The Dogs: Litany - Episode IV
Bligh was glaring at Andrew - and Andrew felt it, he felt Bligh's eyes bore into him, and he kept his head facing the kitchen, watching Stephen root through his pantry like a raccoon, humming some deranged melody that Andrew suspected was a Smiths song, just to avoid seeing what he just knew was a glare of wordless outrage. The three of them stood by the doorway, having not moved since Stephen had greeted them, given Andrew a quick hug, waved at Bligh, and gone straight for the kitchen - all, as they watched, in floored silence. "The fuck, Drewseph, y'all ain't got candy?" Stephens head appeared out of the pantry with a cocked eyebrow. "You on a diet or something? Y'used to eat those little chocolates--" "If you were hungry brother, we coulda gone somewhere..." Andrew said, trying not to sound as helpless as he felt. "Look at him go," said Cody, impressed. "I've never seen -somebody tear into food like that before..." "Why the fuck he here?" Bligh demanded of Andrew in a low voice. "I--" Andrew shrugged, the sounds of his brother scavenging in the kitchen growing nigh-deafening under the watchful gaze of Bligh and Cody. "I dunno, I - guess I forgot to lock the door--" A rustling, as of plastic, announced Stephen's latest find in the pantry: "Oh dude, Cheez-Its!" "Ain't no damn excuse fer em bargin the fuck in," Bligh murmured. "He used ta do this shit back home til Pappy got tired of tellin em ta stop." "Y'all hung out that much?" "Do it matter, Drew?" Andrew shook his head, too irritated to deal with his own jealousy. "And he smells like - you smell that?" "He smell like shit," Bligh affirmed. "He's getting into my Cheez-Its," Cody protested. "Andy, can't you--?" "But no booze?!" came the cry from the kitchen - up went Stephen's head, his scrawny, shirtless body in the glow of the refrigerator, box of Cheez-Its in hand, with a grin that seemed too clever by half. "C'mon, Bligh, no Killian's?" "I dun drink cuz Drew dun want me too," he said gruffly. Stephen let the refrigerator door close behind him with a sour look, his cheeks swollen just slightly with crammed-in snack food. "And you just do whatever he says now?" "It's called respect," Bligh answered, now training his glare on the young intruder. "Not that yew'd know..." He shook his head briskly, as though he realized the absurdity of the situation."Steve why the fuck yew here? How the fuck--?" "Drewseph here had his résumé on Linkedin and it had his uh, his address on it." Andrew felt Bligh's glare at him turn near-murderous. He could not bear to look at him, to see how angry and upset Bligh would be at him for this unforgivable mistake - his ears struggled to flatten in the confines of his cap. "Fucking Hell," he whispered to himself. Stephen moved from behind the counter to cross into the living room, standing in front the television. "All I had to do was Google you--" "You can do that?" Cody wondered aloud. "Why now?" Andrew let out a long, exasperated sigh. "Why - why tonight?" "Because--" He jammed his hand in the box of Cheez-Its for another helping before Cody spoke up: "Hey - um - Stephen - could you...please not eat them all?" Stephen raised an eyebrow at him, as through impressed that Cody had been able to do what Bligh and Andrew had not - the box briefly bulged as he opened his palm to relinquish half a handful, and his hand came up to eat part of what he had taken, placing the box down on the glass and wood coffee table in front of him. "Thanks..." Cody said. "I really like them, and--" Stephen chortled. "Dude, me too! We should totally--" "Stephen, why did you come over tonight?" Andrew cut in peremptorily. His brother's good humor evaporated at once - his mouth became a firm line of annoyance. "Because, Drewseph, I was tired of you ignoring me." "Ignoring you?" "Ignoring me," Stephen answered back to mock Andrew's tone. "Do you know how many times I've texted about hanging out?" "Do you not understand when someone is busy?!" Andrew cried. Stephen shoved the remainder of his handful of Cheez-Its into his mouth and munched with a perturbed expression that would have been comical had not Andrew, knowing how close Stephen was to their bastion of truth and privacy in the world, been stricken so deeply in his heart by the notion that something terrible was about to happen. He felt his ears strain in his cap, his tail stock-still, but his hands remained by his side, giving away nothing. The silent standoff between the two brothers continued through every chew and swallow, until Stephen, finished with his purloined snack, took one final gulp, his tongue maneuvering to clean his teeth. His stare into Andrew was intent, but half-vacant, as if the thoughts inside his own head were too numerous to be focused on one at a time. "How the fuck you gonna be busy for a whole damn month?" Stephen demanded quietly. "I moved down here to be closer to you, then I get this kinda shit. I don't appreciate it, dude." "My life doesn't revolve around you," Andrew said frostily. "When I'm busy, Brother, I mean I'm busy." Stephen balked. "The fuck?!" Bligh snickered, a cruel, mocking sound. "We really gotta explain it ain't okay ta make yerself at home where yew ain't wanted?" "Bligh!" Cody admonished. Stephen looked to Andrew, aghast. "Are you just gonna