FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Marking the Family Tree

Pt. 5 of the Buck and Kennedy Stories

by H. A. Kirsch

---

"Do you realize this is only the second time I've been on a plane, and I can't really remember the first time because I was a baby? It's so terrible. Why do people fly anywhere? A city bus would be less obnoxious and uncomfortable. The only thing that's remotely redeeming about it is that some poor loudmouth businessman was just a little too late. I could see him having a fight with the gate attendant through the window as they were disconnecting that tube from the airplane." I was embarking on a flight and Buck had made the mistake of answering the phone when I called.

"Why is that good? Are you German all of a sudden?" Buck wanted to FaceTime me and I accepted. His charcoal-and-red-highlights lupine scowl filled my phone.

I, on the other hand, was a cross fox named Kennedy. Well, I still am. Quite hard to change that part. "I don't have any idea what you mean. No, I'm in an exit row so there are only two seats on my side, and he was going to sit next to me. Now I can put my armrest down and have all two inches of it to myself! I hope you're going to have a terrible time without me. I'm going to frolic amidst oranges and wine grapes and houses that are all square and very expensive bridge tolls. And that street that's so steep it has to make switchbacks!" I was going to San Francisco, to visit my old friends Shin and Macy who had moved a couple of years earlier and left me all alone with a fucking Wolf.

Buck grunted. He often did that instead of speaking. Buck went to the Tim Allen School of Manners.

"Well, like I said, I hope you're going to have a terrible time without me and that you'll miss making innuendos with food and insulting me and whatever else you like about having me around. Making me scared in your car. Watching nature documentaries with me. Oh no, I'm actually being sentimental."

"I'm going on vacation, too."

I sniffed. A little sign turned on over the seat. It was next to the no smoking sign, and had a picture of a cell phone with a NO symbol on top. "You're going on what? You're going on vacation without me?"

"If I tell you what I'm doing, you're gonna get mad at me."

"I suggest you tell me very quickly because we're going to take off and I need the most time to be mad at you for planning a trip and not inviting me."

"You wanna go up to my mom's cabin with me and Hawk?"

"You're doing WHAT?" Someone looked at me because I was being loud. They had a baby, so they were a hypocrite. "You're going to your mom's cabin? Your mom has a cabin? You're going there with Hawk? Why would you do anything with that awful wolf? He has such a coarse accent, like he should be a cab driver or a bookie or something." Hawk was from Brooklyn, I had heard. I was from Lainsville, which meant a much more vague upstate New York accent. Buck was from Atlanta although he'd been born in Lainsville and came back there because well, he never quite said why he chose it but I think he missed his family when they moved back before him.

"He's okay. I went to one of his support group things. It was dumb. But he's okay. I dunno."

Support group. The First Dawn, a moose lodge for 'first' hybrids, like Buck, and that dastardly and awful Hawk. "You're planning something. I know it. You're planning to," and then I chose my words carefully because I was on a plane. "Convince him to try something again and follow through with it."

"I didn't say that," he said, and looked shifty, put his ears down, snarled a little. "We're gonna do some work around the cabin. I wanna see if he's actually a good person of if he's gonna try something nasty."

"You're absolutely plotting something." Try something nasty? At least I wasn't too worried about Buck. While our first encounter with the sneering black wolf involved his overly large handgun, it didn't go off, and Buck would probably bite his head off long before being shot.

"Fine. We're gonna plot something involving your asshole and both of our dicks," he huffed. Thankfully I had him on my headset.

"I really have to go, they're going to tear the phone out of my hand. You better take pictures," I said, and hung up.

Hawk! Hawk and Buck going to a cabin! Buck was a charcoal wolf. His real name was Bradshaw Daly, but for whatever reason he insisted that people call him Buck, like he was a redneck. He worked for a performance automotive shop designing tacky fiberglass body kits, drove a customized Camaro with a massive supercharger that I called the Red Dragon, because his penis had a red dragon tattoo on it and the car was simply an extension of it. Also, it had a dragon on it, in very impressive airbrush work.

Hawk, on the other hand, was a completely black wolf, and he was a cad with a leathery fashion sense. He ran some disgusting fetish club in downtown Lainsville. Not like I mind disgusting things. Hawk had run into us frolicking in a parking lot at a state park at night, which was a terribly unusual situation. He had put us at gunpoint and made Buck fuck me. Then, I had to go to him to get help finding a pirate outfit for Buck to wear while he fucked me. Then, he came over to our house one night and Buck was going to make him fuck me.

If that makes absolutely no sense, then you can join the party. At least there was lots of fucking.

Well, they were going to go and have some sort of male bonding session while blowing the leaves around at Buck's mom's cabin. That was so sweet. I hoped that they'd have some sort of awful fight and Buck could tell me all about it. Maybe he'd get a scar. I knew he'd win in a fight with Hawk. Buck was, when I didn't ferociously love him for no good reason, quite scary.

---

Buck had a pickup truck that he used when he needed to do something that wouldn't fit in his Camaro. He had loaded the bed with all of the landscaping tools from our house, and then loaded Hawk in as a passenger.

"So where's this cabin?"

"Catskills."

"You have a cabin in the mountains? Nice."

"It's my mom's cabin. She's gonna be hosting Thanksgiving dinner up there, so I wanna get it all nice."

"Aww, that's so thoughtful. Wanna know what my mom's doing right now? Probably eating beans from a can and fucking a moose."

Buck did not grin at him.

"She's a forest ranger in Alaska. It's not a fucking joke."

Buck started the truck and drove off.

"I dunno why you're so fucking cranky. Are you like that with whats-his-name, Kennedy? And I thought I was a grumpy old shit." Hawk draped himself as much as he could while sitting in a pickup truck.

"Did you bring some clothes that you can actually do work in?"

"You think I brought a duffel bag full of bondage gear or something? I got some shitty jeans and stuff, don't worry about me."

"I don't even know why I'm doing this."

"Yeah, why are you doing this? Are you gonna cook up some plan to have me fuck your little fox toy for real this time?"

Buck almost pulled over and banged on the steering wheel. "God dammnit! Okay, I screwed up with that, alright? I was being impulsive! Look. You're a freak. You're weird, you're an asshole, you're practically a stalker. But I wanna give you the benefit of the doubt because I can tell Kennedy has sex dreams about you and if he's gonna do that, I wanna make sure that you're not really gonna do something stupid when he gets to live them out eventually."

"Nah, I'm gonna just pretend to do something stupid. I'm really gonna do something smart. Like listen to a business lecture on my fucking phone. Poke me with a stick when we're there yet," Hawk said, got out a set of wireless earbuds, and put them in.

Buck frowned for the entire rest of the drive.

---

Shin met me at San Francisco airport in a limo. Not a car service limo, but an actual limousine.

"This is... opulent. I think they may have even cleaned the smell of teenage girl vomit out of it," I said, unable to resist running my mouth. The woman with the baby on the airplane was unfortunate enough to have a baby with a mouth and I had lost all of my patience.

"One of repeat customers runs a limo service and I get a perk," Shin said. Shin was a silver fox from Nagasaki. "I'm not going to make you take Prius cab to my shop! I want to meet you in person! What the hell have you been up to, Kennedy?"

"Wolves! I've been up to my neck in wolves."

"Wow, I thought you afraid of fisting," she said. If you are thinking, what kind of a name for a girl is Shin, Shin is a boy's name in Japanese, you are right. Shin is a boy fox, technically.

I facepalmed. "You certainly haven't changed."

"You have to tell me everything! I know you have stories. I want all of them. Every one. Especially about wolf." Shin was wearing a fantastic professional jacket and skirt combo. She looked really classy. She ran a series of spa salons with Macy, who was a hairdresser I grew up with. Macy was a snow leopard and was also a boy, with no asterisks.

"Well, right now, he's going on his own vacation with another wolf. They're going to have pillow fights and gossip and eat ice cream at his mother's cabin in the catskills, I think. I think it's really a terrible plot to ruin my life in bed by filling it with wolves."

"What is it with foxes and wolves? I don't get it. In wild, they don't do anything together."

I shrugged. "I don't know. I never really thought about them in particular until Buck moved in with me." I thought about how he had found me as a roommate from a classified ad. Sigh. He had showed up at the house I was renting, dressed from the Ed Hardy douchebag collection, and gave me sex nightmares until we ended up dating. Now I'm living my sex nightmares.

"Well, I glad you're here to visit. Macy won't shut up about it for the last month," Shin said, and crossed her arms.

---

Buck's family cabin wasn't so much a cabin as just a house out in the woods, at the top of a hill which led to a big pond or maybe even a small lake. Hawk got out of the truck and stretched his legs with a leather creak. He was wearing what looked like full leather cruiser motorcycle gear: perfecto jacket, leather riding jeans, tall engineer boots. There was no bike in sight.

"Nice," was all the blackest wolf said. The cabin looked like no one had used it for several years; all of the landscaping was overgrowing or loaded with weeds. "You're a good little wolf for helping mommy clean house."

Buck snarled. "Don't fuck with me."

"Hey," Hawk said, hands up and spread at chest level. "Okay, I buried some sentiment in that one. You are a good boy for helping your fucking mom with stuff. My mom, you have to take a helicopter to get out there. She hunts for her dinner, scout's honor. And she's human!"

"Whatever. Let's get this shit out of the truck, and go put on something that won't get wrecked in the dirt. Unless that makes your dick hard, ruining your leather shit." Buck grabbed a leaf blower and a rake.

Hawk grabbed his duffel bag and a couple other tools. He changed after they opened up the cabin, into a pair of battered black jeans, a denim jacket, work gloves, and a pair of rubber muck boots that looked like they were new in box. One of them even had a tag still attached. "Just in case you think I'm some prissy-ass wolf, point me at whatever you want done and I'll do it," he said, shoulders up in classic wolf challenge posture.

"You know what a weed looks like?"

"There's a lot of kinds of weeds. Be specific."

"Okay, how about this: if it's within six feet of the house, pull it out."

---

Shin lived in San Francisco proper, but I only got to see her apartment for a few seconds as she picked something up. Then it was back to the limo and out to the outskirts of the city, where there was a little more land. I was a little bewildered; I'd been to Manhattan before, but this was different. New York City is mostly flat, whereas San Francisco is on a hill.

