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When he returned to the apartment and opened the door, Andrew was met with an unexpectedly cute sight - Bligh, up against the arm of the couch, Cody on top of him with his head resting against his chest, arms around his waist, snuggled up, watching television together. Neither had put on clothes - save for Bligh's cap, back in its usual spot - and so the fur on their legs, and their tails, sable and tawny, mingled together...Bligh's hand was in the boy's hair, stroking it, whole clumps of it in his fingers, with every movement of his hand, shaping a trust of infinite magnitude, the missing link, interrupted from yesterday, of the three-way connection that made them family.

He could smell them as soon as the door was opened - Bligh's musk, the profound security, and Cody's sweet, delicious smell - it assailed him, welcomed him, the scent, so like a pack animal, of the two people he loved most.

The two of them almost in unison raised their heads as he came in - Bligh grinned at him, his fangs out, and Cody smiled as he always did, warm as the Sun he was born under nineteen years before.

The moment took him aback - for a second, his lurking fears from his conversation with Stephen were put to rest, and he felt that same bedazzlement that two people, so perfect, so beautiful, could ever love him as he wanted to be loved. He was humbled - deeply humbled - as he smiled back at them, realizing that for everything that had happened, he was, easily, and his own estimate, the luckiest boy on Earth.

"Sup!" Bligh called with a small titter.

"Hey y'all," Andrew answered back, coming to the couch.

The two separated so that he could sit between them, Cody taking a moment to pause the show they were watching - It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia again, Charlie Kelly in mid-yell at Sweet Dee - before falling into his lap as Bligh gave him a happy kiss on his cheek...his fur, his chest hair, his beard, all tickled him at once, and Andrew let out a small, happy laugh.

"Aww, this is nice!"

Bligh put a hand on Andrew's cap to remove it, stroking the ears that had been hidden beneath - Andrew grinned as he felt a continuous wave of warm pleasure envelop him at Bligh's touch.

He chuckled. "And that - feels nice..."

Bligh tittered again, wrapping him in a tight hug.

"So how'd it go?" Cody asked from beneath him.

Andrew's smile faded - he glanced to Bligh, who furrowed his eyebrows.

"That bad, huh?" he ventured.

Andrew shrugged. "It - uh, went well as I expected, I guess."

"Which was how?" Bligh smirked.

"Uh..." Andrew rolled his eyes. "Awkward and weird. He was drunk again."

Bligh seemed unsurprised. "Figured he'd keep that up..."

"Yeah, it was--" Andrew struggled for a positive way to put it. "Interesting. But he told me a lot."

"So then, what he tell you?" asked Cody.

Andrew looked down at the boy, stroking his hair as Bligh had done. "Well - did you know Bligh and Stephen used to hang out?"

He flicked his eyes to Bligh, who looked away, at once, a small flush coming to his face

Cody stirred to look up at them both. "Wait - what?"

"It was only a couple o'times, man..." Bligh murmured. "It didn't mean nuthin - jest - bein round em made me feel...closer to ya somehow."

Andrew shrugged. "I guess - we do look alike, so I've been told." He smiled. "But you still could've told me."

It was Bligh's turn to shrug. "Never came up."

"Oh c'mon," Cody said, joining in.

Andrew leaned forward, his smiling becoming knowing. "Yeah Bligh."

Bligh shook his head. "I didn't--" He shook his head again, quicker this time, his agitation becoming apparent. "Man it was like me n'Duke, aight? I didn't - I didn't want ya ta think bad o'me, okay? Me n'yer brother hangin out - it - it would seem a little weird--"

"Not really!" Andrew said with an upward lilt, his smiling broadening. "C'mon dude, he was always with us - were you _that_paranoid you'd - upset me before you came here?"

The two regarded each other for a fractional length before Bligh, relenting, let out a low cackle. "Aight, fine - yer right, I'm sorry." He nodded. "Yeah - yeah he was always hangin round us. Used ta git on my nerves cuz I jest wanted it ta be us lotta the time..." He sniffed. "The old days, man..."

Andrew nodded, slowly, trying to fight off the twinge of nostalgia that prickled at him - he chuckled, running a finger over Cody's ear, at the strange irony at the sudden memory of Stephen, shirtless, pinning him against his car.