sit there and let him say shit like that?" Andrew shot a glance of warning - Bligh had indeed gone too far, even as scared as Andrew was he could not let Bligh be as mean as he wanted to his own brother. Bligh looked to his boots - a brief grimace came to his face, and he exhaled harshly at his feet. "Aight - sorry..." "No no no," Stephen insisted, pointing. "Fuck you Bligh. That was really fucked up." Bligh suppressed a growl - he gritted his teeth, something he had always done since Andrew and Stephen had known him, but his fangs flashed, and a frightened chill spread over the back of Andrew's neck in the spare seconds he wondered if Stephen had noticed. He had not - but he seemed sad, actually hurt, by how Bligh was acting. "I - I thought - I thought you'd be stoked to see me--" "Yew did this shit at Pappy's n'he didn't like it I n'I still dun like it, why the fuck would I--?" "Don't lie me to," Stephen said with a laugh that sounded forced. "Does it really matter whose house I'm in? I know you, I know you both--" "But Brother you're in our house--" "Which I have every right to be in!" Stephen exclaimed, raising his arms. "I'm your brother! Don't that count for anything?" "That's not the point--" "Then what is the point, Drewseph? Why the Hell is me being in your house such a - such a big fucking problem? Andrew felt an outrage build inside him - a revolt, an anger at something far larger than himself, an impulse that overwhelmed him, that dwarfed his natural defenses, what had been built into subroutines for the past month. "You wanna see, Brother? You wanna fucking see why - why you - you in my house is such a problem?" Stephen's eyebrow flicked up and down. "What - what are you--?" Bligh must have sensed it, his tone was of dread surrender: "Drew - Drew, man don't--" And Cody too: "Hey, Andy, wait a sec--" But Andrew did not heed them. He removed his cap, the USF hat he had bought his freshman year, and he flung it over Stephen's head so that it sailed onto the couch, landing near-perfectly over the remote, having watched Bligh do the same many times. His ears - the ones that had, on that same couch, elongated and made into fine points with a bloom of blond fur - sprang forth, released from the prison of conformity. Stephen did not gasp - Bligh did, a sucking-in of air at the face of the unthinkable, but Stephen did not. He parted his lips, and he stared. It was though all sound, all time, all motion, had ceased, altogether - no one moved, no one spoke. Stephen's eyes, wide, remained on his brother's ears, in a wonder that had fallen from the peak of the initial shock - his breath through parted lips was imperceptible, as he took several steps forward, arm upraised, to grab one of the corners of one of the ears that Andrew had not been born with. Andrew, in turn, shut his eyes. He willed his heart - the heart that Stephen would soon know was not the heart that bled as he watched him, years ago, stare at the wall catatonic, glassy, and tearful, when Walker died - to be still, in vain begging the fear that had torn its talons into his very soul to stop. "Drewseph..." Stephen whispered as he withdrew his hand. Andrew opened his eyes to see Stephen's were full of a deep wonder, something he had not expected - gone was the vulpine mischievousness, gone was the cruelty and the apathy that had curled in the corners of Stephen's mouth since the last time Andrew had properly seen him, the day he left, years ago...his expression was as one who had just seen the birth of a star in deep space, so overwhelmed by the simple act that something so beautiful and abnormal could exist at all. His face moved - not quite a smile - as Andrew turned around to nod at Cody and Bligh, who both, Cody at once and Bligh hesitating, doffed their respective hats, their ears, the unmistakable mark of what they had become, springing free. Stephen took a step back - he was definitely smiling now, his eyes still wide with a nameless wonder he probably did not understand himself. "You...all--" "Yeah..." Andrew murmured, finding himself almost on the verge of tears, the ears that Stephen had been touching flattened in terror. "All of us - we - we three, we--" "Don't be scared--" Cody moved forward from in between the other two, smiling warmly at the interloper in his home. "Steve. Can I - can I call you that?" Andrew looked over Cody with a new curiosity - he had forgotten, having been his protector for so long, how at his core Cody was fearless, the years of street-living and homelessness having taught him that, in life, one ultimately has very little to lose. Stephen seemed amused at the boy - not truly a boy, a full year older than he was - and he flashed a flattered smile. "Please," he murmured. Cody nodded. "Steve - I like to give people nicknames." The flattered smile remained. "Me too..." came another murmur. "That's why Drewseph's Drewseph." Bligh moved to stand next to Andrew who had smiled, very well in spite of himself, at Stephen calling him Drewseph, catching his hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze - the fear was abating, if slowly, a slow stinging pain that Bligh's touch could only somewhat heal. "You're not scared, are you?" Cody asked Stephen with his warm smile. Stephen shook his head slowly. "No - not - at