Tiger Winter - 20. Animal

Emmett woke from a dream in which he was being followed around the arctic by a curious and friendly steam train, to find Jian curled up in his arms, purring happily. Looking down at the boy, Emmett still could still make out the edges of where his triangular ears had been, though not his tail, and with a heavy sigh he wished there was some way of granting the boy his fantasy. Emmett couldn’t imagine growing up without the ability to change into a bear and roam freely across the snow, though he knew lots of people didn’t, and he imagined that it must be painful to be the only person in your family unable to change shape. He kissed Jian’s cheekbone, and the timbre of the tiger’s purr changed as he woke.

“Morning,” Jian yawned hugely, his jaw creaking, “oh I want to stay in bed forever…”

“Sorry,” Emmett nuzzled him, “but I bought you a puppy. You’ll have to get up.”

“And why is it always me?”

“Because he has a damn panic attack whenever he sees me,” Emmett exaggerated. “Bring him back to bed, eh?”

“Still not having sex with you if Pitanê is watching…” Jian reminded him, but he swung his legs out of bed, stood up and stretched. Emmett allowed his eyes to roam down Jian’s back, across his stripes to the invitingly pert mounds of his arse. He blinked, and looked back up as the boy turned to locate a pair of boxer shorts.

“Jian, turn around.”

“Just ‘cause you want to ogle my butt…”

“No! Turn round!” Emmett sat up in bed, grabbed his lover and turned him. It had not been his imagination: the smooth tan skin of Jian’s back was decorated with tiger stripes. They were pale, only half a tea-stained shade darker than the rest of his skin, but they were certainly there, irregular narrow stripes, curving over his spine, waist, and fading as they reached his shoulder blades. “You’ve got stripes.”

“What?” Jian’s tone was so surprised as to be almost angry, and he dashed to the wardrobe where Emmett’s long mirror was mounted on the door, twisting his lithe body to see his own spine. “I’ve got stripes! Oh Xue! I’ve got stripes.”

“And you look beautiful with them, but how’d they get there?”

“I have no idea. Rain’s gonna be so jealous!” Jian grabbed a pair of skimpy boxer shorts, and pulled them on as he stepped into the hallway, “be right back!”

Emmett fell back into the bed, staring at the ceiling in wonder. His boyfriend, the man he loved, had gained stripes, and all they had done differently was dream together in that strange magical place where snow met sea. Emmett wondered what else could be accomplished by wishful thinking.

“Babe?” Jian’s voice reached him, whisper soft from the hallway, “come look.”

Emmett got up frowning, and hopped into a pair of sweats as he reached the half open doorway. Jian was leaning against the door jamb of his old room, looking picture perfect with his soft stripes cast like shadows over his lower back. Emmett looked over his shoulder into the puppy-den. Pitanê’s crate was empty, the door open, and the little dog padded in circles on the wooden floor, his tail waggling away behind him. After a moment, he dropped his head between his shoulders, let out a bark that was much more cute than scary, and pounced on the panda that lay sprawled on his back. Huan-Yu ruffled Pitanê’s fur with one paw, and huffed at the puppy as the dog began to clamber all over him.

“So me he had a fit over, but a panda is cute and playful?” Emmett sighed, “damn being an eco-status symbol: just look good in black and white!”

“I thought you didn’t like him, Rain?” Jian grinned. As soon as he spoke, Pitanê was distracted from his game, and ran to the feline, yapping happily. “Well that didn’t take long!”

“Wuurrm!” The panda turned onto all four paws and frowned at them. Emmett walked to Huan-Yu’s door and threw one of his housemate’s long robes at him while Jian gathered the puppy up in his arms. There was a sort of soft greenish light, and they both grinned at each other, looking away while Huan-Yu changed and straightened his clothes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh,” Jian could barely control his giggles, “I never thought I’d see the day my cousin was rolling around on the floor in his fur – like an animal.”

“Jian!”

“What?” Jian asked as Pitanê licked his face, “nice to see you have life left in you yet Rain. You need a bit more joy in your life. Here,” Jian handed the puppy back to him, “you look after him while we go have sex in the shower.”

