FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Andrew was silent on the ride to the Green Room - a mere five minutes, but the interior of his car, even with the windows down, was still laced with a palpable tension, as it had been that afternoon...but all the while, his hand never left Bligh's. Even as Andrew looked distractedly from his window, then back through the windshield, then back to the window again, his thoughts a cascading chaos of worry about Cody, and why he would be so sick so soon after such a traumatic alteration of his body - their hands remained firmly together.

There were two stoplights to get where they needed to go - the first to pull onto the main street from the apartment complex, and the second to turn into the plaza where the Green Room was - approaching that second stoplight, Andrew instinctively putting on his signal light to turn, Bligh finally broke the brief silence:

"He's gonna be okay - Drew ya know that, he's jest a li'l sick is all."

He said it in a low voice - the edges of his words redolent of the paternal comfort he had used with Andrew before.

"He's my angel," Andrew blurted back, at last separating his hand from Bligh's - there was probably something more nuanced, more balanced, that he meant to say, but as he moved the car into the turning lane he shook his head, finding a lump forming in his throat.

From the corner of his eye he saw Bligh lean back some, focusing on him, waiting for him to continue, but he swallowed hard before he was able to do so.

"He - he - he's my responsibility," he said, his new sobriety unconvincing - he looked to Bligh for the first time during the whole car ride, his mouth drawn into a fretting frown. "I'm - your bitch, right?"

"We, uh--" Bligh shifted in his seat. "We dun hafta _use_that word if ya--"

Andrew shook his head, looking to the plaza before them as he turned into it - even far removed from the heat of the moment he did not wish to deny the veracity of the statement.

"No - no, I am, and that's - that's fine, but Cody - I - he - he's my responsibility. I took him in, Bligh. And we're together, the three of us, I know - but if I'm yours, then - he's mine."

Bligh considered the idea before nodding slowly. "When he said he had nowhere ta go--"

"Yes--" Andrew choked back a worried cry, rolling his eyes to avoid bursting into tears. "God - yes - and I can't - what if he's sick-_sick, Bligh? Really sick? What if he - what if the change has _made him sick, and--?"

They pulled into a parking space - the ones in front of the Green Room were taken, which put them before the GNC next door. Andrew looked to Bligh, the car still on, the engine still patiently droning - the leering red neon and plastic signage affixed to the brick of the shopping plaza's front pouring garish glare into the car.

Andrew hesitated before he turned off the car - the rending of reality that he had experienced that day, those past two days, was catching up to him, and now full in the face was bearing down on him, the consequences of this new world that Bligh, above all, had thrust him into...his hand grazed the keys uselessly, before falling into his lap, and Bligh - who had offered no answer, up until now - unbuckled his seatbelt, and, leaning over, turned the car off for him.

"C'mon Drew," he murmured into his ear, gently nuzzling his cheek. "Cody needs yew."

"If he's sick," Andrew said, quietly, the way his father would talk whenever he'd cut up the worst and he'd know he was in deep shit, "then it'd - it'd be your fault."

Now Andrew glanced at Bligh, his frown still immobile from being on the verge of crying not a minute before - his eyes slowly travelled down the steering wheel, where he took the keys from the ignition and let out a long, moist sigh.

Bligh's face did not change - there was a twinge of discomfort, a harsh sigh from his nose, but his face did not change.

"The car..." Andrew went on, the same tone, shaking his head. "It smells different. Everything smells different - more - significant." He put his keys into his pants pocket as he looked into Bligh's eyes, which had turned downward. "It didn't used to - since I - since you changed me - the world, the whole world is different, Bligh..."

Bligh opened his mouth to say something - some words of comfort, some reiteration of the formula that since he was here, since Cody was here, that everything would be alright...but Andrew didn't want to hear it. He turned away, opened the car door and hopped out - shutting the door behind him, he took a breath to regain his composure, only vaguely aware of Bligh coming around the car to walk in with him.

The night was pleasantly warm, moderated by a seabreeze wafting off Tampa Bay some unseen distance away, the long, melodic trill of crickets accompanying a fairy-crystal moon turning the sky around it a lovely cornflower.