Her latest venture with Macy was the spa named "ONSEN". "Onsen is Japanese for hot spring. I wanted to make artificial hot spring, so I found these entrepreneur guys, engineers who were otaku. They want everything to be Japanese! I was almost offended but they are so good." Shin gestured around the big space. It smelled vaguely like salt and plants, but not of chlorine. The inside of the building was open and full of what looked like actual boulders.

"I can't say I've ever been to a spa. I'm not one for baths, really," I said. "No offense."

"We had customers ask for spa things at our third salon franchise, so we started massage, fur packs. Then I thought, in Japan, baths are tradition. Why not here? Bath house is not just for sleazy gay men." She led me around the interior. "But I had to make private rooms, too many people just don't like sharing." We entered a posh waiting room and she sat down at one of the couches. "So how are you? Don't you sell cars now? What an awful job."

I laughed. "I don't sell cars. I wrangle people that we sold cars to who aren't happy."

"Even worse!"

"It's better than the bank. They're real people. At the bank, since I was higher level, I only ever dealt with big customers, and they're all businessmen who play with money that doesn't actually exist. That's no fun. Plus, the guy who runs the dealership is kind of interesting. He's a bull and I think he wants to have sex with me. He doesn't push it or anything, I can just... tell."

"Mr. Saran, is his name? I know him! You want dirt?"

"You don't even live in Lainsville anymore and you have dirt on my boss? Of course I want dirt. I am a dirty, dirty fox."

"You told me about wolf and the mud. So, Mr. Saran... you will not believe... takes men home, and then his wife seduces them."

"What?" I almost giggled. "That makes no sense."

"I hear it from a friend! He has them come over, wife isn't home, they do something nasty, then when they wake up in the morning, he is gone and she is there and puts moves on them. It is some kind of game. Cuckolding?"

"So what you're saying is, if he invites me over to dinner... well, I suppose it was all too good to be true." If I had been back home, I would have gotten upset, perhaps even had an anxiety attack, at finding out that my boss was a creep. But I wasn't back home, so it just seemed like a big crass joke.

"Well I didn't hear he was mean about it. Bull is just a lecher. How is your wolf?"

"His job is doing great, I suppose." I relaxed a bit; the ambient lighting and ethereal music helped, too. "I got him to wear a pirate costume. Oh, let me tell you something, he is the most amazing wolf for letting me use him as a dress-up doll. He was so mad about the idea, I mean angry about it, he would growl at me and have a fit. So it showed up, and he turned into a vicious badass for real! He and this other wolf, did I tell you about Hawk? That guy came over, he stalked me home to our house, and the two of them got into a fight. A big rolling around on the floor kind of fight."

"Like brothers! My brothers would do that all the time. I would play referee," Shin nodded.

"Frankly, I was scared half to death, but then we all got high and giggled about it and now I think they're becoming friends. I thought Buck was allergic to other wolves. Something about his DNA. It actually has me worried. I know they're plotting something."

"You so paranoid," Shin laughed. "By the way, we are waiting for kitty. He is having late meeting with some lawyers. Good meeting. Oh! Did you know we are married now?"

"Really, that's," I started, and then realized what she'd just said. "You're WHAT?"

"Oh yeah, we got married maybe half a year ago. It was small thing, we don't want to have a real expensive wedding and all sorts of stuff."

"I had no idea you were even dating!" I had known Shin and Macy for so long, and while they were good friends, I assumed they'd moved out west for strictly business purposes. "How long have you been dating?"

"For a real long time. Macy was a big help about making me comfortable with myself, and I guess we just got intimate from that."

Did I mention we were having sake? I should have mentioned that. In the course of the conversation so far, I consumed an entire small bottle and was now quickly losing grip on my inhibitions. "Wow. I'm completely shocked and saddened that you would keep such things from me."

"I wanted to make a surprise! Plus you were so sensitive about how we left, I'm sorry we abandoned you with angry wolves."

"Shin, I have to ask you something, and you can slap me if you think I'm a jerk," I leaned forward, to get confidential, even though the spa was closed for the day. I'd had a late flight. "But what's it like being a girl? I've started cross-dressing sometimes, usually just with Buck, well really it's not a new development at all. It's just because I like sexy clothing and men's clothing is usually all manly and uniform-like. You're a girl though, I mean, you're really a girl."

My vulpine friend leaned back, crossed her leg, and wobbled her fancy booted foot in thought. Shin was a girl because she said so. She was biologically male, although she took a moderate amount of hormones. "Well, let's see. For me, being girl is just who I am. I don't know how to explain how it feels. Maybe, when you realize that you need to quit your job because it isn't right, that's how I feel about being a girl. I just... wasn't a guy. As for how the world is while being a girl," She tossed her head back but had a slightly pained look when she looked back down. "It's shitty sometimes. No other word I can think of."

She poured herself some of her own sake. One for one, it seemed. That meant we'd be pleasantly buzzed when we went out for dinner shortly. I had the last of mine. "I hope I didn't-"

"Oh no, I mean so it's shitty, so what? I'm a fox, we get made fun of; I'm trans, we get made fun of; I'm a girl, we made fun of; I'm alive, get made fun of. Being trans isn't so bad. I think people are scared of it. When they think I'm just a girl, that's when really bad stuff happens. Isn't that so backwards? You'd think after making two thirds of everyone on the planet into animal people, we could put some of old hatred behind us."

Suddenly I wanted Macy there, because he was a very known quantity. Or was he? He and Shin were married! Of course I could see the ring now, but I figured it was just jewelry. She always liked being a little fancy. "But you wouldn't want it any other way."

"No way! This is who I am, and I feel a lot better being who I am than being who I'm supposed to be."

That warmed me back up. Also, the rice wine warmed me back up. A loud chime sounded somewhere at the front of the building, and then a voice. "Hellooooo, I hope that's a pair of foxes or I'm going to have to use my pepper spray again!"

Macy. He didn't wait for an answer and just walked right back into the lounge. "Well! I'm glad there's a limo out front. Kennedy! You look like you're headed to a beach house."

Camp shirt, khaki shorts, and sneakers. Not running, athletic, or cross-trainer shoes. Slim sneakers. I had a few things planned for the trip where clunky shoes would have been silly. No heels, either. I wanted to save up bad behavior for a wolf. He could always prickle my fur.

Anyway, I stood up and hugged Macy, then tested out how drunk I was. After getting used to standing, I could walk around while only looking a little unsteady. "I'm going to be taking a trip down to Los Angeles, because why not see all of the meaningful things California has?"

"Meaningful! You better be taking a trip down the coast and up into the redwoods. The bay area's not meaningful unless you like programming computers or selling crack or idolizing hipsters. Although that mud stuff probably makes someone a lot of money even if it smells like farts." Macy then clasped his hands together. "I am very hungry, and those lawyers had terrible hors d'oeuvres."

---

"Beer?" Buck threw the can at Hawk before actually waiting for an answer. The other lupine caught it and snapped it open.

"So do you always do hard work on your vacations or is this just because you're afraid to have a fun time with me?" Hawk asked, then guzzled some beer and belched. He immediately winced. "Holy shit, did you freeze this?"

Buck shrugged, then bit the can through the sides and tilted his head up. It gurgled and sprayed into his mouth and he swallowed most of it. Hawk laughed like he didn't quite know what to do. Buck then spat the can out. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

"If you think we oughta be closer, I'm wearing two layers too many over my dick right now," the jet black wolf said, then wandered around and sat down in the foyer. The cabin was fairly cozy: the kitchen, dining and living room were all one big space, and the three bedrooms each had two beds to accommodate the most people. "I caught you looking at my boots. I show up in fucking mafia leather every time I see you, and what do you ogle? Muddy boots."

Buck looked down and away. "I got my things I like."

"Don't be a little bitch about it, not like I care. Your little fox like them, too?"

"Some of them." Buck got up to pace around, rolling his head to work out a sore neck. "So which room do you want? Gotta get a good night's sleep. We tore all that shit out; tomorrow we gotta put down mulch."

Hawk followed him around. "You don't wanna actually interact with me. Was this whole thing Kennedy's idea? Maybe a little penance for-"

Buck grabbed him by the denim jacket. "Pick a bed and quit stomping dirt all around the fucking cabin."

Hawk surrendered his arms up again. "Okay, okay. Want me to take the truck into town to get you some tampons, too? This one's fine," he said, pulled his rubber boots off, then left them outside one of the bedroom doors.

Neither wolf had any intention of going to bed so soon; it wasn't even fully dark outside. Hawk tested his bed out, got his phone out to mess around on the internet, discovered that there was no meaningful cell signal, and ended up falling asleep fully clothed.

Buck had a couple more beers, a hot piss, and then sat down to check his own phone. No signal either, but he had a text message waiting. "Flight went fine, Shin and Macy are doing great, they got married lol and now I'm going to eat gastronomique ice cream, I miss you, don't let Hawk play with his gun."

He wolf snorted and tossed his phone onto the nightstand, He was asleep in a matter of minutes.

Only to wake up in the middle of the night, at two A.M. The cabin was silent save for the purr of the refrigerator and the soft near-snores coming from Hawk's bedroom. There were no noises from outside; their subdivision was close to a road and while it was rarely loaded with traffic and not a highway, there were still plenty of noises even in the dead of night. Out in the mountains, there was nothing.

Buck got up to go have another hot piss, and didn't bother to close the door. If it woke up the other wolf, so what? He could yell at Hawk for leaving his muddy boots in the middle of the hallway. Mid-stream, thinking about muddy rubber boots made Buck's cock swell up and cut off his stream. He hissed through his teeth and squeezed the rest out, then crept out of the bathroom.

The boots were now dry, mud gone from slimy brown to ashen gray. He picked them up and carried them over to the laundry room, then started rinsing them off in the laundry sink. That turned the mud liquid again, and he ended up feeling over one of the boots. They weren't cheap models from a sporting goods store, but real rubber, almost firefighter style. Sturdy, but also glistening black once wet and clean.

He held it up to his muzzle and sniffed. Rubber, earth, soap. He stuck his snout down inside and huffed. Sweat, more rubber, odor after odor that were individually gross but together said Boot. They also said, "Hawk". He could remember the smell just from having shared a truck cab with the wolf for the long drive.

