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"Maybe we could go into town in the next few days, together. I could order us some food, we could go sit out in the fields and have a picnic together." I said over the sound of bones crunching. I was sitting on the porch, King was in the yard. Ever since he'd discovered the fungus in his body had regenerative powers, he'd become obsessive about it. Our yard was littered with the carcasses of squirrels, rabbits, deer, raccoons. I had begged him to stop hunting foxes, but that had been enough of an argument in itself that I didn't have the strength to try to push any farther. I just wanted a break from it all. It had been three months since we'd discovered the fungus. Fall had set in, it was mid-October. I wanted to take King into town to meet Buck, but more than anything I just wanted to take him into town to get out of the woods for a while.

"I have to get you an engagement ring first." he replied.

"It's been months since you asked me to marry you, King. I figured I wasn't getting a ring."

"You are, I've just been busy."

We'd done very little together since the discovery was made. A lot of his days were spent hunting, and he was gone for hours, sometimes days at a time. When he was home, he was often outside butchering the creatures he caught, and I was either inside trying to decode that book or out wandering around. I kept hoping that, any day now, he'd make some discovery and we'd be through with this, but it felt like he couldn't break through to anything we hadn't already learned. We ate almost every animal he hunted, so despite my discomfort with it all, I at least felt like they were being put to good use.

"We should take a break from all this, King. Get away for a few days, let me show you some things I enjoy. Maybe we can meet Buck, and I can show off how much I love you." I approached King and put a hand on his back, rubbing it as he chewed up bones and muscle from a deer that he'd killed this morning. I didn't even fully understand what he was trying to do, at this point. He'd gotten into eating them after the experiments failed, even though he didn't need to eat. We'd cook food for me, and he'd eat a good bit of the animal himself, leaving portions of carcass strewn about the place. I'd gotten him to keep it outside, though, which was nice at least.

"You want to show off our love?" he asked.

"Yep! I wanna show how much I love you to my ex and make him jealous" I said. Truthfully, that was a tiny fraction of what I wanted, but I could tell King enjoyed it. Really, I just wanted Buck to see he was real, and maybe we could rebuild our friendship together. I wanted to show King the things in town that I'd loved, and maybe I could light a spark in his heart that would inspire him to one day leave the woods, and we could have a normal life together. I didn't want him to know that, though, otherwise he'd surely double down on refusing to leave.

"We will go the day after tomorrow."

"Wow, really? I expected you to put up more of a fuss than that."

"I am eager to see what your old life was like, and to meet the man you loved before me." King said. He was in the process of biting open a deer, having split open the head, and was currently sucking out the eyes. I had to take a few steps back and look away.

"I got a few places I really wanna take you, too. We can make it a date, my turn to show you somewhere special."

King didn't respond to that, but rather finished off what he was eating of the deer before taking the mangled body and hurling it outward, away from the house.

"Yes. Yes I would like to see that. Go, call Buck and inform him we will be visiting. I am going to go relieve myself." he said, heading off into the woods a bit. We parted ways rather quietly, which was still strange to get used to at that point. King had been so clingy before, but ever since his experiments had started, he seemed more independent. I didn't really like it. Still, I went to the cabin and dug out my phone, powered it on and called Buck. He answered on the fourth ring.

"Yeah?" he asked. Guess the caller ID said who I was.

"Buck? It's Nico."

"I know. Whattaya want?"

"We wanna come meet you, the day after tomorrow. Is that okay?"

"Thursday?"

"I guess. I don't know what day it is right now."

"Jesus chr--it's Tuesday, Nico."

"Okay, well, yeah then. Thursday. We wanna come meet you Thursday."

"We?"

"Yeah. He's as real as he was when I first told you about him."

There was a long pause on Buck's end. I could hear him give a long sigh.

"Alright," he started, "where?"

"I'm gonna take him into town for lunch, then we're gonna go on a little picnic out in the fields. Wanna meet behind Beezee's?"

"Why Beezee's?"