Andrew noticed, from behind him, that Bligh's movements were uneasy, as though off balance - this was another place, like the beach and yet clearly unlike it, which Bligh, with his internal spatial awareness of the vastness beyond his sight of the mountains, and the rolling hills which enclosed around him in safety, was unused to...the flatness, not merely of the parking lot but of all Florida, was throwing him off, as it had, once, thrown Andrew off, years ago.

He kept walking, not bothering for Bligh to wait for him - he should have, he thought, brushing him off like this was the worst thing he could have done at this moment, but the latent idea this was all Bligh's fault was still, like a mosquito bite, reddened and irritating on his consciousness.

He was about to pull the door to the Green Room open - a glass surface impossible to see through, papered over as it was with innumerable skating company logos, faded show flyers from obscure local bands, all dwarfed by, at its center, a threatening silhouetted Kalashnikov with DEFEND POP PUNK emblazoned beneath it - when he heard Bligh pick up his steps to approach him from behind.

"Ya gonna wait up fer me or what?"

Andrew gripped the door handle tightly before looking Bligh in the face - he sighed harshly, shutting his eyes for a moment.

"Not now," he murmured. "Not - not now."

"I'm right here, man," Bligh offered, a little more desperate than Andrew was used to hearing. "Ya - ya know that."

"Yeah," Andrew answered, failing to hide his curtness - without saying anything else, his stomach in tumult with worry, he opened the door and, Bligh behind him, entered.

The interior of the Green Room was a visual chaos, a sensory overload, for those unacquainted with skateboarding and surfing culture, indeed with the visual aesthetic that had fermented, homegrown, in the tropical-asphalt wastes of South Florida thirty or so years ago - starting, inescapably, far larger than life, with the black-and-white photo of Alan Gelfand doing his ollie dominating the back wall where the cash register was, still eternally badass just as the way Craig Snyder had photographed him in 1979.

Although there was paraphernalia from every conceivable boarding and surfing company, there seemed to be a peculiar focus that was taken on the traditions formed outside of that hallowed land of extreme sports, California: there was the cult of the longboard that did obeisance to the waves of Galveston and Corpus Christi, and the violent overdoses of marine fun - PCB, Clearwater - and so if one did not know better, it would seem that the owner was consciously accentuating the forgotten traditions of a Southern subculture, over the hegemonic influences of the West Coast.

Fully half of the store must have been dominated by a storage room in the back, so that everything - the shelves of shoes, the shirts and shorts that racked the walls underneath saluting rows of skateboards that were arranged so smartly and neatly they reminded Andrew of the decorative flintlock muskets in the Governor's Palace at Williamsburg - was unnaturally cramped. The walls, like the door, being in places plastered with enigmatic logos, window-stickers and playbills from local shows, did not at all help.

And there was the music - probably too loud for a normal retail store, a wall of sound that exploded out of the door as Andrew opened it into the plaza - Brandon Flowers wailing "Mr. Brightside," the middle of the first chorus.

Andrew was used to it all, he had been here many times - but it made Bligh stop to take it all in, fully bewildered.

The store itself, owing to the late hour, was mostly empty - there was no one behind the counter up front, and the only customers were a pair of Hispanic teenagers who had long black wispy, unwashed-looking hair falling down their backs, both carrying boards, who seemed to be on their way out. Andrew had no trouble spotting Cody - he smelled him before he saw him, the homey, comforting deliciousness that he was only vaguely aware of before, oddly now more powerful, oddly more sweeter - he was sitting, pallid and seeming very sad, on one of the black vinyl couches that was put between displays of shoes on the walls in the middle of the store...Andrew hustled over to him, fit to burst in to tears at the sight of his beloved:

"H-hey Baby--"

Cody's hazel eyes lit up only briefly before he was near-smothered in Andrew's crushing hug.

"Wha - Andy!" He giggled, probably in spite of himself, struggling some as Andrew let his worry, pass from - his arms tight around him.

"I was so worried when Tim called--"

"It's - Andy it's okay--" Cody strained to giggle again, but picking up on the seriousness that poured moist from Andrew's voice, he stopped, and nestled his face into Andrew's shoulder. "I'm - hey, I'm fine, please don't worry..."

"Feelin aight, Pup?"

Andrew felt Cody's face shift some to acknowledge Bligh - the curvature of his mouth shifted against his shirt-sleeve into a smile.

