On Mardy morning, some time around 0600, Jerry woke up before Braxton. He left their bed to do the usual routine of teeth brushing, showering the nocturnal stress-sweat accumulation off his body, and visiting the toilet. When he finished these tasks, he gave the dogs their breakfast, then got to cooking a breakfast for him and Braxton that included spicy scrambled tofu, toasted sourdough bread with raspberry jam, sliced apples coated in peanut butter, and large glasses of chilled orange juice.

  While waiting for Braxton to finish his own morning routine, Jerry occupied himself with a fresh copy of the New Chemeketa Teller. There was nothing good in the newspaper. Winter crop failures driving up produce prices in Condorfornia. A potential spike in ghoul activity in some town up north called Kantope. A man’s head, feet, and hands were found in the toilet of a fast food restaurant in New Chemeketa.

  “Vullen’s been busier than a condom salesmen during Saint Hangdal’s Week,” Jerry said to the newspaper. “They should sell you bleak sons of bitches with a free razor for when it gets too much.”

  Rather than fill himself with more dread and panic-inducing news, Jerry got himself a pencil and skipped over to the crossword puzzles. It was an activity he completed with a regularity and faithfulness comparable to a religion.

  Humanoid, but hairier, Jerry read. Seven letters across. He knew the obvious answer, but to amuse himself, he wrote down BASTARD.

  Braxton finished using the bathroom some time later. He entered the kitchen, dressed in nothing but a tight pair of cotton boxers that left little to the imagination. He casually scratched his broad, muscular gut and asked, “You got up and at them harder than usual, huh?”

  Jerry threw his pencil at Braxton's stomach. It bounced off of it and landed at his bare feet.

  “Ouch,” Braxton said sarcastically. “What was that for?”

  “I wanted to give that pencil a taste of your abdominal muscles, sexy man.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “But to answer your earlier question, I’m trying to keep myself as busy as possible until then,” Jerry said. “Idle hands are Vullen’s violin strings, they say.”

  “Wise words we all ought to live by.” Braxton sat down in the wooden chair opposite to Jerry and dug into his meal after saying thanks to him. Jerry started on his plate as well. “You know, you always kill it in the kitchen. Why not try running a restaurant with Anthony and I instead of running an orchard and animal rescue? I’m no master chef myself, but I’m pretty sure you and Anthony know enough Nuragian cuisine to stay competitive in most places.”

  Jerry rolled his eyes. “I reserve my acts of service for my loved ones such as you, those semi-feral mutts outside our doors, and every one of the Rangers, including even Rosa. Also, what the Vullen do you think would happen if some prick complained to me about my mother’s pasta sauce recipe to my face?”

  “You’d break the plate over their head?”

  “Nothing that vulgar,” Jerry said. “I would simply tell them to go suck the red sauce from their mother’s twat about it.”

  “That is actually quite the vulgar suggestion,” Braxton said. “So vulgar, it’s making me lose my appetite.”

  “Sorry, dear,” Jerry said. “But there’s also the issue of me being unable to stand restaurant work in the first place. It’s a fun, but messy field that attracts weirdos, those with a dubious grasp of the Lordian language, and people who apply more drugs to their body than common sense to their daily lives.”

  “So no restaurant?”

  “No restaurant.”

  “Drat,” Braxton said. He finished his breakfast a few moments later and carried the dirty dishes to the kitchen’s sink. While washing them, he asked Jerry, “Are you ready for tonight?”

  “Yeah, definitely, for sure, absolutely…” Jerry came clean a few seconds later. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Twelvedamn it.” Braxton sighed. “That fancy tangrella dance Anthony paid a lot of money for us to attend? You really don’t remember that?”

  “You gotta give me a little grace here,” Jerry insisted. “I definitely would’ve remembered that dance if I didn’t spend one night dodging bullets fired at me from a drug addict, then another one dodging deceptive questions fired at me with a Hissian with a chip on his shoulder against the world.”

  “Fine, that’s fair,” Braxton said. “But if you don’t want to go, do you want to be the one to tell Anthony he wasted a lot of money getting us tickets for something we ditched?”

  “He will understand,” Jerry said. “Our dearest Ant is very understanding and accommodating when it concerns me.”

  Braxton finished washing the dishes and stared at Jerry, hard. “Is he?”

