and things went downhill from there

"Christmas Dinner in a Can"

The bold, Old English indictment on the huge can was green with snowflakes on it, and it was festooned with badly drawn tinsel and holly leaves. Just under that in a smaller, red Sans Serif subtext it read, "Your complete holiday meal in a can!" Below the script was a vignette of a table decorated for the holidays and laden down with a turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and all of the other traditional trimmings that were usually found in such images. It faded to white around the edges, blending into a snow-covered pastoral scene.

The can sloshed unappetizingly when shaken.

It was perfect.

Plonq leaned on the counter with his head resting on his left forearm while he slowly turned the can with his other hand to closely admire his prize from all angles. He was careful to ignore the ingredient list which was folded up and held to the can by a moderately low tack adhesive. He had unfolded the 30cm list earlier, but he'd folded it up again just as quickly after spotting uncomfortably numerous listings of ingredients like "Propyl Gallate", "Potassium Bromate", "Butylated Hydroxyanisole", and other additives that were harder to pronounce. He was sure that they were all probably food-safe or they would not have been added.

The dumpy little snow leopard likely would have spent much longer admiring his prize had the moment not been interrupted by the awkward, syncopated clop of his housemate stumbling awkwardly into the kitchen.

"Hey, stop staring at that abomination and do something useful," said Giblet. The otter stumbled around to face away from the cat and pointed at his back. "Zip me up."

Zipping up the back of the otter's costume proved to be an almost insurmountable challenge. It took several minutes of coordinated cooperation between the two, with the otter holding his hands above his head while holding his breath and sucking in his gut as needed, but eventually the snow leopard managed to accomplish the task. He had to work the zipper one or two teeth at a time, constantly pausing to poke otter fur out of the way of the slider before it finally passed a critical threshold and slid the rest of the way with a satisfying, "Zooooop!"

"How do I look?" The otter held his hands over his head in a ballerina ... esque loop and did his best attempt at a pirouette. The manoeuvre might have had a close brush with elegance, save that the mustelid wobbled dangerously as he fought to not fall off his ridiculous footwear. Giblet was dressed in what the snow leopard could only describe as a red-sequinned onesie with white faux fur lining the openings for the legs, armless sleeves, and a low cut V down the front. He complemented that with sheer fishnet stockings and black, knee-height, high-heeled boots.  Across the back of the costume, split by the zipper were the words, Santa's "Helper" (Plonq chose not to wonder why the word "Helper" was in quotes).

He completed the costume with thin, elbow-length black gloves, clip-on antlers, and plastic mistletoe tied tastefully above his tail with a piece of red ribbon.

"You look like a slutty reindeer in danger of splitting its seams," said Plonq dryly.

The otter sighed, and gave his tummy a wiggle through the costume. "This fit a lot better the first time I wore it," he said. "I think I know a couple of roomies who have 'lose weight' on their New Year's resolutions this year."

"Hey, do not count me in on your failed plans..." began Plonq, but before he could dodge, the otter leapt forward and gave the cat's tummy a firm jiggle with both of his hands. "Hey!"

"When that stops moving, we'll talk about who does and doesn't need to lose a few kilos," said the otter. He reached over and gave the can on the counter a turn, eying it with an unmistakable expression of disapproval. "You're welcome to come to the party as well," he said. "They told me I could bring friends. Also, give me your arm. I have about ten minutes to re-learn how to walk in these things before my ride gets here."

Plonq locked elbows with the otter, and helped steady the wobbly mustelid as they walked back and forth from the kitchen to the living room. With each pass, Giblet grew a bit more confident and balanced.

"There would not be anybody that I know, and it does not seem like my kind of party..." said the snow leopard, looking askance at his housemate.

"Oh, you'll fine. You'd know me and you know Anthony... oh wait, it's my getup, isn't it? Trust me; this will be coming off as soon as the kids leave!"

"The kids ..."

Giblet glanced over at the snow leopard and then gave the cat's arm a squeeze. "Tell me," he said sweetly, "exactly what kind of party it is you think I am attending?" He didn't wait for the feline to respond. "Notwithstanding the fact that I have mentioned this party to you at least three times in as many weeks."

The otter knew that Plonq had tuned out everything he'd said about the party beyond the mere fact of its existence. The cat had a deep-seated aversion to parties and gatherings of any kind where more than himself, and perhaps one other person of his choosing attended. Giblet strutted around the feline, rotating the other 180° so that he could practise walking back toward the kitchen again.

"Once again," said the otter in a slow, patient tone, "Anthony and his family have an annual tradition where they rent a hall and invite the neighbours to the local community hall for a big Christmas shindig. The neighbourhood sponsors three or four needy families to come as well who go home with food hampers and presents all around. "

Giblet stutter-stepped a couple of times and had to windmill his free arm to regain his balance. "One of the reindeer who volunteered to help corral the kids for Santa came down with a mild case of hoof and mouth, and has to stay home and avoid contact with other ungulates. Anthony knows that I am good at intimidating kids into line, so he asked if I could fill in. I remembered that I had this costume from a Halloween party a few years ago - though I forgot that it was the Sexy Santa's Helper costume - so I said I would do what I could." The otter giggled. "Whatever. I'm doing them a favour, and if anyone complains about the costume..." He slapped his right buttock firmly with is free hand. "They can kiss me under the mistletoe."

The slap was enough to literally knock the hapless otter off his feet. He frantically pulled his elbow free of the snow leopard so that he could wave both of his arms frantically and stumble around in an increasingly unstable wobble. As he started to fall backward, he felt two arms catch him under the pits, and he slumped back into his roommate with his head resting back against the other's chest.

"Ugh!" grumbled the otter as he found himself hanging in the feline's arms with both of his ankles turned askew. He felt the snow leopard tremble a bit trying to hold up his entire weight, but he hung in Plonq's arms for a few moments longer. The otter looked up and found himself addressing the cat's chin.

"All I'm saying," Giblet said, "is that I'd be a lot more comfortable if you were at the party with me instead of staying here with that abomination in the kitchen." With the feline's help he managed to struggle his feet back into their proper, upright orientation, and he deftly reattached himself to his friend's elbow. "I already lost everything I had in a mysterious blaze, and I don't want to come home and find my best friend and house on fire."

"I will be fine," said Plonq. The otter could almost hear the eye-roll in the snow leopard's voice. "I promise not to set myself ablaze this year."

Giblet was reasonably steady on his feet by the time Anthony arrived to take him to the party. The tiger gave a small yowl of surprise, though not necessarily of disapproval, when he caught sight of the otter's skimpy costume. "Are you sure that's the right choice of attire for tonight? You're going to freeze when we go caroling later."

"Got that covered." Giblet walked cautiously, but confidently back to his bedroom. In spite of himself, Plonq caught himself watching the strangely alluring sway of the otter's hips as he walked in the ridiculous high heels. He glanced over at the tiger and saw that Anthony also appeared to be nigh hypnotized by the motion. The tiger caught his glance.

"Saw you looking," said the striped cat as he gave Plonq a gentle elbow to the side, "I dare you to tell me that my boyfriend isn't hot as hell."

"I am not the best judge of beauty in men," admitted Plonq, "but the otter is not without his charms."

A moment later, the mustelid emerged from the bedroom holding a large, bulging black garbage bag in both hands. "I'm bringing a change of clothes with me," he said. "Aside from being cold, this costume seems to have shrunk a bit over the years and is not conducive to ... breathing."

Plonq watched from the window as the other two walked out to the tiger's car. While they walked, the tiger's hand slowly slid over to the otter's butt. Giblet playfully slapped it away, but the hand returned again a moment later like it had a mind of its own. The snow leopard watched until the two buckled into Anthony's car and pulled away from the curb.

"Finally, my precious," hissed Plonq as he wrung his hands with glee and scuttled toward the kitchen. "We have the house to ourselves. It is just you and me..." He hesitated, before adding "and a bottle of 12-year old Macallan."

Ten minutes later, the snow leopard was into his second tumbler of scotch, and even deeper in a dark sea of doubt as he finished reading the preparation instructions on the can. He took another swallow of scotch, pushed the reading glasses down his snout, and peered down through them once more at the label.

CAUTION: This product contains live cultures. Contents may be under pressure. Direct can away from items that may be susceptible to stains or corrosion when opening. Keep away from open flames.

"So far, so good," he mewled, but it got worse from there.

STEP 1: Set your tandoor oven to 800C and ensure your kitchen has adequate ventilation. If you do not have a tandoor oven, set your regular oven to 260C and augment the cooking process with a gas torch as needed. WARNING:  It is not recommended that you try to heat this product in a microwave oven as the radiation may anger some ingredients.

The feline moved his finger from the caution to the first instruction and back again while the words of his departed roommate echoed in his head.

Keep away from open flames.

"I don't want to come home and find my best friend and house on fire."

Augment the cooking process with a gas torch as needed.

"I don't want to come home and find my best friend and house on fire."

Plonq gave a deep sigh of resignation. Sadly, they did not own a gas torch.

They did own some lighters left over from the days when they still smoked, and he knew that the otter had a few aerosol-based grooming products, but Plonq was still hesitant. He respected Giblet's privacy too much to dig through his room, and he wasn't sure how any unburnt particulate from the makeshift torch would affect the flavour of the food.

He mulled on his quandary. In theory, the contents of the can were already cooked and just needed to be reheated, but there was a dire warning on the lid next to the pull tab that read, "DANGER: Don't even think about eating this cold from the can."

The snow leopard packed the can, scotch, and tumbler and wandered out to the living room so that he could stare at the Christmas tree and ponder; surely its gay adornments of blinking lights and gaudy baubles held an answer. His favourite corner of the couch also helped sooth his mind when he needed to think clearly.

"I cannot believe that for want of a torch, I am forced to scuttle my Christmas plans," he muttered. He drained his glass, and as he reached for the bottle to refill it, he amended, "well, most of them anyway." Plonq held the can in his lap, slowly turning it in one hand while he held his tumbler in the other and stared into the tree for inspiration. He drained the glass and without taking his eyes from the tree, he set it on the table and refilled it again.

"You know what you have to do," the twinkling lights seemed to say. "It is so obvious and clear, Plonq. When life gives you lemons, you go to the back mudroom for the hockey mask and ax...hey, watch what you are doing!"

Plonq cursed and sat up quickly, letting go of the can and brushing his wet chest. In his reverie, he had completely missed his mouth when taking another drink of scotch. He put the tumbler on the table beside him and then reacted too late when he felt the can rolling down his lap. It narrowly escaped his reach, continued down his leg and thumped loudly to a stop against the leg of the coffee table.

As he was bending down to pick it up, Plonq spotted a folded note on the selfsame table, held down by a small, pewter Santa Claus. On top, in the otter's handwriting it simply read, "Plonq". He put the large can on the coffee table and slid the paper out from under the metal likeness of Saint Nicholas.

"Hey buddy," it read when he opened it. "If you are seeing this note then it means your plans have fallen apart, and you're sitting on the corner of the couch brooding. The party is just starting, and you are always welcome to come. Don't even think of driving because I know you've been into the scotch." The otter ended the note with a rough, hand-drawn map to the party with crudely sketched mistletoe marking the party site. The cat glanced at the partly drained scotch, the abandoned can of dinner, and then back at the note. He found himself a bit uncomfortable with how well the otter knew him.