Buck slid his boxer briefs down and set them aside, then carefully closed the laundry room door, holding the knob turned and twisting it back silently until it latched. He picked up Hawk's now-clean garden boots and pulled them on, then paced around the room. They were almost the same size as his own. They fit well. They felt good. They turned him on.

The laundry room doubled as the 'workshop', inasmuch as there were racks and drawers of tools for keeping up with the cabin. Buck went through them until he found a collection of work gloves. His cock sprang up as, underneath some otherwise sumptuous and beaten leathers, he found a pair of black rubber chemical gloves. They were slightly dirty, but nothing a good rinse in the sink wouldn't fix. He slid them on as well, then sat back on a simple wooden chair previously used as a makeshift Place To Put Junk.

It wasn't just the boots and gloves, but who they belonged to. Someone Else. Another Wolf. He wagged his tail as he thought about what it could mean to wear another wolf's boots. The thought not only excited him to an aching erection, but it made him feel antsy in place. He reached up and cupped a rubberclad hand over his muzzle and started pumping his foreskin.

He imagined what Hawk might say. "You're wearing my fucking boots," growled in some stand-back-wait-a-minute New York swagger. "Now my cock's gonna wear your asshole like a glove."

So fast, so fast! Buck squeezed harder at his face to remind himself Not To Make A Sound, and then covered his cock up just as it erupted hard with his seed. Some of it splattered out past his fingers. Even stifling his climax left it pounding hard through him.

Another wolf.

He cleaned up and silently took the boots back, then set them neatly at Hawk's cabin bedroom door.

---

My second day in California got off to an awkward start. We took a rather long drive down to the south bay for breakfast, at some boutique little place that was very california. Small, earnestly fresh, very expensive, and at the bottom of a hill.

I liked New England hills. The hills in the bay area just lift you up and show you how huge everything really is. In New York, where there are hills, they make everything smaller.

"In case you're curious," Macy said, as he nibbled on some fresh fruit appetizer (locally sourced using only biodiverse fertilizers) three feet away from both a Hyundai Accent (like my poor old car!) and a Maserati Gran Turismo. "We trade off."

"Oh, you mean when you do the dishes?" I actually meant that earnestly, as I was busy noticing the pretention of the nearby parked cars and his question caught me off guard.

Shin took a finger and poked it through her mini-donut. Macy looked over and let out a throwback purrt! sound, and curled his tail all the way around his chair. Snow leopards have impressive tails. Then he burst out laughing. The two proceeded to fit-giggle while I nursed my coffee.

"I like having penis, you can do things with it," Shin said, coming down off of a high vulpine laugh. "Sometimes, I am just a fox sandwich. Fleshlight, me, and then him," she said, and put her arm around her husband. Macy.

I swooned over my coffee, which was hopefully seen as me succumbing to too much heat. Oh no; my parents were from Boston. I can pour coffee right from the pot down my throat. Our waiter had shown up with our meals, and got to hear all of Shin's obscene gesturing.

Shin's reaction to food was to expectantly take her food and start eating. She had always been a go-getter type. Businesswoman? No surprise at all. Giggling and cuddle-hugging up with a punk-pierced snow leopard in designer jeans? Whew.

"I'm so glad to know you two talk about me behind my back! Obviously we all do it," I said, and graduated from coffee to a crepe. A Ten Dollar Crepe. There was only one of them.

"We're all bent, look at you with wolf and his friend going to 'fix things at the cabin'. I bet one of them has problem in his asshole," and again with the donut.

I sighed, but put on a smile. No, I smiled, for real. "I don't really fuck Buck. God, that sounds so stupid when you put it together. Like in that movie. I just don't think I'm into topping. I top with words. I am a verbal dominatrix." Whipcrack. "I suppose they could be having sex right now. I suppose I don't really mind. I'm certainly no wolf and he seems to lust after them in this very strange, feral way. He never would admit it, though."

I have noticed, digression, that Buck looks around all the time. Whenever he sees another male wolf, he gets this Look. Instant higher attention. An attractive male wolf? That Predator Look he can shoot off. If I'm around, he will - without fail - look over at me. With the same look. He never says anything about it; he just does it. Now, for a few days, he can look at a wolf in the privacy of some mountain cottage and not worry about what I'll think.

I already masturbated to the thought of it the night before, so no worries there.

Thankfully, we were all quite hungry and so breakfast soon occupied our attention. We all had the same reaction to the food: this is so very delicious, and so very expensive. I thought it was odd - hook me up with a diner whose breakfast is made on the crumbs of last night's last burgers! - but Shin and Macy dismissed it with the kind of voice that says, "oh, I know about that, live with it every day!".

"I'm sure you've been dying for me to ask why we're all the way down here in... wherever here is. Isn't this Silicon Valley?"

"That isn't actually a place," Macy said, mockingly as if I were stupid.

"I know I mean Mountain View and San Jose and all that. Down here. Just not around the farty spot. That's awful. People live there?"

"Milpitas. I think the smell just goes away after a while," Shin said, and tapped at her head. "We are down here for a big surprise! For you. You going down to LA, right?"

I nodded. Shin just beamed.

Going down to LA, and trusting Shin to hook me up with transportation. She knew someone who ran a limo rental company. I'd probably just get an executive car gratis or something like that. Some big swarthy S-Class with in-built leather cock rings and a shield you can put up when you don't want to listen to the prostitute you have chained up in the back seat. Is that what people do in those things? I can't imagine they just sit there. They're too important to Just Sit anywhere.

We left the restaurant and walked a block away to a nondescript semi-industrial area. A few upscale office blocks and a big warehouse. We met up with a lion in a black leather suit. Hawk is one to wear a black leather suit; this lion looked like he just had too much money.

"Kennedy, this is Jasper. Jasper, Kennedy, friend from Lainsville."

"Lainsville, New York? I hear you have some fantastic night life out there," Jasper said, in a very lascivious tone.

Oh god, if he mentions The Pit...

"Now. I run a limo company. But, I also run a top-shelf rental company. Supercars, sports cars, touring coupes, even a few extremely over-powered SUVs and trucks. Take your pick," he said, and pushed open yet another security door. Part of the warehouse was cordoned off as a display area. The effect was goofy, like a trade conference, but effective. Concrete floor, polished to a dark shine. Black 'velvet' curtains. Hot camera lights.

And cars.

Aston Martin Vanquish.

Aston Martin Vantage GT.

Lamborghini Huracan.

Ferrari 458 Italia

Porsche 911 S Turbo Cabriolet.

Acura NSX (second generation - the real second generation).

Dodge Challenger Hellcat.

Mustang Shelby GT350R.

Corvette C7 Z06

And, in eyeball-popping blue crystal and knowledge that only 299 others exist, a third-generation Ford GT.

"I do mean take your pick. Any of them. Full tank of gas, expertly detailed, I'll even throw in insurance," the lion said. He had some sort of foreign accent.

I tried not to squeal. "Insurance, eh? Shin, you've seen me drive..."

"You learned to drive in sports car, didn't you? I remember that, some loud roadster from the 60's."

"Oh yeah, the Cobra."

"Mustang?" The lion asked. Meanwhile, Macy wandered amidst the cars. He was inspecting the Huracan.

"No, Shelby. It was mostly rebuilt if I remember correctly, but still... if you can drive that, you can drive anything. I don't think it had synchros. Macy, what are you doing?"

Macy was feeling the Huracan's front end. "It's so sharp! If I lean on it, it'll cut me!"

The lion looked impressed at what I said and concerned at Macy's car-fondling. "I trust Shin. She screens people for special packages - you get spa, and then a limo ride to and from. Only picks the good people. No college girls."

I scanned back and forth along the line of cars. Aston? That was a Hawk car. Lamborghini? As Macy was demonstrating, too pointy. Ferrari? I'd just never quite gotten into them. Acura? That was a possibility... Hellcat? That was a Buck car. GT350R? Also a Buck car. Corvette? I wasn't old enough or going gray enough yet. GT? I was going to be driving down to Los Angeles and the GT had no air conditioning.

Also, only one car was a convertible. California, PCH, route 1. I wasn't going to be bottled up. "Where are all the AMGs? Or the BMWs?"

"On the road. I run a business, you know," the lion said.

If you think sports car, it's hard not to think "Porsche". I wanted not to pick the Porsche, because it was a Porsche. But I had to. "911."

The lion opened his jacket. Like some shady watch salesman on a street corner, he had many pockets. He pulled a set of keys out of one and tossed them my way. "There you go!"

"Wait, are you serious? Don't I have to pay?"

"I pay for it, you are on vacation!" Shin said.

"You gotta be kidding. I looked at doing this back in New York, this company called Gotham Adventures or something will take you upstate in this rotating group of supercars. You get to drive a Bentley Flying Spur and a Rolls Royce Ghost. Hundreds of dollars! I looked at renting a 911 once, it was fifteen hundred dollars for my trip! It was a weekend!"

The lion shrugged and looked at his phone. "Someone wants the Porsche down in LA on Monday. So, you drive it down there, I don't have to send a porter, I don't have to pay to ship it, you have fun, vixen here gets to dote on you, snow cat gets to..."

"Oh, I don't really like driving that much. I have a Mustang V6 convertible," Macy said. A Mustang V6 Convertible is basically the 'I want to rent a sporty car but don't have any money' fleet rental special.

"Okay! If you insist...." I said, and approached the car. The lion clapped his hands loud, and suddenly one of the curtains pulled back. The rest of the warehouse was full of cars, and there was a gauntlet to drive through that led to a garage door. Someone in black name-badged mechanic scrubs started opening the door. Another someone wheeled a cart over. It had my luggage on it! "Holy cow, you guys are nuts."

I went over to the back of the car to open the trunk to be a gentleman, then quickly remembered NO, that is not where the trunk is on a Porsche. I let the assistants load my luggage in.

"Well, it's been great seeing you two! I suppose this is my time to head off into the... I guess noon sun, eh?"

Shin and Macy came over and we exchanged hugs, and then it was time to park myself in the car's leather sport seats. Comfortable, leathery, and probably 13,000 dollars extra. (I later looked it up; I was unaware that the Turbo S was one of the highest-end 911's and so most of the options were already included.)

I fired it up and instantly grinned my face off. Such a wonderful racket. Plus, because it was the Porschest of the Porsches (unless you count that 918 thing, or a 911 Carrera GT3 which is a death sentence on wheels), it had a PDK transmission. PDK is German for "just wait until something breaks", but it was also an automated manual so there was no chance of accidentally stalling the car in front of my friends and the person who was graciously giving it to me for the weekend.