  “Damn,” Jerry hissed. “Fine, we’ll go since we got nothing better to do in the first place, but don’t expect me to like it. You know how I feel about crowds, parties, or the Twelve forbid, dancing in public like a jackass.”

  “I’m well aware of how you feel about many things,” Braxton said. “But what I will not tolerate is you acting like a sooky bastard about it. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Sometime near 2000, Jerry and Braxton arrived at a fancy hotel called Mantechees which was located in downtown New Chemeketa. They dressed well for the occasion.

  Braxton wore a long-sleeved dress shirt of red satin covered by black suspenders and brown pants while Jerry opted for a long-sleeved purple dress shirt and form-fitting black pants.

  The two entered the hotel lobby and met a manager who verified their identities before sending them to the large ballroom off to the side where the tangrella dance was.

  Couples of all ages, colors, and assorted genders milled around the room. Before the actual dance was to occur, it seemed like the event organizers wanted everybody to match and mix up. Jerry looked over the well-populated room, noted the closest exits as always, and realized he wanted no part of this. But in the end, he wanted to disappoint Anthony and Braxton even less, so he did his best to be and feel normal.

  That went poorly.

  Jerry and Braxton had a few, stilted conversations with several different couples before Jerry pretended to go to the bathroom, when in reality, he made a beeline for the bar. There was a two drink limit, which Jerry made ample use of. He downed the weakened cocktails within seconds and felt a little bit at peace, but not very.

  Braxton found him wandering near the bar. He looked upset at being both abandoned and lied to.

  “You said you needed to go to the bathroom,” he said. “Do I need to tie you to my hand to get you to keep your word?”

  “It’s just two drinks and I've already hit the limit,” Jerry said. “There is nothing you need to worry about.”

  “And you’re certain about that?”

  “Absolutely.” Jerry noticed the lights darkening while a crowd formed by the dance floor. “Well, look at that, it’s just about time to boogie. Shall we?” Jerry offered Braxton his hand.

  Braxton huffed, expelling his brief shock of frustration and disappointment. He took Jerry’s hand. “I guess so.”

  From what Jerry remembered of the tangrella, it was an ancient style of dance from his ancestral homeland of Nuragia created by southern clans who witnessed the mating dance of the native tangrella spider, and decided to recreate one of their own. It was a dance characterized by mild aggression, deep intimacy, and shifting submission and leading.

  Jerry, as an ardent hater of not only dancing but parties as well, had never performed the dance with anybody, but remembered seeing his parents do it once or twice during his long-distant childhood. He was certain it was one of the few moments he remembered his parents being happy with one another while in the same room.

  As the lights finished their dimming and the heavy, percussive music intensified, Braxton and Jerry joined the rest of the couples on the dance floor. He started out stiff and awkward at first, but the more he let Braxton take the lead while he followed, he loosened and felt more natural in his skin. Braxton, being well aware of the length of his longer legs, gave Jerry many chances to catch up, which he did well.

  Before Jerry was aware of it, the crowd around him seemed to vanish, the music became muted, and it was simply him and Braxton moving as one unit, melding deeper into one another, step by step, grab by grab, and dip by dip.

  Following the flow state, the music eventually stopped, signaling the end of the first dance. Jerry pulled himself out of a pleasant daze and kissed Braxton on the cheek.

  “Holy shit,” Jerry said to Braxton. “I had no idea you were such a fantastic dancer.”

  “Make that two of us,” he said, smiling a little. “I don’t consider my body to be one built for graceful moments.”

  “That’s because you let your mind get in the way of what your body wants to do,” Jerry said. “And what your body wants to do is have a little fun with me.”

  Braxton’s slight, bashful smile turned into a full on grin. “You’re doing a lot better than I expected you to do tonight, Jerry.”

  “I’m full of surprises that can be pleasant.”

  “Well, keep some more of those pleasant surprises for me,” Braxton said. “I need to get some water. I’m boiling out of my skin right now.”

  “You got it, man. I’ll be waiting at our table when you’re ready.”

  When Braxton left to get some water, Jerry rode the high of doing well to get something to drink of his own that certainly wasn’t water.

