Merging with Myths

This is just a sample of my writing, which was turned into fanfiction. The story below contains horror elements, graphic scenes, and mature themes. This in no way infringes upon the creative genius and franchise of 小蘑菇 – 一十四洲 | Xiǎo Mó Gū – Yī Shí Sì Zhōu.

No money was ever charged for this.

Summary:

Tang Lan’s wings were as dense and smooth as muscles, and almost as adaptable as fingers. Their black surface reflected light like an oil slick, bending it into shades of deep indigo at the edges. Those massive appendages enfolded Hubbard on many a cold night. When fully extended, they were taller and wider than him. They were imposing. When they enclosed him, they smelled of all the intimate fragrances of Tang Lan’s body, particularly the scents that drifted up from the roots of his hair whenever Hubbard held him against his chest and rubbed his face into those intoxicating, soft strands. 
 
Hubbard relished that scent. It was amazing how addictive intimate odors could be, when one loses the fear of becoming a part of another person. Hubbard survived because of those extraordinary wings. He could never be repulsed by them now. He loved them. 

Work Text:

Image credit: MJ on Discord

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If he closed his eyes and concentrated on the wind shaking each leaf, or the massive rock hard beneath his ass, or the spray of water pouring into the lake around him, he could almost block out his fears. He could calm his muscles by stopping their involuntary trembling. He could put himself back into Tang Lan’s arms, a week earlier, and sink into the luxury he’d found there. After all, trees, birds, and all manner of green life thrived in the aftermath of radiation and death. Altered, weird, scary, but thriving in their own way. Maybe he could too. 

Hubbard knew what he must’ve looked like on that giant boulder. If anyone could’ve seen him, he would’ve looked like a half-clothed refugee, baking in the sun. High on mushrooms from the mutant forest surrounding him. They would’ve seen a war torn outpost emerging from the water behind him. A square cement tower, long blown to bits, exposing a top room of broken walls with encroaching vegetation. In it, an open stairwell led to abandoned offices on the floors below, and a subterranean bunker built on top of a cave. It had already flooded at the water table, but was protected from further encroachment by an outer wall meant to keep mutant animals out. The old facility had been built deep in a valley. When Tang Lan found it years ago, poisoned rain kept flooding the area and washing away all of his attempts to grow food. Since that time, without the burden of large populations, the land seemed to heal itself and gain a bit of ecological stability, even if all the plants and animals were never going to be the same. 

He’d been with Tang Lan for less than a year now, living with him in the wild. It had taken the end of the world for them to be together. So why was this happening now?

He looked down at his arms. Patches of skin that was only red two days ago, had become thin, bloodless, and translucent with sticky serum. His body was fighting an infection that he knew it couldn’t win. He and Tang Lan had seen this before. Five times since the Uranium bomb. And all five times, it ended, not in the hybridization of the human genome, but in death. Mutation sickness. Finally, there was something attempting to bond with human DNA, beyond its capability to adapt and survive. They didn’t know what it was. It could’ve been bacteria for all they knew. Their ten neighbors, spread miles away from them in an overgrown, modified jungle, had survived the fall of the compound. 
Hubbard had seen them for himself, when he “hiked” with Tang Lan to dispense medical supplies, collected from decimated towns and abandoned facilities. Hiked, was a loose term, considering his feet never touched the ground. These days, when they wanted to go from one ridge to another, he traveled on Tang Lan’s back. Tang Lan insisted. His body was enhanced by his infection. Instead of death, he had gained wings, strength, and immunity to the various diseases and deadly mutations that took out most of the remaining population. 

They traveled this way out of necessity. The ground was full of flesh-eating plants, oversized insects, and humanoid creatures that had no speech or typical cognitive functions resembling that of people anymore. They looked more like ant people than regular people, with a great loss of muscle mass, protruding skeletal structures, and bent into crawling things that preferred to burrow underground during the day. They were not especially vicious, but opportunistic in their feeding on wounded and helpless prey. Tang Lan kept them out of his territory by using the magnetic alignment of rocks to emit a field of electromagnetic energy, which appeared to distress them, osteologically.  

He said, “Their bones have turned into exoskeletons. They have more magnetite in them than the rest of us. It means they’re a lot more sensitive to vibrations. The magnetic field I’ve created, is too weak to affect you and me, but it’s painful to them.”

At the time, his assessment struck Hubbard as odd. There was nothing particularly special about Tang Lan’s line of rocks, which encircled their camp. They were not considered magnetic. But he’d gathered many kinds and when he positioned them in a certain configuration, they became magnetic and they did the job. This was especially fascinating because it was a very avian thing to do. Some species of birds painstakingly moved pebbles into place, creating complex designs for the purpose of attracting mates or throwing off predators. The fact that Tang Lan had figured out which rocks were useful, and how to use them, silenced Hubbard into a state of awe. So the infection went deeper than physical traits. The man he once thought was dead, had integrated with avian instincts as well.

That was shortly after Tang Lan had rescued him and nursed him back to health. He was showing him around, showing him how he hunted, what he could eat, and how to stay safe. 

Sitting on the rock remembering, Hubbard ran his finger lightly over the dead skin coating his forearms. He smiled, thinking of Tang Lan’s beautiful wings. In the old world, if he were being honest with himself, he would’ve been repulsed by the idea of a man with wings. Even old theology depictions of angels in Heaven, left a lot to be desired. But now that he was on the other side of what was left of humanity, he felt very differently. You have to see them in person, to believe them, he thought. He winced, as he picked at his skin and watched blood bead to the surface. Tang Lan’s wings are magnificent. 
 
Black. But not just black, iridescent black in the sun. Like an oil slick when the light hits them just right. Hubbard could count all the colors of the rainbow in those smooth, opaque strands of dark softness, making them firm and sleek, thick and strong. Tang Lan’s wings were as dense and smooth as muscles, and almost as adaptable as fingers. Their black surface reflected light like a prism, bending it into shades of deep indigo at the edges. Those massive appendages had enfolded Hubbard on many a cold night. When fully extended, they were taller and wider than him. Being wrapped in them felt like a blanket of brushed velvet, and smelled of all the intimate fragrances of Tang Lan’s body, particularly the scents that drifted up from the roots of his hair whenever Hubbard held him against his chest and rubbed his face into those lavish strands. Tang Lan’s military-approved trim was gone now, replaced by  quantities of hair that he either tied back or neglected entirely.  

 Hubbard relished that scent. It was amazing how addictive intimate odors could be, when one loses the fear of becoming a part of another person. Hubbard survived because of those wings. He could never be repulsed by them now. He loved them. 

Tang Lan had a way of hiding them from view, that Hubbard would’ve liked more time to study. When his wings were not visible, there were no signs that he had ever been infected with avian genetics. Only his scapula protruded more than average, and those were camouflaged by enhanced serratus and obliques. Both sets of muscles layered his back deceptively. When his instinct to take flight is triggered, those appendages flew into view, not so much as slipping free, as materializing too fast for the eye to make sense of it. 

Hubbard thought of this while forcing his panic down. This wasn’t about him. This was about saying good-bye to Tang Lan in the gentlest way possible. He touched the white patch on his arm. The dead skin in one area, seemed to make all the other areas ache when he ran his fingers over it. Patches on his back tingle in a way that made him grit his molars. Those were the most sensitive. It felt like nails being embedded into his rib cage. His spine sent a current of fire down through each vertebrae, and his body seized right there on the boulder. 

He counted the seconds and waited for the pain to pass. He filled his mind with the gorgeous color of Tang Lan’s imposing wing span. It thrilled him like nothing else, and proved to him that, while his body had been blessedly undamaged by the world-wide infection and mutations, he was just as changed as Tang Lan. He was one of them now, because he loved a xenogenic. 

Another seizure took hold of his motor functions. He fell flat with his back on the rock. However, his mind escaped the worst of it by zoning out. As the worst pain took hold of him, he slipped into a fever. And from there, into his best moments with Tang Lan. 

He remembered every touch like it was yesterday. Eyes closed, his hands absently roamed across his chest and arms, to all the places he’d been kissed over the last few weeks. His pain subsided. His body shook, partly from the advancement of mutation sickness, and partly from the memory of being too embarrassed to admit to Tang Lan, that he’d never done that sort of thing before. At least not with a man. After being rescued by him, and finding themselves paired in a world without others, they took time sorting their feelings. They took time trusting that it was finally okay to be honest about their attraction to one another. 

Hubbard snapped out of it. He looked around the lake, at all the vegetation that evolution had never intended. There were trees with tentacles, sleeping, and others with shells that hung like calcified blossoms. His vision went watery around the edges and he felt light-headed. He reeled from the fever. He would have to go pack his things. A backpack with a few rations. They learned that the sickness was only contagious when it left the corpse to rot. He’d have to find somewhere to die, far away from Tang Lan. He could only do that if he left now. Once Tang Lan sees him, it’ll be impossible to leave.

He looked at the white patches growing thinner by the minute, on his arms and shoulder’s. He might last another two days, before the infection shut down his brain. Tang Lan was out there, hunting for more supplies. He had to fly farther and farther these days, to find stored goods. He mentioned moving them to a different camp further South. He was scouting out new places, closer to known bunkers and underground facilities. If Hubbard left now, Tang Lan would be upset, but he’d be safe.

The idea of leaving like that made him shudder. He wiped his eyes. He and Tang Lan had built a life here. He was simply supposed to pick up and leave it? Break the heart of the only person he had left in this world? 

Yes, his inner wisdom stated firmly. When you’re in trouble, you stay away from family. You don’t put them in danger. 

He looked out at the small rows of hybrid, red corn, growing in glass containers near the shallows of the lake. Tang Lan had created that species for him. 

The soil was too rocky and poisonous for normal crops. They discovered, with experimentation, that they could grow some mutated beans and plants in glass filtration systems. Tang Lan searched and scavenged what was left of labs, schools, and the homes of their former society. He dug deep into the earth until he found signs of healthy soil, transferred it to box terrariums, which he made from old fish tanks, dismantled windows, and whatever else he could get his hands on. He sifted water through layers of smashed sedimentary rock and pebbles found in caves, to simulate organic filtering as much as possible. He said the process would, over time, put minerals back into the soil and clean it at the same time. 

