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Author's Intro

Hi everyone,

Rare occasional post from me, but I haven't forgotten that this was where I started back in 2018. Six self-published furry novels later I'm still at it, so I bring you this Christmas story, or at least the first post of it. At the end of this, I'm going to link you to the rest of it on my Patreon page, but it's all going to be set to 'Public' and hence free this Christmas. I might well have uploaded this last year, but unfortunately I didn't get it finished, and decided to pick it back up this Christmas season. This time finishing it off is a priority. Publishing as an ebook will hopefully happen next December.

If you prefer reading on Patreon (IMHO it IS a better reading experience) then you can find the link to this same post here, along with my Ko-Fi link if you feel like leaving me a tip for writing this, but don't feel you have to. This is free for a reason: to spread some Christmas cheer amongst y'all furs.

Here's a synopsis so you know what you're getting into:

'Orson is a gaming addicted otter from England. Ben is a college ice hockey star from New York. The pair of them haven't seen each other in twelve years. This Christmas, Orson's going to New York and he's promised himself the holiday of a lifetime where all rules are off. Except he's going to get a surprise he didn't expect when Ben shares a secret.'_ _

* * *

As soon as he saw it, Orson Brookfield decided that the Barstows' house really was the one from Home Alone, even if it was in New York and not Chicago, or wherever that Christmas flick was set. Orson suddenly wondered why the family in that film were otters rather than bears like the Barstows. Bears would have been funnier, and people wouldn't think all otters had those sorts of families and every Christmas was a slapstick laugh-a-minute. No Christmas with his parents was ever like that. This one stood a chance of being better though.

The New York 'burbs' looked like any American movie suburbia to him, but now he felt the true cold of them. The icy breeze carried the smell of freshly cooked Christmas roasts and spiced biscuits. It was nothing like London here. That was the best part.

The Barstows' house sounded like a movie set too. That's why the look on Julia Brookfield's face was so satisfying to Orson. It said: Oh my God, what have we done?

'How many bears live in this house, Richard?' Julia Brookfield asked her husband.

'Polar bears,' Richard said, with that infuriating politician's accuracy that Orson always thought his father deliberately didn't switch off outside of the office. 'Five. Natasha, John, Ben, Ella and Sam.' He was most likely thinking the same thing as Orson: it wasn't a family of five tearing around in there.

Orson's smile widened. The Barstows had surely forgotten that they were hosting the Brookfields and had invited a brother or sister and cousins. Maybe they actually were going to go to France in the morning and forget a kid. Orson went up and rang the bell.

Someone who clearly didn't live there and wasn't old enough to answer a door to a stranger opened up. 'Hi. You collecting for the poor?'

'Sure,' Orson said. 'Why not? Gimme your allowance, kid.' Cool, he'd even nailed how they called it that here instead of pocket money.

'Errrr...' the kid bolted.

A teenage girl with a cynical look on her face, pierced nose and ears and a boy's Superdry hoodie that was one size too big for her looked at him. 'Yeah, you're definitely Orson. Mom! Dad! The otters are here! They'll be right down. Kevin, put that back in the fridge right now!' She ran for the kitchen.

'Am I tripping?' Orson said to himself.

Natasha and John Barstow weren't right down. Another set of parents were instead. Mama was a brown bear, papa a heavy-set polar who Orson thought should be a trucker or a roadie for some rock band if he wasn't. It would be cool if it turned out he was a pro-gamer.

'Hello,' he said. 'I'm Cliff. I'm John's brother.' Surprisingly, he shook hands with Orson first. 'Orson, right? Better just say, please don't take it personally if one of my kids whines about not being allowed to bring their PS5. I told them it's uncle John's house and he makes the rules.'

'Gameboy,' another bear who looked about year-five age said in a laconic tone as he walked through. He had a polar's build but was brown, and waving the Gameboy like it was a security pass or an ID that carried diplomatic immunity.

'Urrrgh!' the mama bear said. 'Matthew! What did we say about this already?'

' "No Fun Allowed" or something, I dunno. Seth you little douchebag! Where are my sneakers you ass-hat?'

'Hey!' Both parents yelled at once.

'I'm so sorry,' Mama Bear said. 'I'll be right back.'