all, Dakota--" "Cody," corrected Cody, trying not to be offended. "--Dakota, no, I'm not scared, why - why would I be? You look - different but--" He tilted his head, and Andrew tried not to bristle as he saw what he was doing - he put his hand on Cody's face. He and Bligh shared a glance, and saw his best friend's ear falter in sudden concern. "Um - hi there?" Cody giggled, unsure. "What um - what are you--?" "Open your mouth?" Cody did as Stephen asked him - Stephen took a step back, folding his arms to meet where Walker's fang still hung on the necklace. "It's not just the ears," Stephen observed with a smile that was now more impressed. "Teeth too--" "Yeah, they're real," Cody said. "Makes chewing meat easier." "Really now..." Andrew sighed, a hot breath of anxiety. "They're not - they're not fake, or--" "I didn't think they were, honestly." He took another step back so that he could sit on the arm of the couch, next to his discarded shirt, beholding the three of them with such intent study it may as well have been divine revelation. "What's - what's weird is - y'all look familiar - and it's so weird how you - do..." All three of them were puzzled by the remark, but Cody was first to speak up: "Wait - how can we be familiar? You've never seen--" Stephen shook his head, closing his eyes as though trying, and failing, to recall the memory. "It's - I can't explain it. Maybe - uh - s-something I've seen somewhere, I dunno." "One o'my movies?" Bligh guessed with a small smirk, oddly at ease. "S'weird how made-up stuff sometimes gets real--" "A werewolf movie..." Cody pondered aloud. "None of the ones you've shown me," he said to Bligh with a smile - Bligh ruffled his hair with a smirk, Andrew smiling at the display. "Aww that's cute, y'all marathon movies together." Stephen rolled his eyes. "Giving me diabetes--" "Dun be jealous, now," Bligh said with a titter. "Trust me dude, I'm good," Stephen said, opening his eyes - his smile had a small curvature in the corner of his mouth, and it fleetingly occurred to Andrew, as well as he knew his brother, that he was hiding something. "So like--" He crossed his legs at his ankles, hunching down into the arm of the couch. "Is that - is that how it happened, though? Like - full moon or--?" "Duke changed me," Bligh said. "When I got down here, I changed them too." "Per - permanently?" Stephen hazarded. "Doesn't - doesn't go, like, back and forth, or--?" All three of them gave some variation of a nod. "I see. So - how--?" "S'contagious - one way. Ain't blood, ain't sneezin - nuthin like that." Andrew heard Bligh swallow hard. "Jest sex." "I let him change me first so we - so we could be together...all three of us," Cody finished - he smiled some. "I - I like being this way. I have to wear a hat, but - that's okay. We're all the same and I like it that way." Stephen gave a half-nod of acknowledgement to Cody before glancing back to Bligh, deeply askance. "Sex..." He said slowly. "Then how...did you - with Duke--?" A long, dreadful silence followed Stephen's question - Andrew watched as Bligh's face turned a bright pink, blotted by a grimace which meant he had come to an emotional impasse...their hands fell away as his ears went flat. Stephen began to smile - slowly, it crossed his face, warping his mouth, until it blossomed into a merciless grin of complete, cosmic epiphany. "Oh," he said with a flick of his eyebrow. "I always knew there was something - special about you - and that dog..." "He tried to pass it off like a monster attacked him," Andrew said with a mirthless sniff - Bligh's ears twitched, mortified. "Like Teen Wolf." "Yeah yeah, or American Werewolf In London, same damn thing - I mean Duke was huge but I wouldn't - um, exactly call him a monster - but then again..." He paused, eying Bligh with the same knowing grin. "He weren't no dog at all, was he?" "Stevie--" Andrew tried to interrupt. "That's why - that's why you wanted to ask about the dogs in the county..." His grin faded - a low, sinister chortle escaped him. "And if they could talk." All amusement left his face. "And now that's what y'all are - right? Talking - dogs? Because Duke was, and that's what he - he changed y'all into - talking dogs--" "I was always a dawg," Bligh interrupted. "A - wolf - werewolf - dawg, half-dawg - I - was always sumthin else, Stevie." He took a hand to stroke one of his ears. "This? This ain't no thang - jest - what I always was, man." Andrew felt his heart do an unnatural flutter - he looked to him with something almost like admiration, the previous feelings of having failed him, the crawling panic that had set in ever since he had given into the impulse to show Stephen his true self, melting away...he felt himself, despite all the latent bitterness, being proud of Bligh, not just as his lover but as someone he looked up to, who had accepted himself in ways that Andrew still hadn't. "I figured that," Stephen said. "You give off that vibe a lot - there's a reason not - not a lotta girls liked you in high school, with that whole - what did they used to call you?" "Wolfman," Andrew muttered. "Wolfman," Stephen repeated with a grin. "Duuude, does that take me back..." "Stevie he - Duke was..." Bligh's voice trailed off, as though mere words to describe what that magical creature meant to him would not