There used to be two bowling alleys in town, Lemmy's Lanes and Family Bowling Zone ("FBZ" for short, or "Beezee's" if you were a true local). Beezee's had been around longer, but they had these weird conservative dress code rules that kids hated, so their business didn't do quite as well as time progressed and kids became less modest. They'd been shut down for somewhere around ten years, and the property had just sat abandoned. The area behind the building (and the woods behind that) had become quietly known as a cruising spot, and it had an honor system. You parked your car sideways, blocking the back alley, and that told others it was currently occupied. Cops, thankfully, didn't bother the area.

"Well, Buck, he's--I mean he's a monster, dude, I can't just take him to Burger Badger. It's gotta be somewhere secluded."

Another long pause from Buck, another exhale.

"Okay," he said, "Beezee's is fine. Let's meet at 5:30. Gives me time to go to work and head straight over."

"Okay, got it" I replied.

"Nico," Buck said suddenly before falling into yet another long pause.

"Yeah?" I finally asked, to cut the silence. He remained quiet a bit longer.

"Please, please don't be fuckin' with me. Please."

"I'm not, Buck," I replied, "I promise."

---

King barely fit in the passenger seat of the truck, which, much to my amazement, had actually started and was running. He was hunched forward, awkward, and his knees were drawn up to his chest, but he insisted on riding in the passenger seat and not in the truck camper, where he'd have had much more room. I was dressed, he was naked, though I'd made him lay a blanket over his lap so he was at least legally decent, in the event we got pulled over for any reason. I was still terrified, though, of bringing him into town. I may had grown used to it, but I still was very aware he was a monster to most--a skull-faced, hideous beast. There was no way I could just bring him to main street and walk with him publicly. The one thing I did have going for me, though, was that it was almost Halloween. I didn't have any intention of us interacting with anyone but Buck in town, but in the event that we did, I had an excuse for him.

As I put the truck in drive and pulled forward, King would look out the window. He'd never been in a vehicle before, he'd told me, and he actually seemed a lot more excited for it than I'd expected. I'd had animals before, I'd seen them panic in a vehicle, and quite frankly I'd expected him to be the same. Rather, though, he seemed to be enjoying it as we drove down the road. I had the air conditioning running, and our conversations were casual, surprisingly pleasant in contrast to the frequent hunting and killing he'd been doing for months now.

"Where are we going first?" he'd ask.

"Panda Wall. It's Chinese food. Have you ever had that before?" I asked.

"No. How do you get food here from China?"

"We don't. Chinese people live here and make it here, King."

He nodded. "That makes sense."

Since he'd started eating carcasses out in the woods, he'd expressed interest in wanting to try food again, even if it was pointless for him to do so. I thought it would be fun to get one of my favorite places and let him try food he'd never had before. That said, he'd have to stay in the truck, and I was terrified of the idea of leaving him unattended in public.

"So you've never left the woods before?" I asked.

"No, never."

"I'm surprised you're handling this so well. I can't imagine how I'd feel if I'd stayed in one place for over a hundred years and suddenly I was going somewhere new."

"What else can I do but accept it?"

"Good point".

We drove along for a while. The sky was overcast today, autumnal, grey, contrasted by the oranges, yellows and reds from the earth below, all the trees on one side of the road with farm land on the other. It was quiet, we could hear the wind outside the truck blowing against the vehicle, the sound of the tires spinning. I'd left the radio turned off, in case it overwhelmed him, in case it overwhelmed me. Outside of the sounds of nature itself, I couldn't remember the last time I had heard music. I couldn't really even remember how long I'd been in the woods. It had been over six months, I felt, because my phone had told me it was October when I'd turned it on earlier, and I had broken up with Buck in April, or maybe March. Somewhere around there.

We drove past a cigarette store, and I told King about how, when I was little, it had been a locally owned junk shop. Grandpa used to take me in there after school sometimes and let me get a toy, if we could find a cool one.

"What was your life like when you were a child, King?" I'd ask.

"I don't remember much. The woods were different. They were much denser, and wetter. I remember the trees used to cast a much darker shade on the land below, and there were many parts of the woods where it always felt like night. It must've been over a hundred years ago, though."