"Bligh, hey - you're here too?"

"Course I is!" The grin was audible in his voice. "Heard yew weren't feelin too good--" He tittered, a tinge of scolding in his strange little laugh. "Drew was in a right fit over ya jest now - weren't ya Drew?"

Andrew lifted his head to see Bligh's mouth curled with a knowing smirk - he felt a thin rush of embarrassment at his own behavior.

"I - Cody you don't know--" His voice quavered, and he shut his eyes again, overcome. "You don't - know - how worried I was, when Tim said--"

"But Andy..." Cody pushed Andrew back some so that they were face to face."I haven't thrown up in awhile so I - I'm fine."

"You don't look it," Andrew answered him, unconvinced - he looked to Bligh with a frown, his blush returning.

"W-well--" His protest died on his lips as he pressed a hand to his breast - a worried look briefly crossed his face, which Andrew did not see, his attention on Bligh.

"I'm sorry," he was murmuring to Bligh - but the latter nodded back to Cody.

"Sumthin hurtin ya there, Pup?" He inhaled strongly through his nose. "Sumthin smells - sweet...?"

Andrew's head snapped back to the boy, eyebrows digging together over his nose. "What? Baby what's wrong? Are you okay?"

"It's, um..." Cody shook his head. "It's n-nothing--"

Undeterred, Andrew gently pushed aside the boy's hand to see a small wet spot on the top right of his Volcom shirt, the cotton fibers damp from something suppurating beneath it.

"That's not nothing..." Andrew murmured grimly - he glanced up to Cody. "And it's giving off an odor..."

"Musta been what I was smellin jest now," Bligh said, peering over his shoulder.

"I think I might have too, when I first came in..." Andrew's voice trailed off as he turned behind him to see if the two boys he had seen earlier had made good on their motions to depart.

"They're gone..." Cody said, sensing what he was looking for.

With a silent nod, Andrew leaned in, his wrist bent, so that the back of his hand pressed down against Cody's breast - Cody let out a small, near-imperceptible whimper, as though of sudden pleasure, at Andrew's touch.

Andrew withdrew - on his skin was a very tiny puddle of yellowish-white, opaque fluid. Carefully, he lowered his nose to it and inhaled deeply...immediately his nostrils were filled with a pleasantly aromatic scent - sweet, very faintly musky, no more than a hint of gaminess.

"It can't be..." he muttered to himself - as the two other males watched, a strange compulsion, quite foreign and yet strangely familiar, overtook him - he stuck out his tongue and, curving the tip of his tongue, scooped the entire dab of liquid into his mouth.

At once, his taste buds became awash with sensation - the substance was extremely sweet, but not overpoweringly so; mingled in with the taste was the same faint threads of musk and game that he could smell off of it; it was thick, not quite pancake syrup - his natural first thought - but not quite heavy cream, and left a lingering aftertaste, the base ingredients of its makeup sounding off in a fading taste-echo.

It left him slightly thirstier than when he started, and he licked his lips to moisten them - his eyes trailed up to Cody in a state of near-ecstatic mystification.

Cody leaned forward expectantly. "What - what is it, Andy--?"

Bligh, for one, seemed horrified at what he had just witnessed: "Drew - what."

Andrew shook his head slowly, closing his eyes to try and re-analyze what he had just experienced. "I don't believe it - galactorrhea..." His natural wonderment at the raw uniqueness of something scientifically new was quickly overtaken by the cold chill at who it was affecting.

"_Gono_rrhea?!" Bligh exclaimed in disgust - Cody's face inverted into near-nausea at the word.

"No - no, no." Andrew shook his head, chuckling to himself. "Not that, no - galacto_rrhea." He looked to Bligh. "Like where we get the word _galaxy and lactose, you know like lactose intolerant--"

"Milk?" Bligh guessed.

Cody's face, heretofore paler than usual, went red, and he turned away, a strange, pleased smile crossing his face.

"Right," Andrew answered. "Milk."

Bligh frowned askance. "What does - galaxy hafta do with--" He stopped. "Wait...Milky...Way..."

Andrew grinned. "I always told you, you were smart..."

Bligh seemed more flattered by the compliment than he actually let on, making a soft snicker under his breath as he folded his arms.