be enough. "Don't act like he were jest a dawg, ya know damn good he weren't no plain ol animal." "So I heard," Stephen rejoined unkindly. "So I heard many - many times when we would chill at your place." The old jealousy Andrew had felt when Stephen had first told him they, Bligh and Stephen, had spent time together flared up again - he inwardly suppressed it, and it came out as a slight half-sigh. "Then dun judge me," Bligh whispered, his eyes glistened for a second, maybe more, with sudden tears - Andrew moved to put his arm around Bligh's waist, pulling them together. "Dun ya dare judge who I am--" Stephen's smile, meanwhile, had vanished, as he seemed to, at least for a moment, grow serious for Bligh: "I'd never - I know - pretty much better than you." Bligh seemed offended at the notion. "Beg pardon?" "You never believed me when he said he could talk," he said quietly. "But he - he could." Bligh did not yield. "Thought yew - could jest talk ta Walker." Stephen shook his head slowly. "No - Duke too. But you'd never believe that either--" A smile - for Stephen it was oddly genuine, strangely caring. "I only did it two, three times. Everything else was let's go, gonna follow Bligh, and Bligh knows what he's doing, and that kind of - stuff Walker would - kinda say, too..." His voice drifted off - a flicker of vulnerability, no more than a second, seemed to pass before he cleared his throat and spat on the carpet beneath him. "Brother," Andrew murmured, "can you not spit--" "I do what I want," Stephen shot back. "And I want Cheez-Its." "What--?" Bligh had a bare second to ask before Stephen cut him off. "Because I'm higher than a motherfucker, can't you tell?" "I - um--" Cody tried to speak up. "I didn't wanna say anything, but--" "See? This guy gets it!" Stephen gave a flippant little laugh. "So that's what I smelled..." Bligh murmured. "Wait--" Andrew took a step forward. "You crossed the bridge to get here stoned?" "Dude, what? No, I lit up in the parking lot - around the corner so you wouldn't see the--" "I dun care bout that," Bligh cut in impatiently. "I wanna know - what the Hell Duke - what he said, what he said ta yew." Andrew and Cody gave Bligh a measure of space, standing close together, Cody putting his arm around Andrew's waist to cuddle him where he stood. Stephen shrugged. "Y'all - never believed me--" "Naw, I believe yew," Bligh blurted - Andrew looked at him with sudden concern, faintly remembering the half-faith that he had put into his brother a month ago. His eyes had lit up, and nearly seemed to glimmer - the brilliant icy blue sparkled with a new passion. "I - I believe yew." "Yeah?" Bligh nodded rapidly - Stephen sat back, demure once more, the Delphic oracle he had always wanted to be. "Well - um - he..." Stephen paused, looking at Bligh, into him, as he seemed to try and remember. "...you were his best friend. Something about - um, he trusted you, for rescuing him, he thought of you like a - like a packmate - it was off-hand, yanno, we um - you were gonna take me to that old rundown church with the creek going through it, that one, and when you stopped to a take a piss he starts in with this - he just - Bligh's gonna show you where he found me, where my family's from - but my family's all gone and Bligh's my only family, that's why I love him so much--" His head was bobbing from side to side as he imitated Duke with a deeper voice, but he stopped as he probably noticed Bligh's change of expression, which Andrew, watching him, also saw: the sparkle in Bligh's eyes had turned into the gelid glimmer of fresh tears. "He - he said that?" "Yeah." Stephen cleared his throat, shifting some. "Makes sense, since - you found him alone, living in that - uh, old church that was, like, bout to collapse at any minute." "Then why ain't yew--" Bligh swallowed hard, his voice newly hoarse. "Y'ain't said nuthin bout that when he died--" "What good - would it do me - to tell you, that your dead dog could talk?" Bligh withdrew, his face becoming the too-familiar grimace again. "I...I guess..." Cody moved to give Bligh a tight hug, which the latter held him in, his face unchanged as buried it in the boy's hair. Andrew turned his head slowly from the other two, back to Stephen, letting a respectful, but tense, length pass, before beginning again: "How did - how did you understand him, Stephen?" Stephen stared at him for several seconds before blinking hard. "...what?" "Wow," Cody giggled, turning to smile at Stephen. "You are high." "Kinda." Andrew facepalmed. "God dammit, Stephen..." "Shit," Bligh hissed, separating from Cody to regard Stephen skeptically. "Yew serious?" "Brother--" Andrew tried to cut in. "Wha - y-yeah?" Stephen looked to the three before him. "What - what?" "How the fuck I know yew didn't fuck up yer head drinkin and smokin all the damn time? Went crazy, thinkin yew could talk ta damn dawgs?!' Stephen tilted his head back. "Oh nice, popcorn ceiling," he said softly to himself. "Uh - dude - dude." His head came down, tilted askance. "Who the fuck taught me how to smoke." Andrew and Cody turned their heads to Bligh who looked back at them with a sheepish half-smirk. "Uh...th-that--" "Would be you," Stephen finished for him. "Same thing with not wearing shirts, but anyway - for the last time damn time, I'm