Patterson: Armistice

Story by FeralDerelicte on SoFurry

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#30 of Kioga

(Disclaimer: tags on sides, content and characters are 18+ and consensual)

Finally, a night alone! Patterson the married, hung, diaper-loving otter sits down to play online games with his friends. Rising libidos get everyone distracted, and in their afterglow there's affirming conversation.

Feedback is always appreciated.


Finally, it was time for a night of gaming. Patterson had gotten a new job, had made progress in getting his step-children to like him, had fucked his husband and his wife, had come to peace over his obsession with Kioga, had the horrifying puberty talk with eldest step-son, and best of all, he had gotten the CEO of his company, a multi-billionaire, to smile at him.

Maybe his priorities were a little wobbly, but that was such an amazing experience: a man who ran a company that was literally changing the culture of America and Europe, one diaper at a time, a man who was even teasing about running for Mayor of Puerto Panuela (he pretty much already was), smiled at Patterson Peters the otter and told him he was doing a good job. At this point, Patterson felt sure that praise from Jesus wouldn't be as good. But that was blasphemous ... but maybe Mr. Pendrael could buy Hell as a second office.

Gaming that night, Patterson, naturally, never ever ever ever shut up about Mr. Pendrael smiling at him. And so there he was, midnight on a Friday bragging and bragging to his gaming party. He'd put the kids to bed, he put his stepson Fortnight Kensington back to bed (after giving him a diaper for his emissions problem), and after making sure everyone was asleep, the otter decided to diaper himself up for that extra comfort and security.

"And not only that," Patterson said as his character killed a medium-sized tin unicorn in Clowns and Castles, "But seriously. He caused me, and Kioga too! To shit ourselves. And not only shit, but just a big, impossible dump the likes of which we have never seen. Like it was four pounds of feces, just these big old piles that went so high, it touched our buttholes while we were squatting. He took psychic control of my bowels, then through a process of making shit into vapor, transplanted everyone else's stool into our intestines, and commanded them to push!"

"That sounds like a bad fanfiction," said Kioga. "Hyperscat; what kind of hack author would mess with that? 'And then they pooed and continue pooing until a great mountain amassed behind them. And his belly was so full from eating the people from the village, but the dragon's ass was spread wide and all he could do was clutch at the ground as turds continued to pour out of him.'"

Patterson's fur spiked. "That's from that weird game you keep trying to get everyone to play. I remember you showing it to me on your phone while I was at work." A lump formed in Patterson's throat, and his diaper crinkled as the otter's full nine, nearly ten inches of thick otter-cock pushed against his dry padding until the front was a white pyramid glowing from the TV. "Besides, asshole, you were there!"

"What, today? We just shook Pendrael's hand and got a promotion." Patterson fixed his jaw, frustrated at Kioga. While Mr. Pendrael did indeed have a strange aura about him, the otter witnessed, with his eyes, nose, ears, and anus, how his own body had filled up with an amount of urine and feces that it could not physically contain, and how he pissed into a diaper until it fell off his hips from the weight. Then he shit and continued shitting, overrun with an enrapturing double-pleasure of relieving oneself and being constantly fucked in the ass.

The only "problem" Patterson had with Clark was that the cobra wasn't hung like a firehose, as his first-ever fuck Lugo the giant studly muscle wolf had been. But, Patterson observed, night after night with his gay husband and straight wife, that the love Clark and Susan put into their sex with him filled him up in ways a footlong dong couldn't quite reach.

While it was tempting to use prosthetics, strap-ons and wearables, Patterson couldn't shake the intimate pleasure of feeling Clark pulse inside him, or Susan pulse around him. When both was happening at the same time, Patterson would cum so hard he might pull out of Susan and shower all three of them down with his love-bukkake.

Thus, the only time the grass seemed greener, as with Kioga or any number of males who wanted Patterson's meaty lance or his tight, sweet ass, was when Patterson wasn't tending to his own garden, and making his own grass as green as the color spectrum would permit.

"I mean, Pat, and the rest of you, Kyrie, Wesley, Ceylon, Aloysius, Xian, and ... Joe ..." said Kioga, his voice getting a little gravelly. "If you don't have gaming computers, I can buy them for you. I'm doing really, really well. Then we can all play our kinky knight game instead of this silly Clowns and Castles console co-op. I mean, it's really cool. Before each raid, the game even tells you what foods to eat and what to drink, so you can, uh, time yourself alongside your character. It's compatible with those F-C CyberDiapers that have the wetness and soil indicators on it. Really immersive."

