a young child who was having trouble understanding the obvious. “To City General. Regardless of your personal feelings, that young man is your son’s partner, and both of them need your support right now.” Frank was stunned. “You have to be joking!” he protested. “What they’re doing together isn’t right, and I won’t support it!” “This is not about your son’s sex life,” Martha snapped, her eyes set with determination. “It’s about being there to support Dan when he needs you.” She whirled herself into her coat in one smooth, practiced motion and stared at her husband, icy blue eyes flashing. “I’m not asking you, Frank, I’m telling you. Get your hat.” Frank could only recall his wife using that tone with him once before, and he vividly remembered how uncomfortable the couch was to sleep on. Having no desire to repeat that experience he found his hat, jammed it on his head and grabbed his keys without another comment. Chapter 43 Bo tried to open his eyes, but they resisted. He must be sleeping, and it was so very hard to wake up. His dreams had been empty, as if he floated quietly through warm water. Now there were sounds coming to him from above the surface of the viscous liquid, and something inside him compelled him to explore. Swimming upwards to consciousness, fighting to break free of the darkness, he felt like a piece of driftwood being washed out of the muffling water and into the light. A bit at a time, he opened his eyes to a world filled with white walls, bustling activity, and blessed warmth. He lay still for a few seconds, absorbing what was going on around him and orienting himself. Disorganized thoughts floated around in his brain like dust motes in a sunbeam until the reality of what happened slammed into him like a freight train. He instinctively threw his legs over the side of the bed in a bid to jump back into the water and continue his rescue efforts, but a split second later realized that the incident must be long over, whatever the outcome. He forced himself to lay back in the bed, only then noticing Dan sitting in a chair next to him. “Dan…” was all he could say before wetness flooded his eyes. He grabbed onto their bond and held on with everything he had, allowing himself to lean heavily on Dan’s emotional stability while his own was in question. “Shhh.” Dan stood at the edge of the bed and took Bo’s undamaged hand in his own. “Lie still for a moment and get your bearings, babe.” Dan bent over and put a gentle kiss on Bo’s forehead, pressing it in with his cheek as he breathed in the smell of his partner…his living, breathing partner. He worked hard to keep the tears from his eyes, but one or two found their way out, and through them he whispered, “I’m so proud of you.” Bo relaxed, his eyes closing for a long moment. Emotion threatened to overwhelm him, and it took him a minute to realize that it was the link with Dan he was feeling. He allowed himself to feel the pain for a few moments before reining it in. The next time he opened his eyes they were clear and fully lucid. He looked up at Dan. “How many didn’t make it?” sorrow Dan started with the more positive side of the equation. “Twenty-one lived, and you pulled out fourteen yourself before you collapsed.” He closed his eyes and choked back tears, knowing that he could no longer delay the answer to Bo’s question. “Eight.” He sighed, feeling the impact that one word had on his mate. “Eight died, but it would have been so much worse if you weren’t there.” misery Bo lay back on the hospital bed, closing his eyes as he rested his head against the cool, white pillow. Dan took Bo’s bandaged hand in his own and stroked the dark fur of his arm, knowing nothing else he could say or do. Watching his mate’s face, he saw a single tear slipping out the corner of his closed eye, and he knew that his being there was enough. Dan pulled his chair closer to the bed, close enough that he could rest his head against Bo’s arm, and in that small physical contact he lent what comfort he could, and for a time they grieved over the small lives that had been impossible to save. The sound of the opening door caused both men to raise their heads, and their spirits lifted when they saw that it was Kensuke, looking frantic as he all but ran into the room. As gently as he could, the lion leaned over Dan and put the side of his face against Bo’s chest in an odd sort of familial hug. “I got here as fast as I could, guys,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. “I’m sorry, I turned my comm off.” pleased “Thanks for finally getting here, li’l brother” Bo said, reaching a huge, black-furred arm up to rub the lion’s short, round ears. His own voice was none too steady. “I’m glad you’re here.” Considerately, Ken moved away from that side of the bed, not wanting to put himself between Dan and his mate for any longer than necessary. On his way past the wall monitor, he entered a universal passcode and took a few seconds to run through the doctor’s notes. He carefully did not change any of the settings, scrolling slowly through the readouts one by one until he was satisfied that he understood what they said. He glanced over at Dan. “Has anyone talked to you since he woke up?” “No,” Dan said, considering it for the first time. “Nobody’s been in here for at least an hour.” “That’s not surprising,” Ken said, reading the look on Dan’s face. “I saw them wheeling the crash cart over to a big trauma just down the hall.” He looked at Bo apologetically. “You’re small potatoes right now, I’m afraid.” mirth “You’ve never seen my potatoes.” Bo indignantly grumbled, bringing welcome smiles to the faces of his companions. Ken’s mention of the time had caused Dan to look at the vid hanging on the wall, and he was surprised to see that it was well past eighteen. “They’re probably busy with the kids too,” he guessed. “Yeah, I’d imagine the pediatric wing is going nuts right now.” Ken glanced over at the monitor. “Says they treated you for hypothermia, and they got quite a bit of water out of your lungs. Your ears will probably be sore, but no frostbite.” He adjusted his glasses and read through the small print, looking for the medications they’d given Bo. He grimaced when he read the dosages of each. “They went a little overboard on the pulmonary drying agent, so when the general anaesthetic wears off, you’re probably going to cough your head off for a day or two until your lungs can step in and repair themselves. They might give you something for that.” He leaned over, conspiratorially, “but if they don’t, I’ll hook you up.” “Yeah,” Bo nodded his head, sounding a bit fuzzy. confused “You don’t need to remember all that,” Dan added, “he can always remind us later.” The smile that Ken gave his friends was genuine, but it didn’t stay on his face for very long. He wandered back over to Bo’s side and removed a short-toothed comb from his pocket. Without paying a great deal of attention to what he was doing, he ran it through Bo’s fur. His hair never grew long enough to need grooming but Ken did it anyway, more for his own comfort and distraction than anything else. Dan looked at the lion for a moment, thinking that perhaps his friend had something more to say, but Ken simply stood near Bo, repeatedly running the comb through the same small patch of fur on his shoulder and biceps. The sapiens man watched in silence as Ken gently, carefully, and even lovingly groomed the man he once viewed as a rival. Bo opened up his emotional floodgates, allowing Dan access to everything he was feeling. On the surface Bo was touched by the mere fact that Ken was at the hospital when he could be out having a good time. There were a thousand places more pleasant than a hospital room, but he’d chosen to be here. Underneath the superficial thoughts, Dan could feel Bo’s heart softening with the knowledge that there were people in the world who cared enough to be here with him. Dan could feel the comb running through the fur on Bo’s arm, and more importantly, he felt the sense of contentment that the grooming was spreading inside his mate. Dan felt the roots of love and compassion working their way inside his mate, patiently pushing their way through minute cracks in the rock surrounding a heart grown hard to protect itself from pain. Bo might not want to admit it to himself, but Dan knew he was truly letting Ken inside, giving the man access to the trust and respect that he’d long-since earned. Ken’s lower lip had the slightest quiver in it, and Dan could see from where he sat that the lion’s hand was unsteady. Dan’s calm voice carried the affection and concern of both men. “What’s up?” Ken’s massive head slowly shook back and forth, his voice choked with emotion that refused to be repressed. “Life’s just so fucking short…” Dan was on his feet before his friend had even finished speaking. Gently taking the comb out of Ken’s paw and putting it on the side of the bed, he brought his friend into his arms and held him close. While he was stroking the back of the lion’s head, through their link Dan felt Bo reach out a great handpaw and rest it against Ken’s back. Ken gave himself time to quiet, and after a few moments he snuffled, “I’m supposed to be here making you feel better, not the other way around.” Bo laughed and gave his friend’s back a playful little punch. “It’s all good, Kitty.” He took a pinch of Ken’s shirt in his fingers and tugged at it. “You gonna be okay?” “Yeah, man,” Ken said, dabbing at the fur under his eyes as he took a few deep breaths. “I’m good.” Dan was walking back to the other side of the bed when the sound of the opening door caused them all to turn in unison to see Dan’s parents enter. Shock and apprehension rolled over Dan as he unconsciously placed himself between his parents and his mate. His mother breezed past him with nothing more than a hand on his arm, homing in on Bo with all her mothering instincts. “Are you all right, Bo?” she asked the morph, concern evident in her eyes. Bo had to remind himself to shut his mouth, which was hanging open in astonishment. “Yes, ma’am.” he managed, falling back on etiquette until his brain could catch up to what was happening. “They’re treating me fine.” “And who is this?” she asked, regarding Ken with the same polite interest she would have afforded a visitor to her Sunday bridge club. “Mom, I’d like you to meet our good friend, Kensuke Katayama,” Dan broke in, conscious of his social responsibility. “Ken, this is my mother, Martha. Blocker.” Ken had heard about the difficulty they’d had at Dan’s parents house, and although confused by this abrupt change of attitude, his early training kicked in with a vengeance. “It is an honor to meet you,” he said, affording her the deep bow one reserved for respected elders. “Please,” she said, “call me Martha.” shock that’s a better offer than i ever got disbelief don’t you dare say anything not one word i should have bowed “Thank you, ma’am, that’s very kind,” Ken said, automatically. There was no way in seven flaming hells that he was going to call this imposing woman by anything other than her formal title. “Thank you for being here,” she said, as earnestly as if it had been Dan or her husband in the bed. Turning her attention to Bo, she spoke with him for a few moments in hushed tones. Dan’s father stayed in the far corner of the room, but he was there, which was still more than Dan had expected. When Bo’s doctor came into the room and requested a few moments in private with his patient, Martha Blocker took advantage of the distraction to pull Dan and his father into a small waiting area a few doors down. Ken started to walk out behind them, but was stopped by Bo’s objection. “Doctor?” he asked, “I need him to stay.” Bo looked at Ken with confidence. “He’s my advocate.” Ken tried to resist his urge to smile as he walked back into the room, but it was hopeless.

Chapter 44 Dan shut down his end of the link with his mate, and for good measure, envisioned folding it double and putting a rubber band around the ‘kink.’ This conversation was between his parents and him. “What’s going on?” he kept his voice low, reining in his temper and confusion with no small amount of difficulty. “Last I knew, you both hated Bo.” Frank began to speak, but pulled himself up short when his wife put a restraining hand on his arm. He remained silent as his wife arranged herself on the waiting room’s marginally comfortable industrial chairs. “Dan, you know we only want the best for you.” When Dan opened his mouth to protest, she gave him a look that shut it. “What you have shown us in the past has not been ‘the best.’ I didn’t care for Blaine because he was insubstantial and flighty, and I had the feeling from the very first that your situation would not work out. You were not at all a good match, and if you don’t yet see that, one day you will.” Her face soured. “I liked Jim even less. I wasn’t prepared for Bo to be any different, and frankly, when he turned out to be varius, I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t give him a fair chance.” She skewered Dan with her gaze. “After giving the matter a great deal of thought, I find him to be intelligent and articulate, and I can see in his eyes that he truly cares for you. And,” she added, “even after your father’s blowup, he had the decency and common manners to take the time to thank me before you left, which none of your previous friends have ever thought to do. “We were wrong, Dan, and I’m ashamed of how we acted. Bo’s a keeper, and I think you’d be a fool to ever let him go. If we were to reject him, we’d also be rejecting you, and that isn’t ever going to happen.” she said, favoring him with a smile Dan couldn’t remember seeing since he won the science fair in the eighth grade. Dan couldn’t believe his ears. His mother was giving them her approval? In front of his father, no less? That was like getting the keys to the city. Once his mother had stamped Bo ‘APPROVED.’ it was gospel. Even his father would have to fall into line sooner or later. His mother stood up, and Dan wrapped his arms around her, enfolding her in a huge hug. After a moment, she pushed him away, laughing. “Well, what are you doing out here? Somebody in there needs you. Get in there and dole out some comfort.” Gathering up her purse and her coat, his mother said, “Bo seems to be all right, and he’s obviously in good hands so we’ll leave you in peace. Be sure to call us if you need anything.” As Dan returned to the room, he overheard his mother saying to his father, “Dear, we need to talk.”

