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“Do you have anything useful to say about this?"

Conroy's voice was shocking to Stephen, even with his low expectations of the day, the baleful tone hitting somewhere in the middle between dour preacher and disappointed dad. That wasn't enough drama for him, and he tossed the paper onto the empty conference table between them with a frisbee flourish. The paper landed with a slap, skidded down the length of the table and promptly cleared the edge to land in a crumpled heap at Stephen's feet.

Goddamnit, Stephen thought as he started the laborious process of stooping to pick it up. There was no way the boss didn't do that on purpose. The ginger bastard had a mean villain routine, he'd have to hand him that.

He knew exactly what would be staring back at him from the front page, under the stylized image of an oldschool mailman's trumpet. There he was, like a rag doll in Franky's arms with the opioid-alcohol haze blearing his face into a clueless expression. Franky bared her teeth in an unflattering, lop-sided snarl, clearly having noticed the cameraman. Crammed into the free space above them, and running down the right side of the page, shone the headline of the day in bold, shouting typesetting.

'Construction conspiracy! Victim found in arms of brute!'

He had plenty of time to take in this glorious scene on his way back up to a standing position. The skeezy journo had clearly landed with his nose in the butter thanks to him being an accidental drug fiend. He was probably gunning for a shot of the two of them just together. Instead, here he was nestled snugly against Franky's breast.

“It's all bullshit, you know." He slapped the tabloid down on the table, hard, to drive the point home. He wasn't about to let Conroy be the only one to screw open the drama tap.

The boss shook his head and turned to stare out the window, hands folded behind his back.

“It doesn't matter if it's bullshit or not. You're together with her, in public." He shot a glance over his shoulder. “Normally this is where I'd say you might as well be holding hands, but you're already at second base. What the hell were you even doing there?"

“Jesus, boss. Just because we're calling it an investigation doesn't mean we're the cops. There are no rules about who I get to hang out with. We weren't getting our stories straight like some…" his glance drifted to the tabloid headline silently shouting at him from the table, “… some conspiracy."

“What else are people supposed to think?" Conroy spoke to the pane of glass. “You just struck up a friendship in a morning of work?"

Stephen sighed. “She saved my life, boss. The fuck was I supposed to say?"

Conroy whipped around to face him. It was an odd motion for a man as tall and thin as he was. His drama would probably have been better served by something more slow and deliberate.

“You never told me about that."

It was true. He hadn't. But the accusation still made Stephen take a mental step back due to the implied expectation behind the boss' clipped tone.

“It didn't come up between having my ribs busted and taking up a drug habit."

The boss' eyes narrowed into inquisitive slits. “You broke your ribs because of her, didn't you?"

“Bruised. And I think so. One moment I'm thinking I'm going to die, the next I'm stuck under half a ton of tigress."

She had to weigh around half a ton, right? Biggest tiger he'd ever seen.

“It's good for me to know these things, Stephen."

Stephen wasn't a fan of the thing where people used his name in an otherwise normal sentence, but Conroy seemed to look past him, over his shoulder, into empty air. Maybe the guy was just feeling paternalistic. Stephen hadn't stopped to think how almost losing an employee would look to him. After all, they weren't the cops or anything.

“I'll tell the team the full story." His gaze fell onto the tabloid again, Franky's angry eyes staring straight at him. “How have people been reacting to the news? Officially, I mean."

The boss shrugged. A nice, full shrug that Stephen instantly felt jealous of. “As little as possible."

“Nobody is scaling back large scale workers' hours?"

Might as well get it out there. There was a moment of silence.

“Nothing official. Part of the site is shut down for the investigation," Conroy finally said. “Did she tell you that?"

“It came up. I can't really blame them for the suspicion."

He was already running a safety evaluation specifically of large scale workers. And he did jot down an infraction when Franky lowered those pipes into the trench. That's not something that would fall onto the backs of the workers themselves, but not everyone saw it that way. Or wanted to see it that way. There was a long history of division between the bigger people, and just regular folks. The elephant in the room was… well, a saying that didn't just fall from the sky. The physical threat was real, as he'd experienced recently. Just that possibility made people feel insecure. And insecure people say and do stupid things.

That, too, he had plenty of experience with.

There was the light rap of a politeness knock. The sort that announces entry, rather than requesting it. The door opened with apologetic slowness, then a young woman's curious face gave a decent Killroy impression through the crack, preceding the rest of her into the room. Shyness and authority made odd bedfellows.

The investigator. If Conroy had any more to say about the subject he certainly wasn't going to do it in front of her.

“I'll leave you to it, then," The boss said, snatching the Local Bugle from the table as he went.

Thank fuck for that. If he really wanted to be a bastard, he could have left it to be a millstone around his neck.

