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1. GILGAMESH

48 days before it happened

"Mikey doesn't even want to go," Anton protested. He jutted his finger once in his brother's direction, not even making eye contact with him. In his peripherals, he could see Michael's clear stare boring into the corner of his iris like a drill. In the background, the droning hum of the living room television read out the four-o'-clock news and mumbled advertisements for mock moonlight night-lights and clap-on lamps for the elderly and arthritic.

It was written plain on their faces. His parents were about to lay it on thick, he knew, remind him of whose roof he lived under, whose food he ate, and who bought the nice full-size bed that he slept on. Mikey was going to stay quiet, the inheritor of his old twin-size, and play the perfect mirror to his mom's accusations.

"Bullshit, Anton," came the first reply, and he made a conscious effort not to roll his eyes at the ridiculously predictable nature of her response. Somehow the fact that he anticipated it only made him detest it more.

"Yeah, I do. If it's not a big deal. I just-" Mike began with a faltering voice. He rarely spoke up at all, but Anton didn't have any time to think about it.

"Of course it's not a big deal," Mr. Carpenter interrupted. Parental stares split between the two. Anton felt his skin prickling, a treacherous raise of his hackles threatening to get him in even more trouble than he already was. His eyes kept flicking to the side, kept looking at his brother like he might find something incriminating in his expression. Something forced, maybe, or even a reluctance to go that his parents were ignoring. Not like it mattered any more, even if he could find something to exploit. Whatever Michael was going_to say, Dad had finished saying it _for him, and now it was law.

"It_is_ a big deal," Anton said, keeping his throat locked to stop a growl. He liked fighting losing battles. "I don't want to take Mikey with me. The movie's not his thing anyway," Anton responded, his attempt at keeping his voice even merely giving it a cold edge. He couldn't shake the idea that his parents knew something that they weren't saying, trying to bait him into a response that incriminated him.

"That's not true. You and him play video games all day - don't you start," Mrs. Carpenter began, voice raising when she saw Anton's eyes lift and roll, his weight drop to one side as he adopted an exhausted posture. "I don't care why or what games they are or whatever the hell you're about to say, Anton. Your father and I have plans for the night." There it was.

"Anton, please. It's just a movie and I'll leave you alone and hang out with Jesse, okay? I do really wanna go. Thanks for taking me." It sounded to his older brother's ear like a recording of proper behavior on loop, so measured, so even, so sweet. Keeping his mom and dad in mind while making sure he wasn't inconveniencing his asshole brother Anton. Shithead.

Mikey was pure sunlight, and Anton hated him for it sometimes.

Hate was a bit of a strong word, perhaps, but he felt something like it that only siblings can feel: an irrational anger that came from nowhere, made worse every time someone reminded him of how kind his brother was, how little he asked for, and how much he looked up to him. He hated it doubly when they were turned into one person. 'The Carpenter Brothers' by the lady at church, 'Anton-and-Michael' by the teachers, 'Mikey and his brother.' It made it worse that they almost looked like twins, despite the four-year gap. Anton had a soft look to him, people said, and Mikey was always so quick.

He knew the conversation was over when Mom lifted her right hand, palm flat and extended towards him like it was brandishing her wedding ring and the callouses on her pads. "We do a lot for you two and it's selfish of you to-"

"Fine," Anton grunted, throwing his hands up. She stared holes in him, then, enough to make his tail start to twitch before it sunk between his the legs of his ripped jeans so far the long fur almost dangled with the white strings hanging off his knees. She waited for that before she spoke again.

"...of you to talk like that," she finished, emphasizing each syllable. Another pause.

"Anton, don't forget your jacket. It's cold. Mikey's too."

-

"Sorry," Michael said in the car.

Anton stared forward at the road, his middle and index finger tapping slowly on the edge of the steering wheel while the radio warbled some Smashing Pumpkins. It felt like an eternity to them both before he finally said something, drumming his fingers,click-click-click-click, against the stereo's glass.

_Sorry?_Fuck, Anton thought, his brother was like Christ born again; Mikey had every reason to be hurt, and here he was apologizing for... what, being a bother? A brother? Butting in on a date plan he didn't even know anything about? It was suburban martyrdom without the guarantee of a write-up in the church. He knew it wasn't fair, but Anton didn't want to say those most culpable words himself-- something else would have to do.

"You can change the CD if you want."