"Were you...small? Did you have parents?" I asked. King stared out the side window for a while, then turned to face ahead.

"I don't recall. I can't remember much about myself, only about the world around me. I remember the air was so rich, so fragrant, so damp."

"Like the Forest's Heart?" I asked.

"Yes. Yes, exactly like that."

"I wonder," I asked, "if that was where you were born, then, and maybe you moved over to our side of the world at some point?"

"I suppose that's possible. I've lived in those woods my entire life, but they don't always feel like home. The Heart, though, it feels like home. I have no recollection of family, though, only of the environment." King spoke rather flatly. I tapped on my steering wheel as I drove, wondering how that must've felt for him, no recollection of his youth, no memories, nothing fond to recall.

"Do you remember anything other than just existing? Anything fun? Any friends?"

"Fun?" he'd ask. "I am not sure. I recall enjoying the way the rain made the forest smell, and the thrill it felt chasing something in the night, when it was harder to see. I remember enjoying watching men live amongst the wild. I rather enjoyed that. The way they would struggle, or sometimes succeed. Sometimes they would die, but sometimes they would thrive. I enjoyed seeing the latter more, seeing men learn how to become powerful in the wilderness."

"Like me?"

"You're not there yet, but you're progressing. I suppose you could say i'm having fun teaching you, and witnessing you grow."

I bristled a bit at being told, yet again, that I wasn't up to his standards. Still, though, I pressed him for more.

His answers were mostly empty, uninteresting. He had very little to say about himself, other than how he felt in this immediate moment. The most I'd gotten out of him was that he enjoyed watching others. I told him about more about my childhood as we drove, and eventually we'd pulled into the parking lot of our destination. It was a large strip parking lot, with a grocery store and several other stores in a row, one of them being Panda Wall.

Luckily, this was a less popular area, and there weren't many cars in the parking lot at the moment. Just to be safe, though, I parked around side, where employees tended to park and the cars were empty. As I stopped the engine, I looked to King and took his hand in mind.

"Please, PLEASE do not get out of the truck for any reason, okay? Please."

"I don't wish to."

"Okay, good, just please. Promise me."

He promised, and I hopped out the truck and stood in town for the first time in half a year. It felt uncomfortable, there were so few people in the restaurant but I felt like I was surrounded. As I approached the counter, I cleared my throat and nervously rubbed at my arm like a kid trying to order cigarettes for the first time. What a sight I must've been. I hadn't spent money in six months, though, so I still had some in my wallet, and I got us a good selection of different things to try, main dishes, a few sides, some desserts. I peeked out the front door to my truck in the distance and could still see a big black lump in the passenger seat, which made me feel a bit at ease.

Fifteen or so minutes passed, with me checking the truck every three minutes, and finally my food was handed over. I barely could get "thank you" out my mouth before I was out the door, hurrying back to the truck. I set it in the camper and hopped in the cab, looked to King and asked him how he was.

"Fine. I'm fine. I just sat here and looked around at your town. The buildings look old."

"They are. Town's not seein' as much money as it needs."

I honestly doubted King understood what I meant by that, but he didn't ask me to explain as he normally did. I assumed he didn't care. Still, step one of driving into town was going well, and as I started the truck again I'd pull out onto the main road and glance at King a few times, asking "you ever had a soda before?"

"A what?" he asked.

"That answers that." I replied. As we drove down the main road, I kept my eyes peeled for vending machines. I didn't want to take him through a drive-thru or risk leaving him unattended for long again, not on our first trip at least. But, eventually, we passed a gas station that still had some vending machines outside of it, and I pulled right up next to them and grabbed us sodas. I got his caffeine free, just in case, and hopped right back in the truck within a minute, hitting the road once more as I told him "you can drink it in the truck, if you want. Let me know what you think."

I should have told him how to open a can, because he figured it out on his own rather quickly and made a terrible mess of it. King placed the can sideways in his mouth, leaned back his had and clamped his jaws, puncturing holes in the aluminum and guzzling it rather loudly as most of it fizzed and poured down his chin, all over his chest, the blanket on his lap, and my cloth seats.

