{"sf1_id":839271,"sf2_id":null,"title":"The Dogs: Litany - The World Enslaved In An Unlimited Moment","author":"Aux Chiens","words":11898,"posted_at":"2015-03-27T07:04:00.000Z","tags":["Anal","Character Development","FAMILY","Gay Relationships","Human","Kissing","M/M","Male","Male Pregnancy","Oral","Plot Development","Secrets","Story Progression","Transformation","comfort","smoking"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/839271-the-dogs-litany-the-world-enslaved-in-an-unlimited-moment","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/view/839271","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=839271\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"","content":"            Stephen's eyes fluttered open, he lurched\nforward - on the edge of a couch, cloth, against his skin, and the pinching of\na bunched up shirt underneath him, where\nthe fuck was he, how the fuck did he\nget here?\n            His head seemed to almost\ntry to detach itself from his body - he threw a hand to his temple, then one to\nhis chest, feeling his heart palpitate, making his sternum near-vibrate, an\nuncomfortable pulsing knell that signified he drank too much, familiar with,\nbut never used to. His bladder, swollen, screamed at him, the full trifecta of\nwaking up with a hangover.\n            He sucked in a breath, and\nsat there, in the darkness, the edge of the couch - whose couch? \n            His eyes darted - living\nroom, small, not much on the walls, wait, a big television, Wii underneath it,\nDVR, 1:18 in neon-blue digital\nnumbers.\n            Then he remembered.\n            There was a sweeping blur\nof memories - reaching the apartment after getting wasted in the hot tub,\nhearing Bligh and his brother argue, words that he had been too far gone to\nregister cogently. And then Dakota - no, Cody, that was what he wanted to be called - there\nwas Cody, holding him, being firm and patient as he propped him up on the couch\nas he got sleepy, so sleepy...\n            He must have passed out. \n            \"O-oh fuck - n-no, not like this...\" he\nmurmured, rising, stumbling, near-falling, righting himself just at the precise\nmoment to avoid faceplanting onto the carpet. He felt a rush of pain to his\nhead, and he buried it, again, in a free hand. \"Aww f-fuck--\" \n            \"So yer finally\nup.\"\n            Stephen jerked with a start\nat the source of the words - behind him, draped in shadow in the open\nsliding-door of the patio, was Bligh, a purplish ghost framed against the\nyellow-orange lights of the parking lot beyond him.\n            His hat was on, his long\nhair a cascade of crow's feathers down his neck, liquid in the half-darkness -\nthe only illumination in his face was the ember of the cherry of his cigarette,\nstuck in the corner of his mouth.\n            \"H-hey! Jesus Bligh,\nyou sca--\"\n            \"Keep yer voice\ndown.\"\n            Stephen sighed.\n\"S-sorry--\"\n            \"Been waitin fer ya ta\nwake up - ya were out cold, Drew n'Cody's gone ta bed.\"\n            He wanted to say something\nin response, but found a new, gripping shortness of breath - and an unwelcome\nqueasiness in his stomach. \n            \"Uh - uh--\"\n            He saw Bligh's arm come up,\npointing. \"Bathroom's right yonder. Dun ya dare wake em if ya gotta throw\nup.\"\n            The last words were distant\nin Stephen's ears as he paced quickly to the bedroom door, opening it with as\nmuch carefulness as he could muster before actually panicking...he slipped\ninside, a few steps later he was in the bathroom, Dakota - Cody - and his brother, as Bligh had said they would be, sound\nasleep, spooning together in the bed, somewhere behind him. \n            On his knees Stephen went,\ngripping the toilet, to await the awful moment when his stomach would revolt\nagainst him, the price he paid, awful and exacting, for what he was sure\neveryone else would call addiction -\nhe never thought about it too much or too hard, he was only eighteen, he hadn't\nlearned things like how to take back words and labels and be himself, no, he\njust drank too much because it felt good and it made him forget the\nmeat-puppetry of living the life he had been cursed with.\n            The bathroom tile chilled\nhis skin despite the pleasant ambient temperature outside - chilled the skin of\nhis shins and feet and knees, the porcelain, too, chilled his arms.\n            Well, fuck all this - he\nwas probably an alcoholic. Drewseph\nwas probably right to shepherd him into his house...to let him vomit in his\ntoilet... \n            ...but he didn't. Nothing\ncame.\n            The urge to throw up faded\n- an ebbing wave.\n            It was closing in on\nhalf-past one in the morning on a Monday, and Stephen Lightfoot's face was\nslowly emerging from an open toilet seat.\n            Several long, deep breaths\nfollowed - he'd done worse, before, he'd done much worse, this was actually an improvement, this was actually\nokay, if he could drink like he usually did and not make a complete cock out of himself in front of the people who\nhad practically raised him and their polyamorous third. \n            He stood up, he undid the\nbelt his brother had given him and pulled down the shorts his brother had also\ngiven him, and let loose a torrent of dehydrated urine that gave off the\ntelltale reek of acrid butter.\n            Several moments went by\nbefore his bladder was completely emptied - all the while his head pounding\nunmerciful, again, not as bad as some nights, but still wretched, still\nunrelenting.\n            The last droplets of urine\nfell into the toilet-water, and he blinked, in the darkness of the bathroom -\nhis hand closed around his penis with a faint frown.\n            He would have to go out\nthere, back into his brother's room where he and Dako--Cody slept...all three of them slept, he suspected. \n            Stephen was different from\nthem, now - he had no tail, no doggy-ears, there was a faint nag that he didn't\nbelong here, this was their life, their polyamory, he was intruding, he was\njust the little brother, the stunted genius little brother who drank too much\nand was an asshole to people so that he could defend himself against something they could never understand...he didn't\ndeserve anything, especially not them.\n            A deep sigh - no, fuck off with those intrusive thoughts.    Drewseph loved him, that stupid, irrational love\nencoded into him because they shared DNA, even if that DNA was, now, altered,\nmutated, mutating, maybe, still, as he stood there alone in the dark.\n            If he could just - if he\ncould just stop his own regret at having hurt Bligh and having forcibly\nseparated them years ago, maybe...maybe he could feel normal here, maybe he could\nfeel welcome.\n            But it never stopped - he\ngave up Bligh for Drewseph, he surrendered him as he surrendered nothing else,\nhe always got his way, his Pa had seen to that and as soon as he was old enough\nhe, Stephen, had seen to that also.\n            The only thing he ever lost\nwas Bligh. And if he could get over that, his own regret...\n            His own regret - his own attraction...\n            Drewseph did not know - he knew\nthe gist of it, the minimum, he had guessed the passion and the pain but he did\nnot know the abyssal depths which he and Bligh had treaded together. \n            Stephen's memories of he\nand Bligh's relationship always made him flush - they were uncomfortable memories,\nlike an exhausting dream that lasts too long, making one more tired instead of\nrested. \n            He was sixteen and Bligh was\ntwenty, it was probably illegal but the notion of consent was laughable - Stephen initiated it, Stephen wanted it,\nand at all times Stephen knew what he was doing.\n            He would ride Bligh so hard\nand so often he'd spend embarrassing amounts of time on the toilet shitting out\nwhat Bligh had given him - sucked him off so much he'd get stomachaches. And\nthen, playfully enough to mask the morbidity of his condition, he kept coming\nback. His belly would be gummed up with Bligh's cum and Bligh would enjoy the\nvery notion that Stephen was addicted to it, being the bitch in the bedroom\nthat he never really evolved from.\n            Every part of his body Bligh\nannexed: mouth - stomach - anus, driven by the irresistible notion of\ndependence, dominance, giving orders and having them carried out, what got\nBligh off harder than anything else. They'd be watching a movie when Stephen's\nparents were out of town and he'd feel himself getting antsy, ornery for\nanother dose of his dick, too big for its own good.\n            They were both complicit in\nthis carnival of horrors that lasted seven long liquid-stained months. Dirty,\nsticky, filthy sex. Perverted, debauched sex. The stuff animals do - and now Bligh was an actual animal, the\nirony could not have been more theatrical.