'She's Holly, by the way,' Cliff said.

'Cool,' Orson said. 'I'm kicking Matthew's arse at Tetris later.'

'I think he's playing Zelda.'

'Forget about both,' Julia said. She introduced the family. There was pizza about to be delivered but there was wine and snacks. Soft drinks for Orson of course, because it was obvious he was being lumped in with the kids when his mother looked at him.

'What, it's not eighteen to drink where we come from anymore and I'm not twenty either?'

'You don't drink,' his mother said, as if to remind him he was lucky he didn't go to meetings for that along with everything else.

Orson shrugged and poured himself a grape soda. Wait till later. I'm waking up with a hangover tomorrow one way or another.

John and Natasha came down dressed to go out. All the Barstow kids were in the local choir and this Christmas eve they were singing outside the church rather than in it. Outdoor nativity with carols. All this explained while an incessant amount of hugging went on, as if Orson's family saw them every Christmas and it hadn't been over fifteen years.

'I know,' John said to Richard. 'It's a full house you all weren't quite expecting. Little family crisis we had to help out with.'

'We burned our house down,' Matthew said, still glued to the Gameboy and not looking up. He was indeed playing Zelda. The world famous eight-note pinging of the secret door sound was Orson's siren call.

'Now you're talking,' Orson said, grinning as he sat down, resisting it. 'I bet it was you. What kind of matches did you use?'

Matthew blew his overly long forehead fur away from his eyes. 'Iron left on.'

'It wasn't the iron, dipshit, it was the tumble dryer,' Ella said.

'Language in front of the kids,' Matthew said, even more deadpan. 'Feed me some pizza or something, my hands are busy.'

Orson was disappointed when Ella didn't simply shove it into her cousin's sarcastic little hole of a mouth. Maybe she would have done if Mama Bear Holly hadn't been watching.

'It was mom's bra that caught fire,' another kid who Orson guessed was Seth said.

'For the last time,' Holly said. 'It was the boiler that started it. We're done talking about it, it's a miracle we all made it out alive and we're going to go and thank God that we're all still here to enjoy this Christmas together later on.' She forcibly removed Matthew's Gameboy from his hands now and ignored his response:

'Laaaame.'

'Don't worry, all our kids are rooming together to leave a guest room for you.'

Orson knew what this really meant, because Holly Barstow was looking at his parents when she said it. He was going to share a room with one of these kids? After a long-haul flight, with his body now tuned to half past fuck-knew-when O'clock? His parents weren't going to let him crash no matter how tired he said he was. Not now they'd seen that Gameboy in the house. Or how his face lit up at the sound, once a cherished part of his childhood and now an alarm call. He was going to watch the choir unless he could escape.

'Where am I sleeping?' He said. 'Could I maybe go do it now?'

'Don't be silly,' Richard said. 'You slept on the plane.'

It hadn't really been sleep, he'd just had his eyes shut.

'You'll be sleeping with us,' Julia said. 'These good people have had to put their family up for Christmas so there isn't a spare room for you on your own anymore. But that's okay, isn't it?'

'Sure,' Orson said, forcing it out of himself. 'Or I wouldn't mind just sleeping on the sofa. Couch. Whatever it's called here.'

'We understand sofa, otter-brain,' Ella said.

'Ella, don't be so rude,' John said. 'I tell you what, Ella can have the couch and Orson can have Ella's room.'

Sleeping in a teenage girl's room? Watching the choir now seemed more bearable.

'Oh now don't let's have any upheaval,' Julia said. 'Really. It's no problem. We were the last guests to arrive and rooms have already been shared out. It's fine like it is.'

Orson got his phone out and found the get-out-of-jail card he'd looked up on the plane, in case he needed it. 'Dad, can I go to this?'

His father looked torn. If he knew it was a deliberate play, he wouldn't dare to call it out. At least not right now. There might be words saved up for the flight home and by then it would be the least of Orson's worries. New York was lying at his feet, and he was going to have the riot he'd always dreamed of. It started with getting into the city on Christmas eve.

'Well...let's just see. John, what time are we going out to hear the choir?'

'Seven PM, but Orson doesn't have to come if there's something else he'd rather do.' John Barstow looked like he knew exactly what this was.