He could eat just about anything he wanted in the wild. Mutant Rabbits were large and plentiful. Air-breathing fish, with bird feet, walked right out of rivers into his hands. But neither of them trusted Hubbard to eat just anything from their abnormal food chain. Hubbard showed no signs of being affected by all the genetic atrocities around them, so the new ecosystem was very dangerous to him. Pure humans were a thing of the past, as all biology succumbed to modification. 

The human population had dwindled, but people were still alive, mostly in hybrid, mutated form. One became accustomed to seeing the odd appendage on a rare, traveling stranger. They occasionally ran into other survivors in their valley. A scale-covered protrusion, usually with claws, greeted them instead of normal arms. Sturdy bee’s wings, covered up by over sized coats, were the most common aberrations. Or hooded figures, with bony tusks and canines extending from holes cut into the fabric. No one asked questions. No one stared. It wasn’t polite. So they kept to themselves and spread out, far and wide, from other genetically infected mutants attempting to survive with new vulnerabilities and new strengths. 

Hubbard had no visible abnormalities and that made him something of a liability in a land transformed by so-called monsters. He reconciled himself to the possibility, no likelihood, of mutating along with everyone else one day, just to be respectful of Tang Lan and thankful for their time together. 
After months of sleeping, eating, and bathing in close proximity, it never happened. Tang Lan went out of his way to clean everything Hubbard touched. He couldn’t clean the air, but he made sure his food was suitable for human consumption. Even if that meant flying and hiking hundreds of miles for days at a time, to scavenge old warehouses and encampments for military rations that were made to last years.

On the boulder, Hubbard laughed. How silly to think that all of life had somehow stopped mutating and he got off scot-free, to live in an alien paradise with the man he loved. Of course, the worst wave of chromosomal disintegration would come now, just to wipe out the rest of them. It was invisible, until the last few days. That’s how the others went, practically dissolving in their skins, as if their cells had lost all cohesive ability.

As he lay in the sun, Hubbard swallowed streams of mucus from his draining sinuses. He’d better get going before he was no longer able to. It would’ve been nice to give Tang Lan one more night, and maybe sneak out with his final good-bye being said in lovemaking, instead of words. He lay there, willing himself to brave the pain and get up. He knew he had to say good-by to this place. He stared out at the water. It filled the shallow lake a few days ago, from heavy rain and runoff down the sides of the valley. He had Tang Lan to thank for the artificial lake. When his co-commander had discovered him,  he was nearly starved and burning up with sickness.

He remembered clinging to Tang Lan’s over sized back on the night he was brought here. Clinging to his shoulders, to the protrusion of cartilage that framed his giant wings. He held on that night, because he knew that it was Tang Lan carrying him. That alone, gave him the strength to stay on. He remembered gaping at the forest speeding past them below. Wind clogged his ears, and the vibration of those wings split the air as Tang Lan’s weight bore him from the epicenter of the Uranium blast.

He slept for days, having no memory of being awakened by Tang Lan, to be fed or to relieve himself. 

They huddled by a fire.

“I’ve been asleep for days? You should’ve woken me up. I could’ve been some use to you.”

“You’re sick,”Tang Lan told him. “My only concern is getting food into you.” 

On day five in their new shelter, they were washed out as torrential rains forced them to wait it out in a cave. During this time, Hubbard’s body struggled to fight off an infection, one more closely related to exhaustion and pneumonia. Tang Lan mixed something in his food that made him rest. Without Hubbard knowing, he started building an irrigation system with rocks and excavating the landscape to redirect the water and collect it around the ruins of the outpost. By day twenty, they had three man-made waterfalls, a lake, and a boulder that was allowed to roll into place, in the middle of the water. 

This remarkable display of inhuman ingenuity quieted Hubbard. He noticed that while Tang Lan’s physical strength and endurance had increased many times over, with his mutated avian infection, he hadn’t lifted the boulder, but merely dislodged it from the rocky embankment above the ridge of their camp. The thing was the size of two army Humvees stacked on top of each other. It would’ve taken ten men to uproot it enough to gain momentum down the slope. When Hubbard finally woke up with a clear head and returned strength, to food, a campfire, the lake, and three sporadic waterfalls, he eyed Tang Lan.

“You could’ve waited. I wanted to help you.”

“And just sit here being useless? If we’re going to stay here, you need clean water and shelter. I would’ve gone crazy just watching you burn with fever, not knowing if you were going to make it. I  kept busy. Had to. I had to get this place in shape for you.”

Hubbard felt his neck grow hot. They had always respected one another, from their days of co-commanding, but openly expressing concern like this, was still new. The world had gone through many changes, many tragedies, but in this new world, apparently, it was okay for the most honorable commander to show affection for another. At the time, Hubbard had no words to reply with. 

They were in the middle of a meal. Sardines and beans from rations. They ate over a fire on the top floor of the tower that had no roof. Tang Lan hadn’t said that he was protecting him, but Hubbard heard it any way. They both paused, looking at the unspoken admission.
 
Tang Lan rushed past it. “Eat. You can help in the morning, if you take it slow.”

“How did you find me?”

“Luck. And I never gave up. As long as I couldn’t find your body, I had something to hope for.”

This admission stopped Hubbard from eating. A wave of light-headedness passed through him. If he had ever wanted to hear Tang Lan express feelings for him, this was it.

“Then I spotted you by the river, with your backpack beside you. You were unconscious. I searched what was left of the barracks. I made a harness that could hold you, strapped you to my back and took off. Here we are.”

Tang Lan’s matter-of-fact words, were tantamount to a lavish promotion that Hubbard felt he hadn’t earned. It disturbed and excited him in away that he could only chalk up to unworthiness. So many dead, so much in ruins, yet here he was with the only person he wanted to be with, practically in a world all their own. It felt wrong to feel good about anything. And yet, his sense of relief that Tang Lan was alive and surviving well, kept him on the verge of tearful appreciation during those first few weeks. To stand in Tang Lan’s presence, in the spotlight of his total concern, was like a challenge to look down the barrel of his self-worth. He couldn’t sustain eye-contact with him. He looked away first, down at his scuffed boots. 

Tang Lan moved suddenly, reaching across the space between them. He caught Hubbard’s chin with the curve of his finger and lifted it.

“We’re still here. We still have sun, food, and water. Hell, I can even fly. I’d give my wings back to bring everyone else back. And since I can’t, I’m going to honor them by surviving. By seeing if I can make something worth living out of the rest of this existence. We can do that together. We can do things differently now. Together.”

His thumb brushed faintly over Hubbard’s chin, “You could’ve died a million ways out there. So could I. But we didn’t. We found each other. “

This was where Hubbard thought he should say something, but the light in Tang Lan’s dark eyes kept him silent. He didn’t want to break the spell. He didn’t want to reject the promotion, whether he was qualified for it or not. So he drank in Tang Lan’s next words. 

“Stay with me.”

Before Hubbard could reply, Tang Lan’s hand disappeared and he moved away from him. He smiled disarmingly, but something guarded weighed down the line of his brow. Hubbard thought of the
doll he commissioned in Tang Lan’s image, and how the days and night had drug him into despondency, waiting to hear from him, not knowing if he was dead or alive for so long. He remembered the promises he made in the dark to himself, to Tang Lan. To any God who would listen.
Bring him back to me, or take me to him. Even unto my death.

In his grief and loneliness, he had whispered such things and gave in to even worse secrets. He had months to admit that his feelings for Tang Lan were equal, if not greater than, the feelings men have for their lovers. In his most despairing moments, he promised his loyalty and love to this absent commander. He vowed to live the remainder of his life mourning for a partner he never had the chance to marry. He was prepared to give his love to this man, whom he thought was dead.

Husband.

He never wanted one. 

Husband.

He gets one after all?

That notion would’ve been laughed at before. But the world of laws and rules, and socially meaningful labels, were gone now. It was just a silly term that still somehow held relevance to everything he wanted from a life with Tang Lan. In a world without people, children, grandparents, anyone… Tang Lan had become his family. 

In this world, he’s my… 

Dammit! There was no one here to tell them what could and couldn’t matter anymore. And if life, whatever it had become, wanted to bless him with his man, after so much trauma, so much destruction, then who was he to deny himself that gift?

He launched himself at Tang Lan, rather than let another second freeze him in place. He couldn’t keep this man in doubt of how he felt about him a minute longer.

He initiated the kiss. Thunder sounded in the distance, but all he heard was a rush of breath as it passed back and forth between them. To prove his point, he insisted, and Tang Lan opened his mouth to receive him. He didn’t want their to be any misunderstanding, so he made his availability, and deep interest, known. He left his comfort zone to do it, caressing Tang Lan through his shirt.
In his eagerness, he knew he was clumsy. He felt like a spider monkey clawing to make an impression. Tang Lan laughed, his beautiful white teeth coming into view, as he held a gentle hand to Hubbard’s shoulder to restrain him a bit. 

“Relax. I’m not going anywhere. I want this to be your choice, not because I saved you, or because you’re stuck with me.”

“I thought you were dead.” Hubbard began to hyperventilate. Months of hidden grief spilled over his eyes. Pressure, building inside him, caused him to visibly shake. Tang Lan went into action, trapping Hubbard’s arms between them and drawing him against his chest. He constricted him and held him close. He held him there as if it were the standard procedure for making sure a distressed soldier expels every emotion compromising his integrity and his mission. His face was firm. He might’ve been helping a would-be drowning victim cough up water, for the braced expression he used while waiting out Hubbard’s break down.

Hubbard knew what it was. One of them had to be strong when the other was compromised.
Tang Lan’s chest and arms felt like a cradle he never new he wanted to return to. His gut heaved Involuntarily and he pushed everything he’d been feeling for the past year out of himself. When it was over, he felt embarrassed and tried to wriggle free, to stand on his own. But Tang Lan held him in place.

“I’m okay,” Hubbard assured him. “It’s over.”

Still, he could not break free. He turned, risking the touch of their lips again, knowing that the mood was ruined.

Tang Lan was only a few inches taller, and stared down at him. “I don’t want to let go. You’re letting me hold you. You’re needing me. No one else but me. I’m sorry if it hurts, but this is everything I wanted.”

