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Hey, everybody! It's the meeee, once again! If you're new to this nonsense, you'll find Episode 1 to your left. Rejoice in the romantic entanglements, dramatic tension, and psychological issues!

Everybody else, you get these stale crackers. See you next week.

Kidding. I'm kidding! Come baaaaack, I have an Episode 39 for youuuuuu!

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_ Thursday. _

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"There's three whole pallets of tampons in the back and two boxes on the shelves. Are you an employee or a tree? Quit standing around and get to restocking!"

The canine yeeped and scrambled away under the onslaught of Jane's sharp tongue. A few moments later, he reappeared awkwardly carrying four boxes-of-boxes of feminine hygiene products, sporting a bit of a blush.

Brad sighed a bit. Jane seemed to be in a fine mood. She'd really taken to micromanaging the poor guy today, and her style was not exactly the most palatable form of bossiness. It just made the already-nervous doberman more awkward, which made Jane frustrated and more prone to check up on him. Brad felt kind of bad for him - at least the wolf knew what to expect from his boss.

Hopefully they'd work out some sort of an understanding soon, the way Brad and Jane had managed to... Or maybe the guy would quit.

Brad wasn't really sure which he preferred. He still wasn't quite over the shock of scrambling into work a minute before when he was assigned to be in, and finding _Mortimer_of all people standing beside his boss, wearing a familiar-looking apron. The doberman was pretty shocked, too... Apparently, he'd started on Monday, but had been working evenings, when Brad wasn't in, until today. The mare had asked Brad to keep an eye on the new fellow, with a bit of a stern glare at both canines, and left him to it.

Heh... keep an eye on him. The wolf had had very little trouble doing that, considering the doberman's skinny tail was always whipping around over his perfectly plump buttcheeks, pecs just visible underneath his apron, deltoids and trapezius much more defined under that clingy shirt, legs rippling bands of tight muscle under his jeans... He'd never seen the guy in jeans, but he knew Jane was quite strict when it came to the doberman's traditional shorts.

Brad was at least glad the grouchy-spotlight was off of him for once... but he felt bad for that, too. Wasn't Mortimer's fault he was the new guy. ...Well, actually, it kinda was, he'd taken the job...

He also felt bad for ogling dobie eye candy when he had a boyfriend.

But Jane had told him to keep an eye on the guy, he couldn't just ignore him!

Brad straightened up... and couldn't help but groan a little bit. Damn, his tail hurt... Every time it swished habitually, the wolf winced and stilled it. He'd have to tell the coon how much his antics had crippled his boyfriend... The coon would get a kick out of that.

Well, okay, Jonathon had felt pretty bad when Brad yelped and jerked his torso up awkwardly, somewhat dislodging the coon from his seat astride the wolf's lap... Brad had reassured his boyfriend it was not his fault a dumb wuff managed to compress his caudal vertebrae during sex... and then reassured him again that he was only joking about the compressed disc bit.

They'd switched to missionary and continued... perhaps not the best outcome of their first time with the raccoon astride his mount, but it hadn't all been a loss. After Marty walked in on them in the middle of it the day before, the wolf had been dying to finish the job... And Jonathon's tail had sure seemed eager to greet its knotty friend again.

"Stack the boxes at least four deep!" the mare was instructing. "The last thing a customer should see is a shelf spotted with merchandise randomly after half the stock's been purchased. The stuff in front will go first, so backfill."

That reminded Brad, he'd have to talk to Mortimer later about exactly how much depth they ought to go into in their paper... it wouldn't do to have two of the pieces examined broadly and the other two in detail, they'd just have to spend a lot of time fixing it later.

"Bradley, quit daydreaming a moment, I need you to go hop up on registers. Daniel just got here and he's all by himself with a big line."

"I'm only going to be here another ten minutes, Jane," the wolf observed.

The look that earned him suggested he probably shouldn't've questioned the mare today. "And not a second shorter! If that line's not cleared by the time you leave, I'll reconsider when you're eligible for a raise."

"Right away, ma'am!" The wolf leapt to his feet, passing a Mortimer carrying more boxes of lady maintenance utilities. The doberman gave him a long-suffering look; Brad offered him what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

Hmmm... So Jane was considering his eligibility for a raise, was she?

Brad made a mental note to really really be extra punctual the next few days.

Up front, as related, one customer-service-dragon was working his way rapidly though mothers and marinade bottles. Dilligent, polite, and cheerful, Daniel was the model of a perfect wage-earner... Brad was quite certain it would earn him a grudging "no comment" from the resident bosslady. She did tend to get irritable during training, Brad noticed, though he couldn't remember his own being so bad...

Fortunately, the dragon seemed to have already taken care of the majority of the line - Brad only had to beep some clam chowder, wait while the beaver scrawled out a check, and then sack a celery or two, and the checkout counters were abruptly deserted.