"Thing about console games," said Wesley, "is that I don't have to think about 'em. I plug and play. And those CyberDiapers are cute and all, but y'know how I know I need a change?"

"Your nanny wife?" said Kyrie.

"You always change me at half-capacity, dear."

"And you don't change until you're trickling on your feet. Last time we had guests over, they wondered who was dripping gravy in the kitchen!"

A collective wave of "eeeeews" flooded the party chat, with Patterson chuckling and cringing.

"And so, with our love, we will find a happy medium. You can use those big fennec ears to hear when my diaper's topped off. Or, did we say that Xian has a laser-eye or something?"

Kioga grumbled.

Xian chuckled. "It's not magic, it's just a metaphor. I have a sharp eye when it comes to details. That, and I've tested every diaper from Ferris, Apogee, and European. I know exactly what their leaking point is."

"As for your magic fetish game," said Wes, "I dunno."

"Modern computers are just as simple as operating your car," opined Ceylon. Some angry grumbles in the background indicated that he'd joined Kioga over at his apartment.

"I wouldn't deny yourself the finer things, just because they can be more complicated by nature," said Aloy. Patterson heard some whispering in the background, then a bizarrely-phrased complaint. He and Xian were playing together. "The finest fabrics, hotels, and liquors can indeed be complex in their nature, but as with every skill, enjoying them begins with a dim, soft pleasure. That you know you love it, but can't quite figure out why."

"PC gaming just seems--" started Wes.

"Sweetheart," said Kioga, and his voice was oddly calm, smooth, and confident. Even though he was speaking to Wes, his words went directly to Patterson's brain. "There are some arguments that, once you have had them, and come to logical conclusions from a series of logical steps, you don't ever need to revisit them. They've been settled, and trying to dig them out just to find a different result is an act of insanity. Don't waste your life on the impossible past, else you'll miss out on that which lies before you. Enjoy your consoles, please, but know there are many pleasures in the alternative. Both are legitimate and you should stand beside the one that speaks truest to you."

Patterson smiled, as if Kioga had planted a kiss right on his forehead.

"So how erotic, versus how technical, is this diaper-knight game?" asked Xian. There was a rustle over his microphone, a diaper being adjusted, then a subtle slurping sound as the artotic made light gasps. Aloy had gone quiet altogether. "We should warp back to town first," Xian whispered. Then Pat could just hear chuckles from Aloysius the dragon ... then more slurps.

He wondered which side of Xian he was sucking on, if Xian had actually gotten that penis transplant. Knowing Aloy from the brief time in Las Vegas, that dragon was the type of gentleman to pleasure both, to get Xian in a state of sexual reverie where he'd be ready to do everything.

"It is quite explicit," said Ceylon, "But it is fun, just like real life, to put all these erotic acts to an objective rule system. And they spend a lot of polygons on things below the waist. Diapers wrinkle and grow um, very realistically. Oh, hello there."

The gryphon had interrupted himself, and from the clatter coming from Kioga's headset, it was obvious that the cheetah was putting the moves on the lynx-osprey hybrid. Sounded like he was kissing the side of his head, then licking his neck.

"Sounds like, uh, everyone needs a break," said Patterson, his thighs falling apart as his own diaper strained. "So how 'bout we give it ten minutes and start fresh on a new quest?"

"In this game?" said Ceylon. "I hate to tear people away from that diaper-knight game. Oh, excuse me, mmm you're being naughty..." As he spoke, there was the ripping of tapes and the clink of a metal lock. "But I have to ..."

"Do it on my face," said Kioga, then the headsets clattered and muted.

Kyrie cleared her throat. Joe hadn't spoken the entire time, and Wesley was just sitting and listening. "Well," said Kyrie, "Unless we can all grab the game right now, let's spend time together. Wesley, stoppit, I don't like that unless I know I'm clean."

"I'll clean you out."

"No, stoppit. I'm not giving you dysentery again."

"Hey Patty-cake, how's married life for you?" said Wes, giggling as Kyrie snarled and slapped at him in the background.