He read the note again and then paused.

"...your plans have fallen apart..."

He'd had a new plan forming though, hadn't he? Plonq scratched his head furiously and tried to remember what he'd been thinking about right before spilling his drink. He stared into the tree again for inspiration, but his stomach rumbled loudly and disrupted any thoughts that might have considered forming. The cat glanced wistfully at the tinned dinner on the coffee table, and then his mind wandered back to the otter's earlier promise of a delicious spread at the party. His stomach grumbled at him again; with that, the snow leopard decided that it was either time to order food or wander over to the party.

The first thing he did, though, was put the cork back on the scotch. Plonq knew the danger of drinking on an empty stomach. The last time he'd let himself do that, he'd awoken with a blistering hangover, no memory, and a priority shipment of a dozen digital meat thermometers from Amazon. Admittedly they were nice thermometers, and he'd had ready Christmas gifts for the next three years. Still, he had room for regrets on his credit card and he chose not to risk more scotch.

"Right," he sighed, "I guess the party it is, then."

"Trust me; this will be coming off as soon as the kids leave!"

Plonq grabbed the bottle, yanked out the cork and took two more good slugs of the strong liquor. He'd forgotten about the kids. He eyed the level of the liquid, gave an approving nod and corked it again. Unless his physiology had changed significantly since his last solid binge, he felt that he should be sufficiently fortified to face whatever the kids might throw his way.

Plonq dressed himself in a sensible coat that was neither heavy enough to overheat him, nor so light as to make concerned strangers stop him every couple of blocks to ask if he was warm enough. It was a little distressing to him how so few people realized that snow leopards were literally built for the winter. Also, it was not like he was stepping out into the ninth level of Hell. The cold was bracing, but not paralyzing; it was just enough of a chill to put points or shrinkage on improperly insulated body parts. It was a cold that froze one's breath, but not their boogers.

It was, in his lightly soused snow leopardly opinion, quite nice, thank you.

The cat had been giving some thought to hiring a car for the journey, but as soon as his first few breaths of the fresh air burst around him in glittering clouds of fog, he decided to walk. If he maintained focus, he could make it there in just over an hour, and as he filtered through the otter's various mentions of the party in his brain, he was pretty sure that it was at least two hours until they served dinner. He jammed his phone, keys and wallet into his jacket and began to hike.

Their house was located in one of those awkward urban areas that resided between downtown and the suburbs. As it was sandwiched between "I wouldn't raise a kid there" and "we lock the car windows when we drive through", people in other parts of town judged it by its neighbours and gave askance looks at folks who lived there by choice. Its location meant that if one were out walking - especially after dark - it meant they needed to choose their route carefully to avoid straying into a nastier clime.

While the optimal walking route was generally safe and well-lit, its downside was that it also led past a number of sketchy retail outlets. That would not have been a problem in normal times, but the end of the store-front Santa season was drawing nigh, and those self-same Saint Nicks were all vying to make their year-end quotas. Plonq had been victimized by predatory Santas in the past, so he had factored many detours across the street into his estimated arrival time.

The cat's strategy of avoidance worked for the most part, though he had a couple of close calls where a Santa lurked on the blind side of a corner from him. He narrowly escaped those encounters by walking briskly past, stoically avoiding eye contact and feigning deafness. Even so, he flinched a little at the passive-aggressive comments the scorned Saint Nicholae - "...or however you pluralize that name," he thought - tossed at his parting back.

"Ho! Ho! Ho! I guess little Timmy is going hungry this Christmas."

"Have a Merry Christmas anyway, tightwad."

Plonq kept up his brisk pace until his route finally veered away from downtown, leaving the danger zone behind him. Once he felt safe to do so, the cat stopped in front of a very dark store front to catch his breath and unzip his jacket. Had he not unwisely lowered his guard, the feline might have noticed the murky figure lurking in the shadows by the darkened store's egress. His first hint that he was not alone was a soft shuffle of feet on the pavement.

"Hey buddy, can you spare some change?" asked a raspy voice from the shadows.

The feline's fight-or-flight mechanism, which had kicked into overdrive at first, slowly stood down again. "Thank goodness, it's just a dangerous junkie," he thought in relief. The release was short-lived though when he caught the tentative jingle of a bell.

"It's for the kids," said the figure, and as it stepped out into the comparative blaze of the LED street lamp down the block, Plonq found himself facing the sketchiest Santa he'd ever beheld. The grizzled ibex looked like he had spent his youth losing games of chicken with cliff faces. His left cheek looked like it had probably been broken more than once, leaving him with a permanent squint in that eye. He wore an ill-fitting beard that hung a full three centimetres below his chin, and a rumpled Santa hat perched jauntily on the broken remains of his right horn. His red coat draped loosely on his gaunt frame in exactly the way it was not designed to do.

"Why are you skulking in the shadows?" demanded Plonq. "I thought there were rules about where a Santa was allowed to set up."

"So ... I'm an unlicensed Santa - sue me," said the Ibex, holding up his hands in admission of guilt. "Still working for a good cause though," he added defensively. He shook his cluster of festive bells and pulled the money stand out of the shadows.  "Ho, ho, ho!"

Plonq could see that the Ibex appeared to have collected close to fifty dollars in spite of his efforts. "I am not parting with a single nickel until you identify the charity for which you are collecting," said the snow leopard cagily.

"Ugh," said the Ibex, rolling his eyes. "Why does nobody trust Santa anymore? Fiiiine..." He reached into his loose coat and pulled out an official-looking card for the feline to read.

"Royal Society for Orphans with IBS," it read.

"That is ... oddly specific," said Plonq in a tone that did little to mask his opinion about the dubious nature of the charity.

"It's an issue that is very close to my heart," replied the Ibex. He rubbed a hand over his lower abdomen. "Speaking of which, I know this may seem a very forward request of a stranger, but could you watch the money globe for me for a bit? I've got to run, if you know what I mean." He rubbed his nether regions again. "I mean really run."

"I..." began Plonq, but for all that the Ibex looked like he may have been peeled off the road before somebody dressed him as a Santa, the ragged goat proved to be very quick when he put his mind to it.

The Ibex stuffed the card into Plonq's hand and dashed into the shadows where he rummaged about in a tatty duffle bag before re-emerging with a can of antibacterial spray.  He took the cap off of his horn and sprayed the inside thoroughly. "This will kill lice too," he explained before jamming the hat on the hapless feline's head. He pulled off the coat, sprayed the insides thoroughly and draped it over the cat's shoulder, then shoved the bell cluster into the cat's other hand.

"I'll be back in five minutes - I swear," said the ibex as he turned and sprinted off into the night with his fake beard flapping in the breeze.

Plonq shrugged into the coat with his usual air of resignation and stood protectively by the hanging money orb. He occasionally gave the bells an unenthusiastic jingle. An hour and twenty minutes later he began to suspect that the absent Santa might not have been planning to return after all. The cat's annoyance was tempered by disappointment because he'd wanted to show the other that he'd managed to raise almost twenty-five dollars in his absence (it was amazing how a friendly baring of sharp teeth tended to loosen people's purse strings).

Surely the other would return though, because he'd left his duffel bag behind. Wondering if the satchel might contain a clue to the Ibex's identity, Plonq's curiosity finally overcame his respect for the other's privacy and he crouched down to dig through the bag.

"Ack!" he yowled when he discovered that it was stuffed full of nothing but cans of antibacterial spray. "I have been played for a sucker!"

The feline began frantically running through escape scenarios in his head, but most of them involved leaving the Santa outfit and money globe behind, and he was reluctant to abandon the proceeds for what he assumed was a genuine charity. Fortunately, his salvation arrived in the form of a Christmas miracle that looked a lot like a short panda in a heavy winter coat.

The tubby little bear was waddling in a beeline toward the snow leopard, and before the latter could begin his spiel, the bear flashed a badge at him. "Santa police," said the panda. "I've received reports of unlicensed Saint Nicholas activity in the area."

Plonq was about to voice an angry denial when he realized that he did not actually have a license, and that he was in danger of missing dinner if he did not act quickly. He felt his heart shrink three sizes as a plan began to gel in his mind.

"You have me there," he said smoothly. "I admit that I do not have a license, but this charity is so close to my heart that I could not let the lack of proper credentials get in my way of doing right by them."

"Uh," the panda took the card that the feline offered him and held it up to the light for inspection. "I can't say that I've heard of these guys. Also, this cause seems awfully specific."

"Speaking of IBS," purred Plonq. He had fetched a fresh can from the duffel bag and was giving it a shake. "I promise that I will turn myself in on my return, but I would be endlessly grateful if you could do me a huge favour..."

The dumpy snow leopard did not stop running until his breath was coming in raspy gasps. He had rounded the corner and figured that he had put at least two blocks between himself and the officer by that point, so he felt safe to walk again. "I did promise to turn myself in when I returned," he thought as his conscience panged a bit, "but I never actually promised to return."

In spite of a stitch in his side, the feline kept up a brisk pace for the rest of his walk. His stint as Santa had cost him a lot of precious time, and the clock was working against him if he hoped to find any dinner scraps remaining when he finally arrived at the party. Fortunately, the rest of his stroll was uneventful. Unfortunately, his arrival at the destination was even more uneventful.

The hall at the end of his journey was cold, dark and empty. The marquee out in front of it read, "Closed for the season. Merry Christmas."

It occurred to Plonq then that there was a remote possibility that he had misread the otter's instructions. He thought back to when he'd had a niggling of doubt during his walk, which he had dismissed as the effects of hunger and alcohol. "I knew I should have taken that left at Albuquerque Street," he lamented. The feline gave himself a figurative kick for his hubris in leaving the written instructions and map at home, but he quickly reminded himself that regrets and self-recrimination did little to fill one's stomach.

"I need another Christmas miracle," he sighed. That selfsame holiday wonder came in the form of a grubby, barely-readable sign around the next corner.

Ş̸á͜m̸͘͟'҉̷s͜ ̧̕͝S̶u͘͝͝s͘͠͞h̴҉į ̸̷̷& ̸S͠t͘u̶̕f͘͟͏f̡͞͝

Sushi! Surely one could not get much more festive than the red and green of tuna belly and wasabi!

Yellow light barely streamed from the grime and frost-encrusted windows of the restaurant, but Plonq could just make out the orange ghost of an OPEN sign blinking on the other side.  The feline pulled open the front door and stepped into a small restaurant whose dank air was heavy with the smell of vinegar, fish, brine and mildew.  Almost immediately his glasses iced over, and the cat was forced to remove them before he could take in the rest of the scene.

The dining room could not have been larger than twenty square meters.  It consisted of a smattering of Arborite-topped metal tables with padded vinyl chairs on a peeling linoleum floor, all lit by bare, humming fluorescent tubes. Opposite the door was a sushi bar with a few padded stools, watched over by a burly shark that had been playing with his phone when the snow leopard first entered.

