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They sat in the Grand Wagoneer, Andrew, Cody, and Bligh, together, in silence...they had remained that way for the entire car ride, and now for a solid two minutes of unbearable awkwardness in the parking lot outside the Checkers down the street from their apartment.

The plaza in which that particular Checkers sat was a desolate, parched, cracked-asphalt wasteland of the kind which is common in Tampa, where the basic principles of urban planning seem to have vanished into the hot mists of the Florida summer, and suburban sprawl lives and pulses like some titanic cancer, plunging its concrete tentacles to vomit bitumen all over what was once an Edenic paradise.

The setting was fitting: the apocalyptic outside matched the desolation of palpable tension crowding the vehicle's interior - quite oblivious to the busy traffic on the adjacent road and the other customers some yards away, getting food.

The three of them had not spoken to each other at all on the brief ride over, and as they sat in silence, none of them seemingly able to break the spell of oblivion that had been cast over them - as if they all could tell that in this moment nothing could be perfected, but nothing could be ruined either.

The August heat, saturated with the moisture of an afternoon squall that evidently Andrew had been passed out for, at last proved too much for Bligh, too used to his native colder climes.

"S'fuckin, hot, Drew. Dun this got air?"

"It ain't that hot," Andrew said, staring out the driver's side window, in spite of wiping sweat from his brow - the green-and-gold USF jacket to cover his otherwise shirtless body doing him no favors in the heat.

Despite his words, he acquiesced to Bligh's complaint, and, turning the car back on, turned up the AC with a flick of his hand, returning to stare out the window.

"And you know it does, Bligh," he murmured. "You were the one who worked on it."

"Looks like ya been takin care of it, anyhow..."

"Thanks - still gotta transmission thing, but um - yeah, it was the only good thing Pa ever did for me."

"That ain't true, Drew, dun--"

"Please don't talk about my dad," Andrew cut him off quietly. "Not in front of--"

He glanced at Cody, who had pressed his face against the passenger window - as though he knew he was being spoken of, Cody stirred to look at Andrew with concern.

"No, it's okay, you told me about him and..." He shrugged. "We both had bad dads."

Andrew gave the boy a sad frown. "I just don't like to bring up the subject, Baby. Your dad - your dad--"

"He beat the shit outta me." He sighed, small and impassive. "You can say it."

Andrew shut his eyes. "Cody..."

Cody shrugged again, looking to the backseat where Bligh was. "Bligh has a right to know too."

Bligh, in turn, took a cigarette out from his shirt pocket, holding it in his fingers thoughtfully before frowning.

"I ain't ever had a dad," he muttered.

"Pappy - that was his name - he was your dad," Cody corrected gently. "Right? Or - like a dad."

Andrew shook his head, growing sadder as the conversation continued on in this way.

Bligh's eyes grew downcast at the mention of his deceased grandfather. "Yeah," he said with an abrupt rise in volume, as though trying to stave off being emotional. "Yeah, yeah I guess he was--" He looked down at the cigarette in his hand, knowing full well both Andrew and Cody were watching him. "I ain't gotta family n'more, yanno. All my cousins up in Boone County they - they ain't gonna come help me or nuthin. Came ta the service and left, every dang one of em. They never gave a shit..." He was close to breaking down yet again. "Nobody ever gave a shit..."

"Pappy did," Andrew corrected again, this time quieter. "I did."

"You left," Bligh dismissed him.

Andrew leaned over the armrest to stick half of himself in the backseat, beseeching Bligh with his eyes. "I'm here."

Bligh replaced the cigarette into his shirt pocket, his eyes trained on Andrew. "Then what's yer answer," he half-hissed. "We been waitin. Waitin on yew ta make up yer fuckin mind."

"I have made up my mind," Andrew answered matter-of-factly. He leaned back into his seat. "I - I have."

"Then what took ya so fuckin long?"

Cody shifted in his seat to face Andrew and hear his reply, as though he had thought the same thing but had been reluctant to share it - even after all this, still too much in love with Andrew to question his motives.

"I - I don't know." Andrew shook his head. "I'm scared - I'm scared, okay?" He paused, looking to Cody and then to Bligh. "Don't you get it? This is so - so fucked up - for me. I mean you're - we're--"

"The same?" Bligh finished.

Andrew was taken aback by the response. "What?"

"We're the same," Bligh continued. "But we're different. We can't git sick, we heal faster - we're built different. But yew - me - the Pup, we're all the same. Jest us three. Only us three."

"But there's a monster out there--" Cody piped up.

Bligh shut his eyes - Cody stopped as he saw the reaction. "There was no monster," he whispered.

A cold chill gripped Andrew as he recoiled in horror. "What - what are you--?"

Bligh opened his eyes. He quickly took the cigarette he had been playing with out of his shirt pocket once more, dug for the Zippo in his pocket and - Andrew too floored to protest - lit it up. He took a long drag, and then, exhaling haltingly, answered:

"It was Duke."

"Duke?!" Cody repeated.

Andrew gasped aloud. "What the fuck?!"

"I told ya I'd done it," Bligh said, taking another drag - he blew a cloud of smoke away from the front seats. "I told ya that. I told ya I was with Duke--"

"But you said it was a wild animal!" Cody protested. "You didn't work for two weeks--" added Andrew.

"It - no. No. It was Duke," Bligh repeated. "And I didn't work because I didn't know it was - yanno, forever. I waited and I waited n'when I didn't turn back human..."

Andrew's eyes narrowed from below in sheer disbelief. "But that detail about - the woods, past the creek--"

Bligh opened the door to dispose of his cigarette, which he was now clearly too nervous to continue to smoke. "That's - that's where him n'me used ta--" He coughed - hard, as though the awkwardness was a mucous stuck in his throat. "We used ta fuck, okay?"

A horrified silence greeted Bligh's admission - Andrew's eyes seemed to almost creak in their sockets as he glanced from Bligh's shamed, head-down form to Cody in the passenger seat, whose face had turned blood red from a powerful blush.

"Bligh..." Andrew said slowly. "What Pappy said about the things in the woods..."

Bligh coughed again, shaken from wherever a sudden introspection had taken him. "Y-yeah. I still dunno."

"No - he meant - he meant Duke."

A small pause. "Dun say that..."

"Be reasonable for a second. That whole place outside of town - it gets really hilly right there if you cross the creek and go into those woods, past old church, the one that the creek runs through, too - that's where you found Duke. Who's to say that wasn't - where he lived? His - his den? Pappy must've known..."