While this sunk in, Hubbard heard him say, “I just hate we had to lose the world in order to have this. That makes you even more precious to me.”

This was the permission Hubbard needed to bury himself deeper into Tang Lan’s arms and not let go.

That night they slept closer than they had ever before in their military careers. On a pile of tattered blankets, sewn and stuffed with scavenged clothing, they hunkered down on the concrete platform. Without a roof, stars became their entertainment. In a world without technology, the night sky looked like it was falling down on them, and every star left them reflecting on a world that would never see this again.  They lay together, testing their boundaries, and finding the arrangement more comfortable than hiding in some hole alone. 

When Hubbard lost his nerve, laying still be side Tang Lan, It was Tang Lan who reached over and took his hand. Their fingers intertwined. Hubbard thought he’d be more self-conscious, but as soon as Tang Lan drew him against his chest, the scent of his personal space, his distinct chemistry and gravitational warmth, melted Hubbard into a state of intoxicating safety and comfort. He fell asleep, and for the first time in months, drifted up to astral realms instead of down into nightmares.
Somewhere in his nocturnal sanctuary, he vowed to give this man anything he wanted, and slept on.

Hubbard woke to white sunlight, as fog drifted around the valley. His eyes focused on the one thing that interested him. Tang Lan, propped on his elbow, smiling down at him.

“I can’t believe you’re still here, waiting on me to wake up.” 

“Where would I go? I couldn’t let you wake up alone. Not after our first real night together.”

Hubbard pretended he wasn’t turning red. Although nothing happened during the night, everything had happened. Everything had changed.

“It’s official,” Tang Lan leaned closer. You let me hold you all night. In some cultures, that’s more intimate than marriage.”

Hubbard cringed, his self-worth coming back into question. “I just don’t want to disappoint you, Comman… Tang Lan.”

“Don’t you dare call me Commander. Would your commander do this? He lifted Hubbard’s hand and brought it to his lips. Chills ran the length of Hubbard’s body. An uncomfortable sensation poked at his groin. Stimulation, unfelt for months, unsatisfied for longer, alarmed Hubbard into Sitting up and blocking the view of his crotch.

“Forgive me. I bet I stink. I’m going to make use of that lake of yours and wash up. If you catch us breakfast, I’ll skin and cook it.”

He made light of sliding out of Tang Lan’s Arms. The other looked at him as if some profound new secret had come to the surface. Tang Lan rubbed his chin, thinking. Hubbard could almost see questions rising in his eyes.

He turned away quickly, grabbed his back pack, and scampered down the crumbling stairs. He dropped his stuff on the ground and waited until he got in the water, then removed his clothes. He’d wash them later. They still had biodegradable cleansers in their supplies. Behind him, up on the square tower, Tang Lan’s brows knitted together as he assessed something that bothered him. He rubbed his jaw as an idea sprouted to the surface of his thoughts.

Shortly thereafter, Tang Lan began bringing back pipes and hoses from the remnants of civilization miles away. Within days, he assembled a working shower from a plastic reservoir that collected his fresh water system, deposited it into the lake, and rerouted it through filtering stages all over again. But that wasn’t the real purpose. He also erected a frame that he bolted to the rock and draped curtains around it, which he’d taken from the bombed out office complex in the fallen city. Some of the lower floors were intact. This was meant to give Hubbard privacy.  After seeing him immerse himself in the water, clothes and all, he decided that something else was needed. 

He put the finishing touches on his project at night. The next morning, he covered Hubbard’s eyes and said, “Trust me.”
 
He led him to the boulder, reminding him to step slowly over uneven ground. Hubbard frowned when asked to kick off his boots, then gasped when his toes hit the water.

“Can you just let me see?” His survival instincts kicked in and he resisted Tang Lan’s tug just a little. 
 
“No.”
 
Tang Lan sounded more harsh than he meant to. It was important for him to see Hubbard’s reaction, uncontaminated by any expectations. That was his reward and he wasn’t going to let him ruin it. Blind fold removed, Hubbard stared at the boulder in front of him. It’s uneven surface was easy to climb on, but bolting metal pipes and curtains to it confounded his brain and made him unsure of what, exactly, Tang Lan had built.
 
his commander grinned with all the satisfaction that came with confusing an adorable, innocent puppy. He climbed onto the giant rock, reached in the curtains, and opened a valve. Water sprung out of a repurposed spout at the top. Hubbard’s eyes lit up in surprise. 

“So that’s what it is? A shower?”
 
“You couldn’t tell? Are you insulting my handiwork?”
 
“No, I just didn’t recognize some of the features…” He trailed off, unable to sound convincing. 
 
Admiration filled Tang Lan’s expression. “I can’t give you a lot of things, but I can offer you some privacy. We gotta keep up a standard of living as best we can.”
 
“Okay… Great.”Hubbard was still confused. His true feelings fell out. “Why a shower?”
 
They had so much more to worry about. 
 
“I don’t mean to trivialize your efforts, sir. But this was a lot of work. We already have sort of decent water.”
 
He mentally kicked himself for making the simple act of receiving Tang Lan’s gift, complicated. 

Tang Lan appeared to choose his words carefully. “I’ve been alone in the wild for a long time. It’s important for me to remember civilized ways. You’re such a decent man, Hubbard. It’s cute. I gotta make sure you’re comfortable here.”

He stopped, but his lips tensed and Hubbard knew that he was holding back. 

“Just let me take care of you, okay?”
 
Hubbard nearly choked on his acquiescence, but nodded anyway. He enjoyed the shower and made a show of using it as often as he could. Tang Lan’s reasons for building it continued to haunt him every time he used it, though. Did he think that Hubbard was so shy, he couldn’t bathe without curtains? He’d survived basic training and a career full of showering and sleeping around other men. Did he think the fall of the city had traumatized him into this frail entity who needed coddling and everything cushioned for him? Or did he simply need something, or someone, to appreciate his concern and efforts?
 
What if Tang Lan knew about the doll commissioned from Shaw? What would he think about Hubbard’s worst behavior with it, in the dark, under covers, where even he didn’t have to face the reality of what he did with it? 

As he washed his body, he remembered the soft, synthetic skin of the doll, and how Shaw’s craft had somehow made it so life-like. It even had foreskin. Delicate, silky sheathing around its bullet-shaped dome, had reminded Hubbard of a python’s muscular head. The weight of it in his hand, felt right. It wasn’t as if he’d had pictures of Tang Lan’s cock on the chip he’d given Shaw. There were raised veins that responded and warmed to the touch. Apparently, the genitals had their own circulatory system. Beneath their lining, a fluid contained in its own layer, had been injected in a water-tight, patented system. When it warmed from being handled, it expanded, blocking the reverse flow and causing a rather convincing hard cock. The invention was ingenious. When the internal fluid cooled back to room temperature, the cock deflated. A similar process went on within the internal rectal feature of the doll. There was an opening which responded and grew warmer with manipulation. 

He, himself, was circumcised, so he looked at the realistic organ with some fascination. He once heard that the removal of foreskin came from a time when governments ruled their people with religious doctrines. The practice ensured a population increase that was meant to staff armies. Men were effectively losing their ability to control their orgasms. That bit of extra skin, was all that stood between self-control and having no breaks once his pleasure reached a certain level. That was just one way masses of people were steered away from self-mastery. He had no idea if it was true, but as time passed, he grew to look upon the foreskin more fondly. Sometimes he even kissed it, telling himself that he would deny Tang Lan nothing. 

Hubbard had been disconcerted by the sexualized doll at first. But with time, he grew bolder, hornier, and explored every orifice and feature the doll had to offer before having to, shamefully, return it to Shaw for repairs. 

He prayed that his commander never found out. It was one thing to confess his feelings with a hysterical kiss, and something else to subject a helpless mannequin to his most scandalous fantasies for a period of months. But at the time, those were some of the strongest orgasms he’d had in his life and he grew accustomed to pretending that the doll was bigger and heavier, and forcing him into the mattress. He thought Tang Lan was dead. It wasn’t his fault that the sight of him, alive, triggered a sexual response he had cultivated with a doll that looked just like him. 
 
The shower thing was weird, though. He decided that Tang Lan was simply lonely for humanity, not laughing at his sensitivity. It made him want to prove to him that he was no delicate maiden, who’d lost all sense of survival and adaptation skills just because he’d been through hell. On the one hand, he was honored that Tang Lan wanted to take care of him. On the other, his own self-defeating pride wouldn’t let him take it sitting down. 

He made it a point to shower with the curtains pulled back, exposing the full length of his body. He kept his mind trained on the two-minute task, efficiency, and not being overly concerned with being seen. He had no right to hide anything from Tang Lan at this point. He needed to function reliably, regardless of whether his commander was around or not. That’s what he told himself. He felt like he was disobeying direct orders and did his best to make light of it. 
 
I’m being neurotic, he thought, as he used an organic soap on himself that didn’t lather.
 
All of this pointless, self-conscious worry, because I’m the guilty one. 
 
His own embarrassment disgusted him and he wanted to be free of it. If Tang Lan could see him, he just hoped that he liked the view. If not, that too was progress, and that’s how a real man thinks, he self-soothed. He’d already humiliated himself by kissing Tang Lan. What’s some naked ass going to do? Make it worse? No, this is a new start. What happened with that damn doll, was not going to become an issue here. That beautiful doll. It saved his life. He’d been grieving. And now he had to forget about it, to give himself a chance to make things right with Tang Lan. That was his new mission and he would not fail. 

High above, on the busted platform, Tang Lan watched him from a broken window. The open shower curtain meant that he had been invited to see, which was very different from having no choice but to be seen. He enjoyed the lines of Hubbard’s lean body, and how his skin glowed in the sunlight. Water spray made prisms in the air around him, agitating Tang Lan’s natural thirst. Heaviness pooled in his loins. His eyes followed each drop of water down the modest swell of Hubbard’s pecs, the shallow divet between his abs, his smooth midriff, and into the dark terrain that trailed to his groin. There, his golden skin gave way to wayward, thick hairs and the perfect slope of his indifferent cock. 