"Busy and I'm always tired. But I'm happy."

"You're just too tired to regret it!" giggled Wes, then yelped as Kyrie bit him.

"Guys, I'm gonna order a pizza," said Pat, to which an older Italian golden eagle piped up, "'ey, you know I know a guy."

"Oh God you're dehydrated," said Kioga, with the sound of splashing in the background.

"I'm really sorry, but you're the one that asked; I can't really stop it now," said Ceylon.

"H-hold on, stop licking," said Xian, then a fart blurted over his mic followed by a crackle and squish. "Oh wow, that's a big one."

"A two-footer," purred Aloysius, then Patterson heard him spit and then there were wet, slurping strokes. "Means you can obviously take my one-footer."

"Ow, ow, ow, be careful; that just got attached," said Xian.

"You do, Joe?" asked Patterson, his ears blushing. He'd not actually contemplated ordering a pizza; he just wanted an excuse to crank one out. He was stroking himself with one paw, and he was pretty sure his crinkles were making it through to the rest of the Crew.

He heard Kyrie grunting through the mic, then a harsh, muffled fart, then a rapid crackle.

"Oof, Jesus, babe," Wes said, coughing. "Let me change you, then I'll put another baby in you."

"The smell's never bothered you before," said Kyrie. "C'mon, let's grind diapers, I'm extra warm now."

"Yeah, but you weren't eating pickle ice cream with garlic buffalo wings before you were pregnant! Let me scoot out, c'mon."

"Never waste a boner," said Kyrie as swishing and crinkling came out over their microphone. "Just mess yourself and cover up the scent!"

"Hold on ..." Wes said, then after a grunt and a muffled, moist blurt, the coyote coughed again. "Fuck, that's even worse!"

"How close are you?" whispered Kyrie, the swishing speeding up.

"I don't know whether me or my cock's gonna barf first ..."

"I'll take those odds."

"Ah, youths," said Joe with a chuckle. "But like I was saying, Peter--"

"Patterson; Peter's my last name. Or ... yeah, it's still my last name."

"What, you're not taking your husband's?"

"Phew, I ..." said Ceylon. Patterson heard the soft thumps of fur hitting fur over his mic. Distinct, swinging crinkles indicated their diapers were lowered to their thighs.

"What's on your mind?" huffed Kioga.

"It's a really bad thought."

"Say it!" said Kioga, his voice going a little high. Patterson smirked; Clark did the same when his otter monster hit the right bend in the snake's guts.

"No; it's rude."

"Say it!" shouted everyone.

"You people will be the death of me," chuckled Ceylon. "You're, fuck, you're really tight for being incontinent."

Everyone burst out laughing, with Xian in particular stuttering as he cackled, his voice juddering as the platinum dragon eased his enormous, foot-long cock into the artotic's rear end. Patterson giggled, his hips moving and his diaper crinkling as he fucked his paw with his own thick shaft.

"Anyway, Joe, I don't need to change my last name. Everyone knows I'm married," said Pat, slipping his other paw down the back of his diaper, spreading his hole. He massaged the ring, flexing against his fingers, diaper stretched in front like a giant white tent, then eased one into his smooth, warm rectum. "Cause everyone propositions me and I shoot them down."

"That's too bad. Lugo's got a great opinion of you."

"Heh," said Pat, and the chat for a second froze over, slowly recovering its speed.

"But order from Big Caligula's Pizza if you're hungry, okay? My brother will set you up; probably get you a discount. You'll be full tonight! And let your diaper worry about tomorrow, eh?"

"I'll think about it, thank you," said Pat, spreading his ring to push in a second finger. He stroked the smooth, wet skin deep inside him, then grunted as he pressed on his prostate and sent a hot rush of pleasure through his pelvic area, front and back. His other paw went down the front, moving over that thick third leg that was more of a burden than a fully-loaded diaper. He made his character warp back to town and stayed in the chat as everyone's audio-pleasure ramped up in intensity.

"I, hope you don't feel left out, Joe," Patterson huffed out, his diaper rustling as his paw moved through dry, powdered padding. His fingers drove higher into him, hooking around the first bend of his fuck-hole, wondering if they'd find a hot, smooth, wet tunnel or the slimy turtle-head of something else. Kioga and Ceylon were in full motion, the booms of their mics clacking together as the lynx-gryphon bent the skinny cheetah over and repeatedly thrust into him, their carnal act in full motion. Ceylon's hips thumped against Kioga's rump and their diapers whapped together.