telling the truth." Bligh seemed reluctantly satisfied. "Fine..." "You smoke weed?" Andrew asked with a raised eyebrow. Bligh nodded, tittering nervously. "Y-yeah, man, didn't ya know?" "I--" Andrew thought a moment. "...wait. Yes, I did. You just - haven't done it here..." "You get high?" Cody asked. "Why does this surprise anybody..." Stephen groaned quietly. "Yeah, Pup, I--" "Pup?!" Stephen's mouth hung agape before he erupted into raucous laughter - Cody blushed and Bligh frowned indignantly at Stephen's display. "Fucking stop being so cute, give me some insulin, I'm going--" "Stop it Stephen," Andrew ordered. "Now focus--" Stephen scoffed. "This again?" "Again - again with what?" Cody said. "My brother keeps telling me to focus." "Yes, god dammit, now focus!" The three others looked at him in unguarded surprise at the force of the last word. Andrew sighed irritably, feeling his ears flatten. "Brother - I need to know. How can you talk to the dogs? As in - do you--" Stephen shrugged, almost looking helpless. "I - I dunno! It just - started - I could hear - uh--" He paused, and a passing sadness came over him that left as soon as it came. "Hear - uh - Walker...and understand him, yanno? Didn't I - didn't I tell you? Other dogs they don't - sound the same like Walker did like - Duke - did..." "When?" Andrew pressed. A long pause followed Andrew's question - Stephen seemed to swallow back some new emotion before he sighed, rolling his eyes away, to the television behind him. "...always." As he said it - quietly, a half-whisper that doubled as mere breath, mere exhalation - Andrew came to a sudden epiphany. "Oh," he said. "Oh - oh that's - that's why--" "Why I didn't talk to anybody until I was - nine? Whatever - whenever it was - it, um - yeah, it was too hard to differentiate between - how - Walker talked, and how Ma talked, and Pa..." He paused. "And you." "I never knew..." Andrew said in astonishment. Stephen turned back to his brother with an enigmatic smile. "You'd never believe me," he repeated. The smile faded some. "Acquiring - um, language skills is some serious shit. You, uh - you remember they took to me to a specialist in Charleston a couple of times--?" "What? What - no, I thought Pa just took you because he wanted you to see--" "To see what?" Stephen chortled incredulously. "Really? It's Charleston, homie. What the fuck is there to see?" "I dunno man, they got--" "Not now, Bligh..." Andrew said out of the corner of his mouth. "Nah, dude - specialist. Speech therapist." Stephen shrugged. "Didn't do much good at all. I only felt right talking to dogs like - like Walker, which was pointless because I talked to them both, uh, people and dogs the - the same way. But I still - I felt...stupid." "Stupid?" Cody repeated. "Like you - could talk to dogs better?" Stephen smiled - for just a moment, genuinely warm. "Y'ain't as dumb as you look, boy." "I'm - not really a boy?" Cody ventured. "I'm - I'm nineteen." "You're my age?" Stephen asked with a raised eyebrow. Cody nodded. "Yeah, I'll be twenty next March." Stephen studied Cody for a moment. "Pisces," he pronounced. "Y-yeah!" Cody giggled. "How did you--?" "Just a guess," Stephen said, the same fleeting warmth returning. "Focus, Brother," Andrew ordered. Stephen rolled his eyes, fidgeting on the arm of the couch. "You're such a killjoy." "I'm just trying to get to the bottom of this." "Is it science-time with Dr. Andrew again?" Stephen said with a sarcastic frown. Andrew tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at his brother to let him know he was about to cross a line - Stephen gave his demure little shrug to hide from it. "Anyway - as I was saying - dogs like - Walker, and Duke...they...the way they would, like, whine and bark and howl - like, to me, to my ear, it would, um - it would come across as, like, um - what's the word - phonemes, yeah--" "Language?" Andrew asked, floored. Stephen nodded. "Mmmhmm. And they spoke the same language - they sounded different, they had different voices, but - like - you know, you know how, when you hear like a Mexican talk? And they're speaking Spanish but you can still understand them because - um, like, their words - you can translate them into your own - uh, into English?" Andrew chuckled to himself as he remembered the two Mexicans arguing at the gas station. "Yeah - yeah I do." Another nod from Stephen. "It's like that that. And - I didn't tell anybody that I - um - preferred talking to dogs...at first." Andrew saw him grasp Walker's tooth again. "Then after I did, they called me crazy." He shrugged once more - Andrew cleared his throat uncomfortably, remembering he had, before, used the same word to describe Stephen to Bligh and Cody. "And then...right before, um, I entered junior high - it just - came natural to me. I could talk to humans and not feel - stupid, like I said." "What changed?" Andrew asked. "No clue." He smiled - leaning back, demure and unphased even with all the bizarre displays of emotion that had taken place. "But ever since I was a little boy, Brother - Bligh, Dakota - I could talk to dogs." The other three shared a quick, significant glance before Andrew withdrew. "I see..." He cleared his throat. "I - I had no idea." "Which reminds me - hey, Bligh--" Stephen tilted his head at