"It tastes good, but it feels like acid" he remarked, coughing a few times as he pulled the can off his teeth and dropped it in the floorboard.

"They're not good for you, but they're fun as a treat sometimes."

"I don't want it in me anymore," he said, opening his mouth as I interrupted him with "wait WAIT WAIT WAIT, roll down the window, do NOT do that in the cab".

A brief explanation of window buttons later, he had his head out the window as the wind blew through his fur at 55mph, and he would expel cola from his mouth out onto the roadside in what was almost one consistent, uninterrupted gush. Luckily, it was slow time of day and there was no one close behind us, because I couldn't imagine how that conversation would've gone when they followed me to the fields because my passenger puked all over their car.

The rest of our drive was uneventful, as was lunch. I changed plans at the last minute away from picnicking in an open field, and instead decided to drive the truck up to an overlook off the parkway. There was a rather long drive up to some scenic views, and the road had been blocked off for a few years for "maintenance" but some of the locals knew that if you were quick about it, you could just move the "road closed" signs, drive your car past them, then put them back and the cops wouldn't ever know. I did just that, and drove King up the mountainside to a rather gorgeous overlook of the town, where I parked the truck and opened the truck camper. I'd taken guys up there a few times in the past, and we'd spent hours up there with no distractions at all. Hell, I'd even slept with one right there in the grass beside the pull off and not one car ever passed us. It was the perfect place.

I parked with the camper facing the grass, just in case we had to haul ass into the truck and peel out, but as we got comfortable on the blanket I laid out, I found myself worrying less and less. Lunch was lovely, it was quiet, and King and i were sitting in the direct sunlight for the first time in a while. He liked the food, and regurgitated very little of it, and our conversations were surprisingly mundane. King rarely brought up things like the mold, or sex, or death, and when he would, I was able to steer the conversation away from it peacefully. It felt like he was on his best behavior, and I wondered if that was because he was out of his element. We were on my terrain now, and I think that made him a little nervous. I couldn't complain, though, it was wonderful having him docile like that.

"King, do you know what a camera is?" I asked as lunch came to a close and I was standing up, packing the food containers back into bags and knotting the plastic handles as I tucked it all in the truck bed for leftovers.

"Yes. Your kind use them to capture moments in visual form." he replied.

"Are you okay with them?" I'd ask again, vetting before I proceeded.

He shrugged. "I suppose. I've never seen one before. I don't see anything wrong with you using a camera on me."

I smiled a bit as I fished my phone from my pocket, showing it to him.

"It takes photos. Can I take some pictures of us together, to remember this day?" I'd ask. His ears would perk up, his mouth opening slightly as he tilted his head.

"Won't you remember it anyway?"

"I will, but...photos are nice. You get to look at pictures of the memories you have. It's a wonderful thing. We don't have any photos together."

King approached me as I held the phone out, the camera pointed back at us, the screen showing us what it was seeing. I waved for him to get beside me, asking him to squat some, and he would kneel into frame. We were side to side now, face to face, and it felt so...natural. I felt like I was with Buck, or any of the other men I'd been with, and not this strange cryptid beast I'd dredged up in a forest. He felt like a normal man, and I smiled wide as I took a few selfies of us together. I had him stand in a few places and got photos of just him, along with a few more of us together. It was a sense of normalcy I'd desperately needed, and as we both made ourselves comfortable in the truck cab once more, i'd thank him for it. I was beaming with a ridiculous smile.

"Why are you thanking me?" he'd ask.

"I just...expected you to not wanna do that. I'm really happy you did."

"I could tell you really wanted it. You seem exceptionally happy now."

I really liked this King. It was making me never want to go back to the woods. He was so cooperative, so gentle, so conversational outside of the forest. I wasn't sure if he just wanted to impress me or just behave on our date, or if it really had to do with getting him out of his usual environment, but he was a lot of fun. I checked my phone, though, and saw it was almost time to meet Buck. I could only hope that would be as much fun as the rest of the morning had been.