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Dan looked at Bo, resting quietly beneath white hospital sheets. “So what did the doctor say?” Bo sat up in bed. “They want to keep me overnight for observation, and I’ve got a minor surgery tomorrow at around noon to repair my hand. It could be worse, I guess.” “How bad’s the hand?” Bo held up his bandaged paw, rotating it slowly for display purposes, although there wasn’t much to see other than white bandages. “I might end up with a little minor scarring, but it shouldn’t be too bad. They’re going to reattach the severed tendons, and seal up the lacerated muscles.” He put his hand back down and shifted in his bed. “Other than that, I’ve got a muscle tear or two, cuts, scrapes, that sort of thing. Nothing a little dermal regen won’t take care of.” He looked up at Ken to make sure he hadn’t left anything out, and got a nod in return. Even reciting his list of injuries, Bo sounded more cheerful than he had earlier. Apparently the visit from Dan’s parents had the desired effect. “She likes me, huh?” he said with an impish grin. “Mom does, at least,” Dan said. “Dad will come around in time. How did you know? The door was closed.” Bo said nothing, but wiggled his ears, grinning slightly. “Oh, enhanced hearing, huh? Is there anything about you that isn’t enhanced?” “Come here and find out for yourself,” Bo replied, pulling Dan into a warm embrace. Dan laughed, allowing himself to be snuggled. “I don’t think the hospital staff would approve of that sort of therapy! Besides, this bed doesn’t look very sturdy. It would probably collapse under both our weight.” “I’m glad you two are feeling better,” Ken said, “but watching you two go at it is making me sick.” “Yeah, yeah,” Bo droned, “Didn’t you not have a date with someone tonight?” “Even God took a day off every now and then,” Ken said. He put an arm around Dan’s shoulders. “I know you don’t want to go, but Bo needs to rest, and there’s no way he’s going to do it when you’re here.” !no! !no! Dan knew the instinctive reaction had blasted out of his brain before he could stop it. Or had the reaction been his? He glanced at his mate and had to chuckle to himself. Although there had been no physical response to his panic, Dan could tell that their responses had collided with each other in mid-stream. Bo didn’t want him gone any more than Dan wanted to leave, but they both knew Ken was right. It would only be for one evening, and despite Bo’s recuperative powers, he’d be better off getting a long night’s sleep to let his body knit. “You need anything from your car?” Ken asked. Dan looked at him blankly for a moment before catching his intent. “Leave mine here for Bo, you mean?” Ken nodded. “I can take you home tonight, and you can take Bo’s car to work in the morning.” “I guess…just my gym bag,” Dan hesitated. “It doesn’t really matter. No, forget it. I don’t need anything.” He clipped his keys to a ring inside the bag of clean, dry clothes he’d brought for his mate, and picked up the sack of dirty, wet clothes he’d try to clean tonight. Putting his arms around Bo for one last time that evening, Dan hugged him fiercely. i love you i love you right back pinky The men didn’t need to say a word to each other, but Bo looked at Kensuke. “You gonna stay with him tonight, right?” Ken was honored to be asked – no, expected, to stay with Dan when Bo wasn’t able to be there. “Yes.” And as he said it, he found himself making another small bow towards his…brother. Nobody had asked Dan what he wanted, but for some reason he didn’t mind. He understood that this was something between his mate and Ken. He felt Bo’s sense of serious expectation through the link, as if he were charging Ken with the duty of protecting the most important thing in his world. Transfer of responsibility complete, Ken put a gentle arm around Dan’s shoulder and guided him out the door. Looking around the suddenly-empty hospital room, Bo clamped down on his sense of loneliness. It reminded him how he used to stand at his living room window and watch Dan drive away, back when they had first started dating. Bo felt diminished when Dan wasn’t there. It was a miserable feeling, one which had been his strongest sign that what he felt for Dan far exceeded mere friendship. He restrained his emotions, not wanting Dan to feel guilty about going home. He knew it was important to rest, but it was even more important for Dan to get a good night’s sleep. Maybe tonight they would be far enough apart that his mate could have at least one night free of the nightmares. Tonight, Bo knew, they would be bad, and he made a mental note to warn the charge nurse ahead of time. Bo hated feeling Dan fade away in his mind, and he was debating whether to preemptively shut down their link when Sam strode through the door, trying to hide his anxiety behind a wall of masculine varius nonchalance. “Hey.” “Hey, yourself,” Bo said, pleased to see his mentor. “Don’t you have a business to run?” Sam shrugged. “Mark and Charlie can beat themselves up without me there.” “They’ve been doing it long enough,” Bo said, with a chuckle. “I think they’ve probably got it down, by now.” Sam reached out a hand and rested it on Bo’s arm. “You okay?” “Yeah,” Bo said, nodding automatically. Sam obviously didn’t believe him. He just stood there, quietly straightening Bo’s head hair as best he could with his thick, work-hardened fingers, comfortably stepping into the empty shoes of the biological father who wasn’t, hadn’t ever, and probably never would be there for him. “I miss Dan,” Bo finally admitted, sounding lost. “He’s been here, right?” “Yeah,” Bo sighed, resignedly. “Ken took him home a few minutes ago.” The room was silent for a long moment. “He was there for me, Sam,” Bo said, voice barely above a whisper. Sam was the only other person who knew all that they could do with their bond, so he was the only man Bo could tell what had happened. “He stayed with me through the whole fucking thing.” He shook his head back and forth, ashamed of what he was admitting. “If it hadn’t been for him, I would have given up. I swear to God, I was about to quit but he kept me going.” Moisture gathered at the corner of his eye, but instead of dashing it away like he would have done if it were anyone but Sam sitting by his bedside, he let it roll down his cheek and absorb into the fur. “There’s a lot he doesn’t know about the bond, isn’t there?” Sam smiled, cautiously. “But he seems to be figuring it out pretty quick.” Sam pulled a chair close to the bed and sat in it, taking the pressure off his aching hips. With Bo’s head now out of reach, Sam settled for resting his hand on the man’s arm. “Do you think he donated some of his strength?” “That’s pretty advanced.” Bo considered the possibility. Donating your energies to your mate wasn’t impossible by any means, but it wasn’t common, and it certainly wasn’t something one did casually. “Nothing he does surprises me anymore. All this stuff we practice for years just comes so easy to him because nobody’s ever told him he can’t do it.” He remembered the haggard look on Dan’s face. “That would explain why he looked so tired.” Bo looked out the window at the quickly setting sun. In a half-hour or so, it would be dark. The hand on Bo’s shoulder was prudently still, but it subtly increased its weight. “He might have looked tired because his mate almost died today,” Sam said, reasonably. “Maybe,” Bo looked defeated, “or maybe he looked so tired because he hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in three months.” For once he didn’t make any attempt to hide his feelings by putting his hands in front of his eyes or looking away. Bo simply beseeched Sam with eyes desperate for help. “What am I gonna do, Sam? Sometimes it seems like everything about me ends up hurting him.” “He seems willing to put up with it,” Sam observed, and gave Bo’s meaty biceps a gentle squeeze. “Trust me, Bo, bad spots and all, that man loves the shit out of you.” “Yeah, I know,” Bo agreed, staring out the window, “but sometimes I think he loves me too much. Sometimes I’m afraid that one of these days, all this stuff is going to build up inside him and he’s just going to burn out.” He picked at the thin cotton sheet that covered him, wishing he were in his own bed. “That’s part of why I didn’t make a big deal about the nightmares. I feel guilty as hell about pushing my demons on him, but I can’t let him know that or he’ll blame himself for making me feel bad and he’ll feel even worse.” Another tear threatened to come out, but Bo denied its passage. “He’s the kindest, most gentle person I’ve ever known, and I just can’t do that to him.” “But he’s also really strong,” Sam pointed out, “and he can help you, if you let him.” He thought for a moment about what he needed to say to this man, this amazing, enigmatic, troubled man whom he loved like one of his own. “Stop trying to do this all by yourself.” The bartender’s affect hadn’t changed much since he came into the room. Sam’s iron control over his expression made him a formidable opponent at poker, but after spending so much of his life with him, Bo had learned his cues. The set of his wide jaw, the almost invisible tightening at the outer corners of his eyes, the way his gaze stayed locked on Bo’s eyes as if hoping to catch a clue, all told Bo that the man sitting in the hospital chair next to him was worried. “I’ve got some friends who may be able to help him,” Sam said. “If Dan understood the Doc right, the two of you might be in more trouble than you realize, and not just from some jizz-bucket of a head shrink who wants a degree and a movie deal.” He tried to smile to lighten the mood, but the effort fell flat. Something in Sam’s eyes told Bo that he’d come to a conclusion of sorts. “You know I love you like my own boy, right?” After seeing Bo’s sheepish nod, Sam stood and walked over to the wall-mounted vid screen. Reaching behind it, he unplugged the power and data connections, then took the back off his comm and pulled the battery out. Without asking he took Bo’s comm off the side table and removed its power cell as well, then put both devices into his jacket, rolled it up and stowed it in the bathroom, carefully closing the door behind him. When Sam spoke again, he was in full varius formal mode, his voice lowered to the point that without his augmented hearing, Bo doubted he would have understood him. “There are things I feel you have the right to know, but if I tell you, you can never share them with anyone. Not even Dan.” “Do not tell me,” Bo declined, with equal formality. “If it involves my mate, he will know.” Stoically, chin raised almost defiantly, he bore Sam’s hard scrutiny. “We are one.” Finally, the other man decided that Bo was right. And if Sam was correct in what he thought was happening, sooner or later, Dan was bound to figure it out anyway. “Okay,” he sighed tiredly, “fair enough.” He felt like he was knowingly infecting Bo with a disease that would end up scarring them both. “How much do you know about the Primes?” Bo leaned back on his bed, perplexed by the seeming non-sequitur. “Oh, God. History was a long time ago.” He remembered many things about the Primes, from his lessons in school and from more than a few tacky horror movies about the first varii that had lived to maturity. The trick was, untangling the truth from the highly fictionalized accounts. “If I remember correctly,” Bo said, slowly, “the Primes were doing okay at first, but after they matured they all went crazy and died.” Sam shook his head, uncertain whether he should feel comforted or troubled by Bo’s lack of knowledge. “If that’s the best a brain like yours can come up with, I guess we’re still safe.” Bo quirked an eyebrow at the odd comment, but said nothing. Sam sighed and took a glass off the night stand, filling it with tepid water from the insulated pitcher sitting next to it. “The sapes who were running the programs really didn’t have any idea what they were doing. There were hundreds of groups all around the world working on the problem, and none of them were having much luck until one facility in Montana got lucky. Theirs had everything the military wanted, and the Primes came out of the vats after ten months, fully formed and ready to teach.” He leaned closer to Bo, his voice still quiet. “They also came out telepathic, to a degree that makes our bonds look like tin cans and string.” “Was that intentional?” “The telepathy?” Sam shrugged. “I dunno. Probably not, since that sort of thing scares the shit out of most sapes.” Bo grunted. “Continue?” Sam nodded. “They had some sort of weird hive-mind thing going on, and at first the military dicks thought that was going to work out great. Teach one soldier how to do something and the whole platoon learned it, that sort of thing.” He took a drink of water from his glass, knowing how much talking he was going to be doing that night. “Would have been great if it had worked out that way, but it didn’t.” He took another sip before setting the glass down. “The Primes were so tuned in to the brainwaves of everyone around them that as they developed, they started linking to one another’s nervous systems. It was pretty clear from the start that they all wanted to shit and piss at the same time, but everyone thought that was just some kind of herd reaction. Pheromones, maybe. There was no way anybody could tell that their heartbeats had all synchronized.” Sam had Bo’s complete attention now, which was a very good thing. The man didn’t want to have to tell this twice. “They were so sensitive, they picked up on the autonomic systems of everyone around them. If somebody passing by had a heart arrhythmia, or diabetes, the Primes shared the symptoms. They finally figured out what was happening when one of the docs ate bad shrimp for lunch and all the varii in the room started throwing up.” Sam looked sad. “But by that time, there were only a few left, and it was too late.” What Sam was telling him sounded like the plot from a bad movie. He trusted Sam more than anyone else on the planet besides Dan and he knew the man would never lie about something like this. What he was saying was contrary to every account Bo had heard, but thinking about it, it did make sense. “So I really wasn’t that far off,” Bo said. “Even if the details weren’t quite right, they still all died.” “Almost,” Sam said, “but not quite.” He raised his eyes to Bo, impressing upon him the importance of his silence. “One of them lived.” Bo’s eyes narrowed. This was new. Everything he’d seen or heard had said that none of them