Trophy Cub - 11. Old Friends, New Revelations

The next morning, after breakfast, a truck backed into the driveway and two men jumped out to unload a cord of firewood and lay it neatly in a 4x4x8 foot stack along the side of the tidy blue storage shed.

Gunnar walked out onto the porch as they were just finishing up and asked the man who seemed to be in charge what he owed him for the wood.

“Oh, it’s already been paid for by Joshua,” the man said. “It should come out of the supplies and maintenance budget for the house.”

“It’s sure good to see somebody in this house again after all these years.” The man continued. “It’s a shame to see it sitting empty all the time. Joshua puts lots of love and effort into keeping it looking nice. If you ask me, I think he may have had a bit of a ‘thing’ for the guys who owned the place years and years ago, but nobody’s ever seen them around since the 70s.”

“That would have been my great-uncle,” Gunnar replied, “Funny that he never mentioned this place or Joshua to me before leaving it to me in his will. I’ll have to catch Joshua sometime while I’m here so he can tell me all about my uncle when he was younger.”

“I bet Joshua would really like that,” the man said. “Have a good day, sir. Build yourself a nice fire and stay warm!”

Gunnar walked back into the house, and Thomas was lounging in a chair in the living room.

“I’m glad we have more firewood now,” Thomas said, “We used up the last of what we had in the bedroom fireplace last night after that freezing skinny-dip. What was up with the firewood guy saying that somebody named Joshua had a ‘thing’ for you back in the 70s?”

“I honestly can’t remember,” Gunnar replied. “Nils bought real estate all over the country, and we only stayed in this house one summer back in 1975. Apparently after that summer, Nils hired this Joshua Gardner guy to be the caretaker of the house and he’s been doing it ever since. When I called him on the phone a few days ago he said that taking care of this house was his life’s work.”

“Well, he’s sure done a fine job of it,” Thomas commented, “You’d never know that this place has been sitting empty for almost fifty years.”

“But he also says that he has all these memories of Nils and me from that summer, and for the life of me, I can’t remember meeting anybody named Joshua. Now I find out that even other people in town think that he had a ‘thing’ for me back then. I’m really stumped.”

“If we stay here very long, Joshua’s bound to stop by and check up on things,” Thomas said, “Are you worried that he might see you after fifty years and wonder why you look the same?”

“He thinks I’m Gunnar Olafson’s great-nephew, so I’ll probably be able to write it off as family resemblance,” Gunnar replied. “Anyway, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Come on, we’ve still got a lot of planning to do for the full moon strike, but for now, let’s do a quality control check on this new batch of firewood up in the bedroom, hmm?”

Gunnar wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and Thomas chuckled.

“Did anybody ever tell you that you’re a horny ol’ bear?” Thomas said.

“It might have been mentioned to me a time or two over the years,” Gunnar replied. “Come on. Betcha I can carry more logs up the stairs without dropping any.”

“Oh yeah?” Thomas said, “You’re on. Winner gets the first erotic massage.”

“Whee! Happy ending!” Gunnar yelled and dashed out to the shed to load up.

****

The sun was just beginning to set when Gunnar and Thomas wrapped up their planning session for the day. The dining room had been turned into a war room of sorts, with maps and notes and even a little 3D scale model of the pack house on the dining table based on the satellite photos, surrounded by tiny toy werewolf figurines, just for fun.

Thomas was building a fire in the living room fireplace and asking Gunnar what the plans were for dinner that night.

Gunnar was just about to suggest going into town and hitting one of the restaurants along the main drag or the docks, when the doorbell suddenly rang.

“Were you expecting anybody?” Thomas asked.

“No,” Gunnar said. “Be cool, but also be ready in case we’ve got wolf trouble.”

Gunnar walked through the front hall and opened the front door.

There was an old man standing on the doormat with a wool cap on his head and a bottle of good bourbon in his hands. As he looked up at the massive man answering the door his eyes grew wide, his hands trembled, and the bottle slipped out of his grasp.

Gunnar moved with werebear reflexes and grabbed the bottle as it fell, catching it before it could shatter all over the threshold.

“Are you all right, sir?” Gunnar asked as he stood back up.

“Gunnar…” the old man said. “Is it really you, after all these years? You haven’t aged a day!”

Gunnar frowned and leaned in just slightly to catch the man’s scent. After a discrete sniff, his eyes also went wide with surprise and shock.

“Jay!” Gunnar exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

Gunnar reached and took the man by the arm, and quickly pulled him inside, closing the door.

“My name never really was ‘Jay’ the man said. When I was young, I hated the name Joshua, so in my twenties I just went by the first initial ‘J’ until I got a little older and decided Joshua was a better name for a grown man.”

“But your last name was Platt,” Gunner said, still confused.