"Just be yourself. Buck can be hard-headed, but he's not an asshole. If you give him a reason to like you, he will" I explained to King as I drove down the road, toward the Beezee's parking lot. We were going to arrive just on time.

"I am not worried. Are you worried?" he'd ask.

"A little. I want y'all to get along."

"I will be fine." King assured me. I tried to trust that.

We pulled up behind Beezee's. The parking lot was empty, the back alley barren as well. We'd really lucked out. I pulled the truck around behind the building and parked sideways, as was expected to do. King would get out of the truck first, and I got out shortly after, hanging out near the back of it so I could see the parking lot for whoever was approaching. The back alley was as expected, a long empty stretch of asphalt, dumpsters at the far end, along with wood pallets with mattresses and pillows on it, some piles of cardboard boxes.

It wasn't long until I saw it, that creaky old F-150, pulling into the parking lot. It approached and parked diagonal to mine, it's back left wheel near mine, the two blocking access to the back alley entirely. Buck looked over to me from the driver's side window, King standing only a few feet behind me. The expression on the fellow fox's was difficult to discern. He looked as if he'd just been given bad news, a slight concern across his entire visage. As he hopped out of his truck, he'd approach us, looking to me, looking to King, looking back to me, looking back to King. Every time he looked to me, his expression looked as if he wanted me to explain the joke, like he was certain he was being pranked.

"Buck," I'd finally crack the ice, "this is King. King, this is Buck."

The tension was palpable, the air heavy with the friction between the two of them. Buck, the gentleman that he was, tried to make the first move, though, and would extend his hand to King as he introduced himself. Buck seemed to be struggling, though. His eyes kept wandering over King's nude body, and I could tell he was trying to act like everything was normal.

"Buck Renart, nice to meetcha" he said. King took the handshake, his bestial hand swallowing Buck's in a handshake as he returned with "Nico calls me King. Nice to meet you as well."

"What's your real name then, King?" Buck asked.

"My kind do not have names. Nico chose to give me one, as a term of endearment." King explained, Buck nodding along. His hands were in his pockets now, his shoulders hunched up as if he was cold. It was comfortable out, though. He was nervous. King, on the other hand, was unflinching.

"That's cool. Nico had a lotta nice things to say about you when we talked last," Buck began, his face turning away from King to look toward the dumpsters as he continued, "t' be honest, I ain't believe you were even real. Still kinda having trouble with that myself."

"I sometimes have trouble feeling real myself" King would answer. Their conversation was incredibly tense, but was going halfway decent for a while. Buck asked questions about King, and King corroborated the things I'd already told Buck about how it came to be. I mainly stood around and chimed every now and then, but they talked mostly on their own for a good while.

"So whattaya do out there, all the time? Seems like it must get boring." Buck asked.

"We hunt, fish, gather food and all that. Then, we explore. King has shown me beautiful things in the woods," I replied, "things I never knew existed."

"And y'all are living in a house he built?" Buck followed up.

"No, that was way too small. He cleaned up an abandoned cabin and we're living in that now." I informed Buck, who I could see was beginning to chew on his tongue.

"Y'all started living in someone else's house?" he asked.

"S'been abandoned for over a decade, Buck. No harm." I replied. He gave an agreeing nod, but I could tell he didn't agree. I could tell by the way his eyes wandered, by the way his tongue was pressed to the inside of his cheek.

"And y'all just spend all day just playin' in the woods? Just wandering around, huntin', eatin', shittin', sleepin'? All day?" Buck asked.

"...yea." I answered.

"Well, I'm, uh..." Buck began, "i'm glad you really found yourself out there Nico. Seems like you two are real close."

"How's things been with you, Buck?" I asked. He lifted his eyebrows and cut his eyes off past me, to the dumpsters, as if he wanted something to look at that wasn't us.

"S'been fine. Place is quiet right now. I've just been workin', mostly, Jupiter Motors has been busy lately and y'know folks don't pull their weight. I've also been babysitting some kids, some polecat twins who's parents both work night shifts."

"Babysitting? I didn't take you as the type." I'd smile at him, and he'd shrug it off.