Tang Lan made himself look at it. Study it. Face the reality of it. It was like trying an idea on for size. Some, confronted with doing new things, immediately discarded any threat to their comfort zone. Smarter people sat with the idea, turned it over in their minds, wore it, licked it, made themselves feel the reality of it, before determining whether or not they could make the psychological leap. If you can see yourself wearing that uniform, eating that caviar, or making love to someone beyond your reach, then you were half-way there. Self-acceptance, was the greatest asset one had. He took the opportunity to imagine what wrapping his lips around Hubbard’s cock, would feel like. Just to roll it on his tongue and hear the other wince. He’d force those hips up, and Hubbard’s torso down, bending him until he was slobbering on that thing like it was jerky on a stick. He’d pull and gnaw until he heard Hubbard make the noises he wanted to hear. That was his love language. He had to hear the effect he was having on others. It reinforced something in his brain that went straight to his cock, and the prospect of feasting on Hubbard had his balls tightening in anticipation.
 
He exaggerated his mental vision to its impossible limit and felt his own organ stretch the fabric of his pants. A pin-prick tingle at the tip, sent rivulets of anticipation up his spine. He’d already leaked, wetting his shorts just thinking about it. He gave Hubbard privacy for a reason. So that the young commander had full control over who could see him. This is why he felt no guilt in staring. His invitation to watch, had been very clear.

________________________________________________________________________

They didn’t always cuddle. Arousal woke Hubbard out of a dead sleep. He stretched and let his hand roam across the covers to Tang Lan’s arm. Above them, night clouds moved stealthily across the sky. The extra energy spreading throughout his groin, felt good. He couldn’t remember when he felt this good. This unafraid. The end of the world had been a long time coming, and now that he was on the other side of it, he felt something new and exciting replacing all the grief. It made him bold enough to casually stroke the hairs on Tang Lan’s arm until the other opened his eyes. Hubbard didn’t have to say what he wanted. Tang Lan, still groggy, simply reached over and pulled him in. 

They were still getting used to kissing each other back then. Hubbard could still feel his friend’s breath flooding his sinuses as he breathed him in, swallowed, and drank the very air that came from Tang Lan’s lungs. At the time, that was a lot for his mind to process, so his brain skipped over most of it. But now, as he lay there on the boulder, he realized that it was all filed away perfectly in his memory, and waiting for him to come back to it. Now that he was more calm, and more experienced, he could look full on at those new experiences, and enjoy them all over again.

Hubbard summoned those sensations all over again. Tang Lan’s mouth, his very oxygen, was foreign to Hubbard’s first open-mouthed kisses. A slick brine taste on his tongue, along with the weight of his body crushing Hubbard against the ground, had been thrilling. These were glimpses of recent memories, and Hubbard wanted to die with them filling his mind. He made a fist as the palm of his hand remembered how it sweated in Tang Lan’s grasp. Tang Lan never let go, as if he was the one with a fear of abandonment, and not Hubbard. 

Tang Lan was so gentle that first time. He wouldn’t even penetrate. He’d been determined to fill Hubbard with all the pleasure, setting aside his own hunger for more. Starting with their clothes on, and movement as gentle as teens petting on a first date. It had been enough, more than enough, when Tang Lan slid the length of him. Layers of clothing between them, forced him to use excessive pressure so that Hubbard had to grit his teeth against sounds that he wasn’t ready to let Tang Lan hear. Every touch was tentative back then, all those months ago. 

The genius of Tang Lan’s efforts was that they could go no further until Hubbard understood what his body wanted. There was nothing like the frustrating confinement of pants, separating their eager arousal, to lure Hubbard out of his inhibitions. He had spread his thighs wider, pressed Tang Lan’s hips deeper, and tried to lift his pelvis to meet every slide against him. In this way, he ached for a deeper connection and invited Tang Lan to take more of him.

Their hands, clasped in commitment, remained unbroken to the finish.

Both of them knew it was going to happen, they just couldn’t predict when. Each had their own secrets to get past. Tang Lan worked off his aggression with flights that took him further and further away during the day. Hubbard made himself useful by maintaining the PH balance of all the water and soil systems, tending their small bean crops, and making sure Tang Lan came home to hot food. They argued about that, actually. Hubbard was so thankful that he could have this life, he never bothered to look at his stealthily growing agitation and learn to see it for what it was. All this coziness in the face of global disaster, with a man who didn’t seem to want to do anything to offend him, felt off. If he had to name it, it felt slightly… like boredom. Impossible, he knew. He was grateful that he no longer had to run for his life, he told himself to get used to their domestic routine. If it made Tang Lan happy to have him play ‘the wife’ then so be it.
 
Living with Tang Lan seemed to make him immune to the random violence of the jungle, as seen before the Uranium bomb. It was as if the other hidden creatures respected Tang Lan’s clout, and left his things alone. Admittedly, Tang Lang was the only upright man with a wing span of eight feet and talons that could crush a person’s skull. Maybe the other xenogenics  thought of him as the king of the jungle, in a manner of speaking. He tried talking to Tang Lan about it. All of his frustrations came out one evening as they ate more sardine rations over a fire. 
 
“The problem isn’t that I’m not safe. I’m too safe. I’m used to action. I’m just saying, why do you have to travel farther and farther everyday? We have enough supplies to last us for a while. Either take me with you, or stick around and keep me company.”
 
Tang Lan was laying on his side, slowly sucking fish oil from his fingers. “I have to stay prepared. Look for others who need help. It’s not safe outside of the stones I’ve placed around the perimeter of the area. As long as you stay inside this camp, I don’t have to worry about you.”
 
“And what if I worry about you?”
 
“I hope you don’t.”
 
“Hope isn’t enough to make it not happen. What am I supposed to do if something happens to you?”
 
“There’s nothing you can do.”
 
“The old Tang Lan didn’t think like that.”
 
“I have wings now. I’ve changed.”
Hubbard crossed his arms, annoyed. “It’s okay for you to take chances, but not me. What if you came back to this camp one day and my remains were scattered all over the place because you weren’t here to stop it.”
 
“You’ve changed too. You’re not suited to melodrama. You never would’ve tried to manipulate me before.”
 
Hubbard let out an exasperated sigh. “You want me here, but it’s not an equal relationship. I just feel like something’s missing.”
 
Tang Lang sat up, interested. A smile teased at the edges of his mouth. 
 
“You have my complete and full attention. What’s missing, other than the rest of the world?”
 
Hubbard blushed. “You know. Something exciting. Don’t make me say it, I see how you look at me.”
 
“Go on… “
 
“I’m not good at this. I’ve never had a significant other.”
 
“A girlfriend.”
 
“All right, a girlfriend.”He turned away and made a face, before looking at Tang Lan again. I’m just saying, if something happens to you, I would’ve liked to have had more of you in my life. We’re at risk everyday. But you’ve done such a good job keeping us safe, we’re starting to take it for granted.”
 
Barely suppressing his laughter, “What are you saying?”
 
“You know.”
 
“I don’t.”
 
“I like you.”
 
“Do you like me, like me? Is that what I’m hearing?”
 
“Now you’re just being a bully. I kissed you, for crying out loud. What else am I supposed to do? We sleep in each other’s arms every night. You hold me like you’re afraid I’m going to get snatched, yet I’m the one trying to get you to… “
 
“To… ?” Tang Lan pretended not to understand. Amusement glistened in his eyes. There was nothing cuter than an embarrassed Hubbard.
 
“Get closer. Do I really have to say it.”
 
“You better. That’s the only way that I can really know what you want.”
 
“I want to go with you on excursions, scout new places, find people who need our help.”
 
“Ah, so close. You almost said what you really wanted. Almost!” He snapped his fingers.
 
“You’re a jerk.”
 
“I love this side of you.” Tang Lan’s perfect teeth showed as he grinned. 
 
“Am I a joke to you?”
 
“Are you kidding? This is foreplay for me.”
 
Hubbard rolled his eyes. “Seeing me upset is foreplay?”
 
“If you knew how hot you looked, all angry and distressed like that, you’d understand. Imagine letting me bring that out of you, flat on your back. I want you to look at me when I’m in you. No avoidance.”
 
Hubbard was taken so off guard, he stopped breathing for a second. 
 
“Isn’t that what you’re telling me you want?” Tang Lan asked.

Hubbard could barely respond. Too blunt. Tang Lan’s way of putting it, made him falter. 
 
“I’m, I’m just saying, you leave me here all the time. You don’t want me going anywhere so… consider leaving me with something more meaningful. Something that makes waiting for you, more bearable.”
 
Tang Lan nodded to himself as he processed Hubbard’s inability to ask for what he wanted. He leaned forward. “If you can’t even tell me what you want, what you’re ready for, I can’t touch you.”
 
“Why not! This isn’t social media. All that’s gone and I need to know that you’re serious about us. I think I need you more than you need me. You say you want me with you, but you haven’t touched me. And sleeping in your arms doesn’t count.”
 
“You’re such a gentleman, Hubbard. If you want what I think you want, you have to know what it means with me. A creature such as myself. Don’t romanticize it. I’m being harsh with you because there’s a harsh reality at the end of this rainbow.”
 
Hubbard looked confused. “You’re just making fun of me because I’m not accustomed to seducing anyone. I realize I suck at that. I’m a nerd, I get it.”

“Sexiest nerd I’ve ever seen.”

“You say things like that. You keep me thinking about it. About us, but you never do anything. I’m trying to say that I really do want to get closer to you. Intimate with you. You joke about it, but we’ve done everything but that. I don’t know when you’re being serious.”
 
Tang Lan barely let him finish. He leaned onto his side, undid his pants with one hand, and pulled out his cock. 
 
Someone gasped and Hubbard cringed to realize it was himself. The shock threw his mental faculties up in the air. He quickly reminded himself to not overreact as he waited for his brains to return. There was a disconnect as he endured a kind of razzling zip of electric current skipping over the fine hairs on his body. It was nothing more than a brutal lack of preparation. Rather, the Tang Lan he knew did not have an ounce of impropriety in him and he wasn’t sure what to make of this one. 
 
The act was rude, but they both knew why it was necessary. Hubbard, especially so, when he saw it.
 