  In defiance of the two drink limit, Jerry skulked around the event, distracting people to steal their cocktails. He returned to his and Braxton’s table a few moments later, his head swimming from what he guessed to be at least ten drinks, but had stopped counting after the fourth or fifth one. Watered down as the cocktails were, they added up within his body to make him drunk enough to make sitting down still a titanic challenge.

  Some people around him noticed his drunkenness and made small, whispering comments about him, but Jerry ignored them.

  Fuck you, I’m having fun, he thought. He knew he was having a fantastic night, and they were probably just jealous at how well he and Braxton got down on the dancefloor.

  Braxton returned to Jerry and the table a few moments later. He looked like he was having a great time himself until he noticed how hammered Jerry was. Braxton’s jaw tightened with rage and disappointment.

  “Are you out of your twelvedamned mind?” Braxton hissed. “I can’t take my eyes off of you for a moment! How did you get so drunk? There was only a two drink limit.”

  “I’m, I’m, I’m not drunk,” Jerry slurred. “It’s, it’s, just the uh…adrenaline wearing off, man.”

  “Like Vullen it is,” Braxton shouted. “Your eyes are bloodshot and swimming in booze! We’re leaving—right now!”

  “Only if you can catch me first,” Jerry shouted. He got to his feet, nearly tripping over them, and continued shouting to nobody in particular, “Now watch me beat up the dance floor like this son of a bitch owes me money!”

  Before Braxton had a chance to take Jerry’s hand to extricate him from the event, Jerry slipped out of grabbing distance and staggered towards the dance floor. Braxton followed him and failed repeatedly to grab him. Jerry failed to do anything that resembled the tangrella dance, making a spectacle of Braxton’s attempts to take control of him. Jerry gestured, stepped, stomped, and gesticulated wildly without a single care for form or personal boundaries in the world. Jerry landed one particularly sloppy stomp landed right on the foot of a man that failed to give him enough space for his boozy antics.

  “OW!” The man bellowed. He got into Jerry’s face and started screaming. “What the fuck, man? Are you fucking drunk or something?”

  “Whoa!” Jerry screamed right back into his face. “Who are you, buddy man?”

  “I’m the guy with the foot you just stomped on, you crazy, drunken prick,” said the man. He grabbed Jerry by the shoulders and squeezed. “Are you going to say sorry or what?”

  “Get your fucking hands off of me!”

  Jerry sucker-punched the man in the right eye with all of his drunken might. The man collapsed on the floor, unconsciously assuming a fencing response. He came to and loosened up seconds later, but stared at the distant ceiling of the ballroom with glassy eyes clouded by concussion.

  The narcotic thrill of fighting and domination singed in every atom of Jerry’s body. He looked around and witnessed the terrified, muttering faces of the crowd and felt powerful, powerful enough to take each and every one of them. Then Jerry’s eyes fell upon the aghast face of Braxton’s, bringing him back to the horrible reality he had created for himself.

  “Bra-Braxton,” Jerry said, walking towards him. “I-I know this looks bad, but-”

  Before Jerry had a chance to approach Braxton and explain the mess he made of things, three security guards arrived and grabbed him.

  The three security guards performed the difficult task of escorting a less than sober and uncompliant Jerry out of the event. When they got him towards the door, they threw him out on the street like a bag of hot trash. They remained by the door, glaring at him while they said they were going to call some gendarmes if he came back.

  Jerry took the hint and decided to sit on the curb instead of escalating an already awful, self-made situation by incoherently yelling at people who were just doing their shitty, menial jobs. He used his shaky, adrenaline-infused hands to light a cigarette, puffing away to settle his shattered, jambling nerves. The nicotine worked overtime in his body, but he eventually arrived at an acceptable level of incandescent rage.

  A shadow soon loomed over Jerry. He got to his feet, ready to pummel who he anticipated being another threat, but stopped once he realized who the shadow belonged to—Braxton. His broad, dark face was wrathful and conflicted, but mostly dominated with an emotion that shattered Jerry’s heart.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Disappointment.

  Jerry returned his sorry ass to the curb and tried to keep it together for a few moments. He failed seconds later, weeping so hard, he sounded like he was choking on his own tears, mucus, and saliva.

  “I’ve really done it again,” Jerry said. “I’m sorry, Brax. I’m so sorry I’m such a drunken fuckup you can’t take me anywhere without me making a mess of everything. I’m…”

  “Let’s just call it a night,” Braxton mumbled. “It…it was really my fault I tried to take you somewhere with crowds and alcohol and…” Braxton sighed like he was aging decades within seconds. “Let’s just go home and properly report this to Mr. Moon later. I don’t want to remember seeing you like this tonight.”