"S'money, and it gives me somethin' to do in my spare time. Otherwise, I just get home and drink, y'know how it is," Buck cracked a smile for the first time since he'd shown up, "gotta stay sober if you're watchin' two pre-teen boys."

Buck had always been that way. He drank when he was single, and he'd stop drinking if he needed to be sober. It was like he was never addicted, but rather just lonely. He could go months, years with his liquor totally in control, but the moment he can't find a reason to not drink, he starts drinking. I was happy to hear he'd found a reason without me around.

"Do you have children of your own, Buck?" King asked.

"Nah, not yet. I wouldn't mind some, but I don't think I'm ready just yet."

"Is that a common mindset in your kind? It's rather selfish."

Buck's smile, which I'd just grown to admire, faded quickly, and was replaced with a narrowing of the eyes, a slight turn away of the head as his pupils remained focused at King.

"Selfish?" he'd ask. I went to speak for King, but he would speak over me.

"Yes. Nico expresses similar feelings, focus on one's self and self-indulgence over procreation. Sodomy. Alcohol consumption. It's surprising your relationship didn't last, you two are very much alike." King said. Buck's tail bristled out like a bottle brush as he shifted his weight on his feet once more. His jaw grinded some, his lips pursing. I knew these looks. I'd seen him get that way from rude remarks at the bar. He wanted to fight.

"B-Buck, he--" I started, Buck raising his hand and interrupting with "hold on, hold on," before turning to King.

"Y' sure don't talk very highly of Nico to be so madly in love with him. Why is that?" he'd ask.

"Nico is immature, he's irresponsible. He couldn't at all survive on his own when he first found the woods. He has grown, but he has a lot more growing to do." King said.

Buck cut his eyes directly to me, and we made eye contact, then he cut them back to King.

"Yeah?" Buck would begin, "what about you? Tell me about yourself, and how selfless you are.". I cringed with discomfort, wanting to step in and guide the conversation back to something amicable, knowing I was powerless to do so.

"Me?" King would ask. "I'm a forest spirit. Lesidhe, we are called. Forest guardians. We watch over men as they traverse the woods, guide them so that they do not get lost. I have built many shelters for men who found themselves in need, out in the wild. I have hunted for them, I have guided them to safety. We are a protector species."

Buck had a rather flat look on his face, almost as if he didn't buy it, even though there was really no other logical explanation. The man before him was easily two feet taller than him, though hunched over, striking black, fur full of twigs and leaves and dirt, stinking of rot and decay, all neatly wrapped with a striking skull for a face. It was hard to rationalize it as anything other than what King said he was.

"Why Nico, then? Why're you with him, specifically?" Buck would ask next.

"Nico saved my life," King began, running through the tale of how he had come to be: the curse he'd suffered, my fornicating with the skull, his revival, the blood feeding, the learning, all of it. Buck held his facial composure fairly well, but I could see it. I watched his eyes, I could see how his brow would sometimes wince, especially when King spoke about the biting. His eyes didn't wander to me that time, though. They stayed locked on King.

"Alright," he'd finally say after King was done speaking, "so you owe him. This relationship is because you owe him?"

"In a way, yes." King would admit. I looked to King in disbelief, and Buck looked to me.

"I am spiritually bound to him. I did not care for him much at all, at first. He's perverse, he's vulgar, helpless and temperamental. But, he has grown on me. Time and time again, he's tried things and succeeded, and I have found myself growing rather fond of him. I would say I truly love him now." King spoke rather plainly. He had no apprehension in his voice, no uncertainty, as if he'd known he'd felt that way for a while. My heart was sitting in my stomach, dissolving as he spoke.

"And you think you're gonna wanna spend the rest of your life with him?" Buck pressed. "Have kids with him, since that's so important? Marry him? Maybe even move in with him, instead of the two of you livin' in some abandoned shack in the woods with no water, no electricity? You gonna give up that 'forest protector' position for him?"

"Well, there are complications with our anatomic setups, but of course we will procreate, somehow. We may have to find a surrogate, but it will happen. We will marry, as well. Nico enjoys the woods, though, he would not want to leave."