Andrew sighed, looking back to Cody - he thought it over a moment, thinking back to his knowledge of mammalian biology. After an awkward pause of mere seconds, he took the boy's chin in his hand to get his attention, planting a gentle a kiss on his lips.

"Nothing to worry about, Baby - it's - the throwing up, and now - this - it's, um, it's just your body trying to find balance from all the hormones inside you right now from - well, you know."

"The change?"

Andrew nodded. "Yeah. That's my guess--" He reconsidered the word. "Um - more of a theory. I mean it makes sense if you - well see, a lot of male babies actually lactate, because they've got so much of their mother's hormones in them, yanno, fresh out of the womb--"

"Witch's milk..."

Andrew looked to Bligh to nod enthusiastically. "Y-yeah, that's what they call it where..." His head drifted back to Cody, hesitating before he finished ."Where...we're from."

Cody shifted uncomfortably where he was. "It - it started a little bit ago, Tim didn't see it--"

Andrew nodded. "Okay. Before or after he called me?"

"Mmm..." Cody thought for a second. "Pretty sure right after."

"So this is super-recent..." Andrew said, mostly to himself. "I wonder..."

"Thought witch's milk was only fer babies," Bligh said.

"Uh - w-well yeah," Andrew conceded. "But think about what's just happened to him - happened to us."

"Then how come it didn't happen ta me?"

Cody looked to Bligh with a silent frown.

"I..." Andrew shook his head, still trying to think. "That's a good question, but - it seems that this - whatever this is, it - it affects people differently every time." He pointed to himself. "Look what happened to me."

"You...?" Cody's face lit up at the thought. "Y-you mean--"

"Yup!" Bligh tittered - Andrew smiled at the boy with an affirming nod.

"Andy - so I was right!" Cody's voice rang with hushed excitement. "Y-you have to show me! You have to--"

Andrew shook his head quickly, kissing the boy on the cheek. "Not now, Baby, what if someone sees?"

The music changed to an eerie, twangy country melody - Bligh grinned to himself as he heard it. "Hey, Unknown Hinson, alright..."

Andrew sniffed at Bligh with a small smile - his previous worry was greatly assuaged by seeing Cody in person, and by degrees he was becoming self-satisfied at his own theory to the peculiarities of Cody's body.

"He was in Saint Pete two years ago--" he said to Bligh.

"Yeah and ya shoulda gone!" Bligh tittered, shaking his head. "Coulda got me a shot glass or sumthin, dang--"

"Wait..." Cody tilted his head. "Who? This is a new playlist, so I've never heard this song before."

"Oh man, it's Unknown Hinson!" Bligh's grin grew broader - his fangs seemed to pop out the more he smiled. "He's awesome! Man, Pup, I got so much I wanna share with ya--"

"Uh - wait," Andrew broke in. "Sorry to interrupt--"

"Drew!"Bligh frowned at him. "I was bout ta tell em--"

"Well I'm sorry, but first - where is everybody?"

Bligh stopped, craning his head about him. "Dang - oh shit, this place is empty, ain't it?"

Andrew raised himself from the couch to look about the store. "Where's - Tim? And Gabby? And Davey - what, none of em are here?"

Cody shook his head. "Well uh, Tim's here, he's in the back counting down the drawer I think."

"He in back?" asked Bligh incredulously. "But them two guys that were in here--"

"Rivera and Manny?" Cody giggled slightly. "They wouldn't steal anything, they're good guys, they're in here all the time."

"Huh," Bligh responded, departing to his own world of enjoying the song that was playing.

"So then - where's Gabby and Davey?"

"Um - Gabby's picking Davey up somewhere, I think he and his friends went to Westshore today."

"Oh..." Andrew glanced to Bligh. "Well that's a shame. I wanted you to meet them."

Bligh's daydreaming smirk faded - brought back to Earth, he shrugged. "We should go if they ain't here."

Andrew raised an eyebrow. "You think so?" He turned to Cody. "Well?"

"I mean he knows I'm leaving...that's why I'm out here."

"If Cody's--" Bligh seemed to chew on his next word. "Uh, yanno, doin what he's doin, then we should go, yeah - we should get him home."

Andrew nodded. "Okay then..." He looked to Cody, giving him an encouraging smile. "You ready?"