\n            But he, Stephen, it was he, of\nall people who stopped it, who broke Bligh's heart, because he knew, as it\nbothered him more and more - back then, and now here in the present - he was\nintruding on something that did not belong to him.\n            Bligh was Drewseph's, Drewseph\nwas Bligh's. Bligh deserved Drewseph - not him, not Stephen. As much as Bligh\nhad been nearly a father to him, he and Drewseph both raising them as a son,\nalmost, they could not be together as his own brother and Bligh needed to be\ntogether.\n            Stephen was Bligh's outlet for\nunquenched sexuality, a balm to ease the interminable loneliness, even when he\nwas mere substitute for the flesh Bligh craved but could not taste. \n            It bothered Stephen - it\nbothered him so much it ate at him and ate him, and at last he yielded to it,\none night when they met outside Bligh and Pappy's house and Stephen had leaned\nagainst the grill of Bligh's truck and, the entire time, could not bear to look\nhim in the eye...\n            As much and as delicious as\nwhat they had was and indeed could have been, it was not to be. And things were\nnever the same afterward - never. \n            It was little wonder indeed\nwhy Bligh had not wanted to see him and said he did not trust him, how he had\nchanged from his grandfather's funeral, when last Stephen saw him, only two\nmonths ago...the hurt was refreshed by his presence, the memory of them together\na lethal threat to what he really wanted, really needed - Drewseph.\n            But then, this, all of this\n- back came the shorts, back came the belt - was because his penis was still\nhuman, the average healthy size, circumcised, everything about him, unlike\nDrewseph and Bligh and Cody too, was...\n            He paused as pressed his\npalm to the bathroom door. \n            \"...human...\" he\nwhispered to himself, finishing the thought outloud.\n            That wasn't true - and\nStephen had to tell them, tell all three of them, the truth. He didn't want to\n- the words wouldn't come to him at the hot tub like they needed to, so he\ndidn't tell Drewseph, not yet. \n            Maybe Bligh first - or\nCody...\n            The bathroom door was\nopened, slowly, gently, to keep at a minimum the requisite squeaks, and he\nslipped out, just as he slipped in. \n            He did not tarry in the\nroom, he did not look back to his brother asleep under the covers wrapped in\nthat angelic wunderkind he had plucked off the street - back he went to the\nliving room, rounding the corner to the kitchen, stuck his head under the\nspigot and let loose some cold water.\n            He drank and drank until he\nfelt bloated with it, water, the universal solvent, he was in desperate need of\nhydration and he did not care how much it took until he felt well again...at last\nhe stopped, turned off the water, wiped his mouth with his bare arm and took a\nstep to slouch back against the oven.\n            His head hung with a series\nof final breaths, feeling the hangover pain in his temples carry on apace - he\ncould still feel his heart beat too fast, but it was finally slowing down...only\nto reaccelerate as he heard a familiar voice, once more:\n            \"Ya didn't\nflush.\"\n            Again with the upward\nhead-jerk - Stephen let out a hot, exasperated sigh as he saw Bligh's inky form\nnear him.\n            \"I didn't - need to,\nand why the fuck do you keep sneaking\nup on me?\"\n            Bligh made a noise, faint,\nthat queer little laugh. \"Yer brother said that too...\"\n            \"Then maybe - you\noughta quit doing it!\" Stephen answered irritably.\n            \"How bout yew - come\non out ere n'join me, Stevie. Have a smoke. We can talk some.\"\n            Stephen, well in spite of\nhimself, felt uneasy at the idea...the very mention put him on edge, made worse,\nfar worse, that he could not properly see Bligh in the dark of the living room,\nlike Bligh was a ghost, and this house was haunted.\n            \"That - gotta tell ya,\nBligh, that sounds, uh - a little ominous.\"\n            \"Do what now?\"\n            \"It sounds bad,\" Stephen went on, rolling his\neyes. \"Really? You don't know what ominous\nmeans?\"\n            \"I know what it means--\" There was a\nfaint, gliding shift, and Stephen guessed Bligh had put his hands in his jeans,\na defensive gesture. \"I jest dun get what yew meant by it.\"\n            \"I'm still--\" \n            Stephen held on to the\nwords, kept them in his mouth, curled them back with his tongue, he wanted to\nquell this anxiety, this creeping sexual jealousy, this growing existential\nshockwave.\n            \"Are we - are we\nokay?\"\n            \"Yeah man - I'm past\nit. We jest gotta - know where we're at, yanno?\"\n            \"Yeah,\" Stephen\nagreed, more honest than he was used to being. \"Yeah - we do.\"\n            \"C'mon out,\"\nBligh said again. \"I got some Reds.\"\n            \"Alright,\" Stephen\nsaid with a small nod. \"My shoes still out there?\"\n            \"Yup.\"\n            \"Okay.\"\n            He watched Bligh - a\nphantom gliding across the living room - pace away to the patio. He waited a\nmoment, trying to gather himself, trying to persuade himself that this was\nfine, that Bligh's dashed-off answer was something he actually meant...\n            ...he hated being sober. If\nhe was drunk he could attack, deflect, but now he was sober - hungover, the worst kind of sober.\n            He moved, slowly, out of\nthe kitchen, following Bligh's path, picking up and putting on the shirt that\nhe had been sleeping on, cold in places where he had dried himself off at the\nhot tub.\n            Normally he would go\nshirtless - in imitation, he knew, when he thought back on it, of seeing Bligh\ndo the same, year after year. But now was not the time for that - he was sober,\nvulnerable, this cotton shirt would be the only armor he could afford.\n            Still, he hesitated before\ncoming to the doorway of the patio. \n            \"Why yew waitin,\nboy?\" came Bligh's voice into his right ear, louder now that he was\noutside.\n            Stephen glanced to where\nthe sound of the voice had come from - there was Bligh, seated, leaning back,\nin one of the plastic patio chairs that were separated by a small wooden table\nwith an ashtray atop it. He was shirtless, one arm up so that a languid hand\ndraped over the bill of his Ravens cap, a fresh cigarette lit in his mouth.\n            \"I - I ain't, just -\nlittle bit of a hangover still...\"\n            He could see him much more\nclearly out here - the half-Moon high in the sky, the lights of the parking\nlight, they gave Bligh an outline, contours of his thin, hairy body which\nStephen knew, had merged with, more than once, when it was younger, when it was\nless hairy, less like who he was now.\n            He was a figure of supreme\nconfidence, of being at peace with himself in a way that seemed almost\nenlightened - there was a pride in this casualness, beat-up jeans that\nterminated in great black furry footpaws that the neighbors, all asleep or all\nblinded by the hazy darkness, could not detect.\n            Stephen had said to\nhimself, and to Bligh, a little too often, that they were over and that they\nwere better as a best friends - most of the time this was true.\n            Most of the time. \n            But now - now was not one of\nthose times.\n            Bligh did something he did\nnot expect - he smiled...no, he never really properly smiled, he more smirked,\nand his fangs, which Stephen had noticed and Bligh had passed off as something\nhe always had when really they were the indicator of something deeply weird,\ndeeply beautiful, made an appearance over his lip.\n            \"Yew finally up,\"\nBligh said with that little laugh he always made, that tittering noise.\n            Stephen shrugged.\n\"Yeah - did you - stay up this whole time?\"\n            \"Yep.\" The\ncigarette moved in his mouth with the word. \"Drew told me ta do it n'I did\nit.\" The hand came down from his cap to grasp the cigarette and, puffing,\nhe exhaled a new plume of smoke. \"He's worried about ya.\"\n            Stephen gave a mirthless\nchortle, taking a seat in the other plastic chair. \"How bout that.\"\n            \"I figured yew'd be\nfine - weren't I right?\"\n            \"Mostly,\" Stephen\nanswered. \"You gonna gimme one?\"\n            \"Ya wanna?\"\n            \"I do.\"\n            Bligh reached into a pocket\nto procure the promised pack of Reds - finding a single cigarette, he handed it\nto Stephen along with his Zippo which he took from his other pocket. The pack\nof Reds went on the table. Into Stephen's mouth went the cigarette, up went the\nperfect wick of the Zippo's fire - he handed the lighter back to Bligh, and\nnodded his thanks. \n            \"How you been?