"He never wears a shirt because of you..."

Bligh tittered, looking askance. "Do what now?"

"Yeah he - you don't remember he never wore a shirt starting, like, right when he - went through puberty?"

Cody giggled, slow and a little unsure, at the very idea.

"Naw - man, he didn't git that from me--"

"The Hell he didn't! You never wore a shirt--" He took his hand from Cody's ear to Bligh's lower nipples, causing his best friend to shiver, his sheath became quickly plump at the touch. "Look at you, you still don't!"

Bligh took Andrew's hand by the wrist to kiss it, snickering. "Like yew gonna complain bout seein me without a shirt - shit."

"I'm not..." Cody said with a teasingly giggle.

"Well I know y'ain't, Pup," answered Bligh with another snicker.

It was a sweet moment - it was playfully intimate, the picture of domestic sweetness that Cody and Andrew, alone, had done well, and now, with Bligh, could do excellently. And now it was Andrew's job to ruin it.

"Well he oughta start wearing shirts, else he gets a sunburn," he said, his voice dipping abruptly in tandem with a rising tension as he knew the time had come to tell the two of them the truth. "Because he's - he's in Florida - he's - here -here, already."

Cody's ears went flat - Bligh's eyes went wide.

Andrew took a deep breath - they were both waiting on him to elaborate, and he stayed the hesitation that strangled his vocal cords, to tell them what he meant:

"He ain't going to Virginia Tech he's - he's at Eckerd College."

Bligh furrowed his eyebrows. "Where's that at?"

"Eckerd!" Cody exclaimed - his right ear twitched as his eyes darted about the room, thinking. "I - I've heard of it--"

"Thirty minutes away," Andrew went on. "He don't know where we are - I mean he kinda does since I go to USF - but he um, he can't be sure of where we live."

Bligh's ears flattened, and he let out a distracted, uncomfortable sigh. "Well why - why he down here? Don't he got some scholarship at Tech?"

Andrew shook his head. "He wanted to be near me, Bligh. He - he didn't tell you even when you decided to come down here because he wanted it to be a surprise--"

"That's one Hell of a surprise," Bligh murmured with the grimace that Andrew recognized from the beach - he would not yield.

"So he'll--" Cody hesitated, trying to weigh the gravity of the situation that they three now found themselves in. "He'll see us--"

"And he'll find out who we really are," Andrew finished for him. "Yeah - yeah. I think, um - if you want my honest opinion, I think he'll be - if he's not okay with it, at first, he'll get over it, he'll - he wouldn't tell anybody." He sighed. "Since we're keeping this a secret, apparently..." He paused. "But yeah - he'll - he'll be okay with it."

"Well yeah, it makes sense--" Cody slid out of Andrew's lap, kicking along the cushions to the other side of the couch, stretching - his ears went flat, and his tail stood up on end, and he let out a woosh of air as he scratched his own ear. "He's your brother, and he loves you - right?"

Andrew smiled at him - it was small at first, but it grew wider as he thought about it, until it became a grin. "Y-yeah - yeah. He does." He glanced to Bligh. "And you - you know that's true."

Bligh seemed unmoved as he rose off the couch."He on the drink, Drew," he said through a small frown.

"No kidding!" Andrew answered gamely - it was his turn to rise, standing before Bligh with a skeptical smile.

"Yeah - yeah I know, but - this is different. Pappy used ta tell me - he said, publish a secret in a newspaper, put it on the evenin news, but _never_tell it to a man who on the drink." He paused as though for effect - Cody, for one, seemed impressed.

Andrew raised his eyebrows. "Then why'd you tell him to keep quiet about coming here?"

Bligh hesitated - he looked to Cody, who tilted his head, puzzled.

"I dun--" he began, but grimaced again, seemingly at a loss. "He told yew that?"

"Why would he not?" Andrew rejoined, his voice growing quiet. "You don't know him like I do, Bligh - he lied to you_about where he was going to college and you told him to lie to _me, if need be, about coming down here because - you both did it for the same reason." He felt for Bligh's hand, and he intertwined it with his own, as he hung his head with a strange, sad smile, feeling his ears go flat. "Y'all - wanted to surprise me, to bring - home - to me..." He glanced back up to see Bligh was studying him, his eyes, frigid and gemlike, marked with a strain of something Andrew had not expected - fear.