The young woman regarded him for a little too long with large, watery eyes before extending a hand in greeting. He more grasped than shook it as they exchanged names. Hers was Karen. Then followed the brief ritual of empathy over his unfortunate situation, with the central point that it must have been quite scary indeed. Stephen confirmed this. Indeed, it was. He neglected to mention that most of that fear had really come moments later, having found himself to be ill equipped to give the proper reaction in the moment itself.

Introductions over, they both settled in chairs. Karen asked him to recount the events of that day, and he did. He went over his job, meeting Franky, sitting by the side of trench as she dug. With everything that had followed it seemed like a lifetime ago. Then the falling rubble, how he'd felt stuck, unable to move despite knowing what was happening, and how his last memory before waking up in a hospital bed had been Franky's bulk over him, shielding him from the deluge. Karen duly made notes on a tablet, only acknowledging him with small nods. Her phone was on the table between them, recording everything they said.

A round of questions followed. Had he seen anything unusual? Had they broken any rules? Was he under influence? No, no, no.

“How did you get injured?"

Stephen snapped out of the trance recounting the events had put him in. His cadence broken he looked at Karen for a second with an expression he was sure must have been utterly morose. She simply looked back, big eyes unmoving, the corners of her mouth set in a conservative attempt at an encouraging smile.

“I… I think it must have been Franky." He had to tease the words from his brain. There was just something wrong about implying her.

“That's the large scale worker you were evaluating, correct?"

Leading question. A wrinkle in her routine. But she wasn't wrong, so he simply nodded. In response she flicked her eyes from him to the phone on the table.

Right.

“Yes," he said, “we were going to have lunch together."

Franky still owed him that lunch. Maybe he should hassle her over that. It'd be nice to be able to thank her properly, once this nonsense was over with.

“Can you go into more detail?"

“Not really? She jumped on top of me, knocked me to the ground." That was right. It was weird, but he had no recollection of falling down. Just the shower of rubble at one moment, being smothered by a tigress the next. No memory of pain, either. He probably passed out before he'd run out of the shot of sweet adrenaline rationed to him by evolution. “She's heavy. I guess it's kind of like getting hit by a truck, except the truck also saves your life. And the truck is soft. And I have no idea how much rubble was weighing us both down."

Karen pecked at the tablet with her fingers.

“That's all," she said, then tapped the screen of the phone as well.

Just as she had entered the room in as inoffensive a way as possible, Karen left. It was the absence of the careless noise of regular life that was off about her, Stephen decided. No snapping of covers or rattling of clutter as she placed her devices in her bag, nor any audible footsteps on the carpeted floor. Even the way she wished him a speedy recovery was as generic as an automated email, forgotten by the time she stepped through a door opened only far enough to admit her.

Was it all calculated? Stephen thought about the matter as he made his own, slower way out. She'd dodged any chance of lingering small talk with an efficiency that had to be calculated.

It was a lesson worth learning from, though. After a week of absence his fellow office stiffs had been eager to poke and prod him with questions, commiserations, and advice. There were some shared experiences about being knocked out by painkillers which was fine enough, and even before hearing it he'd decided he wasn't ever going to rub stinking eucalyptus lotion on his sides. Maybe some people would think it speciesist, but he was sure Bruce only said it because he was a goddamn koala in the first place. But the cover of the Bugle lingered over his head like the time bomb of Damocles. The more time passed, the greater the likelihood that someone would want to be funny about it.

So he moved silently, hugging walls, ducking behind cabinets, steering clear of familiar voices, and pretending not to see familiar faces all the way to Conroy's office. Every rule had an exception, after all.

The days of opulent offices were long gone. Conroy's office was nothing more than a regular work room with a regular desk and a nameplate beside the door. The only thing out of place was the colorful cover of the Bugle glaring at him from the desk, a spot of color in the muted office gray. The boss was on the phone, but he waved him in all the same. The look on his face was the reason video phones had remained a thing of science fiction. Clearly the person on the other line was not a welcome caller.

“… I advise you to get into contact with our PR department. The number's on our site. If you'll excuse me, an important appointment just arrived. Goodbye. Thank you."

He pointedly tapped the call from his screen.

“We don't have a PR department," Stephen said.

“They'll find some poor idiot to fill the role." Conroy affected a cold smile.

“Press?"

“You got it." He leaned forward on his desk. “There's blood in the water. Usually we get away with a little page 3 article, if even that. Even when there's a fatality. But if there's one thing the regular media hates, it's the fringe media screwing them out of a scoop."

Stephen invited himself to the cushioned seat of the chair opposite the desk.

“What, haven't they been calling you?" the boss said.

That was a good question. Stephen fished his new, cheap, possibly crap phone out of his pocket and swept the screen into life.

“11 missed calls. I'm guessing most of those are press."

He barely even noticed the buzz of the phone any more. That had nothing to do with recent events, and altogether more with meme-happy friends, but it certainly made the recent events easier to ignore.

“You don't pick them up or call back?"