\"\nStephen said, trying not to be awkward.\n            \"Been aight,\"\nBligh answered, taking his first drag. \"Gotta job not far down the way\nthere, fixin cars.\"\n            \"Who with? A big\ncompany?\"\n            Bligh shook his head,\nblowing smoke. \"Nah - little place. They treat me right, pay's good too -\nmade a couple o'friends, even.\"\n            \"That's - that's\ngood.\" Stephen tried, and failed, to relax. \"So you, uh - you got\nyou're life set up here, then...\"\n            \"I s'pose, yanno,\nyer Grandad's money makes sure we ain't hurtin none so Drew can go ta school\nstill, but - I wanted ta work too, bring some money in fer us - fer the\nfamily...\" He took\nanother drag, exhaling slow, taking his time with the bombshell he needed to\ndrop: \"S'weird...I, uh - really did never think I'd - be a dad.\"\n            \"I - yeah,\" Stephen\nrejoined hesitantly. \"Uh - how - how is that?\"\n            Bligh looked at him, the\ncrooked smile becoming knowing and sly.          \"I dunno, man - yew\ntell me how it feels ta be an uncle.\"\n            Stephen sighed, frustrated\nalready with the direction the conversation was taking. \"I - I haven't - I\ndunno, dude.\"\n            Bligh nodded, moving\non. \"So how yew been? Since Pappy passed - last I\nsaw ya?\"\n            \"Been about the\nsame,\" Stephen murmured after a short pause- he half-hissed the last word,\nfeeling a pang of the hangover hit him again. He leaned back in his chair, watching\nthe shadow-draped jungle of palms in front of them. \"No boyfriend -\ngirlfriend, neither, um, there was a guy in Autumn Term - uh, right when school\nstarted - that led me on I still see around campus, yanno--\"\n            \"Dang,\" said Bligh\nwith what sounded like a sympathetic frown. \"I'm sorry ta hear that.\"\n            Stephen made another\nmirthless chortle, near the same noise as before, seeing in his mind's eye the\nface of the boy - bored, brunette, douchebag - he had not mentioned to Drewseph\nbecause after three weeks of being used for sex it hardly seemed worth it. \n            \"Cute kid - not - as\nhot as you are and, uh - not at all in\nDako - uh - Cody's league, but...\" He sighed, the cigarette burning\npatiently in his fingers. \"Uh - short, big dick, it was weird he was like\nan inch shorter than me and still hung--\"\nHe stopped - he glanced to Bligh who, in mid-drag, had his eyes turn worried.\n\"I like em big,\" Stephen muttered. \"I like to get hurt going in\n- literally--\" His voice dipped yet lower. \"...and figuratively.\"\n            Bligh's eyebrows went up\nafter a short, dubious pause. \"Ye talkin bout me?\" \n            Those eyes of his, perfect\nice blue, seemed to twinkle, they seemed to have some hidden excitement in\nthem, but they revealed nothing.\n            Stephen shrugged, trying to\nbe demure, trying to seem disinterested. \"What - what if I was?\"\n            Bligh moistened his\nlips, his gaze distant, away, somewhere Stephen could not see. \"Damn funny\nway o'startin a conversation there, Stevie.\"\n            \"Yeah, well!\" Stevie\nsaid back curtly, trying to deflect the iciness that had clenched his bowels at\nBligh's answer. \"I - just telling the truth.\"\n            Bligh said nothing for several\npainful seconds - finally he shook his head, slowly. \"I ain't bout that\nlife anymore, Stevie - I'm married, man. Ain't like it was afore n'yew - yew\nshould know--\"\n            \"Yeah, yeah, I do know, that I could - turn like one of\ny'all, big goddam deal...least I'd feel like less of a stranger in my own\nbrother's - fucking house.\"\n            Bligh exhaled smoke through\nhis nostrils - his expression did not change.\n            \"Yew mean that?\"\n            \"Have I ever\nlied?\"\n            \"Plenty o'times--\"\n            \"To you.\"\n            Bligh conceded the point\nwith a frown. \"Aight, fine...\"\n            \"Exactly.\"\n            \"Well, man - look\nhere, Stevie...I'm the wrong guy ta ask - cuz I love bein this way, every - every\nfuckin bit of it, but--\" The cigarette went to his lips for another drag.\n\"It do get little bothersome, hidin all the time...can't let nobody see, or\nelse...\" His voice trailed off into another one of his strange little\nlaughs. \"Well I done told ya.\"\n            Something about the way\nBligh was speaking made Stephen feel - small.\nIt was as though he was dismissing him, isolating him further, closing a gate\nthat he thought he was still able to open.\n            He held his own cigarette\nup, taking a quick, rapid drag, before answering:\n            \"Ya told me a lotta\nthings, Bligh - like that I'm a mistake.\"\n            And with that Stephen retreated\ninto the plastic chair - deflating. \n            He felt himself become, at\nonce, sicklier, weaker, he was himself again, he was not the Stephen Lightfoot\nthat threw his macchiato back at the Starbucks barista who made it wrong or\nsent Snapchats to pretty girls whose boyfriends hated him because he was so\nobnoxiously a perfect third wheel or seduced straight boys amidst pounding\ndubstep beats with the scent of raspberry Smirnoff on his breath in unconscious\nbut crystallized imitation of how his brother used to do the same.\n            No.\n            He was the Stephen\nLightfoot, his father's favorite, scrawny and unhealthy and pale, always a nose\nin a book, who only talked to his Beagle and cried alone in his room because\nall the kids picked on him so mercilessly there was scarcely a day he didn't\ncome from school in tears, and all his family's wealth and power and evil, no\nmatter how it was deployed, only seemed to make it worse...\n            ...he saw Bligh swallow back\nsomething in his throat he evidently did not expect. \n            \"Stevie,\" he growled\nquietly, \"let it the fuck go.\"\n            \"Nope!\" Stephen exclaimed back, undaunted, with a headshake\nthat carried the rhythm of the turning of the Earth, fortified against Bligh's\ncommand. \"Nope - nope, nope -\ncalled me a mistake in front of my own fucking brother--\" \n            His eyes opened and he was\nsmiling - that deforming, taunting, ghastly smile that he used whenever he knew\nhe was right. The tears came immediately - thick, disgusting, whiskey-scented\ntears that streamed down his face, twisted and mocking, with his Joker-like\nsmile. \n            And then just as it\nappeared - it vanished. The smile collapsed, suddenly, into a downturned frown,\nand the picture was complete: Little Stevie, asthmatic and lonesome and\nmiserable at his own life, was there, in front of Bligh, football star,\nmonstrous in his physical perfection.\n            Bligh did not move - not an\ninch of give to the instinct that Stephen knew he felt, to hug him, to hold him\nlike he used to.\n            \"Then the fuck would yew call it, Stevie? Huh? Ya won't let\nit the fuck go - tell me. Fuckin tell\nme.\"\n            For the first time in a\nminute, maybe two, Stephen was aware of the lit cigarette in his hand. He\nstared down at it, the rising smoke that must have burnt his eyes and assailed\nhis nose - he let it fall to the ground, and in a single, silent action, thrust\nhis foot back into one of his Pumas, waiting for him by the sliding glass door,\nto stomp it out.\n            He looked up at Bligh -\nstill reclining, still regarding him with the oozing confidence of a king in\nhis castle, an esteem of oneself that Stephen knew he never faked. He wiped the\ntears from his face on the back of his arm.\n            \"Something - I miss,\nokay? Something I wanna happen again.\"\n            Bligh seemed impassive, but\nthe twinkle - that was the only word to describe it, as stupid as it sounded\nbeing in the eyes of such a magnificent, predatory creature - reappeared.\n            \"But it can't--\"\n            \"And again,\"\nStephen pressed, \"and again.\"\n\n            \"Stevie, God\ndammit...\" There was a bemusement, a quaver in the two words like a laugh\nabout to build.\n            Stephen's eyes bore into\nthe patio. He could not bear to look at Bligh, as he said it, even as he needed to say it, an admission of guilt,\nwhat had been welling and had been suppressed in a ruthless regimen of quashed\nemotions, now free to run as a flood - and all because Bligh had used one word,\nand one word only: mistake.\n            He needed to say it - at\nlast:\n            \"I wanna ride that\ndick til I shit out my insides.\"\n            He shut his eyes, he braced\nhimself - but he heard that same stupid laugh, that high-pitched cackle that\nPappy would make too.\n            \"Are yew fuckin\nserious?\"\n            \"I - yes?