Bligh looked up at him with in a new kind of abyssal shame. "No - no fuckin way. Duke was my best friend. He was the only thing I loved, Drew, the only - the only thing I cared about after ya left--"

"And you loved him like a boyfriend..." Cody finished.

Andrew looked at Cody in surprise, but then frowned - so Cody must have had these same thoughts too, even if he hadn't the chance to act on them.

Bligh nodded at Cody. "Y-ya could say that, yeah."

Andrew's frowned deepened as looked from Cody to Bligh and back again, sitting back in the driver's seat. "How do you know he consented? That comes up a lot in zoophile studies--"

"In wha - huh?"

Andrew rolled his eyes. "Fuck - uh - basically how do you know he wanted it, and you weren't - yanno - taking advantage?"

It was Bligh's turn to blush, and his mouth turned hard, as though unsure of how to formulate a response. When it came, he was hesitant at first: "Because - one day - see, one day, he - he was - he was really..." He stopped, taking several unsteady breaths. "After ya moved, he - he started comin up ta me and he'd be hard as a rock and--"

Cody shifted in his seat - Andrew surmised an erection, and he cut Bligh off before he could finish.

"So you're saying Duke was - smart enough to know--"

Bligh nodded, raising his eyebrows. "Ya know he was, Drew. He was jest bout human - remember?"

Andrew leaned back in his seat, eyes focused on his car's burgundy headliner. "_Human_is saying a lot, but - yeah. He really was the smartest dog I'd ever met. Smarter than Walker, and he was really fucking smart..."

"Walker who?" Cody asked.

"Oh..." Andrew sighed. "Walker. He uh - he was a good little dog, died when I was eighteen." Andrew's mouth twinged. "He...belonged to Stephen, and - when he died, he just broke down completely...I stood up this girl at my senior prom because - because I--" He stopped, the memory playing back in his mind of Stephen, shaking and delirious, on their parlor couch. "I was pretty sure Stephen was gonna do something really stupid."

"Oh my god..." Cody said softly.

"I know - it was pretty scary, actually. I stayed up with him all night..."

"Betsy Barnes?" Bligh ventured.

"Who?"

"Girl yew stood up, senior prom. Remember? I was outta town that weekend cuz Pappy wanted me ta visit his brother Earl."

"Oh - yeah. Betsy Barnes." He chuckled to himself. "I had a girlfriend once..."

"I remember the name," Cody said. "You said you really liked her."

Andrew shrugged. "I guess - but Pa wanted us to get married."

Bligh snickered to himself. "Woops." Cody, too, giggled a little dubiously at the idea.

"Maybe he had a point," Andrew said, a laconic bitterness creeping into his words. "After all, she went to UNC, and now she has her choice of law schools - Harvard or Princeton."

"Damn," said Bligh, impressed.

Andrew rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Uppity bitch."

A small silence drifted back over the three of them.

"I miss Walker," Bligh muttered, low and poignant.

Andrew raised an eyebrow. "The Hell are you talking about, Walker hated you."

"Dudn't mean I dun miss the ol days, man - yanno?"

Andrew knew what Bligh meant, and he felt a distant call of nostalgia - remembering Stephen and the boyish little Beagle that followed them everywhere...

"Last I talked to Stephen he was still - still bringing up Walker and..." Andrew's voice trailed off. "He never forgot that dog - and that was - so long ago..."

"He still wears that necklace."

"The one with Walker's tooth?"

"Mmmhmm..."

"Your brother has a necklace with his dog's tooth on it?" Cody asked.

"Yup," Andrew replied. "His fang, a milk tooth that - um, that fell out when Walker was still a puppy, Ma held onto it for him..." He shook his head. "Oh, Stevie - you poor son of a bitch..."

"That's so sad," Cody said. "He must still really love him."

"He does, I think you're right," Andrew said. But he frowned in resignation - there were larger matters at hand. "Anyway - we gotta - get back to what we were talking about - uh, so, um - so then - Duke must have been patient zero for this disease--"

"Stop callin it that," said Bligh.

"Okay, then what would you call it?"

"A gift?" He coughed. "Y-yeah, a gift."

Andrew frowned. "I knew you'd say that - one man's Hell is another man's heaven..."

"What?"

Andrew waved his hand, eyes returning to fix themselves on the headliner of the car. "Something my academic counselor used to say."

"No I understand."

"Are you sure?"

Bligh went quiet. "What kinda question is that...?"

"You lied to me about being a zoophile. I'm asking if you understand how things that appear one way can actually be--"

"Because I had to lie, dammit!" Bligh roared at once, baring his fangs. "Why the fuck would I ever tell ya sumthin like that? Ya'd think I was a fuckin freak!"

Cody cowered against the passenger door - Andrew remained calm, eyes never moving from the car's ceiling.

"So in addition to a liar you're also psychic?"

"Then _what_was I - gonna - do?!"

"You were supposed to tell me the truth." Andrew answered, his voice and tone unaltered - he turned back to Bligh with a glare.

"I couldn't fuckin risk that!" Bligh yelled back - his hands clenched tight as both of his fists came up balled and angry. "Dun y'understand anyth--"

"Do _not_hit my car," Andrew admonished coldly - Bligh let out a growl as he thrust both hands to the seat beneath him in a savage punch.

A long silence followed - tears flowed from Bligh's eyes, down his cheeks, into his beard.

"God fucking dammit, Drew," he whispered. "Ya woulda done the same." He looked up at Andrew, his gleaming eyes a snowbound fury of rage and helplessness. "Yew wudn't have just told me ya loved me if'n I was the one datin Cody. Ya woulda acted. Y'used ta git on my ass all the time bout flyin off the handle but I - know- how y'are. And ya woulda acted. Ya woulda done sumthin..."

Andrew studied his friend for what seemed like a full minute before reaching out to grasp his hand - Bligh took it, and they held hands there together for another few seconds before Andrew answered.

"You're right. I would have." He took in a deep breath, feeling a pressure mount on him as he was about to put together, in words, the sentence that would change his life, all three of their lives, forever:

"And my answer - my answer's yes. I want to be with you - both of you - I wanna do this, the three of us."