"Oh, hey," said the shark. He gave the feline a hearty wave. "I was just thinking about closing up early, but I never turn away business. Come on up to the bar and we'll get you set with something quick." As Plonq made his way through the tables toward the bar, he opened his mouth to speak, but the shark held up an index finger. The great fish turned to his side and plunged his head into an open-topped barrel that had a steady flow of brackish water spilling over its edges into a surrounding floor grate. A moment later, the shark stood upright while a flood of water poured out of his gills.

"Damn phone," he quipped. "Gonna be the death of me. I get so caught up that I forget to breathe sometimes." He motioned the cat onto a stool and continued once the other was seated. "So what can I whip up for you this evening?"

"Butterfish sashimi," said Plonq, licking his muzzle in anticipation.

"OK," said the shark, "and what else?"

"More butterfish," replied the cat.

"Whoa, gonna stop you right there," said the shark with a wave of his hands. "You can't just eat butterfish. All that oil will go right through you if you know what I mean."

"Oh," said Plonq with a hint of disappointment in his voice, but he ceded to the other's wisdom. "Okay, may I please have the sashimi dinner with an extra side of butterfish?"

The shark looked over his selection of fish. "Doesn't look like I have any butterfish cut up yet," he said. He held out his left arm over an opening in the counter top that was filled to a centimetre below the surface with swirling water. Plonq felt an uneasy twitch in his stomach when he noticed that the shark had a lamprey attached to the back of his arm. It had been hidden by the shark's bulk, but now it hung stubbornly from his flesh.

"Yo, go get me an escolar," said the shark, giving his arm a firm shake over the open water. The lamprey gave its tail a couple of irritated twitches, but did not relinquish its hold. "Get me an escolar you useless eel," said the shark, giving it a more vigorous shake. "You've had enough to eat. You're going to get fat. You know the deal; you either fetch me menu items or become one."

If lampreys could sigh, this one clearly would have done so, but it reluctantly released its hold on the shark's arm and dropped into the water with a hearty splash. The shark grabbed a towel from the bar top and dabbed away the blood where the other had been attached. Plonq noticed that the arm was pocked with innumerable scars from earlier feedings. "Stupid creature," grumbled the shark.

A moment later a fish flew out of the water and lay gasping and flapping on the counter. The lamprey poked its head out of the water and glared up at the shark expectantly.

"Does this look like an escolar to you?" he groused with an angry show of teeth. "This is a friggin' red snapper, you dumb critter." He picked up the thrashing fish and slapped the lamprey across the head with it before dropping the hapless fish back in the water. "Now do your job."

"Is that your, uh, assistant?" asked Plonq in an attempt to break the awkwardness with polite conversation.

"Pet," said the shark simply. "I'd have flushed him down the toilet a long time ago but he's a gift from the in-laws."

The lamprey (whom Plonq later learned was named Irvine) returned the right fish on its second try, and the feline enjoyed a fine sashimi feast. He washed it down with enough sake to embolden him to pet the lamprey that - the shark assured him - loved to be tickled under what passed for a chin.

In spite of his earlier rumblings about closing early, the shark kept the snow leopard late into the evening, even breaking out his private sake reserve to share with the cat. They talked, laughed, drank sake, and tried some of the experimental sushi rolls that the great fish had been thinking about adding to his menu.

It was, the cat concluded, a most cromulent Christmas after all.

Tribulation

Part 5 - Tea with the Devil

"I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes

And just for that one moment I could be you

Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes

You'd know what a drag it is to see you"

- Bob Dylan (Positively 4th Street)

The dumpy little snow leopard would admit, if asked, that he had never given much thought to what tea with the devil would entail. In his mind, the idea conjured up images of an ethereal setting with lots of polished brass and white marble, where the fancy silver tea service reflected distant flames, and succubae in stylish tuxedos delivered dainties on gold-frilled carts. Reality looked more like a fast-food doughnut shop with worn linoleum floors and molded plastic chairs. The devil was waiting for him in a booth to one side of the shop, with two tall cups of tea resting on a white-topped table supported by a single metal pole bolted into the floor.

Plonq was certain that the tea would be to his liking, since they had spoken extensively on the phone the day before, and the other had confirmed his tea preferences twice. As he neared, the snow leopard noted that the devil appeared to be fiddling around on his phone. The dark prince did not notice his approach until he had reached the booth and was standing at the end of the table. The wolf finally glanced up from his phone, and after an awkward, aborted attempt to rise, he waved at the feline to sit across from him.

"Thanks for coming," said Larry. He pushed the unopened cup of tea across to Plonq after the cat doffed his coat, stuffed it into the corner, and then wedged himself into the narrow space between the table and seat back of the little booth. "I wouldn't have blamed you for not showing up, but I'm glad you did."

Plonq shrugged. "You promised me free tea, and I am a sucker for free things," he said. The cat flipped back the mouth on the edge of the lid and took a cautious sip of the tea. It was still a bit too hot to drink, but the proportions of milk and sugar were to his liking. It was clear that the wolf had paid attention to his preferences on the phone the day before.

The wolf gave a tentative chuckle at what he assumed was a joke, and then turned serious again. "I just wanted a chance to say I was sorry again in person," he said. "I ... geez, your head looks pretty bad. Are you sure you're okay to be out and around?"

The snow leopard delicately tapped the bandage on his temple. "It looks worse than it is," he replied. "They shaved away all my fur in the area so that they could put on the bandage - which is among the reasons why I kept telling them not to take me to the ER." He shuddered. "They also took blood and gave me a tetanus shot. The last time I had that many needles in me was when that drunken porcupine kissed me at the New Year's party."

"I remember that," said the wolf with a genuine laugh this time. "She was pretty loaded. I feel bad for her, because everyone blamed her for the party being a dry one the next year." He shook his head and sighed. "Geez, I'd forgotten all about that one. It was actually kind of a fun place to work back then." He drowned the remains of his laugh in a long draught of tea. "I remember when I used to not dread going in to work."

"Anyway," he continued, "I'm sorry about what happened last week. I didn't mean to drag you into my fight with the otter, but between the stress, and my recent migraines I hadn't been sleeping..." He stopped short and made a quick chopping motion with his right hand. "No, I promised myself that I wouldn't sit here and make excuses. I dragged you into my fight with Giblet, and I genuinely apologize for that." He paused to allow a particularly loud party of geese to pass their table before he spoke again. "Arjun said the fight was probably going to cost you your raise and bonus this year."

Plonq shrugged. "It did," he said shortly.

"Aw, dude..."

"Life goes on," said the snow leopard with a wry twitch of his whiskers. "I would have spent it foolishly on hedonistic pursuits and drunken debauchery until it ran out, leaving with me with no job, no clear memories, and a sad life of regrets. In a way, perhaps you helped me more than you hurt me."

"Is there nothing you take seriously?" demanded the wolf.

"I am very serious about my drunken debauchery," said the snow leopard with a hint of reproach. He punctuated the sentence with a sip of tea. "What about you? Arjun said that you pulled the pin."

"He told you that, did he?" said the wolf. He shook his head. "Well, whatever - everyone would have found out soon enough." He leaned forward onto the table, resting his right elbow on his left hand and waved his other hand while he talked. "I was ninety-nine percent sure they were going to fire me anyway, so I handed a written resignation to Arjun when he met me at the door. He was all like, 'Are you sure about this, sir?'," said the wolf in a remarkably accurate mimicry of the red panda's accent.

"I told him I was sure," he continued, "so he got hold of Hanna, and they told me that my resignation might be coming too late." He shrugged. "You know that whole 'You can't fire me because I quit' kind of thing. They were going to fire me with prejudice, which would have screwed me out of severance and other stuff. So they told me if I was willing to take full blame for the incident and offer my resignation, they would use it as leverage to give the VP an out so that he didn't have to fire us both. They said if I took the fall, they would ensure my resignation took priority over the firing."

The wolf stretched and gave a long, luxurious yawn.  "You know what," he said, giving his head and neck a quick shake, "I think I've slept better in the last five days than I have at any time in the last five years. I wish I could retroactively quit a decade ago; I think that's when work stopped being fun."

They drank their tea in silence for a couple of minutes. Plonq watched the ebb and flow of cold people entering the shop and warm people leaving with hot coffee and doughnuts. He cast a couple of sidelong glances at the wolf across from him, but Larry seemed to be floating in a sea of his own thoughts at the moment. It was the cat who finally broke the silence again.

"So, now what," he asked.

The wolf grunted. "If I calculated it right, I should be getting well over a year's pay in severance. As soon as that's securely in my bank account, I'm booking a flight to the hottest resort I can find and spending a month baking in the sun. After that..." he shrugged. "I've got a couple of irons in the fire. My brother up in Fort McMurray thinks he can get me a temp gig at the small company where he works. They're looking to get their data organized, and start measuring their performance. He said they were interested when he mentioned that I'm available. He's got a finished basement and said I could move in for as long as I need." Larry cast a piercing stare at the snow leopard. "I'm more worried about you than me."

It took the snow leopard a moment to process the wolf's statement. "Why are you worried about me?"

"Because I'm leaving you along with that little spawn of Hell," said the wolf. He waggled a finger at the cat. "Don't roll your eyes at me - I'm serious. You haven't seen how bad he can be."

"I know that there is a certain amount of ... enmity between you two," said Plonq.  It was his turn to lean on the table now. He rested his elbows on it and tapped his fingertips together while he thought. "I have been on the receiving end of his temper a few times, so I know how bad he can get..."

The wolf was waving his hands and furiously shaking his head. "No, no no, you don't know how bad he can be," he said firmly. "He behaves himself around you because he likes you. When you're not around, the knives come out. He knows how to get under your skin. He knows how to hurt you with tiny jabs and cuts. He's relentless." The wolf was staring right through Plonq now. He drained the last of his tea and crushed his cup in his right fist. "He behaves around you because he fancies you. You had better hope he continues to," he added darkly.

His gaze suddenly focused on the feline before sliding over to the crushed cup in his hand. "Oh, hey, how's your tea holding up? I think I could use a refill."

Plonq drained the last of his tea and held out the empty cup to the wolf. He watched as the canine dropped the empties into the trash and queued up for fresh cups. Larry quickly reached the front of the line and the snow leopard watched him point animatedly at the menu board before finally paying. When he returned he was carrying a tray with two teas and an additional bag of food.

"I bought you a bagel too," said the wolf. "I'm pretty sure these are the kind you usually get, with lox and all those other things that have no right being on a bagel."

The snow leopard graciously thanked the other, and they both sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying their respective bagels and tea. In keeping with his namesake, the wolf finished his in very short order.

"What do you mean when you said he 'fancies' me," said Plonq. He casually nibbled another bit off the edge of his bagel as he asked it, but his laser focus on the wolf belied any casualness in the question.

"Just what I said," the wolf replied.

Plonq gave a longsuffering sigh. "He and I are friends, Larry. I know it looks funny that we live together, but trust me when I say that we are just good friends and roommates living in a platonic situation. I am intractably straight, and he accepts that. If I cannot convince you otherwise, then I am not sure what else I can say."