\"\nStephen jerked his head to see Bligh, discarding a cigarette in the plastic\nashtray. \"Why - why--\" He gritted his teeth, feeling a new outrage\nbuild inside him. \"Don't you fucking laugh at me.\"\n            \"I ain't laughin at yew--\"\n            \"Sure as fuck sounded\nlike it.\"\n            \"I ain't, though,\nI--\" He stopped, sighing, as though sensing the need to be serious.\n\"Jest came outta nowhere, Stevie, c'mon.\"\n            Stephen yielded the point\nreluctantly: \"Probably.\"\n            \"I mean - why you -\nwhy want me of all o'sudden? What happened ta - jest bein friends, like we\nwas?\"\n            Bligh enjoyed getting to\nthe point faster than most - it could, and did, often grate on people more used\nto being more diplomatic, more subtle, in their speech. \n            It didn't bother Stephen -\nbut hearing it made him smile which came out in his answer:\n            \"I - I just got...jealous I guess.\"\n            He glanced to Bligh, who\nnodded slightly.\n            \"Well, uh - Stevie, I\nstill dun see how ya could call what we done anythin but a--\"\n            \"Don't say it.\"\n            Bligh frowned. \"Well\nwhy not?\"\n            \"Because you loved me,\nBligh,\" Stephen muttered - the last word, that name, sacred and profane,\ncracked in his throat, overcome with a weakness that Stephen felt and Stephen\ndespised. \"Y-you loved me and you - yeah, I wasn't the one you wanted and\nI - I knew that, but--\" His eyes\nsearched him, vainly looking for some crack, some flaw in that impregnable\nfaçade of alpha male noblesse. \"I\nstill made you cry - that day - because y-you still loved me...\"\n            Bligh seemed to ponder it -\nthe very idea that he had loved Stephen in a way beyond the obligation of being\nthe brother of his best friend. \n            Stephen's heart, its\nhangover-palpitations eased at last, tightened in anticipation of what Bligh\nwould say - so very much in spite of Stephen himself, usually in the cloud of\nan alcoholic buzz that draped his emotions with an aloofness that was almost\nsociopathic in its encompassing majesty.\n            But Bligh did not answer -\nnot directly:\n            \"So - ya still love\nme? Even though I - n'Drew too, uh, dun think y'ever met the Pu--uh, Cody afore now but--\"\n            Stephen stopped him, the\nclingy desire for acceptance warped immediately into annoyance. \"Why the\nfuck both of you gotta act like\nthis...\"\n            Bligh leaned forward some.\n\"Wazzat now?\" \n            \"Drewseph - he pulled that shit too, he - didn't\nactually come right out and say it but he didn't, like, he didn't need to - he just acted like it...\"\n            \"Acted like\nwhat?\" Bligh, perhaps agitated at another turn the conversation had taken,\nreached for another cigarette from the soft pack.\n            \"Like--\" \n            The cigarette was lit, the\nflame illuming Bligh's face, briefly, the rugged handsomeness draped in the\ncoal chincurtain.             He saw, in the instant it\ntook for the fire from the Zippo to appear and then be snuffed, what he had\nmissed, what he had loved, what he had craved and kept silent about it for the\ndistant hope, now come to full fruition, that Drewseph would take the prize\nthat, once, belonged solely to him. \n            Once again Stephen felt the\nneed to be as honest - cuttingly honest, to\nhimself.\n            \"Like anything y'all -\nmy brother, my brother or - you,\nfucking you, Bligh, could ever - do,\nbe, say - big werewolf, weredog whatever--\"\nHe exhaled, harshly, his frustration fresh. \"Like anything - anything - could make me stop loving\ny'all, or that - you couldn't trust me, with - with what you really are,\nwhether gay or - dog...people...\"\n            \"Man, Stevie, would ya\nthink bout it, though? I's jest so fuckin scared\nthat--\"\n            \"I know what you're\ngonna say,\" Stephen interrupted. \"I know, I fucking know.\"\n            Bligh seemed offended.\n\"Do ya now?\"\n            \"You were scared that anything weird - how are you now, or me\nand you, or you and Duke - and Drewseph would just toss you the fuck out--\"\nStephen threw up his arms to demonstrate. \"Outta here. Because fuck everybody else but when it comes to him--\" He chortled unkindly.\n\"You lose your damn mind!\" \n            Bligh took the accusation -\ndamning, accurate - with a stoicism Stephen thought rather unlike him.\n            \"What - whattya want\nme ta say, man?\"\n            Stephen knew at once what\nhe meant - the inarticulate gulf that lay between them, a rawness, a\nvulnerability that Bligh dared share with no one else.\n            \"Y'all were...\" He\ncleared his throat, taking a deep breath. \"Y'all were arguing about\nsomething when I was passing out--\"\n            \"Yeah, bout whether we\nwas gonna let yew stay or not.\"\n            A coldness burst through\nStephen that quickly forged into a defiance - he sneered.\n            \"Cuz I'm a mistake,\nright?\"\n            Bligh shook his head.\n\"Ya weren't no - it wudn't no mistake--\"\n            \"Damn right it wasn't, you stupid dog.\"\n            Stephen was answered with\none of those cackles whose sound and texture was sufficient unto itself to\nbelong to the Lynch phenotype - Drewseph had taught him that word - and Stephen\nhad realized his intended insult had easily backfired.\n            \"Whatever...\" he\ngroaned.\n            Again Bligh shook his head.\n\"Nah - nah, Stevie, ya gotta understand.\" He was being serious, and\nStephen shot him a wary glance. \"Ya showed up just outta fuckin nowhere, I\nmean I dun think--\"\n            \"And I'm sorry for\nthat.\" Stephen almost shuddered - even now, sober, defenseless, it was\nstill anathema for him to admit wrong, to do the unthinkable and actually\napologize.\n            \"Well - thank\nya.\"\n            \"No problem,\" Stephen\nanswered, near to under his breath.\n            \"Usually--\" Bligh\nsnickered softly to himself. \"Usually he jest g'long with what I wanna\ndo--\"\n            Stephen rolled his eyes.\n\"Oh Jesus, yeah, for how fucking\nlong has he done that? Won't listen to anybody else - but soon as you say something--\"\n            \"Man, dun--\"\n            \"Since I was\nlittle,\" Stephen pressed. \"Definitely\nsince I was old enough to realise--\"\n            \"Aight, aight.\"\n            \"Like that time\nyou wanted him to spelunk in that old church where you found Duke and he kept\nsaying no until you convinced him and then when you did he ended up stepping on\nthat rusty nail and Pappy yelled at you--\"\n            \"Stevie.\" Bligh's\neyebrows were furrowed - there was a quiver in his lips like he wanted to smile\nat the memory, but was fighting it.\n            And Stephen rolled his\neyes for the second time. \"Just\nsaying...\"\n            Bligh shook his head.\n\"Well, tonight - tonight, man,\nhe weren't gonna listen ta me fer nuthin...\" His expression was, for a\nmoment, enigmatic, impenetrable - he seemed at a peculiar crossroads between\nannoyed, bemused, and proud. \"Yew were gonna stay the night with us n'that\nwas the end of it...\"\n            Stephen's mouth went agape.\n\"He - he did that - f-for me?\" \n            \"Well, Cody too - but\nit was Drew, man, it was - yer brother, yeah.\"\n            \"What...\"\n            Stephen was stunned - he\nwanted to say more, to justify it in his head, the guilt of being so selfish\nand such an aberrant asshole in the house of someone who would give him the house to sleep in...but\nbefore he could, Bligh went on:\n            \"But - still, Stevie,\nman - it was so fuckin sudden, y'understand? I weren't ready, and we - us three\nneeded time, man, we needed time ta tell ya--\"\n            \"That y'all\nwere--\" He gestured from Bligh's canid feet to his hidden ears. \"Like\n- like that?\"\n            Bligh nodded. \"Yeah,\nman.\"\n            Stephen sneered again,\nhis flushed gratitude for his brother forgotten in the moment. \"I kinda doubt you\nwere ever gonna tell me.\"\n            \"Now that ain't\ntrue--\"\n            \"Oh yeah?\"\nStephen sniffed. \"Anything that'd fuck up you and--\"\n            \"That ain't true.\" Bligh leaned in over the\nside of his chair. \"Dun call me a liar--\"\n            \"Anything,\" Stephen finished forcefully, \"that would fuck\nup my brother and you.\" He\nsighed, feeling a weight lift off of him with the words. \"Even at my\nexpense.\"\n            Bligh retreated back to his\nchair - a rare sight, and a Pyrrhic victory, as he had been beaten. \n            Stephen regretted it almost\nat once, he had not meant to hurt Bligh, merely to defend himself - and at this\nStephen suppressed his own guilt.\n            \"Guess, uh--\"\nBligh cleared his throat. \"Guess I'd be the one who should be apologizin,\nthen...