"H-hah, hhh oh those spines," groaned Kioga.

"Oh my God I've needed this," hissed Ceylon, then a slap as the gryphon grabbed onto the cheetah's hips and hammered in harder, the two cats in mad heat. Then there was a long, continuous trickle. "Are you pissing?"

"You're the one that dropped my diaper," huffed Kioga, the thumps briefly stopping. Patterson thought they were holding each other close, Ceylon deep in Kioga, his paws coursing over the cat's lithe body as the cheetah openly peed.

"Shower us, baby," whispered Ceylon.

"I don't know who's interrupting who," chuckled Joe, "But no, otter-boy. Hope you're not feeling left out, neither," said the eagle to Patterson, his breathing coming heavier. A distinct slurping sound indicated he was playing with himself, too, or somebody was. Patterson wondered what he was doing with that cloaca: was it a toy or just his feather fingers? Birds had an actual boy-pussy: it was such a strange concept.

Xian mewled, and amid slick sliding sounds timed with their breaths, there were light thumps. Aloysius, an incredibly tall platinum dragon, sounded like he was carrying the shorter artotic around as he was fucking him.

"This is a lot, oh wow," squeaked Xian. "C-can we pause? I need to shit."

"You'll have to wait," purred Aloysius. "I, on the other hand..."

There was a rustle as the two changed positions, then Patterson heard a low groan from the dragon, with Xian's moans still constant. The otter's heart leapt as he made sense of it: Aloy was squatting down, laying a long, fat turd on the floor while still fucking Xian.

Patterson's paw was going fast in his diaper, his mind swimming in lust and his ears constantly pricked. He kept his strokes quiet; the diaper was only a faint rustle that made it to the edges of the family room. It was so reserved as he huffed and hissed his way to the end, his cock drooling into his pissy padding, that he could distinctly hear the sticky slurps his fingers made as he dug deep into his asshole.

"Oh God, it's leaking on my dick," Wesley huffed. By the tense yips coming from Kyrie, it was clear that the coyote was a real trooper in the midst of his nausea. Patterson pressed against his prostate and held back a long squeak as the image bounced in his head: she was probably riding him, slits cut in both their diapers, while a less polite substance leaked out the leg-guards. That was probably from all the pressure of the grinding.

"Ah, oh shit, oh fuck me I love you," moaned Kyrie in ragged breaths, and then let out a squeal which distorted over the mic. In turn, in immense mutual syncronicity, so came Kioga, Ceylon, Aloysius, Xian, Joe, and Patterson.

Aloysius let out a deep, vibrating sigh as he poured buckets into Xian. Xian, in turn, let out a weird, ascending whine as his insides bloated, filling with hot cum. Ceylon purred, whispering only "Ah, fantastic," as his spiny cock shuddered inside Kioga's rump, squirting and painting his guts. The cheetah jerked off and aimed it skyward, causing both of them to laugh as six sticky strings splattered down on them. Like his old days, alone in front of the computer pawing to porn he called exploitative the second his cock was pouring into a stack of paper towels, Patterson suppressed any groans and just let the quiet splats in his diaper fill the room. He pulled his fingers from his asshole and smelled them: a hint of musk, but mostly clean.

Kyrie and Wesley, fennec and coyote, were a duet of shrieking, dissonant, yipping, screaming, yapping cacophonies as they climaxed, interrupted only by Wesley retching and spewing and Kyrie launching into a tirade. The tirade wan't against Wesley, per se, but perhaps she was using her own anger so she wouldn't herself succumb to nausea.

"Hehe, y'know, if I was a vegetarian," said Wesley, "Then I'd've just given you an 18-carrot necklace."

"You threw up on my tits!"

"Wasn't the first time; won't be the last."

"Wesley, I can't drink. I have a baby. Your crazy nights out aren't funny anymore!"

"I'm completely sober; you're the one with a to-go box of hot garbage around your hips."