The wolf chuckled dryly. "He says and does things all the time. You came in dressed really nice one day because you had to do a presentation to the lead team. When you wandered off for a couple of minutes, I commented on how nicely you were dressed and teased him about having dressed you that morning. He said, 'Obviously not - does it look like he is wearing buttless chaps to you?'"

"He was obviously trying to get a rise out of you," said Plonq, rubbing his brow as if he felt a headache coming on. "He is a nasty little otter when he wants to be - trust me, I live with him. You said yourself that he knows how to get under your skin."

"It's not just the things he says," countered the wolf. "He's constantly calling you over for help on things that he should know how to do. You always wheel your chair over to his desk, and he always makes sure your tails are touching while you're there. He does that and casts me these little smug looks out of the corner of his eye, knowing that I know what he's doing."

"Larry..."

"Or how about Halloween three years ago," said the wolf, who was on too much a roll to be interrupted. "When Giblet cross-dressed in those super tight shorts with that halter top, glitter and clip-on earrings. He makes a beeline right for your desk, pulls out your chair and then he struts a full circle around you, running a fingertip around your neck before he starts doing that ... that simulated lap dance with you. You'd have needed a micrometer to tell there was no actual contact."

Plonq held up his hand. "There was a bit of contact," he conceded, "but I am going to stop you right there. That was an amazing costume, and we both thought she was really hot before we knew who it was. You were over there patting your lap and saying, 'Hey, wolfie has needs too' while it was going on."

"That was before we figured out who it was," growled Larry defensively. "Once we knew it was Giblet, it should have ended there. Instead, he insisted on finishing the lap dance, and you let him."

"Because it was still kind of hot in a slightly disturbing and awkward way," said Plonq primly. "Also, I think he probably spent a long time practising that dance, and it just did not feel right to ask him to cut it short before he could finish. Besides, half the office was egging us on."

"That's how it works with these people," said the wolf grimly. "That was a really calculated thing by him. They find their target and they take little liberties. A touch here, a hug there - they're always testing the boundaries. Maybe sneak in a quick kiss and see how it goes. They work their way in until you start to question your own sexuality."

Plonq leaned forward and stared slightly askance at the wolf with a hard, dubious gaze. "Larry," he said slowly, "do you actually, seriously think that the 'gay agenda' is a real thing? I live with a gay otter, and he does not have an agenda." Larry started to interrupt, but the snow leopard pushed on over him. "We are talking about an otter who is so disorganized that he has a meltdown when he cannot find the work shirt he wants in one of the piles of clothes he has strewn about in his room and he does not care that there are lots of other good shirts because those are not the shirt he wants to wear today and we have to leave for work in three minutes and why does this always happen to him."

The feline paused to catch his breath. "An agenda of any kind, gay nor not, would be beyond an otter with such minimal organizational skills. Giblet can barely even dress himself some mornings, let alone enact a plan to turn his roommate gay."

The wolf looked around the restaurant and noticed a few heads turning their way while they spoke. "Look, grab your coat and tea and let's go for a walk," he said quickly. "This place is starting to fill up."

The two zipped themselves into their coats, collected their drinks and stepped out into the early-afternoon chill. Larry motioned down the street with a flick of his head. "My car's this way," he said. "I'll give you a lift home if you want." He strode off quickly while the shorter snow leopard stepped in double time to keep pace.

"The gay agenda is just political wedge words invented by people to push an agenda," said Plonq, puffing clouds of steam that dissipated quickly in the light breeze. "It is the same as calling something a gateway drug, or labelling poor people as welfare queens."

"The gay thing is real," insisted the wolf. "I know, because they got Sammy."

"Sammy?"

"My sister," said the wolf with a low, angry growl. They stopped for a crossing, and Plonq glanced over at the wolf while they waited. The canine's lip was pulled back slightly in light snarl. "She was a normal, boy-crazy, Jesus-loving girl until she went to college," he said. He shook his cup of tea, causing it to spurt up through the drinking spout. "That's one of their favourite places to find prey," he added coldly. The light changed, and they scurried across the street without speaking.

When they turned up the side street, Larry began to speak again. "She was fine through her whole junior year, and then she met Tiffany in second year." He turned and spat on the sidewalk, narrowly missing a pedestrian who had been coming the other way. "Goddamn otter with rings everywhere. Both ears, over the eye, nose, lip, tongue ... and God knows where else. I've never hated anyone more in my life for what she did to Sammy. I don't want to see it hap..."

"An otter..." thought Plonq as things began to gel in his head. Part of him was tempted to let the wolf rant himself out, but the snow leopard already had a good idea of where the story was going.

"Larry," he said sharply, interrupting the wolf in mid-sentence. "Sammy was always gay."

"She was not," snarled the wolf. He stopped dead in his tracks and whirled on the snow leopard. "I grew up with her, and I know my own sister. She was not gay until that dyke got to her. If she'd shown signs of it earlier, we could have got her help. She was completely normal right through her teens."

Plonq stepped out of the centre of the sidewalk and waved the wolf over to join him next to the building out of the way of pedestrian traffic.  The snow leopard slouched back against the brickwork of the building where they'd stopped. He took a sip of his tea and stroked his chin a bit in thought.

"Would you hear me out on something?" he asked. "It may sound unrelated at first, but just hear me out."

At first the wolf looked like he was going to decline, but then he gave a dismissive wave with his free hand and turned so that he could lean on the building too. "Whatever, it's not like either of us have anything but free time these days," he said.

Plonq cupped his tea and swirled it while he willed his own thoughts to stop swirling. When he felt they were sufficiently composed, he began to speak.

"Once, when Giblet and I had been drinking rather a bit, he started opening up to me about his own family. It pains him to talk about them, but I guess he decided he had found a friend who he could trust with his pain. They disowned him when they learned that he was gay. They have completely cut him off, as have all of the family friends he grew up with. They were a very close, loving family but now he has nieces and nephews whom he has never met.

"I asked him why he told them about it when he knew how they would react." Plonq paused and pondered his tea for a moment.

"And what did he say?" prompted Larry.

"He said it was because they had raised him to be honest. He said that in retrospect; if he had the ability go back and change one thing it would have been to not have been born gay."

"He - wait, what?" demanded the wolf.

"Nothing has caused him more hardship in his life," said Plonq. "He has no desire to change what he is, but he would sacrifice it to save his younger self from how much it has sucked over the years. He always knew that he was different as a kid, but he acted the way he knew he was expected to act for most of his younger life because it was easier than the ugly alternative."

He saws the wolf's jaw working, but when the lupine did not speak, Plonq pressed on. He drew another long sigh. "What I am saying is that your sister did not turn gay. She did not choose to be gay - no sane person does when they know how hard that will make their lives. Sammy might not have known that she was gay when she was younger, but I think she probably knew for a long time and was trying to wish and pray it away."

The snow leopard paused. "Did you guys completely cut her off?"

The wolf shrugged. He was focusing very hard on what was left of his tea. "Not ... as such," he said. "She knows how to reach me, but it's not like she's tried."

"Anyway," Plonq continued. "That was a few years back. These days when the subject comes up, he usually refers to them as 'my fucking family'. He does not say it with his old vitriol any more, rather as somebody who has buried them in the past with other misplaced shames." He paused for another sip of his tea, and he turned to eye the wolf over the back lip of his cup while he slurped. The cat lowered the cup again. "I am sorry if this is a very personal question, but do you still love your sister?"

"She knows where to reach me," repeated the wolf.

The two stood with their backs to the wall and finished their tea. As the cold began to seep its way through their jackets, Larry finally peeled himself from the wall and began ambling down the street without a word. Plonq turned to follow.

"Larry," he said, chasing after the wolf. "I know that I am not in a position to give you advice on something like this, but it would be way easier if you were to call her. If she is not reaching out to you, it is probably because she thinks that you want nothing to do with her."

The wolf shrugged, but did not slow his pace.

"She is still your sister. Call her. Let her talk."

"The offer of a ride is still open," said the wolf tersely. "My car is just over there." He turned when he noticed that the snow leopard had stopped walking.

"Thank you for the tea and bagel," said Plonq, "but I think we both have some things to think about. I am going to walk home from here so that I can clear my head."

The wolf nodded. He stepped back to the feline and held out his hand. "I know we aren't going to agree on this thing, but thanks for coming out today," he said. "Watch out for yourself."

"I appreciate that you are looking out for me. Good luck in Fort McMurray," said Plonq, accepting the hand. "I am going to miss you at the office, and not just because I am going to get stuck picking up a bunch of your work, you bastard."

The wolf laughed and pulled the cat in for a proper, manly hug. "I'll almost miss you too," he said.

Though Plonq was eager to get home and kick off his shoes, he stood by the curb with one hand in his pocket and the other clutching his tea, watching as the wolf got into his car, adjusted the seatbelt and mirror and then pulled out into traffic.  The two gave a final, parting wave before the canine drove out of his life for what they both believed was for good. Even after the car was out of sight, the snow leopard remained still for another minute and stared at his breath as it condensed out of the air and drifted away. Finally he took another good slug of tea and started the long trundle toward home.

The cat unzipped his coat enough to fetch the phone out of his shirt pocket to see why somebody (who he assumed correctly was Giblet) had been blowing up his phone with texts for the past few minutes.

"hi. where r u? trying 2 reach u @ home."

"hello?"

"r u there."

"helloooooooooooo. is this thing on?"

"R U OK?"

"Hullo," he texted back. "Sorry, I met Larry for tea and had my phone muted."

"ugh. >w<" replied the otter. "did u punch him?"

"Just talked," typed Plonq. "I will tell you about it later. Pretty messed up."

"kk," texted the otter from the other end. "picking up bf & fried chicken on way home can u pls dig out dining room tbl."

"Sure," said the cat. He could imagine how frustrating it must be for others to chat with him by text, since he struggled mightily with his fat furry fingers on the tiny virtual keyboard. On the other hand, he was a something of a perfectionist when typing, so the person at the other end often had to wait through a long stretch of '...'s at their end to indicate that he was, indeed, still typing a response. "I will clean up the place a bit when I get home."

Plonq returned to work the following Monday with no fanfare, and almost no attention other than a few scattered 'good morning's as he passed. He knew, via Giblet, that Arjun had made the rounds, asking people not to make his return any more awkward than it needed to be.

Before he could even take off his coat, the cat was tapped for a meeting with Hanna to outline some rules for him in the immediate future, including a reminder of the mandatory course he was to take.

"Oh, you already completed it? Good. You should stop by HR with the forms before you do anything else today."

He was intercepted on the way back to his desk by Arjun, who wanted to discuss some of the work he would be picking up from Larry. He followed this with forty minutes on the phone with IT trying to get the suspension lifted from his user code. This is how it was almost two hours into his day before he was finally able to log into his workstation and start checking his email. He hoped that they had suspended his email account at the same time as they had locked his user code, but to his dismay he found that they had not.

The feline scrolled through a page and a half of status reports and noise before one subject line jumped out at him.