“If I were in the mood for masochism, I'd just ask someone to tickle me. Besides," now it was Stephen's turn to affect a cold smile, “I've set my voicemail to say I can only talk as an employee of the company."

“You're a pain in the ass, Stephen." The words were harsh, but the tone was not. “But that's the right way to go about it. How did the interview go?"

“It was an interview. She asked questions, I answered them."

“That's good. I was worried it might be… difficult for you."

Stephen laughed, then winced. He gathered himself. “Come on, boss. It's not like I just got back from war. Things could have gone a lot worse, but I lucked out. Have you ever been on the road, and you did something stupid, but another driver saved the situation?"

Let's be real, Conroy was a middle-aged man who'd always been able to afford nice cars. He'd been in situations like that more than once, Stephen was sure of it. The boss confirmed it with a short, self-conscious nod.

“It's kind of like that. If Franky hadn't been there, we'd be having this conversation in the hospital," or the graveyard, “but she was there."

“About that…" The boss plucked the issue of the Local Bugle from his desk to let his eyes pass over it with an idle glance. “If they're calling us, I'm sure they're calling her as well."

“I don't think she'll want to talk to them anymore than we do."

Franky didn't strike him as the person to trust the media, especially not when the media were taking a big dump on her and people like her.

“You didn't think when you talked, but…" Conroy waggled the limp tabloid at him, “…her name and face are out there, now. This trash is making all sorts of claims, and the real papers calling her are going to wave their legitimacy around. I'm not saying it's a given she's going to take an offer, but it's possible."

He couldn't see it happen with the Franky he'd met at Big Joe's, but only one honey-tongued journalist needed to penetrate that hard, tough exterior. All the worries that were swirling through his head about the entire thing were surely much greater with her. After all, he had the entire company around him to deflect everything on. What did she have? The Union? No, she was facing this shit alone.

“We agreed to stay in contact." It was time to come clean. “And she… might have asked me to clear things up with the media."

“Oh?" Conroy just looked at him, letting the tabloid drop from his grasp like a piece of refuse.

“I told her I couldn't, but," he gestured to the crumpled paper in front of the boss, “we're on the cover together, now."

“You sure are."

“What I'm saying is, the company is going to have to say something sometime, right?"

Conroy nodded.

“I think we should get Franky in on it. We get it out there she saved my life, drown the crazy suspicions in feelgood, make large scale workers look good, and keep control of the situation."

“That way she won't feel like she needs to seek out the media on her own," the boss finally said. “And you get to reciprocate her heroism. Smart."

Stephen liked to think he wasn't that calculating and callous, but took the compliment as Conroy leaned back in his chair, seeming to mull the proposal over. Ah shit, what if he was going to say no? It was a matter of boring, office honor, and he still owed her.

“I'll put out some feelers about the media response. You call her and say we're looking into it. Don't make any promises you can't keep."

Thank fuck for that.

The construction site was as loud as ever, and the hardhat as wobbly. He was beginning to think they were supposed to wobble. He'd gotten a weird look on showing up, but a few quick words about being here for the investigation and the fact that Franky had made it known she was expecting someone made his entry as matter-of-factly as it could be, considering the circumstances.

Even the pneumatic drill was at it again, and he found himself involuntarily reaching for his sensitive side with every pounding blast like a veteran at a fireworks display. He looked up before passing by the towering concrete facades of the building-to-be, the rumble of falling debris playing somewhere in the back of his mind. If it weren't ten to five on a Friday there might be more eyeballs on the skittish guy crossing the ground, but most people's thoughts were already on the weekend.

Every morning he came to work he'd feared Conroy was going to slap another issue of the Local Bugle onto his desk. It hadn't happened, though. Sure, there were a few more respectable newspapers speculating about the issue with opinion pieces, columns, and one or two articles of actual journalism, but their nuance just didn't give as damning a sound when it hit a surface. And more importantly, none of them felt the need to put unflattering pictures of him on the cover. Or anywhere.

The last time he'd seen Franky she'd been surrounded by people her size, and furniture to fit them. On the site, however, she was easy to spot, lumbering around regular sized colleagues with a careful, pondering deliberateness much like how Goliath must have marched with the Philistines. In her arms she carried tarp-wrapped bundles, enough to fill a pickup's bed, to a waiting truck. Clean-up before the weekend, he guessed.

The truck rocked as she deposited her load. Like a toy, his mind wanted to say, but that was wrong. It rocked like a full size truck. As she turned he could see her luminous eyes flash. They passed over him, and the recognition was obvious.

“Ya made it," she said in her now-familiar rumble.

“Did you expect I wouldn't?"

“Thought you might've bumped into someone again." A lop-sided grin bared one finger-long fang. “Maybe drank a beer."

Oh, he had something to fire back with.

“Maybe end up under another tiger?"

She barked a laugh with a woodsaw purr. “Don't go making me jealous, now."

“I… wouldn't dream of it."

Considering the joke war won, Franky turned to the other workers and shouted that she was clocking out.