"Baby!" Kyrie said, and Pat assumed she was pointing to her belly. The fox was eight months out and she was round: it was like she'd swallowed a pumpkin. She only came to work in onesies because at least those stretched. Fortunately, at Ferris-Chalmpers, the "pregnancy bladder" wasn't a problem.

"I'll probably be hearing that excuse for the next eighteen years," said Wes into his microphone. Kioga chuckled and Xian nervously cleared his throat.

"I ... literally," said Kyrie with a snarl. "I am really hormonal right now and you know what it's like? Like cigarette withdrawal times a thousand, okay? Like people are blowing smoke in my face, and it feels great, but then they fucking slap me and tug out a whisker. That's what you're doing by being a comedian. I have all these instincts to nourish, protect, raise, feed, and educate my child and you are in the way of ALL OF THOSE when you're laughing about this."

"You know," said Wes, and Kyrie sucked breath so swiftly, the noise through the headset struck Pat's eardrums like needles. "Kinda appropriate. You have half-digested food all over your front, and fully-digested food all over your backside."

"Eeeeeaaaaaarrrgh!" shrieked Kyrie, and Patterson squeaked as his headset attacked him.

Wesley's voice came on low and steady. "I'm just proving who's alpha, bitch. You are the mother of our child. I will support you. But you will know your fucking place."

Pat stared at the television, completely stunned.

"This will end one of two ways, Wesley-boy," said Joe. "You can swallow your pride or you can swallow the alimony."

"Fuck off, I know my marriage," said Wesley. "No comment on you or Lugo."

Kyrie's microphone clattered as her headset smashed into the floor. They heard footsteps over Wesley's mic, then another loud clatter. A bed's wooden feet groaned against the floor, a closet door slammed open.

And in the quiet whispers of the two broken headsets, Patterson heard, "I'm going to fuck you until your dick falls off. Then we'll know who's the bitch of the relationship."

"You know I've never whipped a pregnant lady before."

"I'd love to see you try."

"Somehow, I've missed you bleeding these last eight months."

There was a rattle of handcuffs and thumps as two bodies hit the floor.

"If you're going to own me, you're gonna make those payments."

"In blood?"

"And a pound of flesh."

Kioga was the first to burst into mad, chirping cackles, while Patterson released his bottom lip from his top teeth, tasting blood. The otter felt his eyes grow hot and he held back laughter as the two canines argued into a fucking frenzy.

Xian cleared his throat, while Joe silently cursed. "Kids these days, Jesus Christ."

"Th-that's normal?" asked Ceylon. "It's ... not the most elegant," said Aloysius, "but so pure in energy."

Xian tittered. "Trust me, were Wesley to successfully murder his wife, he'd be missing an eye, a paw, and his penis in the altercation."

"You and I get up to the same," came a deep voice over Joe's headset.

Patterson gasped and the party chat went silent. Kioga promptly stopped his laughter, then sighed. "I'm just gonna be the nice one here. Patterson, it's adorable you tried to get us all together for a night of gaming, and honestly, this game isn't so bad. It's not the Loaded Chainmail mod I pulled on my PC game, but it was cool. Look, it's fire and ice. We're never gonna all be compatible. We've changed, we've developed, and as we've defined ourselves as distinct puzzle pieces, we are not all gonna fit. We're not liquids anymore. We're not young, jelly blobs."

"Now hold on, I demand your attention," said Aloysius

"That's every room you enter," said Ceylon.

The dragon gave a hearty trumpet of a laugh over the mic. "Well look at the balls on you. Come over so I can get a better look. My snout is fairly long; perhaps you'll rest them right before my spectacles."

"The truth can be sassy, dear," countered the gryphon. "But you were saying, love?"

"H-hold on," said Kioga, then there was the rapid rustling of a diaper and then a sigh of relief, punctuated by a couple of loaded poots.

"Maybe we should invest in disposable baskets if you're just gonna use them like towels," offered Ceylon.

Patterson readjusted himself in his diaper, glancing over to a pair of shorts as he maneuvered the thick, limp, sticky hose protruding from his carriage. He was cooling off and the sweet, soothing, natural drunkenness of sleep and post-orgasm contentment loosened his body and mind. "Can you get to the point, fellas?"

"I'm going to bed," said a deep, lupine voice. The rustle of feathers and fur, accompanied by a slick, slimy slurp, told them all what Joe had been doing.