“Tiger!” it was Emmett’s turn to be shocked, “you wanna tell him everything we do in private?”

Jian spun around, showing off his stripes.

“We had sex in a dreamland and I got stripes. Bye Rain…”

Rolling his eyes at his boyfriend, and trying to apologise to Huan-Yu, Emmett let himself be dragged away by the fiery young man he had given his heart to. Jian grinned and giggled, and promised to make it up to him.

*

Emmett stood back from the display boards and wiped his forehead on his shirt sleeve. He might have been used to a lot more heavy lifting than his students were, but he was also used to it being cold: the Long Gallery had plate glass windows all down one side, and as such, the university tended to turn the heating up and keep it that way. For Emmett, the temperature that made everyone else smile and remove their scarves had him stripped down to a single thin layer and rolling up his shirt sleeves.

“Is it straight now?”

“Yes!” Brooke called from the mezzanine gallery, “fix it right there.”

On the stepladder above them, Liam set the final screw in place, and secured it with the short sharp action of the electric drill. He climbed down, and Emmett folded up the stepladder now that the last board was finally in place.

“Emmett, when you said we’d be putting on a display of our maps, I didn’t think we were actually going to have to build it,” the boy panted happily, “but it looks great.”

“Where are the others? They must be back by now: it’s not that far to your office.”

“Here they come!” Zack glanced up from his floor work and pointed to where the rabble of the other students were appearing, laden with boxes from Emmett’s office, “don’t tread on the paint!”

Emmett watched as his students picked their way carefully over the lines and began to lay the boxes out at his feet. When Emmett had proposed the display, the university had been only too happy to acquiesce to his desires; all too happy the biological sciences were for once producing something visual that could be enjoyed by most people, not just academics. They had been given the highly popular Long Gallery, open to the public and often reserved for the use of the more artistic subjects, and even though staying home, playing with a puppy, and enjoying the company of his mate was wonderful, Emmett threw himself wholeheartedly into the job of curating the exhibition.

Mostly, it was made up of the maps. Each of the students had brought their Killarney maps back into school and with the exception of Zack’s, which was glorious in every detail, Emmett had helped the students to pick and choose sections of theirs they had most enjoyed. These had been blown up, printed on delightfully textured heavy weight cartridge paper, and the students had worked tirelessly to improve their artistic notation skills in order to give the maps as much rich detail as possible. The combinations of text, both written and printed, pictures and photographs, mathematical bearings, directions on how and where animals had been spotted and Felix’s pressed and preserved cold weather flora samples made the maps a wonderfully visual feast. Along with these, and their old fashioned luggage style tags, Emmett had prepared and framed a variety of photographs, both his own and those taken by the students, showing everything from a herd of wild caribou picking their way carefully along the edge of the water, to the flight and fishing of the first pelican they had seen over the lake. Emmett had focused his own map in the exact layout of the campsite, down to the tiny details of their guy ropes and cooking stoves, and left Liam to complete a gorgeously annotated technical drawing of a cold weather camp bed, and layers of sleeping bag, liner, and mats, lovingly rendered and accompanied by drawings and notes about water bottles and sleeping with things to keep them warm.

It took them three hours to hang everything, and by the time they were done, even Theo, Nolan and Wyatt were lost in wonderment, all of them on the mezzanine floor, watching Zack as he put the final strokes onto his floor. The map was glorious, and showed their area of the university and environs, natural features picked out in green, the Long Gallery itself in traditional red. The grounds were decorated with the trees that really stood there, populated by rabbits and a fox disappearing under a hedge, the igloo Emmett had taught them to build and the dotted lines marking their first tent practice site. Emmett’s office was frenetically detailed, picked out in blue and white, and everything on his tiny desk was labelled in ant-like handwriting. Liam breathed a sigh of relief, and knelt upright, accompanied by the crunch of his spine clicking back into place.

“Finished!”

A general cheer went up from the assembled students and their lecturer.

“To the pub!” Nora cried. “I think we owe this man a drink.”