'No,' Julia said. 'Whatever this thing is, we've been invited to something else.'

Richard moved in, slowly and quietly, as if he'd take his wife aside if he could find one. 'Orson wants to go to a meeting. Maybe it's a good idea.'

'You go to AA?' Ella said, looking at Orson. 'You're way too young to be an alcoholic.'

'I'm not an alcoholic,' Orson said, unable to resist conjuring up a barbed look for his mother. 'I just "don't drink". That's not what this meeting's for.'

'Narcotics then?' Ella said, her mouth half full of pizza. 'Is that what got you kicked out of college? Oh no, wait, _please_tell me it's a support group for addiction to se-'

'Young lady, any more being rude to another guest in this house and you'll be getting nothing under the tree tomorrow,' John said. 'I'm sorry, Orson. Whatever you go to meetings for it's none of my family's business. They should all know better given what we've talked about before.'

Cliff, Orson thought, looked like a man used to riding this kind of thing out in silence. Especially right now, when he gave his brother a smile and a dismissive look.

'I'm not a sex addict,' Orson said, looking at Ella. 'For someone I barely knew existed, you seem to know an awful lot about me. Yeah I got kicked out of college. I'll tell you the story later if you want.' That's for telling me I can't even drink on Christmas eve, Mom.

_ _ 'Orson is addicted to video games,' Julia said. 'He can't play them because he doesn't know when to stop and it took an awful tole on his health for several years. But things are better now. Fine, good idea, go to this Gamers Anonymous meeting. Richard, will you take him in the rental car? I don't want him getting a bus alone in New York.'

'Good call,' Cliff said. '_I'll_take him. I know New York better than anyone here and...well, you know.' He looked at Holly, and Orson saw something that passed for a sudden understanding.

'Yes,' Holly said. 'Perfect. Cliff doesn't sing and...well, this is nice. Happy to help out.'

'Hey Gameboy,' Orson said, looking at Matthew. No surprise, Matthew looked up at being called that. 'You were trying to get the magic cape earlier, weren't you? You were looking in the wrong part of the map. I can't play myself but I can show you where it is later.'

Now the stoic surliness broke. Matthew looked like it was Christmas day and he'd just got a new, gold plated Gameboy with some famous person's signature on it. 'I like you. You can have my room. I'll have the couch.'

'You'll have no such thing,' Holly said. 'The Gameboy or the couch.'

'Those matches you wanted to know about?' Matthew said, making a striking motion with his left hand. 'Zippos.'

'They make matches too?' Orson said.

'You bet your butt they do.'

'Well okay, but if I lost my butt in a bet then what would Mom smack when I've been naughty? My arse instead?'

The kids laughed. Seth and Kevin couldn't stop. Especially not after Sam, who shouldn't have been so amused by that at eleven years old, couldn't stop either. Julia looked like she'd given up and Richard poured himself another glass of wine. Why, Orson thought, would the guy not admit that he wished he could go to Gamers Anonymous too just to avoid listening to another load of Christmas carols? This was supposed to be his holiday time, not time spent going to other people's stupid events because it was expected of him.

'I want the couch,' Sam said, suddenly. 'Orson can have my room. Long as he doesn't mind the pet tarantula.'

Orson blinked. 'Seriously?'

'Sam's into spiders,' John said. 'We bought him one for his birthday. He already wants to do a zoology degree one day. You know what, there's a thought. Why don't we give Orson Sam's room and Sam can room with Seth and Kevin.'

'Three boys that age in a room together on Christmas eve, John?' Natasha said. 'Really? They'd never get any sleep. I tell you what. You and I can get the blow-up double bed out and put it down here. Richard and Julia will have our bedroom and Orson has the guest-room they would have used.'

'I thought about it already,' John said, 'but it takes an awfully long time to blow that thing up.'

'Orson can room with me.'

The entire room stopped at that voice. Someone else had arrived, and it was like he'd been there for ages, just listening to this. There was an aura of tactical master about the whole entrance. The guy who watched the fight and then saved his moment for showing how he held the ultimate black belt. Through all of this, Orson couldn't believe he'd almost forgotten that Ben Barstow existed. The last time they had seen each other, they'd been eight, maybe just short of nine. What he was seeing now, no wonder it stopped a room.

