The Bear’s Mail Order Menage

“That’s pretty funny, coming from you.”

“Whatever. All I’m saying is you can swim in that. So let’s go. We’ve been standing here talking too long already. It’s hot as sh*t out here!”

“You’re kidding, right? It’s like eighty degrees.”

“Exactly. Hot as sh*t.”

Andrew had always run at a very hot temperature, ever since he was little. Joshua’s father used to say that it was the only thing that had kept him safe in those years when he had no roof over his head. That, and the fact that he was a shifter, just like the rest of them. If not for those two factors, he would have perished long before the Peters family ever found him and took him in.

“I don’t know about swimming today. I don’t feel like doing much.”

“Bullsh*t. You know this is like, the last warm day we’re going to have for months, right?”

“I know.”

“And if that’s not enough of a guilt trip for you, maybe this will work. This is the thing we do at the end of the summer days every year. Every year since you guys found me. It’s a tradition, right?”

That might not make any kind of impression at all on a lot of men, but if you knew Andrew you knew it meant everything. Tradition was something many people took for granted each and every single day. Those were the people who had always had them. Andrew wasn’t one of those fortunate ones. He hadn’t had much of anything and even though he was joking around when he mentioned tradition in relation to the swimming hole, he couldn’t have been more serious. Doing things like that were part of how you showed Andrew you loved him. It was part of how you told him he still belonged.

“Alright, alright, let’s go. But I swear to god, if you push me in that water, I’m going to beat the sh*t out of you.”

“Ooh, ok. I’ll keep that in mind. In the meantime, move your ass!”

Andrew took off running, already stripping off his shirt as he went. If he had been able to pull it off, he would probably removed his shorts too, would have run straight through the main street of the town buck-ass naked. It was just the way he was. He may have spent only six years living on his own out in the wilderness, but the wildling inside of him had never been washed away, not even close. Of all of the shifters in their small, strange community, he was one of the closest to inhabiting his bear form all of the time.

 Sometimes, Joshua thought that if he could, Andrew would never have inhabited his human form again. Not that he would have ever said anything like that. When it came to Andrew, he rarely said much of anything that pertained to who he really was and what was truly inside of him. He was a puzzle, requiring astounding amounts of guesswork.

“Are you coming, asshole?”

“Yes, I’m coming. Di*k.”

Joshua rolled his eyes and took off at an easy trot after his friend. No matter how hard you tried, it was impossible to say no to Andrew. Always had been, and he suspected it always would be. Not that it mattered, not in the end. What need did he have to say no in the first place? Andrew was his brother, after all. Why would he tell him no when he could tell him yes instead?

“See? Now you tell me, why would you have wanted to miss out on this? Even if you’re having the worst kind of day, this’ll make you feel better, won’t it? Better than sitting around and feeling sorry for yourself, anyway.”

“I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself, Andrew. It isn’t like that.”

“I know,” he said quietly, finally letting up a little from the usual abrasive demeanor he considered playful, “I’m just trying to lighten things up.”

For a moment, the two men were silent, sitting on the massive boulder that was almost entirely submerged in the deep watering hole they had enjoyed since the time when they were small boys. Joshua could still remember the things they would dream about, those small boys, the things they would play with the secret belief that those games could somehow become real. Games of pirate ships and secret heists, games where they were the worst kinds of villains or the most astounding heroes, games where they were something more than strange little boys in a little community so rural it might as well not have existed at all.

The two boys had a more unique upbringing than just being shifters, which one would have thought was unique enough. But it was not only the two of them who were special in their community. It was all of them, every inhabitant of the little home town so small it could hardly even be called a town. It was very unusual for so many of their kind to reside in one place. It was definitely atypical, for shifters had a habit of fighting when they lived in groups any larger than small packs. Their little town, by the name of Charlotte, Idaho, was reported to be named after the first of their kind to take up residence in the place.

She was said to have been extraordinarily patient and kind, at least with shifters like her. She was well aware of the fact that ordinary people didn’t understand shifters. They were afraid of them and were more likely to harm then than to attempt to gain some kind of understanding. For that reason, she had built up a little town at the base of mountains that people rarely travelled near. Had anyone stumbled upon their extraordinary community they would have noticed that something was perhaps a bit strange, but they would have no idea what it was.

If they were very perceptive, they might have the feeling that these people they found themselves amongst were more intimidating, gave off the impression that they could even be dangerous, but they wouldn’t do a thing about it. They would either pick up and leave quietly or they would ignore their intuition entirely. That was something that people seemed to do with some frequency. Joshua found it curious, but Andrew looked at it with disdain. He thought “normal” people were foolish and weak. Joshua understood why, but it was an opinion he couldn’t share. He found people fascinating.