Michael smiled, almost too small to be seen. He stared at his brother's face, then, in the coming dusk of their drive. As streetlights moved past the window behind him and their light glistened on Anton's first earring, in the pale of his brother's eye Michael saw his own face looking back. He thought then that his brother must be a miracle, a view into the future wrapped in a fur-collared jacket and Siouxsie and the Banshees shirt.

Maybe he could get his ears pierced too, one day.

"Nirvana?" Mikey asked, already knowing the response but wanting to hear the answer.

"Good pick, yeah. Put it on, but put Pumpkins back in the case." He paused. "And don't-"

"Don't scratch it. I know," Mikey said, and turned his face away to hide his smile.

-

The only theater in fifty miles: a lonesome edifice called the Flick House dressed in ragged posters years out of date and humidity-soaked cardboard stand ups. Flick House was technically outside of city limits and therefore infinitely better than practically anywhere in Whitegrass. For $9.99, anybody could get chips with fake cheese, a food poisoning hot dog, and a box of whichever flavor of dental visit was desired - sour Skittles included.

The Group out front: Ish, looking dour and checking the time with his good eye, glaring down at the pawnshop watch that looked so comically small on his ursine arm. A brown bear drowning in a sea of navy-blue flannel like a big chunk of driftwood. Jesse, so reedy he might prove his namesake and weasel under the crack of the theater door instead of opening it, in his track jacket that so proudly spelled his name out on the back: CZAJKOWSKI. 'They never spell it right,' he said when he got it. 'They spelled it right.' Michael in slow blur, running with such speed it made his hunter-green coat flutter and ears fly back, running to join the array of surprised grins and chorus of surprise. Michael, a goddamn comet across the parking lot lifting Ish's face and making Jesse lunge in for a hug around the middle.

Finally, though, was Calvin. Calvin in blue jeans and a white cotton shirt so wide-necked and tight across the chest it made Anton want to claw canyons out of the steering wheel. The German Shepherd was the second-tallest of the group behind Ish, as unfair as a height competition against a bear was. His biceps were strong and his fur was well-groomed and his ears were _naturally_pointy, and it was this boy with his strong muzzle and liquid-chocolate eyes that Anton had lied to his parents for.

It was only a half-lie. They were all going to see a movie, that much was true, but Anton had no intention of heading home afterwards. The four were going to go hang out at The Cliff, bring down the bed in Jesse's truck so Ish could park his ass, look at the stars, smoke weed and read the new Rothfuss. When it got late, they'd all camp out, give the guy a break from his asshole dad, just be far enough away from Whitegrass that the silence stopped belonging to the city and started belonging to something else, something like nature, wherever that started. It wasn't a school night, either, so the Carpenters could be out as late as they wanted and their parents wouldn't care. Not so long as they showed up to church the next morning, of course.

-

Michael and Jesse sat dead center for the best view, Calvin and Anton in the back corner by the floor-lights that didn't work, hidden in the darkness beyond darkness that the theater stairwell offered. Ish front row, arms heavy on the plush rests that the seats had down there, his face bathed in the light that killed celluloid. Orcs slain, a gold ring found and donned. In another fantasy, beneath another sun, a flaxen-haired fox shoots impossible arrows, and the rugged wolf Aragorn brandishes his blade. During quiet parts, Calvin snuck a kiss to Anton's neck, burying his broad muzzle into the hound's neck-fur when nobody was looking. Anton's head would crane to the side too, but one water-blue eye remained on the screen at all times, watching, captivated by the magic of it. Steel flashed and mithril glittered.

Michael stared open-mouthed at the mountains and the trees and Jesse was leaned forward so far out of his seat his jeans nearly lifted off. Ish looked so tight that he might fall out of his seat or disappear into it. He gripped his left forearm, long ursine claws digging into the skin so ferociously it almost looked like he was trying to break his own elbow. His bicep curled and swelled in its quiet labor of holding his own body down, restraining it from something even while his shoulders twisted forward. From behind, Anton could somehow still sense it, spy the atom of light in the corner of the bear's good eye that glistened and blinked a message by the sunlight of another world.

Longing.