“And there it is,” Tang Lan said with a note of whimsical sadness. “Not my cock, the look on your face. I can’t let you hurt yourself on this. You’re entirely unprepared. You need time to be sure of what you want. This thing will hurt your feelings. You’re not ready. That’s the only reason I haven’t touched you.”
 
Hubbard was still picking his jaw up off the ground.  He steadied himself, not wanting to prove Tang Lan right. “I’m not as delicate as you think I am.”
 
“Ever had a man inside you? Not to mention whatever this is.”
 
No. He almost had a mannequin once, but he couldn’t bring himself to say that.
 
“We could go slow.”
 
“Nope. Not the first time. Wings aren’t the only thing I inherited. Animals can’t really stop once they start. Not unless someone pours hot water on us. I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you.”
 
Hubbard dared to look exclusively at the organ extending out of Tang Lan’s shorts. It wasn’t even erect and it lay over the top curve of his thigh. It looked distended and pale, but deepened in color as he stared. As if it knew he was staring. It did, because Tang Lan knew. Hubbard couldn’t help it. He wanted to look away, but that thing had his eyes bulging.
 
“Does it look strange? Avian species don’t often have penises. They have cloaca to fertilize with. I guess those genes didn’t know what to do with my cock, so they turned it into this oblong thing. I barely recognize it, but it works. It works too well.”
 
Hubbard pretended not to infer anything from that. He stared at the glistening thing, and watched it go two shades darker. It was a bit strange, human in texture and shape, but with an excess of blue veins visible at the thin skin of the root. It emerged from a black down, not pubic hair. Its blunt head glistened at him. 
 
Only his red face gave his hysteria away. Other than that, Hubbard did a pretty good job at hiding a violent desire to freak out and revert back to someone appalled by the sight. He thought he was ready to have this conversation, but as usual, Tang Lan checkmated him before he even got his bearings. There it was! His dick, right there, out in the open. Who does that? 

He shivered from the urge to cringe, but he didn’t back down. Was Tang Lan deliberately trying to scare him away?

 A weaker man might’ve drawn back, but Hubbard scooted closer for a better look. If they were playing chicken, he wasn’t running. Now that he looked at it properly, it looked like a penis that had been stretched out of shape and couldn’t return to its compact size. Intriguing.
 
“How do you walk with that?”
 
“Easy. When I’m not aroused, everything returns to normal.”
 
“No…”
 
“Yes.”
 
“So you’re…”
 
“Aroused right now, yes. Can’t you tell? If this thing gets any darker, it’s going to turn purple.”
 
“Like the edges of your wings.”
 
“I… guess so.”
 
Hubbard liked his courage and ventured further. “Does it get hard? I mean, does it stand up, or is it too heavy?”
 
Tang Lan squinted at him. “I’m trying to spare you. Don’t poke it with a stick.”
 
“Why not? It’s just laying there. Can I touch it?” Ah-ha! Tang Lan had expected him to be so disturbed that he’d make some excuse and run away. However, Hubbard’s love of science and unusual specimens kicked in. Weren’t all genitals, just bags of skin in various stages of blood flow? 
 
Rather than answer him, Tang Lan laboriously tucked himself away and zipped up his pants. 
 
“No fair! You deliberately showed me that thing to get my goat. Now I can’t touch it?”
 
“The whole point was to let you know, I’m changed and you may not like it. If you come to me seeking comfort of the physical kind, just know what you’re dealing with.”
 
“Hey, you said that it works too well. There’s no women here. Does that mean you’ve been with… others?”
 
“Drop it. You don’t want to know. I’m not in my right mind when the heat hits.”
 
“There’s heat?”
 
“Typical breeding biology.”
 
“When were you going to tell me?”
 
“When it became relevant.”
 
“If you want me to stay here with you, we should at least try.” As soon as it came out, he realized how odd it sounded. Sex wasn’t a deal breaker, but snuggling with Tang Lan only made him want more.
To compensate for his lacking seduction skills, Hubbard began unbuttoning his shirt. They don’t teach you how to get your life partner into bed in basic military training. So he said, fuck it, and took the leap.
 
Tang Lan chuckled. “Did you not hear what I said? It’s dangerous for you and I to make out. We’re taking risks just sleeping together. Aside from the obvious physical danger, there’s a genetic barrier between our genes that gets thinner every time we exchange saliva. I could infect you. We don’t know why your genes haven’t mutated like everyone else’s. I’m trying to keep my hands off of you as much as possible. My fantasies aren’t of fucking you. They’re of you laying back and letting me make you come in a million ways. With my mouth and my hands. I want to rip orgasms out of you. That’s what does it for me.”
 
“You don’t want to have sex with me?”
 
“Of course I do. But I can’t let that get out of control. I want to look into your eyes as you feel my fingers slip into you. Those are the only tools I need. If I tried to do anything more, I’d hurt you.”

Hubbard winced. It wasn’t like Tang Lan to be so crass. He was beginning to think that he was being conned out of a more romantic enticement. Again, to scare him away. 
 
“You don’t know that. I’ve seen impossible porn. I didn’t go looking for it, but I saw it. Once you see a man and a horse together, you can’t unsee it. It wasn’t my fault, it just popped up. My point is, the human body can accommodate all kinds of things. There are women who like it twice your size. I have no idea why, but I’m not going to be frightened away without trying.”
 
Tang Lan tilted his head, amused to see Hubbard arguing his right to pleasure. “My job is to protect you, not to seize any carnal opportunities. Trust me, I can’t watch out for you in that state. I lose control.”
 
Hubbard gasped dramatically. “That’s why you leave me so often and stay gone? You’re out rutting with some fucking bald eagle or something.”
 
“I assure you that is not what happens when I leave.”
 
“Then fuck me.”He could be just as crass if he wanted to. If Tang Lan needed him to be. But he didn’t like it.
 
“That’s not you. You don’t have to prove anything.”
 
“Tang Lan, I was so lonely for you when I thought you were dead, that I had a doll made to look exactly like you. I paid a small fortune for it and it was worth it! And you know what I did with it, I took it home and I slept with it. It couldn’t replace you, but I tried. I did terrible things to that doll. Things I’m ashamed of. I tried to make it drill me into the mattress. I explored every inch of it and pretended that it was really you the whole time. I bathed with it. Drank wine with it. Cried on it. Now I’m sitting here looking at the real goddamn thing, and you’re telling me I can’t touch you because of some bird-human barrier? Fuck that. If you died right now, do you know how pissed I’d be, because we have another chance to be together, fully, and we’re not taking it? We’re still obeying the rules of a dead society. A dead world.”
 
He took a moment to catch his breath. 
 
“You better believe that if I get my hands on that beautiful cock of yours, I’m not letting go until its inside of me. The least we can do is try. Let me lick it, for fuck’s sake”
 
Tang Lan held up his hands, laughing. “We don’t understand the ramifications.”
 
“What are you afraid of? That my body will mutate and cause me to have baby chicks or something?”
 
“No. I don’t know. It’s easy to go for it when we’re horny, but there could be serious medical issues that result. Diseases that only birds have, can compromise your immune system.”
 
“Swine flu. So what. Are we really going to live out whatever time we have left and not give each other the best we have to offer?”
 
He scooted closer on his knees until he was looking down at Tang Lan. 
 
Before the other could say something sensible, Hubbard shut him up with a kiss. It started clumsy, but he had a point to make and quickly found his sensual stride. His lips slid over Tang Lan’s like melted butter, lubricating his way inside. After a battle of tongues that jolted them both to a new level of arousal, Tang Lan escaped from his mouth and said, “You’re making this very hard for me.”
 
“Good. I’m trying to make it hard.”
 
For a second, honesty darkened Tang Lan’s stare. “Are you sure? You’ve made your point. Are you really sure?”
 
“Yes, I’m sure.” Hubbard climbed over his lap to emphasize his certainty. The thing beneath Tang Lan’s zipper stirred, making him think that it could possibly lift him if it were freed.
 
His former commander sat up, pushed him off gently and walked to a corner where their collection of backpacks sat. He took something out and returned, dropping to his knees. 
 
“Take this.”
 
Hubbard stared. It wasn’t lube, it was a gun. 
 
“No.”
 
“It’s just a precaution. If I get too intense, I may not hear you. I may not be able to stop. I may not even understand you.”
 
“No.”
 
“Just keep it in reach. If I hurt you, I’ll blow my own brains out.”
 
“Shut up. Don’t you dare ruin the mood.”
 
Hubbard talked a big talk, but as they undressed by the fire, he steeled his nerves to accept whatever was going to happen. Exposed to the stars, they were as naked as Adam and Eve, and just as damned to their desires, for better or worse. He always thought he’d be shy if he ever got the opportunity to stand in the presence of Tang Lan’s lust. But it was just the opposite. It felt like a challenge and one wrong sign of weakness, or fear, could set them back by months. So he threw himself with gusto into kisses that bordered on violent. Tang Lan had to slow him down.
 
“I’m not going anywhere.”
 
“You said it can’t be gentle.”
 
“I meant the first time is always rushed for me. I can’t control it. But after that, I’m ready to go again and it’s a smoother, calmer experience.”
 
Hubbard leaned into his breath as he spoke, letting it fill his sinuses.
 
“How many first times have you had?”
 
“First, as in prolonged abstinence, not partners. If I go more than five months, my animal instincts take over. Trust me, it’s not romantic. If I’m harsh, I’m just trying to warn you. Ever seen two squirrels fucking?”
 
“You fuck squirrels too? Not birds?”
 
“Neither. God, shut up!”
 
With that, he inserted himself between Hubbard’s lips and the other man’s thoughts were obliterated in that instant. A whole new cocktail of sexual chemicals took over all functions and it became paramount that Hubbard make as much bodily contact as possible. He ground into Tang Lan like his life depended on it. He grabbed as much skin as he could, not worried about leaving welts. Under the influence of his excitement, he knew that there was nothing he could do to hurt this beast of a man. 

He’d seen wounds close on him, within hours. He knew for a fact that Tang Lan could move boulders. The idea that his man was nearly indestructible, was a fantasy he never knew he needed. He opened his legs and straddled wider, urging him to take the hint. Hubbard had a good idea of what should come next, but he didn’t know how to make it happen. He wanted Tang Lan to take control and use him. Use him for anything and everything. 
 