Buck looked back to me, asking "s'that true? Y' wanna live in the woods forever?"

I froze, looking to Buck, looking to King. I didn't know the answer, truthfully. I wanted to eventually return to civilization, but I also knew King could realistically never live among anthros like Buck was implying. He wasn't acclimated to it, and even then, it wasn't his duty. Then again, King had done things so far that he'd never done before, so maybe it was going to be different. I had no way of knowing.

"I wanna live with King, wherever he wants to be" I admitted, which was not only true but felt like a great answer. Buck's curious expression lost a bit of life at it, though, as if he expected different. King would then put a hand on my shoulder as he spoke.

"Nico needs someone to protect him, he is reckless and wild. He will stay with me because I can contain him, care for him, in a way a protector can. It is how animals work, we mate based on shared needs. Nico simply needs something that you cannot give him."

Buck cocked an eyebrow at the comment, crossing his arms, taking a few steps back. One hand would rise to rub at the whiskers of his mustache and beard. Silence fell on the three of us, and it felt like it lingered there for ages. Buck was contemplative, King was still, and I would finally step forward and place a hand on Buck's arm, stepping close, speaking quietly.

"All I did with us was fuck up, over and over again. I think King's right, Buck, I think I need someone that can handle me. When I left your house that night, I felt like I was on fire. I felt like I was burning down everything around me. I just...need something to smother me, I guess, so I don't keep fuckin' up."

"Well," Buck would lean away from my hand, taking another step back, "y' ain't done fuckin' up yet, I don't think. Good luck, though."

Buck's hand would give me a firm few pats on the shoulder as he turned to leave, looking back to give a nod faced directly at me. He said nothing to King, and shortly after would hop in his truck and start the engine. He'd light a cigarette, and roll down the window before looking once more to me.

"Nico," he'd call out as I looked to him, "fires burn out on their own, y'know. Don't need no one holdin' their hand through it."

With that, he'd pull off, driving away. We were left in total silence, shortly after, the space where Buck's presence had been feeling empty, uncomfortably quiet. King hadn't said anything since his last comment, nor had he really even moved much. I walked away from him, to the pallets, to the bed where strangers had had sex, where they'd probably fallen in love many times, high out of their mind on dopamine-dumping drugs. Some of the pallets were broken, and I yanked away a board from it's remains, tearing it from the rest of the pallet and brandishing it in my hand. I brought it down on it's own prior host, the vibration of inertia shocking it's way through my arm and body. I swung again, though, and again, and began to wail out. I don't know what emotion I was feeling most strongly, in that moment. It felt like everything, all at once, and all I could do was yell and grunt, slamming the beam down on the remaining planks, neither of them really yielding.

I moved to the bed, to the filthy fabric on which many mistakes surely had been made, and fall on all fours, punching it as hard as I could. The world felt so big, so empty, civilization was so populated but felt so alone, and I found myself furious at how little connection I felt like I had to the world I'd spent so long occupying. Over 20 years in this world, and six months in the wilderness had shown me that it was all for nothing. I had no one but King, and nothing but our cabin. Buck left the situation no more accepting than when he'd arrived, and as King approached me to try to restrain me, as he always did, I'd bark at him to stay away. It normally never worked, when I'd demand him leave me alone, but this time it did. He stood there, at a distance, staring at me, and would eventually turn around to leave, standing at the truck and waiting for me. I didn't want to go home, at that point. I just wanted to lie down, but I had to get King back to the woods.

Eventually, we both were seated in the truck again, and we were on our way home. It was quiet for a while, neither of us expressing any sort of feelings, but as I drove I could feel my jaw was clenched.

"You had no business talking to Buck like you did", I finally said.

"What did I say?"

"Y'know what you said. The stuff about him being selfish, about his drinking, you had no right to talk to him like that."

"Everything I said was honest, though. I had no intention of upsetting him like that."

My hand slammed the steering wheel as I barked "bullSHIT, King! You KNEW you were upsetting him, and you pressed on because you knew he was getting mad!"