  Jerry said nothing as he nodded, wiping tears from his eyes with the help of his bleeding knuckles he smashed open on the side of a man’s face. It looked like tonight would be another couch night.

  Sometime near 0600, Jerry woke up on the couch with the kind of deep, penetrating shame people usually shot themselves in the mouth over. He actually considered it for a while.

  The dozen or so firearms he kept in his home or its fortified basement saferoom gave him the means of doing it, but what he luckily lacked was the proper mindset.

  He couldn’t stomach the thought of Braxton finding his corpse in the basement or anywhere else. He couldn’t stomach visualizing how Anthony would react to the dreadful, but expected news of his death. He couldn’t stomach leaving his lovely strays without their second dad. And most importantly, he couldn’t stomach the idea of Rosa outliving him.

  So Jerry remained morose and motionless on the couch, staring blankly at the ceiling until the roaring call of the void returned to its normal, ambient whisper.

  Jerry closed his eyes and pretended to sleep when he heard Braxton's heavy footsteps plodding on the floor towards him. He wasn’t quite in the mood to look Braxton in the eye following the shameful fisticuffs of last night. Unfortunately for Jerry, Braxton was.

  “I know you’re awake,” he said. “You have been waking up earlier than me for years on end, even when you’re incredibly hungover.”

  Jerry opened his eyes and looked at Braxton. He was big, brown-skinned, and ruggedly beautiful as always, but tarnished by the sadness and disappointment on his face. Braxton held Jerry’s catcaller towards him.

  “Call Mr. Moon and explain what happened last night,” he said. “Now.”

  Jerry sat up and called Mr. Moon, who answered a few rings later.

  “Good morning and better blessings from the Twelve,” Mr. Moon said. “You appear to be calling me rather early and unexpectedly, Mr. Genovesi. Is something the matter?”

  “Uh…” Jerry glanced at Braxton, who stared at him, hard. “Good morning and better blessings from the Twelve to you as well, Mr. Moon. I have a few things I need to tell you.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Do you have your PTALP on you?”

  “As always. Give me a moment to prepare it.”

  Jerry explained what he needed to tell Mr. Moon once he said his PTALP was ready. Mr. Moon sighed deeply over the other side of the catcaller line. It was an expression he seldom used save for Jerry.

  “Am…am I in a lot of trouble for the dumb shit I did to that man, Mr. Moon?”

  “If things happened as you truly said they did, no. You will not be in any trouble whatsoever while I will handle this,” he said. “However, this…situation will be addressed at a later point in time. Am I understood, Mr. Genovesi?”

  “You are understood, Mr. Moon,” he said. “Look, I might do a lot of dumb things that give you awful headaches, but-“

  Click.

  Mr. Moon killed the line before Jerry had the chance to finish his sentence. This petty act annoyed Jerry greatly, but he calmed himself down knowing that he was the one in the wrong after all.

  If Mr. Moon really wanted to, he had ample opportunities to pin Jerry to the wall like a bug not just for last night’s catastrophe, but many other incidents.

  For example, Jerry was dreadfully certain Mr. Moon knew the true origins of the power tools he had “came across” years ago while constructing the house he and Braxton inhabited. When he had gone to a hardware chain called Sirwack’s to buy some nails, a cashier excitedly mentioned seeing their first ever Hissian in the flesh to a coworker. Then when Jerry had pressed the cashier about the description of the Hissian, the cashier described one that sounded eerily like Mr. Moon.

  Jerry had stopped going to that hardware store or finding suspiciously good deals for expensive power tools.

  “So…what now?” Jerry asked Braxton.

  Braxton offered an honest, but unhelpful shrug. “I don’t really know,” he said coldly. “But I'd start with a shower if I were you. I want to say this as nicely as I can, but when you wake up after a shameful night, your nocturnal sweat takes on the stench of a sick, wet dog.”

  Braxton then walked away to begin feeding the dogs and making breakfast.