"Yeah...let's go."

Bligh gave his decisive nod. "Aight!"

Cody rose from the couch, somewhat gingerly, helped to his feet, even if didn't need it, by Andrew and Bligh on either side - he giggled at having two males be so attentive to him, and Bligh, also seeing the humor, tittered to himself, throwing a glance to Andrew, who smiled back at him.

"How many West Virginians does it take to lift a Florida Cracker?" Andrew said with a chuckle.

Bligh's titter rose to a cackle as the three of them made their way to the door. "Let's get home, y'all - dang I'm beat."

"I'm still wired from that nap..." Andrew murmured as he opened the front door.

The warm August air, freshened by the wayward salty breeze off Tampa Bay, hit the trio as they made their out of the Green Room and onto the sidewalk - the tremulous half-whistle of the crickets, hidden somewhere in the palms on the green medians, fattened and verdant from the summer rains, provided an accompanying symphony.

Cody sighed. "So what'll we do now? Go home - right?"

Andrew cleared his throat, nodding to Bligh. "Well...I'm a little hungry - finally - so, yeah, why don't we go home. I'll make us some pancakes."

Cody beamed, nodding. "Y-yeah! That sounds awesome."

Bligh let out a soft cackle, and flashed a toothy grin to Andrew. "Wait - yew mean yew still makin pancakes?"

Andrew nodded with a sniff. "Favorite thing - you know that."

"He mentioned it the first time we ever met," Cody said with a quick giggle.

"It's true," Andrew affirmed.

Bligh cackled - louder this time, as the trio made their way to the car. "Drew, I swear..."

Andrew chuckled - he turned to Cody. "Baby why don't you sit in the back? You'll have more room back there so you can lay down."

Cody paused, shaking his head with a small smile. "Andy...really, I'm feeling fine--"

Andrew stopped where he was - mere feet from the car - to put his hands on the boy's shoulders. "Do it for me, okay? It'll make me feel better." Again came the reassuring smile - the one he used especially for Cody. "We gotta watch you now with your - you know, your--"

"My milk?" Cody seemed oddly proud - the remark was simple, everyday, as though it was hardly the abnormality that was, still, vexing Andrew and Bligh both. He shifted where he stood, rubbing his nipple thoughtfully, before glancing back to Andrew with a small, enigmatic smile.

"It's just the one, right?" Andrew raised his eyebrows. "Since you have - you know, more than one."

Cody nodded. "I know, and - yeah, just the one..."

Bligh coughed, suddenly uncomfortable, instinctively feeling into the borrowed flannel for cigarettes before seeming to remember he had smoked them all. "Yeah - bout that..."

"It's a temporary thing, I'm pretty sure," Andrew said, reaching to pat Bligh on the shoulder - Bligh shrugged.

"Ain't no thang - jest weird - I mean I guess bein what we are ain't all that weird, but..." He did not finish - he merely frowned again, as though dissatisfied he could not go further.

Cody's smile turned furtively confident. "You know - you know what it could mean, right?"

Andrew knew at once what Cody was inferring - an unease overtook him at the blurring of former fiction, however titillating, and this new reality.

"What, what's it mean?" Bligh asked of both of them.

Cody, as if realizing he would have to explain himself, suddenly developed a hesitant stammer. "It - it - it means--"

"That he's pregnant," Andrew finished. "Or - um, could be pregnant."

Bligh grimaced in confusion. "But - he's a guy."

"He's also a new species," Andrew added, dryly, his eyes sweeping over Cody, who appeared deep in thought. "We're all a new species..."

An awkward pause elapsed before Bligh shook his head slowly. "Well if'n that's true - then how come I - how come yew--"

Cody's head rose from the pavement, and he turned to Andrew with a look of epiphany from Bligh's words. "Wait - Andy, did you--?

Andrew nodded. "Bligh--" He laughed off an abrupt cloud of embarrassment at what he was about to admit - he saw Bligh give a small smirk that he apparently had tried to suppress. "He uh - he kn-knotted me."

Barely had the words left his mouth when Cody clapped his hands to his face, muffling a peal of happy laughter - he flung his hands down to his sides, smiling with a new exultation. "You guys!" He let out another happy laugh - Andrew felt his face turn red and ears attempt to flatten inside his hat, guarding his feelings with an anemic chuckle.