-

The moon blew cold fire across Whitegrass. Here at the Cliff, there was always a breeze to move the tangled chickweed. Tonight, it brushed a few strands of Anton's mahogany hair over his shoulder, twisted the curls like the spinning parts of a wind chime. A dozen feet away, Ish sat on the edge and Mike worried about it, leaning against the guard rail with his tail tucked and his muzzle resting in one hand. The bear didn't notice, talking to Jesse about something and gesturing out over the city while the weasel brought down the bed of his truck and got to work unpacking blankets and coolers from the back. The movie, maybe.

Anton leaned against the side of his car, opening his jacket to block the wind so Calvin could light his cigarette - or try to, anyway, with some inexperienced clicking of Anton's dingy red Bic. Click, click, click.

"Need help?"

Calvin shot him a dirty look, pursed his muzzle tight around the end of his cigarette and took a shallow suck, and then a deeper one, his brows knittng together like he was drinking a milkshake through a straw. Anton tried not to laugh as the Shepherd's thumb struck ever-harder, finally bringing a flame to the end. It looked like he was working the world's smallest bong-- and finally it caught, smoldering to life. Immediately, the shepherd erupted into wild coughing and Anton couldn't help laughing, loving each chest-quaking bark and eye-watering wheeze. His lungs were indignant at the intrusion of such filth and tried to vacate the smoke at every turn, but Calvin kept at it and Anton found himself staring, loving the heavy way it clung to his clothes and wafted up around his eyes, the helpless waggle of Calvin's wrist trying to fan it from his face and the shyness of his low tail.

"You're so cute," Anton mumbled. He turned his head to appreciate a new angle while a cicada cried in the distance, his inner ears flushing with the thrill of saying it out loud.

"Fuck off," he hacked, waving away Michael's concerning look in the distance with a thumbs-up.

"I mean it! Look at you. You're such a _gooood_boy, Calvin, not used to smoke," he whispered, his hands moving with arachnid speed across the shepherd's stomach towards his ribs, making his elbows jerk against the car while he tried not to laugh.

"Stop! St--" His tickling just made the coughing worse, which only made Anton laugh harder; soon, the two of them were cackling like high hyenas and squatted behind the vehicle so the others couldn't see. The stars smoldered motionless like burning cigarettes and Anton, there beneath them, stole a kiss. It stopped the coughing.

-

"Are you sure?"

Calvin looked from a small window in the back of Anton's car. Ish was still awake, stretched out in the back of Jesse's truck with his book half turned towards the sky. His lips mouthed a story off the tiny print he could somehow see in the dark - or had just memorized. Michael's open-muzzled sleeping face was illuminated by the flashlight he was using to play Jesse's Game Boy, still on in his limp hands.

"Shh," Anton mumbled, and the corners of his dark lips turned up in a mischievous smile. His claw's blunt tips carved canyons in the German Shepherd's fur, starting at the topography of his chest and following it down, lower and lower. "Or they'll hear." When his claws found the space beneath Calvin's ribs again, they curved under the rim of them (slowly, so as to not tickle) and followed the arc down, his palm brushing over the soft flesh of his stomach. Every so often he pressed, admiring the way that the Shepherd's belly would self-consciously tense and show its muscle through the layer of puppy-weight resting above.

"I like this part," whispered the hound.

"I'm trying to get rid of it for lacrosse," Calvin whispered back, his legs adjusting to arch his back and stretch his midsection out, make it seem flatter. Something about the way he said it made Anton's chest hurt. He shook his head and drilled his fingers down for emphasis.

"No," Anton pouted. "No, don't do that. All this can be my little secret." In the dark of the car, Calvin's eyes glittered in silent response, accompanying a shy smile. Anton's hand flattened, and the smooth leather of his pads kneaded and felt the muscle underneath, woven like the way the fibres looked on the anatomy figures in Mr. Yelving's science class.

"Okay," Calvin mumbled, and his tongue lapped out nervously. It smoothed down his whiskers and ran over the dark tip of his nose. It looked to Anton like someone trying to keep themselves clean in the middle of a meal - no crumbs on the muzzle, no stray droplets of broth on the fur. It stirred a warmth in the hound's stomach that spread up into his chest to replace the pain, flushed his ears and made his hands feel hot and sensitive.

Blood vessels dilated. Sensations pricked deep.