A smile, slow and at first cautious, as though disbelieving, grew on Bligh's face, before the tears that gleamed in his gelid eyes seemed to turn from miserable and stunted into something else - with a laugh, an elated and life-affirming laugh, Bligh plunged through the space between the driver and passenger seats to attempt, with partial success, to throw out his arms and embrace Andrew and Cody both...the two of them knelt to lay on him in a kind of an poignant puppy-pile radiating with canine body heat, silent save for Bligh's bursts of happy tears beneath them.

And with this, all the events of the past day - from the time of Bligh's arrival in Tampa, until now - was forgiven.

It was a place Andrew was not used to, a place of enormity, of being larger than himself in a space shared by someone else, and now two people, and it threw him slightly off-balance at first - but he recovered, as he saw and felt his very surroundings morph and change. The raw little pieces of forgiveness that had roughly coalesced as he stood in the doorway of his apartment, however - now with the heat, light, and pressure of the air conditioned interior of his Grand Wagoneer - had crystallized...and what he thought he felt then, forgiveness, became real.

Cody sighed, as if he could feel the pressure leave the car, and Andrew saw his eyes from the rumpled blue and white-grey of Bligh's flannel twinkle with a stifled beam beneath the fabric - he shut his eyes, then opened them, blinking, in wordless affirmation to the boy.

"Thank you, Andy," Cody whispered. "Thank you - for - for everything..."

The three of them stayed this way for some minutes - until, finally, and as if by some telepathic concord, the trio separated, returning to their respective places in Andrew's Grand Wagoneer.

As Bligh withdrew back to the backseat, he looked at Andrew, again with the cautious disbelief that must have been, by degrees, becoming dispelled - moistening his lips before tittering breathily through his tears.

"Sorry bout smokin in yer car."

Andrew smiled weakly, literally trying to shrug off the comment. "It's - it's okay, it was just one cig..."

Bligh sighed, trying to regain himself. "S-sorry, man I - I jest been real--"

"I know," Andrew cut him off gently.

Whatever Bligh may have said could have been anything - something that spoke to his loneliness, his depression, his sadness, his isolation, his doomed love for a semi-sentient dog or the candle of devotion he carried for Andrew. It had to be dispelled and erased - whatever Bligh wanted to say - so that they could start over, all three of them, fresh, new.

Bligh tittered awkwardly - he, as Cody had, felt the car depressurize from the tension and negativity.

"I still can't believe ya drove here without wearin no shoes."

Andrew shrugged. "And like I said - ain't been in Florida long, Bligh."

Cody turned to nod in amusement at the older male. "Yeah - he drives lots of places without his shoes. I've seen him do it all the time."

"I mean if I don't need to get out of the car--"

"That's still weird," Bligh said.

"Down here we can do that," Andrew went on, turning back around. "Up there you can't - it's too cold, you'll get frostbit."

Bligh scoffed gamely. "It ain't that cold, good Lord above--"

Cody had erupted into happy laughter at Bligh and Andrew's back-and-forth - he seemed genuinely happy for the first time since Bligh had arrived, and the laughter seemed that much more happy, because it came from a place of deep relief. Andrew knew this, his boyfriend - now, it dawned on him, one of two -easy enough to read and know.

"By the way," he said over his shoulder to Bligh, "where are my shoes?"

"They're in the truck."

"So you got them from the beach?"

"Why would I leave em there?"

"You punched me in the jaw."

An awkward pause Andrew had not anticipated greeted his half-jest - he craned around to see Bligh frowning, his eyes unexpectedly earnest, and Andrew's smile died where it was on his face.

"I - I didn't like doin that, yanno..."

Andrew hesitated before cringing. "I - I shouldn't have said that, I--"

"Yew were right - it did hurt me more."

"Did the wall hurt your hand?"

Bligh shrugged slighty. "Kinda, man..."

"I'll get it fixed, it's not a huge deal."

"Yeah, but--" Bligh shook his head. "Drew - I'm still sorry--"

"Well Bligh, you - you love me, don't you?"

Bligh shut his eyes and nodded, a nod that descended into hanging his head once again in something like shame.

"Y-yeah Drew - y'always--"

"Then it's fine. Don't - don't worry about it - I'm sorry for bringing it up."

At this point Cody perked up, perhaps sensing that there was a miasmic awkwardness that was creeping back between the three of them. Perhaps unintentionally - this was classic Cody, never seeing the downside to anything, even a casual remark - he actually made it worse:

"Hey um, ya wanna know what? I uh - I think I grew."

"What," Andrew said flatly.

"I - I grew."

Bligh was also puzzled by what Cody had said. "Ya grew - ya grew what, Pup?"

"My - my uh - my..."

The realization seemed to hit Bligh and Andrew at the same time - the former cackled, the latter blushed, perhaps more intense than he had ever before in his whole life.

"Cody!" Andrew scolded. "What the fuck are--"

Cody giggled nervously. "S-sorry? I just wanted to tell you guys - um, you know Andy, when you get to be like us, yours will grow too!"

Bligh snickered in delight. "Yanno I reckon he's right?"

Andrew jerked to Bligh with an equally rebuking look. "Have you both gone crazy?"

Bligh shook his head slowly. "Nope."

Andrew looked to Cody. "How do you even figure?"

Cody smiled sheepishly. "It - um, it feels bigger. Like--" He leaned forward, trying to collect his thoughts and explain himself better. "Um - like it feels bigger, uh, when I touch it and then also when it gets hard?"

"You mean - after you changed--"

Cody seemed to become even more sheepish at the suggestion. "Y-yeah. Just - from what I've noticed um, like, when I pee and stuff..."

Bligh nodded, as though the statement was conclusive. "Yup! Same with me. I grew two whole inches after I - I, uh, changed too."

"You did?" Andrew raised an eyebrow.

Bligh nodded, the proud smirk - the countryboy called into question, the thing of beauty that all boys from Appalachia have buried in their genes - sliding across his mouth.

"It was nine inches - now it's eleven."

Andrew scoffed, indignant. "I call bullshit."

The smirk grew stronger. "Swear to God."

"You measured both times?"

"Well yeah - I'm a guy, I was curious. Do it matter? Ya gonna grow too, yanno--"

Andrew sighed, rolling his eyes gamely. "Sure, sure - I guess you're right..."

"Eleven inches..." Cody marveled. "And I took the whole thing."

"Heh, yeah ya did, Pup..."

Andrew noticed Cody stirring in his seat, a sheepish but prideful smile forming - he looked out the window, awkward, a hot flare of sexual desire shooting through him.

