The Bear’s Mail Order Menage

Shifters were so much more in tune with the animal in themselves, perhaps because their bodies harbored two, not one. People had a tendency to forget that they were animals themselves, so great was their need to be something more, something above. Not so with shifters. At least not with Andrew. The bear coursing through his veins and infusing his blood with something that felt like magic was the part of himself he liked the most.

It was everything he valued in himself the most. Every part of him that felt any kind of confidence at all resided in his bear. It was something he couldn’t ignore if he tried, not that he would ever want to. It would be like Albert Einstein refusing to acknowledge that he was kind of, sort of, smart.

“Sh*t, is that it? Is that what I’m doing wrong?”

Cali used to tell Andrew that he would never be satisfied with what he had. She had told him at least a thousand times that he always wanted more, that he was never completely settled. But he was an animal. Why should he be settled? His problem was that he was trying too hard to be well adjusted to human dictates. 

He was going to have to start living outside of the curve if he was going to manage to stay in this town for much longer without burning the whole damned thing down. If the other residents didn’t like it? Well then, fu*k ‘em. They could tell him to get out and he would gladly get himself gone. With bells on.

He hopped up and away from the water with a renewed sense of vigor. Sometimes all a person needed was a plan, something to give his life a little jumpstart. His might not be conventional, but nothing else about him was either. He might as well roll with it. Trying to deny it and doing halfass things weren’t doing him a lick of good. No, he had his plan now, and he needed to run it by Joshua as soon as possible.

 Joshua didn’t have Andrew’s same flair for exploration. He was so much more timid and reserved, always had been. It seemed to just be encoded in his DNA. He was going to take some convincing when it came to this new plan, maybe even a couple of threats. Joshua’s was the first place he was heading as soon as he made his way back into town, but there was something he needed to do first. Just to remind himself of who and what he really was.

If someone had walked by and observed him at that moment, they might have thought he was practicing yoga. He lifted his hands up over his head and as far up towards the sky as he could stretch. His face was turned up to the sun, his beautiful eyes momentarily shut as he breathed in deeply, thanked the day for keeping him in it. It was one of those rare moments where he felt at peace.

He felt every muscle in his body and every nerve ending in his skin sing as the bear inside of him made its way to the surface. He felt the structure of his body change, the muscles lengthen and thicken, and his skeleton grow to accommodate his other half.

He allowed himself to become what he felt he truly was. Now the bear, he roamed through the lush forest in ecstasy. This was freedom to him. This was the kind of freedom he longed to feel for the rest of his days, without the strain of social convention. Becoming the bear was like becoming a physical manifestation of his strength and it reminded him of who he was and what he was made of.

 It was the little jolt of inspiration he needed and after his romp through the woods. Perhaps some more time in the cold water of the river that bled into the swimming hole, and Joshua was the first thing on his agenda. He was ready to be persuasive and that made him unstoppable where most others were concerned.

*   *   *

“I’m sorry, but are you out of your fu*king mind? This is a joke, right? This has to be a joke. There is no way you really want to do this.”

“Oh really? Are you telling me you’re surprised? You know I’m full of stupid ideas. You’ve been telling me since we were little.”

“Right, but even for you, this is nuts. I mean, it is, right? Tell me you see that.”

As frustrating as Andrew found Joshua’s lack of vision, it was exactly what he expected. What he was suggesting was not unheard of amongst the shifter community, and not even across the globe, but it definitely wasn’t what anyone would call normal. But Andrew wasn’t feeling particularly conventional these days and shaking things up was the best thing he could think of to force some life into the both of them. Because, if he was being honest, they had both been living pretty half-assed for a long, long time. He knew Joshua saw it, he just had to get him to say it.

“No. I don’t think it is. It’s something people do. Even if it wasn’t, who gives a fu*k? I sure as sh*t don’t.”

“So you’re telling me you want to basically order a whole human being off of the internet and have her shipped to us?”

Andrew laughed lazily, glancing at his distressed friend with a mixture of affection and frustration. Looking at the situation now, he might have been better off giving Joshua at least a little bit of time to wake up before he sprung his plan on him. Seeing as he had a key to Josh’s apartment, he had just let himself right in, waking him up with a shout and a thorough shaking. Josh wasn’t a huge fan of waking up under the best of circumstances. Unlike Andrew, he was a deep, sound sleeper. He was constantly on the verge of hibernation and he had been known to growl and swipe his massive hands at anyone who dared to wake him.