"Thanks," Daniel groaned gratefully, once the final frog-fellow was on his way out to the parking lot. "Swamped there right at the start, and Eric had to run off right away, appointment or something after his shift."

"No big," the wolf replied, with a smile; the dragon returned it.

Tailswish-- Yeowch! Dammit.

"What do you think of the new guy?" the dragon asked, watching Mortimer, who was now wheeling the mop down an aisle towards some spill or another. "Seems a bit... unstable, doesn't he?"

Brad shrugged. "I know him from school actually... He's an okay guy. Just a bit nervous, heh... I'm sure he'll chill out once he gets more comfortable with the job."

"Hm," Daniel remarked, considering. "Either way... not too hard on the eyes, is he?" he chuckled, somewhat more quietly.

"Not in the slightest," Brad rumbled. He watched Mortimer hunch over the mop, skinny tail whipping... Pull your shirt down, dobie!

Gray today. Brad shook his head hard, trying to clear his eyeballs.

"Have a nice time with the boyfriend last night?" Daniel inquired, seeming to sense his discomfort with the eye candy on display.

"Oh. Uh, yep!" Brad said, reminding himself once again that Daniel knew Jonathon now... and hey, guess what, also liked some dick-tail-ing... "We hang out pretty much every night nowadays... Well, he does have homework, but sometimes we work on that together... And other things..." He gave Daniel a bit of a wink, which was met with a knowing smile.

He wondered whether the dragon was a top or a bottom. He was awful scrawny... But Brad had never seen the guy act submissive, and the big wolf sure got more than his fair share of submissive behavior, from most everyone inclined to display it. Not that he was protesting in most cases.

He supposed he could just ask. If he'd asked a few other things, maybe stuff wouldn't've been quite so awkward between him and the reptilian dude... And after all, they were dude-liking dude-friends now, so it was okay to talk about... Still, you couldn't just _ask_something like that...

"Uh... you got anybody in your life, man?"

Daniel chuckled a bit, scratching his obsidian mane. "Well, as a matter of fact... Yes. Kind of a new thing, heh..."

"Oh really?" Brad smiled, jerking his eyes away from Mortimer's backside again.

"First time I've ever... had a boyfriend," the dragon confessed sheepishly, but with a big grin.

"Fun, isn't it? That feeling?"

"Yeah..." The dragon shook his head, chuckling. "Girls don't feel anything near this... illicit. I feel like some daredevil or something. It's different. I like it... a lot."

"What's his name?" Brad asked with a smile.

The dragon's look softened. "Mitch."

"Cute." Brad smiled a bit.

"Yeah... I like him, heh..."

"Big guy or little guy?"

"Little... Shy..." the dragon was blushing a bit. "Freaking insatiable, though..."

"Oho, got a lively one, eh?" the wolf chuckled, drawing conclusions that weren't really any of his business... but hey, that's what friends are for!

"Heheh, yeah... He really is..." The dragon looked over at the clock on the wall. "Hey, man, don't you need to be getting to class?"

"Oh, you're right," the wolf frowned, mentally wringing a dobie butt and an unfing dragon from his thought process. The dobie in question had vanished. "I better head out, don't want to be late. Talk to you tomorrow, buddy."

"Sure thing, see ya!" Daniel gave one of his toothpaste-commercial smiles. "Maybe we can hang out this weekend?"

"Yeah, shoot me a text!" Brad replied, locking up his register and heading toward the back of the store.

The back room was a welcome relief, after a long shift of boxes and belligerent babies bawling in baked goods. Quiet, a little musty, plain cinderblock walls and a grubby concrete floor. Pallets of stock, old computers to track it. Brad hung his apron up on the hook, and went for his backpack.

An awkward collection of bones, muscle, and fur stumbled into the room, panting a bit. "Oh, thank goodness, you're still here," Mortimer spewed, tail going a mile a minute behind him. "Um... Brad, do you think you could... maybe give me a ride? Since we're going to the same place and all? I usually take the bus, but there's only one that heads up that way in time for class and it literally just left... Please?"

The wolf blinked, watching the tall doberman's paws twisting in a sort of half-pleading gesture. "Sure thing," he replied, calm in the face of the other guy's nerves. "No big deal. Heck, the busses are hardly reliable in this town; if you need a lift after work on Thursdays you're welcome to it."

"I'll... I'll just take the bus..." the dog replied, embarrassed. "It's fine, I just have to pay more attention to the time... Maybe ask if I can have my shift moved back by like ten minutes..."

Brad shouldered his backpack. "Well, get your stuff and clock out, we don't want to be late." Though, really, they weren't running the risk of that now... Brad didn't feel like running by his apartment now that he had a ride-less doberman as cargo.