"C'm_on_, y'all..."

Cody turned back to him. "What...?"

"Y'ain't still jealous, are ya Drew?"

Andrew blushed. "I might be..."

"Oh--" Cody hurriedly backpedaled. "Andy I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"

Bligh's hand came through the space between the seat and the door, from the backseat, to scratch Andrew's neck. "Don't be - it's yers now too."

Andrew didn't think it was possible, but he blushed still yet harder."Uh..."

"Oh..." Cody giggled, recovering. "He's embarrassed!"

"I am not!" Andrew vainly protested.

Bligh cackled. "Ya want it, Drew? Ya want--"

"Fuck this - alright - enough. Y'all settle down!" He coughed, wishing away his erection and his fiery blush of arousal and embarrassment. "Now - n-now what do you fuckers wanna eat?"

Bligh was defeated but resilient. "We already ate, ass. Ya drove us here."

Another peal of laughter from Cody, who seemed deeply amused by Bligh's immediate takedown.

"Yeah you said that, but I dunno what you had!" Andrew was being jolly in his sarcasm. "What, do you think I could just smell the food on y'all? Shit - c'mon, I was nice enough to invite y'all and you should at least be courteous enough to dessert."

"Huh! You buyin?"

Andrew slouched back sideways in the driver's seat to look back at Bligh in the space between the seat and the door, raising his eyebrows, giving away nothing: "Maybe."

"Well Hell yeah!"

"I think I'm gonna get a cheesy burger - so for dessert--"

A wary look appeared on Bligh's face. "Long as it ain't got no chocolate in it..."

Andrew nodded. "Yeah - that does suck we can't eat chocolate anymore - at least that you think caused--"

"Yup," Bligh confirmed succinctly. He sniffed. "Took me three times ta figure that one out..."

Andrew stiffened in alarm. "Three?" Bligh was about to answer when Andrew realized his error. "W-well, then again, with no one tell you--"

"Yup," Bligh confirmed again.

Cody frowned. "So that whole bag of Hershey's..."

"Into the garbage," Andrew finished.

Bligh tittered mirthlessly. "I'd kill fer a fuckin chocolate bar."

"Ah yeah, you loved the cookies and cream ones."

"Fuck man, dun remind me. And that's what's really fucked up - I can survive tryin ta cut my own arm off but I can't--"

"Can we, um, not ever talk about you hurting yourself again, Bligh?" Bligh and Andrew looked at Cody in surprise. He sighed, sheepishly looking away. "I just - no. I don't wanna think about that - ever again. Okay?"

"Sorry, Pup..." Bligh reached to rub the boy's leg.

Andrew considered the statement. "But he's right. What are the limits to how our bodies can heal?"

Bligh withdrew to the backseat once more. "Probably still fatten up - dogs can git fat, so could we."

"You haven't."

That horrible - delicious - slyness Andrew had seen in the bedroom last night reappeared on Bligh's face, as he took both ends of his flannel and, stretching up to thrust himself in the space over the armrest, proudly displayed his bare abdomen - the sinewed, perfect six-pack in the bubbly-soft forest of sable body hair, the two final nipples visible.

"I reckon Drew's right!" he said with a cackle.

A flashover of sexual passion enflamed Andrew as soon as Bligh put on his ribald silliness, made worse when Cody, giggling, and seeming to be egged on by Bligh's slick smirk and suddenly beckoning eyes, rose slightly from his seat to slide his hands up Bligh's shirt - the latter cackled again as he saw Andrew thrust his face into his hands.

"Stop - stop - stop," Andrew begged, feeling himself grow uncomfortably erect at the spectacle.

"Aww c'mon, man, we're havin fun--"

Andrew looked up at the two of them, annoyed, but blushing, a smile breaking in where a frown should have been. "We're in public. Can we please focus?"

Down came Bligh's flannel, and he sat back down with another faint cackle. "Look at you, bein no goddam fun."

Cody giggled, shifting back to look at Andrew, who shut his eyes, back of his head against the window, sighed in a strange, elated exasperation.

"Lord gimme strength--"

Cody laughed, harder this time, and Andrew, opening his eyes, gave a chuckle before looking to Bligh, who had taken up residence in the seat behind Cody to stretch across the entire backseat.

Bligh, getting comfortable, made a motion to unbutton his shirt with a wink before Andrew drew in his face to silently scold him - with another soft cackle, Bligh gave up being playful to fold his arms and continue the conversation.

"Aight, aight - fine. So, uh - what were we talkin bout?"

"Not getting fat--" Andrew raised an eyebrow at Bligh, who snickered knowingly. "I guess--" Cody giggled at this. "And if you really ain't gotten sick since whenever, then infectious diseases we can cross off the list too - I wouldn't be sure about cancer but there's a good chance that would be curtailed as well. But what I'm really wondering..." He looked to the two other males in the car to get their attention. "Extremity regeneration?" Bligh frowned at Andrew, who in turn rolled his eyes as once again he had to put things in layman's terms: "Limb regrowth - like, really, Bligh?"

"Fancy. Science. Words," Bligh protested. "Jesus, it's like we're back in Fulton's class--"

"Wait," Cody sat up with a smile that seemed unsure as if it should be there. "Fulton who--?"

"Junior year Bio teacher," Andrew explained, eyes trained on Bligh gamely. "He wrote me the recommendation that got me into USF."

Bligh sniffed, smiling bashfully. "Cuz ya knew more'n he did! Shit, man, I woulda never even passed if'n I hadn't copied off yew--"

"Cody knows only what I've told him about you - definitely didn't mention you cheated in high school."

"Well yeah, but it was offa yew!" Bligh sat up to grin at Cody, who looked on amusedly, then back to Andrew. "So it's good, right?"

"Aww, you guys were lab partners," Cody said with a giggle. "That's so cute!"

"It wasn't cute," Andrew muttered ruefully.

Bligh feigned wounding. "Wha? But Drew those were the days, man!"

"Those were the days of you breaking our fetal pig's jaw and using it like a puppet."

Cody erupted into fresh laughter, overcome with the image that must have been forming in his mind of Bligh co-opting a dissection pig for comedy.

"Aww, c'mon! We had a good thing going, me and Mr. Oinker!"

Andrew shut his eyes as he, too, had to laugh at the memory. "Oh Christ that's right, you named it."