“Well, a few years after that summer with you and Nils, I met a man and I fell in love… again. My fam’ly didn’t take the news that I was gay so well, but Robert’s fam’ly immediately loved me like one of their own, so I legally changed my last name to his… Gardner.

“I wouldn’t have thought that a little town like this would accept a gay couple living together, but you showed me that summer that you and Nils were free and open and weren’t ashamed of who you were, and I wanted to live my life just the same. Almost ev’rybody here treated us real nice our whole lives together, even after Robert passed away from a heart attack a few years ago.”

“Jay, I’m so sorry,” Gunnar replied, and pulled the old man against his chest into a warm hug.

“You still are a big, handsome, strapping lad, just the way I remember,” Joshua said, patting Gunnar’s massive chest after he finally released him from the hug. “You aren’t going to keep bullshitting an old man telling me that you’re really your ‘great-nephew’ and that Gunnar Olafson is dead, are you?”

“No, I can tell there’s no sense in bullshitting you, Jay,” Gunnar replied. “I can explain, but why don’t you come into the living room and sit down before you pass out from the shock.”

They walked into the living room where Thomas was seated on a chair next to the fire, leaning forward with his forearms resting on his thighs.

“Oh, now who’s this fine-looking man, and where is Nils?” Joshua asked as he sat down.

“This is my friend Thomas,” Gunnar said. “Thomas, this is Joshua, but fifty years ago I knew him as ‘Jay.’”

“Nice to meet you, Joshua,” Thomas said, standing and shaking the man’s hand.

“Nils…” Gunnar began, “Nils really did pass away fifteen years ago. We may not get any older and we don’t get sick, but we can still be killed and die.”

“Oh, Gunnar,” Joshua said, “I’m sorry for you too. I wondered why I suddenly stopped hearing from Nils directly after a while. He tried to do his best to keep in touch. Can you tell me what happened?”

“We were working a security job in DC, and there was a bomb. Nils sacrificed himself to save everyone else that day.”

“Of course he did,” Joshua replied, wiping a tear from his eye. “Nils was the noblest man I ever met.”

Gunnar cracked open the bottle of bourbon that Joshua had brought with him and reached into the built-in cupboard next to the fireplace to grab three rocks glasses. He poured two fingers of bourbon in each glass and handed one each to Thomas and Joshua.

“Let’s have a drink to Nils,” Gunnar said, raising his glass. “Here’s to his long, noble life. The protector of many and the lover of few. All three of us knew his warm and gentle touch. I’m so grateful and lucky that I had him as my husband and mate for so many years. If he’s looking down upon us from the stars right now, he’d probably be telling me… to shut my mouth and drink, so let’s drink up. To Nils!”

“To Nils,” Thomas and Joshua both replied, and they each downed their glasses in one mighty gulp.

As Gunnar refilled their glasses, Joshua said, “Are you going to tell me now how you haven’t aged a day in fifty years, or were you planning on getting me drunk and hoping I’d forget to ask?”

“Well, that was the plan, but since you’re on to me, I guess I’ll have to tell you. But listen, Joshua, this is a secret that has been revealed to very few humans over the years. If we tell you, you will have to promise to take this to your grave and tell no one.”

“You say the word ‘humans’ as if I’m one and you aren’t,” Joshua said with a laugh. “You’re still human beings, aren’t you Gunnar… Thomas?”

They just stared at Joshua in response, until Joshua stopped laughing and tossed back his second glass of bourbon.

“Are you sure that you want to know?” Gunnar asked him. “It’s not too late to still pretend that I’m Gunnar’s great-nephew if you’d prefer.”

“No,” Joshua said grimly. “I need to know. I promise that I’ll keep your secret till the day I die, but I need you to tell me now.”

“It’s easier to show than to tell,” Gunnar said. “Follow us outside to the patio, but whatever you see, you need to also promise not to scream. We aren’t going to hurt you, but we don’t need the neighbors calling the cops.”

“All the neighbors around here are summer people.” Joshua said, following them out to the patio. “Nobody around to hear me scream even if I did.”

“Good to know,” replied Gunnar, taking off his shirt.

Thomas followed suit, and soon both stood naked in front of Joshua.

“I want you to sit down for this next part,” Gunnar said, and Joshua just nodded and sat in one of the Adirondack chairs, leaning himself back but staring at the two naked men.

“Here we go,” Gunnar said, and then Joshua’s jaw dropped open as their bodies expanded, twisted and contorted, sprouting fur and claws, and rearranging their features.

A few seconds later, a full-grown grizzly bear and an equally good-sized black bear stood on the patio where Gunnar and Thomas had been standing only a moment ago. The grizzly bear lowered his head and inched across the stones to the chair where Joshua sat, grunting in bear-speak that Joshua couldn’t understand. The grizzly reached the chair and nuzzled his head underneath the old man’s hand, inviting him to give his head and fur a pet and a scratch.