\"\n            Stephen looked away with\nhis hollow satisfaction, which dissipated into nothing as he realized that\nBligh was not breaking the abrupt silence that fell before them, the\nnever-ending crickets the only accompaniment to their tension.\n            \"What...\" Stephen\nlooked back to Bligh, his arms behind his head, pensively off somewhere - he\ncame back to meet Stephen's gaze. \"What am I to you?' \n            \"Yer...\" Bligh\nseemed to think a minute before giving that crooked smile he always made.\n\"Yer my husband's brother - my brother-in-law - yer - yer family,\nman.\"\n            A feeling of warm security\nshould have cued, should have spread over Stephen and negated the omnipresent\nanxiety, even in the midst of his hangover - but it did not.\n            \"You promise?\"\n            Bligh's crooked smile grew.\n\"Yeah - Stevie. I'm sorry, I - I said what I said, did I did, aight?\"\nThe smile faded. \"Why yew worried though?\"\n            Stephen swallowed hard -\nthis was it, this was the moment. \n            He had to tell Bligh - first. Then his brother, and Cody too.\nThey'd understand, they'd understand completely.\n            \"Gimme - uh, gimme a\ncig, and um - lemme light it myself.\"\n            \"Uh--\" Bligh\nseemed dubious. \"Aight - y'okay there?\"\n            \"I dunno,\"\nStephen murmured without commitment as he procured his heretofore phone, still\nin his pocket from where his brother had retrieved it for him from his locked\ncar.\n            With his phone in his lap,\nhe took Bligh's offered cigarette and put it to his lips - up came the Zippo,\nwith a lighting fire. He took a deep, solitary drag, trying to steady himself.\n            Handing the lighter back to\nBligh, who was eyeing him with what looked like a mixture of suspicion and\nconcern, he pressed the button on his phone, his arm down so that the sudden\nflush of light was focused on one particular area of skin.\n            He exhaled a cloud of smoke\n- and, cigarette in his fingers, jammed it into his flesh.\n            The pain was immediate, it\ndrowned out Bligh's horrified reaction that Stephen could only barely\nregistered - it was a hornet with a fiery sting shoving its weapon into him, it\nwas bright and furious and his lips pressed together to stifle what should have\nbeen an animal cry of pain.\n            But he did not close his\neyes - he watched it, he watched it and he knew Bligh did too, the ghostly\nscreen of the phone showing what Stephen had dreaded revealing to anyone,\nanyone at all, even the ones who knew him best:\n            Where there was an angry,\nmessily cauterized, marred circle of burnt skin, in mere few seconds, moved,\nmerged, and vanished - healed, completely, as though nothing had ever happened.\n            Stephen had expected\nsome universe of quiet to pass, some epiphany between the two of them -\nsomething, anything, other than what actually happened: Bligh, and his stupid\nlittle laugh.\n            \"Well ain't that\nsumthin!\" \n            The remark seemed\naltogether too casual for a back-and-forth of something so shattering, and it\ntook Stephen a moment to realize the gravity of what had just been said - he\nstared at him. \n            \"What the fuck is wrong with you?\" He felt crushed by\na instant hopelessness, sliding his phone into his pocket. \"Don't - don't\nyou know what this - fucking - means?\nI heal - I heal, I'm not - I'm not human.\"\n            Bligh nodded.\n\"Well that's the thing man, I do know whatcha mean - lemme show ya--\" \n            The Zippo clinked open and\na flame appeared to reignite it.\n            The cigarette went to his\nmouth to take a quick puff - then down, down to his upturned arm to be pressed\ninto the smooth skin. \n            He winced - \"Shit that smart!\" - and, as Stephen\nhad done to him, held up his arm.\n            Stephen acted as though on\nautopilot - out came his phone from his pocket once again, and with a click of\na button he could see the nasty blister that the flame had made. \n            But in the time it took for\nBligh to put out the cigarette in the ashtray - it dissolved into nothing,\nreplaced, second by passing second, with new skin, so that it looked like\nnothing had been there at all.\n            Bligh's arm stayed there,\npale and clammy-looking in the light of his phone's screen - Stephen stared at\nit, all the noise in his head to a cosmic silence.\n            \"Oh - my fu--\"\n            Bligh must have detected\nthe mass of emotions that quivered inside Stephen's words - his arm withdrew\nback to its place on the arm of the chair and he nodded at him in concern.\n            \"Hey - y'aight?\"\n            \"I--\" Stephen had\nno immediate words, no direct parallel, in his vocabulary, for how deeply\nbewildered he was. He could only say what he immediately thought: \"I wanna\n- I wanna freak out right now.\"\n            \"Well why? Y'ain't no\nfreak--\" That little laugh again, and then: \"Not if I ain't one.\"\n            \"That's--\" Stephen\nswallowed hard, his words bursting out of him unfiltered, his phone going into\nhis pocket for a final time: \"T-that - that's why I wanna freak out. I told - yanno, I told Drewseph that, I - I\nsaid I really wanna freak out, seeing y'all like - how you are...\" Bligh's\ngaze never left his - there was a strength in it, there always was, that lent\nitself to him, that made Stephen feel he could continue. \"Think - think\nabout it, Bligh, think - think about I must feel, knowing - knowing there's\npeople like me out there.\"\n            \"Me n'yew - n'Drew -\nCody...\" Bligh winced, an action that looked abortive and malformed, like he\nhad tried not to do it but couldn't resist. \"Dan...\"\n            It was barely a word at all\n- but Stephen grasped its meaning at once.\n            He smiled, his panic\nsubsiding - he could not help it, even when he was sober, the idea of a secret\nrevealed, of the truth triumphant, was too delicious not to celebrate.\n            \"Dan?\" he\nrepeated. \"Little Bear?\"\n            And Bligh nodded back,\nquickly, like he wanted to move on - but Stephen could not. He pressed:\n            \"So you two--?\"\n            \"Yeah.\"\n            \"And then he changed -\nlike Drewseph and--\"\n            \"Yeah,\" Bligh\nsaid again - he fidgeted reaching for another cigarette, which brought to his\nfingers to twiddle in his discomfort.       \"Yeah, he -\nyeah.\"\n            Stephen's eyes darted to\nthe wooden railing, trying to fit together the chronology of the years that his\nbrother had been absent in Tempest - with each passing half-second was a new\nrevelation, how it all finally made sense, why Bligh seemed furtive and distant\neven after they had supposedly reconciled, why his hat never came off, not even\nat the funeral...and Dan Dorsey's suicide...\n            Was he - he, Stephen - the\ncause of all of this? Had he just enjoyed being with Bligh, had he not, for the first and probably only\ntime in his life, listened to his conscience and broke it off with him - would\nBligh not have finally been sexual with his dog, who turned him into what he\nwas now? \n            Could he - he, Stephen -\nwho thought himself so insignificant, stunted, in his private life, have\nactually caused a major change in the world? Had he served a purpose beyond\neven himself in the universe?\n            The occultation - Bligh's\nnew species as eclipse to the insights that Stephen thought he had into his life - was at last revealed. The tearing of\nthe curtain had started with Drewseph taking off his hat - but there was an\ninner narrative in it, beneath it, that roiled putrescent underneath the quaint\nlittle mountain-valley town they all called home, once.\n            \"Is that why...\" he\nmurmured, his eyes coming back to Bligh.\"Is that why he killed\nhimse--\"\n            \"Can ya not?\"\nBligh growled, quietly.\n            Stephen was not about to be\nbested: \"I'll do what I want.\"\n            Bligh snickered.\n\"Y'always did, why quit now?\" The cigarette between his fingers went\nto his mouth.\n            \"Because I can't die,\nand I don't give a fuck.\"\n            \"Can't - die,\" Bligh said back. \"W-wait\n- holy fuck.\" The new cigarette\nwas limp in his mouth, and it fell as the last syllable escaped him, caught,\nluckily, against his hairy chest, one-handed. \"That - s'why yew - s'why\nwhen ya wrecked--\"\n            \"I shoulda died,\" Stephen finished for\nhim. \"I shoulda died - um - yeah.\"\n            \"Stevie...\" Bligh\nleaned forward. \"Stevie - man--\"\n            \"Hold on,\"\nStephen murmured - he shut his eyes. \"Hold on. You know - all I\nremember--\" He stopped. \"No. No, that's not right - I remember every -\nevery little fucking thing...