"Uh - y-yeah, we--"

He felt Bligh put an arm around his shoulder - he felt fit to sink through the floor, putting a hand over his eyes with embarrassment, as Bligh gave him a wet smooch on his cheek.

"Didn't ya tell us to, Pup?" Andrew could hear the proud smirk in his voice.

"Y-yeah! I mean I - you said you changed but you didn't say--"

"Well that's what we did," Andrew finished for him flatly, the hand from his eyes dropping to his side, his face a burning mass of discomfited half-outrage - he felt Bligh's arm give him a squeeze, but he could not bear to look at him.

"That's awesome!" Cody beamed, but his bright smile faded some in enthusiasm as the true gravity set in: "We're all - we're all equal now..."

Andrew sighed, a torrent of agitated breath. "Yeah Baby - like you wanted..." He forced a smile.

He felt another kiss - smaller, briefer this time - from Bligh. "Don't be so uptight, man - c'mon, we're all the same, ain't we?"

Andrew tried to stay his disarrayed emotions. "I - yes, I - guess--"

He heard Bligh cackle as his arm left Andrew's shoulder - and he had to chuckle, at himself, in turn.

Cody folded his arms, frowning cutely. "I'm just trying to figure out if I'm - giving milk, um, because - you - you know, because if I get fucked or not, after I changed. Because - well...um, hey - Bligh - didn't you get _fucked_though...?" A painful sheepishness had crept into his voice. "You said - um, you and - your dog--"

"Well yeah," Bligh interrupted - it was his turn to blush, which Andrew could see even in the unreal neon lighting that doused the three of them from the looming signs. "B-but I - I mean, I mean that's why I said--" He stopped, now himself also totally flustered.

Andrew, detecting an opportunity to rescue what he considered a veering trainwreck of a conversation, meant to reach a conclusion:

"If - and I'm still certain he's not, but if he's pregnant, it means that their Bligh's..." He raised an eyebrow. "Or mine from the other day? But how--" He shook his head, the lurid fantasy from earlier that afternoon of he and Bligh as stud-dogs making an unwelcome and newly hideous reappearance. "Ah - but - if he is, we don't know what'll come out of him - or how."

Bligh and Andrew shared a look of slow alarm which drifted over to Cody, whose face had been absorbed by an introspective horror, as though having discovered that Santa Claus was in fact a child-eating monster.

Seeing him this way, Andrew winced some, clearing his throat for significance and continuing:

"But in any case - I really don't think that's what's happening right now, though, Baby - sorry to burst your bubble, but um - like I said, I still think it's just a - a surge of hormones."

Cody hesitated, reluctant to abandon the idea. "But - but I was throwing up, too--"

Andrew frowned, glancing to Bligh, whose eyebrows were deeply furrowed.

"Well now - I threw up when I changed, Pup."

Andrew nodded in agreement, thankful for a second opinion, his eyes moving to the parking line beneath him as he thought out loud. "It's something about the - the change that causes the body to want to vomit - and - that would make sense, because I vomited too - or I guess I would have anyway, given..." He sighed, an inexorable conclusion rearing up at him from the back of his mind. "Cody you - I - listen--" He struggled for the words, and as he lifted his eyes, slowly, he saw Cody meet his gaze, and he sighed, again, feeling his vocabulary become useless even for such a simplistic question. "I never asked you - you this because I - I just thought it was something you - liked, um, sexually--"

"What...?" Bligh murmured, seeming deeply confused by the turn the exchange had taken.

Cody bit his lip, his fang appearing, pearly in the neon. "You mean getting pregnant?"

"What?" Bligh repeated.

Andrew gave yet another sigh - a whooshing of air that came from the depths of exasperation. "Yes - that's - we do that, okay? I get to fuck him and he - pretends--"

"That I get pregnant from it..." Cody finished.

Bligh recoiled at Andrew. "Y'all get off on that?" He leaned forward in Cody's direction with an incredulous look of surprise.

Andrew felt his face go red again. "I just went with it because it - I dunno, I found it hot too--"

"Shit, I thought ya jest asked_me_ cuz--" A second passed before Bligh tried to finish. "Well - I - I really dunno, but still, what the--"

Cody seemed hurt by the remark. "Does it m-matter? I like it, it shouldn't be anything to you."

