The Bear’s Mail Order Menage

He had always been unfortunate enough to possess that particular characteristic. He was like the man who got yelled at by his boss all day, then beat his wife and kicked the family dog to get his aggression out of his system. When he made someone feel bad enough, it made him feel calm.

 It was like performing his own little exorcism that only he could truly understand. But the way Joshua was looking at him now it was clear that he wasn’t going to allow it this time, at least not with Alina. He was going to protect her, even if it was from a man he had known and loved for all of his life. A strange sort of pride mingled with Andrew’s rage. His pansy friend, finally acting like a man.

“So now the things I say don’t mean anything? Nice, that’s real nice, Josh. I appreciate your vote of confidence.”

“You don’t deserve it for talking to her that way. In fact, there is absolutely no reason for her to sit here and listen to your sh*t. If you want to abuse someone, abuse me. Leave her out of it.”

“Well that’s a little hard to do when she’s the one you were sticking it to. See my point?”

“Seriously man, just shut up. Come on, Alina. I’ll walk you out.”

Joshua slid out of the booth and kept his hands on her as she slid out as well. She was visibly shaking, her skin completely drained of color. She had dug her nails so deeply into the palms of her hands that he could see little crescent moons of blood lining them. She didn’t seem to even notice. She just looked at Joshua’s hand and followed him where he led. Andrew watched as he took her outside, completely ignoring the flat out stares of all of the people in the diner.

The conversation coming from their booth hadn’t exactly been quiet up to this point and although their fellow patrons might not know exactly what was going on, they definitely knew something wasn’t quite right.

There was trouble in paradise, just as all of them had predicted there would be. Andrew hated giving these conservative pricks the satisfaction of seeing that happen, but it couldn’t be helped. This was the sort of situation that required a scene and there were only so many places to do that in a town like Charlotte. Besides, out of the three of them, it was obvious that Andrew was the one who cared the least about what these people thought.

He had never really been one to bother with social convention. Hell, half of the time he wasn’t even sure he wanted to stick around in the human world at all. It seemed like things would be so much simpler if he just lived as a bear full time. The laws of nature were something he understood far better than the laws of human social decorum.

Through the window Andrew watched as Joshua ran his hands over Alina’s gleaming hair and used his thumb to gently wipe the tears falling down her face. He kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, kissed her softly on her trembling mouth. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close so that her head rested against the heart Andrew was sure was beating like crazy inside of his chest.

Andrew felt the hateful thing inside of himself twist again, twisting so far he felt like he might break. It was the monster living inside of him that was always so quick to remind him that, whoever his parents had been, they’d had no desire to keep him. He didn’t remember even having parents, not parents of his very own.

The twisting voice inside of him whispered that to him daily. It reminded him that the ones he loved did not love him the way that he loved them, it reminded him that he was hardly human, that he was probably best left in the woods. He should never have taken Cali’s hand, never let her lead him out into the open and to an actual home. He didn’t belong there. He didn’t belong anywhere.

He might have even started to soften, had he sat there and listened to the twisting voice for long enough, but fortunately for him that didn’t happen. Very quickly, Joshua reentered the diner and flopped angrily down into the booth where he had sat only a few minutes ago. The look on his face pulled Andrew straight out of his melancholy, weak thoughts. It would be better this way, without his past tugging at his heartstrings. A fight to the death, whether actual or symbolic, required a certain kind of hardening men like Andrew excelled at.

“Feeling better now that you’ve got her squared safely away? Don’t need to worry about the little woman anymore?”

“Stop it, ok? It looks ugly on you.”

“Nah, I know that ain’t true. Nothing looks ugly on me.”

“You would be surprised, brother.”

“Watch it,” Andrew said in a low, dangerous voice, “I told you not to call me that. You aren’t my brother. Not anymore. Not ever, I guess. Just some poor little boy whose family I invaded. Here, have a beer.”

Joshua took the beer silently, studying the way the foam crept up along the side of the glass. He looked at it for a long time, long enough that Andrew began to wonder if maybe he had forgotten where they were and what they were doing.

It wouldn’t be entirely impossible, considering whom Joshua was. Ever the dreamer, always vanishing into his own thoughts, maybe he really had just retreated into himself in order to avoid the terrible thing that was happening between them. But then he looked up again and reached for the bottle of vodka without asking for permission to do so.

Andrew raised his eyebrow, but he said nothing. If he wanted a shot, let him have it. It didn’t matter now. They could get drunk together this one last time. They were more likely than not to rip the sh*t out of each other sometime within the next few hours. They might as well get sloshed before they did.