I trundled down the gauntlet, and off onto the road. A San Francisco traffic fight later, and I was on Route 1.

San Francisco proper was in the midst of Fog. This is apparently a common problem. Thus, instead of seeing out into the fantastic pacific ocean, I was able to see about 100 feet away into horror movie mist. Meanwhile, twenty feet away on the other side of me, was a Sheer Cliff. I decided not to take the enormous tunnel that safely burrowed through a mountain, and instead chose the Coastal Road That Looks As If It Will Fall Off The Mountain. With the top down.

Why oh why did I ever drive a Hyundai Accent? My slightly hot-rodded S2000 blew it out of the water, but it was nothing compared to the 911 S Turbo Cabriolet. I had to use all of those words together when thinking about it. Buck's insane supercharged luxo-dragster Camaro was nothing compared to the 911 S Turbo Cabriolet. Do people who own Porsches like this make sure to use all of the words in the name all the time, lest people think they actually have a 911 Carerra GTS Cabriolet, or god forbid they actually have a Cayman instead of a 911...

And none of that actually mattered, because with foggy sea air rushing past my ears and the raucous flat-six howl echoing back off the mountain bluffs, the only thing I could think about was Oh My God I'm Driving a Porsche.

I'm pretty sure I squealed when no one would hear me above the exhaust. The trip was absolutely beautiful and, barring some traffic snarls, absolutely relaxing. Even when I was white-knuckling the steering wheel and holding my tail at a funny angle because I was terrified I was going to fly off the road.

I even avoided being pulled over.

---

After another day of hard work, this time cleaning up the inside of the cabin and making sure all of the linens were washed, Buck went down to the pond behind the cottage. He wanted to get away from Hawk for a while, get away from the cabin for a while, get away from everything for a while.

He sat down on the shore bench and took a deep breath. In with nature, out with... everything. In with nature, out with everything. In with wolf, out with-

"Boy, I'm glad you ran off down here. I could probably hike miles through the woods in all directions and never find you out there." Hawk sat down next to him.

Buck grunted.

"Am I interrupting something? You're definitely not gonna get a signal down here."

Another grunt. Buck started putting his ears back.

"You really aren't the talky sort huh?" Hawk looked as normal as he could bring himself to. Black leather bomber jacket, black jeans, battered old military boots used as work wear.

"You never shut up, do you?" Buck cut back.

Hawk held his hands up. "Hey, sorry. I'm outta here then-"

"Don't be a freak. I came down here to get away from you, but really just to... I just need to be alone sometimes."

The pure black wolf settled back down. "I know the feeling." There was a long pause. The weather wasn't particularly nice, overcast and autumnal, air cold and damp. Further up in the hills, it looked foggy. It was actually low cloud cover. Hawk huffed and his breath showed. Buck snorted and made twin streams of it. "I mean it. You probably think I'm some kinda playboy, right?"

"I don't know what to think."

"I live alone. I do everything myself. You know how I own that club? It's like practicing zen meditation, when I hire someone to do something. I burnt out all of a sudden a little while back, I was trying to do everything all the time. We're open at night, but you can't do everything then, so I was up like twenty hours a day. It was a mess. Got it sorted out now."

"How the hell did you get into that business, anyway?"

Hawk picked up a boot and crossed it on his knee, then looked around. He wasn't really scanning the surroundings; he was hiding the fact that he looked twice to see if Buck was looking at his foot. He caught it both times. "Let's see if I can explain this without talking your ear off. I know you don't like that shit."

Buck growled again.

"I grew up in Brooklyn. My mom hated it, so we moved to Lainsville. Also, it was something about her brother owning all this land and giving her a spot for a trailer home gratis, but I didn't know that as a kid. My dad was a cad, and eventually, they got divorced. My mom wanted to become a park ranger, so she ended up moving to Alaska. Meanwhile, I worked out this agreement to stay at the trailer if I proved I was doing okay in school and getting a job and not becoming a meth freak. Got it so far?"

"Yeah," Buck said this time.

"Good boy! Now, I ended up getting a mechanical engineering degree from Lainsville College. A real bachelor's, too, once they stopped being a community college. I worked for this marine power company doing small engine design, for a few years. Then I ended up working for a powersports company. Lainsville Powersport."

"I know them," Buck said.

"Yeah, I own them and LPC Performance Engines. Kind of a real estate thing now more than anything. Anyway, my uncle died. He left his property to me, since I was living on it, and my mom had no intention of coming back to Lainsville. She loves Alaska. I visited her a couple times - I needed a helicopter to get to her house. I'm not fucking kidding. Uncle died, I got his land. This didn't really dawn on me until some guy showed up looking to get me to sell it to him. Some developer. My uncle Harry, hence my name, had never wanted to deal with those 'idiot' developers. The guy offered me two point five million dollars for it. Said it would complete this big luxury housing development. Okay, so there's some money. I socked it away. You following?"

"Death, money, got it."

Hawk grinned. "I went to The Pit a lot. I became friends with the owner, Carl. Big German Shepherd guy. After a while, he wanted to go out and start some kind of sex ranch with this bull friend of his. So he wanted to sell the club. By then, my two point five million dollars was more like six or seven, so I said hey, why not? I'm a pervert. Who better to know how to run a kinky gay sex club than a kinky gay wolf? And it worked out."

"So you're lucky."

Hawk shrugged. "I guess I'm a little lucky. I've been doing some real estate investing. Building up a nest egg. I don't wanna lose everything all of a sudden. I don't wanna be a jackass. Honestly, though, I'm getting close to owning most of the street that The Pit's on. That's kind of fucked up. Me, owning a street? What kind of wolf owns a street? Wolves own shit like this. Wolves are wild animals." The wolf gestured around the pond and cabin property.

Buck didn't say anything for several minutes.

"What, did I say something stupid?"

"No. You're right. Sometimes, I guess it's like I hear the wild stuff calling me. I can't just run off and pounce around in the woods. But I feel it."

"You're a first, aren't you?" Hawk's brusque profanity was all but gone. Buck nodded. "It took me a long time to get my head around that shit. I didn't know until maybe ten years ago. My dad didn't know he was one. Some kind of mixup at the testing lab. He got a little class action settlement out of the blue one day. I'm pretty sure he blew it on hookers. He called me up from LA and said hey, guess what? You're a first. You need a new IPC card. Here's fifty bucks from my settlement! Talk to you next Christmas!"

"You serious? He's like that?"

"Ehh, it's not that bad, but he just doesn't think he has anything in common with me. He's a straight-ass screenwriter who likes tiki bars and titty-fucking girls. I like titty-fucking cross-dressing zebras. Or foxes, I guess." Then he elbowed Buck. The other wolf immediately stood up. "God dammnit. I haven't done shit to Kennedy. You know that. I dunno what it is. I'll be honest. I'm afraid if I do, and you aren't there chaperoning me, you'll come kill me in my sleep. I don't need anyone trying to kill me. Already been there once. Look, how about you tell me about you. That way, we both know about each other. Male bonding. Right? We're in the fucking middle of nowhere, in the Catskills, in a cabin, and it's gonna rain in about ten minutes."

"Fine."

"Okay, this is where you tell me something. Like... the red shit. What's up with the red shit?" Hawk leaned back on the bench and scooted to the middle, arms out along the back. The fog crept closer and closer.

"I thought it'd look cool. So I dyed my headfur a bit. Got some highlights. Then I got my tat."

"Your tat?"

"You saw it when you made me fuck Kennedy. My dick tat. I got a dragon tattooed on my dick." Buck then shrugged. "Now it's just who I am. I just wanna have red hair, I guess. Matches my car."

"I know this other fox, he works for me, he's a silver fox but he dyes his fur so the silver parts are red. Looks kind of fucked up, but he's pretty weird so it works. You look like you wear Ed Hardy underwear or something," Hawk said, and put his grin back on.

"I wear Ed Hardy underwear."

"Exactly! So where are you from. Let's be even with our stories here."

Buck shrugged. "I grew up in Lainsville. My mom got pregnant from some guy she was flirting with, but she'd already started dating my dad when she found out. That guy was just... not part of her life. Mom and dad just decided to have the kid and go with it. There was this complicated legal agreement with my uh, birth father. But my dad, he's the only dad I've ever known, so yeah. We moved to Atlanta for a while, but came back when I was going to college. I met Kennedy the first time at some Clean Up The River! event while we were both in school. Then years later, I answered his want-ad for a roommate. Then I bought the house he was living in."

"Good move. Gotta show that fox who's the wolf," Hawk said. Buck gave him a nasty look. It didn't have much of an effect.

"I do fiberglass molding and design for HiPer Automotive. I've been working on car shit since I was old enough to hold a wrench. I went to college for business stuff but fuck that, I like car stuff. That's about it."

"And you like cigars, getting stoned off your ass, and dressing up like a pirate."

"That's Kennedy's thing, the pirate shit. I mean, it's hot, I guess I make a good pirate, but," grunt, shrug. "If I was gonna dress up as anything, uh, it'd probably be a fireman. Back when they wore all that rubber shit. I'm kinda into that. Whew."

"Yeah, so I figured. I'm not stupid, you were fucking with my mud boots last night. Wanna know how I know?" Hawk said this and Buck looked wounded and angry in return. "Oh, with that fuckin' expression, you really wanna know! Well, for a start, my boots were dirty when I took 'em off and I don't think I sleep-clean very well. Also, you left a little wolf spoor in the top of one of 'em."

Buck screwed his face into as much of a wolf frown as he could. He tensed up as if to fight, but then the mist rolled in and brought with it a disgusting cold patter of rain. "Let's go inside. It's gonna just turn to mud out here. Cold mud. I hate cold mud."

"What, you like warm mud?"

Buck glared at him.

"Well, do you?"

"Yeah, kinda. Come on."

---

Aside from the traffic, and the fact that it was a very long drive, the trip down to LA was quite nice. I had gotten started early enough that it was past dusk when I arrived in Los Angeles proper.

And I was sick of it already. I was alone, and that was the part that hurt. Fancy car I didn't have to pay for? The 911 was amazing, and I had lucked out at missing traffic wherever it really counted so I could enjoy a little squealing around cliffside corners. That, by the way, is terrifying.