Whispered, slick noises escaped them both. Hubbard figured he must’ve been doing a pretty good job, considering the pole trying to break free from Tang Lan’s pants. He reached for it.
 
“That has to be uncomfortable.”
 
Tang Lan grabbed his arm. The world flipped, and Hubbard went with it. He was now on his back and his commander was on top, restraining his hands.
 
“Not yet. You mustn’t,” Tang Lan breathed into his ear. His voice was hoarse, like a man already at the summit of orgasm. He pulled back to look down at Hubbard and it was then that Hubbard saw a change in his eyes. His pupils dilated. Sweat beaded his forehead, and his nostrils flared as though he were sniffing something he wanted to kill. 
 
Hubbard took it in. As Tang Lan held his arms away from his body and bent down to sniff him, Hubbard saw his naked shoulders. Saw the swell of his scapula as they elongated, stretched his skin, and broke through it. Time must’ve slowed down. The ruptures barely bled and the wings were suddenly there, sweeping the blood aside. They were suddenly large, supernaturally so. To the point that Hubbard’s brain had to question if this was real, or if he were hallucinating. The lower half of Tang Lan’s body persuaded the upper half of Hubbard’s, his brain, to not mind what was happening with the wings. Tang Lan felt so good, weighing him down like lead, that Hubbard didn’t want to move. He could’ve been looking at the last thing he’d ever see in life, and still he had no desire to get away from those things growing and spreading over them both.    
 
Black wings lifted behind Tang Lan. They were so large, so quick, their edges curved around the two men, and caged them inside. Claws, hidden in the wing tips, scraped on the concrete, anchoring Tang Lan on top of his prey. Hubbard, not knowing if he was going to survive this, felt awe. It intoxicated him. He looked down and saw talons where he should’ve seen feet. They reflected the firelight and made him think that he could die at any moment. He closed his eyes. What he wanted to see, wanted to touch, was still being withheld from him. 
 
“Please make love to me, Tang Lan.”
 
The man on top of him straightened. He slid a wing under Hubbard and brought him up with it. 
 
“First, let me taste you all over. Otherwise, this will end too soon.”

Hubbard thought he knew what he meant. He went willingly. He was made to stand and lean against the busted concrete wall. Tang Lan placed him there, positioning him the way he wanted, as if he’d already put a lot of thought into this. Hubbard figured a blow job was coming up. He’d never had one before, so he anticipated Tang Lan’s mouth breathlessly. Tang Lan looked at him like he was a masterpiece and bent with worship, to fulfill his dream of having every part of Hubbard in his mouth. 

Hubbard really couldn’t understand what was happening. He was handled so thoroughly, he melted on Tang Lan’s tongue. His neck burned when Tang Lan’s jaw left it to travel downward. He barely even knew he had nipples, until Tang Lan found them, and made him realize those were sex organs as well. They didn’t come to life until they were properly connected to the rough buds of a tongue that muscled its way across Hubbard’s body. He jerked like a live wire, under the sucking and slurping of a man who couldn’t get enough. 
 
His muscles went feeble as Tang Lan turned his body into a puddle. Wrapped in wings, Hubbard felt his cock played with by coarse fingers. Every touch was greedy. Every stroke pulled more than he thought he could give. Pleasure spilled into his bloodstream, circulating his chemical swoon to every part of his body. What Tang Lan did to his balls, every vertebrae in his spine knew. What Tang Lan did to his ass, even his toes knew. There was no time for self-awareness. His last conscious observation had been that of the wings rising over his body, so that’s what he associated with everything that came later. 

His senses were assaulted by those dangerous wings. He never even knew that they had claws, which folded out of sight when Tang Lan wanted them to. They were there, concealing what he was doing with Hubbard’s fleshy cock. He even licked the tender skin inside of Hubbard’s arm pit, going at it ravenously until the other was out of breath with amazement. Hubbard couldn’t believe that anyone would want that part of him. And he couldn’t believe how wonderful it felt. The wings were still around him, even when Tang Lan got on his knees and began scooping out Hubbard’s innie belly button with his tongue. It seemed he wanted to be in the most aromatic folds of Hubbard’s skin. The deepest recesses. He wanted all the delicate places. He wanted nooks and crannies, and scents that humans trivialized or suppressed with deodorants. He wanted the things that polite society considered rude.

Tang Lan appeared to work up his appetite, leaving Hubbard feeling disoriented as he chewed his way inside the dip of his belly button, practically convulsing Hubbard’s abdominal wall as his tongue fought to get something it wanted. The same hand kneading his cock, alternately cradled his balls and luxuriated in how they slid between his fingers. He didn’t just stroke, he loaded his wide hand with so much of Hubbard, that the organ and testicles squeezed through his grip, spilling and distorting as Hubbard’s skin stretched to feed his gluttony. He did all of this gently, careful not to be too rough. At the entrance of Hubbard’s ass, something blunt threatened to work its way inside. It was already opening him. Involuntarily, he clamped down, wanting the intrusion and being overwhelmed by it at the same time. The finger trying to get inside of him, had him collapsing around it and trembling on a knot of pleasure deep in his gut. 
 
He had a vague sense of making helpless noises, but when Tang Lan clamped his mouth around him, he heard himself gasp. It twisted out of him, triggering subtle, convulsive movements from the point of contact, that left him quivering and sweating in the night air. Everything went dark and he thought he was falling. He couldn’t seem to open his legs wide enough for Tang Lan to take as much as he wanted. Tang Lan, who wasn’t satisfied with stuffing his mouth up to the hairs of Hubbard’s pubis, and had to crush everything against the roof of his mouth, as if it were plump and pulpy fruit. Hubbard didn’t even realize that his feet were barely on the ground, for Tang Lan was using his wings to keep him from falling. He needed to get behind that scrotum at just the right angle and he used his hands to hold Hubbard’s thighs apart. 

His head could only move in so far. When that wasn’t enough, he flipped Hubbard around, caught him with his wing, and dove for the split of his ass. His hands competed with his tongue to get inside, as if, in his frenzy, his brain had malfunctioned and he could not control the various parts of himself that wanted to experience Hubbard in their own ways. Hubbard squirmed, wincing, as his tiny sphincter closed tightly, both maddening Tang Lan and giving him everything he wanted at the same time. 

 
Tang Lan absently caressed Hubbard’s arms and back with his wing claws, bringing tiny beads of blood to the surface of his skin. Hubbard was none the wiser. He was just trying to survive a tongue that extended much further than he knew was possible, and fingers that seemed angry they could not follow the tongue inside. He groaned, trembling, as Tang Lan’s strong jaw chewed its way into the first ring of muscles. Hubbard’s spine arched and he felt fluids already ejecting from his cock that he had no say in, whatsoever. Excited grunts came from below and he heard wet smacks and moans as Tang Lan slid over every crease and crevice to get more.
 
Hubbard may have blacked out, he wasn’t sure. Time vanished and each moment was simply the now he found himself in. Beneath Tang Lan’s worship, he ended up on his stomach, and he thought he’d be filled with that dangerous looking organ turning blue and swinging stiffly between Tang Lan’s legs. But the other only teased him with it, manually driving the head of it into the creamy recess of his ass, just to pull it out again. He never breached the opening. Hubbard wiggled away from him letting out a small whimper. He had already come very hard once and should not’ve been ready so soon, but his body demanded the main course. 
 
“Please… “He wondered if Tang Lan was trying to trick and exhaust him by filling him with pleasure until there was no energy for what he really wanted. “I won’t be satisfied until you’re inside me.”
 
Tang Lan bent over him. His eyes cleared for a moment. “Challenge accepted.”
 
He lifted Hubbard with his wings again, turned him onto his chest, and bore down on his back. This time, his fingers were coated and Hubbard’s mouth stretch open in a soundless scream, mimicking what was happening to his sphincter muscles as they were pried apart. Tears blurred his vision, not from pain, but from his body’s natural pain killers, produced the minute the message got to his brain that his bowels were about to expand beyond the norm. Natural dopamine flooded his brain as Tang Lan’s fingers worked their way in. They hooked, grazing a velvety slick area of of Hubbard’s rectum and a cluster of nerves surrounding his prostate. Two fingers were the limit in Hubbard’s virgin ass, and even those could not get all the way in. 

Tang Lan’s hand looked like it had been barred from entering as the rest of his fingers collapsed in the deep arch of Hubbard’s ass. The ratio of those silken, sculpted mounds, dented by Tang Lan’s fingers, to that of black hairs lining Hubbard’s crack, was perfect. Just those two fingers vibrated his whole body, from head to toe. He began to regret his challenge as their momentum went from gentle to frenzied. His thighs jumped like frog legs in a skillet as charged currents emanated up his spine. His nervous system flooded with more energy than his brain could process. His calves kicked, involuntarily seeking escape from too much stimulation. His ass cheeks wobbled like liquid, with no way to disperse the kinetic onslaught of those thick fingers. His chest cavity turned into a resonating chamber as his ribs conducted vibrating waves of pleasure up through him. He whimpered into black feathers that held him, as his body lost to Tang Lan again. 
 
“It’s not fair,” he cried. You get to touch me, but I can’t touch you.”
 
Tang Lan kissed his way up Hubbard’s spine. When he got to his ear, he whispered, “You’re my toy and I haven’t finished playing with you. If I go for the kill, it’ll all be over too soon.”
 
Hubbard found it difficult to speak, but he pushed the words out while trying to catch his breath. “I handed my body over to you…  yet you won’t give me yours…   At least let me hold that beautiful thing. Let me try to put it in my mouth.”
 
Tang Lan chuckled. “You can try, I suppose. I guess I am being selfish. It depends on how you look at it, really.”
 
“You’re being unfair. You’ve got me helpless beneath you…  I want to see you lose control. I want to see you bear your soul. People can’t hide who they really are when they’re having an orgasm. That’s what I want from you.”

“That’s what I want from you!” Tang Lan sucked on his ear and still managed to say, “You think you want that from me?”He lifted himself off of Hubbard’s back and pushed himself up into a sitting position. His wings folded gently to accommodate his seated form. “Let’s see what you can do.”