'Heeey, there he is! How did the game go?' Cliff definitely had a 'there's my favourite nephew' voice, and started the whole thing off. Bear hugs, noogies...even Ella exchanged loving banter, and Matthew had a hugging side to him.

Ben Barstow somehow looked like he was dressed for ice hockey even when not at the rink. The stick and skates would have looked good with these clothes. He was from a family of big, stocky bears (Seth, Kevin and Sam actually were a bit fat) but he was an athlete. He probably worked out, ran, cycled, couldn't stop doing sports of any kind. Probably as stupidly gifted at all of them as he was for making people in a room come to him.

'But surely you don't want Orson rooming with you,' Natasha said. 'I'm sorry, that sounded wrong. No offence, Orson, but Ben was having his girlfriend stay here this Christmas. Isn't Edie coming after all?'

'Her grandparents showed up unexpectedly,' he said. 'Grandma's got some kind of dementia and this might be the last Christmas she remembers. I can't exactly argue with that. She's coming to see the choir later though. Orson can room with me; he can have my bed and I'll put my sofa cushions on the floor. I'll take him to his meeting too.' He looked at Orson. 'Can I come in with you?'

'Come in with me?' Orson said, feeling like he'd stammered it out. 'Why the hell would you wanna do that?'

'Supportive friend?'

Orson glowed under his fur. 'Errrr...right. Yeah. Sure.'

'Awwwww!' Ella said.

'Oh now come on, don't embarrass him,' Ben said. 'You gonna tell me you've got no issues? We won the game, by the way. Seven-two.' He mimed striking a puck with a stick, as if to say he'd scored, then came across the kitchen and geared up for what Orson was dreading. 'It's good to see you again, OtterSpotter.'

Everybody twittered, or laughed, as Ben hugged him and Orson found enough of a hug for this boy he hardly knew. Who was now a man, even if he still looked young enough to have to show an ID card everywhere he went. Orson suspected Ben didn't drink though. After a sports victory like that he should be smelling beer on his breath, and all he smelt was spiced tea.

_I was the one who asked to come here,_he thought. He'd made the deal. He'd wanted to see New York, and see Ben Barstow again even though all he remembered of him was a few fun playground games. He'd got the idea from a Gamers A session where everyone got talking about favourite memories. They said it might be good if he made 'seeing that bear again' a goal. So he floated it with his parents: clean up his life and become a normal functioning citizen like every other boring drone and in return they'd pay for him to go.

What had he been thinking when he let them add going on the trip with him as a condition?

It was simple, he still knew: He'd gotten too wrapped up in the idea that he'd filled the void of having his childhood BFF leave him with non-stop hours in front of a Playstation, and this was the way to finally reverse the rot. He'd been eight, for God's sake. He didn't own a console until he was ten. He never thought about Ben by then. He'd barely thought about him for years, until he'd been nineteen and sitting in that meeting, after spending two days sobering up in a jail cell.

When his parents planned the holiday, he didn't look at Ben's Facebook, or any other social media, because an almost total ban from anything he might play a game on hung over his head. All he'd wanted after the initial infatuation with the idea of meeting Ben again was New York in front of him, so he could get lost in it. If he could swing it, he'd disappear forever. He knew enough gamers in New York, people he'd never met who'd found him a legend. He'd done virtual e-sports. He'd won money. There were people in this city who'd have him with open arms if he knocked on their doors. Some of them _had_given addresses out because sending snail-mail Christmas cards was actually cool if your whole life was online. It felt like a break.

Orson wanted to become an illegal immigrant in New York and live off cryptocurrency and never see another Gamers meeting again. That's what he was here for. He wasn't loosing sight of it, no matter how warm and thick-coated and maybe even needing a hug from him this bear was.

'Why don't you come and see your room?' Ben said. 'Unless you want the one with the tarantula.'

'Yours will be fine,' Orson said.

Ben's room, he thought, would have suited any gamer right down to the letter. His own couch, coffee table, TV, sound system...this kid had it all, and it felt like he'd earned it rather than have Mom and Dad spoil him. They could have afforded to, but it was like Ben had saved pocket money for all of this.