At once sensing he had upset the boy, Bligh stepped to give him a quick hug. "Hey - hey Pup I didn't mean--"

Cody hugged him back, but his expression of pained near-mortification was unchanged.

Andrew frowned with a new kind of near-transcendent frustration - only a moment passed of the two others hugging when, unable to take his own inability to express himself, he finally let go:

"Cody why do you like it? Why do you keep bringing it up?" Cody - and Bligh - stared at him after he said it, as though tangibly feeling its profundity. "I mean yeah it's - it's hot, you - you got me into it - but there has to be some underlying reason­­--"

The boy looked at him through Bligh's arms, still somewhat hurt. "Don't you know?" He relinquished Bligh's hold on him as he stepped backward, his mouth twinging as though damming back emotions. "Andy _don't_you know--?"

His voice was cracking, and Andrew's heart immediately tightened - so much time had passed since the last time he had seen Cody cry. Bligh, for his part, respected the distance that Cody had put between them, and took another step back to witness the back-and-forth.

"No..." Andrew shook his head, slowly. "You never once...told me why. Just that it - it turned you on, that you - you like it so much you brought it up...a lot."

He swallowed back a lump in his throat, the memories of their intimacy before Bligh's arrival replaying a little too vividly - he took Cody into his arms and brought them together against the car, holding him tightly.

"Because you'd be a great dad, Andy," Cody whispered. "Y-you'd - you'd care for my babies, my - my puppies, like you cared for me."

Andrew's eyes went wide - he thought he heard Bligh suppress something between a gasp and a titter, but he dared not move his head to confirm.

A shudder from Cody's chest told Andrew he was not done, as close to tears as he was:

"You saved me, Drew I - I owe it t-to you, to - to - reproduce with you--"

Andrew remembered the flash of insight in the shower with Bligh, and he nodded, very slowly. "To love someone so much - you'd change your wholebody for them..."

"Yes!" Cody pulled back some so that their eyes were locked together, the lustrous hazel glimmering over with tears. "Yes - yes!" he repeated, shaking Andrew emphatically. "I know - I know I fucked up real bad by--" As if by telepathy they both glanced to Bligh, who looked away, rolling his eyes. "B-but - I - th-that shouldn't change that I want to--" He shut his eyes, his mouth quivering. "Be a mom for _y-your ­_kids - cuz you could be a better dad than my--" He sniffed hard. "--m-my dad ever was..."

A respectful silence passed.

"But Baby," Andrew began gently. "You aren't - weren't, I guess, I don't know, now - but you weren't built for that. Where are the babies - puppies - where are they supposed to--" He nuzzled Cody's ear. "Where were they supposed to come out from?"

"Me?" Cody answered at once, wrestling a free arm from Andrew's hug to wipe his eyes. "I don't - I don't know. I just - I just wanted to be a f-family with you since--" The final word swelled into a sobbing squeak, and he began to sob. "S-since y-you - r-rescued m-me--"

He collapsed into Andrew, and Andrew clutched him as though - as it was in the beginning, so it was now - his arms would not, could not fail, the skin and bone and fur of those arms able to shield this boy from the entire world, if need be.

A scientist, came the old refrain inside him, now joined: a scientist - a father.

As Cody cried as hard as Andrew had ever heard him, the new milk from his breast warm and clammy against Andrew's jacket, he felt Bligh draw near to him, and he looked up to see him with a concerned frown. It surprised him - perhaps it shouldn't have, but it did - that Bligh involved himself in what was essentially something exclusively between the two of them...but then, Andrew realized in a quick epiphany, this was no longer just he and Cody.

He thought no more of it - this was what polyamory was, what Bligh had envisioned, even if he did not know how to plan it, from the beginning - and he leaned, slowly and carefully so as not to disturb Cody, to kiss Bligh on the lips.

Bligh's frown shifted to a small smirk, and he rounded the two of them to put his arms around Cody also.

A moment passed - with Bligh's touch Cody seemed to calm down, by small increments, until his cries stopped, his shuddered breathing calmed.

"S-sorry..." he whispered wetly.