“Let's go," she said, and set off.

She was three strides ahead of him before she remembered his much, much shorter legs and let up her pace.

“Why even meet up here?" Stephen asked when he caught up. “Was there something you wanted to show me?"

“There's something I wanted to not show you." A quick glance up past her bulk confirmed a smug look that said she was proud of her play on words. “Look around, what do you not see?"

Tricky question, Franky. There was quite a lot Stephen didn't see. No leprechauns, dinosaurs, or robots.

“Why don't you just tell me?"

“No journalists!" she rumbled, sweeping both arms through the air to encompass the entire site, stirring the air as she did so. He could feel the hardhat wobble.

Yeah, it made sense. No unauthorized personnel allowed. Construction sites were guarded against people trying to sneak onto the grounds to steal equipment or material, so some slimy fence-hopping paparazzo wasn't going to have an easy time. And no real newspaper or program had the stomach for the risk of looking like an idiot over the lawsuit they could possibly get nailed to their asses.

Not to mention the guts someone would have to possess to confront monsters like Franky and her co-workers on their own turf.

“I'm assuming we're not actually going to hang out here?"

“I guess you are."

OK, she was getting carried away with these words games.

“Damnit, you know what I mean. You want me to start calling you Frank again?"

“Sure thing, Stephy." Her menacing grin now bared both fangs, and all her other sharp teeth to boot.

“I can take it, Frank my boy," he shot back with a grin just as wide, though not as sharp. “Nobody's going to take it seriously. But you're already big and hairy. You look like Frank might just be your real name. In fact!" He thrust a pointing finger up to her. “I already thought it was your real name!"

He let the accusation hang for a while. When he sensed she was about to return fire, it was time for the good news.

“Besides, the boss said we might get to clear things up with the media. Wouldn't want me to make a little mistake when relaying your name, now would you?"

Now was the time to bask in his own smugness, as his words had robbed the tigress of whatever glib, coarse comeback she was cooking up.

“Are you serious?" Franky stopped in her tracks, the cool, detached facade suddenly broken. She registered surprise with large, round eyes. A total transformation from Franky the cynic.

Stephen took the opportunity to show off a modest shrug, giving himself only a slight stab of pain. Christ, he was glad to have the ability returned to him.

“No guarantees. The company's going to get the story straight at one point or another. But I asked the boss if we could get our story out ourselves."

He must have blinked. She always moved with so much purpose he'd allowed himself to forget that she was actually built for speed and grace. Well, she was also a bit fat. That also contributed to the image. At one moment Franky was towering over him like the pillar of strength she was, despite the innocent eyes she was throwing. The next she'd gone to her haunches, bringing them almost face to face.

Black-bordered gold stared at him, starting the hairs on the back of his neck on end, despite the disarming expression Franky gave a good attempt at. Was it his pesky lizard brain, or a more developed self-consciousness? It wasn't just the eyes, either. The hypnotic striping, so strangely extravagant for camouflage. The side-burns, so fluffy. The large nose of an apex feline with, he now noticed for the first time, a funny black spot, just right of center.

“Um…" He really didn't know what to say.

“Thanks," She said, in a supersized mewl. Her eyes darted briefly, as if she was aware how her stare stripped him to the essence. For the first time he noticed her eyelashes, those of a CGI-assisted model, almost a mockery of anyone who'd think her scary from a distance. “I'm kinda shit at this, but I mean it."

“It's the least I could have done," Stephen managed.

With a delicate motion she put her hand on his shoulder. Or rather, she took his shoulder in her hand, the weight pressing down. She gave a light squeeze that felt like half a hug. A real hug could break him.

“You still did it. I'll buy you a drink." She rose again, casting a long shadow in the waning afternoon light. “If you can handle it, this time."

“I can."

He could.

They resumed their pace, and it was obvious where Franky was taking him. Next to a large scale sized construction trailer, with large scale workers milling about, stood several trucks parked on the packed sand. Big ones, with double axles, meant to move heavy loads. These had no normal beds, but instead tall superstructures with obvious, and large, windows.

“Safety guy's back!" One granite voice called, belonging to an elephant spewing smoke from his trunk. Eyes stuck in a wizened, wrinkled face flitted from him to Franky. His lashes, Stephen now noticed, were even more luscious than Franky's. “Riding the tiger through all this bullshit, huh?"

“You need to work on your material." Franky punched his shoulder with a blow that reverberated through the ground. He laughed it off and took another drag.

“Sounds like you have shit taste in newspapers," Stephen said to the elephant.

A gleam shone in the man's eyes.

“We've got the picture up in the trailer. They got ya real good."

Stephen looked up at Franky. She looked back down and confirmed it with a suffering smile.

“We can't all be famous. We'll remember you when the big bucks start rolling in."

That elicited a chuckle. One that sounded like a landslide.

“Name's Stephen, by the way." He held out his hand.