Buck wasn't with me. I'd originally thought it would be fun to spend some time away from him. While he isn't the most intimate person on the planet, I hadn't realized how much we occupied each other's time until I was thousands of miles away. Plus, he was probably frolicking with Hawk. Maybe they were having a fist fight! Who's the baddest wolf, grrr, slap, punch, bite. I would pay money to see that.

But now I was in a place I'd never been, a monstrous traffic-soaked desert, a huge sprawling city where nothing was recognizable except for obnoxious American chain stores and food. And I had no big cranky red-tinged black stud-wolf to hold onto. "I'm with this douchebag," and people would leave me alone. But no.

Then I found it. A Tiki Bar. I rather hate most bars per se, and I'm not at all a dancer, but there's something so refreshing about tacky decor and sweet and sour liquor. Plus, it was a neighborhood tiki bar, not some massive thing you see on a television show.

Colored lights! Moai statues! Every drink had an umbrella in it! Fruit and hard liquor, not sweat and cigarette smoke and beer! Not a meat market! Luckily my hotel was a short distance away and I'd stashed the 911 for the night. It was time for a Zombie.

For all its welcoming tacky charm, the tiki bar was also packed. I wandered around, and by wander I mean squeezed past people who were milling at the bar, then eventually pooped myself out onto the patio. It was also packed. After a circuit of the whole place, there was only one free seat, at a table occupied by a black wolf with a laptop.

"You wanna sit? Sit. I'm just workin' and doin' shit," the wolf said. So I sat. He was serious, and ignored me for a few minutes, which gave me a chance to stare at him out of the corner of my eye. Black wolf, all black, black enough that his computer screen's blue glow reflected off the fur but didn't light it up. (Perhaps a little middle-age gray around the muzzle.) Yellow eyes. Screaming camp shirt unbuttoned over plush black chestfur. Cargo shorts. Sandals. "You lookin' at my feet? You one of those guys who likes feet or something?" Screaming indignant sloshy Broolkyn accent. Oh god, deja vu, and that _look_...

"I'm appraising, yes, I want to make sure you aren't going to start prattling off annoying come-on lines at me," I said.

"Nah, not gay. I can insult you, though. Looks like someone pushed your face in the mud. Hah! You a cross fox, is that it?"

His tone of voice was slobbery and smug and not at all actually insulting, but also not quite drunk yet. I had a big slurp of my own drink. Then I coughed. "This is very impressive. I might even say dangerous, from that bite. Four stars, would get sloshed again. What are the odds that, the first time I ever come out to Los Angeles, I end up sitting across from some East Coast Asshole at a bar. Want me to shut up?"

"Nope."

"But you're working," I said, running my mouth to defuse the increasingly hackle-raising deja vu. I couldn't escape black wolves.

"Eh," he said, and leaned back, then nursed his own drink. It was served in an actual pineapple that had been cored out. "So I'm not working working. I'm uh, gathering reconnaissance. See, what I do is I sit here and eavesdrop on everyone. Regulars, tourists, big shots, dates, the whole thing. I can't help but overhear people, I have ADD or some shit like that, so I just listen and write down tidbits, what people look like, how they yap and move around and shit. Helps me characterize better."

"You sound like a writer," I mused.

"Bingo. Screenwriter. And East Coast Asshole, although I'm probably not going back there any time soon. I was too big for New York. Nah, I was just an asshole. Luckily everyone in Cali's an asshole, too, so I fit right in."

"Apologies if I didn't recognize you," I said, and felt the deja vu move into the background.

"Hah! No one's gonna recognize me. Maybe if you saw my name. Anyway, what, you from New York too or somethin'? I hear a little accent in there somewhere."

"Really? I thought my prissy demeanor covered it all up. Yes, I'm from Lainsville, this weird place near Albany-"

He practically coughed up a chunk of pineapple and laughed. "You're from Lainsville! No shit. I used to be from there. Grew up in Brooklyn, moved out to Lainsville, fucked up a lot, moved out here, and now I'm a hack writer who's gotta get his inspiration from drunk hipsters at a fucking tiki bar."

I bristled. "Okay, this is just too weird. I happen to know a black wolf with a Taxi Driver accent who grew up in Brooklyn, and you're quite reminding me of him, and it's making me very unnerved because you obviously aren't-"

The wolf shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time. Name's Jeffrey Michael Kirsch. I use all three names to be a pompous ass. That ring any bells?"

My mouth flopped open. "Did you say Kirsch?"

"Yeah, and before you ask, no, I am not another jew producer. No offense to jew producers. It's some old family name, someone back in Germany made a lot of Kirschwasser, this nasty-ass brandy shit."

Black wolf. Last name: Kirsch. Older. "You wouldn't happen to have a son, would you?"

"Yep. One. Well, okay, two, but only technically two."

"Aaand... your son still lives in Lainsville?" Wait, two? I put that query on hold, though, because he confirmed my suspicions.

"Yep. He's a crazy faggot, last I heard. Owns some kind of sex club. I think that's a pretty good gig, if you ask me. If you're gonna be a pervert, at least make some money off it, you know? Hey, your fuckin' ear's twitching. You get that thing with 151 in it or something?" He gestured at my drink. "Nothing wrong with faggots, uh, by the way. I just tell it like it is."

"Oh god, you're Hawk's dad," I palmed my forehead. "What are the fucking odds?"

"Hah! What a badass name, Hawk. Guess it makes sense, though. He always hated being called Harold. That was his mom's idea, I wasn't gonna name my fuckin' kid Harry. What a fucking small world, huh? You anyone I know?"

"Kennedy Aaron, and not unless you banked with CNY Bank within the last five years. I can't believe I'm talking to Hawk's dad. He'll never let my live this down..."

"We don't talk much so you're pretty safe. He's been mad at me for being a jackass and leaving his mom to come out here. That's fine, I'm a jackass for leaving his mom and coming out here, so I deserve it. I'm a disaster in domestic situations, so I gotta write about everyone else's."

When I had overheard Hawk's last name, it had sounded familiar but I never quite placed it. Jeffrey Michael Kirsch, on the other hand, was much more familiar. "You're the guy who did 'No Exit', right? That crazy melodrama about abusive relationships? That won-"

"-that fucking swept the Golden Globes, I even fucking got one. Best New Screenwriter. I fucking swear, I auctioned it off. It's just making up someone's dirty laundry, I don't need a fuckin' award. Anyway, how do you know Harry? You're a fox, that makes me think uh, you know, he's got this thing for foxes."

I went to get more of my drink, but surprise! I'd already downed the rest of it. "Oh, I ran into him once, and then just... somehow he ended up friends with my partner, which is very surprising because he is a self-proclaimed 'doesn't play well with wolves' wolf, and my... well. Don't worry, I'm not another one of your son's conquests."

"You know he's dating a weatherman? My son, is dating a weatherman. At least he was for a while."

"Oh! The Channel Four FoxCast guy? I'm pretty sure they're still dating. Not exactly the most monogamous dating, I suppose. He's mentioned him a few times. And once again, we're not f-"

"Eh, humans aren't fucking monogamous. Except the ones that are. Like my ex-wife." The wolf let out a wistful grunt. "She's a real fucking human. I mean, she's a totally normal human, not a furry-ass freak like us. Boy, that was good while it lasted, though. If she showed up right here, and started sucking my dick, hey, I wouldn't say no. I'd probably push you outta the way, since I doubt you want to watch."

Like father, like son. "Since uh, you seem to bring it up quite a bit, dare I ask what happened?"

He pushed his laptop aside, then leaned back with a foot crossed on his knee. It was almost on the table, like he was going to push it away. He put his hands behind his neck. "I cheated on her a bunch. Funny thing is, the worst thing that happened was while she was pregnant with Harry. I dunno if she remembers, she had that disease afterwards where she got real depressed and weird. It all turned out okay in the end, but it was kind of nuts at the time.

"I was on this bowling league with some coworkers at the time, and there was this chick there that I kinda liked. This wolf. She was always kinda ribbing on me and stuff, but it was totally flirting. A real toughass flirt, too. So I did it back, because... because I just can't say no to it. That was that. Until it wasn't that, and we got kinda tipsy and went back to her place and just fucked like mad. She spit in my face and slapped me 'cuz I wasn't doing it hard enough, that kind of thing. What a wolf. All dark and rowdy and barking and ungh, hff. A real rowdy bitch, and I ate it up. I hadn't fucked in months, you know? The baby. And I like fucking a lot.

"So you can probably tell where this story is going, right? She got pregnant. There's basically no way to win in that situation. You, me, the guy, is basically in the wrong. I fucked her and didn't wear a condom, I even licked it outta there afterwards, it was that kind of night. Obviously didn't lick enough. She gets pregnant, I flip out. But. She was just starting to date this other guy. They had a fucking talk about it, and guess what?"

Like father, like son. Only this one wasn't about to fuck me in the ass. Oh, I was supposed to say something! "I'm sorry, I'm completely enraptured by your slobbering Brooklyn accent." Then just enough pause for him to catch his next word, and I finished. "I'm quite serious. I love it."

"This shit's not gonna work on me. I tried playing with a guy once. I tried jerking him off, I dunno, it was like jerking my own dick but I couldn't feel it. Anyway, so this bowling bitch talks to her new man and they decide that they're going to raise the kid. And I'm not. I'm not gonna talk to her again, I gotta quit the bowling team, they're not gonna tell the kid who I am, nothing. We signed a legal agreement in lieu of child support. Her brother was the presiding lawyer. Can you believe that? That's some fuckin' award winning writing right there."

Now I felt stupid for the flirtatiously bratty comment. I also felt my stomach quiver. I lashed my tail around, and that didn't settle it. There was something about what he just said, about the whole story, that was sitting wrong. But alas, alcohol. "That's quite a sob story. On the other hand, you weren't stuck paying child support, which I hear is a big problem. Men make out poorly in divorce court. I wonder how that works with same-sex couples?" I mused, to try and lead the conversation.

"They probably pick the one who talks back to the lawyers the most."

"Oh, then I'm screwed if Buck and I ever split up," I said, and suddenly remembered that this mouthy black wolf had no idea who Buck was. "Buck. That's my wolf. He drives a souped-up Camaro and wears Ed Hardy underwear." And let me dress him up like a pirate and then fucked me while wearing it, _sigh_.