“Sorry guys,” Emmett’s brain was suddenly hardwired to the sound of his mate’s voice, “but I’ve got to steal him instead.”

“Awww!”

“Pita!”

“Puppy!”

Half the students dissolved into a puddle in the act of hurrying down to the main gallery entrance to where Jian stood with Pitanê. The young dog danced around in a circle, wagging his tail and trying his very best to wrap Jian in the length of the lead. Tiger and husky retreated into the atrium so Emmett could congratulate Zack and lock the doors behind them, leaving the floor to dry ready for the opening of the exhibition the following evening. Pitanê yapped and played with the students on the floor, invading their personal space, snuffling at their bags and clothes, and adoring the attention heaped upon him. Emmett sidled up and kissed Jian while Pitanê tugged on the long end of Wyatt’s scarf.

“Hey, Tiger.”

“Hey,” Jian pulled Pitanê back from destroying a piece of clothing that was apparently fashion, and then kissed Emmett full on the mouth, eliciting a series of surprised gasps, happy sighs, and one wolf-whistle from the assembled students. “Did you have a nice day at work?”

“Yeah,” Emmett grinned conspiringly, “the students were pretty good.”

“Pretty good?” They groaned, “Emmett!”

Emmett winked, and put his arm around his boyfriend, steering Jian away from their adoring public. Pitanê barked happily and abandoned the students to find out what was being said by his people.

“They made the most wonderful exhibition…”

“Please come to the pub with us?” Taylor implored. “I’m sure everyone would love to spend more time with Pita.”

“Sorry kids,” Jian pulled Emmett against his side with a sly grin, “big guy has to come with us for puppy training classes. We have to teach Pitanê some manners before he tries to eat through all your fashion accessories.” As though he understood what was being said, the young husky paused in act of chewing distractedly on the leather strap of Bree’s cross body bag. His teeth had left dents.

“Have a drink on me guys.” Emmett said his goodbye, and walked with his boyfriend and his dog into town. “You shouldn’t tease them like that.”

“But it’s so much fun,” Jian infiltrated Emmett’s coat as the bear shrugged into his outer layers, and it was nice to have the Tiger’s arm wrapped tight around his waist as they walked. Pitanê trotted along next to them, perfectly well behaved until he saw or smelt anything interesting, at which point their journey was considerably slowed. “The exhibition looks wonderful, babe.”

“Thanks,” Emmett squeezed his boyfriend’s hand, “you shouldn’t call them ‘kids’ you know; most of them are older than you! Do we have to go to this puppy training thing?”

“You want him to destroy another of your Canada Goose gloves?” Jian arched an eyebrow, “I thought not. It’ll be fun!”

Three quarters of an hour later, Emmett glanced across the hall at Jian and scowled as his mate stifled giggles by biting his fist. He was having anything except fun, because for every activity they had to complete, Jian could click his tongue and get Pitanê to do anything, but Emmett could barely make the young dog sit next to him and stay there.

“How old is he?” the trainer walked across to them with a smile. Pitanê hopped on his front feet, nails clicking against the parquet floor, but inside of fussing the door, the trainer simply smiled at Emmett and ignored him.

“Five months next week,” Emmett sighed, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“You’re not doing too badly,” the trainer came to stand next to him and held out her hand for the lead, “but you need to stop trying to get him to like you. If you’re trying too hard, he won’t bother: like a good relationship, it needs both of you to make the effort.”

Emmett frowned, and looked across to where Jian stood, chatting softly with a few other dog owners. Without even looking at him, Emmett felt the little tiger’s presence at the edge of his mind. Pitanê seemed to feel it too, and sat instantly as Emmett’s side, calm and quiet as a sleeping bear.

“But he loves Jian.”

“Yeah, well your boyfriend there has… something special, that’s for sure.” Emmett felt his heart swell with pride at her compliment. “Now, we’re going to practice walking a little bit, OK?” she smiled reassuringly, “if he pulls away, or stops, or gets distracted: bring him back into line with a little tug, not enough to hurt him, and only then can you continue walking. Don’t look at him, because he wants your praise, make him work for it.”