The elephant reached down to shake, putting the tip of his trunk between Stephen's fingers.

“Roderick. You can cut the crap about what kind of name that is for a pachyderm and just call me Rod."

With the ice broken the two giants proceeded to exchange jargon about the day's work that Stephen really only half understood. Before long calls went out to board the trucks. Something much like a set of kitchen steps gave hope there were provisions for his regular sized self, but inside he only saw rows of giant seats with only enough room between them for the workers ahead of him to struggle through.

“Uh, Franky?"

“I'll help ya."

Before he had time to question the situation further he felt padded palms and fingers close around him and raise him up. She deposited him on the window seat. Standing, he could just about look out over the site's rough, sandy surface, carved by wind and machinery, puddles gleaming luminescent in the low sun.

The view was robbed from him when the world shook beneath him. He bounced down on the soft seat, instinctively rolling to fall on his good side with a short, sharp curse.

“Ah shit, I'm sorry."

Franky had seated herself with all the grace of a construction worker at five on a Friday. That is, letting gravity do all the work.

“It's OK." He said, seating himself properly. With his back against the backrest his feet didn't even reach over the edge of the seat. At least reaching not even a quarter the expected weight meant that what would be barely adequate for Franky was, for him, the softness of an expensive mattress.

The final punctuation to the strange situation of being a lilliputian came when Franky reached over his head, pulled down the safety belt, and rammed the buckle home like joining two train cars. A thick cummerbund stretched over his stomach, pressing down uncomfortably.

He looked at Franky.

“This is ridiculous," he said.

A sly smile spread across her face. Really sly. The sort that reaches the eyes by means of the corners of the mouth. Then she kicked home a sports bag in the place he wasn't using to keep his legs.

“Welcome in my world, squishy."

Point taken.

“Are we going to Big Joe's?"

“Where else?"

If he had anything else to say, it'd have to wait. The truck's engine barked to life, shaking the cabin, suffusing it with the churning of its labor. Lurching and rocking it pulled away, shoving Stephen left and right with its motions. Between the sounds of the truck, the booming conversation the others struck up between them, and the distance he'd have to shout his squishy words up to Franky's fuzzy ears, conversation was essentially impossible. She'd already realized it, having pulled out a book from somewhere. To weather the journey, Stephen reached for his sparkly, new phone.

He'd better not drop it. If it slipped from the seat, it'd do more than crack the screen. The same was true for him, so maybe there was something to be said for the oversized seatbelt.

Big Joe's on a Friday rivaled the construction site for noise. Where the site still had something of order about it the bar only knew wild abandon. Everywhere giants jostled against each other, tossing back barrels of beer and dinner-sized snacks. The very structure of the building buzzed with the activity. Phantom pain spread across Stephen's injured side at the memory of the moose's careless kick.

Franky seemed even more aware of his fragility than he was. She plunged into the crowd with the subtlety of an icebreaker, clearing safe passage, sounding off a foghorn bellow.

“Squishy coming through! Squishy coming through!"

Far be it from him to not appreciate the extra effort Franky was taking to ensure his safety, but he couldn't help but let the whispers of his brain get to him. The passage through the temporary corridor of giants, eyes on high following him, felt like something of a walk of shame. Even if he was with Franky, he was an outsider. An intruder in one of the places the giants didn't have to treat like a world of glass. Behind him the crowd merged again with casual violence, as if to prove the point.

With a gentle push Franky moved aside the last of her giant peers blocking the way, revealing his old friend. The lifeguard's chair, still looming impossibly high despite his recovery.

“Yeah, I'm going to need a hand with that."

For the second time today tiger paws grasped him firmly and gave him a fair ground ride on high. He was already paying attention to it, so hearing the snickers was inevitable.

“People are laughing at me," he noted after he'd reacquainted himself with the proper way of sitting in the seat.

“It's kinda funny, you gotta admit." She lounged in her chair with the air of an Iron Age king, a smirk confirming her judgement.

He realized he was sitting up straight, and affected a slight slouch to mirror Franky.

“A lot of these people had to learn to laugh at themselves. Makes it easier to laugh at you, too."

“Does that count for you, as well?"

On her face appeared the widest grin he'd yet seen. Serious tiger toothpaste commercial material. “Didn't squish ya yet, have I?"

“You tried, and failed."

A growl rose up from Franky's throat. “Maybe I should try again."

You know what? That wasn't the worst prospect, if she just didn't take a jump this time around. Did she even realize how soft she must be to cushion a half-ton impact into a few bruised ribs? Probably it was hard to feel soft for someone who's job it was to keep high torque engines and hydraulics to a minimum. Under the fluff and fat her muscles were probably akin to braided steel wire.

“Why not?" He grinned back at her. “The last time caused a nice shitstorm. Might as well see how far things'll go if you do it a second time. Maybe do it on live television?"

“Wait. We're gonna be on live television?"