"Drew, I - I came down here - left everythin behind because I wanted - I believed in us, man. What if--" He grimaced again. "What if yer brother jest - fucks all that up?" He seemed helpless, for just a second. "Yer the Scientist-Man, yew know what they gonna do ta us if--"

"This ain't no fucking_werewolf movie_, Bligh!" Andrew cried in exasperation. "It ain't gonna happen, okay? He ain't gonna tell anybody, ever! And you know why? Because--" He put his hand in Bligh's beard, pulling on his chin so that their lips nearly touched. "--Stephen loves me. He still loves me. He left Ma and Pa behind and - and now I'm the only family he's got."

Bligh glanced away, his grimacing slowly fading back to a frown. "He...he finally done it?"

Andrew nodded quickly. "Yeah. He finally got free of Pa and his money and all that bullshit - that - that was what I was gonna tell you, that he told me - and that Pa's losing money, which, whatever, that don't really affect me--"

"Well what bout y'all's house, if yer brother jest thinks he gonna lose his ass?"

His hand went back to his pocket, and he took a step back, looking at the floor. "That's held in trust by the family, it ain't solely his- Granddad deeded it to his grandchildren, me and Stephen, and his son - Pa." He moistened his lips, feeling his ear twitch as a new, unfamiliar feeling came alive inside him - a glimpse back to Tempest as part of his future. "We can live in it if we wanted, when they die..."

"Yew sure about that?" Bligh asked incredulously.

Andrew sniffed. "No - I ain't. But - it's whatever, that's - that's for the future. Pa got all his money tied up in the mine, and if that goes under..."

"He up shit creek."

"Yeah - yeah, exactly. So - Stephen - is gonna be down here now, and coming to visit, probably, at some point and he - I dunno how's that gonna be, I mean--" He took the hand from his pocket and felt along his own ear. "Other than this, he also does this thing - where he only calls Cody by his real name..."

"Wait, he only calls me Dakota?"

Andrew looked to Cody, who had been listening intently to the back-and-forth between he and Bligh. He smiled at the boy with a nod, and Cody smiled back, seeming a little embarrassed.

"Yeah...every time."

"I dunno if I like that..."

Bligh seemed dumbstruck. "Ya didn't tell me that!"

"It didn't come up," Cody said sheepishly, one of his ears twitching and his tail waving against the couch. "I don't - I prefer Cody. It's the nickname my mom gave me and - I like to think of it as my real name." He paused. "If that's okay."

"And since yer mama's passed on..." Bligh did not finish the sentence - he nodded, quick and decisive, with an affirming smirk. "Aight, Pup. Cody it is."

"But I can't control what Stephen does," Andrew said - and then, with a roll of his eyes. "I can only keep him from going _completely_nuts, apparently..."

Cody shrugged. "I'll get used to it if - he's - over here and he calls me that. It's okay."

"You sure?"

Cody nodded. "I wanna meet him - even if you said he's crazy, he's your brother, he's my--" He shut his eyes and giggled. "My brother-in-law."

"Oh no," Bligh whispered - Andrew laughed at him as a look of almost-real horror swept over Bligh's face. "Oh don't tell me n'him's kin now--"

"Well he ain't going back," Andrew continued with another laugh. "So he probably would be over here for a bit." He smiled, deeply nervous. "He - kinda indicated he wanted to settle up here..." He turned serious. "Which...really makes me think we can trust him," he repeated. "He wouldn't move all the way down here to be closer to me and then run away because of..."

Bligh nodded - slowly, reluctantly. "I - guess, man..."

"You still don't believe me?"

"I'm - I believe yew, man, but - I'm scared, aight?"

"No - hey, don't be scared, Bligh," Cody piped up - he got up off the couch to come at Bligh from behind with a tight hug around his waist. "Come on - Andrew knows his brother better than we do - if he says we can trust him, then we should."

Bligh let out a broken titter in surprise as he turned to face the boy, looking down at him - Andrew sitting back down on the couch to watch them - with a mixture of affection and perplexity.