"From: Larry_T_Wolf@dogmail.com

To: Plonq.Snowcat@railway.ca

Time: 04:35

Subject: ok so I phone her lik you said"

He glanced over at the empty desk where the wolf used to sit. Facilities had worked their magic on that corner of the cubicle to the point where one might never guess that it had been occupied for years. Plonq looked back at the time stamp of the email, and the subject line that looked like it might have been written while drunk before he locked his workstation again.

He stretched and yawned before pushing back his chair and toddling over to where Giblet was hunched over his own workstation. Plonq tapped the otter gently on the shoulder.

"I think I need a bit more fortification before I deal with this inbox..." the cat began, but in a motion almost too fast to follow, the otter locked his own workstation, leapt from his chair and snagged his coat. He stood in front of the snow leopard with the jacket slung over his arm.

"Did I hear something about caffeine?" asked Giblet. "You know me and coffee. Lead on, good sir!"

Prisha was fighting with the laser printer again when she heard them passing. She glanced up and watched the pair walking in stride toward the front elevator. As usual, the otter was speaking very animatedly with lots of exaggerated arm waving that forced him to constantly rescue the coat that threatened to fall off his arm. The snow leopard, meanwhile, occasionally shrugged or made other small signs to indicate that he was at least pretending to listen.

"Now there goes double trouble," she said to nobody in particular.

Nobody in particular was inclined to disagree.

The End

Tribulation

Part 3 - Homecoming

"The me that you know he had some second thoughts;

He's covered with scabs and he is broken and sore.

The me that you know doesn't come around much.

That part of me isn't here anymore."

- Nine Inch Nails (The Becoming)

Giblet quickly found that one of the downsides to having both of his cube mates missing was that he got a lot more work done - that is, he got a lot more work done when he logged out of the messenger application to stem the flood of coworkers wanting to know what had happened. This was also after he stopped himself from constantly glancing over his shoulder at the yellow tape that separated his little corner of order from the mess in the rest of their cubicle area.

The Facilities department had come in very quickly once the police had taken all of their pictures and measurements.  Part of Plonq's desk was missing now, with just the bent stands remaining. Both chairs had been pushed into the unused corner of the cubicle, and five squares of the carpet had been removed. They had also taken away two of the fabric cubicle wall-panels that has been smeared with snow leopard blood.

Normally management frowned on employees wearing earbuds at their workstations, but they had - by unspoken agreement - understandably given the little otter a pass for the day. Giblet had the buds buried deep in his ear canals and his music was cranked to an unhealthy volume to drown out the uncomfortable silence behind him. It was only when he saw a hand waving at the periphery of his vision that he realized somebody was trying to get his attention. He paused the music and popped out the ear pieces when he saw who it was.

"Hey, Josh," he said. The older otter tilted back his chair and clasped his hands behind his head while he rotated his seat around to face the younger otter.  "Still here, I see."

"Hi," said Joshua.  "Ya, I'm still here." He laughed. "It was a close call earlier this morning, but the totally professional, but unprepared way in which they handled this thing convinced me that it really is an anomaly. Also, everyone here is just so gosh darned nice."

"That's because you're new," said Giblet with a quick wink at the other otter. "Give it six months and the safety caps come off our claws. That's when you start to realize that a lot of what you mistook for being nice is actually just passive-aggressiveness." He glanced at a sheaf of papers under the other otter's left arm. "Homework?"

Joshua looked puzzled for a moment then pulled out the papers. "These? Oh, this is for the pension options, vision and dental plans..." he paused. "Not to be rude, but when they started handing me all of these physical forms, I almost forgot what decade we were in. This was all electronic at my last place."

"It is here too," said Giblet. "I think they just want to get your physical signature for the first iteration." He cranked his head around, glancing over each of his shoulders and then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial hush. "We have some suits in the upper ranks here who live for pulling out pieces of paper and demanding, 'Is this not your signature on this form agreeing to the terms that you now question?'"

Joshua laughed again. "I love how I can't tell if you're being serious or not," he said.

"I learned from a master," said Giblet, peeling away one of his hands and thumbing at the empty desk behind him. He sighed and sat upright again. "Me and him are going to have a serious chat when I get home."

"That's partly why I stopped by on my way out," said Joshua. "I'm sorry about the 'boyfriend' remark I made earlier. It was really presumptuous of me, and I could tell that it really upset you."

"I wasn't really upset about it," said Giblet, batting away the younger otter's concerns with a quick wave of his left hand. "If you asked around the office, I think you'd find that half of them think that Plonq and I are boyfriends with benefits, in spite of the fact that we're both actively dating other people of various genders." He picked up a well-chewed pen off his desk and began slowly flipping it back and forth through the fingers of one hand. "I was really upset about everything earlier this morning, and I reacted a lot more strongly to your comment than I normally would. I've calmed down a lot." He chuckled. "Well, inasmuch as I can ever be considered calm. Just so you know, I am still screaming on the inside, so don't be alarmed if I accidentally externalize a bit of that without warning."

Giblet could have gone on at some length about his absent friend. He could have mentioned how he had first come out to the snow leopard - the first time he'd come out to anybody (besides family, which had not gone well) - because he'd had a crush on the cat, and mistaken the other's awkwardness and friendship for a deeper mutual interest.  He'd have waxed on about how not only had the faux pas not driven the other way, but they'd become even closer, with the feline bending over backward to be supportive. He'd have told the young otter about how Plonq had taken Giblet in after he'd lost everything in a fire. How the cat had convinced him to march in his first Pride Day parade a couple of years later and even held his hand along the whole parade route to lend him courage.

But he barely knew the young otter, and didn't want to bore him with personal anecdotes. Instead, he clasped his hands behind his head again and said, "I think I speak for both of us when I say that I'm glad to have this morning behind us."

"And how," agreed Joshua emphatically. "Well, good luck. Wish your friend luck as well when you see him later today. He seemed very nice, and I hope he comes out of this ok."

"Thanks," said Giblet. As Joshua turned to leave, Giblet glanced at his desk phone and noted the time. It was very near the end of his day, and he had not yet heard any word on the snow leopard's condition. He had hoped that Plonq might call him from the hospital, but he also understood that the cat probably had other matter on his mind. Plonq also had the car keys, which left Giblet in the position of figuring out an alternate way to get home.

Fortunately, the logistics of getting home were resolved for him when Rahul wandered by his desk ten minutes later and gave him Plonq's car keys.

"Plonq said to give you these," said the lanky mongoose as he put the keys on the corner of Giblet's desk. "I dropped him off at home after we left the hospital."

"How's he doing?" demanded Giblet, snatching up the keys as he spoke.

"He's a little shaken up, but he's going to be ok," said Rahul. "The bleeding had mostly stopped by the time they finally got around to treating him. They put on a butterfly bandage and sent him home with some pain killers. They said he has no sign of a concussion."

"Oh, well that's some good news!" Giblet glanced at the time again. "Holy crap - you guys left this morning. You were in ER with him the whole time?"

When Giblet arrived home, he found the snow leopard in the living room in a messy, supine sprawl on the corner of the sofa. The cat had one arm draped over the back of the sofa, and the other draped over its arm with his left foot resting on the coffee table. On the selfsame table were a small prescription bottle and an open scotch. As near as the otter could tell, his friend had been staring blankly out the front window before the mustelid had interrupted him. Even then, the snow leopard remained ostensibly motionless, moving only his eyes to track Giblet as he entered the room.

"Hi," said Giblet tentatively.

"Hullo," said Plonq. He lifted his hand from the back of the couch and gestured toward his head. "Unfortunately, it looks like I am going to survive."

Giblet glanced at the languid feline, then at the open bottle of scotch and the pills on the table. "What's with the scotch," he asked with a gerbil of concern gnawing at his gut from the inside. Now that he was standing in the living room, the smell of alcohol was fairly prominent. "Tell me you're not mixing those."

"Oh," said Plonq. "Well, they gave me some pain killers at the hospital and told me to take them with liquid. They did not specify which liquid and it occurred to me that scotch qualifies as one." The cat shrugged. "Then I figured that in large enough quantities, scotch also acts as a pain killer, and I could just skip the pills entirely."

Giblet tutted in disapproval and picked up the bottle, slamming the cork back into the top. He held it up and noticed that it was two thirds empty. "Christ, how much of this did you drink?" he demanded. "Am I going to have to take you right back to ER for alcohol poisoning?"

Plonq seemed to consider the question. He glanced over at his left hand on the back of the couch and began counting off fingers. "Well, if you discount how much was missing from the bottle when I brought it out here, and how much is left now..." He extended four fingers one after another. "I had, uh, a tiny sip and then decided to take one of the pills instead. I just had not got around to putting the cork back in."

"You are a prick," said Giblet in something between a growl and a laugh of relief.  He stepped around the coffee table and threw himself into the opposite corner of the sofa, placing the bottle on the end table beside him as he sat. He reached back and slapped the feline's arm off the back of the sofa angrily. "So, why didn't you call once you got home? You know me well enough to know that I'd be worried sick about you!"

"Sorry," said Plonq with genuine-sounding contrition. He crossed his arms loosely over his chest and gently massaged his biceps as he shift himself upright on the sofa. "I have kind of been lost in my own brain since I got home." The snow leopard drew a deep breath and gave a slow, trembling exhalation. "I am probably going to get fired."

"No, you're not," said the otter. He slid over a cushion to the right so that he was sitting next to his friend. He punched the snow leopard gently, but firmly in the upper arm. "They're not going to fire you for a first offense after you've been there that long. No - stop. Don't you sit there and shake your head at me!"

"They have a zero-tolerance policy for physical violence," said Plonq. "I tackled him pretty hard." He shuddered, and when he spoke next his voice trembled a bit. "I lost my senses for the briefest moment there, and when I pounced at him I think I was going for his throat. When I had him down, and I was sitting on his chest and he was staring up at me, I could see that he thought I was going to kill him." The cat drew another long breath. When he spoke again it was barely over a whisper. "I think ... I guess ... at that moment I was more scared of me than he was. I have never lost control like that. Everyone says I was yelling a bunch at him, but I have no memory of that." He glanced over at the otter and met his eyes. "He really pissed me off, but I have never lost control like that before."

"About that," said Giblet flatly. "Please understand that what I am about to say is said with as much love and respect as is legally allowed in a nonsexual relationship but..." The otter reached over and clamped a hand under the snow leopard's chin to prevent the other from breaking eye contact. "Don’t you ever ... fucking ever pull that shit again. I'm a big boy, and I can fight my own fights. I don't need you being my white knight and putting your neck on the line for me - especially when it could cost you your livelihood." He let go of Plonq's chin and sat back again. "I mean it. Bandage my wounds and offer me words of support, but let me fight my own fights. You're my friend, not my bodyguard."

He watched as the snow leopard dropped his hands to his lap and fiddled with them, massaging one hand over the other while he mulled on the otter's words. The cat glanced at the otter out of the corner of his eye, but stayed mum when he sensed that the otter was not done speaking yet. The snow leopard stared down at his hands again.

To the otter's own great surprise, he quickly leaned in and kissed the snow leopard on the cheek.