  Jerry used his hand to rub his lean, hairy chest beaded with old, sticky sweat, then sniffed it to see if Braxton was telling the truth or exaggerating out of hurt disappointment. Jerry found himself not only shocked, but disgusted at his utter noseblindness.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered. “One can call Braxton a lot of things, but a liar is not one of them.

  Jerry got up posthaste to take a shower and cleanse himself of hopefully more than just sweat alone.

  Following a shower that made Jerry feel marginally better about himself, he went about the morning with Braxton in awkward, crushing silence. For several hours, they barely spoke to one another as they cleaned the house more for the sake of killing time than any real goal.

  When the evening arrived, the two sat down and helped themselves to a pleasant lunch of three-bean soup, steamed greens with garlic sauce, and spiced brown rice—all cooked by Jerry. Then Braxton said his first full sentence since his commands for Jerry to call Mr. Moon and take a shower.

  “We need to have an important conversation about last night,” he said. “But not right now. This meal feels too nice for that.”

  “Okay,” Jerry said simply. “Name any place and any time then. Neither of us have schedules anybody could consider packed right now.”

  “After I take a nap, which I suggest you do as well, we will go to Havergan Pond with some of the dogs. How does that sound?”

  “I look forward to that,” Jerry lied.

  Alongside four of their seven dogs, Jerry and Braxton took a short, uneventful drive to the pond with the help of their government-gifted car. Though it was frowned upon by those such as Anthony, who had a fear of dogs, and Mr. Moon, who detested the smell (and existence) of dogs, to use the car as such, Braxton and Jerry were free to do whatever they wanted with the car except torch it or sell it for parts.

  Braxton and Jerry parked near the pond with the help of a “parking lot” that was less of the proper structure and more like a large patch of dry, dusty dirt. They exited the car then released the dogs from its back seats. The semi-feral beasts wasted no time obeying their natures. They ran around, playfully nipped at one another, and rolled around on the cold, dead grass, leash laws be damned.

  Braxton and Jerry watched them mess around for a bit before they approached the pond and started walking on the paved path that surrounded it. They walked in pleasant silence for a few moments, then Braxton spoke up.

  “Jerry, I know the truth and you tend to have a tenuous relationship, but when I am asking you to be as honest as you can with me right now, I really mean it this time. Can you do that? Can you be honest with me right now?”

  “Anything for you, darling.”

  “Then tell me what you really want for us after our time with the Triple I Division is finished.”

  “What do you mean?” Jerry asked. “I already told you. Start an orchard with you and Anthony, save the animals, and get some long, well-deserved rest.”

  “I told you to be honest, and this is what I get?” Braxton sighed and shook his head. “Come on, Jerry. I saw with my own two eyes how easily you started and ended a fight with that man last night, but you’re telling me you want a long, well-deserved rest?”

  “Brax, I already told you I was sorry about doing that terribly dumb shit. And I’m really telling you the truth about what I want for us post Triple I Division. Why can’t you believe me?”

  “Because you’re not only failing to tell me the truth, you’re failing to tell yourself the truth,” Braxton said. “What do you want for us? What do you really, truly want from the rest of our lives together?”

  Jerry stopped walking and stared distantly at the pond’s shimmering surface. The commonly-seen families of ducks Jerry liked to feed had long gone south to avoid Astorkia’s punishing winters, leaving it more desolate than usual. Braxton stood beside him, frowning slightly in concern.

  “I…I really don’t know.”

  Braxton patted Jerry on the shoulder to comfort him. “Thank you for the honesty there, but that means you need to really look in the mirror and ask yourself some hard questions.”

  “Such as?”

  “You are a forty-three year old man with a good three to five decades of life left,” Braxton said, “yet here you are, running around starting drunken fistfights with strangers in ballrooms, getting so hammered you stumble around, and you still haven’t figured your life out? How does observing any of those facts together not shake you down to your core?”

  Jerry defensively folded his arms over his chest and looked away from Braxton. “You know, if you want to describe me so terribly, nobody is forcing you to be with me.”

  “Twelvedamn it,” Braxton hissed at him. “We were moving well across some tough ground right now, and this is how you decide to act?

  “I’m still moving well across some tough ground with you, and I’m still being serious,” Jerry said, returning his eyes to Braxton. “I’m a combative drunkard who has no idea what he wants to do with the rest of his life despite his age being up there. What the fuck do you still see that is worthwhile in me?”