Ben didn't game, that much Orson knew. The 'no consoles' rule was easy for the Barstow family because it had existed all along. Orson remembered now that he had on one slightly drunken occasion gotten curious about Ben's social media after all, only to find Ben didn't have any. Nor did the rest of the family.

In this room, Ben had books. Actual, physical books. He had a Mac too, but how he preferred to read was obvious. There was a bible amongst them. No surprise.

Ben, Orson realised, had been staring at him while he stared around the room.

'Well, look at you,' he said. 'Look who you grew up to be. I still can't believe you're here.'

Orson shut the door. A little too hard despite trying not to make a bang, but he didn't care. 'Do not_say that like there's anything nice or cool or good about what my life is and what I look like. My life's bullshit. You know what's going to happen later? I have to hand my phone over to my parents. They know my password. There are rules about what I can have on it. I can read the news and listen to music and that's about it. All because I did something stupid. _Once. I don't have a gaming problem. I'm a gamer. Everybody else in my life thinks it's a problem.'

'Ooookay. Long flight and you're tired. Why don't you take a nice deep breath and we'll talk about how you're feeling right now?'

'Do_not_ put your hands on my shoulders.'

'Okay. Sorry. But you know what?'

'What?'

'When I had to move back here, I didn't get another friend I liked as much as you. Not for a long time. I didn't settle at my school well. I had to get to middle school and find out I was good at sports before I felt happy again. I'm sorry I never kept in touch. I don't really know why I didn't.'

'We were kids. It was just a kid friendship. You really do not wanna know me now.'

'Why not?'

'Okay. Look at all this. Your life. How your family were around you. What's the plan for you next, college?'

Ben laughed like he couldn't help himself. 'You're the same age as me, Orson. I'm already at college. Second year. Sports scholarship. Home for the holidays.'

'There you go. Your whole life's the dream. I don't have any of that. I'm a mess. I had one thing I liked. One thing I was good at. Then the world collectively decided it was a problem and took it away from me, and my own parents were right at the centre. I was going to be an esports champion. People loved me. I only pretended to go to "college" and do computer science so I could have my own space to do everything. Now I've got nothing. I as much as touch a computer I could end up sectioned, and I actually don't think I'm exaggerating. I did spend three days in a psych hospital once. I came to New York to escape from my life.'

Ben looked concerned. 'Escape how?'

'Run. Disappear. But maybe after I've at least spent Christmas sleeping in your bed for a couple of days. You won't tell on me, right? Not Captain Snowbear. He doesn't tell on his dead-eye gunner The OtterSpotter. Who else is gonna save the Great Ship Lightspeed?'

'You remember?'

'Course I remember.'

Ben looked dumbfounded. 'Well, OtterSpotter, I'm glad you at least said you wanted to go to that meeting. I _will_take you. Let me come in like I said. Nobody wants to be a loner in a place like New York. Trust me. I want to hear what you say when you're in a room full of people who really know what your life's like.'

'Do you know what gamers often go to Gaming Anonymous meetings for? To find people they can game with.'

Ben shrugged. 'It's your life. But you really think you can escape into New York and go AWOL with some stranger you hooked up with at a meeting?'

'You think I'm out of my depth? Just watch.'

'I don't know. But I think you'd have a better Christmas if you stayed here with us.'

Orson smiled, a bright idea coming through to him. 'Okay. Prove it. It's Christmas Eve and the shops are still open for a few more hours. You know what I want for Christmas?'

'What?'

'I want some liquor. Scotch. And a packet of fags. Cigarettes. A proper American brand like Pal Mal or Camel or something. Get me that. I wanna go outside when the rest of your house is asleep and enjoy that. So I can have and hour or maybe two of feeling like I can make my own fucking choices about my life.'

'I get it, buddy. I totally do. But it's gonna be a bit difficult to get hold of that with the busy evening we've got planned. When am I gonna get away?'

'Make it happen, Snowbear. Or I'm letting the Battletoads gun our ship down.'

'You know what's kinda fun?'

'What?'

'You really did become a dead-eye shot. First person shooters, right? That was your favourite thing. Maybe you really could have been a good gunner. You never thought about getting fit and joining the air force or something? Fly a real ship sometime?'