"He smoke cigars and get in a lotta fights?"

I rubbed my chin. "Well, not fights. He smokes cigars, though. Gets awfully stoned sometimes, too." And fucks me in the middle of the kitchen, _sighing intensifies_.

"Fucking wolves. We're all the same, you know? Either that badass bullshit or it's playing up the 'hey look I'm like a husky whose tail isn't a fucking donut' thing. Look at me, I talk like a fucking sailor but what, I'm sitting here drinking a pineapple full of coconut rum and writing all this shit down so I can write myself into a fucking story. Nah." He laughed.

Wow, this was really what Hawk was going to become. Except gay. And perverted. Naughty. Kinky. Kind of sadistic. Armed with a revolver. "Does it bother you?"

"Fuck yeah, it bothers me, but that's how it goes. I fuck up, so my punishment is that someone else is gonna raise one of my kids because I'm too much of a jackass to do it right. When I moved out here, I solved that problem. I donated a bunch of sperm and then got my tubes tied. Now I can fuck whomever I want and only worry about getting mange or warts or whatever." The tough talk kept coming but he looked noticeably set off. "It shook her up, too. Bowling-alley bitch. She ran off to Georgia with her new man."

That feeling again. Georgia. Ran off to Georgia with her new man. Ran off to Georgia with her new man, and pregnant. I knew a wolf whose family moved to Georgia. Buck was born there, and moved back later when he was a teenager.

The lawyer! Buck's uncle was a laywer!

"Now, I realize that I'm from Lainsville, and so perhaps you shouldn't be telling me anything more about this if you aren't supposed to go near this woman, but," oh how can I ask this question, "This all just sounds very familiar, that's all. Not you being involved, I mean I've never heard anything about you ever." Hawk had never told me anything specific about his father. Come to think of it, he'd interacted much more with Buck than with me, despite his attitude towards foxes.

The wolf leaned back. "Okay, how about this? I show you a picture, in person, and that's that. You never talk about it back home. You got that?" His eyes were bleary and a bit glazed. He was now intoxicated. That meant he would regret this if but only if he remembered it. But fuck it, I was drunk and tired and in such a mood to get gossip about my friends! When I nodded, he got out his phone and held it over. An older picture, obviously on film originally. A bowling alley. A classic goofy picture; Hawk's father, clearly identifiable in his youth (he looked just like Hawk did now!), with a woman cackling as she reached over and pulled his ear. She was wearing a Lainsville Community College sweatshirt with a green collar.

That did it. I had seen someone wearing that exact shirt before, another dark wolf, another female dark wolf. Buck's mother. "Oh, hmm."

"That's not good."

"What? Did I say something?"

"Come on, you said Oh Hmm, that means something's not fucking good. I'm not stupid." The wolf took his phone back.

"Oh, just that you look exactly like Hawk when he was younger." And you fucked my husband's mother. Dear god.

He put his face into a big grin. Unlike Hawk's, his was normal. Hawk always grinned out only one side of his mouth. He said it was some sort of 'thing'. It was a very rakish thing. "Yeah. I bet I do." While Hawk's grin was menacing and feral, his father just looked smug.

That was a good time to get going. I excused myself, because I really was desperately tired and alcohol could only mask it so far. Then, on the walk back to the hotel, I pulled up Buck's mom's Facebook page. There, buried way in the back in the photos, was one that someone else had tagged her in. It had been one of her old bowling buddies, who had taken that photo. Intelligently, Hawk's father didn't seem to be tagged in it. But yes, there was absolutely no doubt about it. Identical. The truth.

In my luxurious hotel room, which was a tasteful suite that looked out over a parking lot (I was just going to sleep there, so who cares?), it finally hit me and I started rolling around on the bed like a wild fox on a trampoline.

I have to tell Buck, I have to tell Buck, I have to tell Buck. Time for a phone call.

Time... for texting. "You won't believe who I ran into out here. Vacation's going fine, but I really need to talk to you."

"Hi Buck, my vacation is wonderful. How is yours going? Are you and Hawk having fun? I have something I should tell you so please call me back. It's nothing bad about me."

"Buck, I'm going to call you."

I called Buck. No answer.

I called Buck again. This time, "We are trying to locate your party. We're sorry, your party is not in a service area." Then, Buck's voicemail message.

Oh no, he's in the fucking woods. "Buck," I texted again, "Buck I really have to tell you something and it's very important and it might impact what you do up at your little cabin time," I texted. Still nothing.

It didn't stop there. I texted until I grew tired enough that I fell asleep while waiting for a reply. I dreamed about bowling.

---

Buck put his suitcase on the sofa and started rifling through it while Hawk clanked around in the kitche. "Hey, try not to make too much of a mess. You know, we're here to clean this place up, not wreck it."

"I'm not a frat boy," came the sputter-chuckle response. "I just want a drink or two. Can't be a wolf without whiskey and a cigar."

"Skip the cigar. Mom hates cigar smoke," Buck said, and took out a wooden box.

Hawk sauntered back out into the room, glass in hand, whiskey in glass, and immediately pointed. "You wanna be a hypocrite about anything else, wolf?"

Buck glared and opened it up. The inside was lined with red velvet, but it wasn't a cigar box. A gadget that looked like a squat bicycle pump took up most of the space, along with a bundled black power supply cube and cable, a black metal thing the size of a hockey puck, and an amber medicine bottle full of something uneven and dark. "I don't think this is a box of cigars."

Hawk perked his eyebrow spots and lifted his drink. "I don't know what the hell it _is_, but you win. Have a drink," the black wolf said, then set the glass down next to Buck's box and turned back to the kitchen. "Well, it's probably for drugs or sex, or it wouldn't be in a velvet-lined box."

"It's a vaporizer," Buck growled through his teeth, then set up the device. The 'pressure gauge' of the 'bike pump' shape was a temperature meter, and the metal flex hose that came off the top was the inhalation whip. The resemblance to shop equipment was just aesthetics. Buck quietly set about grinding a load of herb for it.

Hawk returned with another drink, and sat down next to Buck. That interrupted the wolf and got Hawk a gruff glare. "I give you some of my scotch, you gimme some of that."

"Course. I'm not that kind of asshole. You have to share weed. It doesn't smell as much this way, and besides, my mom's a pothead. Where I got the habit from. Their little family reunion's gonna be full of stoned libertarian giggling and bacon-wrapped everything. It's her side of the family. My aunts, grandmother. They're like lesbian hippies married to men, I fucking swear." Buck loaded the vaporizer, plugged it in, and waited. During the pause, he had a sip of the whiskey. "Nice scotch. Is that single malt?"

"Do I look like I'd drink blended whiskey?" Hawk smirked, then put his arms out wide. One of them went behind Buck, and got another glare. "Yeah, it's just Old Pulteney. I'm not gonna blow hundreds of dollars on liquor to go help clean some pussy-dripping wolf den in the mountains. That stuff gets fuckin' pretentious, too. Like wine and modern art."

The vaporizer beeped. Buck picked it up, took another sip of whiskey, then had a deep inhale from it. He exhaled, and nothing came out of his muzzle. He repeated, and this time, a thin cloud emerged, then wafted into nothingness. "I even sanitized it a little."

"You cum on my boots and then liquor up the nozzle for me?" Hawk snatched the device and took his own pull. Afterwards, he licked the gooseneck whip and handed it back.

"Asshole," Buck snorted, but took his without a second consideration.

Hawk shifted around on the sofa, grunted to himself, thumped his tail, and then put a boot up on the edge of the coffee table. "You haven't seen anything yet, wolfy."

"You made me fuck my boyfriend on the hood of his car, at gunpoint."

"That's not asshole. That's movie badass. Like The Gunslinger. You ever seen that?" Hawk squirmed again. His black jeans had a mean lump between the legs. He continued before Buck could speak, leaning forward, legitimately urgent. "German porn-star guy named Karl Moul got a job doing this gritty pulp-novel spaghetti western for this weird Italian director. He had previously done art porn. Anyway, the wolf. He's this big, black wolf, just like me, and he's a gunslinger cowboy, badass fucking cowboy lone wolf, and he goes to get revenge, and the only reason it isn't a porn is that there's no sex. Do you know what I fuckin' mean?" Hawk's excitement rose, but his eyelids drooped a little, and when he paused between sentences, he let his head slop back a bit. "It came out when I was in junior high, and it's the first thing I ever came to. Fuck. The gun gag scene." Hawk actually adjusted himself in his pants, and looked only slightly more comfortable afterwards. "Anyway, it's like a Quentin Tarantino movie, but if you took it up to eleven. That's what I did to you." Then he abruptly stood up.

"Yeah, I think I saw that once. I can see that now, you two have the same attitude," Buck said, and his prodded-wild-animal tension started to slip away as well. He stared at the vaporizer, counting seconds. Thirty five, thirty six - he grabbed it and had another pull, then switched it off.

"I bet he's a first, too. I oughta look it up. You know, I never thought about that before. Fuck," Hawk called out as he stomped out of the room. His voice dropped as he spoke to himself out of sight.

Oh shit, Buck thought. "And now you're gonna show me what a real asshole does," he said, and had to sit on his hands to keep from turning and watching the wolf emerge. Hawk was changing, or getting something, or preparing something, doing something out of the room. He was going to do it, or show it, to Buck.

Hawk stalked back out, completely naked. He lifted his shoulders a bit, reached into the air, then straightened back to a more human posture. His cock, while not erect per se, was big and full and hung like a black sausage with the big mushroomed head filling out the foreskin and peeking free. He was a big wolf, and Buck stared.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

Hawk flipped his palms up. "What do you think I'm doing? I'm walking around, fucking naked and high off my ass, in this little pussy palace for uh, bitches who put lawn clippings in their yogurt, I dunno."

Buck flashed hot and red at the insult to his mother. The extended family earned a whatever, but his mother? Also, Hawk was _naked_.

"Do you know how often I walk around completely naked? Only when I'm gonna take a shower or go in a hot tub. Otherwise, I fuckin' sleep in leather. A nice leather jock, sometimes gloves, too. I thought, why not now? Why not show the douchebag wolf who was milking his dick all over my boots last night? I'm sure he won't mind."

Buck snarled. Not at the insult, but at the sense of raw - primal - feral, conflict. It hit him with such a rush that it sent another pang right into his cock. "Don't fucking insult my mother."