"No, no; you most of all!" scolded Aloysius. They heard the slosh of a mop bucket and the swish of a scrub brush, then the dull moist thud of Xian placing two enormous pythons of unpleasant after-effects in a separate bucket.

"You think if we cut these in half, we can see the timing of our meals?" snarked the artotic.

"Please clean directly perpendicular of me; I want to watch my sexy boy do his work," said Aloysius.

"I'm just going to look like an incontinent bird with all you've put in me, leaving a snail trail as I mop."

"Goddamn, sounds like I got a pizza to deliver!" said Joe, with Lugo growling in the background.

"Afterglow is beset by the bane of cleanup, Patty," said Xian. "Goodness, especially for you: is your wedding nest permanently locked? Hate to see your kids find your stash and play sumo-wrestler."

"We've got an amazing clean-up procedure," said Pat. "Clark's old college roommate is a homicide investigator. He's taught him all the forensic tricks. You'd

"Love, I heard a diaper," said Xian, then there was a slap as Aloysius snuck up on him and groped his semen-saturated seat. "Stoppit. If you're going to finger me, use Vaseline. I'm sore. Patty-cake, are you playing in a locked room?"

"The kids are in bed," said Pat.

"Kids wake up," remanded Xian.

"I got this."

Lugo bitterly chuckled.

"My dear, headstrong, greedy, and genius otter," said Aloysius, "All of my dirty friends, Romans, and countrymen."

There was snarling and shrieking and a headset rattled. "Can you send me an email?" said Wes, with feral profanity lacerating the air behind him.

"I smell horrible!" grunted Kyrie. "These knots are too tight!"

"I'll hose you off, bitch," shouted Wesley.

"You two may do well with SafeAlertfobs," said Aloysius, "My U.K. company Cavendish Sanctities made the, ahem, irreconcilable amorism differences equivalent of 'I've fallen and I can't get up.' Our tag line is, 'I said the safe word and he won't let up!'"

The coyote chuckled. "You just haven't made love like an American!" he said, and then there was the crack of a whip and Kyrie shouted, "Oh, fuck yes!" even though her tone made it sound like she was being murdered.

The rest of the group groaned.

Kioga sighed, and it was a queerly happy one. Ceylon, in the background, was dragging a trash bag loaded with what Pat assumed to be diapers. "You got that, dear?" Kioga called.

"It's the load of our love!" said Ceylon, though his tone was amusingly fatigued. Chipper boy, that one was.

"Nah, like I was saying," said Kioga as he kicked Wesley and Kyrie from the chat, cutting off their Rocky Horror Radio Show, "Next Kyrie will be riding Wesley, firing guns into the air, and the poor fennec will give herself tinnitus for the rest of her life."

"And like I was saying, my exquisite step-employees," said the haughty platinum capitalist, "Gods and Goddesses, how many tangents is this?"

"I'm too lazy to count," said Xian.

"Let's go out for a night. On my mighty dollar. All of us," said Aloysius. "We will have a drunken night of festivities--drinks and diapers optional, toilets forbidden--where we can just release steam (and liquids and solids) and relearn what it is to be alive, free of petty drama. We are all flawed creatures to some degree--yes, even me, somehow--and forgiveness lies not in the prostration to permanent past sins, not in nebulous reparations to aspirations gone horribly wrong, but in the acknowledgement that we make mistakes. Really big ones, too, Lugo and Patterson, but we cannot have a culture of cancellation for people who have sinned short of rape or murder, because these people have their own value."

"Pat's married and I'm a fuckwit," said Lugo. "Is this a charity PR stunt?"

"You'll let me finish or you'll be pulling my sleigh," said Aloysius. "Even as a brute, you have value."

"So what's the value of fuckups?" said Pat, his ears burning. He was still embarrassed that he'd been the straw to topple Kioga and Lugo's brokeback camel. Kioga and Lugo's relationship had been strained at that time, but it was on the mend ... Pat fucking, sucking, and shitting with Lugo was like he'd bought an alcoholic one last bottle of whiskey.

"By falling off the edge of propriety," said Aloysius, "They've found where that edge is. Their failure is our education."

"It still hurts," interrupted Kioga. There was a rubbery clack of capped talons freezing on the hard floor of Kioga's room.