Mortimer all but yelped and hurriedly undid his apron, slinging it onto the hook, picking it up after it fell and trying again, and then hauling his own backpack up from under the table. Brad punched out; the dog followed suit, frowning hard to remember his code. He had to press 'clear' three times.

"Relax, man," the wolf said, watching the canine freak out. "You're gonna hurt yourself if you keep this up."

"Sorry..." Mortimer whined, glancing at him furtively. "I'm just, my nerves are kind of shot... this is my first job ever, and I, I don't think I'm doing a very good job, and... and there's a lot of other stuff going on in my life right now..." He scrambled after the wolf out the door.

Brad marveled at the other male's ability to frantically struggle to keep up when the wolf was purposely walking nice and slowly. He gave the guy a pat on the shoulder, which drew a curious look from the dog. "You're doing fine. Jane's always a bit hard to swallow; you'll get used to her. And she'll get used to you, stop being such a beach, if you catch my drift."

Mortimer giggled nervously. "Balmy."

"Precisely. Just give it some time." Brad smiled, striding up to his Sundance and sticking a key in the lock. "You're a freshman, right?"

Frantic nod.

Brad nodded a bit, getting in, being extra careful of his sprained tail. "The first semester's hard... especially if you start your first job on top of it all. You'll adjust to it, don't worry... it gets a lot easier in time." He smiled. "At least your roommate seems nice."

That remark caused a blush. "Yeah... he really is..." Mortimer said, quite softly. "He's so nice to me..."

Brad tried to remind himself that Mortimer's sexual orientation was as unconfirmed as his secret love of Extreme Ironing (he'd had to google that one after Jonathon mentioned it late last night).

"Well, that's good," the wolf rumbled, trying not to imagine the athletic doberman in a tight, wet, clinging bathing suit, standing on a jet-ski with a dress shirt on a board over the handlebars. He started the car's engine - it cranked a bit, but caught despite the cold air - and the sedan rattled its way out of the lot.

It was quiet once they got out onto the road. Mortimer said nothing. Brad said it right back. Turn, turn, merge, highway fugue. A semi passed on his left. An asshole pickup going twice the speed limit passed on his right.

They were driving through midtown, they were watching skyscrapers pass, they were back in midtown, nearing campus.

"I'm.... gonna change out of my pants..." the doberman said, awkwardly.

Brad glanced over, face a mask of 'Whut.' He glanced back to the road. Glanced over again.

Mortimer was... fumbling with his jeans. Unbuttoning them, unzipping them.

Brad looked back at the road, paws tight on the steering wheel, fur tufting up on his knuckles. What the fuck?! What the fuck was this?!

The canine had paused to squirm his footpaws out of his shoes. He was blushing a little. He pulled his pants down, revealing a typical (for the doberman) set of long, slinky blue basketball shorts underneath them.

Oh.

His paw caught the hem of the shorts on the way down, and Brad caught sight of lots of gray. Hm. Boxer-briefs, then... Nice and tight over his muscles. The doberman hurriedly pulled his shorts up. The wolf stared stonily ahead... trying to ignore the fact that he had a raging boner.

Aaaaalso a boooooy-friend!

Daniel sure didn't seem too torn up about ogling him, though,_Brad recalled, sneaking another glance at the doberman, who was working his jeans off his paws. _Maybe it's not that big of a deal?

Dillon sure hadn't liked him looking at other guys.

The fucking hypocrite.

"Sorry," Mortimer mumbled, face reddish, as he folded his jeans. "Sorry for... flashing you sorta, like that..."

"Heh, no big deal," Brad said. "Though, um... you might want to remember to pull your shirt down, in the back, sometimes..."

The dobie blinked. "Huh?"

"Not the first time I've seen your boxers, dude."

Mortimer blushed hard. "Oh... oh... I didn't realize..." he pulled his shirt down quickly.

"Heh..." Brad hesitated, glancing at the doberman's jeans. "Kinda, uh, sprung that on me."

The doberman rubbed his nose. "I just... hate wearing pants..."

"It's barely above freezing," the wolf remarked.

"Yeah, but I just..." The dog fell silent, and just blushed.

There was a long moment of silence. Brad kept glancing over. Mortimer kept staring at his knees, growing redder and redder.

"Mortimer... You're not... trying to hit on me, right?" Brad rumbled, uncomfortably.

The doberman gaped. "N-n-no! No of course not!" He looked down at his knees, supremely embarrassed. "I just... really don't like pants..."

"Okay..." Brad replied, trying to sandblast the image of a sexy, muscular dog in his underwear out of his brain. His tail twinged a bit when it tweaked up like that.

"You've got a... you're in a relationship..." Mortimer mumbled. "I wouldn't... do that..."

"Well, if you were just... trying things out..." Brad reasonsed.

"I'm... I don't... like... dudes..." the doberman stammered. "N-not that there's anything wrong with that, I just..."