"Thank you, though," said Giblet gently. A hint of tears glistened in the corners of his eyes. "I'm really touched and humbled that you were willing to throw yourself so totally into my defense. Sometimes I get the feeling that you genuinely like me." He quickly held up a hand to the snow leopard's muzzle when he saw that the cat was about to speak.

"Not a word until you take off your shirt," said the otter. He rose and stepped in front of the snow leopard while the latter started sheepishly unbuttoning it. "Give me your undershirt too, while you’re at it. Seriously, you've been home for at least two hours and you're still wearing that shirt with all the blood on it?"

"It is already ruined," said Plonq defensively as he shrugged out of the layers. "It just seemed like wasted effort to bother changing out of it until I was ready to put on something else."

Giblet grimaced and shook his head disapprovingly at the feline. He took the garments and held them critically up to the light. "You're probably right about them being a loss," he said, "but it can't hurt to put them on to soak. I'll take care of that, since you're hopeless at these things." The otter bundled the shirts up and tossed them onto the armchair. He leaned forward and inspected the snow leopard's exposed fur. "At least it didn't soak all the way through." He started to raise his arms, hesitated and quickly lowered them again. "Ya, it looks fine."

"A shame, really," said Plonq sadly, "that was one of my favourite shirts." He glanced at the wad of clothes, then back at the otter standing in front of him. Giblet seemed to be in the beginnings of a mild trance as he stared fixedly at the feline's bare torso. The cat lifted his hand to the arm of the sofa and rhythmically tapped his fingers along it. He cleared his throat politely.

Giblet made brief eye contact with the snow leopard, and then he looked longingly back down at the cat's mid-rift.  "May I?" he wheedled. "I promise it will just be a quickie."

Plonq sighed. "OK, fine. Just try not to make it ... weird," said the snow leopard

Giblet dropped to his knees and leaned forward, and then he paused with his arms outstretched. "What do you mean by 'don't make it weird?" he demanded.

"You know what I mean," said Plonq dryly. "I mean no suggesting moaning, and no burying your muzzle in my solar plexus for a good sniff. Get in, get your fix and get out."

Giblet giggled. "Would I do that?" he asked innocently. "I can't help it if I love the smell of cats." He leaned forward and buried his outstretched hands in the snow leopard's thick belly fur. The otter lost himself in a few moments of bliss as he gently petted and kneaded the fur. "It's amazing," he breathed. "It's so thick and soft and fluffy! How can you not spend all of your waking hours doing this?"

The snow leopard chuckled, sending a pleasing vibration through the thick fur. "You have no idea what I do in my room at night," he said, eliciting a return laugh from the otter.

After a couple of minutes, Giblet was sated enough to pull his hands back and rise to his feet again. He gathered up the snow leopard's shirt and undergarment into his arms. "OK, I'm going to go put these on to soak," he said. "Also, I'm starving. I worked right through lunch. I don't know what we've got in the cupboard at the moment, but I can toss something together for us."

Plonq shook his head and sighed. "We grabbed a little snack on the way home from the hospital, and I ... am lacking in appetite at the moment," he said.

The otter nodded, understanding. "Well, I'll make a bit extra and put it in the fridge in case you change your mind later." He started toward the hall, and stopped again at the threshold. "You know," he said thoughtfully as he hugged the garments in his arms a little tighter, "I think I know why we get along so well. You let me run my hands through your belly fur without getting weirded out by it, and you just accepted it as 'Giblet being Giblet' when I gave you that sloppy kiss on your cheek. Most guys would have freaked out if their friend did that."

"Well, it is a quid pro quo thing," said Plonq. "You get to run your hands through luxurious fur, and I get a belly rub." He blinked as the otter's words continued parsing in his head. "Wait, you kissed me...?"

It was almost ninety minutes later when Giblet returned to the living room bearing two tall cups of steaming faux hot chocolate, each brimming with marshmallows. He found the snow leopard sitting in the same corner of the sofa, leaning against the arm of it with his knees pulled up under his chin.

"I brought you a little something. Even if you're not hungry, there's always room for fake hot chocolate," said the otter, handing one of the mugs to the cat.

Plonq accepted the mug and sat it on his knee, holding it there with one hand while he tentatively poked at one of the marshmallows with an extended claw on his other. In the meantime, Giblet perched on the edge of the armchair with his knees crossed and took a sip of his own drink.

"So what are the next steps?" Giblet asked. "Is there anything I can do for you at the office to help?"

Plonq paused in his attempts to spear a marshmallow. "Oh," he said, "I am going to be coming in on Thursday morning to meet with the inquisition. Arjun called Rahul while we were waiting in ER and said he needed to talk to me if I was available." He finally managed to capture the prize he was after, and he delicately licked it off the tip of his claw. "He told me to show up at work if I was available for 9:00 on Thursday, or to suggest another time if that did not work. He said they want to get this handled quickly."

He made a stab at another marshmallow, but it just bobbed elusively away every time he tried. "I had to surrender my phone and pass card to Rahul." The cat gave up trying to catch his prey and just stirred the floating confections with the extended claw. "I had to give him my corporate credit card and authenticator too while I was at it," he said. "You know things are serious when they take your RSA device."

"That's just standard procedure," said Giblet quickly. He took another nip from his fake chocolate without ever taking his eyes from the snow leopard. "And it's good that they're trying to resolve it quickly. The sooner they get this mess out of the way, the quicker we'll have you back at work."

Plonq glanced up at the otter, and then just shrugged and returned his attention to his hot drink. "Actually, I think the speed of this is a bad sign because it means that they have already made up their minds about the outcome."

The cat had a point, but Giblet refused to concede. "They're not just going to let you go," he said firmly. "I know that Arjun really likes you. He's pretty respected there, and he won't give you up without a fight."

"Maybe," said Plonq. He sighed, and sadly shook his head. "I keep replaying this morning in my head, trying to come up with other ways that it could have gone.  There were so many paths I could have chosen that did not involve screwing up, but I managed not to take those."

"It'll work out," said the otter firmly. "Look, I'm on your side. You've helped me get through so many things over the years; I can't not be here to help you through this."

"Thanks," said the snow leopard, glancing back up at his friend briefly. "That means a lot."

"Is there anything I can help with right now?"

Plonq shook his head. "Maybe tomorrow," he said. "I need some time alone out here to wallow. I would stew, but I am pretty much past that phase."

Giblet uncoiled himself from the armchair and walked over to the end of the couch. He clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder and gave it a couple of reassuring squeezes. "OK, I'll leave you here to wallow," he said. "I'm going to head back to my room to watch some porn - or whatever it is I do in there when I have the door closed. If you changed your mind about needing anything, just come back and knock."

Giblet woke at just shy of three o'clock the next morning with a bladder that had a mind to punish him for drinking hot chocolate so close to bed time. He reluctantly slid out from under the sheets into the relative cold of his bedroom and tip-toed out into the hall. As he rounded the corner toward the bathroom, he saw light streaming from the living room. He considered dashing back to his room for pants so that he could check on the situation out there, but his initial purpose in venturing out was more pressing.

Once he had dealt with his personal issue, the otter donned a tatty pair of sweat pants and made his way to the front room to see if Plonq had accidentally left the light on when he'd gone to bed.  When he rounded the corner, he found the snow leopard in the same corner of the couch. The cat was fast asleep, draped over the arm and snoring softly. Giblet shook his head in awe at the feline's ability to sleep in a position that would have left most species crippled by the morn.

A mug of cold chocolate - untouched save for a vague indentation in the sticky foam where a marshmallow had once been - sat on the table by the lamp. The otter strode lightly out of the room and returned a minute later with a blanket that he gently draped over the cat. Plonq muttered and shifted slightly at the touch of the blanket, but snored again a few seconds later.

Giblet turned off the lamp and tip-toed back to bed.

n  End of part 3

Part 4

Part 1 - New Guy

"Whether you're woman or whether you're man

Sometimes you got to take a stand

Just because you think you can."

- Buffy Sainte-Marie (You've Got to Run (Spirit of the Wind))

When the muttering wolf stomped around the partition corner with a steaming mug of tea clutched in both of his hands, neither of his two cubicle mates spared him a glance. The stomping and muttering was as much a part of his routine as the nine-thirty tea, and it typically indicated that he was irritated by something he'd seen on the break-room television. It was usually a contemporary political issue that set him off, and since the canine's politics ran diametrically opposite of both his cubicle mates',   neither of them were eager to ask him what had him bothered.

The wolf was creeping to the far side of middle age, and it showed. He had the look of one who had likely been very fit in his youth, but time and a sedentary job had slowly built him a paunch as well as a sunken, dull, brown-eyed stare of one who was about done with everything. He flopped heavily into his chair and, as had also become a routine of late, opened the top-right drawer of his desk and shook a couple of the acetaminophen he kept there into his left palm. He washed them down with a large enough swallow of tea to burn his tongue and slammed the drawer shut again.

The snow leopard and otter who shared the cubicle with the wolf readily caught the rattle of the pill container, and they recognized it as the preamble to an uninitiated rant. They were caught unprepared when he finally spoke in a very level tone.

"Either these migraines or these pills are going to be the end of me." The wolf took another slug of his fresh tea. "I see they've hired a new guy," he added, thumbing nonchalantly in the direction of the main elevator. The ears of this cubicle mates perked up visibly at the news, but neither removed their headsets, or otherwise responded while they waited for the meat of his rant to begin. The wolf grunted at their lack of reaction and quietly turned back to his workstation.

"That's it?" demanded Giblet. The otter pulled off his headset and spun his chair around to face the wolf. "Come on, spill it. Who and what did they hire?" The wolf picked up his tea, took a languid sip, and then slowly rotated his own seat to face the otter. Giblet's whiskers twitched in annoyance when he saw the other's measured movements and he realized that he had probably just stepped into a trap.

"You want to know what they hired," said the wolf slowly. He made a show of sipping his tea, gave his wet nose an exaggerated lick and continued. "You know we're supposed to be blind to species - or whatever stupid term they use for it these days. I seem to recall you announcing with some relish that you had completed the mandatory online sensitivity course well before the deadline." He relished another quaff of his drink while the otter stewed in anticipation. "Were you hoping for something in particular?"

Giblet was used to being baited by the wolf, and while he generally found it amusing to get into verbal spars with the canine, he found himself losing patience with the other's games of late. The otter considered a verbal retort and then changed his mind, reaching through the bottom of his chair's backrest to flip his middle finger at the canid.

"You know what I meant," he said sourly. "Is he the new DBA?"

"Better be," said Plonq without turning. The snow leopard had a visual schema open on one screen, and an editor with dense SQL code on the other. Although he caught the verbal barbs between his coworkers, the feline's pretense of working caused him to miss the visual elements of it as the wolf returned the otter's sign with both of his hands before following them up with a gesture that one of British descent might have identified as the wanker.

"I dunno." The wolf shrugged and quickly grabbed his tea again as the snow leopard made an aborted move to look his way. "I spotted him with boss-man and what's-her-name from HR." He scratched under his muzzle and reached his other hand back to perch his tea precariously close to the edge of his desk. "He was wearing kind of a douchey shirt, so I'm guessing he's probably going to SAP." He started to turn back to his workstation and made a show of pausing partway around. "And Giblet, even though you're pretending you don’t care, I know you're dying to find out. He's a slotter."