Emmett felt stupid walking at a snail’s pace across the long hall, stopping constantly to check Pitanê and bring the young dog back to the correct position. It took them forever, but on the return trip, Pitanê trotted along with barely a distraction. The trainer smiled at him, but that was nothing compared with the vision Emmett suddenly found himself standing in.

It was snowing, the air was crisp and frozen, and under the thick layer of fur and body fat, Emmett could tell it was probably thirty below. He was trotting along under a soft white sky, thick flakes falling onto the ice below his paws, and when he glanced to his left, what he saw made his heart swell with summer warmth. Jian stood on the runners of a small, lightweight racing sled, barely four feet long. Pulling in the traces was Pitanê. The dog seemed older, sleeker, no longer puppyish, and he pulled with all the glee and mirth of his species. Emmett called across the ice to his mate and their dog, and Pitanê barked in response. Emmett glanced down as the vision faded, half expecting to find snow under his boots. Instead, the puppy sat staring up at him, head cocked to one side, one ear folded down, looking inquisitive.

“He has good dreams Pita,” Emmett ruffled the dog’s fur, and found the husky almost purring under his touch, “good boy.”

“That’s it, very nice.” The trainer clapped her hands, “now those of you who feel up to it, we’re going to do some recall training, and maybe even some agility; depending on how well it goes.”

Emmett was all too happy to have Jian meet him partway across the floor and hand over the lead to his lover. The brief moment of contact sent shivers up his spine, and Emmett had to think of driving snow not to jolt them both into a wonderful and very naked vision. Jian grinned at him knowingly.

“Having trouble schooling your thoughts?”

“Tease.”

“Oh yeah,” Jian’s tail-that-wasn’t swished from side to side, focusing all of Emmett’s attention on his lovely hips. “Now sit back and watch.”

Pitanê was certainly the largest and most striking dog in his mixed breed class, but it wasn’t just his wonderful markings and lovely shape that made him stand out. With Jian next to him, the dog could do anything, and Emmett watched in mounting surprise and pleasure as Jian jogged neatly across the hall, Pitanê sitting stock still and waiting for him. When Jian called the dog, he launched himself across the floor, just as he did in the park, and when Jian double tapped his chest the husky leapt and ended up in his arms, snuggling into the crook of Jian’s neck with his muzzle. The trainer gaped in surprise.

“Shep!” Another man called for his dog, and the black and white collie looked at him then began to streak off in a completely different direction. “Oh no!”

Jian turned to where the dog had headed, and Emmett saw the subtle change in his posture: his shoulder’s tightened, he rose very slightly onto the balls of his feet, and his ear would have swivelled forwards to follow the motion and noise of the dog. He clicked his tongue.

The dog called Shep stopped dead and turned to look at him: Pitanê still sat at his tiger’s heels, patient as a stone. Jian frowned.

“Shep: here!”

Like a hooked fish, the dog turned and made a beeline right for Jian, coming to sit neatly at his feet. The two young dogs nuzzled to greet each other as Jian praised the black and white collie. His owner hurried across, lead in hand, and secured the collie quickly.

“That was amazing.”

“Thanks.”

“How did you do it?”

Emmett sat back in his chair and wondered at the boy who had turned back the anger of a moose. He had assumed at the time it was just strength, force of will alone that had made the moose run from the tiger. More and more, he was getting the feeling there was a lot Jian could do, and he wondered how much the tiger knew about his special skills.

*

“Right there...”

“Here?”

“A little to the left… Mmmm….” Jian dissolved into a puddle under Emmett’s hands, and the polar bear grinned. “You’re so good at that.”

Emmet swept his palms from Jian’s shoulders, down his striped back to the curve at the top of his butt. Using his knuckles, he kneaded his way back up, Jian groaning happily the entire time. Huan-Yu hadn’t been able to shed any light on why or how Jian had acquired his stripes and a month later, Emmett still couldn’t get used to them. They gave the boy, always exotic and exciting, an otherworldliness that Emmett did not understand, but which he found incredible sexy. He paused in his massage to trace the outline of one stripe with a fingertip.