\" \n            The memories flew to him -\nhe swam in them, as he had swam in the drink that night, the nihilism, in\nretrospect it should have been a lifechanger, that rockbottom to bounce...but it\nwasn't, Stephen knew it wasn't, it just made things worse.\n            \"You know what I did,\nBligh?\" He chuckled, a laugh that got away from him and vibrated unsteady\ninto the night air, amused by his own the way he could vocalize this. \"I\nlaughed.\"\n            \"Ya - ya did?\"\n            \"Yeah - yeah I did. I\nlaughed - and laughed - and laughed...\" The last word disappeared into a\nwhisper so faint even Stephen could barely hear it. \"I...I was alive...\"\nHe paused, trying to remember the ebullient flashes in his brain that night,\ntrying to make the same sense of them now that he had then. \"I was alive. Alive - and - I could feel myself heal.\nI could--\" He clapped a hand to his side, which had gained a creeping ache\nbelow his ribcage in psychosomatic sympathy. \"There was - a huge, huge gash right here - uh - I was -\nlaunched outta the windshield and it sliced me open on the way out but, I...I\ndon't really remember that...\" He stopped. \"I just remember - feeling\nit seal, yanno, even when it hurt\nlike nothing - else I've ever felt\nbefore and there was all this blood on me but--\" He shook his head, finding\nhe could not believe his own words. \"There was...other cuts and bruises, I\njust - hurt all over, and my fucking neck,\nand I couldn't feel my legs - then I could\nfeel my legs...\"\n            At last Stephen could speak\nno more about it - all he could see in his mind's eye was not the\nstreetlamp-illumed parking lot or the looming blackness of the jungle\nbeyond...all he saw was the mangled wreckage of his Pa's Mercedes, in front of\nhim, piled into the tree, and him, sticky with blood, in agony but ambulatory,\nlaughing, laughing so hard his lungs started to ache in tandem with everything\nelse...\n            Bligh jerked him from his\ntriggered illusion:\n            \"Ya coulda called\nme,\" he said, a whisper, an offer, an apology. \"Even though we - we\nwas done, yanno, ya coulda--\"\n            \"No,\" Stephen\nanswered, the same. \"I think...on some subconscious level - I needed\nit.\"\n            \"Dun say shit like\nthat--\"\n            \"Everybody needs to\ndie--\" He glanced to Bligh, his eyes like plucked gems, sad, so sad, so\nperfect. \"I - I said I shoulda\ndied?\" He shook his head. \"Nah - nah. I actually did. And it was my\ntime to die - yanno? My time to drop the fuck out of this world, and - realize\nshit wasn't normal.\"\n            \"But yew - why yew\nsayin yew died though? When ya\ndidn't--?\"\n            \"Didn't Duke kill you, in a way?\"\n            \"Wha--?\" But then\nBligh seemed to know precisely the line of logic Stephen had followed, and for\nit, had no rebuttal: \"Oh - uh...\"\n            \"Yeah.\"\n            \"I - yeah.\"\n            \"Mmmhmm.\"\n            A silence lapsed, and the\ntension rose between them - Stephen stared off into the night, hands between\nhis legs, listless. \n            He heard Bligh sigh through\nhis nose: \"Well - I'm-a tell yew what, I'm glad he did.\"\n            \"What?\"\n            \"Duke - killin me, like ya say.\"\n            Stephen shot Bligh another\nglance with an amused little chortle. \"You've said that.\"\n            \"I stand by it,\"\nBligh declared - he sat up, leaning in some, looking at Stephen with new\nintent. \"I told yer brother that, uh - when he had ta see me the first\ntime.\"\n            \"How'd that go?\"\nIt was nonchalant, as nonchalant as Stephen could manage.\n            And Bligh gave another\nlittle laugh - mirthless as it was.   \"He, uh - he took it a\nlot worse n'yew did.\"\n            It was Stephen's turn to\nlaugh. \"I figured - I really figured. Dr. Drewseph can't explain\nsomething? I can't--\" He laughed again. \"I can't even fathom.\"\n            \"But that's - that's\nwhy ya were okay with it, though cuz yew--\" Bligh smiled, crookedly, that smirk like his grandfather used to do. \"Ya\nwere already weird yerself.\"\n            A warm feeling, the first\nthaw in the iciness of still feeling as though he were an outside in this\nplace, Stephen could feel, slowly, moving all over his body. \n            \"Uh--\" he managed\nwith a sheepish smile. \"Uh - y-yeah...\"\n            \"Lemme ask ya\nsumthin,\" Bligh seemed to press, \"how ya think this all happened? I\nmean, yanno yew - yew bein like y'are?\"\n            Stephen stared at Bligh for\nseveral seconds before shaking his head, slowly. \"I - dude, I - I don't\nfucking know.\"\n            Bligh nodded - he spat over\nthe railing and sighed, uncomfortable, through his nostrils, once again. \"Dang,\nStevie...\" came the mutter, noncommittal but worried.\n            Stephen leaned back some -\nhis head up at the roof of the patio. \"Yeah - yeah, pretty fucking much.\nWhat's life, then, Bligh? What the fuck are we? If we can't die - never get\nsick - always heal?\"\n            Bligh snickered, a\nmocking sound from the corner of his mouth. \"Son, I ain't high enough--\"\n            \"Neither am I, and I\nthink that's why I'm askin...\"\n            \"I ain't got answers\nlike that,\" said Bligh, relaxing back into his chair. \"I used ta -\nyanno, back when I'd listen ta Pappy n'believe every word.\"\n            \"You did believe every word,\" Stephen\nrejoined. \"Just not - any o'that God-and-Jesus stuff - after a bit.\"\n            \"Any God ain't gonna\nlet Duke into Heaven ain't a God I wanna know.\"\n            That was Bligh's answer -\nhe looked sad again, sadder than before, and out of a respect Stephen was at\ntimes only ambiently aware he actually possessed, he remained silent so that\nBligh could, he guessed, reflect, on the dead grandfather who raised him.\n            Stephen allowed a space of\nsilence - to elapse before he heard Bligh spit again, and then continued:\n            \"Walker too,\nright?\"\n            Bligh nodded. \"Yeah,\nman - Walker too.\"\n            \"Sorry he hated\nyou.\"\n            \"Well--\" Bligh\nlooked as though he was forcing a small grin. \"I think he was just\nprotective of ya, yanno.\" He seemed to think a moment. \"They ever -\ntalk t'each other?\"\n            \"Who - Duke and\nWalker?\"\n            \"Yeah.\"\n            Stephen sighed. \"Some\n-Walker was - I guess kinda fearful of Duke, he--\"\n            \"Afeared?\" Bligh\ncut in. \"Afeared o'Duke?\"\n            \"Not - that's not the\nright word,\" Stephen said. \"It's more - he thought Duke was more\nimportant than he was.\" He nodded to himself. \"That's the idea I\ngot.\"\n            \"Important...how?\"\n            Stephen shrugged. \"He\nwouldn't tell me - just that Duke was important, and - uh - a leader, pretty much.\" \nBligh scratched his chest, shaking his head slow. \"Shit jest keeps getting\nweirder...\"\n            \"Bout that--\"\nStephen began, dredging up as he said it a full month of speculation, a\npreponderance of a strange childhood as microcosm of a stranger life. \"I\nhave a theory.\"\n            Bligh was waiting for him\nto finish, his hand still in mid-scratch. \"Yeah?\"\n            \"Um - yeah. I called, uh\n- no, Drewseph called me last month\nand - pretty sure he told you everything--\"\n            \"Bout the weird people\nwho used ta live in Dog's Creek, yeah, I remember.\"\n            \"Right, yeah, but he\ndid tell you about Papa Sandoro?\"\n            Bligh shifted his footpaws.\n\"Saying Walker gonna - protect yew or sumthin? He weren't all that clear\nbout it, honestly.\"\n            \"Sorta - uh, he said -\nPapa Sandoro said, or I guess I should say I heard him say one time, that Walker would give\nme all the protection I...\" \n            The final word faded to\nnothing as the memory came back to him: standing at the head of the stairs,\ntracing his fingers along the ornate carving of the solid oak banister, and in\nthe dim light of the downstairs hearing Papa Sandoro's crisp words in his\ngravelly voice, which Stephen would have never pay attention to had not heard\nthe name Walker - who was curled and\nasleep waiting for him in his bed.\n            His hand, an involuntary\ngesture, went to the necklace, wrapping around Walker's tooth, what he carried\nwith him always, having never once taken it off...his head jerked to see Bligh\nwas watching him, waiting for him to finish.\n            \"If I - spent all my\ntime around him like I did - they - what if they got me that dog - to protect\nme from - what Duke did to you?\"\n            He saw Bligh's eyebrows\nraise, then furrow, before a grin, slow but inexorable, crossed his face. In\nhis throat quavered one of his odd little laughs.\n            \"So what yer sayin\nis...