him. "Yeah?" "You still - you own that house, don't you? You never told me - what happened to it, if he left you it, yanno..." "Gus?" Bligh repeated back. "Oh--" and then, with a quick nod: "I - y-yeah, P-Pappy he left it--" For a half-second his face seemed to screw up, his ears going completely flat, and Stephen retreated. "I see - I see - sorry." "Who's Gus?" Cody whispered to Andrew. "Pappy - his grandpa, remember?" "Oh - oh yeah..." Bligh smirked at Stephen - a half-smile of familiarity that Andrew, and Cody also he suspected, immediately recognized. "Ain't - ain't no thang--" The gravity of the situation crept back in as Andrew swallowed hard and moved in front of the other two. "Stephen," he cut in, his voice grave. "You can't - you can't tell anyone about us - or about Walker, or Duke - nothing, understand? Not a soul." "Seriously, man," Bligh added, clearing his throat. "We're - trustin yew with this. If yew ever cared bout yer brother--" "Okay just stop." Stephen held up his hands. "Don't jump on my ass for something I didn't do, first off, second off, why the fuck would I tell anyone?" Andrew and Bligh looked at each other - Andrew shrugged, Bligh let out a reluctant sigh. "Because...yew tell anybody it's gonna fuck up a lotta shit, man." "Obviously," Stephen answered. "Like - super obviously - but oh, wait, that's not a fucking reason, is it? So yeah - why would I--?" He scanned the three of them before leaning back some, laughing softly and sarcastically as the answer came to him. "Y'all...y'all don't trust me." Andre shook his head. "It ain't that, Stevie, it's--" "Don't Stevie me, fucker - you always Stevie me when--" "I trust you." "Heeey!" exclaimed Stephen in triumph. Andrew and Bligh looked in surprise as Cody came from between them to sit behind him on the couch, putting back on his toboggan which he had been holding since he had taken it off. "Pup, what--?" "I said I trust him," Cody repeated. Stephen turned to his unexpected new ally with a broad, almost manic grin, poking him in the shoulder. "Dakota! I knew you were an alright guy!" "Uh, thanks," Cody giggled. "But could you call me--" "Okay, both of you, stop." Andrew gritted his teeth. "Baby c'mon, I'm trying to explain to him--" "I know he just - rolled up in here like he owned the place and, yeah, that was a little..." His frowned at Stephen, his ears briefly flattening - Stephen smiled demurely with a little shrug. "A little weird, but--" He turned back to Andrew. "You were the one who said we should trust him, remember?" Stephen groaned again. "Oh shit, please don't tell me y'all had a family meeting about me--" "After I - after I c-called you, y-yeah--" Andrew cleared his throat to steady his nerve. "I mean - something, uh, Bligh brought up, um--" He glanced to Bligh who nodded. "If they ever found out we aren't - exactly human anymore--" "Who is they?" Stephen asked with a sarcastic chortle. "What, we gonna have Agent Mulder up in this bitch?" Andrew wanted to roll his eyes, but the slope was just slippery enough for him to jump right off of: "Yes - dude, yes!" "This is serious shit, man," Bligh added. "Y'understand that, right?" Stephen opened his mouth to make a snide remark of some sort, but a loud buzz from his shorts interrupted him. He made a strange, startled noise - "Ayah?" - and dug into his pocket to obtain his phone. "Oh Hell yeah, I gotta snap!" Bligh did not bothering stifling his growl this time: "What the fuck are yew--?" "Hold up, hold up," Stephen answered impatiently - he looked over his shoulder with a cunning, friendly smile. "Hey Dakota c'mere, put your hat back on I wanna so something." "Uh - okay, but could you please call me--" "Selfie time!" Andrew cringed, his ears partway to flattening - Bligh let out another growl, softer this time. "Yer fuckin brother..." he hissed at Andrew. Cody suppressed a sheepish laugh as Stephen shut one eye and opened his mouth - a cartoonish rictus. The phone made a loud click to indicate the picture had been taken - Cody and Stephen's heads came together to appraise it. "Oh I look okay," Cody said. "Fuck that shit, you look hot," Stephen replied. Cody blushed, bashful. "N-no I don't...cut it out." "Hey Drewseph, tell your boyfriend to take a compliment." He looked to Andrew, who shook his head disapprovingly, then to Bligh. "Other boyfriend - or - whatever - anyway. God damn that's a good picture! Gonna caption this - what should I caption this--?" "Caption it?" Stephen raised an eyebrow at Cody. "Y'ever use Snapchat?" Cody shook his head. "Nope. I don't have a smartphone." Stephen's mouth fell open. "You serious?" "I didn't want one!" Cody said with a giggle. "I just needed something to call work and text Andy--" Stephen stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Oh. Honey." He leaned forward. "There is so much I need to show you." Cody laughed at him, blushing some. "R-Really now?" Bligh sniffed, having watched the back and forth between the two boys with amusement - evidently seeing Cody smile, especially, had brightened his mood. "Oh dun get em started on that stuff too..." Stephen glanced to Andrew and Bligh. "Um - y'all been standing there awhile. Why don't y'all sit down?" "We're good," Andrew answered. "Whatever." With a shrug, Stephen looked back to his phone. "Right - yeah, gonna caption this - hanging with my brother's boyfriend, he's cute as fuck--" Cody let out a loud, nervous giggle. "Wh-what? Don't say that, geez!" "Too late!" Stephen exclaimed. "Who are you sending that to, Brother?" "The prime minister of the people's republic none of your fucking business." "Excuse me?" Andrew said. He sneered with an unkind chortle, eyes never leaving his phone, as Cody, behind him, unsuccessfully stifled a sudden laugh - encouraged, Stephen's sneer was replaced with a smile.