"I - I s'pose that's right..." Bligh looked to Andrew, reaching down to stroke Cody's bare back. "Maybe I really ain't givin the boy enough credit..." He shook his head, giving Cody a tight squeeze. "Havin em round again is gonna be different, though."

"I think it'll work," Andrew said, trying to be confident. "I mean, like, think about it - he's new to Florida - just like you."

It was Cody's turn to nod, wrapped in Bligh's arms. "There's still a lot we gotta show you!"

Bligh tittered softly, tussling back the boy's hair to give him a kiss on the forehead. "Zat so, now..." He let out a small sigh. "Aight, well - what else Stevie tell ya? Anythin bout the whole thing with - the dawgs in the county and how they all weird n'stuff?"

Andrew thought a moment, shifting along the couch to stand, regarding them both - he considered telling both of them everything, the strange tale that Stephen had woven about the book of esoteric folklore that had been deliberately hidden in an obscure corner of his house...the proto-natives, Moon-Eyed People, either descendants of forgotten European settlers or an improbably homegrown race of peculiar albinos foreign even to the Indians that lived amongst them, worshipping great packs of wild dogs that once ran rampant over that tiny, shadow-haunted parcel of what Sir Walter Raleigh had dubbed, in the effervescent grandiosity of the Elizabethan Age, Virginia...

There was so much he had to tell them because, at its root, and its core, it was a history - their history. And the more Andrew thought about it, the more he realized that, surely, it must all be true.

If Cody, a male, could be pregnant after going into heat - if Bligh's love for Duke, in any other context depraved and degenerate, could cause to metamorphose into a beautiful demi-human - if that same transformative power to be spread, either beneficially evolving them or, perhaps if they were female, harming them - if Bligh could heal years of regret and if he, in turn, could forgive Bligh as well...then, surely, what Stephen had said was true, that his little Beagle who was his security blanket, his first word, and his only true friend for many years, could talk - and that the dogs of Adkins County, whether on four legs like Walker and Duke or two legs like Bligh and, now, Cody and Andrew as well, were, to quote Pappy, quite special indeed.

"There's--" He a took a breath. "Well he told me a lot of stuff about the town history - yanno all that stuff, um - it's a lot to talk about, y'all--" He ran a hand through his hair as he sighed, decompressing. "Like a lot a lot. But - you know what? It's a beautiful damn day outside." He smiled, his hand coming to his side. "Let's go somewhere - we'll talk about it when we get there."

Bligh considered the idea. "Aight, like - where? Cuz I need cigs, man."

Andrew shrugged. "Lunch? We can get--" He rolled his eyes. "Get you cigarettes - smoking is bad--" Bligh smirked at him. "We can get them on the way back."

"That actually sounds good, because - I am kinda hungry," Cody said - he blushed some, his ears going flat. "Guess I gotta eat more now, guys..."

"Oh Lord," Bligh said in mock woe. "We already startin with the prego stuff..." He cackled, playing with Cody's ears as the boy's tail gave a happy wag.

"We can handle it, don't worry," Andrew said with a grin, the reality of Cody's pregnancy giving him that strange pride he had felt the night before. "Um, but hey - remember when you--" He paused, feeling as though the moment, barely two days ago, had passed by in another lifetime. "Bligh."

"Yeah?"

"Remember when I said we should go get a bite to eat?"

Bligh paused his ministrations on Cody's ear to shrug. "Yeah, kinda."

"Well, um - I had a place in mind, so, we why don't we go there?" He smiled - he felt his fang appear over his lip as the irony became undisguised. "Like I had originally planned?"

"Which place was that?" Cody asked.

Andrew waved a hand across the miles. "The place by the beach, yanno--"

"Oh, yeah!" Cody beamed. "You'll love it there, Bligh, um - you like burgers, right? I mean when we were at Checkers--"

Bligh snickered, ruffling the boy's hair. "Yeah, I do love me some good beef." He looked to Andrew. "Aight. Yew wanna go?"

"Yeah, I mean - if y'all are okay, or, wanna get cleaned up--"

"I'm fine," Bligh answered.

Cody shook his head. "I just need to, um - rinse off really quick, just - with a - with a washcloth or something." He frowned slightly. "I still kinda smell like milk..."