\"\n            \"We're the same - but\nwe're different.\" Stephen swallowed, hard - he had to choose his words\ncarefully. \"Me and you - both spent all that time around dogs and - the\ndogs made us something...different.\" He paused. \"I never - liked Walker\nthe way you liked Duke...though...\"\n            Bligh shrugged.\n\"Yep,\" he said, matter-of-factly. \n            \"Nothing wrong with\nthat,\" Stephen added, surprising himself how steady he was, how willing he\nwas to accept something so abhorrent. \"But - it was a one-time thing,\nright? That made you change?\"\n            \"Mmmhmm,\" Bligh\nintoned. \"Only took but the one...\"\n            \"So - one time - and\nWalker being near me - over a period of...however long it was...\" Stephen\nlooked into the crawling shadows of the trees beyond them. \"Made us - the\nsame, just - different, too.\" \n            Bligh seemed to consider\nthe idea for a minute - a flick in his eyebrow and a quick nod suggested he was\nconcluded in his thinking.\n            \"Yeah - yeah I s'pose\nthat'd be bout right - everythin I heard about the dogs in Tempest ain't bein -\nnormal.\"\n            \"Well they ain't - and\nI could talk to them, too - that - that sure as fuck ain't normal...\"\n            Bligh reached for the pack\nof cigarettes next to the ashtray and, procuring one afresh, held it to\nStephen, first, to offer - Stephen shook his head to decline, so that the\ncigarette went in Bligh's mouth instead. A sudden flame from the Zippo, and it\nwas lit - a single puff prefaced Bligh's continuation:\n            \"So why didn't Pappy\ndo that fer me? Why didn't yer daddy do that fer Drew?\" \n            \"No fucking\nclue,\" Stephen answered - honestly. \"Maybe Gus just...didn't wanna\nbelieve any of it, even if he knew about the rumors he was still - Christian and all - and maybe Pa knew\nabout it and knew was something was -\nreally fucked up with our town...and only wanted to protect me. Drewseph would know about how that shit works, but - maybe - I\nwas the variable, he was the control...\"\n            Bligh's cigarette hung, the\ncherry bright, as his eyes, glimmering and gorgeous, narrowed. \"What are\nyew sayin?\"\n            \"What I just\nsaid,\" Stephen pressed quietly. \"Gus didn't believe it - nobody who\nhad a dog was suspe - susp - dammit what's that word?\"\n            \"Susceptible?\" \n            \"That - yeah, actually.\"\nStephen couldn't help but chortle. \"Yeah, thank you!\"\n            \"G'on with it,\"\nBligh muttered, unamused.\n            \"Y-yeah - so nobody\nwho had a dog nearby, I guess, a slow buildup of immunity, yanno, like getting\nvaccinated, was - susceptible - to\nuh...to being like y'all are.\" Stephen paused so that the words would sink\nin. \"Think about Gus, think about the man he was, he wouldn't believe no\ntown legend bullshit - not unless he saw it firsthand--\"\n            \"That time we ate\ndinner with y'all...\" Bligh murmured in a cloud of smoke. \"Tellin yew\nWalker was special--\"\n            \"My theory,\" Stephen repeated, holding\nup his hand to make the point. \"Pa told him. Pa got hold of him, so that\nwhen you found Duke, Gus - he...probably thought it was time...\" Stephen felt\nhimself frowning, a strange, alien guilt overtaking him. \"But just in case\n- me and Drewseph were the - experiment - to test and see that it was real, if\nhaving a dog from the county - yanno, made you...immune.\"\n            Bligh nodded, seeming\nto follow along. \"Drew\ncalled it a sickness afore--\"\n            \"It fits, don't\nit?\"\n            Stephen moved to the edge\nof the chair to look down at the floor again, his mind ablaze with broken\nmemories, waxing melancholic as he realized all of them, to a one, involved he,\nand Bligh, and Drewseph...and Walker, and Duke. The silence was sudden, it was as\nthough there should have been more to the thought, and yet there wasn't, it was\nall that there was, floating in dark, nameless spaces.\n            Bligh nodded, again, slower\nthis time, more grave, more serious. \n            \"I can - I can see\nthat now.\" \n            \"Yeah.\"\n            \"Well why - why our\ntown?\" Bligh held the cigarette in his fingers, pointing at Stephen.\n\"Why our dogs gotta be - all\nweird n'carryin some kinda - disease ta make people turn--\" He pointed to\nhis feet. \"Like this?\"\n            \"Uh--\"\n            Bligh took a drag - the\nexhale came out his nose, his most useless talent.\n            \"What, cuz y'all\ngranddads' granddad killed a buncha weird people way back in the day? Some\nkinda - curse?\" He threw a\nskepticism on the final word that he was not known to have, and it jarred Stephen\nsomewhat to hear it.\n            \"Probably,\" said\nStephen. \"But that sounds stupid and mundane and there's probably, like,\nsomething--\" He paused, trying not to laugh at this crucial juncture.\n\"S-something way, way more fucked up than that.\" He smiled. \"You're\nthe one who watches all those werewolf movies - you're the expert.\"\n            Bligh allowed himself a\nslight curve in his mouth that looked like bemusement as he puffed on the\ncigarette. \"Well, that bein the case, then - I reckon yew right, we are\nthe same - kinda.\" The bemused look turned into one of his smiles -\ncrooked, on his face, a smirk. \"Y'ain't gotta tail or nuthin...\"\n            \"Could I get\none?\"\n            Stephen was surprised he\nhad said it aloud, and Bligh's face reflected his own surprise for probably the\nsame reason.\n            \"Uh - huh. I mean -\nshit, man, yew want one?\"\n            Stephen hesitated - once,\nthen once again. In the midst of the rush - the jealousy, the alienation, the\nconfusion, the rejection - something, a deeper intuition perhaps, called at\nhim, wordless, to say that this, this precious precipice upon which tottered\nhe, must be retreated from.\n            \"N-no, I - I\nshouldn't, I really shouldn't.\"\n            Bligh took a long drag,\nshrugging. \"Well lemme ask ya sumthin - yew still got that weird place on\nthe back o'yer neck?\"\n            Stephen reached behind him\nto the place Bligh spoke of - a patch of hair, lighter than his hair, and\nsofter in texture to it.\n            \"Y-yeah? Drewseph\ncalled it - uh - Poliosis? He says -\nhe used to say it was a natural thing, but...\" He shook his head.\n\"After everything we talked about I...I dunno.\" He looked to Bligh.\n\"It's soft - and white - like Walker's fur...\"\n            \"Can ya smell real\ngood? Cuz we can--\"\n            \"Nah, I can't smell\nshit, most of the time - and I don't have sharp teeth, neither.\"\n            \"Still though - maybe\nyew dun need a tail...\" Bligh grinned, and Stephen could see his fangs glint\nin the ambient sodium-vapor parking lot light. \"Maybe yew dawg like me -\nalready.\"\n            Stephen weighed the idea -\nlong ago his brother had told him to gather evidence, and data, and\nobservation, before making a conclusion. That was years ago - and in the time\nintervening Stephen had never used that advice for much.\n            But now he could. \n            He was not normal - this he\nknew less than an hour ago. But would it also mean he was, too, not even human?\n\n            Back his hand went to\nWalker's tooth, clutching it tightly. \n            His brother had no\nintuition - his world was the scientist's world, one of infinitely elegant but\nharshly exacting beauty, one that only based things on proven fact, and left no\nroom for feelings...perhaps Stephen put too much stock on his own feelings.\n            But were they ever wrong?\nKnowing he could talk to Duke and Walker, knowing something unspoken and\nprofound was occurring between Bligh and his brother - when was he ever really\nwrong when he trusted, in a cliché so nauseating he wondered if he should head\nback to the bathroom, his heart?\n            And what did his heart say\nnow?\n            \"Not the same but\ndifferent,\" he thought aloud in a low voice, \"but just - the same.\"\n            \"After everythin we\ntalked bout - yeah, man, I'd say so!\"\n            Stephen stared at him,\ntrying to make sense of this revelation, this epiphany, what should have\noccurred to him long ago, even if he had never seen what Bligh had become.\n            He had no words.\n            There was a joy, if it\ncould be classed as joy, that he was not as different from his brother, or Cody\n- or Bligh - but with it a fear, the fear that Bligh had spoken of, being\ncaught, of being destroyed by a world that could not understand them...him, or\nthe other three who shared a condition that been inflicted on them by\nhappenstance or design.\n            \"Even - even if - I\nam....\" He swallowed hard for the third time in a brief span of time.