"You both get angry like children, you cannot be criticized or challenged without getting upset."

"And what about you? What's happened damn near every time I say 'no' to you?" I asked. King looked out the window.

"You can't even accept your truths, you redirect it to me." He murmured.

"I'm trying to get you to see--"

"You tell me you hate me, or yell at me, or curse at me. That's all you do when you get upset, you curse and point and yell at me."

I gripped the steering wheel, hissing "just because you don't cuss or yell doesn't mean--"

"All you do is berate me, Nico. You make me feel as though you hate me."

I wanted to open my mouth and protest that. He'd made me feel so small, so insignificant, earlier when he was talking to Buck. He had nothing nice to say about me other than that I'd revived him and gave him blood. He never really had anything nice to say about me, actually. All I'd wanted that entire conversation was for him to talk about how and why he loved me, but he never did. He just talked about all the things I'd done for him. But, could I blame him? If he felt like I hated him, why would he be nice to me? Why would he go to my ex lover and sing my praises? It made sense to me, as much as I didn't want to accept that.

"I don't hate you, King. I just feel so...unappreciated. I feel like I'm never good enough for you." My voice was quivering. I sounded pathetic, but I refused to cry again.

"Why not say that, then, instead of attacking me?"

"I feel like I've tried..."

"You haven't. You express very little to me, actually. I would be much more inclined to listen if you ever expressed how you were feeling calmly, instead of being so hateful about it."

I could feel my grip on the steering wheel weakening, softening from the clenched knuckles I'd had tensing into the rubber. I apologized to King for my attitude, and my temper, and for having snapped at him. He offered me his own version of an apology about not having said something nicer about me. It was night time when we parked the truck once more, and began our trek back to the cabin, which had sat untouched since we'd left. The carcasses were strewn about it untouched as well, surprisingly not taken by scavengers. As I entered the cabin door, I'd undress immediately, throwing my clothes near the door and returning to the comfort of nudity. Clothing had gotten to where it felt so uncomfortable, itchy, overstimulating. I sat down on the bed, ready to turn in early, and King set the leftovers on the floor and joined me at the bedside. We didn't say anything for a while. His hand was on my back, rubbing me, and I leaned onto him.

"I rather like the color of your fur. It's a red you don't see in wild animals." King said quietly.

"It's ancestral. Dad and grandpa both have it in varying shades. I don't know where it started, but I know even one of my great-great-great-great-grandfathers had it."

"Fascinating, that you know that." King would say. "Our children would look lovely with your fur color."

"Yeah, if we had a way to have kids." I replied. King nodded, as if he agreed, but would then say "I am sure that, if the wild wills it, it can happen. I will go to the Forest's Heart, after our marriage, and ask for help."

"Really?" I asked.

"Yes. If we marry, we will need to procreate. It is the will of the wild. We will have to find a way, it is unnatural to mate with no intention of eventually reproducing. If the forest wills us to marry, which I am sure it does, then we must have a child."

"I mean...if it's possible, then i'm fine with it." I said. That wasn't entirely true. I wasn't at all ready to be a parent, but I felt that I needed to be, since we'd been sleeping together. It was obviously important to him, and he seemed like he'd be a capable father.

"Time will find solutions for us, Nico. For now, rest. I am going to go hunt."

He didn't need to do that. We had leftovers for dinner, we hadn't even gathered any fresh mold from his stomach for him to use in his experiments. I guessed he just wanted to chase something. He would bid me a farewell and leave, and I prepared for bed. It took little effort for me to fall asleep.

My sleep was restless that night. I tossed and turned, waking up several times to an empty bed, finally waking up to King next to me. Somewhere in the middle of the night, though, I had a dream. I had a dream of a stag, a whitetail stag. He stood outside the window and spoke my name, whispered it through the shutters. In my dream, I rose from the bed, King sleeping silently next to me, and I stepped outside in the pitch black to find him standing in the front yard, waiting for me. His antlers had a glow to them, like they were cracked glow sticks, dim, but present, and as I joined him in the yard he would begin to walk away, and I proceeded to follow him.