survived. “So what made him special?” “Her,” Sam corrected. “Her name was Eve, and we’ll get back to her in a minute.” Sam settled himself in his chair. “When the Betas came along a few years later the biologists knew what to expect, and headed it off at the pass. They had a Kenzine Protector go into the Betas’ minds and, I don’t know, ‘nudge’ them, I guess? He did something in there that reined in their abilities and broke the connection to anyone else’s bodies.” Something sounded odd to Bo, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “But the Kenzine weren’t doing their weird mental shit back then. They didn’t have the abilities until Adam Greyskull studied them under his Japanese Sensei.” Sam deflated. Was Bo going to tell him that the moon was made of cheese, too? “Where do you get this shit?” Bo looked surprised. “Everyone knows the story. They made a movie about it.” He shrugged. “It’s a classic.” Sam chuckled ruefully. “It’s also dead wrong. His name was Adam Parker, and he was one of the men guarding the research facility where Eve was born.” He looked at Bo, wondering if he had given him enough information to put the pieces together. Bo knew the look Sam was giving him. They used to play a game when he was young, where Sam would tell him a few seemingly unrelated facts, then challenge him to figure out what they had in common. That look told him that all the information he needed was out on the table, and now it was up to him to put it all together. And given what Sam had just told him, there was only one conclusion he could come up with. “Wait a minute.” He tried his best to think of another explanation. This one was going to get him laughed at, but nothing better suggested itself. He cut his eyes to Sam. “Are you telling me that Parker got his mental abilities from his time with the Primes?” Another thought came to him. “Or was he the one that saved the Prime who lived?” “Both,” Sam said, mischievously. He wondered if Bo would take the two conclusions and come up with the third, but he didn’t have to wait long. “Wait a fucking minute,” Bo said, excitedly. He realized that his voice was getting a bit louder, and he turned down the volume. “Adam got his abilities by bonding with the varius who survived?” Sam smiled quietly at Bo and patted the back of his hand like a proud father. “You always were good at that game.” And now that Bo had correctly put together the bones, Sam hung flesh on the skeleton. “Adam fell in love with number seventy-three. By that point,” he added, “she’d taken the name ‘Eve.’ “When they mated, the same thing happened to him that happened between you and Dan. The bonding stabilized her by confining her link to just one person, and unlocked something inside him that was just itching to get out.” “So why didn’t the rest of the varii just bond with sapiens? Or with each other?” “Their mating was a dirty little secret,” Sam said, “and they were afraid what would happen to them if anyone found out. Even they didn’t know what was happening until well after all the others died. When she was the only one who lived, everyone compared notes and finally figured it all out. But,” he said, “we’re getting into a different story. When the Betas emerged, Adam scanned each one and locked off their autonomic functions.” “But that doesn’t make any sense. We’ve got the same genes as the clones,” Bo protested. “Where did the problem go?” “Naturally-born varii didn’t seem to have the same issues as cloned ones, so the children didn’t seem to have the problem.” Sam put his hands up. “Maybe it has something to do with the maternal bond, I don’t know.” Bo shook his head, trying to clear it of the confusion he was feeling. “I don’t understand how this affects Dan.” Sam had gotten so wrapped up in telling his story that he’d momentarily forgotten about Dan’s plight. “Oh, shit, yeah.” He thought about what he’d already told Bo, and got himself back on track. “Most people think that the psi component of the varius genome came from the donor DNA because most sapiens are about as psi-sensitive as a rock, but that ain’t so. It came straight from the sapiens host DNA. Dan’s probably got a healthy dose of whatever double-recessive genes the Primes had, and with all the biochemical changes the two of you have been going through with this bond, if Dan activates the dormant part of his genes the way the primes did, then the same thing might happen to him.” “He might start tuning in to other people’s autonomic functions?” Bo said, doubtfully. Dan hadn’t shown any symptoms. Sam held up his hands. “Who knows? This kid’s doing a whole bunch of shit that nobody else can do. Who says he might not do that, too? That’s why I’m telling you all this, so you know what to watch out for.” Bo’s first thought was that Sam was probably overreacting, but he stopped himself short of saying so. Sam was not a man given to overreaction, and it would be damned unusual for him to start now. He obviously thought there was the real possibility of danger here, and Bo knew he would be a fool to ignore his warnings. “So how soon can we get someone to look at Dan?” Now that he knew help for Dan was possible, he was eager to get the ball rolling. Sam looked disgusted. “There’s only about a dozen on Earth who could help him, and they’re all off on some sort of retreat somewhere. If we pull someone out of there, there’s going to be questions asked, and you don’t want that.” “Still,” he continued, his eyes glinting dangerously, “if Dan starts showing symptoms, let me know and we’ll bust up their little yoga party.” “If all of this is such a huge secret…” He trailed off, his question hanging between them, unspoken but still clear. Sam had never had to invoke privacy on Bo, and he didn’t want it to happen today. “Never mind, Sam. I’m sorry.” “It’s all right, Bo,” Sam said, remaining unoffended. “I can’t tell you everything I know about that time, but right now you know more than just about anyone else does.” He held up a wide hand. “I can count on the fingers of one hand the people I’ve told this to, and still have at least one finger left over.” Bo looked at him quizzically, but remained silent, hoping Sam would catch the question and answer it anyway. “Why tell you?” Sam interpreted. “Because you have to know this if you’re going to protect Dan.” He rubbed the fur on Bo’s arm again. “Even if he weren’t your mate, he’s still a good kid and I’d take care of him. But he is your mate,” he emphasized, “and that makes him family.” Ignoring the stabs of pain it sent through his injured back, Bo leaned over the low railing far enough that he could put a ham-sized hand on Sam’s shoulder. Combined with the look in his eyes, the gentle squeeze communicated everything he was feeling about love, gratitude, and the family you choose far more efficiently than words ever could.

---

The hospital wing they were in had quieted somewhat since they’d first entered, and the trip back to the parking garage was made far more sedately than Dan’s frantic entrance. “Did you have any trouble finding the room?” Dan asked, gently breaking himself free of the lion’s friendly but slightly too warm arm. “Not a lot,” Ken looked around them. “There are signs everywhere, but they all seem to be pointed in the same direction,” he chuckled. “After you spend enough time in hospitals, you get used to the way they’re laid out. It starts to make a weird kind of sense.” Dan smiled, and tried to keep a lid on the unhelpful feeling that he was abandoning Bo when he needed him the most. “I just kept saying, ‘482!’ to ever person I passed with a hospital badge. Took me a while, but I got there. “The way they build these places puts the labyrinth to shame.” Ken waved open the door to the garage and led Dan to his car, one much newer and nicer than Dan’s decade-old ride. It wasn’t luxurious, but unlike Dan’s car, it wouldn’t scare off any potential suitor that saw him arrive in it. As they flew farther from the hospital, Dan could feel Bo’s presence in his mind weakening until, by the time they landed at Dan’s house, it had diminished to a floating thread of spider’s silk. How sad it must be, he thought, to be a normal varius couple, and have to feel this sense of separation every time you left the house. They’d agreed to tell no one about their unusual range until they understood more about it, and even Ken remained unaware for now. Once home, Ken busied himself taking stock of the food in Dan’s kitchen as the sapiens man tossed what was left of Bo’s sodden clothing into the washing machine. Dan took one look at the mangled remains of his mate’s shirt and tossed it into the recycler. “Do you want to cook something up or just go out?” Ken asked, his head half-buried inside Dan’s refrigerator. “I can’t even make that decision right now,” Dan said, flipping on the kitchen vid. “Let’s just call out for a pizza.” Ken was agreeable. “Sal’s?” He shut the refrigerator door and picked up his comm. “Naw,” Dan said, wanting to treat himself. “Giovanni’s.” The lion nodded his approval. “Large?” Ken loved anchovies as much as Dan hated them. “Let’s get two mediums. One of them all the way, thin crust and no anchovies, the other one however you want it.” Ken nodded his head and began to dial, and Dan reminded him, “I’m on file with them, so just have them charge it to my account.” Ken held the comm away from his face. “Thanks, but I’m perfectly capable of buying my best friend a pizza every now and then. Let someone take care of you for a change.” Dan smiled and listened as Ken ordered the food, and his interest was piqued when the feline ordered the second pizza as a meat-lovers with extra sausage, also with no anchovies. “I thought you had some sort of sick love affair going on with the salty little fish. Why’d you leave them off?” “I know you hate them,” Ken shrugged it off. “I wanted to be able to share.” Dan walked over to where Ken was standing and gave him a hug. “You’re the best, you know that?” Ken was about to say something witty, but stopped himself when he felt Dan’s shoulders shaking. “Hey, hey,” he said, gently disengaging himself. “What’s wrong?” Keeping his paws on Dan’s upper arms, he put just enough distance between them that he could look Dan in the face, and the fear and raw emotion he saw there made his eyes sting with tears to match those running down the cheeks of his Circlemate. “He could have died, Ken,” Dan choked out as the emotions he’d been holding back finally broke free. “He was so close…” Dan wanted to tell Ken that as soon as Bo saw the bus falling from the sky, he’d lost all interest in maintaining his mental boundaries. Dan had been with him through the whole ordeal, lending him what tiny amount of strength and encouragement he could, all the while being scared out of his wits that Bo was going to drown. Dan had felt the shock of the icy water, he knew the pain of metal slicing through fur and skin to cut bone-deep when Bo wrenched the door loose, and he had felt Bo’s wretched indecision about which child to save and which to let die as if he’d made the choices himself. All this was aching to come out of him, but he dared not involve Ken in their odd ability. Not yet. But what he had been able to say was explanation enough, and Ken accepted it without question. Pulling Dan close, Ken rubbed his back and tried to soothe him. “But he didn’t die, did he? He’s perfectly fine and safe, right? Ken moved them apart again, but still held on to Dan’s arms. “Right?” “Right,” Dan nodded, visibly trying to calm himself down. “You’re right.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’s safe, and he’s fine. I just… I can’t feel him, you know?” Ken nodded. He did understand. Dan had been through a hell of a lot today, and was skating on the borderline of shock. Reaching around Dan to where the man had left it, Ken appropriated the vid’s remote control. “That settles it. If you think you’re watching the news tonight, you’re nuts.” He turned the screen to a children’s cartoon channel. “I’m not letting you watch anything more serious than Barney the Blowfish Eats a Mud Pie.” Dan laughed, wiping the wetness away from his eyes with the back of his hand. “Fine. If you’re going to be that way about it, see if I break down in front of you again.” “Please don’t,” Ken joked. “You sapiens lose all dignity when you cry.” “What else do we have on the vid?” Dan asked, flipping through the list of recent movies. “Hey!” he exclaimed, punching up the description on one. “Here’s that Wolfie Steel movie we were trying to see!” “Oh, so that’s the way it is, huh?” Ken said, shrewdly, narrowing his eyes in mock suspicion. “You put your man in the hospital just so we can finish up our date?” “Nah.” Dan smiled fondly at the man who’d become like a little brother to him. “It wouldn’t be the same without a stoat fapping away in the bushes.” The door announcer interrupted their banter. “Even with the state of modern technology, it never fails to amaze me that they can deliver really good pizza in less time than it takes to bake one.” Dan gently pushed Ken toward the door. “Would you get that? I’ll get some plates.” “Plates?” Ken scoffed, already halfway to the front door. “It doesn’t taste the same if you don’t eat it off the cardboard.” Toggling open the front door, he pushed his thumb pad against the delivery droid’s verification window and was rewarded with two hot boxes of freshly prepared pizza. “Are you sure you and Bo weren’t separated at birth?” Dan asked, putting the plates back in the cabinet. If he can’t beat them, he could at least give in with good grace. Two hours later the movie was over, the boxes were empty and the men were full. The ache in Dan’s heart had subsided somewhat, but his mate was still not nearby, and he found himself fighting the urge to go back up to the hospital and sleep in the chair next to Bo’s bed. It was a good thing Ken had no idea what he was thinking, because he probably would have laughed at how stupid Dan was being. If there was one thing he had learned from living with Bo, it was how to keep his feelings hidden where nobody could see them. Ken put a paw on his shoulder. “You really want to go back up there, don’t you?” Shit! Dan sighed. “Yeah. Is it that obvious?” The lion gave his shoulder a quick squeeze and returned to his own seat. “Yeah.” He twiddled with the little packets of dried cheese and garlic that had come along with the pizza. “I think that’s why Bo wanted me to stay here tonight, so you wouldn’t wear yourself out. Part of it, at least.” Dan shook his head, sadly. “After Blaine, I told myself that I wasn’t going