"What is this, 'you fucked my wife?' I'm sure your mom's perfectly nice, whatever. You wanted me to fuck your fox, your fox, Your Fox. You were pointing a fucking sword at me while I was gonna do it. You want to see my dick again, for fucking sure."

Buck jumped up and tackled Hawk. The pair collapsed onto the sofa, but Buck wasn't content to just pin Hawk down. He wrestled him right off the couch and pummeled him down to the floor.

"You fuckin' son of a bitch, I'm not a fighter," Hawk growled, but then had to lurch out of the way as Buck went to bite at his throat. He bit back and succeeded; Buck growled and wrestled his arms to the floor.

"Oh, this is gonna be a repeat, huh? No fancy pirate costume this time," Hawk snorted, and overpowered Buck enough to grapple him back against the couch. Instead of pinning him, he went and yanked Buck's shirt up. They toppled over again in a snarling ball of struggle, and Buck ended up shirtless. Then with his pants around his ankles. Then with his pants off completely, and his boxer briefs loaded with a big, hard erection. "There we go, two naked black wolves. Fuck the dragon on your cock and that bullshit in your hair, we're both black wolves. Just like before, rolling around on the fucking floor, biting each other, maybe-" And then Hawk punched Buck in the chest and was promptly hurtled over onto his own back. "Fuck! Yeah, but there's no harlot fox-boy to point a pistol at us. There isn't even a pistol. There's just ten fucking inches of wolf dick."

Buck paused just long enough that Hawk got the upper hand and landed on the floor. Buck also wised up fast enough that he could roll and send Hawk sliding across the floor. It left a dusty ash across his black, almost svelte fur. "You think I'm gonna let you fuck me?"

"Look how hard your own cock is," Hawk coughed, nonetheless rising up. Buck jerked after him and the other wolf stood and ran for the first open door that wasn't leading out to the mountain rainstorm. "Yeah, that's it! Right into the bedroom! Is this your mom's bed?"

Buck tackled Hawk to the bed, except the other wolf rolled out of the way and pinned him again, then went for another bite. Buck squirmed onto his chest to press up and crawl away, but Hawk bit down harder and dragged him flat against the bed.

"I bet it is, you're a nasty little fuck," Hawk laughed through his teeth, up against Buck's ear, and then pulled the other wolf's arms behind his back. "It is not your mom's room, it's the fucking spare bedroom, which is great since I left my belt right here," he said, then slapped it against Buck's wrist and started winding the leather strap around and across. "Now let's see what's under these fancy panties you've got on. Aww look, they're covered in flowers," Hawk sneered, and stroked his bare hands over Buck's rump through the sleek boxer briefs. A slap and a squeeze, and he pulled them down.

Buck twisted his wrists around, arched back, but didn't actually try to get out of the belt cuffs.

"Huh, I'd almost think you weren't really trying to get out," Hawk sneered again, then climbed up and off Buck. "Since you aren't actually gonna get out, I can actually have some time to slick my cock up. If you got outta that belt, well, it'd just have to be spit and dick sweat."

"Do you ever fucking shut up?" Buck growled over his shoulder.

Hawk opened his duffel bag and got out a bottle of Pound-brand lube. It was slightly cloudy and looked a bit like semen as he squirted it out onto his cock, then stroked it around. It left his hand terribly messy, streamers of slime between them. "Do you ever use your asshole? This isn't fucking fast talk, how gentle do I have to be?"

Buck scowled, but Hawk returned it with a beckoning frown and the universal hand-toss of a 'so?' "Not... too hard at first."

"You ever been tied up before?" Hawk said, then climbed back in bed and let his slimy cock hotdog Buck's rump. He nudged it down, and let it slide against the hole.

The prostrate wolf groaned and clutched onto a pillow between his jaws; Hawk's reaction was to grin and lick his chops.

"I'll take that as a 'no'. It'll make you squeeze down better. Maybe I oughta ask those questions before I do things, huh? But that's no fun. If I asked you if you wanted me to tie you up," Hawk continued, and started nudging his cockhead into Buck's ring. Hawk's shaft was long enough that it was unable to get fully rock hard, and it bent dangerously as he leaned forward. "You would have said no, and then, well, shit, maybe it's not gonna fit."

"It's gonna fit," Buck grunted against the pillow, then squinted his eyes all the way closed.

"Hey, don't do that, you wanna push out. Pretend you're taking a shit. Oh yeah, that's gross, isn't it? I don't care if it's fucking gross, just do-urrgh, yeah. See? See how easy it is like that?" Hawk breathed out through his teeth, rattled a snarl-growl, then pulled out as soon as Buck squeezed up.

"Ahh fuck! What the fuck?"

Hawk grabbed him around the muzzle. "Do I need to shut you up? Don't tell me what to do. I don't wanna break you open, and it goes in easier the second fucking time. Besides, this is the best part," he huffed, then bore his cockhead back against Buck's asshole. It popped in again, much more easily, and he sank down against the other male's back, black hand still clutched around Buck's disgruntled snout. "Boy, you're a fucking wolf, aren't you? I can feel you growling in my balls, and you might as well be a mannequin with how fucking hard you are all over." Hawk roamed his other hand around Buck's shoulder, then stuffed it between the sheets and his pec.

Buck did not fight back, but he did struggle his hips as Hawk sank in further, body tensing up and eyes squeezing shut as inch by inch pushed in through his muscles. Whenever he growled, Hawk squeezed or pushed or pulled or _did something_, and that made it feel better and better. The hurt of initial penetration was now the dark red burn of lust, and if he did as the wolf directed and pushed out, the pressure against his prostate almost made him forget Hawk had insulted his mother.

Hawk stuffed his muzzle down in against Buck's neck and took a big sniff. Then, he let go of the other wolf's mouth and grabbed him fully around the chest. Instead of pumping his hips, he slowly rocked back and forth, grinding his shaft in as deep as Buck would let him shove it. "Mmm. You really smell good," he groaned, not in the smug urban drawl he'd been using, but with genuine buried-bone affection. "I bet your little foxy took one of your shirts with you, so he can muzzle himself with it while he jerks off in the jacuzzi tub at his hotel or-"

The black wolf had gotten so enamored with the strong, muscular, slightly bound and cock-squeezing wolf beneath him, that he hadn't noticed that same wolf wriggling out of the belt and pulling his arm free. Buck made a fist and pumped his elbow back and hit Hawk in the shoulder hard enough to shove him backwards. "Owww, what the fuck?" Hawk snapped, and yanked his cock all out at once. Then he punched Buck in the face. "You wanna play rough?"

Buck snarled and spun halfway beneath him, got his feet up underneath his hips, and popped up onto all fours. Hawk sprang back and Buck tackled him, but pulled him back from toppling off the bed. "You wanna fuck me? Fine. You can fuck me. You can lie on your back and I'll sit on your dick. That way, even while you're topping me, I'm gonna be the one on top."

"Oh no, I can't get off like thaaaat," Hawk rolled his eyes, but flinched his elbows up when Buck grabbed for him. Instead of another punch, Buck grabbed on and straddled atop him, then reached back and fumbled Hawk's cock into position. He then sat back and barked when the head popped through.

Buck groaned and rolled his head up towards the ceiling, then leaned back. His own cock swayed and throbbed, half hard but drizzling precum all over Hawk's stomach. "Fuck. Fucking fuck, why did I ever bother with a cunt ever, is this how a bitch feels when I've got my dick in her? Seriously?"

"The fuck are you talking about," Hawk huffed, then rubbed Buck's thighs as he flexed his rump and pushed upwards. "Besides, if I'm on the bottom, at least all I gotta do is lie here and cum in your ass. You've gotta do all the work."

The other wolf had no problem doing all the work. He struggled to shift around from kneeling to squatting, then reached back and grabbed onto Hawk's thighs and almost choked on his tongue. He started riding, quickly working himself up to a literal shuddering pace, jaw dropped, muzzle snarled in wanton prostatic pleasure.

"Look at that big, pretty dick you've got. You really did a fucking number on that thing - a fucking dragon?" Hawk reached out and grasped at Buck's cock, but the wolf snarled and smacked his hand away.

"Don't fuckin' touch it I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna cum just from your dick up my ass, god damn, you're such a disrespectful fucking mouthy asshole shithead wolf! ARRGH!" Buck then hollered out loud enough that Hawk flipped his ears back, and a huge white rope of semen pumped up out of his cock, spiraled in the air, and slapped down against Hawk's stomach fur. Then he pulled up and off and jerked at his cock, another massive bolt firing out, this time splashing against the bed several feet away from Hawk's head. He straddled forward, teeth gritted and bared, while he shot the rest of his load all over the black wolf's face. "There you go. Now you're on the fucking bottom."

Hawk's response was to just lick his chops.

Buck looked around, abruptly confused, and then sat down, cock throbbing every few moments. He tipped back and arched down onto the bed, then smacked himself in the face. "Oww, fuck, I think you gave me a fucking black eye," he winced, then sat up.

"You hit me first. And, speaking of hitting, aren't you kinda forgetting something?"

Buck rolled around, turned around, then dropped down next to Hawk. "Yeah? Like what? Oh, thank you mister wolf or something?"

"Actually, yeah, I always like it when someone calls me that instead of sir, but I mean, my dick. You might have howled your fucking heart out but I still wanna get off."

"Tired," Buck snorted, then grabbed up alongside Hawk and pretended to fall asleep on his shoulder. At the slightest prod, he popped back alert and sniffed. "You smell like a wolf came all over your face. And you think you're a fucking toughass, hrnf."

Hawk turned muzzle to muzzle with him, and they both licked out at the same time. "Aww, there you go, little wolfy. I'm not gonna bite."

Buck slapped him on the cock and Hawk yelped, but his black shaft surged harder. "Fine, fine, I'll play with it." He smacked it again, then clutched the black length and started milking Hawk's foreskin up and down. The two stared at each other, before Buck leaned in and gave Hawk's muzzle lips a thorough licking. The black wolf returned the favor, and only interrupted it to groan and wince his eyes shut as he blasted a mess all over his chestfur. Buck let go of his cock, then gave Hawk a slap on the chest and ground the spunk in. "There you go. All finished." He climbed up and out of bed, then staggered into the bathroom to wash up.