He pressed his fingers against Calvin's fur, sinking into it so that he might covertly dive into the hem of his pants, lifting the waistband with the height of his palm. Not unbuttoning him quite yet, Anton explored the hazy warmth between the Shepherd's legs, following first the furrow of his pelvic muscles to the place where his fur began to thin and shorten. He closed his eyes, letting the darkness sharpen everything when he reached lower, causing Calvin's breath to hitch while the hound's palm flexed against the burgeoning warmth of his sheath. The downy fuzz that covered it thickened near the base, giving a patch for Anton's fingers to run through and tease before he stretched his fingers down further, cupping the shep's balls and just holding them for a moment. Calvin plucked at the button to his jeans, freeing a bit of tension when it finally gave way.

"You're big," Anton whispered. Calvin's nostrils flared and the inside of his ears seemed so red they might as well have been sunburned. The hound's hand followed the shape of it, working back up towards the top and back down again in steady motions, sometimes stopping to appreciate the way that he could feel Calvin's shaft pulsing through the skin, like it was eager to emerge. He unzipped and worked his pants down a few inches further, just enough to spare his manhood the touch of coarse jean fabric.

"You think so?"

"Yeah. Real big."

"I didn't, uh.. think that I was, like..."

"Like.. one of the biggest ones I've ever seen," Anton insisted. It wasn't like he'd seen many at all, of course. The gas station magazines he'd sometimes snuck a peek at hardly counted - the guys in those were always huge, so big that Anton often wondered how they were supposed to make things work at all. So when Calvin's excitement came to him, jutting from the warm pouch that held it, he gently ran a soft fingerpad down the bottom and smiled. Luxuriating in the feeling, his fingers teased it, taking a light grip and motionlessly squeezing, just flexing. Calvin throbbed in response, and Anton brought his hand to his muzzle, lapping across the coarse pads with a playful smile.

Anton's slobber webbed between his fingers and helped lubricate the rhythmic stroking, the side of his hand thumping against Calvin's hips with furtive, quiet care. After a bit, he would switch his grip, inverting it to use the sides of his fingers to rub along the base of his canine stiffness and down towards the growing swell of his knot.

"Ah.. fuck, Anton," he hissed through clenched teeth, forearm laying over his eyes. There was a soft, wet sound as he leaked a stream of clear, sticky pre-seed across the hound's fingers, knot swelling in characteristically canine excitement more by the moment.

"Relax," he whispered. His free hand worked down his own jeans with far less ritual and took in a slow breath as he started to pleasure himself too. At the same time, his fingers caressed Calvin's sheath-rim, coaxing it wider around his knot. It slid free and Anton's tail started to wag despite trying to seem composed, a muffled thumping through the pile of blankets beneath them. He moved onto his hands and knees, spreading as he got on top to grind hot flesh on flesh, the sensations rapidly growing overpowering for both. His tongue flopped out from his lips, the fresh piercing in the middle glistening like a bulls-eye.

Anton's hips started to buck and move, his thrusting grinding them together harder. He even slowed down some, a paltry attempt at delaying his orgasm, but even the smallest of motions made his lungs feel tight and his spine tingle, brought him to that place where his own throbbing seemed enough to stimulate him to climax. His excitement overcame him and the facade cracked as swiftly as he tried to put it up, quietly needful sounds escaping him while his grip changed, pressing them together as though their two fleshes might become one in the throes of this pleasure, like Calvin could feel what he felt if Anton indeed felt it hard enough.

Paws curled and splayed, his tail hiked. Anton's whole body felt tightened, and as the setting sun poured through the windows it was as though the car had fallen into a lake of light, light flowing into every space within and drenching the hound's russet fur with gold and red. The only darkness left was that one cradled in the space between their stomachs pressed as flat as a knife, in the hollow of Calvin's back where, damp with sweat and excitement, he writhed and bunched the fabric beneath him.

"Cal-" Not even he knew what was going to come out of his mouth. It was better that the Shepherd went in to kiss him right then, silencing any words and replacing them instead with urgent moaning, words rendered null in the formless darkness of their muzzles. Calvin's tongue pushed between his lips, sharing his taste: grape soda, which he was always drank first because it was Anton's least favorite flavor. Anton's taste: cherry soda and the haze of a cigarette. The hound shuddered when Calvin's hand tangled itself in his hair, both hearing the clumsy, osseous click of fang against fang as they peaked together.