'What, me killing real people? Don't be soft. And how did you know that?'

'I know what happened, OtterSpotter. Mom and Dad told me.'

'Okay, one, can you not call me that if we've got to talk about something serious? Actually, don't call me that at all. Especially not in front of your family again. Two, I don't want to talk about it full stop. It was humiliating. It was all over the fucking news, because of who Dad is. The mayor of London's son got arrested for that. Now I can never _not_be that person. People still ask me about it now. I can't even escape from it while I'm working as a waiter in a restaurant. Yeah, that's my job, by the way. Look at me. Look at who I grew up to be.'

'A waiter's a service people need, isn't it?'

'I bet you know everything, don't you? You know about the thing with the Prime Minister's son too?'

'I'm not judging you, Orson. People do crazy things sometimes. You think I'm a saint?'

'Funny enough, yes.'

'Okay, I've never done what you did, but there's a different person under the golden boy sometimes.'

'Really. I can't wait to see him.'

'Orson.' Ben held up his hands. '_Can_I put these on your shoulders this time and get you to take that deep breath?'

'Yeah, go on. We're not going anywhere until I've at least pretended all my feelings will just melt away if...oh. Ooooooh, okay. I should have known.' Orson took the deep breath, feeling his friends muscled fingers dig into his shoulders. 'Sports massage. Or therapy. Or something. You're doing a jock college degree.'

'Actually no, I just have good fingers. Deep breath again. And out. Feels good, doesn't it?'

'Yeah. Kinda.'

'Okay.' Ben took his hands away. 'I once needed a guy to do that to me too. Because I was worked up. I've known what it was like to have a head full of stuff I couldn't sort out. You were right. Captain Snowbear wouldn't tell on his gunner. So here's a secret you can have just to prove it. I sometimes wish I could be more like you. Because here's my secret: I kind of like bad boys. Or at least I think about them a lot when I'm imagining other stuff.'

'What do you mean?'

Ben smiled. 'What do you _think_I mean?'

Orson thought about those hands on his shoulders, and everything inside him squirmed. 'Seriously? Does your girlfriend know?'

Ben's smile widened. 'My girlfriend is my best friend. Edie likes girls. We both pretend we're in a relationship with each other because it suits both of us to do it. We love each other, but not like that. She became Captain Snowbear's new gunner once. We've known each other most of our life. We sleep in a bed together sometimes, but she doesn't want my penis and I've no interest in her vagina.'

'Why do you talk so clean even when you're talking about sex? And coming out to a guy you really don't know at all. Why haven't you told your family yet? Because I don't see them minding much. Not the guy who walked into that room and everybody went to him like he was their hero.'

'You know who that guy is? A straight, white bear who's gonna marry another straight white bear like they think Edie is and keep the whole big family thing going. That's who the hockey team think their star is too. And the college. And everyone who sees my college games on TV. I'm not ready to see how people react when it turns out I'm notthat guy. I'm not ready to be out.'

'Then what are you telling me for?'

'I trust you. We're Captain Snowbear and OtterSpotter again. Our lives are in each other's hands. For real this time.' Ben looked at his watch. 'I've gotta shower and get changed for going out. You can use the bathroom down the hall. Oh, no, I'm sorry, that's just bad manners. You use mine. You go first.'

Orson had somehow missed that Ben had an en-suite bathroom through the door on the other side of the room. It was never going to be a wardrobe through there, was it? 'Ben.'

'Yeah?'

'What are you studying at college?'

'Dentistry.'

'What? Seriously? You're going to be a dentist?'

'Yeah, why's that surprising? It's just like I said: good fingers.'

'You use your bathroom. I'll use the one down the corridor.'

In the bathroom down the corridor, wrapped in the towel he'd dug from the bottom of his suitcase, Orson looked at his own teeth in the mirror, mouth wide open. At least there was nothing wrong with those mostly.

A polar bear dentist though. What a terrifying idea even if it was Ben Barstow, the Ned Flanders of bears - un-fuckably nice to the core. He probably wouldn't tell even if Orson did run away into New York somewhere.

Maybe he'd come after me, Orson thought.

Follow this link to Chapter Two