Bligh stuck his nose into the boy's hair, and as Cody giggled, he inhaled deeply, the breath broken up by a stifled cackle. "Smell aight ta me Pup," he said with a grin.

Cody giggled again, shaking his head. "It'll only take a second..."

"Alright Baby, go do your thing," Andrew said.

Cody smiled at him, pausing to pick up the remote and turn off the television before sauntering to the kitchen, his tail sweeping lazily behind him.

Andrew turned to Bligh, pulling him into another hug - he leaned into his ear, softly:

"Listen, Bligh - um, Stephen - Stephen told me something about - you."

"Yeah? Wazzat?"

"You...wore a hat at the funeral..."

He pulled back to find Bligh's eyes were rapidly turning sorrowful - they had glanced away, seeming to watch Cody mop himself off with a clean dishrag procured from a drawer as though it were the most interesting thing in the world.

"He...he never saw my ears, man. Or my tail--" He shook his head quickly. "None o'that. When he--" He stopping, shutting his eyes - Andrew hugged him tightly. "When he died, man, I - took off the hat afore the nurses came, but - he - he was already gone..." His voice had become a wet whisper, and Andrew feared, as he had at the beach, that his best friend might break down. "But I...I took it off, when he passed - but he died, man, he died, thinkin I was human--"

"And that's okay," Andrew whispered back, putting a hand into Bligh's beard, kissing him gently on the lips. "That's okay, Bligh."

Bligh's eyes opened, glistening and aqueous, icebergs enveloped by the raven's feathers of his hair. "I shoulda told ya when he passed - he told me ta tell ya he loved ya, Drew. Like a - like a son."

Andrew was taken aback by the admission, trying in vain to will away an abruptly forming lump in his throat. "Holy fucking - Bligh why - you coulda told me that--"

"If everythin was different and it weren't so fuckin crazy since I got here - which was my fuckin fault..." He frowned. "Then I woulda, man." His mouth quivered for barely a half a second, and his frown deepened as though he were trying to suppress it - Andrew hugged him again, still tighter, pushing away his tumult of feelings to help his best friend. "Aww fuck, man - I lied so much all my life," Bligh said, a hissing whisper. "T'yew, ta Pappy--"

"But that's over now," Andrew cut him off gently - he motioned with his head to Cody, who had poured himself a glass of water, oblivious to their conversation. "Remember what he said? Remember? All those years we can be together." He smiled as wide as he could, fangs and all, looking into Bligh's eyes to comfort him. "Our life starts now. It starts today."

He knew it was what Bligh needed to hear - there were moments that they had spent together that they both needed walls broken down, some mighty and some miniscule, but all the while, they had been reconstructing the things they had lost in the thunderflares of Andrew's Floridian misadventure.

Bligh said nothing - his head leaned into Andrew's shoulder, his hat coming off against it, falling to the floor as his ears sprang fear in Andrew's face...Andrew chuckled to himself, moving his head to nuzzle his best friend's beard, letting him grieve, wordlessly, in this protected space.

"Hey - hey you guys okay--"

Startled, Bligh pulled away from Andrew - seeing Cody, his eyebrows meeting over his nose in concern at their display, Bligh forced a smile, even as his cheeks betrayed him by being streaked with tears.

"Y-yeah, P-Pup, I - I'm sorry, just - got ta thinkin about Pappy, yanno--" He swallowed hard. "I still miss em, Pup."

"Aww, Bligh, no--" Cody practically tackled him with a sudden hug. "Please don't cry, Bligh..."

Andrew smiled to himself as he watched the two of them. Bligh was holding boy tightly, sharing in their warmth together - Cody was doing what he did best in the world...healing.

"Th-thanks, Pup - I - I still miss em, yanno."

Andrew looked away to the sunscape of palm trees outside, the emotions that he had tried to banish returning, unwelcome. "Oh, Bligh..." he said under his breath.

Cody leaned out of the embrace to pick up Bligh's fallen hat - Bligh took it and put it back on as he had it, his fangs appearing through the grin of his convalescing sadness ...Cody smiled at him and kissed him.

"Please don't be sad," Cody said softly. "We're here - everything's gonna be okay - okay?"