  “What I have always seen in you, Jerry,” said Braxton. “A deeply flawed, worryingly erratic, and emotionally wounded man who still deserves love, grounding, and compassion despite his many failures to do the same with others.”

  The inside of Jerry’s nose began to burn as his eyes started to water. He attempted to hold the tears and mucus back, but failed after only a few seconds of meaningless resistance. A surge of emotions rattled through Jerry’s chest, and he began to ugly-cry so hard, he struggled to breathe.

  Braxton held Jerry close and rubbed his back to soothe him. “Just let it all hit and go through you, man. I got you. I got you.”

  “I don’t deserve you.”

  “Don’t think like that.”

  Once Jerry fought through the worst of his crying spell, Braxton walked him over to a nearby bench. It was a broken-down, splintery piece of wooden shit, but felt divine underneath Jerry’s rump. Jerry and Braxton said nothing to each other, holding hands, and merely enjoying each other’s presence until their dogs returned to them. They seemed tired out, but still in need of their masters’ attention.

  Jerry scratched one behind the ear and said, “Even during the winter, you smell worse than I did this morning. How did you go and manage that feat?”

  The dog barked in response then started to chase its own tail.

  Jerry sniffled and laughed. “Now that is just a terribly rude way to backtalk to your father.”

  When the suns started to sink towards the horizon, staining the sky’s clouds brilliant shades of red, pinks, and purples, there was an ominous sound the dogs and Jerry noticed. Jerry stood up and turned around to watch the thick woods far behind the bench, where the sound was coming from. Upon further focus, it was screaming, possibly belonging to a handful of young men and women.

  From the woods came two female teens and two male teens, panicking, running, and screaming their heads off. The dogs of Jerry and Btaxton went on the offensive, barking and snarling with such sudden force, it surprised Jerry while keeping the four strangers at bay. Jerry pulled his service pistol and held it with a low ready position, but noticed a familiar face trailing them.

  It was Lagandin Winsor, the young adult grandson of Braxton’s and Jerry’s closest, retired neighbors, the Winsors. By the time Lagandin reached the four screaming strangers, he was wheezing loudly, red-faced, and only had one boot on, exposing the sorry, painful looking state of his right foot.

  Frostnipped to Vullen and back, Jerry noted. What has this silly bastard gotten up to now?

  “J-man! You have no idea how glad I am to see—” Lagandin noticed the gun in Jerry’s hand and had a little freakout session of his own. He thrusted his hands in the air and screamed, “Holy shit! Please don’t blow my friend’s heads off, please!”

  “Can you please tell me what the Vullen is going on?” Braxton asked.

  Jerry slowly put his gun away and nodded in agreement. He glared at Lagandin. “Yeah, that's a great question for this youthful reprobate, Brax.”

  “Don’t be like that, J-man.” Lagandin worked hard to corral his friends on the bench formerly occupied by Braxton and Jerry. The four people were still freaking out with gusto, but screaming much less. “Mrs. Sandra, my probation officer, says I’m actually one of her better, well-behaved cases.”

  “I’m sure Mrs. Sandra would love to hear you explain this one to her,” Jerry said. “What did your reckless hands do to these poor kids?”

  “I was supposed to be the designated sober guy of the evening,” he said. “They took some pills I got from some guy I will not name. Things started out cool and fun. Then things got weird and fun. Then everything stopped being cool, fun, or weird.”

  “Clearly,” Braxton said. “What kind of pills are you talking about?”

  “Beats the Vullen out of me,” Lagandin said. “But my guy said they were good, clean, experimental pills from his guy doing a little big boy chilling in some place called Deepneau Bay. Then this bullshit happened! If I could get my guy arrested without getting myself arrested, I—”

  One of Lagandin’s male friends screamed at the top of his lungs and pointed upwards. “LOOK AT THE SKY! LOOK AT THE FUCKING SKY! THERE’S A DEMON UP THERE! THERE’S A DEMON UP THERE, AND HE’S GONNA KILL US ALL WITH METAL BOLTS OF LIGHTNING.”

  “Yurpin, you gotta relax, man. Let me help you out.” Lagandin held one of Yurpin’s shoulders and rubbed his face in a strange attempt at grounding him. It failed to do anything beyond getting greasy, teenager sweat on his gloved hands. “We’re near people who can not only arrest you right now, but shoot you if you start freaking out a little too hard. And you don’t want to get shot in the face, right?”