He let go of Hubbard, sat back and spread his legs invitingly. His cock glistened in the firelight. It mesmerized Hubbard, who sat up and carefully moved closer. He wasn’t sure if he was being tricked. He wanted to slide his fingers around that thing more than he wanted air, but he suspected Tang Lan would renege on the offer.
  
The closer he got, the more Tang Lan’s stare leveled at him, as if he didn’t really believe Hubbard could do anything so indecent as to grab another man’s cock. 
 
But he did grab it. Not grab exactly, more like touched it tentatively before petting as if it were  something he could make friends with. He approached it with naive fascination, as if he did not have one himself. The only sign that Tang Lan was affected at all, were the slight chills that made his stomach lock and tension at the corners of his mouth. And of course, the pulsing object in Hubbard’s hand grew firmer and heavier, and darker.
 
“My god,” Hubbard said, “Isn’t that uncomfortable?”
 
“Yeah.” Duh, Tang Lan agreed. 
 
“I mean, that’s a lot. Of blood in there.”
 
“I guess that’s why I lose my mind. There’s none left for my head.”
 
Hubbard didn’t laugh at the joke. His imagination was engaged. He’d heard of plenty of women who preferred men that he, frankly, considered to be deformed due to their large penis sizes. But now he reconsidered. Even if he couldn’t get it all the way in, he still wanted it against him. He still wanted to connect to Tang Lan’s pulse, through his most sacred organ. Instead of asking again, he bent. He had the tip of it in his mouth before Tang Lan could pull away. He knew he had seconds to convince him that this was a great thing, before he took it away. So his inexperience got to work. Truth be known, he wasn’t that inexperienced, thanks to a certain doll. But mannequin Tang Lan hadn’t really prepared him for the real Tang Lan and he felt himself breaking a sweat all over again, just trying to get it into his mouth. 
 
Above his head, he heard noises and looked up to see his co-commander making a scrunched and tight face. He tried licking it. Each slather produced a small jump of Tang Lan’s abdomen, that he tried to suppress. Hubbard rubbed the head against hundreds of tiny taste-buds on his tongue, trying to get a reaction out of Tang Lan any way he could. He pulled all the skin from the base to the tip and drug his teeth across the ridges it created. This got a grunt from Tang Lan, who bit his lip and shivered. 
 
It was Hubbard’s turn to laugh as Tang Lan squirmed out of his grip. 
 
“Oh no you don’t. Not after what you put me through.”
 
He had no idea what he was doing with the thing, but it didn’t stop him from slathering it with his best efforts. He discovered that Tang Lan’s balls were equally impressive, full, soft, and fit nicely in his hands. He rolled them around, growing bolder and eliciting more noises from him than Tang Lan, teeth clenched, wanted to give. The difference between their mindless utterances, was that the noises pushing up from Tang Lan’s gut sounded far more aggressive, verging on angry, while Hubbard’s pitiful keening sounded like he’d fallen victim to a predator. 
 
“Why are you holding back?”Hubbard demanded.
 
Tang Lan threw his head back. “I told you. I want you to have fun, doing whatever you want to do. But…” His words were unintelligible as he gritted through his teeth. “Fuck!”
 
“What?”
 
“Stop.”
 
“I didn’t see you stop when you shoved your hand up my ass.”
 
“No, really. I don’t have as much control as you do.”
 
“You don’t say.”Hubbard suctioned the crown as best he could and surprised Tang Lan by sneaking a finger behind his balls. 
 
Tang Lan jumped, clinching his ass. He pushed at Hubbard’s head to remove him, but the other held on. His lips formed the suction necessary to rip the head off of a popsicle. A series of distressed groans had Tang Lan tossing his hair from side to side as Hubbard gnawed on him and used his balls like stress relievers. When he left the stalk to try to cram those sweet plumbs into his mouth, Tang Lan’s throat erupted into a deeper, more menacing resonance. It was serious now. Dangerous levels were being accessed below the surface of Tang Lan’s veneer, and only hostile grunts came from him. Language left him, as the other man turned his mouth into a machine that electrified Tang Lan’s nervous system. He had him growling to hold his own against the pull of Hubbard’s succulent determination. 

Wings came down over Hubbard again, not gripping him, but blocking out the sight of him as he ravaged Tang Lan from the root of his body. Tang Lan made fists to keep from using excessive force, bloodying his own hands with his nails. He couldn’t catch his breath and saliva escaped his mouth as Hubbard’s swollen lips pulled him out of his skin. When he came, it was with every cell in his body, in a chain reaction that had Hubbard watching in awe. Feeling very pleased with himself, he might’ve dared to taste the ejaculate. Goodness knew he already had a throat full of Tang Lan’s oils already. But that didn’t’ happen. He wasn’t fast enough.
 
Instead of mounting pleasure that subsided into blissful after-effects, Tang Lan’s open eyes got darker. His pupils filled the white space with black, opaque linings. He let out an inhuman noise that shook Hubbard’s heart. The other couldn’t tell if he was in pleasure or pain, and flinched when he heard it. In the next second, Tang Lan crouched and spread his wings to surround Hubbard. His eyes were glazed and his smile dripped with anticipation. Hubbard, who never once glanced at the gun within his reach, scooted closer to Tang Lan and opened his legs.
 
“Just be gentle. You can have all of me. I want to give it to you, but I want to survive it.”
 
Intelligence glistened in the creature’s eyes. But it wasn’t human intelligence. 
 
“Do you know who I am? Can you remember me?”
 
Hubbard had no idea how deep the metamorphosis went, and did his best to contact the man he knew and loved, hidden behind the lust in the creature’s eyes. Without breaking eye contact, he lay back and waited. To his surprise, the creature crept forward. Its wings scraped the ground. Hubbard tried to relax and braced himself for the unknown. But the longer he waited, the more he became confused. 
Tang Lan blinked at him like a man trying to remember something important. He hunkered, second guessing his deadly intentions. 
 
“It’s me,”Hubbard reminded him. He stretched out his hand, trusting that he could get through whatever instincts had overridden Tang Lan’s mind. “Make love to me.”
 
Something wrestled behind the creatures eyes. From those chasms of glassy black eyes, another identity emerged as Tang Lan stepped forward and the creature receded. 
 
“I can’t control it,” he said with grief on his face.
 
“I need you.”
 
Hubbard shifted his hips in such a way that drew Tan Lan’s attention to the shadows between his legs, and what lay waiting. 
 
Haltingly, Tan Lan came forward again. 

________________________________________________________

Hubbard gave him the eye contact he wanted, as Tang Lan entered him. He held his breath and watched as those xenogenic, black lenses cleared to reveal Hubbard’s natural, rich brown eyes. He wasn’t sure if this meant the beast was under control, but he loved seeing those pupils focus on him, really see him, as Tang Lan resurfaced for the act he held to be the most sacred of all. 
 
Hubbard tried to give him what he wanted. Tang Lan wanted to see his face, to see everything in his soul, revealed as he sank in. Not so much sank, as worked gently past Hubbard’s muscular reflexes.
 
“You can do it.”Hubbard encouraged him bravely. “I’m okay.” He swallowed hard. His throat had gone dry as he anticipated pain that he wasn’t sure he could handle, but wanted to try. 
 
His voice cracked. He had to hold his composure to keep Tang Lan from stopping. He had to put on a brave face. But below his waist, he felt extremes taking place. His blood turned to thick syrup as his brain released more natural dopamine to deal with the stretching. He wanted this, so his body agreed to accommodate as much as possible. He knew that Tang Lan didn’t have to go in all at once, but he was afraid to slow things down too much. His breaths shortened as he bore the strain and felt his rectum dilate to make room for something that felt impossible. He bit his lip at the first minute tear. But then came slickness, making him realize they were both so hot for it, lubrication never even occurred to them. Or maybe they knew, instinctively, that the issue would resolve itself. Suddenly, Tang Lan was in. Not all of it, but the widest part of him had breached the opening, clearing the way for the rest of him. 
 
Hubbard shuddered. He didn’t know where it was all going, he just knew that it touched places inside of him that directly corresponded to endorphins dumped from his brain into his bloodstream. Tang Lan’s cock effectively drugged him, making him not care about any damage. Just get in there and stay in there until this pleasure dissolves me, he thought. His own eyes glossed over momentarily. He could no longer hold the other in his sight as he spiraled up a vortex of pleasure that blinded him to anything else going on. Language could not follow. Even memory, could not record it. And intelligence could not translate it.

When he returned, Tang Lan’s movements were stroking him from the inside. He had grasped Hubbard’s slack hand, and now that Hubbard was back from his out-of-body excursion, he returned the grip. The two held on, the bones of their hands grinding, as Tang Lan found a pace that worked for both of them. 

Air escaped Hubbard’s lungs with each thrust. It was as though he forgot to breathe with each drive of Tang Lan’s hips. Hips that nestled between his lifted thighs, as if they were made to fit precisely there. Tang Lan pumped like his life depended on it, slow and steady. Every muscle in his body directed his energy through is cock. Hubbard absorbed the strength poured into him. That propulsion created a circuit, converting desire to energy, energy to chemical intoxication. That chemical loop fed them both, connecting them to a symbiosis of charged pleasure. As long as they moved, they generated their own field of energy and fed on the exchange between them. One felt what the other felt, revving up the cycle, and passing it on. 
 
If there had been a witness to this lovemaking, the bystander might’ve thought that Hubbard was dying. He could not close his mouth on the noises Tang Lan pushed up and out of him. He would not be silenced by kisses, though his lips tried to hang on to the other’s, as Tang Lan bent to use his mouth to soothe him. Tears wet Hubbard’s cheeks and he strained to reach around toTang Lan’s lower back while his other hand remained crushed in his grip. 
 
He dug his fingers into the flesh just above Tang Lan’s hip. He wanted the mound of ass, Tang Lan’s muscular glute, in his grasp so that he could drive those thrusts against the walls of his bowels without restraint. The more of it that entered him, the more some magical neurotransmitter adapted it, turning all that elongated meat into a mysterious cluster of momentum and accelerated pleasure. There seemed no limit. Tang Lan’s thrusts were too safe for Hubbard’s body, which was now on drugs and felt indestructible. But he knew that he could only feel this way while the other remained in inside of him. His hand couldn’t reach the ass, so it dug into the side of Tang Lan’s lowest rib. 
 