"He's a ... what?" demanded the otter. The snow leopard's ears perked up again at that as well, and he half-turned his head to pay closer attention to the conversation.

"A slotter," said the wolf cryptically. "You know, one of those boutique hybrids you hear about in the news. Half otter and half snow leopard." Giblet exchanged a quick glance with Plonq, but the latter just gave a quick palms-up shrug and shook his head.

"Bullshit," said Giblet. "There are things you can't hybridize, and that's one of them."

The wolf blinked innocently at the other two without speaking for a moment. "I seen what I seen. I expect an apology when you eat your words later." He rubbed his temple and grimaced before rotating his chair back to face his workstation, rescuing his precariously-perched mug as he turned.

Plonq sighed, pulled off his phone headset, grabbed his glasses and rolled back his chair. The dumpy snow leopard rose, stepped around the edge of his desk and peeked over the top of his cubicle. He slid his glasses a bit further down his muzzle and peered in the direction of the elevator. His tail thrashed a couple of times, but other than a noncommittal grunt, he gave no other indication of what he saw.

"Huh," was all he said as he removed his spectacles and lumbered back to his chair. Giblet watched him put his glasses back on the desk and reach for his headset again. When it became clear that the snow leopard was not going to elaborate on this reaction the otter could not contain himself.

"So?" he prompted. He pumped his short legs to wheel his chair over to the other's desk so that he could slap him on the shoulder. "Spill it!"

"He is a slotter," the cat replied. He paused. "Or a snotter, perhaps, depending on how you portmanteau it." Giblet tried to read the feline's body language, but if Plonq was pulling his leg, he was putting on a very good poker muzzle while doing it.

"You both suck," said the otter. "You can't get a hybrid from a snow leopard and an otter."

"Sure you can," said the wolf. He made circle with his index finger and thumb, and stuck the index finger of his other hand through it. "All you need is for a snow leopard and an otter to love each other very much. Then they get married, do the thing and make a baby."

"Makes sense," said the snow leopard, nodding sagely.

"They can do the thing all they want, but no baby will happen," retorted Giblet, casting a quick glare at his friend. "If hybridization worked like that, we'd be up to our necks in little Frankenbabies with all the cross-species marriages these days. The pegs and holes aren't compatible."

"Especially not when you're doing it in the butt," muttered the wolf, loud enough for the other two to hear. The otter ignored his jab.

"I'm no genologist..." continued the otter.

"Geneticist," hissed Plonq, but Giblet pressed on.

"I don't care how much they love each other; they will not produce a 'slotter'. You're both full of crap."

"Then explain the new guy," said the wolf. He donned his headset and pulled his keyboard closer; making it clear to the otter that he was being dismissed.

"Ugh," said Giblet. He doffed his own phone gear and stood abruptly, "fine." The chunky little mustelid crossed over the cubicle and stepped around the snow leopard's desk to the wall of their shared cubicle. He was a little shorter than the feline, so he had to hook his hands on the top and pull himself up onto his toes to see over the top.

In the distance, Giblet could see the new employee speaking to their director and a familiar ocelot from HR. Whatever their director had said, the other two were treating the little red panda to a hearty laugh. As he stared at the newcomer, Giblet could not think of a better word for him than the wolf's description. The new employee was a young-looking otter, but his fur was silver and marked with very distinctive snow leopard rosettes.

The otter lowered himself down again and turned to lean against the partition.

"He's adorable," said Giblet breathlessly.

"I knew you'd like him," said the wolf without looking back, dropping his pretense of disinterest. "'cuz you've got the hots for spots."

"And stripes," said Giblet quickly, "also, those are tattoos, you shit stains!"

"Oh," said Plonq with feigned innocence. "That makes at least as much sense as a hybrid."

"I'm jealous," said Giblet. "They fit him perfectly." The little otter ran a hand over the side of his muzzle and sighed. "I've always wanted to get some tat work done, but the peroxides irritate my skin, and the thought of that many needles gets my jimmies in a knot."

"I thought your type was into pain and stuff," said the wolf. The canine was swirling the tea in his mug while he spoke - it was one of the affectations he adopted when he felt like he was on a roll. The otter glared at him, and his muzzle worked like he was going to come back with an angry retort, but he cast a quick glance at their other cube mate and changed his tactic.

"Not as a rule," Giblet said sweetly. He winked saucily at the canine. "But the right kind of pain, judiciously applied in the right places for the right reasons is always an option to keep open." His reply had the desired effect on the wolf as the latter stopped swishing his tea and tossed back another mouthful without further comment.

"I am going to borrow that line for my next performance review when the boss accuses me of making my goals too unambitious," said Plonq, tossing the otter a quick thumbs-up without taking his eyes from his work. Giblet turned back to the partition, hooked his hands over the top and pulled himself up on his toes again.

"I need another look at those gorgeous tats," he said. Out of the corner of his eye, the snow leopard saw the otter freeze, lift his right hand briefly from the partition to wave, and then he quickly lowered himself down.

"Crap!" he said hoarsely. "Well, that was awkward."

"What's the matter, did he catch you fawning at him over the partition?" asked the wolf.

"All three of them did," said the otter glumly. "The boss pointed at me and they all waved, so it was pretty obvious that I was staring."

"That is certainly not embarrassing at all," said the snow leopard. "In fairness, you were gawking."

"Nothing for it now but to go say 'hi' in person," said the wolf, "may as well drool on him up close rather than ogling from a distance."

The otter bobbed his head in thought - it was a practise he'd picked up from their director and many of the other ex-contractors the company had hired into their department. "I guess I could go ask him where he got the ink done," Giblet said pensively.

"Ask him if he is the new DBA," interjected Plonq quickly. "Tell him that if he can get these tables indexed without needing five requests and three months, he will never have to buy his own coffee again as long as he works here."

"Fine," said the otter. "If we're going to be working together I don't want him to think I'm some kind of creeper peeking over partitions at people."  Giblet brushed down his shirt and tucked in the tails that had come loose when he'd pulled himself up on the partition before he trundled around the corner of the cubicle and out of sight.

As soon as the otter was clear of earshot, Plonq whipped off his headset, slammed it on his desk and whirled to confront the wolf. "Dude," he said in something between a hiss and a growl.

"Dude what?" said the wolf innocently. He turned as well to face the snow leopard

"You know what," growled Plonq. "I know you are only teasing him, but you are really starting to toe the harassment line lately."

"If he can't take a little ribbing from a co-worker then fuck him," said the wolf. He rubbed his temple and winced. "Though from what I hear, you probably have."

"Larry!" the growl carried a bit more menace this time. "Do not even go there. I can only speculate on what you think you have heard, but it is none of your business either way." The snow leopard's tail thudded solidly on the floor as he formulated his words. "I am just saying that you are setting yourself up for some HR pain if you push him on the gay thing."

"Giblet's a big boy," said Larry with a low growl of his own. The wolf tossed back the last of his tea in one swallow. "The otter gets in his own share of shots. If he wants me to stop, he can damned well stop it himself. I'm open to a truce. In the meantime, you worry about your own business and we'll worry about ours." The wolf turned his back to the feline, thumped his empty mug noisily on the desk and grabbed his headset again, clearly communicating that he considered the conversation to be done.

"You are not the one who lives with him and gets to hear him complain about you," the cat muttered darkly as he continued to stare at the lupine's back for a moment longer. He fidgeted with his hands, and his tail trashed as he considered saying more, but instead he quietly returned his attention to his own work. Plonq spent a few minutes trying to figure out why his small query was bringing the database to a standstill, but the snow leopard was too irritated to concentrate on his job for long. He spent a few minutes updating some of the comments in his code to include snarky shots at a future debugger, but that lost its lustre fairly quickly as well.

Eventually he gave up on real work and sought catharsis in browsing the internet and informing strangers that they were wrong. Plonq's irritation with the wolf was slowly being pushed aside by his aggravation at the ignorance of people in online forums when the otter finally returned.

"So, his name is Joshua, and he seems really nice," said Giblet in a rapid, airy tone as he burst his way back into their work area and cut between his workmates to his desk. "He's not the new DBA..." He paused to let the other two groan, and then continued. "He's going to be working with Middleware. He came over here from Furlife Insurance because - get this - he gets better coverage from our plan with them than he was getting when he was working for them. Pretty young; I figure early 20's." The otter locked his workstation and shrugged into his coat.

"What else..." he said, doing up the zipper and snaps as he talked, "the tats are even better up close. They're just upper body - head and shoulders, really.  He popped open his shirt and showed me where they fade into his normal fur colour. I'm super jelly."

"Geez, he's here five minutes and you're already undressing him," said the wolf with an audibly snide tone. Plonq glanced over his shoulder toward the otter, and Giblet met his look with a cheek twitch and an exaggerated eye roll.

"He's not really my type," said the otter as he adjusted his collar and tugged his jacket down around his hips. "Way too young for one thing." He flicked the snow leopard a quick wink. "Besides, why would I need to undress him when I can undress you in my mind any time I want? Not that I think you’re sexy," he added quickly, "but the mental image kills my appetite whenever I feel like cheating on my diet."

The wolf gave a chuff that the other two recognized as the sound he made when he was trying to think of a good, biting retort. Acting quickly to forestall it, the otter strode over to the feline's desk, placed a hand on the feline's right shoulder, giving him a good jostle. "Come on, make quick with the jacket.  It is the time for the coffee, sir!"

"I have got a call in, uh," the snow leopard glanced at the clock in the corner of his nearest monitor, "eight minutes. If you had not spent half the morning talking to the new guy I could have joined you."

"Eh, it was the boss as well. He glommed onto me and started enthusing on about a new project, and all this stuff about real time visualization," said the otter. He gave the snow leopard's ear a flick with his index finger. "Were your ears burning? We were talking about you too." The snow leopard cast an askance look in the otter's direction, but stayed mum. "He wants to put us together on more projects because we work so well as a team. Anyway, you do ... whatever this call of yours is," Giblet said, waving his right hand in a circular flourish to imply that the call involved vague things that held no interest to him. "I suppose I can bring you back a coffee and add it to your tab. I guess you want the usual?"

Plonq nodded.

"The otter is leaving the building," said Giblet to no one in particular. "Smoke me a kipper for my return." Plonq sniggered at the mustelid's mangled reference, but the wolf just muttered darkly under his breath.

"The usual..."

Barely a minute after one otter left their work area, another entered from the other side.

"Knock, knock," said Joshua, poking his spotted muzzle around the corner. "I hope I'm not intruding. I met your workmate and thought I'd come and introduce myself to the rest of his cubicle."

"Oh, hey," said Plonq and Larry in near unison as both stood to address the newcomer. The two of them hesitated when the otter extended his hand for a shake, and after a couple of false starts as each waited for the other to respond, Plonq finally took the initiative and clasped the extended hand.

"Plonq," he said. "I am a data guy - mostly deep dives and analysis." The otter pumped his hand.