  Shockingly, the possible threat of incarceration or fatal gunshot wounds to the face failed to make Yurpin relax. He stopped screaming, but began to weep and shake with the energy Jerry had earlier.

  “Lagandin, you’re dogshit at this ‘designated sober guy’ thing,” Jerry said. “Frankly, I’m shocked you didn’t tell this Yurpin fellow there are spider eggs under his skin he needs to dig out with a claw hammer.”

  “I’m only human,” he said, “and one that needs a lot of help right now.”

  “Yeah?” Braxton said.

  “I know you don’t really know me, and I don’t really know you,” Lagandin said, “but do you think you and your husband could do me a massive favor?”

  “Probably not, but that ultimately depends on the nature of this massive favor,” Jerry said. “Ask away, boy.”

  “Do you think you could…let my friends stay at your home until they sober up?”

  “Are you fried of your fucking mind like these four fools?” Jerry hissed. “Absolutely not.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do?” Lagandin asked, his voice cracking with anxiety. “If they go to the hospital, they’ll tell the doctors and the nurses who gave them drugs. Then I’m screwed!”

  “Damn, that’s crazy, young buck. I guess you’ll learn not to make your emergencies my emergencies,” Jerry said. “Now get your catcaller out and do the right thing by getting some paramedics here before these four have a stroke or start eating each other’s faces.”

  “I left my catcaller with one of my other friends named Henchur and a voice changer program he made himself,” Lagandin said. “Crazy smart motherfucker that guy is. But, uh, anyway, my PO tracks me, and would’ve known I was going to places where I wasn’t supposed to go.”

  “Then allow me to be the hero you are desperately in need of,” Jerry said. “I’m not very interested in watching these four lose their minds and you losing your foot. Does that hurt by the way?”

  “It feels like it’s going to fall off.”

  “Good,” Jerry said. “Maybe that will be a good reminder to not hoodwink your PO so you can let your friends take strange pills in the middle of the woods.”

  While Lagandin’s friends continued to rant and rave incoherently while he himself performed a subpar effort to soothe them, Jerry took out his catcaller, but stopped. He considered what would happen to Lagandin if he called an ambulance. Lagandin wasn’t a total bastard, but a frequently foolish person who did a lot of foolish things—sort of like Jerry himself.

  “Hey, Lagandin,” Jerry said.

  “Yes?”

  Jerry tossed him the keys to the car, much to Braxton’s visible displeasure. “Go warm your foot up in the car before you actually do lose it. But if you do anything stupid or touch things you’re not supposed to, I will make sure your PO will be the last person on Catto Oculo you will need to worry about. Got it?”

  “Got it. What about my friends?”

  “Brax and I will take them in until they sober up, then we will make them fuck off as fast as we let them in.”

  “Oh! You have a heart touched by the Twelve! I’ll never forget this!”

  “Whatever,” Jerry barked. “The only things that have ever touched my heart have been bullets, blades, or well-written plays. Now get your ass in the car before your foot falls off.”

  Lagandin limped away as fast as he could, car keys in stiff hand.

  Over the next hour or so, Braxton and Jerry worked together to ferry the dogs and intoxicated teenagers from the pond to their home. It was a frustrating mess of a situation that made herding cats look like a flawless ballet routine.

  True to their word, when Lagandin’s friends finally sobered up a few hours later, Jerry and Braxton expelled them without a second thought. But since it was so cold and dark outside, the couple drove them to their respective homes scattered throughout the hinterlands. The two were utterly sick of them by the end of the night, but unwilling to leave a bunch of dumb kids to wander around in the elements.

  Braxton and Jerry sat at their kitchen table while Lagandin slept on their living room couch, blissfully unaware of how much he owned Jerry.

  “Even in the sticks of Astorkia, you will find people that can’t handle their drugs,” Jerry said to Braxton. “Isn’t this place just fascinating?”

  “Fascinating is not the word I would use to describe it,” he said, “but I understand what you’re saying. What a day, huh?”

  Jerry looked towards Lagandin. He pondered if there were the vestiges of a paternal bone in his body or if he selfishly saw a small aspect of himself in the young man that needed guidance and protection.

  “Yeah, what a day indeed.”