to ever let myself fall into the trap of loving someone so much that I wouldn’t be happy without having them around, but…” he trailed off, looking around them at the house that seemed so empty without Bo in it. He sighed. “Love is such a double-edged sword.” “It’s okay, Dan,” Ken reassured him, “Just be glad you caught yours. Hunting them down really sucks.” Dan looked at his friend, willing him to see the obvious. “You gonna spend tomorrow evening with Jackson again?” “I doubt it,” Ken said, his voice full of regret. “I think that train fell off the tracks.” Dan was surprised by this. Things seemed to be going so smoothly for the two. “Ouch. What happened?” Ken didn’t really feel like talking about it, but Dan needed a distraction so he swallowed his discomfort. “I was having fun with things as they were, but he started falling in love.” Dan rolled his eyes. Getting up from the couch, he went out of the room for a moment. Ken hoped that maybe he was getting the conditioner and a comb, but he came back holding a marker instead. “A good friend once did this for me,” he said, pulling off the lids of the empty pizza boxes and applying the marker to them diligently. After a few short minutes of the marker squeaking against cardboard, he showed the first one to Ken. “This is what you look like.” The lion he’d drawn on the pizza box was so bad that an amateur would have felt insulted by it being called amateurish. It was no better than a seven-year-old child could have done, but it was obviously a lion, and that’s all it needed to be. “Oh my God,” Ken asked, gingerly feeling his face in horror, “When did I get all scribbled like that?” “Shut up,” Dan admonished. “And this is what you look like after you’ve been around Jackson.” He gave the torn piece of cardboard to Ken, and although his technique on the second was no more accomplished than it had been on the first one, it was still easy enough to tell this lion had a stupidly huge smile on his face. “Dan,” Ken said, putting the pizza box down as carefully as if it were a fine work of art, “All joking aside, I really like Jackson. You know that, right?” “Everyone around you knows that,” Dan said. “We’re hoping that maybe you know it, too.” “I get it,” Ken said, nodding his head slowly, “and I love you for wanting me to be happy. But this…thing…with Jackson, whatever it is, can’t ever be more than it is.” “Why not?” Dan asked, and Ken thought that right then, his friend sounded very young and innocent. Ken sighed tiredly. “Partnering up with someone is about more than just liking them. For it to work, I need to have respect for them in the arenas that my psyche considers important. As nice as he is, if I were to partner up with Jack, I think I’d end up resenting him for everything he’s not.” Ken looked up at Dan, and his eyes held a sadness that Dan hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t self-pity for his lack of a stable partner, it was sadness for Jack that no matter how nice and sweet the bull was, he wouldn’t ever be the right man for Ken. It was disappointment that he’d finally found someone who fit him like a glove, only this glove had one finger missing. It was discomfort that although he and the big bull were enjoying each other in bed, he would probably end up breaking Jack’s heart when the right sapiens man came along. It was disgust at himself for leading Jackson on, even though he’d been constant in his insistence that they were friends and nothing more. “I love him, Dan,” Ken finally admitted, “I really do. But he’s such a sweet man that I think I’d end up hurting him, and I’m never going to do that.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “I wish I could be happy with him the way he is, but I think I’d end up trying to change him into something that he’s not, and resenting him for not being someone he can never be.” The happy Ken was gone now, replaced by a somber, lonely kitty that was such a rare sight in this house. “I just can’t do that to him.” Dan nodded his head, then moved over to sit next to his friend on the couch. “I think I get it. I’m sorry we’ve been pushing your buttons about him.” Dan gave Ken’s knee a pat and a squeeze. “I guess we both just like you two so much that we want you to be happy together.” He looked abashed. “I just hope we haven’t actually offended you.” Ken shrugged. “A bit, maybe, but that’s what older brothers are supposed to do, right?” Dan leaned forward and took Ken in his arms, pressing the side of his head into the young lion’s short mane. He’d been hugging Ken a lot, lately. Ken had been a source of strength and comfort for him when he’d needed it the most. “I’m sorry,” he said, releasing his friend, “we’ll stop. But please, do one thing for me?” Ken nodded his head, curious. “Will you at least consider that when you meet someone who is good and kind and makes you feel good about yourself, that maybe the other things don’t have to be so important? I’m not talking about Jackson specifically, just…rethinking your priorities for fitness?” Ken laughed. “You mean, stop being so fucking picky?” Dan smiled. “I didn’t say it.” “Never,” Ken said, defiantly. “Maybe in ten years, but right now I’m too young to settle.” Dan yawned. “You ready for bed?” “Yeah,” Ken said, looking around him. His new bed hadn’t been delivered yet but he didn’t want to leave Dan alone, so he’d camp out on the couch like he had a dozen times before. “You want to bring me a blanket? It’s getting chilly in here.” Dan brought Ken a quilt and retreated to his bedroom, but a little after midnight the sense of disconnectedness finally overwhelmed him. In the darkness, he rooted around in the clothing hamper until he found one of Bo’s shirts. After stuffing it with one of Bo’s extra-large pillows, Dan dragged it and his blanket to the living room, where he lay down on the floor next to the couch were Ken was sleeping. Reaching one hand up to where his friend slept, Dan put his palm against Kensuke’s. Dan harvested what small comfort he could from the soft rumbling snores of his friend, and when the lion’s paw reflexively closed around his, Dan was finally able to close his eyes and drift off into a shallow, dreamless sleep. Chapter 45 Magnum was twenty kilometers closer to the hospital than their house was, and as Dan drove to work the next morning he could feel his mating bond growing steadily stronger. By the time he pulled into Magnum’s parking lot, it was almost strong enough for him to hear Bo’s thoughts. Knowing that his mate was so close yet still out of contact put him on edge, and when Bo’s consciousness ebbed under the effects of the general anesthesia, Dan became downright crabby. “What?” he snapped when Bucky appeared in his office, then immediately winced at the cold annoyance in his voice. “I’m sorry, Bucky,” he immediately apologized. “I’m not at my best today.” “No kidding,” the feline said. He inclined his head. “S’okay, though. We get it.” Dan turned to face him. “We who?” Bucky shrugged. “Everybody.” He walked over to the copier and put his papers into the machine’s feeder. “We all heard what happened.” He punched a few buttons, and the machine whirred to life. “I’m sorry he got hurt.” Dan stared up at him, feeling shame burning the tips of his ears for how he used to tease Bucky behind his back. There wasn’t anything humorous about the varius now. He was just another guy, one who was being much kinder to him than he probably deserved. “Thanks, man,” Dan said, tiredly. “I appreciate it.” “How long are they going to keep him?” Bucky asked quietly, crouching down on one knee so Dan wouldn’t have to crane his neck. Dan scrubbed his face with his hands, surprised at how weary he suddenly felt. More than anything else in the world, right now he wanted to be with his partner. “He was in to surgery this morning to fix his hand.” He glanced over at the clock glowing patiently in the corner of his display screen. “He should be out by now. If everything went okay, he should be home in an hour.” Bucky nodded knowingly. “First night’s the worst. It was like that with my wife. One day she was there all the time, and then the next… Pffft.” He made a gesture with his hands that reminded Dan of the trail of smoke left by a snuffed candle. “You get so used to them being there, you end up taking ‘em for granted. When they’re not there anymore, you feel like you got cut loose in the middle of the ocean and you don’t know how to get back to shore…” Bucky had finished the sentence, but the way his voice tapered off hinted that there was much more left inside the man that was aching to get out. The way Bucky stared at the blank wall as if he were looking at his wife through a window wrenched at Dan’s heart. He knew Bucky’s wife had some nasty chronic illness, but he hadn’t heard anything about her in months. The way Bucky was acting suggested that if she hadn’t died, she wasn’t far from it. “I’m sorry, Bucky,” He put an awkward hand out to the big cat, and was surprised when the other man flinched back to avoid the contact like Dan were trying to poke an open wound. For a varius to shy away from a sympathetic touch was uncommon. Bucky looked regretfully at the hand Dan was pulling back. “Sorry,” he said, quietly. “If I let anyone get too close, I won’t be worth a pile of shit for the rest of the day.” He pulled his copies out of the machine and was headed back out into the plant, but he stopped at the door. Turning slightly, enough that Dan could see his eyes but not so much that he could look into them, he spoke again. “Thanks, though.” He paused. “I’m glad he’s okay.” Dan saw the man’s Adam’s apple bob once as he swallowed hard, then he passed through the door and was gone. It took Dan’s addled mind a few seconds, but when he realized what Bucky had just done, his head swiveled around to stare at the door the feline had just passed through. Bucky had just spoken with him about the bond, something he would never have done if he weren’t absolutely certain that Dan and Bo were joined. With his offhanded comments, the varius had smoothly told him not only that he knew about the depth of Bo and Dan’s relationship, but that he accepted it. When Dan’s comm buzzed a few hours later, he almost knocked it off the desk in his haste to answer it. “Bo!” he almost shouted into the receiver. “How did it go?” “Didn’t take them more than an hour. I felt like telling them to keep me under longer so I’d feel like I got our money’s worth.” “How’s the paw?” “Mmm… A little stiff,” Bo said, and Dan could feel him flexing his hand, “but not too bad. Will you be home at seventeen-thirty?” “You bet!” Dan said, brightening at the thought. “Should I bring something home for supper, or would you rather go out?” “No, I’ve got it. Steaks, macaroni and cheese, and some fresh green beans. And I brought home a surprise, too.” “A surprise? What is it?” Dan asked, unable to keep from asking the obvious question. He instinctively reached out and sought clues from Bo’s mind, but found that this bit of information was behind tightly guarded walls. Bo countered with the obvious response, a smile in his voice. “If I told you that, it wouldn’t be a surprise now, would it?” “Is it a puppy?” Dan asked, playfully. “Yeah,” Bo said, his voice warm and rich, “one that weighs twenty-five stone.” “Stones?” Dan chuckled. “That’s archaic.” “The doc that operated on my hand works from Scotland,” Bo explained. “I heard him muttering on the other end of the line.” His voice was becoming ragged, and he held the comm away from his face as he coughed up something that sounded biologically significant. Dan didn’t like that sound. “You okay?” “Yeah,” Bo said, after expelling the offending matter. “It’s just what Ken warned me about.” “He left you some pills on the counter,” Dan remembered. “These little blue ones?” “Yeah,” Dan sighed. “I miss you, babe.” Bo’s tone softened. “I know, love. I miss you, too.” Dan turned back to the pile of papers. “I’ve gotta get back to this mess,” he said, brushing a bothersome tear from his eye. “Call me if you need anything.” True to his word, Dan’s boss was back in the office by the end of the day, and when the end-of-shift bell sounded Dan fairly flew out the door. He was halfway to his car when he realized that he’d left his keys laying on his desk. Growling in frustration, he took the steps leading back into the office two at a time and yanked open the door. He hurled himself into the office, to be greeted by the sight of his boss holding his car keys aloft. “Lose something?” the older man asked, jingling them tantalizingly. He handed the keys to Dan with a word of caution. “Slow down, son. Bo will still be there when you get home.” The closer Dan got to their house the more his excitement built, until he was certain he could feel Bo’s enthusiasm through the link compounding his own. When he was only a few kilometers away, his communicator beeped insistently. Dan had already been delayed and he almost didn’t answer the call, but something told him to pick up the comm. When he saw who it was, he was instantly glad that he had. “Bo!” “Yeah, Pinks, it’s me,” came his voice, warm with affection. “What can I do for you today, my fine sir? I’m about two minutes away.” Bo’s voice was solicitous. “Would you mind turning back and picking up a nice sack of wine somewhere? Something that might pair nicely with a couple of hunks of grilled red meat?” Dan had the distinct impression that Bo was toying with him, teasing him to a fine edge by delaying their reunion. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something like that, and Dan accommodated him. Besides, a glass of good wine wouldn’t go wrong tonight. “I’ll find something,” Dan said, swinging the car around in a wide arc and heading for the store. Ten minutes later, newly purchased wine bag in hand, Dan was about to get back into his car when his comm buzzed again. Giving the display a quick glance and seeing that it was Ken, Dan pushed the button that shunted him off to voice mail and continued on his way. Less than a minute later the device went off again, but this time signaled him with an emergency tone. Whatever Ken had to say would not wait. “What?” Dan said, his annoyance only partially in jest. “You’d better get over here.” Dan pulled the comm away from his ear and stared at it stupidly before replying. “Why? What’s up?” “Trust me,” Ken said, sounding shaken. “Are you far away?” “You at your old apartment?” Dan asked, sobering. “I’m less than a minute away.” “Pull into the back lot,” Ken said, “then come around front.” He added, “Hurry,” and the line went dead.