Bligh tittered, perhaps in spite of himself. "S'weird - that's what this one said--" He nodded at Andrew, who rolled his eyes, embarrassed and in love.

"Because it's true," Cody said.

"I know," Bligh answered quietly. "I - I know. We gonna be okay."

An idea occurred to him - he could feel some cosmic pull inside him to come full circle...to take care of the very first piece

"You mind if we go to the beach first? It's a little out of the way, but - I wanted to show Bligh what - um, the other night he couldn't see, because it was so dark."

Cody considered the idea. "Yeah that's fine - uh, we...can't go swimming though."

Andrew's mouth twinged - it was not the first intrusiveness of their evolved form on their lives, but he knew how much Cody adored the beach, and it was something that he had not given thought to.

"I...no, no we can't." He put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Does that - bother you?"

Cody shook his head. "No - because I'll be with you guys." He smiled, his tail starting to wag again. "I - I knew my life would change when...I changed. It all just kinda hit me that night..."

Andrew looked to Bligh, who nodded, gravely.

"That's how it is, man."

Andrew sighed - giving a final nod. "It's fine with me if it's fine with y'all - it's gonna be different, us being how we are, but - we - we'll make it work.

Cody nodded enthusiastically - Bligh tittered to himself - both of them nodding in agreement.

"Alright--" He directed them to the open bedroom door with his head. "Y'all go put some clothes on - and wear something cute, um - hey Baby, why don't you wear those jeans I bought you?"

"The expensive ones?"

Andrew rolled his eyes, the tension and the emotion of the past few minutes coming out in a loud guffaw. "Yes - yes the expensive ones," he repeated back.

"How much he pay for them jeans?" Bligh demanded of Cody as they went into the bedroom together.

Andrew did not hear what Cody told him through a dubious giggle, but he did hear Bligh's reaction:

"Dammit Drew, why the fuck yew spend that much?!"

He could not help himself - he laughed so hard he had to sit back down on the couch, his head in his hands,

As Andrew made his way to retrieve his keys from the crystal dish, alone, awaiting Bligh and Cody to put on clothes and come with him to the beach where this impossible journey of his had started, he let out a single, euphoric breath - he felt tears come to his eyes as the full gravity of who he was, and what he had become, wash over him, like crashing waves from an invisible ocean.

He retrieved his hat and, as Bligh had done, put it back on - he would have to do this from now on, he would have to hide who he was, because as beautiful as he found it - as beautiful as he, in turn, found Bligh and Cody - the world would not understand it, the world could not understand it...they could only understand each other.

When Bligh and Cody returned - Bligh in the red flannel he was so happy to find Andrew had kept, Cody in a tasteful Abercrombie shirt and a pair of slim, dark-blue jeans that, indeed, were purchased at a sum that would have embarrassed someone who cared about money - Andrew, overcome with a humility he had never known before, pulled them both into a group hug. They stayed there for several blissful moments before pulling apart - Andrew holding out his hand, once more, to express a far distance, to lead them to the car outside.

When they came out into the parking lot, Andrew paused in the space between the Ranger that had brought Bligh down there from Tempest, and his own car, the Grand Wagoneer, whose white paint gave off a blinding gleam in the afternoon sunlight.

"You, uh - you mind if we take my car?"

Bligh folded his arms with a smirk, sticking his chest out. "What, yew dun want the Pup ere ta ride in the bed?"

Cody smiled. "I've never done that..." he mused.

Andrew shook his head with a chuckle. "It ain't that, c'mon--"

Bligh cackled. "Then let em! He be aight."

Andrew shook his head with a light smile. "Dude - some other time--"

With another cackle, lower this time, Bligh neared Andrew to put a hand on his shoulder. "Last time we rode ta the beach it was in my car." The smirk faded. "Didn't end good. I jest figured..."

He did not finish, but he didn't have to - Andrew considered what Bligh was saying to him, and he wondered if perhaps he had picked up from Cody that sense of ritual, of righting and redeeming things that had gone astray from the past.

He glanced to Cody, who was leaning against the pickup truck, watching the two of them discuss it with a small smile...he nodded, slowly, but then picking up speed.

"Alright - alright, fine. We'll take the truck - okay Baby?"

Cody nodded. "Yeah, that sounds good."