“Tiger?”

“Mmmm?”

“Why can’t I command you?” Emmett felt the tiger consider his question, and then Jian rocked his hips under Emmett’s splayed thighs, stroking his rear along the turgid length of Emmett’s cock. “Jian…”

“I don’t know,” Jian shuffled slightly, then lent up on his elbows. Emmett returned to stroking his shoulders with long sweeping motions, “I’ve never really heard of anyone being able to do what we can do though. I mean, if any of my family can send each other visions they’re keeping damn quiet about it.”

“You said commands were quite common?” Emmett queried.

“Well yeah,” Jian paused, and twisted to look up at him. “Xue? How many other shifters do you know?”

“That I’m not related to? Three.” Emmett had once spent a great afternoon in a back country bar having a protracted conversation with a brown bear-lumberjack when he’d been tracking geese. “That’s including you.”

“How is that possible? Are there no shifters in Canada or something?” Jian was astonished, “never mind. Yes, commands are quite common, about half of my cousin’s and their wives can use commands on each other.”

“And you can command me.”

“But not the other way around… it is kind of weird.”

Emmett shrugged.

“Maybe I’m just faulty or something.”

Jian twisted around in the tight space made by Emmett’s thighs and punched him in the shoulder. The polar bear frowned, then Jian was sitting up, holding Emmett’s chin in one hand, and kissing him thoroughly. Emmett groaned against his mate, and let his mouth be invaded.

“There is nothing wrong with you,” Jian panted against him, heart hammering hard and fast against Emmett’s own, “you’re perfect.”

“You’re biased.”

“Probably,” Jian admitted, “maybe you just don’t need to be able to use commands. You can always get exactly what you want from me anyway.”

Emmett stared at his mate, puzzled.

“Huh?”

“Well think about it,” Jian wiggled out from underneath him, and they ended up sitting cross-legged, knee to knee on the mattress, “in the beginning, back in October when I first got here, you had all the power.” When Emmett still looked confused, Jian rolled his eyes in exasperation. “You were dating Zeke? You were all happy and content, and not interested in me.”

“Hey-!” Emmett coloured quickly, thinking of how interested he had been in Jian that first day he had arrived. Certainly if anyone took his mental status into account, he’d been cheating on Zeke from the first moment the little tiger had stepped into his life.

“Babe, it’s OK. You were with someone else,” Jian looked sick even as he said it, “I got no rights to be mad at you.”

Emmett tried to remember what it had been like with Zeke, and instantly felt like the bottom had fallen out of his stomach. Just as though he knew exactly what was going through Emmett’s brain, Jian reached out and laid a hand on his sternum: his warm touch was instantly soothing. Emmett gathered the boy up into his arms, wrapping his thick legs around Jian’s own, nuzzling his silken hair.

“Maybe The Great Spirits just know what is best for us, eh?” Jian murmured against his skin, “we’re supposed to be together, and they gave us the tools to find that out.”

“You’re the smartest tiger I ever met,” Emmett ran his fingers through Jian’s hair, turning the boy’s head so he could kiss the lovely column of his throat. Jian writhed back against him, his tiger-striped spine pressed against Emmett’s chest. He weaved Jian’s narrow tan fingers with his own, and the boy kissed his knuckles before feathering his way down along Emmett’s arm and biting teasingly in the tender skin of his wrist.

“I’m the only tiger you ever met, and I’m not really- oh!” Jian sat upright in Emmett’s lap, no longer half way to becoming putty in his hands. “Maybe that’s why I can command you, and I’m better at the fantasies.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Because you,” Jian poked Emmett’s meaty thigh with one sharp finger, “get the gift of transformation, and I don’t.” Jian grinned smugly, “I get the gift of control instead.”

“And are you going to use it?” Emmett walked his fingers up the back of Jian’s neck, stroking the cat in just the way he knew the young man liked. Jian purred, his whole body vibrating, and soon he was mouldable and boneless in Emmett’s lap. Emmett squeezed Jian’s pert rear, and rubbed the length of his heavy erection into the furrow between his cheeks. Jian whimpered.