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“He’s under there, Dan.” Ken pointed the flashlight into the dank crawlspace underneath his old apartment. “I was bringing out the last box when I saw him.” Dan sighed, running his own light around the space and seeing nothing but dirt and plastic pipes. “You’re nuts. There’s nothing down here.” He was glad he clamped down on the link when Ken had called. Having their reunion interrupted for no good reason would not have pleased his mate. A flicker of movement caught his eye, and Dan moved the beam of his light to the back corner, where he saw a limping gait, and a flash of unmistakably red fur. “There he is,” Dan whispered, awestruck. “You were right.” “You see him?” Ken asked, trying to angle his head so he could see around Dan. “Damn, you’ve got a big head.” “Her,” Dan corrected, automatically. He looked at the space under the house, judged it to be filthy, and went in anyway. Remembering that he was in Bo’s car today, Dan looked back at Ken. “Bo keeps a bag of snacks in his car.” Ken immediately understood his intention and jogged back to where Dan had parked. “Come here, baby,” Dan called in a singsong voice. Seeing the pup’s hesitation, Dan abandoned any possibility of staying clean and lay flat on the ground in an effort to make himself appear as non-threatening as possible. The pup was having none of it, pacing back and forth as she attempted to find a break in the decorative skirting surrounding the base of the structure. Ken returned with a bright blue plastic bag, filled with the snacks that Bo almost always kept close at hand. “Got it.” He ripped off the top and reached in to hand Dan the marshmallow-sized morsel. “What are these things, anyway?” He looked at the bag, then curled his lip in disgust. “Freeze dried liver?” He stared at Dan in horror. “Can’t he just snack on crisps like every other person on the planet?” “Shhhh,” Dan hissed, sliding back underneath the structure. “It doesn’t matter what you think. Bo thinks they’re delicious, so she might, too.” It worked. The pup, driven by hunger that outweighed fear, came closer, head hung low and ears folded back. The strange animal who had crawled into this cave with her smelled like another dog. It might look like one of the animals who chased her away, but this one smelled like a dog, so it must be a dog. Its oddity had been intriguing to her before, but now that it had meat in its paw, this other dog was downright irresistible. And it did smell like a dog. She came only near enough to close her teeth on the tip of the meaty nugget Strange Dog offered. Skittering away, she quickly dropped the object, sniffed it once to confirm its identity, and wolfed it down before it could be taken from her. Looking back at Strange Dog, she saw that he was holding another morsel in his oddly-shaped paw. The ease with which the first prize had been won made this second one even more tempting. Slinking back, she cautiously took this second bit of meat, retreating a bit more slowly before gobbling it down, too. Again she looked up, and again there was more food. Strange Dog was, she realized, not saving any of the delicious food for himself, but was giving it all to her. Strange Dog was feeding her. Strange Dog had not made the slightest move towards her in all this time, and as she took the third piece of food, she indulged her curiosity by giving the outstretched paw a cautious sniff. She chewed the food more slowly this time, looking at Strange Dog and thinking about what she’d just smelled. Strange Dog’s paw smelled like food, yes, but underneath the smell of meat she could tell that it was a male, and that it was excited, but unafraid. Surely it must be the alpha of its pack and, she reasoned, an alpha who fed her must want her to be part of his pack. “Give me some more of those,” Dan said, his hand waving behind him to attract Ken’s attention.” “We’re all out,” the feline mumbled. Dan had to stifle the laugh he felt bubbling up. He was all too familiar with that gummy, stuck-together voice. He heard it every time Bo tried to talk around a mouthful of liver snacks. “Are you kidding me?” “They taste way better than they smell,” Ken defended, weakly. Dan sighed and put his empty hand out to the pup, hoping her curiosity would be strong enough to pull her the last few inches over the bridge of trust. The paw was now empty, but was still outstretched to her. Walking back to Strange Dog with her ears submissively flattened, she smelled the paw again, this time with more care. She pulled back skittishly, in case Strange Dog tried to grab her with his paw, but he just lay there looking at her, inviting examination. Strange Dog was different than all the rest. He was obviously powerful, but did not yell or kick. He was strong, but was not aggressive. And he was warm. Each night she was alone had grown colder, leaving her shivering in whatever shelter she could find. Strange Dog had lay down with his belly exposed, in open invitation for her to nest. Driven by her fatigue, cold and hunger, and by more than a bit of loneliness, she made her decision. She sensed no danger in Strange Dog so she walked closer, pressing the ground down in a few tight circles before lying down next to him, her back nestled against the belly of Maybe Friend. “Oh, my god,” Dan said, as the pup settled in close to him. “It’s like she knows.” “Yeah, great,” Ken said, rubbing his arms with his paws. “Can you pick her up? It’s freezing out here.” “Give me a minute,” Dan said, gently stroking the filthy fur of the priceless mongrel who’d placed her trust in him. “If you’re cold, why don’t you go back inside for a few minutes? I’ll come get you when we’re ready.” Ken ignored the suggestion. “Does Bo know you’re here?” Whoops! Dan winced. “Uh, would you call him for me? Tell him I’ll be home in just a few minutes, but don’t tell him about Joy.” “Joy?” Ken said, “You already named her?” He shook his head resignedly. “Game over.” Dan placed a hand on the body of the warm pup nestled up against him, and twisted to look over his shoulder at Ken. “Shoo.” She stirred under his movement, but when she felt his hand gently press her into his warmth, she immediately settled.

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By the time Dan finally killed his car’s thrusters and settled down into their driveway he was over an hour late getting home, but he didn’t mind. He could feel the steady pull of Bo’s eager anticipation through the link, and at that moment the thought of holding the varius again, whole and alive, far outweighed Dan’s minor annoyance at being late. The front door opened at his approach, admitting him to a house that smelled as good as he felt. He could sense Bo’s own hunger through their bond, as well as…what? Something else. Anticipation, perhaps? Dan stopped wondering what that something else was once he caught sight of Bo standing in the doorway to the kitchen. The flood of emotion from the huge black morph was almost overwhelming, but Dan could hear one thought louder than all the others. !mine! Bo enfolded Dan in a hug that almost lifted him off the ground with its enthusiasm. Dan never wanted to leave that sea of warm, dark fur, but all too soon Bo gently eased him out of the embrace. He kissed the tip of Dan’s nose and took the bag of wine from him. “Grab a couple of wine glasses, will ya?” Curiosity entered the big man’s mind when he saw the bundle Dan was holding in the crook of his other arm like a towel-wrapped football. “What’s that?” Dan grinned shyly and pulled up the corner of the towel to expose the head and shoulders of the sleeping puppy. “Congratulations,” he said, “You’ve got a dog.” “But I don’t…” Bo started, but Dan’s thoughts overwhelmed him. The memories of being powerless to save the life of the pup’s mother, of irrational guilt and shame at not doing more to help, and of discovery and joy at this unexpected opportunity to give entropy a microscopic push backwards. The math was simple: Dan had a dog and Bo had Dan, therefore Bo now had a dog. Unexpectedly, after comprehending why his mate felt so compelled to care for this animal, Bo found that he actually ‘wanted’ the pup, too. “Aawwww…” he crooned, bending over a bit to stroke the comparatively tiny head with one huge paw. The pup opened her eyes at the smell of the other dog and felt momentary alarm when she saw what it looked like, but when she looked up at Maybe Friend and saw that he wasn’t afraid, she calmed and allowed the other to rub her fur. “Will your flea shampoo work on her, too?” Dan asked, choking back a laugh when Bo snatched his hand back like he’d been burned. “It should.” Bo examined his fingers suspiciously, looking for parasites that may have transferred themselves during the brief contact. “I’ll be out in a minute,” Dan said, starting toward their bathroom. “Why don’t you toss the steaks in the marinator?” “Okay,” Bo said, sounding a bit disappointed, “but hurry, okay?”