“Hey, I don't know." Stephen shrugged modestly. He was really getting back into the shrugging game.

“No guarantees, right?"

“Right. Sorry about that. Stuff like this…" his mind wandered briefly through the passages of memory, “…it takes time. People need to look at it, think about it, sign off on it. It's probably good we asked about it early."

A shiver seemed to ruffle Franky's fur.

“Don't much like the idea of being on TV. 'specially not live."

Made sense, given she seemed to regard the media with every bit of suspicion they were due. Indeed, most of a ton's worth of tigress stuffed into oversized coveralls straining to do the job didn't look like standard TV fare. Shit, half the time large scale people were on TV, they were beating the shit out of each other.

“TV's dead anyway," he said. “They'd be lucky to have you."

“Flatterer."

“I try."

A giant hand appeared out of nowhere. OK, not out of nowhere. It simply came from behind and he just hadn't heard its owner approach, giant's footsteps lost in a crowd of them. However, it came bearing beer, placing a large glass held daintily between fingertips before him. Above, on the end of a long, craned neck, the giraffe waitress smiled at him.

“Welcome back!" she chimed before putting a substantially larger glass before Franky and disappearing back into the crowd. At least, metaphorically. Her head sticking out well above everyone else made it quite easy to keep track of where she was.

“We didn't even order?"

After all, it couldn't be a mix-up, right? Who else was drinking thimbles of beer in here?

“Ya ever watch those movies where they walk in and order 'the regular'?" Franky was already speaking from behind the rim of her glass.

“Yeah."

“What fucking use is it if they still have to order it?"

Fair enough. He took a swig of the unordered beer and then just sort of… waited, swiveling his eyes, tilting his head, raising one arm, then the other.

“What are you acting all goofy for?"

“Checking if I'm OK. You know, with the beer."

“And?"

“Seems so." He took another swig.

“Good. It'd be kinda awkward having to carry you out again."

Awkward, but not unpleasant. And the hidden meaning was obvious: She'd do it again. Riding the tiger indeed.

They were silent for a moment.

“Do they serve normal sized food here, too?" Stephen asked.

“Sure thing,"Franky answered. Some foam clung to her fur. “Same stuff, but less of it. It's not rocket science. You fixin' to get a bite?"

“Might as well." He slid his phone out of his pocket and checked the time. “It's getting close to dinner time."

“I wasn't planning on it, meself." Franky stretched much like any lazy cat, regardless of size, showing off rows of dangerous teeth and a long, barbed tongue as she yawned. The chair creaked and moaned at the shifting weight. “Feeling kinda funky."

She flared her nostrils for effect. Yeah, she was still in her work clothes, after all. No doubt those felt all kinds of heavy with filth.

“I'll get something on the way home, then."

“Hey, don't let me stop you."

“It's weird to eat something when the person you're with isn't."

Franky shook her head in the typical not-angry-but-disappointed way. “You shouldn't care too much about shit like that. If you're hungry, eat."

“It feels wrong." Years of official and unofficial social etiquette had ingrained the rule in is mind. It was so well-carved that he didn't even know it was there, and that he did care, until Franky challenged it.

“Then don't eat. Your choice." Franky responded with a shrug, effortlessly raising those massive shoulders and arms, probably the equivalent to serious weightlifting.

Goddamnit, why was he so obsessed with shrugging, now? Just because it hurt when he did it? This shit better not be permanent. Stephen had no intention of becoming a shrug connaisseur. Feeling awkward, he decided to hide behind his glass for a while. When he put it down he'd drained half the liquid from it.

“How have you been, Franky? With… things and all."

He could practically hear the gears whir in the tigress' head, a placid, thoughtful expression making itself master of her face. Maybe she was thinking of a diplomatic way of explaining the shitshow, or she just wasn't used to getting asked about something like this. No real surprise. How often did the media come after the average construction worker?

Oh, no. She was just considering how much beer she was going to drink before answering, as evidenced by the fact that she put the glass to her lips and sloshed down the lion's share of it. Or the tiger's share, really. Enough to get him drunk in a single go.

“Alright," she said.

Stephen eyed her, then the mostly empty glass. “You had to drink that much just to give me 'alright'? Should we order more?"

She swished the bottom of beer in her glass. “We are running low…"

With an… expression on her face she rolled up a sleeve like some great, fluffy cartoon about to start a fight. Her chair, and then the table, creaked as she shifted her weight and leaned forward, putting her arm on the table for Stephen to inspect.

Oh yeah, a slap from that thing would send him flying. Under the fur the corded muscle was obvious. She laid a living anatomical drawing in front of him. This was the power she picking him up with just to move him from ground to chair and the other way around. The power she had so gently squeezed his shoulder. Tips of sickle-shaped claws just barely poked from the tips of her fingers.

“You know what the problem with these stripes is?" she asked, gesturing to the exemplary limb with the other one.