Joshua ran his hand through the fur on the bear’s head and neck.

“Gunnar…” he began, catching a sob in his throat, “Gunnar, you’re magnificent.”

The black bear shuffled over as well and laid his big head in Joshua’s lap.

“Oh my, Thomas, you’re such a beautiful bear too.”

He stroked his hands across both of their heads until the grizzly gave the black bear a grunt and they pulled back a couple of feet. Within seconds the fur had receded, and their features shifted to become once again human. The two men now sat naked on the stone patio at the old man’s feet.

“We’re called werebears, Joshua,” Gunnar explained. “In the olden days, when most of the humans in northern Europe were still living in pagan tribes, werebears were the wise and strong protectors of the villages. Now, even though we are still many in number, we are scattered around the world, living forever in secret.”

“How old are you really, Gunnar?” Joshua asked with wonder in his voice.

“Joshua, I turned two hundred fifty-three years old this year. Thomas is almost two hundred. Nils was much older than either of us when he died. He was the one who changed me from human to werebear back in Norway in the late 1700’s, and in the werebear culture that made him my Papa and I, his Cub.

“Now you see why we couldn’t come to a vacation spot more than once. If we had spent every summer here, we would have eventually attracted too much attention.”

“I loved you both so much, I pined for you for a long time,” Joshua confessed. “If you had come back every summer, I don’t think I would have ever been able to get over you enough to reach the point in my life where I was able to fall in love again with my Robert. I would have wanted to be your cub and live with the two of you forever.”

“A few humans are able to be transformed into werebears,” Gunnar explained gently. “Not very many, but a few. We call those humans ‘kindred’ and when we find them, we give them a choice to continue living as human or become one of us. That’s why we’re here now. There is a kindred who is in grave danger nearby, and we are going to attempt to rescue him or die trying. Once we have saved him and he has recovered from his trauma, he will be given the choice.”

“If I was kindred, would you give me the choice?” Joshua asked, with tears in his eyes.

“If you were kindred, we would have given you the choice back in 1975.” Gunnar replied. “Nils and I were really very fond of you. If you’d been capable of the transformation, you would have made a great bear. I’m so happy that you were able to find Robert and have a wonderful life of your own.”

Joshua smiled, “You can count on me to keep your secret, boys. Now I know why you are all such strapping lads; you each have a big, hairy, muscular bear inside you just waiting to get out!”

Gunnar leaned forward and gave Joshua a big kiss.

Joshua blushed, and then said, “You know, if you feel the need to go all furry and run about, the wild black bear population has been making a comeback around here lately, so people probably won’t even be that shocked if they see you rooting through their garbage cans or whatever it is you bears do for fun.”

“Garbage cans, indeed!” Thomas grumbled, “Just for that, no fresh honeycomb for you, mister!”

They all laughed, and then went back inside the house to warm up around the fire with another bourbon.

****

Fifty miles away, Mike lay in his bed staring at the ceiling. It had been a few days since anyone had come to bring him any food or water. Nick had turned off the water to his little room, thinking that Mike only had the water in the toilet bowl to drink, but he’d forgotten about the clean water in the toilet tank. There were a couple of gallons in there at the start, and if Mike continued using it sensibly and rationing it out, he would have enough to last him a little while longer. If Nick thought that he was going to sit around and suffer, dying of thirst, he had another think coming.

Mike struggled most to keep his brain occupied during this time. Mostly, he thought about the big, handsome, bearded man who had pushed his attackers away in that strange dark room and had spoken directly to Mike, offering to take him away from the pack.

He had said that Mike was “bear kindred”.

Mike had no idea what that meant, but the guy could have won a “Mr. Bear” contest at any gay bar hands down. Dozens of nasty lycans abusing him, and this hot man that Mike would have thrown himself at shamelessly if he’d met him under normal circumstances shows up, and all he could manage to babble out was, “I love my life with the pack, and wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Stupid!

It was the hours of conditioning that Kane and Nick put him through before that night. They had him afraid of anyone else, and the words came out of his mouth automatically.

“This human is bear kindred,” Mr. Bear had yelled. “By the law of the lycans I claim him as kin and Clan.”

Was Mr. Bear a lycan too? He didn’t look like the other wolves. Were there bear lycans just like wolf lycans? Did he want to drag Mike off to a cave somewhere to keep him and fuck him?

Mike shook his head at his conundrum. At this point, getting fucked by one bear lycan would probably seem like a holiday compared to what he had to put up with from this fucking pack of wolves.

He sighed and closed his eyes. Nothing to do about it now but sleep and try to conserve energy, Mike thought to himself as he drifted off again, dreaming about Mr. Bear breaking down the door and carrying him away to his bear cave.