Hawk just reclined back in bed, folded his arms behind his head, and relaxed.

---

After the incident, both wolves acted like nothing had happened. They had a good excuse: they had to wash the bedding a second time after Buck's orgasm had slathered it with wolf semen, and then finish up all the work left over before leaving the next morning. Hawk had retired back to his guest room, and Buck to his. Buck in particular lay awake well into the night, buzzing inside with feelings that he didn't want to admit, and also that weren't expected. Some of them weren't even feelings he had for Kennedy.

Hawk's reaction seemed to be relief on the surface, losing much of his bluster, and only gaining it back through the morning until he was mouthy but not directly antagonistic. Finally tidied and straightened up, the two climbed into Buck's truck for the drive back home.

"So, are you gonna tell your little foxy about it?" Hawk said, as soon as the doors were closed.

Buck huffed and grabbed the steering wheel, and paused before starting the truck. "Yeah, why wouldn't I? I'm not an asshole."

"He's a cute guy. Not my type, and that feels really weird to say. I'm a self-proclaimed fox fanatic. I dunno, I think he's maybe too headstrong. I mean, he pointed my own gun at me."

"You were stupid enough to let him grab it."

"Anyway, I'm glad you two have a good thing going on."

"I don't usually mess around with wolves. It's kinda weird. It's like fucking my reflection or something."

Hawk laughed. "They used to say that about being gay. Hey, are we gonna sit here all day or what?"

Buck grumbled and started the truck, then pulled out. "Thanks for the help. It'd be a pain by myself. And uh, I guess it feels good having a looser asshole for once."

"With the way you were hobbling into the john last night, I'd imagine that-"

As they drove down the drive to the mountain road, Buck's phone finally picked up a cellular signal and frantically vibrated. A few seconds later, "25 NEW TEXT MESSAGES" popped up on the truck's computer screen. "Jesus christ, what'd he do, fall off a cliff? Break a claw? Eat tepid sushi?" Buck laughed, then reached out and poked the "READ" button.

"FIRST MESSAGE - NOVEMBER THIRD - FROM KENNEDY AARON", the computerized female voice spoke.

"You ever notice those things always have these sort of snippy, indignant female voices? It's never a porn star or something," Hawk quipped.

"BUCK DON'T FUCK HAWK HE'S YOUR HALF BROTHER", the robotic voice continued.

Buck stopped the truck, and the two stared at each other, then the screen. He grabbed his phone and scrolled through the messages. They started off pleasant but grew increasingly worrisome until the shell-shocker. There were even a few voice mails mixed in the timeline. "What the fuck's he going on about?"

Hawk shrugged. "Fuck if I know, I'm an only child."

Buck scrolled through the texts again. "Seriously, what the hell is this?" He showed a picture to Hawk. In it, a dark gray female wolf was yanking a laughing black wolf's ear, amidst the unpleasantly dated surroundings of a bowling alley.

Hawk's face went slack. "That's my dad."

"That's your dad? That's my _mom_."

Hawk broke the long, tense silence with a scoff. "No wonder you smell so fucking good."

---

Buck had arrived home before me, if his truck in the driveway was any evidence. He'd left his duffel bag on the sofa, and I could hear the rushing sound of his waterfall noise machine in his room. I checked the patio just in case he was out there playing pirate - which he'd taken to doing even though he'd been indifferent to the whole costume idea at first. I also checked the little back yard sex palace we'd created, and it was just as clean and tidy as I'd left it after I'd worked the last of the indifference out of him before our trips.

But no, he was in his room. The door wasn't locked, so I peeked in. "I can go away if you want," I said quietly.

Grunt.

"Is that a yes or a no?"

He opened the door slightly further, then pushed a bowl at me. It was full of the remnants of a salad. Specifically, a broccoli salad. I suddenly had a flash of him sitting there, hunched over a bowl of broccoli, loudly and compulsively crunching on it while he moped, and giggled. Then I stopped, because of course I knew what he would be moping about. "Go put it in the sink or whatever."

I sighed and did as instructed, because what was I going to do, hand it back and get my hand chewed off, or drop it on the floor? I was mid-rinse when I got a funny crawling sensation and looked over my shoulder. Buck was standing there in his boxer briefs and nothing else, shoulders up, head down, holding his other arm by the elbow. Not only did he look bent out of shape, but he was squinting awfully.

"There's no cell service at the cabin. Didn't I fucking tell you that?"

One billion funny and snarky things came to mind, to try and defuse the situation. I selected one of them. "Ahh yes, I could have simply forgotten to tell you. Then, we would be eating dinner some time, after a long day of working at our jobs, and I would just casually say, 'oh, by the way, it turns out you're Hawk's half brother. Isn't that funny?' Except it's not funny." Except it kind of was, because it was completely ridiculous.

"I thought it was some kind of weird joke, but then I saw that picture. We were in the fucking truck. I had to sit next to him for the entire ride home. Thank god the big ass didn't run his mouth about it. Shut him right up. Figures." Then Buck turned and loped back into his bedroom.

I followed, and he didn't try to keep me out. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He huffed and sprawled back on his bed. "Talk about what? Finding out I've had a half-brother my whole life, that my mom kept from me on purpose? Finding out that my real dad is that oversexed jackass's soap-opera-writing hollywood sleazeball father?"

"Oh, you said real d-"

"Shut up, I'm fucking serious. He can't take a shit without cracking a joke and can't wipe his ass without insulting the toilet paper. I can only imagine what the fuck his dad's like. I think I saw him on an interview once."

"Well, I can more than imagine it, because I actually met him. How else do you think I figured all of this out?" I slapped my arms down, and then cautiously sat on the edge of the bed. Buck stared at me like I was food, or worse.

I continued. "Out of all the people to run into on the other side of the country, out of all the four hundred million people in this glorious God Bless America, I had to sit down at the only available seat in a crowded tiki bar with Jeremy Michael Kirsch. He showed me that picture. That picture of your mom from your Facebook account!"

"I can't believe she fucking, she never, she..." Buck proceeded to curl into a ball, and then let out a sound that is reserved for dying, neglected pets. "God fucking shit I just spent the weekend cleaning up her fucking cabin so her and her kombucha-swilling hippie flannel cousins can sit around talking about their vaginas and she'd posted a picture of my fucking birth father on the internet and lied about it!" Then he rolled over and curled harder into a ball and his tail quivered.

Somehow, I'd expected there would be a tawdry story, or even a black wolf waiting for me at the house to tell me all about the nasty things he conned Buck into doing. Instead, I got to very carefully pet Buck while he sobbed into his pillow.

We spent quite a long time in bed together, mostly silent, with Buck's sobbing quickly dying down to those awful gasping snorts that are like reverse hiccups, and then just to what sounded like sleep breathing. I rolled over and he grunted and stirred, though.

"Sorry. I guess I'm overreacting."

"Overreacting? I highly doubt that."

He sighed and slowly uncurled, then shimmied out of his underwear and wiped his eyes with it. Oh no, don't do that... you'll get pink eye, I didn't actually say out loud. "At least you weren't a smartass about it."

"Well, I was going to ask you the really pertinent question, but then you imploded and I actually feared for my personal safety until you curled into a wolf ball."

"Guess I walked into that," he rolled his eyes, and then laughed, sniffed hard.

I took his hand and his eyes went wide and wild for a moment, but then he leaned in against me. "At least you two didn't kill each other." Buck's face got a very, very strange look. "Oh no, you didn't, did you? Kill each other? Obviously you're not dead, but-"

"Worse."

"Worse? What's worse than killing each other? You do look like you got in a fight... is that a black eye?" How can you tell a black wolf has a black eye? Because he's squinting, sigh.

Grunt. Buck slowly got a playful look in his face, but it was the kind of playful look reserved for children playing in the dust after a nuclear explosion. It might be fun now, but it won't be fun later.

"Oh no."

"Yeah, too late for the warning. I was gonna cum all over the bed so I elbowed him off me and bam, right in the fucking eye." He pointed. Up close, it did look quite puffy around the socket.

I cocked one of my ears to the side. "Did you just say you were going to-"

"He fucked me, alright? We rolled around and fought and snarled a lot and then he tied my wrists up with a belt and fucked me and I've never felt that way before in my fucking life. I've never been fucked by anyone before. Fuck, I've never even been with another... another wolf guy. It's always girly dudes or biker chicks. I sat on his dick after he punched me-"

"AFTER he punched you?!" I stared, agog, and not just because of how frank he was. Buck was always frank, when he actually spoke up at all. Maybe talking about sex was distracting him from the drama.

He grabbed me and wrestled me down against the sheets. "After he punched me, I sat on his dick and it was like, I dunno, like I was orgasming in parts of me I didn't know could orgasm. I think I fucking screamed. Then... then I jerked him off."

"Why, why why why are you telling me all this?"

Buck shrugged and huffed down next to me. "Because I gotta fucking tell you. I can't not tell you. That'd be stupid. Not telling people things is a bad fucking idea, unless it's a fun surprise. Did you do anything nasty out there?"

"I think I let a cocaine dealer lend me a car for the drive down to Los Angeles, but I'm not sure exactly. Also, Shin and Macy got married! They make such a sweet couple. And no, Hawk's dad didn't do anything to me except spill his guts. I mean about all this crap, not like he puked on me or something, although he did get rather drunk. He also was undressing all the women at the bar with his eyes. I think he's quite straight."

Buck cackled for a moment. "This is so fucking stupid! What a bunch of asses, I mean, me and him, this whole fucking... and we fucked. God dammnit."

"I've heard that sometimes, when people meet long-lost biological relatives, especially close ones, like birth parents and such, they just have this attraction. Maybe because they didn't know each other, so the familiarity just comes across as sexual?"

"He said I smell really good."

"You do!" I rubbed his chest. "You smell amazing. I borrowed one of your shirts and took it with me so I could nuzzle it in bed."

"Argh!" He snarled and nudged me hard. "God fucking dammnit, he said you'd do that kinda thing! I bet you jerked off on it, just like you jerked off on my car."

"No, Bradshaw Daly, I did not jerk off on your car - I stuck a dildo to it, thank you very much - and I did not jerk off on your shirt. I didn't jerk off on the pair of underwear I borrowed either, although I did daintily drape them over my face while I squirted on a pillow."

He growled and pushed me out of bed.