Cody was beside himself with laughter, and try as he might, Andrew could no longer hold back, and joined in.

"Y'ain't gonna tell me that wudn't the most amazin shit ever, Drew?! Be real about it, c'mon!"

Andrew sighed, finding it impossible to be exasperated at him. "Anyway - as I was saying--"

"Yeah, yeah, regrowing arms and legs and shit - what, like a lizard?" Bligh seemed incredulous. "I dunno, man. Ya said as long as our brain's workin..."

Cody shook his head briskly, his former joyful demeanor replaced with one of stricken worry. "I don't even wanna find out." The two looked at Cody who nodded again. "Okay? I don't want anyone to get hurt..."

Bligh looked to Andrew with a faint smirk. "Got yerself a good boy there, Drew."

Andrew chuckled, tilting his head as he smiled at the thought that occurred to him as Bligh spoke. "He's - can't - can't believe I'm saying this, but - he's - he's _our_boy, Bligh. Just like you're he and I's boy..."

Bligh beamed, his fangs out, as a low laugh crescendoed, once more, into his trademark cackle. "Holy shit - yer right."

Cody also smiled, blushing some. "That's..."

"That's how I want to think about it from now on," Andrew said.

Bligh, still beaming, cackled - that triumphant cackle of transcendence - under his breath. "God damn...I can't fuckin believe it."

"You should," Andrew said. "This is real life - this is--" He sniffed. "This is our lives from now on."

He was about to chuckle to himself when he felt a sudden tightness grip his chest, and he found himself very abruptly out of breath as the tightness progressed to actual pain, and he leaned forward into the steering wheel as the sensation seemed to take hold of his whole body.

He was vaguely aware of Bligh and Cody gathering toward him, crowding him from their seats as though now, with that ethereal heartwish he had flung out to the world - not carelessly, perhaps, but with less pathos and grandeur than he had planned - he had bid them a bonding, as of a gang, or, probably better and more believably, a pack of dogs. He was only vaguely aware, because he had shut his eyes tight, with everything he perceived suddenly a shade of dull white - and when the pain finally subsided, perhaps only a few seconds but what felt far longer, and the tightness lessened, he opened his eyes again to be somewhat startled how close Bligh and Cody were to him.

"Andy!" Cody exclaimed. "What the - are you okay?!"

"Deep breaths, man, deep breaths--"

"I'm fi--" He heaved one final breath to regain a healthy rhythm. "I'm f-fine."

"The fuck ya were, Drew!"

"I said I'm fine!" Andrew eyed the other two males as he continued to breath heavy. "It was nothing, probably just need to eat--"

Bligh grimaced incredulously. "It was more than that."

"Well it's never happened before, I can tell you that - so I - I really don't know what it could have been."

"When was the last time y'ate?"

"Yesterday for lunch," replied Andrew. He thought on the topic for a moment more before shaking his head, inconclusive. "What with me throwing up and stuff maybe - yeah, maybe I do need to eat."

"Aight then, let's eat!"

Andrew nodded. "Sorry for the scare, y'all--"

Bligh shrugged. "Ain't no thang, ya seem aight." He looked to Cody. "So whattya'll have, Pup?"

"I don't want any food actually if that's okay..."

"Ya sure?" Bligh grinned cheesily. "Andrew's buyin!"

Cody shook his head with a polite frown. "Nah - my stomach hurts, actually."

Bligh seemed to grow concerned at once, and Andrew leaned forward some to lower his voice with cautious alarm.

"You aight, Pup?"

Cody nodded. "Yeah, yeah - it's not, like, a horrible feeling, just, um, like a dull ache--" It was his turn to life up his shirt, some of his nipples visible, as he pointed to a place slightly below them in his midsection. "--right there."

Bligh glanced to Andrew. "Well Scientist-Man, is he gonna be okay?"

Andrew looked askance at Bligh. "It's a stomachache so - it's sweet you're looking out for him but--" He leaned forward. "Pretty sure he just ate too much."

Bligh leaned back, satisfied with the answer. "Yeah, reckon yer right - this Pup can eat."

Andrew nodded. "Yeah, yeah he can--"

"--two Big Bufords and two things of fries. And a sweet tea." Cody blushed defensively. "I was hungry, okay!"

Andrew gave a hearty laugh. It had been mere minutes since he had given his promise for the three of them to be together, and he could hardly believe his luck - how, out of awkwardness, and horror, and misery, could spring something that seemed effortless, natural, and loving. For the first time in possibly years, he actually felt joyful.

He sighed, contented. "Okay - no food for Cody, so - Bligh, whattya want?"

"Are you still buyin?"

"Yes, Jesus, why are you--"

"Cuz it's like we're on a date!" Bligh grinned.

"Aww!" Cody exclaimed.

"This - Bligh - this is not where I would have a first date, dude. Fast food?"

"Hey man - food's food. Date's a date."

Andrew and Cody shared a look before the latter giggled once more.

"If you say, Bligh - if you say so."

"Awesome! What they got that's good fer dessert?"

"Wait - wait, we were just here?" Cody asked skeptically. "You didn't see what they had already?"

"That is a good point..." Andrew said with a small chuckle.

"Drew yew knew we dun have em where we're from! Shit we barely gotta Wendy's--"

"But you could have just looked at the menu!" Cody exclaimed good-naturedly. "Like, really?"

"Wudn't orderin dessert," Bligh said with a quiet smirk. "So I want - hey, Drew--"

"Yeah?"

"Recommend me sumthin."

Andrew sighed, shaking his head, again, with another small smile. "Non-chocolate dessert - uh - hmm." He pondered the question. "They got cheesecake bites. I think - or maybe they shove cheesecake into a vanilla milkshake, it's been awhile since I ate here, uh, either way--"

Bligh's face lit up, and he opened his mouth, euphoric, so that Andrew could see his fangs. "Oh fuck yeah! Gimme some o'them cheesecake stuffed--"

"Ew," said Cody.

Bligh looked at the boy with mock horror. "Whattya mean, ew. That shit's amazin!"

Andrew rolled his eyes. "Oh lord don't get him started on cheesecake--"

"Cheesecake's gross, Bligh. Like, I'm sorry, but no. Ew."

Bligh thrust his head over the seat: "The boy ain't right, Drew. He jest ain't right." Cody giggled again - but Bligh suddenly looked away, something occurring to him: "Wait - wait a minute. Ya said - ya couldn't smell the food on us? When we got back?"