“They're… really fluffy?"

Franky barked a single, loud laugh.

“No, you idiot. They only work in the jungle."

She seemed to beam at the point she just made. Must be one of her things, kind of like he liked to say 'it isn't rocket surgery'.

“You're definitely not an easy person to hide."

“Exactly."

Point made, Franky pulled her arm back.

“Wait." Before he'd fully thought about it Stephen reached for the retreating hand, latching onto one of her fingers. She didn't stop immediately and he was dragged halfway over the table with no real effort, edge nudging into his tender side.

Franky just looked at him.

“Can I see your claws?" Stephen asked, reseating himself.

“What?"

“Claws. Hard, sharp, find them at the end of the arm."

“Usually it's only the kids who want to see my claws."

“I'm young at heart."

Despite her grumbling Franky put her hand back, pads up. She flexed her fingers and extended her claws. There was no sound, obviously, but even so Stephen couldn't help but imagine something much like daggers unsheathing. Not that he knew what that sounded like, but he imagined it anyway.

Franky's claws had the appearance of polished bone, reflecting a dull light. Thinner than he'd imagined, but that didn't mean a lot at this scale. They were curved to sharp points. One couldn't design something better to hook and slice flesh.

“These'd make great letter openers."

Franky put her ears back. “They make great people openers."

“I believe that." Stephen probed the claws for sharpness and was not disappointed. He'd heard some people dulled their claws, but Franky wasn't one of them. Well, she probably used them at work, didn't she? “Cut up any journalists with these?"

“I wish." Playtime was over and Franky took her arm back.

“So they've been bothering you?"

“Sort of." She emptied her glass and leaned back again. “Been getting a lot of calls. I think the guy with the jacket's been trying to get more pictures of me."

Stephen couldn't help but smirk at that. Say whatever you want about that guy, but he didn't scare easily.

“Did he get any good ones?"

She struck a pose, one hand on her hip, the other behind her head, breasts and belly thrust proudly forward, and fluttered her lashes. “Don't I look like a model?"

Goddamn, she was cute when she was being an ass.

“You look like about ten models."

She chuckled with the sound of bricks being banged together. “I fuck like ten models, too."

Yeah, OK. That was too much. Blood rushed to Stephen's face, and there wasn't a thing he could do to stop it. Maybe blood rushed to other places, too. He had no comeback to that one.

“Ah shit, I'm sorry." Franky scratched her head. “Didn't mean to make ya uncomfortable."

That obvious, huh? Uncomfortable wasn't quite the word, you giant, orange, social disaster. And now there was guilt, too. Guilt for making her feel silly about a joke. Stupid, red face.

“It's OK."

Oh, that's just great. Any shred of confidence he'd had, and that wasn't much, had just about drained from his voice.

“Said it last time, didn't I? You're kinda easy to talk to."

There was a hint of self-consciousness in her voice. It probably wasn't the first time she'd spoken out of turn in polite company.

“I get it," Stephen tried to fumble his way to something resembling confidence. “You feel comfortable talking to someone new, so you forget to be normal. I've made dirty jokes when I shouldn't have, too."

Franky gave a wan smile, cracking her crass facade for a moment.

“Yeah, that's the way it goes. But if you've got any dirty jokes, just lay 'em on me."

Shit, it's not like he could do it on command. If he could, he'd be working the stand-up circuit, not the sit-down office job. He regarded the bottom of beer left in his glass as if he didn't already know what he was going to do with it, then downed it, and slammed the glass down on the table in the way you just really had to do when the beer particularly hit the spot.

“Maybe if you get me another. Either way, we really ought to talk about the…"

“Journalists!" A literally and figuratively high voice called.

Yeah, that's the ones. Wait. Stephen glanced up to see the face of the giraffe waitress wearing an expression of conspiratorial concern.

“Are you fucking kidding me?" Any softness their social bungling had brought out in Franky was immediately covered by a well-practiced scowl as she swept the room with her gaze. “Thanks, Zoe. Where are they?"

“Outside. The boys won't let them in." The giraffe, Zoe, looked smug for a second. Stephen could sympathize. Nobody was going to walk through a wall of large scale animal people. Indeed, if you ever found yourself in the need to refer to a group of bruisers as 'the boys', they were the best boys to have.

“Back exit it is, then," Franky said.

“They'll be watching it, if they're not total idiots," Stephen chimed in, then turned to Zoe. “There's more than one, right?"

“An entire crew of 'em. Camera and all."

Fuck. Looks like someone got tired of waiting and decided to do a little street harassment. So were they a professional crew doing a respectable man-on-the-street type thing, or were they specifically gunning for Franky? Did they know he was here?

Ah, none of it mattered. He really should've seen it coming. But was he really going to sequester himself because of this shit? Where else could he hang out with Franky?

“We'd better leave separately," he said.

“We don't have to."

“If we leave together we just give them exactly what they want." He could already imagine Conroy's restrained, douchebag anger.