In the silence, there was a rattle of a headset, then the clearing of a heavy throat. "Look," said Lugo. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he said, then a shudder as his voice failed him. "I feel that I've stabbed your heart, and through a devil's curse it hasn't killed you. Rather, you now walk the Earth as an undead husk."

Pat bit his arm as he started to silently weep, staring at the screen even though it'd gone on standby.

"No," said Kioga, whose voice also faltered. The gusts of sighs he let out were a combination of relief and a release of pain. "That was me during our relationship. The lich that ruled the tomb of our apartment. I ... I desiccated you with my harrowing power. I drove you to despair. You may have killed us, but I laid out the rope, the gun, the vial of poison. What ..." he said, his voice trembling. "What were we supposed to do, huh? What hope did we have?"

"We're alive now," protested Lugo, "Even if we're undead and we have to find our new lives, rebuild our new hearts, at least we still move!"

Pat was whining, teeth biting into his arm, tears streaming down his waterproof cheeks.

"Not until we can't claw our way out of our coffins, right?" laughed Kioga, choking.

"That's Goddamn right!" sobbed Lugo.

"Look, I forgive you!" chirped Kioga, "I don't know with what power or by what right, but Lugo I'm okay! You're okay! Let's see each other!"

The group gasped.

Kioga sighed. "Not like that, you assholes. In public. On Aloysius's big-cock dollar. I'm sick of harboring grudges. Of massaging scar tissue. Of carrying the burden of another person's evil, of wandering through blind alleys of a chaotic, irrational life, watching the rooftops for invisible snipers. Of living in a perpetual state of fear because logic doesn't exist in a capricious, cupidinous world built on man's shortsighted petty greed and ADHD demand for instant, corrosive gratification. You can't think when actions are determined by the spur and the spurt of the moment. The brain dies if there's no use for foresight. The world I'm going to live in is one of rational adults. Where men deal with each other as what they are." Pat released his arm from his mouth, then grabbed his shorts to wrap the wound.

"For the longest time--are you filming me, Ceylon?"

"For Wes and Kyrie."

There was a quiet hiss as the cheetah inhaled through his nose. "Y'know, you're a lot smarter than me. I don't know why you hang around me."

"I'm just a nerd," the gryphon bashfully chuckled. "And I like the fireworks. Keep doing your American filibuster."

The mic huffed as Kioga released air. "For the longest time, I felt betrayed by my faith in life because I did love Lugo. You, puppy. You, Oliver," he said with immense warmth.

"Oh fuck," sniffed Lugo, drunk with sobs, "That was so fucking cool."

"Yeah it was. Those were some good times, some five years ago."

"Jesus, man."

"Inshallah," grinned Kioga. "And ... I felt betrayed because the immense completeness of my love seemed to turn into a horrific Greek myth such as King Midas. The rules of reality broke: suddenly what I loved, the paradise in which I lived, turned to dart traps, iron maidens, and lava. By all rational standards, I was betrayed. What guaranteed that the next morning, my coffee maker would brew hot sewage? I was a mess: how could I have loved someone so shallow, so capricious, so instantaneous?"

"Those people do exist, you know," cautioned Aloysius. "Gold-plated garbage."

"And, um, we both were, in some respects," said Kioga. "But ... I'm just so happy. I'm so happy we made it to the other side. I'm happy we've peeled away the gold, thrown out the garbage, and can finally heal. I love you, Lugo," said the cheetah, "Just, um, I guess not like that."

"Good enough for me, man," said Lugo. "Now, uh, if you'll excuse me, I need a shower, because I got bird shit all over my dick."

"Nice!" Kioga laughed. "That sounds fucking nasty. But ... nasty ..." he emphasized with a lusty growl, "I'm covered in gryphon piss and it smells like burnt corn."

"I told you I was dehydrated."

"No you didn't."

"You didn't give me a chance."

"Can we please go the fuck to bed?" asked Patterson.

"Yeah, fuck, sounds good," said Kioga.

"Well this is a little abrupt!" said Xian.

"Happy ending, right?" said Kioga.

"Good night, all!" said Aloysius.

"Are we still gaming tomorrow?" asked Ceylon.

"Yep," said Kioga.

"Dad, are you wearing a diaper?" asked Fortnight.

Patterson covered his mouth and screamed.