Anton shot first, getting some height and painting Calvin's chest. His hand squeezed a bit harder. Calvin showed his fangs and then he came too, knot pushing against knot while his hips angled up. Most of the seed pooled on Calvin's belly, soaking into his fur more by the moment, but his bigger hand dropped to squeeze over Anton's. His knuckles popped and he pushed back-- the last bit of it drooled down Anton's hand and his wrist, the boys firing off with less and less force until the lazy shots dribbled into a creamy line up the Brittany's arm.

For a little, the two lay panting, catching their breath until the breath stopped being theirs. Then, Anton sat to the side, rolled onto his back, and stared with a big smile at the cig-burned ceiling of his car. He felt something drape across his midsection. When he sat up, he saw it was an old, bundled up jersey.

"Clean up," Calvin whispered. Anton wiped his stomach with it, getting the most out that he could. While the Shepherd was cleaning up his part, Anton closed his eyes and stole a smell of the bunched-up jersey in his hand, the clean side. Old fur, old sweat, a bit of dirt: and under it all, the secret smell of both of them, mingled. One thing.

Anton Carpenter smiled until he fell asleep, and he dreamed of mountains.

-

"Did you do the reading for English?"

When Anton awoke, Calvin was leaned against his shoulder, paperback folded open and bent to catch the moon's cold light and the infinitesimal glow of the streetlamps on the Cliff's approach.

"What reading..?" Anton asked, voice hoarse with sleep.

"Gilgamesh," Calvin responded, almost so quickly it was like Anton hadn't said anything at all. "For Monday. It's about this guy who goes on a big adventure," he continued. "He travels all around, learns about life and death and immortality, and then he comes back home to the city that he left for so long without ever finding out how to live forever." Anton rolled onto his back, fumbling for the pack of Coyote Spirits that were beneath the wool blankets somewhere, warmed by their bodies.

"Mm-hm. Bummer. What's the city called?"

"Uruk. Cooler than Whitegrass." Calvin made room, and in the glow of Anton's lighter, he seemed as a dream against the dark. "It's not a bad thing at the end. He loses his boyfriend Enkidu, he loses this flower to a snake, he messes everything up. Then he's reminiscing about all of it."

"Read it to me?" The hound bought the end of his cigarette to the flame, pursing his lips and bringing the fire inward. It bit at the end, causing Calvin to shuffle a little where he sat without looking away from the book.

"I'm not gonna burn your leg or something," he teased. The Shepherd just rolled his eyes and pressed his palm to the side of Anton's muzzle, turning it away to stare out at the darkness outside, the cliff and the silhouette of Jesse's truck and the city. From this angle, the streetlights looked like they illuminated so little. Infinitely faded, the distant sunrise from below the mountains started to lighten the night sky, turning it from a black void into something material. Black silk at an angle, catching the light from the next life over. All of the stars were still visible, showing themselves for so long as they could.

"It says, 'In Uruk he built walls, a great rampart, and the temple of blessed Eanna for the god of the firmament Anu, and for Ishtar the goddess of love.'" Anton smiled. He didn't look over, letting Calvin's voice come from beyond him. "'Look at it still today: the outer wall where the cornice runs, it shines with the brilliance of copper; and the inner wall, it has no equal. Touch the threshold: it is ancient."

The breeze stirred Anton's fur, taking the plume of smoke he exhaled in the opposite direction of the reading. The rhythm was nice. Familiar. He held his cigarette up at arm's length, hovering the smoldering end along the distant lights of the city's buildings, some on, some off. From here, he thought, he could imagine any one of them on fire but not burning, a smoldering spot in film, crackling away like how fire sounded in the movies, a star brought down in its daylight throes to live the last sputters of its life down here. Calvin keeps reading, in this memory, and Anton hears even if he doesn't listen. His pale blue eyes keep looking out.

In Whitegrass they built fences, a great street, and the blessed supermarket. Look at it still today: the outer streets where the trailers sleep, they glow with early-morning television, and the sign of HONG KONG RESTAURANT: it has no equal. See the old factory, so long disused: the windows are more dirt than glass. Approach Weas-Low, the dwelling place of daytime jobs, the lord of life and death, the like of which no man alive can equal. Climb up upon the Cliff above Whitegrass: walk along it, regard the poured cement, the chain link and blacktops, the neon ruby and lapis lazuli. Count the acres of flaking paint, the humid wood church and cold twin video stores, the brothers and lovers, the addicts and mothers, the hounds chasing tails and bears always watching.

Look: is this not a city?