Andrew raised an eyebrow. "No...? Was I supposed to?"

"Yeah...you were."

Andrew looked askance from Cody to Bligh. "I don't understand? I mean I smelled you two even when you weren't there."

"Really?" Cody cocked his head. "What did I smell like?"

Andrew smiled warmly. "Believe it or not - it was like - ah..." He thought for a second. "Home. Does that make sense? You smelled like safety--" Cody smiled back at him - Bligh inserted himself into the sweet moment.

"What about me?"

Andrew was somewhat miffed at the interruption. "Now that I can't describe. But it was strange - I knew you had been there even after you had gone..."

"I can smell ya right now," Bligh said teasingly.

Andrew pursed his lips. "We all stink, Bligh. I ain't showered since yesterday, and hot as it is..."

"Well ya got the dang car runnin with the AC on all this time--"

Andrew shrugged, following Bligh's logic. "I don't care. I filled up couple of days ago."

"If ya say so - but ya couldn't smell what we had eaten?"

"You asked me that before - no, I couldn't. Why is that weird?"

Cody sat back in his seat to mirror the way Andrew was sitting. "It's not just people - I'm pretty sure we can smell everything better, all the details - it's been, um, pretty intense, to be honest--"

"Oh - and I can't do that." Andrew finished for him - the sigh that he gave was cut short by surprise at how disappointed he was. He shuffled back in the seat to face forward. "After all that..."

Bligh's arm came from the backseat to rub his shoulder gently. "It'll come along, man, don't worry--"

"What if it don't? I was convinced it did, that it would just be inevitable, but what if..."

Cody looked away - worried.

"You - you just need more cum. You had only had a little bit..."

Andrew shook his head, a cold pall sweeping over him as he put the facts together. "We don't know if that's how it works--"

"Yeah we do, Drew. I told ya that--"

"What if it's only certain people, Bligh? Like penicillin - it kills some people before it kills the bacteria it's supposed to kill. So what if the infection only causes slight mutations in some people and for others it goes full-bloom like you and Cody? What if - some are immune to it?" His voice dropped as he stared at the wood grain on his dashboard. "What if I am...?"

Bligh withdrew his arm - another awkward silence descended over the three of them.

"It's--" Andrew struggled for the words. "It hinges on me being one of you. It all hinges on us being the same."

"That's not totally true," Bligh answered, barely under his breath.

"Yeah, it is. And I've stopped - changing. The infection's process has plateaued--"

"Do what?"

"--reached a stopping a point."

He heard Bligh fumble in his shirt for his cigarette pack, taking one out to play with idly in his fingers. "How - ah, how d'ye figure?"

"My teeth should be sharper. I shoulda smelled the food on you - there's no fur on my legs and I don't have a growth of tail. Pretty sure I should be craving cum, I guess, too - it's safe to conclude--" He cocked his head in self-mockery. "--by empirical observation..." He sighed, shutting his eyes. "...that I'm - I'm probably resistant to it. Like some people are naturally resistant to - like - HIV, um, bad example probably but you get my drift hopefully..."

"I don't believe that - Andy I just think you need more cum. From me or Bligh--"

"And if that don't do the trick?" Andrew completed the thought.

Cody hesitated, stunted with frustration. "I - I - I dunno."

Andrew opened his eyes to lower them to the steering wheel, unable to even glance at Cody next to him - or anything at all, in fact, but the Jeep logo, tracing its silver lettering over and over in his eyes as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.

"Well then - well then what the fuck we do now?" Bligh muttered ruefully, putting the cigarette away.

The remark was too much for Andrew: "I don't fucking know, Bligh - if I did I would have said--"

"Don't ya git mad at me."

"I'll get mad if I fucking want to!" It was an explosive shout - Cody shrank into his seat as Andrew's eyes slanted back to Bligh.

"No - don't get mad, Drew, c'mon, everythin's--"

"Bligh you drugged me with pig-slaughter medicine and fucked my boyfriend right in front of me - because your dumb fucking ass can't be honest about any fucking thing, because you had to go and come up with some batshit plan to make you and me and Cody all the same and trap us I fucking guess in some convoluted polyamory mess by infecting us with something that, lucky me, I might have a partial immunity to. So no, everything's not fine, if that's what you were gonna say. For all you know all this horseshit that's gone down has been for noth--"

Bligh and Cody, at the same time, converged on him in an uneven but poignant group-hug - Cody from the side, in the passenger seat, and Bligh from behind, from the backseat.

Bligh's voice came into Andrew's ear warm, and moist with emotion: "I'm sorry, Drew. Believe me when I say that, I'm so - fuckin - sorry. It was fucked up I know, okay? I - I just wanted to bring us together and I - yer right, I - I went about it the wrong way..."

Cody had his arms wrapped around Andrew's waist - he looked at up him, doleful and begging, even without the tawny-velvet ears visible, the look of neotenous puppyhood was complete.

Andrew caught himself as he felt the lump in his throat, which he had banished at the sight of Bligh in tears back at the apartment, reform unwelcomingly.

"F-fuck--"

He lurched forward to shut his eyes, head on the steering wheel, but still in the embrace - loving, he knew - of the two other males in the car with him.

"I'm sorry, Drew - and Cody's sorry too and we - we need ta move on, man. Ya said ya wanted us three--"

"I know what I said!" Andrew hissed through gritted teeth, unable to hold back the dammed flood of emotions. "I - don't - have a choice, Bligh!" He leaned back up, eyes out the window to escape the cloying gazes of the other two. "You didn't leave me one--"

"Drew, no, please--"

"Let me finish!" Andrew shouted - despite his outburst, or maybe because of it, Bligh and Cody held him firm. "I never had a choice - because the fucking moment - the fucking m-moment you said you loved me that - that was it, Bligh. Dog - dog or n-not - I love you and whether you were a dog or - not, I'd--"

He was losing control, letting loose aloud the rotting mass of emotion that had festered within him - in parts from the time he had left West Virginia, in other parts fresh and crawling from the events of the past two days. He felt Bligh pull him back, and he relented, desiring more than anything to be held by someone who loved him.