“But giving up is so much fun…”

Emmett groaned, his lips brushing Jian’s skin as he entered his mate. As much as Emmett loved to relinquish his self-control and be commanded by his mate, it was incredibly satisfying to have the feline trembling in desire in his lap. Jian mewled, whimpered, panted, and gasped out his desire in a broken string of unintelligible and erotic noises, and with every half-syllable Emmett felt like a god. He buried himself within the slender young man, joining them together in the most intimate and primal way he knew, and growled in satisfaction. Whatever The Great Spirits had decided was right for them, it was all good as far as Emmett was concerned, because with Jian in his arms, panting his nickname, nothing else mattered much at all.

*

Emmett lay on the sofa with one arm pillowed under his head, holding a book in his other hand. He wasn’t really reading, because taking up the far end of the sofa was Pitanê, and the young dog was watching him expectantly. Every day it seemed, more and more of his fluffy puppy cuteness was melting away, replaced by thick but slightly sleeker fur, longer legs to match his large paws, and an altogether sharper and more focused appearance. Not that he couldn’t still lie on the floor, upside down with his head at an uncomfortable looking angle, all four legs in the air, with a ridiculously stupid expression on his face. Emmett glanced over the top of his book, not really seeing the page and the detailed map of the last journey of The Essex whaleboats, and watched the dog watching him back. Pitanê cocked his head to one side and folded down the tip of his left ear, drawing his grey-blue eyebrow spots together in a frown, and Emmett could no longer resist him. Ice blue eyes lit up as Emmett double tapped his chest and abandoned his book.

“Hey Pita,” Emmett ruffled the dog’s fur instantly, and was rewarded with a slobbery canine kiss, “I think you know exactly how to get what you want, eh?” Emmett stroked the dog’s fur, running his fingers down his spine happily: Pitanê wagged his tail, stretching and relaxing along Emmett’s chest and lap. “You got big, hey buddy?”

“Wuff!”

“Yeah, you’re a good boy. Not that it helps me get on with reading,” Emmett looked forlornly at his fallen book, the first one he had lent to Jian. “You’re a great distraction.”

Pitanê whined softly, and buried his face under Emmett’s chin. From the direction of the kitchen, waves of red, orange, and crispy brown scents reached them: Jian was cooking, and Emmett, like Pitanê, had been banished from the kitchen whilst Jian rolled out thin pancakes and double roasted a duck until it was tantalizingly aromatic. It was torture, but Emmett was glad to have somebody to share it with.

“Make enough washing up, did you?” Huan-Yu’s voice lingered in the hallway, and Emmett listened in on their conversation, feeling only fractionally guilty about eavesdropping, and petted the husky in his lap.

“Bĕijīng kăoyā, Rain,” Emmett could hear the smile in his boyfriend’s voice, “I’m making a special treat for Emmett.”

“And how exactly did you afford a duck… and a new carbon steel wok?”

“You worry too much Huan-Yu: must come from being a banker.”

“Your father-” Huan-Yu began, but Jian’s snarl cut him off.

“Don’t tell me what my father would think. I know exactly what he would think! I’m not going back Rain, it’s not worth it.”

“You can’t run away forever.”

“You did!” Jian shot back.

“I got a job!”

Emmett could smell the greenish tones of Jian’s distain.

“Middle management? Oh how desirable!”

There was a long pause, and Emmett heard the panda shuffle his feet.

“Actually,” he took a deep breath, “there is a promotion available at work. The head of domestic accountancy is quitting after she had her last kid. They want me to take it.”

“Oh, Rain!” There was a clatter as whatever Jian had been holding fell to the floor. “That’s great! You should go for it.”

“There’s someone else who wants it too…” the panda mumbled.

“Oh, fuck the other guy!” Emmett chuckled silently into Pitanê’s fur to hear his mate be suddenly defensive and proud of his cousin. “You deserve it. You’ve been there longer, yeah? And you’re probably smarter than him too. You have to!”

