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Ben lay quietly, eyes open and intense, as the early morning light sneaked in around the curtains. He did not want Luke to get up.

The previous evening had been nothing like that first one of tears and clutching hugs.

Luke had been just as late getting back, but this time he had been humming as he came in. A bag of something aromatic had been emptied onto a plate and shoved in a box which itself had hummed for a while. The odors had grown even more mouth watering until Luke had pulled it out and eaten it. He'd grinned at Ben. "Sorry, cat. Pizza's for people."

The remark had seemed to mean a lot to him. "People," he'd murmered again, with a far-away look in his eyes. And later, as he dozed off in bed, one arm around Ben, he'd said it again, quietly. "People. He thinks I'm a person." He'd sounded happy.

Luke certainly was a person, Ben thought. How could anyone think otherwise? He obviously wasn't a plush.

A wild animal, though, maybe! Ben smiled inside as he recalled the dream they'd just shared: the hunt through the grass, the ambush under the trees, the pond they'd trashed. Those poor lilly pads would never be the same.

He wanted to snuggle closer against Luke, but couldn't. It might wake him.

That first night had almost been a fatal mistake. Live folk must never learn of the secret ways of their plush companions. Although maybe, just maybe, under special circumstances.... But, no. That wouldn't happen. It couldn't happen. He'd been promised. Where? When? He wasn't sure.

Luke stirred, then started to open his eyes. "Sorry, Ben," he mumbled, "I didn't mean to get you so muddy... Oh." He blinked and seemed a little more awake. "Wow. What a vivid dream." He grinned. "I guess that'll teach you to tickle me! Oh, well, up and at'em."

He fluffed the top of Ben's head and rolled out of bed. Too soon cleaned, too quickly clothed, and then gone for the day.

Ben wistfully watched the apartment door close. Snuggling into the vacated pillow, he decided there was plenty of time for a nap. Then maybe he would start planning for tonight. Or maybe he'd make sure there were no bees in that pile of dirty clothes.

He hated bees. _________________________________________________________________

Nathan lay quietly, eyes closed, as the early morning light sneaked in around the curtains. He did not want to get up.

He kept trying to remember details from the dream. He'd been playing ultimate frizbee with Sasha, his Siberian husky. They'd each been running farther and farther across the flowered tundra... but unwelcome memories of events of the previous day kept intruding.

"I like you." Shit. Then grabbing at Luke's arm. Double shit!

The look on Luke's face had been telling. He'd been annoyed. He'd recovered quickly, and he'd seemed to accept Nathan's apology, but it was hard to know how much he'd meant it.

And today they'd probably have to work together on the laser control system. If, no, when Luke's new feedback algorithms checked out, Nathan would have to optimize the network in realtime during the X-ray data acquisition. The project's management had been arguing for weeks over the expense of trying to automate that, or if it even could be.

Maybe he could do it from home. Call in sick. No, that'd never work. There were other jobs waiting and too many people were taking vacation time: staying home to take care of their kids.

"Fall break." Right. Why didn't they call it by its real name, Columbus Day? It's a national holiday, after all. Probably because if they did, they'd have to give everybody the day off, not just students.

Even if he tried staying home, his telepresence rig didn't have the bandwidth. It really had problems with interactions coming from more than one direction, and there'd be several researchers in the control room tweaking knobs at the same time. They'd all want him to do something. Now!

Then, too, there'd be people at a certain large west coast facility already watching through the control room's sole teleconferencing system. "Outside consultants." Spies. They were getting ten times as much funding, but they still needed to come to a private university's research lab to learn how it was done.

Anyhow, he really did want to see Luke again, find out just how badly he'd damaged their friendship. If that's what it was.

"I like you." Shit.