"I'm sending it to my roomie's girlfriend, why, who cares?" "My hat's on, Andy," Cody said. "And my mouth was closed--" "Wait, what?" Stephen's head shot to him, eyebrow raised. Cody was patient with him: "Well if anyone sees our - ears, remember, we--" "Why do you think I told you to put your hat on?" Stephen said with a small chortle - his head jerked back to Andrew and Bligh, who had let the conversation play out as it may. "Do y'all - y'all really not trust me?" Andrew did not answer at first - he glanced to Cody, nodding at him. "You trust him?" Cody nodded. "Yeah, yeah I really do." "Then so do I," said Andrew, the confidence in his voice surprisingly not forced. He smiled at his brother. "You can, uh - you can come anytime you want to." Stephen, whose thumbs were busy twiddling sending what Andrew presumed to be distracted text-snaps, still, looked up a smile that was self-satisfied and triumphant. "Well, yeah," Stephen answered. "That's why I came over here in the first damn place - we're family, dude!" Andrew yielded to the inevitable. "I...I know..." "I want you to show me how to Snap...uh--" Cody leaned over Stephen's shoulder. "That." "Snapchat?" "Yeah." "Uh, yeah! Okay, well lemme just--" Andrew turned to Bligh as Cody watched Stephen toy with his touchscreen. "Hey - hey, are you okay?" Bligh's face revealed nothing - he shrugged lightly, a small sigh coming out of his nose. "Dun I usually ask yew that?" Andrew sniffed. "Guess it's my turn. Bligh shrugged again. "I - I guess, man. Hearin him talk bout Duke, though..." "I know, dude, I know--" "S'weird though, man, he didn't really get ta see Duke much, usually--" "Oh whatever," Stephen interrupted, apparently having overheard them. "Motherfucker - okay, like, whenever we'd hang out, oh can Duke come too, like, fucking asking my permission if the dog can hang out." Cody giggled at the idea, which with his tone Stephen had made all the more absurd - it egged Stephen on to complete the image: "Like, how are you kidding, dude? Duke was there all the time - shit I felt like the fucking dog was the third one in the relationship." "Uh?" was the noise Cody made at the final word. "Relationship?" asked Andrew, near-automatically - something about the word made him deeply uncomfortable, an immediate eerie feeling that pressed against him clammily. Stephen looked up from his phone, his facial expression going from confused to indignant. At once, Cody, Andrew, and Stephen all focused their eyes on Bligh, who shuffled where he stood in obvious discomfort. "Oh, fuck," Stephen muttered. "You mean you didn't tell them?" "Tell us what?" Cody rose from the couch and moved back to stand near Bligh, evidently concerned at his hardened, discomfited gaze down at the floor. "Yeah..." Andrew agreed. "Tell us what?" Yet another unkind chortle from Stephen as he re-pocketed his phone: "Really! Fuck - guess it's up to me, but - me and Mr. Bigdick dated for a week after you moved." Cody's mouth fell open - Andrew felt his blood run cold with immediate, abject horror. "Bl-Bligh--" he stammered. "Don't - are you--?" Shutting his eyes tightly, Bligh managed a single, firm nod of affirmation. "He right," he grunted. Cody made a series of confused noises, half-words, trying to make sense of what he was hearing - Andrew studied him, studied every part of him in this intolerable, oppressive awkwardness that now saturated them all, looking for a sign, something, anything, why Bligh would do such a thing and never tell him, ever. "Why the fuck--" Bligh managed, before looking away and exhaling a raw, irritated breath at Stephen. "Why would yew ever--" "Wait..." said Cody, finally gathering his thoughts. "Wait - hey, Steve, are you saying you--?" "Yep." Stephen rose from the couch, grabbing his discarded shirt from behind him, with a delighted little smile. "Bligh made a man out of me." Andrew's eyes slid slowly in their sockets back to Bligh, whose bright pink of morbid embarrassment had returned. The pall that had been cast over the whole room choked him - he wanted to say something, to demand something of Bligh, for the secret held in the intervening years, but cogent words failed him, and instead all he could do was stare at him...Bligh, the man, the dog, he had promised his life to, who had taken his brother's virginity, and thus by a transitive property lost his virginity to his brother, in turn. He paused - the tension in the air had become palpable, like a passing shower when the clouds grew too heavy in their aimless paths over Pinellas County. He looked over his shoulder to see his older brother, silently seething, in a reverse of how they had started - with Andrew's eyes boring into Bligh. "Hold on..." Stephen went on, and then with a sarcastic laugh. "Don't tell me he didn't--" A grunt of