Bligh tittered at him, giving him a quick hug. "Thanks, man."

"But we're all riding in the cab - Bligh I want you between us, I'm driving."

Bligh tittered one last time as he eased Cody out of the way to open the passenger door. "Aight then!" he called to Andrew. "Lemme jest get the keys."

"Yeah put them in the ignition." Andrew chuckled, and then, to himself, with a final smile: "This'll be fun..."

The car ride was mostly quiet, between the three of them - each of them enjoying their own contemplation, and once they hit the straightaway that led them to the causeway and ultimately to the beach, Andrew put the windows down, and the salty air off Tampa Bay came pouring into the truck in illimitable gusts.

Cody leaned against the door to let the wind hit him, full in the face, the stray tawny hairs from under his toboggan fluttering against the oncoming wind - Bligh, between them, put his arms around them both, tilting his head back with delighted titter. Andrew smiled to himself, watching the palm trees pass by, feeling a sense of rare perfection in this moment.

At last they came to the beach - the same beach, and in fact the same spot, where everything that had let them to this moment, the first night with Bligh, had begun.

The limitless azure of the sky met the translucent peridot of Tampa Bay, in whose broken face, lazily pouring itself on the sand of the beach at low tide in concert with an unseen Moon, glinted diamondiferous in the late summer Sun - seagulls and terns japed to each other in their secret, raucous language, and out past the buoys, enjoying the shallow water, were bathers almost too distant to see. There was a Puerto Rican family in a buzz of happy laughter holding a picnic under a palm tree, and some yards away were a pair of pretty girls, one black, one white, in two-pieces with matching University of Tampa beachtowels wrapped around them, with bottles of what looked like Stella Artois in hand, daring whatever laws they may be breaking to have their own good time by the shore.

"Dang..." Bligh said.

"What is it?" Andrew asked him.

"Prettier n'Myrtle, now - seein it in the day."

"Myrtle Beach?" Cody guessed.

Bligh nodded. "Yeah - I went there, once--" He grinned at Andrew. "With this guy, here."

"Shit," Andrew declared with a sniff. "Myrtle ain't got nothing on this."

In this seething melting pot of Tampa - along this strand where, in the distance, causeways traversed the bay to Pinellas - no one could notice, no one could tell, that Andrew, Bligh, and Cody, were as different as they truly were. Their disguise, if one wanted to call it that, was complete - they looked only mildly out of place at best with their pants, the perhaps odd way they all were all wearing hats, and yet these were small details, giveaways utterly too subtle to lead to any other conclusion than that of the obvious: that they were average beachgoers, nothing more.

"But it seems weird, don't it?" Andrew said, vocalizing what the other two must have been feeling. He looked to Bligh. "We're out here - they have no idea."

"Why should they?" Cody spoke up. "Remember..." He poked at Bligh. "Remember what you said? Yesterday?"

Bligh, who had been smirking all this time, his gaze far away, nodded - his eyes were still somewhere else, but the smirk turned into a grin as he said repeated what was said in the kitchen the day before:

"Yeah - people jest dunno the truth..." He shut his eyes and let out a happy cackle. "Y'all dunno - all the times I'd be down at the mine or at the bar, then they'd - they'd never know, man. They'd no idea what was standin in front o'them..."

Cody nodded, and he made a slight smile, as though marveling at the very idea.

Bligh's eyes opened again - they looked to Andrew, and he made a jerky, hesitant motion with his arm.

Andrew raised an eyebrow. "What are you--?"

"There's people around, man--" Bligh's eyes darted about them. "When we was out last night, there weren't--"

Andrew immediately realized what his best friend meant, and he took Bligh's arm by the wrist, leaning in close as he could, wrapping himself in a forced hug. The two of them shared a glance - Bligh confused, Andrew knowing.

"Nobody gives a shit down here, Bligh. We can do this all the time - ain't like it is back home. Down here, nobody cares."

Bligh smirked. "Guess I never thought bout that..."

With a loud giggle, Cody did his best to embrace both of them from Bligh's other side - Andrew chuckled to himself at the sudden awkwardness, the wobbly group hug that last barely a minute before it fell apart in a cloud of collective laughter between the three of them.