This was like cutting the connection to brakes. Desire surpassed Tang Lan’s ability to control it and his eyes went opaque once again. A rush of spittle left his mouth as he growled like a confounded beast and doubled the length and pace of his strokes. Hubbard’s insides went from being massaged, to being liquefied. His one hand, caught by Tang Lan, could’ve been broken by now. He was in no state of mind to care. He could not feel pain at this point. He could only feel heaven. 
 
Unbeknownst to him, Tang Lan struggled with his animal nature. The kind of acceleration he was facing, meant death for Hubbard. With all his will, he fought back the beast inside himself. His groans turned to rage as he stopped, impossibly, long enough to turn Hubbard over and fall against his back. Hubbard’s face, along with his tightness, undid him. His was a beauty that made brutish mentality want to corrupt pretty things. Smash them. Feast on them, for the animal inside him knew of no other way to interact meaningfully with what it wanted to love. 
 
He was going to come and it enraged him that his time inside Hubbard was coming to an end so soon. Hubbard’s plastered hair, his tears, and feverish skin sent signals to Tang Lan’s brain. Signals based on survival. Life and death were encoded into his primal need to fuck this beautiful man. He didn’t try to understand it. All he knew was that he could smell Hubbard’s blood racing beneath his skin. His olfactory senses connected to wiring all the way at the tip of his cock, and each drive deeper sent a spike of madness through his brain. It made him want to bite, but he knew… must not bite the pretty man. Must not kill. He went berserk trying not to give into that temptation. 
 
Hubbard had already been scratched by his talons, accidentally. The smell of red platelets and salty iron suffused Tang Lan’s nostrils, ambushing his brain. It triggered his central nervous system and he re-entered Hubbard ravenously from behind. The effort to do so elicited dry heaves from Hubbard, who collapsed after trying to get up on all fours. Tang Lan draped himself over his back and went to work. He pinned Hubbard there, reaching the place inside of him that had them both leaking. He had the presence of mind to reach under Hubbard’s stomach while filling him from behind, and torment his delicious erection. It was greed, gluttony, nothing more. The more he got out of Hubbard’s convulsive cries, the higher he flew. This was the full transparency of Hubbard’s soul. This is what the man hid, day in and day out, that no one got to see, because it was precious. It was honest, filled with fears and vulnerability that had practically been outlawed to men. This helpless exposure of his soul, his right to pleasure, was everything Tang Lan wanted and he burned the sound of Hubbard’s ecstasy into his mind as he came inside of him. 
 
The orgasm suspended them both in a dimension shared by them alone. Time slowed, making room for full body contractions that shook streams of release from them. Hubbard’s bowels flooded with liquid heat and he road out the strangeness of it with wonder. His own ejaculate emptied like water, leaving him ruined and splayed in a puddle of merciless discharge. His abdominal muscles continued to squeeze and shake him, long after he had nothing left to give. 
 
When their heads cleared, they realized they were both bleeding. There were scrapes, cuts, and bruises from the concrete platform, which neither of them felt beneath them while immersed in lovemaking. When they realized how hard they’d been on their bodies, they took each other by the hand and walked down to the lake. The night cloaked their nudity. They waded, hand in hand, into dark lake water. There, they washed off together. Tang Lan’s wings returned to their dormant form. He took one of their First Aid kits and lovingly placed salve and bandages on all of Hubbard’s wounds. They sat on the boulder, in each other’s arms, until they grew cool. Hubbard began to shiver and Tang Lan’s wings came out again to wrap around him. Eventually they walked back to the dying embers on the platform. They slept curled into each other, exposed to the night. From surrounding trees, mutated insects chirped a nocturnal lullaby, blessing their union. Blessing their dreams. 

_________________________________________________________

Hubbard returned to the present. His searing skin pulled him back to his surroundings. On the rock, the infected areas of colorless, translucent patches had grown larger. The ones on his shoulders had swollen and burst into peeling blisters. Dead skin hung off of him. His most treasured memories could only dull his pain for so long before he had to face reality. He looked up at the green slopes rising above the lake. He looked for inspiration to do what he had to do. He heard his name. 
 
Tang Lan called from across the lake, jolting Hubbard back to his senses. It was too late. He’d lingered in remorse for far too long, unable to say good-bye to this place. Unable to let Tang Lan come back to an empty camp. Now he couldn’t sneak away. Now he couldn’t hide how sick he was. He only hoped Tang Lan couldn’t see what his skin really looked like from his distance on the shore. Unlikely, with his avian vision. He pushed himself up and slipped off into the water. He tried not to think about any bacterial exchange in his open wounds. He sloshed to the foundation of their concrete hide out and threw on his clothes. Looking over his shoulder, he saw great black wings spread, and Tang Lan’s form took to the air. The sound of him calling Hubbard’s name with increasing urgency, elevated his heart rate. How could he be so stupid? How could he fall asleep in the sun, as if he had all the time in the world. He knew he had a fever, but it still seemed so stupid and self sabotaging.
 
He ran. He grabbed his backpack from the platform and shoved a few supplies into it, ignoring the concern in Tang Lan’s voice. All he needed was a few rations, something to build a fire at night, and maybe he’d lay down and never wake up from his fever, if he was lucky. He didn’t panic. He remained level headed and told himself that, just because Tang Lan was out there, didn’t mean there wasn’t other ways to avoid him. He remembered a cave at the lowest level of the tower. It had flooded and those rooms were uninhabitable. In his mind, he saw himself diving, locating an opening and swimming out. Tang Lan wouldn’t be able to track him from the water. He still had strength enough to swim. 
 
He headed down, keeping his back turned to the man screaming his name. He blocked out the sound of wings whipping the air. Tang Lan would have to ditch the wings if he wanted to chase Hubbard downstairs. He knew something was off, which meant he was upset, which meant he was in protection mode. But Hubbard remained determined that he would not be saved from himself. Xenogenics had died from this sickness. The symptoms were the same. If Tang Lan wasn’t already infected, the best chance he had of survival, was if Hubbard left now. So he continued down a crumbling stairwell, taking the stairs two by two. His vision swam. He leapt across missing steps and exposed rebar. Things were molding down there, disintegrating slowly. He trampled piles of broken glass and refuse to get to the damp offices that were long abandoned. He ignored the mildew and walked on broken furniture and unknown objects beneath his feet. He hadn’t had time to pull on his boots. They were strapped around his neck. All he needed was to get to the flooded parts of the building, and in a few minutes he’d be back on dry ground. He’d put them on then. It seemed logical, but blood staining everywhere he stepped, said otherwise. 
 
So what if he wasn’t thinking clearly. It would all be over as soon as he got to the water. Something shook the floor above his head. Plaster fell in front of him and Tang Lan’s shout could be heard from above. There was so much rage in it, Hubbard hardly recognized it. It sped up his heart and when he came to the door he needed, he stopped in disbelief. It was piled with rubbish. Rusting file cabinets, broken chairs, ruined electronics, and overturned shelves. He vaguely remembered Tang Lan mentioning that he had covered the opening to the basement to keep animals out. 
 
Fuck! 

Tang Lan’s shouts for him grew louder. With seconds left to him, Hubbard threw himself into the nearest office and locked it with a push of the knob. It was the size of a closet. The overturned desk and chair had a layer of gray-green fuzz growing on them. A Little Mushroom (😊) was growing through a crack in the tiles. Broken tiles buckled on the dingy floor. There was grime in every corner and he dropped to the ground to huddle next to an old land-line phone. He tried to make himself smaller and un-findable, even as time ran out. The overturned desk stood between him and the door, and he hoped Tang Lan would assume he’d found another way out, and pass right on by. 

It was there that an onslaught of pain seized him. He didn’t scream. He held it in. The effort to do so, took the last of his strength. 
 
Tang Lan beat on the door. “What’s wrong with you? I’m coming in there!”
 
Hubbard knew he couldn’t hide it anymore, but he pleaded. “Please don’t. If you love me, Tang Lan, don’t.”
 
“Tell me what’s happening? Why did you run?”
 
“I’m… I’m sick. I don’t want you getting sick.”
 
“I’m coming in.”
 
The door frame bent under his blows.
 
“No…” Hubbard begged one last time.  Another bout of seizures shook him. He collapsed just as the door fell in.

______________________________________________________________

The stink of stale air and spores choked Tang Lan’s nostrils. Through the dust, Hubbard’s body lay against a rotting wall. He rounded the desk and saw it curled like a lifeless child. The sight slowed his pace. It stopped him. He didn’t know what he had expected to find, but he knew from Hubbard’s strange behavior that something unusual was going on. Here was the evidence. 

Most of Hubbard’s weakened body was hidden from view. Black outgrowths were extruding from his skin. Wispy things, sheer and faint, slipped out of the patches of dead tissue, bringing blood with them. They were all over, faint hair-like structures, that were growing before Tang Lan’s eyes. He stepped closer and bent, disbelieving. Every trace of those soft, feathery things, expanded into thin patches of delicate plumage. Feathers. They were wet with a mixture of clear fluid and blood. They showed on Hubbard’s arms and legs, but his skin was still visible beneath. The most dramatic display of them arched over his shoulders and around his back. Those wet wings grew larger as Tang Lan looked at them. They increased in size and grew so heavy, their blue-tipped edges draped over Hubbard’s body. He watched, gravitating between relief and shock. He didn’t’ know what to do for Hubbard, so he knelt across from him and waited for his metamorphosis to complete. 

______________________________________________

Two months later:  
 
Two men sit on a boulder in the middle of an artificial lake. They are sunning their extraordinary black wings. In the months that followed Hubbard’s change, his new appendages went from wet, to chick-fluff, to sleek and shiny even when dry. They were just as resplendent as Tang Lan’s, with iridescent color rising out of their extravagant blackness under the rays of the sun. They sat intimately close to one another, appreciating their past, their present, and their new reality. They sat, statuesque, like living mythology carved from stone. They were separated from mankind now, by a love too great for lesser beings to believe in. And in those peripheral realities, they could only ever be myths. But they were real. As time passed, it dawned on them slowly, that they’d had to rid themselves of a world that would not allow their existence, before they could have a world of their own.  

The End

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