"Don't be," Andrew answered without hesitation. "Don't be, Baby--"

"I know it's weird, it's...wrong, m-maybe but - I want it, okay? I--" Andrew felt him take a long breath. "I - I want - to have your - you and Bligh - I want to have your puppies."

Bligh said nothing, but tittered softly , letting go of the boy to let he and Andrew have their space once more.

Andrew nodded, taking a hand to rub Cody's stomach, where a bare trickle of milk had soaked through, leaving a dark, ragged mark on his shirt.

"Maybe...you can," he acquiesced. "Maybe - maybe it's possible." He sighed. "But we can't think about that now. We just have to make sure you're alright - okay?"

He turned to Bligh, who nodded. "Can't have ya sick, Pup."

Cody nodded, sniffing hard again wiping his tears from his cheeks. "I...guess. And - th-thank you."

Bligh leaned down to give him a kiss on the cheek. "S'good, Pup."

In turn, and with a chuckle, Andrew scratched the back of Cody's neck - he could now feel that a small, building amount of milk had started to come from Cody's other top breast as well, and he took his hand, in unexpected instinct, as before, to caress it, feeling the warm liquid trickle out very slowly into his palm.

Andrew tried to guard his surprise, and his innate disappointment at being wrong in a theory - he knew, inhaling slowly with a smile he tried his best not to look forced, that Cody smelled different, stronger, sweeter, than before, and a nagging doubt at the back of his mind told him it was not merely because his olfactory nerves were now stronger and more developed...if he had been right about the hormone imbalance milk would not have erupted from an additional nipple...that, and the smell, and the vomiting, using this logic, could only mean...

He took a breath, surreptitiously wiping the milk off his palm into the pocket of his khakis, before smiling - the same encouraging smile, for Cody...and now, more than likely, for whatever dwelt, sleeping, growing, in Cody's belly. "Don't worry about it," he said, being absolutely literal even if Bligh and Cody could not guess it, "we love you, no matter what okay?"

Bligh nodded. "Yup - both of us."

Cody laughed - clear, bell-like, a chime to dispel the darkness that had cloaked him. "I - I love you guys too..."

Bligh looked to Andrew with a fang-filled grin - Andrew sniffed, stepping backward as he gave the boy a kiss on the forehead. "So - would you get in the backseat for me? Please? You can lay down, like I said..."

Cody seemed to think a moment, before his face burst into an impish smile. "Okay - but you hafta do something for me!"

Bligh tittered. "Uh oh!" he cackled. "That dun sound good--"

"W-well what do you--?"

Before he could finish, Cody thrust both of his hands underneath Andrew's hat, gripping both of his new ears - Andrew let out a yelp of surprise which was quickly silenced as Cody pulled him into a deep kiss. He relinquished his hold on Andrew's head and let out a euphoric laugh, this time grabbing his beloved by the waist to pin himself against the car.

"They're just like mine!" he exclaimed happily.

Andrew, who had become somewhat dizzy from the display, looked down at Cody - puzzled. "What...what are you..."

Cody grinned, showing off his fangs. "Your ears - just like mine," he whispered. "It means...it means we'll be okay - no matter what happens...cuz - we're the same. We're the same again."

He leaned up to kiss Andrew's cheek, just in time for Bligh to appear, leaning against the driver's side door with a bemused smirk, next to them.

Andrew looked to Bligh - then back to Cody. A laugh, self-conscious and happy, small at first, then rising into a liberated guffaw - at himself, at Florida, at the world - rang in his throat.

He said nothing - he did not need to. He dove his arms under Cody, pressing them against the wood-grain of the Grand Wagoneer that had brought him there, embracing the boy tightly as though, once more, against the rest of the world. Bligh came softly to join them, as he had done before, taking his arms, powerful and lean, to wrap them - the two of them, now the three of them - together. Andrew turned his head to kiss Bligh's cheek, his lips grazing the softness of his beard, before turning again and doing the same to Cody's nose.

They remained like this - affirmed, wordlessly, that the impossible could work - for several minutes, interrupted only by their own breathing and the interloping seabreeze from some few miles away.

Andrew was the first to stir, and Bligh withdrew his arms so that the three of them could separate - he nodded to Bligh first, then Cody, with a grin that could not have been without the two of them with him.

"Let's go home."