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“Did you go on your date last weekend?” Jackson asked, quietly. “It doesn’t matter,” Ken fought to look into the eyes of the bull that he lov– into Jackson’s eyes. He owed him that much, at least. “I can’t see you anymore.” There. It was out. Seeing Bo lying in that hospital bed had scared the crap out of him. Life was too short to settle for anything less than the best. Ken had been thinking about it all day long. This time, Dan was just plain wrong. Some things just couldn’t be overcome, no matter how good-looking you were, or how rich, or how…whatever. He and Jackson would never work, and that was all there was to it. Jackson didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. The expression on his face and the dejected set of his shoulders said it all. He was crushed. His fingers played with each other as if they yearned to reach out and touch Ken, but knew they never again could, and his eyes wandered aimlessly over the body he’d once held close to his own. Worst of all, the beautiful, shy smile that Ken treasured was gone, driven away by the ugly words. Jack didn’t get mad. He wasn’t insulted. He wasn’t even surprised. He’d known that what he’d been building in his head was too good to be true, and this just proved it. He didn’t feel compelled to keep up appearances by telling Ken that he’d have someone else to replace him by nightfall, or by yelling out some scathingly hurtful comment. No, Ken had been absolutely honest with him from the start. They had been fuck buddies. Friends with benefits, and nothing more. “Don’t get attached,” Ken had warned, but Jackson hadn’t listened. He’d gotten pushy and demanding and had been jealous of Ken’s time, and this was the result. Uncle Tony had once told him, “If you love it, set it free.” Like most of what Uncle Tony told him, Jack hadn’t really understood it at the time, but he did now. With a great shuddering sigh, Jack nodded his head. “Okay.” Good, Ken thought, breathing a sigh of relief, it’s over. That was easier than I thought it would be. He nodded his head once, turned, and walked out of Jackson’s apartment, ready to live his life again. He was too young to be tied down right now, and even if he wanted to have that kind of attachment, Jackson wasn’t the sort of man he wanted to be attached to. Ken tried not to think about what he’d just done, but the image of Jackson played itself through his mind of its own accord. Shaking his head, Ken concentrated on what was ahead of him instead of what he was leaving behind. But what was ahead of him? He had Dan. He had Bo. And he had a date with a smokin’ hot sapiens artist he’d met at a music festival the previous week. The man was gorgeous, intellectual, well-read, and everything Jackson was not. The man was more like Ben than anyone Ken had dated so far, and Ken wanted him. Dan’s words flitted through his mind, accusingly. “If Jackson’s so inferior, why do you feel compelled to keep thinking up reasons you can’t be together?” Damn the man. Jackson was wrong for him, and trying to force a relationship would never work. Ken ran through the reasons yet again. Jackson was unintelligent…but he could remember the names and characteristics of every amino acid necessary to build muscle, and he could fix his truck with a piece of adhesive tape and a bobby pin. He was unmotivated…yet he could maintain the strict diet and workout routine necessary to win a world championship in a strength competition. He was a slob…but his truck and the public spaces of his apartment were always clean. He didn’t share the same taste in food…but he was physically incapable of eating some foods, and he’d apparently loved the food at the Chandelle club. Or music…but country wasn’t all that bad…or clothes…Jackson looked pretty damned hot just the way he was…or… Ken loved him. Goddamn it, Ken loved him. And he’d just destroyed him. Turning on his heel, Ken did something he swore he’d never do. Pulling off his shoes and tossing them aside, he abandoned his upright posture and raced back to Jack’s apartment on all fours, extended claws finding purchase among the pavement’s pebbles in a way that shoe treads could never do. It may have been socially vulgar, but at that moment it felt absolutely necessary. Less than a minute later Jackson’s apartment was in view. With one last powerful leap, Ken ignored the stairs and leapt high enough to grab the iron railing of the second floor balcony. He used his powerful arms to swing himself over in a single, fluid movement. Not taking time to compose himself, he opened the door and walked in, surprised to find Jackson standing exactly where he’d been when Ken had walked out. The tears that streaked the bull’s forlorn face were a match to those that had somehow appeared on Kensuke’s own fur. “I couldn’t do it,” Ken choked out, unable to withstand the bull’s bereft expression. “I stayed home last Saturday.” He tried to think of the right thing to say, but nothing came to mind. Finally he decided on the naked truth. “I need you, Gongniu.” The next thing Ken knew, he had been swept up in a torrent of warmth and motion, nearly crushed in the desperate grip of a bull who’d almost lost the most important thing he’d ever had. Realizing how tightly he was holding onto Ken, Jack eased his grip. Now that the air wasn’t being crushed from his lungs, Ken could feel the shaking sobs wracking the massive body that held him so close. Oh my God, Ken thought, tears of his own blurring his vision, it really killed him to think I left. Was this what it felt like when someone really loved you? “I’m sorry,” Jackson said, his voice muffled by Ken’s fur. “No, babe,” Ken said, “you don’t have anything to be sorry for. I’m the one who’s the jerk.” “You’re not a jerk!” Jackson said, almost angrily. “Don’t say that.” Ken was touched that the man would defend him so vigorously, even from himself. “You’re an amazing man, Jack,” he said, “and I’m sorry I didn’t see that sooner.” He buried his nose in the fur on Jack’s broad chest, breathing in the scent of his boyfriend. “You want to go get something to eat?” “You mean it?” Jackson asked. “Like a date?” “Yeah,” Ken laughed shakily, “but let’s wait a few minutes, okay? I’m not quite ready to let go of you just yet.” Jack wasn’t about to disagree, but he did have one question. “Ken?” he asked, hesitantly. “Yeah?” Ken answered, nuzzling into the bull’s chestnut fur. “Where are your shoes?” Chapter 46 Dan pulled the wine glasses out of the liquor cabinet in the living room and was almost back to the kitchen before he realized that he’d removed three. Chiding himself for being so absent-minded, he turned and returned the extra one to the cabinet. Why did he have the number three on his mind, all of a sudden? Joy might be part of the family now, but she sure didn’t need a wine glass. Perhaps he was just getting used to having Ken in the house with them. He turned the corner into the kitchen, and what he saw there stopped him dead in his tracks. “Hey there.” Dan felt a huge grin spreading across his face as he strode over to the kitchen table with his arm outstretched. “Hello, Mr. Taylor! It’s a pleasure to finally get to meet you.” The grip in which Rob engulfed Dan’s hand seemed every bit as strong as his son’s, and thankfully, was no less well-controlled. “Pleasure’s mine, kid,” Bo’s father rumbled. He restrained himself from giving the sapiens the rowdy slap on the back he usually greeted his friends with. Dan looked sturdy enough, but the last thing Rob wanted to do was rip the guy’s shoulder out of joint. It would be bad form to break his son’s toy only thirty seconds after being introduced. “Please,” Dan invited, motioning to the chairs around the kitchen table, “sit down.” He noticed that the water glass where Rob had been sitting was almost empty. “Can I get you something more to drink?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Something a bit stronger, maybe?” “You’re speaking my language, kid,” Rob said, settling back down in his chair. “You got any bourbon in this dump?” Bo’s face showed no emotion as he quickly scanned the outermost layers of his mate’s thoughts, searching for any signs that his father’s coarse comment might have caused offense. He was relieved to find that Dan was prepared to cut his father the same slack he would have afforded a close friend or any other member of his family. Dan was better than most at overlooking slights, unintended or otherwise, and in the case of Rob Taylor, that trait would serve him well. “Gallons,” Dan turned back to the liquor cabinet so smoothly that if Bo hadn’t been peeking inside his thoughts, he’d have imagined that Dan missed the comment. “But I picked up a pretty good bag of wine too, so don’t get too sloshed before dinner to appreciate it.” “I’m not much of a wine drinker,” Rob said, managing to imply with his tone that a real man would drink something stronger. Dan shrugged off the comment, hearing the disdain in Rob’s voice but trying not to give it too much weight. Sam and Bo had both warned him that Rob was difficult, and he had prepared himself for something like this. “Not a problem.” Dan went back to the living room and dug around in the liquor cabinet, returning with a bottle of his best bourbon. “You can try it and see what you think. If you don’t like it, we’ll get you something else.” He held up the bottle of bourbon, not really expecting Rob to know what it was, but affording him the courtesy of assuming he might. “You want a mixer with this?” After categorizing Dan as a wine snob Rob didn’t expect him to know much about good bourbon, but his face brightened when he saw the label on the bottle Dan was carrying. “That’s good stuff. Straight.” Dan held up an ice cube and quirked an eyebrow. Getting a nod in return, he tossed three chunks into an oversized old-fashioned glass and followed them with two varius-sized fingers of the smoky amber liquid. Setting it in front of Bo’s father, he smiled and admonished, “I know how you Taylor boys can be. If you start to get crazy, I’m cutting you off.” He shot a significant glance at Bo that hinted of past misdeeds. “What did I do?” Bo protested, affronted that Dan would accuse him of misbehavior, and in front of his father, no less. Without saying a word, Dan walked over to a small, framed picture hanging on the wall and nudged it aside. Behind it was the cap of a beer bottle, embedded into the wall where Bo had flicked it months ago. Rob barked a laugh as he watched his son’s innocent demeanor evaporate. “Oops.” “Yeah, oops.” Dan returned the picture to its place and pointed a playfully warning finger at Rob. “Don’t get crazy.” He was happy to see that although there hadn’t been much physical change in his rough countenance, Rob’s eyes now sparkled with amusement the same way Bo’s had back when Dan had first met him. “I thought you were on your way to Mars?” Dan asked, putting a smaller shot of bourbon into his own glass before filling it with ice and a dark-colored carbonated mixer. “Was,” Rob said, appreciating the taste of his own drink. “Saw news. Return C C 2.” “Dad,” Bo said, warningly. His dad seemed to be doing everything he could think of to isolate Dan, and he was apparently feeling especially creative tonight. For a varius, dropping into milspeak or omitting a few words here and there from your speech wasn’t all that big a deal if the structure of your mouth made it difficult to pronounce the words, but Rob had no such condition. He might speak slowly by habit, but he could still say all the words just fine. ‘Return C C 2’ was standard military comm code for returning to the point where you last had contact with the person of interest, and Bo suspected that his father was about to ramp into full milspeak as a way to make Dan feel excluded from the conversation. Dan felt that Rob’s slip into pidgin dialect was something more than the man’s becoming comfortable in his presence, and Bo’s reaction had just confirmed his suspicion. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dan thought this must be yet another test, the way the jab at their house had been. “No,” he said easily, stopping Bo’s protest before it could get rolling. His gaze flicked across Rob’s eyes but ended up settling on his mate’s, and he pulled pertinent knowledge from Bo’s mind as easily as he’d pull matching socks from a drawer. “I grok.” With his eyes, he had let both men know that he knew what Rob was doing, he didn’t care, and that ultimately he was still in control of the situation. Rob grinned, enjoying the reaction he’d elicited. “Sam was right, kid,” he said, tipping the glass back. “You might just be worth keeping.” A measured portion of the expensive bourbon slid smoothly down the back of his throat, warming him from the inside. Dan didn’t feel compelled to be liked by every person in a room, and if it were anyone other than Bo’s biological father sitting in his kitchen, Dan might have chosen to avoid the stress of being around Rob by enjoying a pleasant Chinese buffet with Ken while father and son reconnected at home. But he knew that if Bo’s father was going to be part of their family, he couldn’t let the man get under his skin this early in the game. Dan silently took a deep breath, girded his loins and tried again. “You came back? How did you manage that?” He leaned back against the kitchen counter and looked at Rob oddly. “Those flights are planned out to the kilo weeks in advance. You can’t just…come back.” “I might have gotten a bit forceful about it,” Rob said, his grin devilish. “I’m afraid I won’t be flying on Trans-World again, any time soon. It’s no big deal, though,” he chuffed, “The crew were a bunch of sapes, and they weren’t doing a very good job of flying that bucket of bolts, anyway.” Dan tossed a coaster down on the same side of the table where Rob was sitting and casually put his drink on it. “Babe? It’s getting late. Would you mind throwing those steaks on the grill?” concern trust “Okey dokey.” Bo didn’t really want to leave the room, but if Dan wanted a few moments alone with his dad, he wasn’t about to argue. Pulling the steaks out of the chiller, Bo walked outside and shut the door behind him. Dan closed off his side of the link for privacy and looked directly into Rob’s eyes. His gaze wasn’t a challenge, it was an invitation for open honesty between the two men. “No more games, Mr. Taylor.