“And you?” Huan-Yu spoke softly, considering his words. “When are you going find a job; do something constructive with your life?”

“Rain…”

“Yéyé cut you off, didn’t he?”

There was the unmistakable noise of Jian gulping.

“Huan-Yu…”

“Your snow bear will find out eventually, Jian. Two years is more than anyone could expect to be supported for: you’re going to have to get a job.”

“But I don’t know what to do.”

“Play to your strengths, and stop spending so much money. Where is it coming from anyway?”

“Umm…”

“I was in your room.” Emmett felt a sudden flash of angry jealously that someone had invaded their space. “Where’s your surfboard?”

“Umm…” Jian replied again.

Emmett pushed Pitanê off his chest and walked to the living room door. Jian stood by the dividing gate they had set up in the kitchen, looking pained and guilty. When he glanced up at Emmett, the polar bear couldn’t stand the expression of defeat in his orange eyes. Emmett knew the answer to the question before he had even asked it.

“You sold your surfboard?”

It became the most awkward conversation Emmett had ever been a part of: including the one he and Jian had tried to have the day after the boy had first commanded him in the snow as a bear. Jian tucked himself into a corner of the sofa, having turned off everything in the kitchen that could have burnt or boiled over without his watchful eye, and Pitanê abandoned the polar bear to lie protectively in front of Jian’s tanned bare feet.

“Why?”

“I got a good price for it,” Jian explained quickly, “the guy who bought it paid top dollar.”

“But why did you sell it, babe?” Emmett sighed: he may never have understood surfing, but the vibrant blue and green surfboard had been important enough to Jian to appear in his half of their shared dreamland.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” Jian snivelled, “I’m sorry.”

Emmett stilled his hands from stroking Pitanê’s back, reached across and pulled the little tiger over the dog and into his lap. The husky decided the best thing for him to do was to help cheer Jian up, a task he hoped to accomplish by standing with his front paws in the boy’s lap whilst licking him all over as he cried.

“Don’t be sorry, not for me. I wish you’d said something though. When did you grandfather stop sending you money?”

“Just after we got back from Moosonee,” Jian admitted, “I emailed mum to tell her about me and you, and that you’d bought me a puppy and how happy we were, and how wonderful everything was,” Jian’s tears flowed faster as he spoke, trying to push through the sadness and sobs to make actual words. “I even said that she’d have to come and visit sometime, to meet you. S-s-she must have shown the letter to Yéyé; because the next day all I had from him was a terse one line sentence saying that he was ‘disappointed in my lack of ambition’, and when I came home we would discuss the matter further.”

“Oh babe…”

“He won’t write back, and mum won’t talk to me about it.”

Emmett couldn’t find any words to express how he felt, so he simply hugged the little tiger tighter to his chest, and tried not to growl. There had been times when, as a student, Emmett had to go begging to his father and step-mother for money, and whilst they had always given him ‘the talk’ about spending versus saving, they had still supported him. Jian’s family had abandoned him on the other side of the world, expecting him to come home. Emmett wondered where the young man was supposed to find money for a ticket.

“Jian, how much have you got left?”

“After the duck?” Jian sighed miserably, “Eight dollars.”

Emmett blinked.

“Ah, right then,” Emmett paused. He hated that the situation with Jian’s finances had come to this. “I think your cousin is right, y’know.”

“I usually am,” Huan-Yu asserted as he walked past, “Jian, your rice is going to boil over.”

“Shit!” The tiger scrambled out of Emmett’s lap, upsetting the dog and striking Emmett in the jaw with his sharp elbow. “Sorry! Sorry!”

“We’re not done talking about this you know!” Emmett called, rubbing the bottom of his jaw with one hand.

Jian served dinner, and they got lost in the conversation about the delicious food, the incredibly desperate puppy-dog eyes Pitanê was giving them and the NHL game on the television. By the time Emmett had put the husky in his crate and snuggled up into bed beside his lover, he had forgotten all the things he wanted to say.