\n\"And I want - I want to be. You can't\n- don't - don't you dare fucking tell Drew,\" Stephen said - his voice had\non an admonition of absolute finality, a chill of death cooler than the evening\naround him. \"None of this. None of\nthis - I have to tell him myself.\"\n            Bligh was silent - Stephen\ncould see him in the darkness staring at him, he could see him viewing him\nanew, as something different, some new person that the years they had known\neach other did not provide for.\n            \"Promise...\"\nStephen heard himself whisper hoarsely. \"Promise, like - like I had to\npromise not to tell Drewseph you were coming--\"\n            \"I promise,\nStevie...\" Bligh murmured. \"Dun worry.\"\n            Stephen shut his eyes,\nmuffling his own laughter so that it sounded like a chortle again, a warm\nfeeling, an elation, hearing Bligh care, hearing Bligh promise him, again.\n            \"Oh, dude - holy shit.\"\n            He heard Bligh cackle\nsoftly. \"Yeah - yeah man.\"\n            Stephen opened his eyes and\nrose slowly out of the chair. \"I'm getting tired again, dude - uh - I\nthink I'm gonna go back inside if that's alright...\"\n            Bligh stood up the same,\nstretching some. \"Me too, man.\"\n            Before Stephen turned to\nthe sliding-glass door, a thought, intrusive but dreadfully germane,\npossessed him, and he hesitated, once, then twice, before he could speak it:\n            \"I...hey, listen.\"\n            \"Yeah?\"\n            \"When - when I was at\nthe pool - sure he told you...\"\n            \"Who, Drew? Yeah he\nsaid ya snuck in--\"\n            \"That's not--\"\nStephen laughed, at himself, his eyes drifting to the patio floor. \"Yeah,\nokay that's not important though, see - I just wanted to tell you what I told\nhim.\"\n            \"About?\"\n            \"I, um, told Drewseph\nthat, uh - I basically told him I was your - your silver medal.\"\n            \"Do what?\"\n            \"Your - you only\nfucked me because you couldn't fuck him.\"\n            Bligh folded his arms\nacross his bare chest, leaning back, regarding Stephen askance. \"Ya\nbelieve that?\"\n            \"Yeah, Bligh I do -\nwhy do you think I dumped you? I knew - I knew--\"\n            Bligh stepped forward.\n\"Stevie - yeah, that's how it was when we was first doin stuff but -\nman--\" He grinned, his normal wolfish smile made irrationally animal with\nthose fangs - his hands came down, a little rough, on Stephen's shoulders.\n\"Yer yew. I shoulda - I shoulda\ntold ya this and Drew this too, man - but I loved - still love - yew - everythin yew is - short li'l,\nscrawny li'l Stevie.\"\n            \"Be serious,\"\nStephen hissed, even as he loved hearing Bligh say it. \"You're teasing me\ndon't - p-please don't tease me--\"\n            He felt a hand, Bligh's\nhand, underneath his chin, and gently, firmly, his head was raised - to meet\nBligh's lips.\n            They kissed.\n            Stephen was unprepared for\nit, he made a sound - \"Mmm!\" - that vibrated against Bligh's tongue,\ninside his mouth, that familiar qualia-cluster of how Bligh's mouth tasted, the\ncigarettes, the ambient musk that he did not have when they were together but\nthat fit him, the man...the dog.\n            \"Still doubt me?\"\nhe heard Bligh murmur in his ear. \n            Stephen took in a breath,\nhis eyes meeting Bligh's, those impossible gemstones that would unnerve some\npeople because of how piercing they were, how they seemed to miss nothing they\nbeheld. \n            \"No...\" he\nwhispered, his voice trembling, losing control of even his most basic defenses.\n\"N-not - not if you're here, not - if Drewseph and Cody - I--\"\n            \"Shhh - s'okay--\"\n            \"Why do you think I\nwanted - why do y-you think I m-moved here, and n-not Tech?\" Stephen knew\nhe was crying now, he could feel the tears - still faintly scented like the\nhalf-bottle's worth of whiskey he had put away before - hot on his cheeks.\n\"N-nobody - nobody else would\nunderstand m-me--\"\n            He let down his last, most\nintimate defenses - he threw his arms around Bligh and buried himself in the\nsoft body hair. The body was warm, far warmer than it had been when they had\nbeen lovers, best friends - that must have been another change, Stephen\nthought, just fleetingly enough that it made Bligh all the more precious, all\nthe more lucky he, Stephen, was to know him...to be like him, even in a small\nway.\n            But even with that, all of\nthat, he was familiar with this - how this felt - many times, sexually,\nsensually, but even with the memory of the kiss he felt this was platonic, this\nwas brotherly...fatherly.\n            The tears came easy, they\nmoistened Bligh's stomach, the tears of vulnerability, acceptance, the\nemotional earthquake of being dimidiated in between the reality Stephen thought\nhe knew, and the terrible, awful, plunging strangeness of the darkness that gathered\nin some forgotten pocket of West Virginia, that had flung forth on the world\nthe four of them, alone, except for each other.\n            Bligh held him the entire\ntime, a span that he could not measure, five minutes at most, but an eternity\nenough for both of them to accept each other as old lovers, renewed friends.\n            At a final length Stephen\nnudged away, wiping the residual tears with his hand.\n            \"S-sorry -\nf-fuck--\"\n            \"S'okay Stevie...\"\n            \"I just - I just\ngot--\"\n            \"I know, man.\"\n            \"Ya still tired?\"\nBligh asked gently.\n            And Stephen nodded.\n\"Y-yeah.\"\n            \"Aight then - let's go\ninside.\"\n            \"Aren't you gonna -\num, join Drewseph and--\"\n            \"Nah.\" Bligh\ngrinned at him. \"I gotta make sure yer okay.\"\n            Stephen laughed - he\nlaughed heartily, he laughed genuinely. He laughed, as perhaps he had not in\nyears, happily.\n            \"Okay - okay - let's -\nyeah, let's go inside.\"\n            In they came from the patio\n- Stephen resumed where Cody had put him on the couch - Bligh took up the spot\non the other side. \n            He had no way of knowing\nthe immense importance such a piece of furniture had - where the bonds were\nforged and the past forgiven between his brother, and Bligh, and Cody. He had\nno way of knowing that, now, a smaller but similar drama was being enacted -\nbetween he, and Bligh.\n            And now the two of them\nregarded each other in the dark.\n            Stephen shifted where he\nwas, getting more comfortable in the couch cushions, and he heard, faintly, one\nof Bligh's strange little laughs, as he crossed his footpaws at the ankles,\nsettling in on his end as well. \n            Stephen smiled. \"You -\nyou gonna sleep there?\"\n            He saw Bligh nod.\n\"Yup. Now that y'up n'aight and y'ain't dead, so - I done my duty fer the\nnight, yanno, like yer brother asked.\"\n            \"But--\" Stephen\nhesitated, realizing with a flush of mortification how emotional what he was\nabout to say was going to make him. \"You're - you're my - my brother too.\"\n            A space of fleeting\nsilence, and then a cackle, that noise of triumph and delight, from Bligh:\n            \"Yeah - yeah, yeah I\nam.\"\n            \"S-so--\" Stephen\nwas failing to guard his elation. \"I'm - I'm really family?\"\n            \"I said it already but\n- yeah, man. Yew was always family, Stevie. I - I was jest wrong and\ndumb--\" Stephen saw his arms come up and his hands tuck under his head.\n\"Aight?\"\n            He had said it a different\nway, probably the only affirmation Stephen should\nhave needed, before...but he needed to hear it again, he needed to say it,\nexplicit and implicit, for Stephen to feel whole, for Stephen to feel welcome.\n            A surge of love, potent and\nhot welled up inside him - in that moment, he wanted to cross the line as Bligh\nhad crossed it, but go further, he wanted to get something other than a vague\npromise that he, too, could have a tail, and be equal amongst them, and begin,\nagain, with Bligh, what he ended years before.\n            But he did not. All he said\nwas:\n            \"I love you,\nBligh.\"\n            And with one of this little\nlaughs, Bligh answered: \"Love ya too li'l bro. I'm-a git some shuteye now\n- I'll see ya in the mornin.\"\n            \"Okay - well, night,\nthen.\"\n            \"Night, Stevie.\"\n            Stephen watched him, for\nhow long he could not be sure - watched the faint luminosity of his eyes vanish\nas they shut, and listened as the breaths grew less and less shallow until they\nbecame the sonorous rhythm of sleep, that emerged even after that as a\ncomfortable snore.\n            It was to this sound, and\nto this sight, bleary in his nightvision, that Stephen shut his own eyes, and\nfound sleep too."}