"Okay. That's fine," Brad replied, wondering a bit stupidly if he'd grossly misinterpreted the other male, or if Mortimer was just a really bad liar.

If he had misinterpreted the guy... What did that say about him? Did he... want the sexy guy who happened to be disrobing in his car to show interest in him?

Man, if Jonathon knew what I was thinking right now...

On the other paw, what sort of a straight guy would say 'I don't like pants!' and 'You're in a relationship!' before'I don't like dudes!'?

Hmmmmm...

The doberman remained quiet and uncomfortable for the rest of the trip, seeming anxious and overly energetic, strapped into his seat. Brad cruised into the parking garage and parked the car; Mortimer hopped out immediately. The wolf half-suspected the doberman to set off at a brisk walk without his ride-giver, but Mortimer waited anxiously, and they walked together down the sidewalk. The wolf's tail was oddly still and stiff, the dog's was waving back and forth like a flagellum.

They made it to class a little early, but not too bad; the room was mostly full... or, at least, as full as it ever got, what with people skipping the dull, required class. Brad sat down around his usual spot. Somewhat tentatively, Mortimer sat next to him, seeming oddly attentive to the wolf. His tail poked out under the seatback and waved frantically, thwacking someone behind him in the leg; the dog stilled it and blushed, with a half-glance behind him. Brad almost shook his head.

Someone else ambled down their row and sat nearby. Abruptly, the doberman's attention was no longer focused on Brad. "Um... Hi, Fred..." he said, voice quivering a bit.

The black bear looked up, notebook halfway out of his bag, and paused. "Hey," he said, after a moment.

"So... So, uh... So... Your paper coming along okay?"

Beat.

Another.

It was an awkward pause now.

"Yup."

This time, Brad _did_shake his head.

Mortimer sat back, after that, face burning... and again, the wolf felt sort of bad for him. Whether he's gay or not, the guy clearly has some sort of issue around other men... Even if he doesn't want to admit it...

Oh well. Brad couldn't fairly say he was a stranger to _that_mess, after a certain someone -

"Evening, Bradley," came a cool, vapid voice.

The wolf looked up.

Blinked.

Hmmm.I guess he CAN do the guy-wearing-makeup thing...

"It's three o'clock in the PM," the wolf deadpanned.

"Never too early for an evening, if you're out," the tasmanian devil replied, taking the seat next to the wolf.

Brad wondered how long he'd spent thinking _that_one up.

One way or another, Ricardo hadn't lacked for effort. His headfur, which had been bleached blond (trendy for dark-furred celebrities these days) was now a deep, rich chestnut, somewhat browner than the rest of his fur. He was wearing less makeup than usual, and in a different sort of way, too... A bit of eye stuff, a subtle lip gloss, very little fur powder or none at all. He was dressed conservatively - at least, for Ricardo - a button-down shirt unbuttoned to show a tight t-shirt, shorts that came almost to his knees (and gripped his crotch like a baseball glove), flip-flops. The hell was it with people wearing shorts in these temperatures?

He looked... good. Brad would have noticed him in a club... he couldn't deny that. It was the right... mix, maybe. A swishy, effeminate patina, but underneath there was a guy, a Man, and it was not difficult to see. The sort of thing that had made Brad blush so much in high school, when he thought about it...

"What's the occasion?" the wolf remarked, trying to pretend he wasn't really interested in the answer.

"Oh... just felt like... changing my image a bit..." the marsupial said airily.

The wolf hmphed. "Who'd you talk to?" he asked, unconvinced. It wasn't like there weren't people on campus who could tell someone the sort of guy Bradly Wilson found attractive.

"I don't know what you're on about," Ricardo huffed. "I just... took a few hints, was all."

The wolf regarded him for a moment. "You're an asshole," he declared dismissively.

Mortimer giggled.

Brad looked over abruptly, the tension of the moment dispelled by the dog's blatant schadenfreude... only to discover the doberman wasn't paying any attention to him at all. Mortimer was turned toward Frederick the bear, who was giving him a grin... Brad was fairly certain it was the first time Fred had given the awkward canine more than a passing glance.

The wolf wondered what he'd missed there. Damn Ricardo, ruining his eavesdropping chances...

"If you're trying to seduce me, it's not working," he said coldly, returning his attention to the tasmanian devil.

Ricardo looked at him for a moment, before he responded: "EhehehaHAHAHAHAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Aaaaaheheheheheh, heheh, heh." He gave the wolf a mirthful, contemptuous look. "Wow. Just... wow."

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Uh oh. Hope Brad knows what he's gotten himself into... on several fronts!

The title is a bit of an homage to Nancy Drew, which I read quite a bit as a kid (the originals, not that new shit that's come out recently). Such a delicious word!

See you guys next week!