"If I - if I have to forgive you - y-you have to understand why_I have to forgive you, you - you have to understand what you've _done Bligh--"

"I know I do," Bligh whispered into his ears. "I know I do and I jest want ya - ta please forgive me, man--" There was a faint crack in his voice, and Andrew wondered in passing if he was struggling to be strong in his moment of his own person weakness. "Please, please forgive me, man, I'll never hurt y'again I - I promise--"

Andrew's arm shot up to grip Bligh's hand as tight as he could, nuzzling it with the side of his face that, unshaven for a full day, bristled with the beginnings of peach fuzz, moistened with a fresh tear - he held Bligh's hand, tightly this way, against his face, with his eyes shut, smelling him, smelling Cody, the ineffable aromas of the two people he was fated and destined to be with, so it would seem, from birth...the same birthright that had given him the respect, however grudging, of his countrymen also fated him to ascend above them evolutionarily, so that, in a way, Andrew's genes, from the time he was conceived on the massive hood of his father's 500SL two decades years ago, would forever be superior, fully human or not.

Cody's grip, both arms around Andrew's waist, had tightened somewhat, so that his head, tilted, was fully in the latter's lap - and Andrew, reaching down, aware of the risk he was taking, as he watched Cody's eyes scan his free hand curiously as to what he was doing, wordlessly removed the toboggan from Cody's head, to let the tawny dog-ears spring free. With one hand still gripping Bligh's, and the other petting Cody's shaggy hair and scratching his ears, Andrew nodded decisively.

"I want this," he said in a low voice. "I really want this." He looked to Cody, then back to Bligh. "I can't - not have you two - and there was a time - not - too long ago, I...didn't have either."

He relinquished the grip on Bligh's hand as the latter moved to put himself once more in the space where the armrest was.

"Ya got us," Bligh whispered as Cody furtively, to the outside world, obtained his toboggan to hide his ears. "Okay?"

Andrew nodded. "I love you--" He hesitated. "I love you both. More than anything." He forced a smile.

Bligh leaned forward to kiss him - first lightly on the lips, and then again with his tongue, withdrawing somewhat to meet his eyes in sincerity. "We love you too." Cody rose just in time to nod happily.

"We'll always love you, Andy."

Andrew's smile unstiffened and he laughed softly in spite of himself. "I'll always love y'all--" He shook his head, laughing again, this time stronger. "Even if I'm - not quite like you, I guess..." His smile faded into a sad stare at nothing.

Bligh frowned. "I reckon ya got the wrong idea, Drew." His eyes besought Andrew's again, this time for understanding. "I really do. I--"

"Have you even looked at it lately?" Cody interrupted.

"No--" Andrew answered despondently. "I haven't."

Cody tilted his head - like a puppy, it was unintentional, Andrew knew, but still slightly ridiculous - in puzzlement. "So then you don't actually know--

"I would - have felt it feel different, Baby--"

Cody smiled gently. "But you don't know. So - can I see?"

Andrew stopped, and he coughed nervously, involuntarily, as he understood the gravity of the question. "Ah...well..." He glanced at Cody. "Then, uh, why don't you--" He craned about him to see if there was anyone nearby who might see.

"Ain't nobody gonna see," Bligh muttered with a faint smirk. "Who the Hell's gonna look in anyhow?"

Andrew shrugged. "Can't be too careful..." He took a few seconds to unbutton his shorts before nodded at Cody. "Okay - pull em down."

Cody, leaning, did as he was told, and the khaki shorts slid down halfway to Andrew's thighs, revealing the deformed hybrid genitals that had become familiar to him perhaps an hour or so ago since that hideous moment of realization in the bathroom.

Bligh leaned in closer - Andrew thought he was doing so to get a closer look, but rather without warning he felt Bligh's hand around his penis, pulling back the sheath to reveal the slightly more tapered, perhaps a shade more pink tip.

"Gyah! Bligh what the--"

"Jest tryin ta fer a better look, Drew, ain't nuthin but a thang--"

"It's - ah!" Andrew hissed in sudden sensation at having his foreskin retracted. "Okay, okay, let up!" Bligh withdraw, but his studying gaze was still intent. "Ah...I guess - it looks the same as it did this morning. Maybe the um - the um--"

"Sheath?" Cody offered.

"Ah, right, sheath is a little - I dunno, thicker? I'm being generous there - and it ain't - it ain't attached to my stomach like it should be. Um..." Andrew thought a moment, trying to maintain cogent thoughts in the midst of a swirl of mounting arousal - in broad daylight with people and cars swarming about them. "The - um - the baculum seems to have already formed - that's not new - and there's an os penis at the dorsal end--"

"English, brainiac."

Andrew pointed to the lump at the base of his penis. "That. The knot."

"Heh..." Bligh licked Andrew's ears - he shuddered as his penis stirred to life. "Needs ta git bigger--"

Andrew immediately resisted, even as having Bligh so near him, and so suddenly seductive, made him weak with arousal. "N-no - d-don't, c'mon - p-public--"

His fractured protests went unheeded, however, as Cody, apparently taking his cue from Bligh, leaned to massage Andrew's penis gently with the cutely mischievous smile he so often employed with Andrew before, so that it became fully engorged, emerging strong, if still malformed and incomplete, from his thickened foreskin which was, Andrew hoped, on its way to metamorphosing into a complete sheath.

Some seconds after the first touch of Cody's now-warmer, nimble hands, and the wet, serpentine journey of Bligh's tongue on his ear, Andrew was presented with a new and utterly foreign sensation - a strange fullness in his groin that expanded, slowly at first, but then with quickening speed, until it seemed like something was building up inside his penis, rather like an ejaculation, except...

With a strange cry, a strong spurt of precum, Andrew's first, volleyed from the irregularly streamlined tip of his penis, shooting onto the dark green cotton fabric of his USF jacket.

Bligh and Cody had stopped, visibly startled at what Andrew's body had just done - the three of them sat in stunned silence, staring.

"That's new..." Andrew muttered dryly.

Suddenly fascinated, he took the splash of precum that struck his jacket and, scraping it onto the tips of his fingers, peered at it curiously, bringing it up to focus in front both of his eyes.

What he beheld was not the usual transparent fluid which had passed for pre-ejaculate all his life - it was similar to what he saw Bligh produce in the first few minutes of awakening from his paralysis the night before...grey, slimy, with a highly peculiar musky scent that wafted from it faintly.

"It don't...look like what I usually..." Shutting his eyes to concentrate, he brought the slimy substance to his nose, inhaling deeply. "Buh!" He recoiled, unprepared for the powerfully pungent muskiness that assailed his nostrils. "That's new too," he said, still grimacing. "Don't smell like--"

Andrew stopped as Bligh bent his neck to slurp the precum from the former's fingers - it startled Andrew as he jerked his neck to Bligh in shock.