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “I’m not going to turn this into a pissing match on my own home turf.” Rob almost looked injured, but he reconsidered and dropped the façade even before it had fully formed. Dan’s self-confidence was beginning to look like impudence. “This is new to me, kid, and so far I think I’m doing pretty damned good.” He took a deep breath and shook his head regretfully, as if Dan had disappointed him by asking for some sort of special favor. “I’m not treating you any different than I’d treat one of us. It was yet another of Rob’s little slights designed to throw a wedge between them, but Dan didn’t take the bait. “Bullshit,” he said, calmly. “If you walked into Sam’s house and said any of that, he’d have knocked you into next week.” Rob opened his mouth to argue but stopped himself. What could he possibly say that wouldn’t make him look like a bigger fool than he already was? Since the moment Dan laid eyes on Rob, he’d treated him with dignity and respect, and even when Rob hadn’t exactly reciprocated, Dan’s attitude hadn’t changed. At first Rob had taken Dan’s pleasant, non-confrontational demeanor as a sign of sapiens weakness, but he was beginning to understand how wrong he’d been. Dan wasn’t asserting dominance not because he couldn’t do it, but because it wasn’t what he wanted. Instead of crumbling submissively or fighting to dominate, either of which had been what Rob expected, Dan had created a more sophisticated third option; he’d chosen to walk beside Rob as an equal. Sam was right. This kid sure as hell wasn’t a pansy. Closing his eyes, Rob shook his head as if clearing it. “Goddamn it,” he muttered in what sounded like annoyance, looking away from Dan, “you’re making it really hard to not like you.” “Thanks,” Dan said, after a moment spent deciding that Rob wasn’t lobbing another insult at him. “This is all new to me,” Rob said again, but this time his words were markedly different. Instead of being a shouted challenge from the ramparts of a threatened castle, Dan heard them as a wary plea from a cautiously opened heart. “It’s okay,” Dan leaned forward, encouragingly. “We know this isn’t your thing, so we’ll all just roll with the punches for a while. If you’re willing to stop trying to intentionally piss me off, I promise that we won’t turn you gay.” Rob sat back, his eyes wide. This was how it had happened! “You…” he stammered, “you can’t…” Dan turned down the volume on his amusement so it emerged as a happy quirk at the corners of his mouth instead of the full-fledged belly laugh it yearned to be. “Don’t worry, you’re safe. It doesn’t work that way.” When Rob looked relieved, Dan continued. “When Bo and I first met, he cut me a lot of slack because I didn’t know any better. I guess I can do the same for you.” “Bo’s a lot nicer than I am,” Rob said, and Dan thought he heard a measure of inwardly directed scorn in his voice. “Yeah, well, Bo’s a lot nicer than just about everyone,” Dan agreed. “He just doesn’t want anybody to know it.” The mention of his mate reminded him how long the man had been outside. It didn’t take more than thirty seconds to toss a few steaks on the grill and Bo had been outside for far longer than that. Dan appreciated his mate for giving them the time they needed to hammer things out, but Dan didn’t want him to be outside in the cold for any longer than necessary. Still, there was one other thing that needed to be said. He looked over Rob’s shoulder to make sure the door to the patio was still shut before he continued. “We don’t have a lot of time, so I’ll be blunt?” Rob nodded his assent, and Dan continued. His words were quick, but carefully chosen. “I know your family’s bonding pattern wasn’t strong.” Rob immediately looked uncomfortable, but this time might never come again and Dan pushed forward, determined to get this out in the open. “You could never know what was rolling around inside Bo’s head, but I can.” He caught Rob’s eye and held it, giving his chin a quick jerk towards the back door for emphasis. “You need to know, that man out there thinks you hung the moon, and nothing in the world is ever going to change that.” He then said something unexpected, something that left Rob feeling like Dan had opened up his skull, taken a leisurely look around, and had seen things within him that Rob himself might not have wanted to expose. “You don’t have to compete with me for Bo, because you’ve already got him. You will always be his dad, and I’m not stupid enough to put myself between a man and his son.” Dan shrugged his shoulders and leaned back in his chair. “If you don’t try to get between us, we can all be friends.” He spread his hands wide. “Everybody wins.” “There’s always going to be a loser,” Rob said, ominously, “and it’s not going to be me.” Bo’s father looked straight back at Dan, and when the man didn’t flinch under his hard gaze he stood up and cracked his knuckles, leaning forward slightly. Dan didn’t know what was coming, but if Rob wanted a fight, Dan refused to run in fear. Rob hadn’t settled on his feet before Dan rose, meeting the other man’s aggressive stance with utter calm. Neither advanced or retreated, they merely evaluated each other. After a tense few seconds, Rob turned his head and stared significantly at the back door, which had remained closed. Rob canted his head a few degrees to the left, making him look more like a curious Rottweiler than ever as he chewed the situation over. Finally he asked one last question, the only one that really mattered to him. “You gonna be good to my boy?” Dan’s response was immediate. “Yes, sir,” he said, looking confidently into Rob Taylor’s dark eyes. That was it, Dan realized. His final test. Rob had been wondering if Dan would meet his opponents head-on, or habitually depend on his stronger mate to pull his ass out of the fire when things got tough. Dan was only mildly surprised when Rob reached his handpaw out. “Good enough.” When Dan shook it this time, Rob’s hand felt warm and alive, and he wasn’t expecting the bigger man to use their grip to pull them into a gruff hug. “You can be what I never was to him, right?” Rob said, his voice unexpectedly soft in Dan’s ear. Dan gently pushed them apart, but kept a hand on the varius’ arm so he wouldn’t mistake it for a rejection. “No,” he said quietly, holding on to Rob’s ample biceps with his left hand. “There’s nothing wrong with what you were, or what you are. You’re just you, and if you had been any different, Bo wouldn’t be Bo.” He shook his head. “We’re something entirely new.” He gave Rob a pat on the shoulder. “And you’re part of that, now. And we’re glad to have you.” This time it was Dan who pulled Rob close, and contrary to everything he’d expected, Rob Taylor felt welcome. They detached themselves after a few seconds, and although Dan thought Rob’s eyes might look a little brighter, the older man’s voice was still strong. “You’d better call that boy back in here before he freezes.” Dan grinned and opened himself up to Bo, and his eyes immediately grew wide. “Oh, shit,” he exclaimed, running for the back door. It had somehow gotten set to ‘automatic’ and had locked behind Bo when he’d taken the steaks out. “Why didn’t you knock?” he asked, admitting his chilly mate into the warm house. “It’s not so bad out there,” Bo said, stoically ignoring his own discomfort. “You and dad get things ironed out?” Dan nodded, taking the empty plate from Bo and turning to the kitchen. “Yeah. Maybe better than we hoped, even.” “Whoops!” In the excitement of getting to know Bo’s dad, Dan had forgotten about the puppy he’d left in their bedroom. Joy’s nap hadn’t lasted long, and as soon as she’d woken up, she began exploring her new world. She had escaped from the bedroom, and was now vigorously chewing on the laces of a shoe that she’d dragged into the living room. Fortunately for the shoe, she hadn’t had time to really get going on it before he pulled it out of her mouth. Tucking her into the crook of his arm, he followed Bo back into the kitchen. “That the new addition?” Rob asked, examining the pup carefully. “She’s a real looker.” “She cleans up nice,” Dan agreed, stroking the brick-red fur that had become sleek and soft after only the most basic of care. He noticed that for all its vibrant color, her fur seemed stretched over bones too large for her small body. Still, he spoke confidently. “She’s going to be a great dog, I think.” “What did you say her name was?” Rob reached a hand in to stroke the little girl’s chin. “Joy,” Dan said. “I think I had ‘Joy Bus’ stuck in my head, I don’t know. It felt right.” “It’s a good name,” Rob said, distractedly. One by one he carefully pulled her paws out and examined them closely. Her pads were thin and her toenails worn short. “She’s been on the streets for a while, hasn’t she?” When Rob got to Joy’s rear paws, Dan found it awkward to keep the wiggling puppy in his arms anymore and he handed her over. He wasn’t sure how she’d respond to leaving his arms for those of a stranger, but she seemed willing to endure Rob’s examination. “I don’t think she’s ever had a home,” Dan said, his arms already missing the puppy’s warm weight. “Her mother died a few months ago, before we could track her back to her litter. Then today, Joy shows up not ten meters from where we buried her mother.” Rob gently worked a finger inside her mouth to see her teeth. She moved her head to the side to avoid the intrusion, but other than that small rebellion, put up no fuss. “She’s small for her age,” he remarked. “Might be the runt.” He gently turned her head so that he could look into her ears. “I’m surprised she lived this long.” He gave her belly a caressing rub and she stretched out in a great, full-body yawn before curling up in his lap. “She’s got worms, but that’s no surprise.” Rob handed the pup back to Dan, who took her gratefully. “Other than that, she looks pretty good.” Back in Dan’s lap, Joy took a final look back at Rob before deciding that things were better where she was and laying her head back down. “Where’d you learn so much about dogs?” Dan wondered, stroking Joy’s supple ear leathers. “Believe it or not, I spent a lot of time in a monastery when I was growing up,” Rob said, a shy grin on his face as he remembered. “They had a kennel out there, and we used to work with the dogs.” “She seems friendly,” Dan observed. “I thought that when a dog grows up wild, it took them a long time to warm up to people.” “It would probably be different if you smelled more like a sapiens,” Rob guessed. On impulse, he leaned forward and gave Dan a good sniff. Taken by surprise, Dan sat still and allowed the nasal inspection, biting back hard on a sarcastic impulse to ask Rob if he’d like to sniff his butt as well. don’t even think about it When he sat back in his chair, Rob picked up his drink and pronounced, “You smell more like Bo than Bo does. Change must have hit you pretty hard.” “I don’t feel any different,” Dan said, wondering if that was good or bad. His reverie was interrupted when Bo sat a large plate in front of him, piled high with food that smelled as rich and wonderful as it looked. In a mound between the steaming-hot grilled steak and the freshly steamed green beans, liquid cheese dotted with black flecks of freshly-ground pepper drooled out of tender, perfectly-cooked macaroni shells. Dan was pleased to see that Bo had even taken the time to show some love to his sapiens digestive tract by making a small salad for him on the side of his plate. “Thanks, babe. It looks delicious!” Conversation slowed as the men enjoyed their food, only resuming once they had sopped up the last bits of ice cream in the brownie sundaes that Bo made for dessert. “That was amazing, Boo,” Dan pronounced, leaning back in his chair as he wiped his fingers clean of the sticky ice cream residue. “Full marks.” Rob was in the middle of an almost sincere apology for his foundation-rattling eructation when Dan’s comm beeped. Dan saw that he’d left it on the counter and, not wanting to disturb the puppy sleeping contentedly in his lap, he asked Bo to answer the call. The varius opened the line and shoved the comm under his ear flap. “What?” Judging by the terseness of his mate’s salutation, Dan guessed that it must be Ken on the other end. Bo listened attentively to their Circlemate, his face giving away none of the conversation. Despite the fact that his comm was less than a meter away, Dan could not overhear what was coming out of the speaker. Apparently, the velvety fur of Bo’s ears made an excellent barrier against stray sounds. After a few grunted bits of cryptic conversation, Bo closed the line and turned to the man he loved. “Shut up.” Unruffled, Dan turned and explained to Rob, “This is how some of our better conversations start.” He turned back to Bo and raised an expectant eyebrow. “Don’t look at me,” Bo said, his gaze wandering over the table’s remains to see if there was anything left worth eating. “I’m just relaying what Ken told me to say.” Dan was puzzled for a moment, but soon broke into a wide grin. “He did it.” Bo’s affect was more reserved than usual with his father around, but Dan’s happy chuckle brought a smile to his face as well. “What?” Dan looked inordinately satisfied. “I’ll bet you a dozen apple fritters that he’s officially dating Jackson now.” Bo’s ears perked up happily. “He says to not wait up for him, so I guess he’s going to be staying over at Jack’s place tonight.” His brow furrowed. “He said something about trying to make some kittens with horns.” “Oh, Jesus,” Rob groaned, sounding distressed. “Do we really gotta talk about this?” “Don’t worry, he was just kidding,” Bo reassured his father. “Butt-babies never live anyway.” From the green look around the man’s gills, Dan could tell that Rob really wasn’t kidding. “That’s enough, Bo. You’re making your dad nervous.” “You know how many times he’s told me about all the waitresses he’s banged?” Bo protested. “That was back when you were banging them, too,” Dan reminded him, leaning his elbows on a clean part of the table. “Take it easy on him. For a while, at least.” Bo snorted. “That’s no fun.” Dan looked at Rob, earnestly. “Was he like this as a child?” It was Rob’s turn to snort, as he remembered what he’d seen of his son’s behavior. “I wasn’t around a lot, but they almost had to send him to that same fucking—” He squinted his eyes in irritation at himself. “Sorry. They almost had to send him to that same goddamned school they sent me to. He was always shooting his mouth off. Couldn’t shut him up.” Dan strangled back a laugh and got up to brew a fresh pot of coffee. He was beginning to understand why Bo was the way he was. Bo looked proud rather than injured when he asked, “What did I ever say that was wrong?” “Technically, nothing,” Rob admitted, “But you never passed up a chance to rub someone’s nose in the fact you were right, and that pissed a lot of people off.” “So because they were embarrassed about being wrong, that gave them the right to fuck with my life?” Bo asked. Through their link Dan could feel the pink blush of aggression peeking over the horizon, and he grabbed the tiller of their conversational boat in a bid to wrest it away from the ego-driven whirlpool it was circling. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but what were you doing in a monastery?” “It doesn’t seem like a logical place for me, does it?” Rob chuckled. “They had a private school there, and they offered me a space.” “What did you think about it?” Dan asked, genuinely curious. “Of the school?” Rob thought for a moment. “It was a hell of a lot better than the one in my neighborhood.” He shrugged. “Kids there were nicer.” “So it was easier to swipe their lunch money?” Bo teased. Rob looked aggrieved. “I didn’t swipe anyone’s lunch money,” he clarified, not wanting Bo to give Dan the wrong impression of him. “That’s not what Sam says,” Bo challenged. Rob rolled his eyes, as if he’d been explaining this point for years. “Sam offered me his lunch money.” “To stop beating him up,” Bo pushed. Any personal revelation Bo was hoping to elicit was not forthcoming. Rob merely shrugged. “He needed it. And,” he said, defensively, “he might have been a little younger than me, but it wasn’t like he was shrimpy.” He stretched out his legs and reached down unconsciously to adjust his crotch. “Sam was a big fucker, even back then.” Realizing that he’d just groped his junk while sitting between two gay men, he looked mildly uncomfortable. Dan ignored the display. “You thought he needed to get pushed around?” Bo could feel the annoyance in his mate that had been stirred up by his father’s calm admission. be careful “Sure,” Rob said, easily. “If I hadn’t been there, he’d still be getting pushed around.” Seeing the uncomprehending look on Dan’s face, he elaborated. “He had everything he needed to be great, but he spent all day moping around like he was waiting for someone to whack him.” “So you accommodated him,” Dan pushed. annoyance “Shit yeah, I accommodated him,” Rob shot back, easily, “right in the head. He just needed a little confidence in himself.” He shook his head, remembering what an unsavory milquetoast his friend had been. “I liked him, but he was such a fuckin’ puss I couldn’t stand to be around him. So I gave him a few shoves, and when he got sick of it, he started fighting back.” He held up his hands, triumphantly. “Voilà! We’ve been friends ever since.” Dan could tell that Bo’s father was quite satisfied with the outcome of the situation, and even saw himself as having done Sam a favor. The end, as he saw it, justified the means. And, Dan realized, no matter how fervently he believed in his own methods, trying to impose them on Rob was not going to change the man’s mind, and stood a good chance of poisoning their budding relationship. He chalked it up to Rob being Rob, and forcefully reminded himself that he had as little right to try to change Bo’s father as Rob had to try to change him or Bo. “I’m glad it worked out,” he said, neutrally. “I’ve only known him for a few months, but Sam seems like a really great guy.’ “He’s aces,” Bo’s dad agreed. “Nobody better to have behind you in a fight.” He drained the last of the bourbon in his glass. “Family’s a little screwy, but they’re all pretty good, I guess.” Dan motioned inquiringly with the bottle, and Rob pushed his glass toward him for a refill. “We were like the three musketeers back then,” he remembered. “No matter where we went, it was always me and Sam and Dag.” slow him down a bit babe… “Dag?” This was a new name, to Dan. He couldn’t recall ever hearing it before. “Who’s that?” “Yeah,” Rob said, almost wistfully. “Me and Sam got the hell out of there as soon as we could, but Dag didn’t want to go.” The comment so completely didn’t answer Dan’s question that he did a quick count of the number of drinks Rob had consumed. He hadn’t served Rob all that much more than he’d had himself, and he wondered whether Rob hadn’t understood him or simply didn’t want to answer. Bo understood his confusion and came to the rescue. “Dag was a year ahead of Sam and Dad. He was from the better side of the tracks, but they still got along.” “That kid was magic,” Rob interrupted. “He could talk his way out of anything. He just…” Rob sought the right words, waving his broad hands as if trying to seine them out of the air. “He wasn’t full of bullshit or anything, but when he talked, people would listen, you know?” Dan tried to make his comment sound lighthearted, but it came across as somber truth. “People like that scare the hell out of me.” Rob had to laugh. “Well, yeah, most of those guys are so cold butter won’t melt in their mouths, but Dag’s different.” Rob leaned back and ran his hand through his thick mop of hair. “He could have been one hell of a con-artist if he’d wanted to, but he never screws anyone over, so everybody trusts him.” He looked a little sad, now. “I sorta lost track of him after we left school.” “Sam still talks to him,” Bo said. “You could too, if you wanted. You still have a lot in common. He has a son, too.” He was trying to be encouraging, but the pain that flashed across Rob’s face made him wish he’d kept his mouth shut. “I’m sorry, dad,” he apologized, quietly. “I didn’t mean to rip open any old wounds.” If anyone else had told him that, Rob would have gotten mad and stormed off, hiding his hurt and disappointment behind a highly effective façade of bluster and aggression. Tonight, his mind reflected on what Dan had told him not even an hour earlier. “That man out there thinks you hung the moon.” Getting mad might allow him to avoid thinking about the painful choices he’d made in his life, but it would also alienate Dan and embarrass his son. Instead, he sighed. “Nothing to be sorry about, Squirt. You know I love working off-planet, but it forced some decisions I never wanted to make.” The man looked so much like Bo that Dan had difficulty reining in his sympathetic impulses to comfort him through the pain like he would have Bo. He wanted to hug the man until he worked this out but knew that would backfire spectacularly, so he sat where he was. “You’re back on Earth now,” he suggested, quietly. “Why don’t you call him?” “The longer you ignore someone, the harder it gets to reconnect,” Bo’s dad said, sounding very disappointed at the choices he’d made. “Never do that, Dan. Never let a relationship go so far that you can’t bring it back.” He knocked back the last of his bourbon and waved off a refill. “Never be so proud that you can’t say you’re sorry. I did that with Lorena, and it fucked up a lot of things for me.” All of the questions Dan might have asked were put on the back burner when Rob stood up and held his hand out to Dan. “It’s been fun, guys, but it’s getting late. I’ve got to get back to Sam’s house before he locks me out.” “I wish you could stay longer,” Dan said, wondering if he’d pushed too hard. “I enjoyed meeting you.” “Same here,” Rob said, and something in his voice told Dan that his were more than just polite words. The older varius turned to his son and pulled him into a casual hug that ended with a heroic clap on the back that sounded like a gunshot. “I’m glad you’re okay, Squirt.” And then, with no more said, he was out the door, the house echoing quiet in his wake. “He sure is…large,” Dan managed, wondering if this was what it felt like to have a herd of elephants stampede around you, then thunder off into the distance after leaving you untouched. “Does he always just up and leave like that?” Bo grunted, but looked fairly satisfied. “It’s usually a lot worse.” He thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. “At least this time he said goodbye.” He looked Dan in the eye. “Don’t get used to it.” Dan closed his eyes and burrowed is nose into the exposed triangle of fur peeking out of Bo’s shirt. “He seemed like he was really trying. He didn’t have to be so nice to me tonight. That was good of him.” “The word ‘nice’ isn’t often applied to my father,” Bo said, a touch of ire in his voice, “But you’re right, he was honestly trying tonight, and that counts for a lot.” After a moment spent rocking back and forth in his mate’s warm, fragrant embrace, Dan whispered, “Thanks.” “For what, love?” Dan considered for a moment, enjoying the feeling of being close to someone he loved so much. “For being my hero. For being a good son to your father. For being my better half.” He smiled up at Bo. “For just being you.” Bo didn’t bother with words. The love that poured through their link said more than any words ever could, binding the two men inseparably. They held each other in the near darkness, then quietly, hand-in-hand, went around the house turning out lamps and blowing out candles until the only light that remained, glowing softly, lit the way to their bedroom. Epilogue Bo whistled as he strode down the street, anticipating the smoky taste of the barbecue sandwiches that had become a regular Wednesday item for Dan and him. Thoughts of the succulent, hickory-smoked meat, sitting on a bakery-fresh bun, topped with a crisp slice of onion and slathered with sauce made his mouth water. He was so preoccupied that he neglected to look both ways before stepping into the busy street. The ground bus that nearly hit him would have taken considerable damage in the collision, but disaster was averted at the last possible instant by a blaring horn that pulled him out of his reverie. Startled, with enough adrenaline pumping through his veins to power him through the 100-meter dash, Bo put out a shaky handpaw to steady himself against a nearby lamp post. As he regained his equilibrium, Bo looked around as if seeing the shops that lined the street for the first time. His battle-honed reflexes sharpened his vision to an almost supernatural degree, and details that his eyes had skipped over for years popped into view with crystal clarity. One store that caught his eye sold overpriced convenience items and genetically engineered tobaccos. He must have passed the shop at least three times a week for the past five years, but he’d never given it a second glance. Now that he’d almost lost his life right outside its doors, he gave it a closer look. It was a bit run down and shabby, as was just about everything within a two-kilometer radius of Magnum Metals. Something about the place seemed disreputable. Perhaps it was the stimstick ads plastered across the front window, or maybe it was the ‘lottery’ sign blinking gaudily above the door. For whatever reason, it seemed a bit seedier than the other shops. In spite of himself, Bo’s curiosity was piqued, and he found himself stooping slightly to pass through the shop’s creaky front door. His eyes took a moment to adjust from the sun’s glare, and once they did, he decided that going any further probably wasn’t wise. The closely spaced shelves were jam-packed with so much obviously breakable crap that he didn’t stand a chance of walking from the front door to the rear without making a half-dozen unintentional purchases. A hand-lettered sign saying, ‘You break, you buy,’ made the decision for him. He turned carefully to leave when the blinking sign above the door caught his attention. He stood for a moment while it scrolled through its message, his huge paw on the door handle. “Play the NorAm Union Lottery! Win hundreds of prizes, or the grand prise of 102,485,000 credits!” Bo winced at the misspelling, but he couldn’t help thinking what he and Dan might do with a hundred million credits. Well, he thought to himself, he’d just escaped death by the narrowest margin, so perhaps his luck wasn’t as bad as it used to be. Digging out his wallet, he turned to the smiling Asian woman behind the counter. “I’d like a lottery ticket, please.” She grinned a toothless smile at him and pointed her gnarled finger at a stack of papers to the side of the register. At his obvious confusion, she signaled him to wait with the upraising of that single bony finger) and she turned her back to him. Fifteen seconds later she turned back to Bo with a changed face and a mouth full of teeth, but no amount of prosthetic dental work could make her heavy Cantonese accent easy to understand. “You’ve got to fill out a form, sonny.” “Form?” he asked, moving closer. “I’ve never played this before.” She looked as startled as if he’d just grown a second head. “What, never?” Bo shrugged and shook his head. “No, little mother,” he admitted, affording her the honorific as a courtesy. “Can you tell me what to do?” “Everyone plays the lottery,” she intoned, using her footstool as a ladder to climb halfway over the counter. She was obviously more spry than she appeared. She licked the tip of her finger, pulled a lottery form off the top of the stack and returned to her throne. Unfolding the paper, she spread it out before Bo and pointed with a long, ruby-red fingernail to the different boxes. Explaining it step by step, she patiently told Bo what to write in each space, and what experienced players tended to do. Some of her advice he followed, some he did not. “Is that it?” he asked finally, handing back the form and a single credit slip. “That’s it,” she confirmed, feeding his ticket into the machine with a flourish and handing the varius his receipt. Bo stared at it for a moment before folding it carefully and putting it into his back pocket. He didn’t feel any richer. “Hey, buddy,” she called out, stopping him on his way out the front door. She looked at him curiously, charmed by his innocence. “I hope you win!”