The trio - Andrew, Bligh, and Cody - fell silent, watching the tide come back in, watching the people around them go about their daily lives, only faintly aware of the half-human interlopers that were near them...the fine breeze from the ocean made the delirious heat of the Dog Days - Andrew smiled to himself, once again, at the irony - less oppressive than it could have been.

"What now?" Cody asked.

"Lunch, I guess--" Bligh tittered, hesitantly scritching the back of Cody's neck. "But uh - that ain't what ya meant, were it, Pup?"

Cody shrugged with a small smile. "You're right - I guess I was...just thinking ahead."

Andrew smiled again. "I dunno. I'll graduate soon and then - who the fuck knows?

"What about grad school?" Bligh asked.

"Yeah," Cody added. "All that time that you would spend--"

"I mean, I don't - really care," Andrew gently cut him off. "As - as long as I'm with y'all."

Cody smiled, Bligh grinned - their fangs stood out, the only visual cue that they were different, and Andrew smiled back at them the same way. For a brief moment their secret was exposed, before Andrew, self-surprised at what he had just said, felt his smile starting to fade.

It was a liberating thing to say, to think, that he was not bound to grad school, or to anything at all, except the two people standing there with him - Cody, the savior of his future, Bligh the savior of his past.

Bligh's grin was also replaced by a rare pensive look as he, too, contemplated what lay ahead. "I guess I need ta git a job--" He thought a moment more. "Mechanic'd be good. Still bit o'grease monkeyin left in me."

"There's a couple of local places around here," Andrew said. "I don't know if they require any - um, certifications or anything, but then - you're smart, you can get one no problem."

He smiled at him, and Bligh sniffed, perhaps a little bashfully.

"Y'always - thought I was smart..." he murmured.

Andrew caught his hand and squeezed it. "Because you are, Bligh. I believe in you." He smiled again, warmer than before. "Okay?"

The two looked back to Cody, whose face had turned uncharacteristically somber. "And I'll - I'll give - give birth." He looked down to the sand below him - Andrew and Bligh exchanged a significant look.

"Well - Pup - we're gonna be there, yanno." At last losing his apparent skittishness at public displays of affection, he wrapped his arm around the boy's waist to pull him close. "Y'ain't gotta be scared, okay?" He looked at Cody in the eyes in that magically comforting tone - Duke during the thunderstorm, and now Cody, carrying his offspring.

Andrew watched the two of them with a smile - he took Cody by the chin and planted a kiss on the boy's lips. "Please don't worry, Baby. Don't _ever_worry while we're around."

A long silence followed - Cody was smiling at them, small, as yet unsure, until at last he beamed happily. "We're gonna be together forever, aren't we?"

Bligh cackled as he clapped a hand to Andrew's shoulder. "Yeah, ain't we?"

Andrew's smiled confidently, renewing and golden. "That ain't a question. You know we will be."

Bligh cackled - his cackle of triumph. He withdrew his hand to throw his hands behind his hand to stretch, his grin nigh-delirious with joy. "Damn fuckin straight!"

Cody giggled, giving Andrew a happy hug. "And we make a great team, don't we?"

"Pack," Andrew corrected. "Right, Bligh? A pack of dogs?"

"Hmm..." Bligh thought a moment, still grinning. "I like that! A pack o'dawgs, we is."

Andrew nodded, looking off into the chryselephantine Florida sky. "A pack of dogs," he agreed.

A feeling of safety - of security, of bliss, of happiness - washed over him as he realized the weight and gravity of the words. The dynamic had become perfected, the future was less uncertain, the very idea of he, and Bligh, and Cody, as a cohesive unit - and Cody's unborn puppies, as a broader family - at last crystallized and coalesced into an exquisite solid.

He was free - and he was loved. With Cody's arms still gently around him, and Bligh coming over to throw his arms around both of them in a final bear hug, he felt his life stretched - as it did on the couch that night, what seemed like an eternity ago - only before him now, not backward. The future, something he had feared and avoided, was limitless - like them, now, in their new and superior biology, it was immortal.

"We three," he said to himself, and to Cody and Bligh, the two loves of his life, as they separated, though still huddled close, as he beckoned them with his head back to the car, to wherever the road would take them. "A pack of dogs."