"Wha--?!"

As he had done earlier that afternoon, Bligh held the precum in his mouth, seeming to savor it, examining the flavor with his tongue - Cody, behind him, cocked his head in curiosity as to what he was doing.

Finally Bligh swallowed, and a second passed before his face exploded in a smile. "Hey - h-hey! Ya taste like us!"

Andrew raised his eyebrows. "I -do?"

Bligh nodded vigorously. "Y-yeah!"

"You should've let me try it too..."

Bligh looked to Cody with a small wince. "S-sorry, Pup. Jest take my word for it, he's progressin along..."

Cody smiled warmly, reaching forward to embrace Andrew once more. "Andy! You're gonna be like us soon, and you won't have to worry anymore!"

Andrew was barely cognizant of Cody touching him at all, so deep was his abrupt introspection. "I just - I did what you two do when--" He didn't finish the thought, entirely too preoccupied with his own thoughts as he pulled his shorts up, retreating within himself as his mind - all the science that he kept as faith in place of the spirits that haunted his homeland - raced for further explanation. Bligh and Cody waited, patiently it would seem, for him to finish. "So maybe--" Andrew hesitated. "Maybe the infection - is not - plateauing after all..."

"Told ya," Bligh affirmed.

"But--" Andrew added, meaning to put significance on the conjunction. "We won't know for sure until some more time has passed--"

"Or until you get more cum," Cody finished for him.

Andrew leaned forward to consider the remark, his penis lazily stirring to life at the thought. "Or - or - that..."

"It'll be gettin on into the evenin soon..." Bligh smirked, the lecherousness returning yet again. "...so then maybe..."

Cody suddenly bolted upright in alarm. "Holy shit - what time is it?"

Bligh blinked, somewhat jarred, pulling out his phone to check it. "Uh - just after five o'clock."

The boy slid into his seat, mortified. "Oh shit - I was supposed to work today."

Andrew's eyes widened. "Oh fuck that's right. I had totally forgotten about that with all--" He let out a whoosh of air. "With all that's gone on..."

Bligh seemed stricken. "Naw, don't go! Tell em yer stomach hurts, Pup!"

"Does it still?" Andrew asked.

Cody shrugged. "I mean yeah it does but - it's okay. Not as bad as it did..." He tilted his head again, thinking. "I should go...I really should go." He looked to Andrew, his mouth drawn in with disappointment. "So...you and Bligh can do stuff."

Bligh sniffed. "Were y'expectin that?"

Cody nodded. "I wanted you guys to. I'm--" He looked to Andrew again. "I'm sure if you just had more cum..."

A small piece of despair, like a shard of debris from a broken glass in the kitchen one finds days later, unnoticed, but still sharp and painful, cut into Andrew as he realized that this, their - he, Cody, and Bligh's - first perfect moment together, without the putrescent decay that had waxed gangrenous of infidelity, jealousy, body horror and lies...was coming to an end.

It was rather, in a sort of perverse way, Cody's fault - he had always been a hard worker, always insisting that he help Andrew with everything, the shadow of being kicked out constantly from place to place haunting even the boy who had taken him in unselfishly...

But in the pause that allowed Andrew this all through, Cody said something else, far more telling than the usual narrative of how hard he expected himself to always work for the sake of he and Andrew both:

"...and...it has to be you - two. You guys. Together."

Bligh looked to Andrew in confusion "Do what now?"

"He wants," Andrew explained, "for you and me to do it together because--" With a raised eyebrow he checked Cody for accuracy. "--because you and he did it first?"

Cody nodded, addressing Andrew, then Bligh. "It's what's fair...to show you guys--"

Discarding - at last - his inhibitions about being in public, he leaned forward to place his head in Cody's lap, rolling over to look at the boy directly.

"I'm not mad anymore, if that's what you think."

"No - I know you aren't. But this - I just--" His wavered with his next words. "I - it'll be like Bligh got us into this..."

"A ceremony?" Andrew guessed, trying to make sense of Cody's words.

"I dunno man," Bligh murmured with a smirk that Andrew could hear. "Dunno if I'm into that..."

Cody was getting frustrated. "N-no, not - I just--" He took a breath. "Maybe I am worried that you're still mad, okay? And - it's bothered me, okay Andy? I didn't wanna cheat on you and - just - do this for me, please?"

Andrew studied Cody's face - the perfect flawless face that had so entranced him the day, almost a year ago, when it was framed by the setting sun...he reached up to caress it, to smooth the sides of those cheeks with the back of his hand.

"If it'll make you happy..."

Cody smiled again. "It will. It'll - it'll make me feel a lot better about what I did..." His smile faded. "Even if I won't get to see you change.

Andrew considered the thought. "It'll be a surprise, though."

Cody shrugged, reaching up to play with Andrew's slightly pointed but otherwise indistinguishably human ears. "I - I guess. But you got to see me change, and - it'd be only fair, like I said."

Andrew frowned deeply. "I...I guess you're right. But it'll be okay. Things'll go by quick knowing you'll get to see me - fully - evolved." He smiled encouragingly.

Cody giggled softly. "And then we'll be...all the same."

Andrew nodded decisively. "The three of us - yup." He felt his heart leap at the thought, and a laugh escaped him. "So - it'll - it'll go by quick."

Cody shrugged again. "And I am - pretty much dressed for work."

"Alright," said Andrew, rising. "I'll go drop you off. When do you work til?"

"Nine."

"See! Not so far away." He gave another encouraging smile, to which Cody gave a quick smooch on the cheek as a reply.

"Well then," said Bligh moved back to the seat behind Andrew. "While he's at work - we should go home. Drew, like the Pup said, we - we got shit to do."

"We do?"

"Yeah - I gotta finish what I started..."

Andrew gulped nervously - he knew what Bligh meant, and wanted to resist, still filled with the awful fear of the unknown that was residual, sticky, from the night before...but today was different, and his promise was still genuine.

"You're - you're right. This needs to happen. I--" He thought a moment. "I want this to happen."

"I know ya do," Bligh murmured, putting his hand on Andrew's shoulder. "We all do..."

"Then - let's go."

With Cody's hand in his, and Bligh's hand on his shoulder, Andrew put the car in drive, to start the car for home.