“No, I mean…" Franky gave a meaningful glance. He followed her eyes to where she flicked them, down on the ground by her chair, next to her booted feet.

It was clear why she wasn't just saying it. There sat the sports bag she'd brought with her. A sports bag sized up for a big, fat tigress.

“You're not serious."

“You'll fit fine. Don't have much dirty in there, either."

It probably wasn't going to be pretty, lace panties, though. But he did have to admit, if they knew they were both here leaving separately wouldn't do much. They'd be on the lookout for both of them.

“I'm still not sold."

“It's the perfect solution. Ya get out unseen, no weird shit at work, and I'll buy you dinner."

Stephen raised an eyebrow. “Then you'll owe me lunch and dinner. Might as well throw breakfast in there, too."

A stifled giggle drew both of their attention to Zoe's remaining presence. She was having way too good a time of their ordeal. Franky gave her the serious eyes.

She got the message.

“I'll tell Joe you'll want to use the back door." The giraffe made herself scarce.

“Don't matter much with your mouse bites," Franky said to Stephen. “Just get in the bag."

Oh Christ, what choice did he even have? It was the only way he'd get away without having to talk to them at all. And if he wanted the company big shots to give any thought to his idea he couldn't afford to be appearing in the press. If it all went wrong and he somehow rolled out of the bag for all to see, well, might as well fail big.

“Fine. Help me down."

It was true, there was plenty of space in the bag. He barely even had to tuck in his legs. A small amount of light still filtered in through the fabric, making him feel less protected than he thought he would. Sound from outside came through crystal clear, doing even less for his sense of security. It was also true that she didn't have a lot of dirty clothing in there, though there was enough to make the air stale and musky. Maybe a dirty shirt, together with a regular change of clean clothes that made for a decent mattress.

When Franky picked him up the bag swayed gently. It clicked for Stephen, then. It was almost like a private hammock. If he weren't about to be carried past a firing squad he might have been able to chill out quite well in this thing. With some fresh air, that is.

A gentle rocking accompanied by Franky's heavy footfalls told him they were in motion. The din of the bar fell behind them, until Franky stopped briefly. There was the gruff voice of a large scale man. Big Joe himself? He caught some choice words about the state of modern journalism, then the swaying recommenced. The heavy, tortured wail of rusty hinges, and the click of heavy metal. The back door. Distant noise of the street filtered in as Franky continued her way, her boots echoing in what had to be a narrow alley behind the building.

He had enough time to worry as he heard a flurry of footsteps behind them, before the voices called out. Franky faltered in her gait, swaying the bag as she turned to look. Or so he guessed. A weird sort of fear gripped him, feeling suddenly naked with only the fabric of the bag standing between him and eternal ridicule. Not to mention losing his job.

“Is it true that you caused the near-fatal accident?" an insistent voice called out.

Yeah, they were that type of media crew. He could practically see the prick shove a microphone at Franky's face. At least he wouldn't get very far.

“No comment." There was a distinct growl in Franky's words.

This wasn't enough to dissuade the crew. He could hear them jostle around them even as Franky kept on walking, shoes tapping the pavement as they followed at a healthy jog. The light outside was strong enough that he could see indistinct shapes through the fabric. He tucked his legs in further, going full fetal.

A hard reminder that the threat was real intruded upon him out of the blue as one of the crew stumbled. It struck him with careless force. Must have been a knee, Stephen thought as he rubbed his face. It was just as much through surprise as his own innate manliness that he did not cry out at the accidental assault. Thank fuck the guy didn't knee him in the ribs.

“Are you being brought up on charges?"

“What do you have to say about the danger of large scale workers?"

“Why were you meeting with the victim?"

Stephen puckered up at that last one. They kept hitting her with a flurry of dubious questions, even when her response was only to keep moving down the street.

Then the shadowplay projected on the fabric of the bag was blotted out entirely, as if a cloud passed before the sun. But this cloud was accompanied by many heavy boots hitting the pavement, and a collection of deep voices speaking too loudly to be engaging in casual conversation. Beneath the blanket of these giant voices he could hear a squeaking protest as the jogging footsteps came to a sudden standstill.

The boys from Big Joe's. Stephen crossed his fingers and hoped they didn't do more damage than they were trying to prevent.

He allowed himself to relax, then. It wasn't long before the gentle sway of the bag got the better of him until a jolt roused him from his slumber. Bright, blinding light exploded into his world from above him as the zipper tore open. Through squinted eyes he could just about make out a striped face with inquisitive eyes peeking in to remind him he wasn't in his own bed.

“Jesus, were you sleeping in there?" Franky asked.

“Maybe…" He rose to a sitting position and saw that he was in an unfamiliar place with the same industrial red brick as Big Joe's, a Big Joe-sized door to Franky's back. “Where are we?"

“My place," said Franky with a raised eyebrow. “Where else?"