dissent came from Bligh as his ear fluttered up and down like a dying butterfly, and he grabbed it irritably to arrest it. "That - that was s'posed ta be atween us, dammit--" Stephen sneered. "All those months of being your boyfriend?" he said. "Just between us? Just between us?" "Boyfriend?" Andrew mouthed. "What?!" Cody cried. "Is this seriously happening?" Stephen denounced them with his morbid sarcasm. "Did you know hear when I said dated?" Andrew was still utterly aghast. "But - but--" "Fuck Bligh, I would think Drewseph here - Dakota too - they, they shoulda known - now that y'all married and shit." "You lied to me?" It was barely a question, how soft, nigh-inaudible, had Andrew asked it. "How could--?" "It was a mistake," Bligh grunted again. "A fuckin--" "I'm a mistake?!" Stephen rejoined angrily. "Me. I'm a fucking mistake." His glare at Bligh attempted to be full of anger, of real rage, but it succeeded only in betraying a kind of hurt that Andrew had only seen in his brother once or twice - in fresh horror, Andrew snapped his head to him as Stephen slid off the couch, to the carpet, his eyes set into a deadly glare of defiant outrage. "Fuck you. Like really, just the Hell with you." Bligh's face was a constant shade of pink, but it gave away nothing, it was a stoic dam of emotion that was mere seconds, bare breaths, from bursting - Andrew could see it, and it fueled in him a burning, smoldering fire of confliction, not knowing whether to care for him when he was this deep in emotional turmoil, or still feel betrayed, deeply betrayed, down into his heart. "Oh my god..." Cody murmured, seeming unable to deal with the immediate sucked-out feeling in the room. "And it wasn't a lie, Brother," Stephen was finishing, throwing a glance to Andrew. "A lie - a lie means - it means a falsehood, like he told you, yanno, something not true." He whipped his shirt over his shoulder, folding his arms defiantly. "But Mr. Bigdick here--" "Don't fuckin call me that." Bligh shoved his hat back on, hanging his head. "...but Mr. Bigdick here actually did something - something way - way more fucked up. He hid it." He let a second pass before shuffling back into his Pumas. "From you. Because apparently I'm a fucking mistake." Andrew's blood still ran cold in his veins - his ears were flat and had stayed that way from the time that Stephen had uttered the word relationship. "I'm leaving," Stephen said, his voice strangely hollow, one hand on his shirt to ensure it did not fall off behind him. "I can't - I can't fucking deal with that dude, I'm sorry, not right not fucking now." His shoes on, his phone pocketed, his shirt secure, Stephen made for the door. "If you're - if you're worried about me telling anybody I still ain't--" He elbowed past Andrew and Bligh, and as he made his final approach, he looked over his shoulder to address the three of them. "Because I love y'all - all of y'all and I don't consider y'all mistakes as much - as - as much as..." He didn't, perhaps couldn't, finish the sentence. He stared at Bligh - his eyes, already glassy from being eye, seemed to grow liquescent with new tears, but without another word, he opened the door and slipped out, the door slamming behind him. The sound barely had time to resonate: "Fuck, dude." Loud enough that all three heard Stephen say it from outside the door. Andrew kept his gaze on that closed door, kept it locked there, never moving, almost never blinking, because he wouldn't - he couldn't, like his brother - look back at Bligh. The silence gave no answers, and Andrew was too far gone, thrown into a quiet frenzy of agitation, to break it. "Andy..." Cody said. "I'm - I'm sorry, Andy, I--" "That's why - Bligh - that's why..." Andrew said, deep in distraction. "That's why - you didn't want him to come..." Bligh's words were low mumbles directed at nothing: "Drew, man, I--" "That's why," Andrew continued, "you thought we couldn't trust him. And maybe we still can't - maybe he does drink too much but - fuck, Bligh - you were so - obsessed - with getting me you'd even - not tell me something this important...?" His eyes were focused squarely on the door - the plain eggshell-white paint, the brushstrokes, all as if they were the most interesting things in the world. "I just missed yew so bad, man--" he heard Bligh say. "I just wanted - I - man listen, I's so scared yew'd - anything - would ruin it--" Bligh's word were becoming struggles, fragments, and they struck Andrew with revulsion - he let out a blast of hot air against the wood of the door. "I need to talk a walk--" he murmured, making a quick, retreating to the couch where he retrieved his USF hat. "Man, Drew dun--" "I just need to take a walk, dude," Andrew repeated, coming back to the door, all the while avoiding Bligh and Cody's eye contact. "Just leave the chicken - put some - wrap over the chicken, I'll - I'll fix it some other time--" "Drew..." "Andy - Andy, hey, wait--" Cody protested, vainly, the last word barely registering. "I'll see y'all," Andrew-near whispered, his eyes still focused on the door, tail still, ears flat. He grabbed the knob and turned it, facing forward, and slid out the door, unwilling to look at Bligh behind him, and so neither could see the other had both developed a single tear from each of their eyes.