"Joshua," said the otter. "I'm sorry that I'm not a database guy," he added with a mischievous gleam in his eye. "I hear I could have had my own shrine." The snow leopard looked pensive, and gave the same head bob that the Giblet had done earlier.

"Shrine might be understating things a bit..." he began.

"You've already got your first worshiper anyway," interrupted Larry.

"Ha," said the otter with a single, barking laugh. He let go of the snow leopard's hand and extended it to the wolf. "I wish I felt worthy of it, but middleware usually doesn't inspire much of a fervent following. You must be Larry."

"The same," said the wolf, taking the proffered hand. "I'm mostly a UI guy. I take the mess that these slobs," he pointed his other thumb over his shoulder and swivelled it to encompass the desks of his coworkers, "try to pass off as usable dashboards. I do the layered charts and heat maps and the like."

"Basically Giblet and I are the cartoonists, and Larry is the colourist," said the snow leopard, "except that all the actors are numbers." This elicited another laugh out of the otter. He extricated his hand from the wolf's firm handshake and leaned up against the corner of the cubicle's partition with his elbow flat on the top.

"I like that analogy," he said. "I have a friend whose dad is a colourist for an indie comic. It's a discipline that deserves a lot more respect than it gets sometimes."

"Exactly!" The wolf winked and motioned a quick finger-gun at the otter. "Totally on point. I think we're going to get along just fine." He held out his right hand and made a vague waving motion toward Giblet's empty desk. "And you've already met your adoring acolyte. He's off flouncing around somewhere at the moment."

The otter blinked, and the snow leopard cast a puzzled glance in Larry's direction.

"My what?"

"Your acolyte - you know - an adoring worshipper for your shrine. Giblet's totally smitten with you." He nodded in Plonq's direction. "You were here - you heard him." The wolf clutched both hands to his chest and breathlessly said, "He's adorable." Joshua withdrew from leaning on the cubicle corner and took a step back, crossing his arms nervously.

"I'm, uh, not quite sure how to take that," he said hesitantly. The snow leopard cast a glare in the direction of the wolf that could have both frozen and cut his workmate if the laws of physics had permitted it.

"He was talking about your tats - he just has his ... mannerisms when speaking. You get used to it," said Plonq quickly. He never took his eyes off the wolf while he spoke, making a quick, open-palmed 'what the hell?' gesture with the hand that was out of the otter's line of sight.  "He has been talking for years about getting some ink done if he can work up the nerve for it." The otter visibly relaxed.

"Oh yes, we spoke of that at some length," said Joshua, and his demeanour perked up immediately. It was obvious to the others that it was a topic close to his heart.  "He was asking me where I got them done, how much it cost, how much it hurt and the like." The otter became more animated as the spoke. "He mentioned that he's got a thing for spots, and he's wanted to get some done in ink. He joked about getting a rosette tramp-stamp so that it's less visible if he chickens out partway through."

"Spots above the tail," said the wolf with a loud guffaw, "that would be a switch. From what I hear, he prefers to take them below the tail."

The spotted otter started to speak, hesitated, and then said, "Are you insinuating something about your co-worker that you think I should know?"

"I'm just saying that if you drop something around Giblet, you may want to wait for somebody without spots to pick it up for you."

"CHRIST, LARRY!" Snow leopards are not one of the roaring cats, but there were few other words to describe the cat's tone at that moment. "What is your damage?"

"I'm sorry," said the wolf loudly, feigning innocence, "it's not right of me to assume that he's the top. Do you guys trade off?"

The otter's body language switched from zero to squicked in an instant. He nervously bumped his fists together in the area of his solar plexus and began to slowly back away from the other two. "It, uh, sounds like you guys have some things to discuss. Maybe I'll go check out my new work area."

The others were too entrenched in their own discussion by now to notice the otter.

"He is not... we do not..." the snow leopard stammered angrily, "actually, THAT IS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS!" If their confrontation had not yet caught the attention of the office, the cat's latest outburst certainly did. Joshua was glancing back and forth between the two combatants with wide eyed alarm as they bared teeth and claws. Heads started popping up from neighbouring cubicles, and a buzz of voices began to drown out the usual clacking and buzz of the office.

"Was Plonq just swearing?"

"I never hear him swear."

"What's going on over there?"

"Well it's my business every time he gets up in my face about it. I just want to be able to come in to work one day without having to hear him brag about his latest gay exploits. If you guys want to talk about homo stuff, go to the break room and knock yourself out." All pretense of civility was gone from the conversation now, and Larry's words floated on a low growl as he spoke. "And why is it any of your business if I warn the new guy that Giblet is gay? It's not like he's shy about it anymore. Who died and made you the defender of furry faggots?"

"I am defending him because he is my best friend," snarled Plonq. His tail was puffed out in a manner that would have been amusing in any other circumstances. "I am not going to stand here while you drag him through the mud - especially in front of a new employee."

"Oh, the poor baby," said the wolf mockingly, "needs his big boy to stand up for him. If you feel so bad for him, maybe you can go give him some comfort sex later."

The snow leopard growled and stepped forward, jabbing the wolf in the chest with a clawed finger. "Larry, you are out of line," he hissed.

"And you're in my space," said the wolf with an angry bark. In a rapid move that caught the snow leopard completely off-guard he planted his hands on the feline's shoulders and shoved him violently back.

n  End of part 1

Part 2

The brown mass in the pot bubbled merrily while the little snow leopard stirred. He glanced at the tablet on the counter to see if he had overlooked the instructions on how long he was supposed to keep agitating the mixture, but the last line on the page said, "Gently heat the mixture to a light boil and continue stirring until it is done."

"How the heck am I supposed to know when it’s done?" groused the feline. He continued sweeping the spoon through the boiling mixture for another minute before it occurred to him that the recipe might actually span more than one page. Keeping the spoon moving with his right hand, he reached across with his left and swiped the tip of his finger across the tablet.  The recipe page swept aside to reveal that there was another page. The lone instructions on the page were:

Don’t read; stir.

Plonq sighed and obeyed. He was used to recipes written by snobbish cooks who seemed to adhere to the philosophy that something as simple as "doneness" should be self-obvious. The snow leopard assumed that the boiling mass would let him know when it was ready to be panned, perhaps by changing colour, or bursting into flame and singeing his remaining whiskers.

Plonq babysat the mixture for several more minutes, and just as he was beginning to suspect the recipe was toying with him, the mixture suddenly thickened. The change was so abrupt that he let go of the spoon and stepped back defensively, but the gooey brown mass in the pot appeared to be more concerned with holding the spoon upright than attacking any nearby snow leopards.  He quickly shut off the gas and moved the pot to a cool burner to avoid burning the bottom. Plonq watched the spoon slowly settle toward one side of the pot while he edged carefully around the stove to the tablet on the counter. He had seen The Blob when he was a cub, and even though he was dubious over the thought that he might have created predatory alien life in his kitchen, he chose to err on the side of safety. He flipped to the next page to see if there were more instructions.

"Remove the mixture from the heat," The snow leopard did not feel particularly smug about having gotten that part right in spite of not reading the recipe, since it had been largely an act of self-preservation. "Place the mixture in a grease-lined, corrosion-resistant baking pan. The mixture may be reluctant to relinquish its hold on the spoon at this point, but you must not display any sign of weakness in front of it. Show no mercy with a spatula. Place the panned mixture into an oven preheated to three hundred and fifty degrees and bake it until it is done. May God have mercy on your soul."

Plonq hesitated for a moment before he decided not to bother flipping to the next page for more instructions, since he had a hunch it would just be a veiled insult on the next page. There was little doubt that it would let him know when it was done. With a sigh, he grabbed the spoon and lifted it experimentally. As he had expected, the pot and all of its contents came with it. He gave it a couple of shakes until the pot fell free, clanging noisily on the stove. He held the mass over the greased baking sheet and grabbed a spatula to begin the process of un-glomming it from the spoon.

Was it his imagination, or did it tighten its grip on the spoon as he moved the spatula closer?

A few minutes, and many more epithets later the sticky mess was spread in a baking pan and ready for the oven. Although Plonq managed to avoid any major injuries during the transfer, a disturbing quantity of his fur had been claimed by the mass in the pan. He shoved the pan into the oven, quickly slammed the door and set the timer for thirty-five minutes.

The little feline grabbed the dry-erase marker hanging from the refrigerator door and put a tick next to "Christmas baking [ ]" on his magnetic white board. He purred softly to himself when he saw that he was nearly through his entire list of Christmas obligations. He pondered on the last few items and debated on which one to tackle next.  Prank call Santa Claws sounded like a nice quick hit on the list. The fat old bastard would be pretty busy with his final preparations, so he could probably catch him off-guard. Plonq suppressed another purr as he remembered the previous year’s prank call.

"Ho ho ho! Who is this and how did you get my direct number? Somebody is going to get on my permanent naughty list if I ever find out who you are!"

The snow leopard decided to tackle "Drink a lot [ ]" on the list first, since drunken prank calls were always more fun. He found that he was much less nervous and more creative after a few drinks. He toddled out to the hall and fetched his favourite scotch glass. After a quick browse of his selection, he poured himself two claws worth of Dal Whinny and wandered out to the living room, taking the bottle with him. Plonq had just splashed the first taste of scotch over his tongue, and was enjoying the pleasant burn when there was a polite, but firm rap on the door.

"Now who could that be?" he mewled, putting the bottle of scotch on the end table and grunting himself out of the chair. Plonq slipped his feet into his tattered slippers and shuffled out to the front hall, scratching himself absently through his baggy sweatpants in thought. He was not expecting company, so he had not dressed for company. As he approached the door, the visitor knocked a second time.

"Who is it?" he called in a tone that he hoped conveyed the right degree of polite annoyance at being interrupted.

"It's just Death."

"Plonq's not here!" yowled the cat immediately.

"Plonq, we have a matter of urgent importance to resolve. Please be a good lad and let me in," said the voice on the other side of the door. There was something in the tone that touched Plonq at a visceral level, and he felt his fur stand up from the nape of his neck to the tip of his tail.

"I am afraid you have the wrong apartment," he called back, hoping that his voice did not carry the quaver that it felt. "I have no urgent issues to resolve this evening but to search out the bottom in this bottle of scotch."

"Nay, I fear we have an appointment," said the voice again. "I’m being polite you know. I don’t really need you to open the door for me, now stop being such a child and let me in." It was spoken with no great volume, yet the words carried such command in them that Plonq caught himself only as his hand was on the door knob in mid-turn. He whimpered and willed it to stop. To his relief, he still remained master of his own hand.

"Are you sure you’ve got the right place?" he said plaintively. "I mean, I’m feeling pretty good at the moment. Spritely even. I was thinking of going for a walk to donate some spare meat to the orphanage down the road." There was a rattling sigh from the other side of the door.

"There is no orphanage down the street," Death replied. "Look, you can make this easy or you can make this hard. This is a very busy night for me, and I’d rather not spend it all arguing with plump little snow leopard who is afraid to live up to his obligations. If you hadn’t wanted to see me then you would have used fresh tuna in your chocolate and tuna loaf."

Now Plonq did open the door. He pulled it open until the chain stopped it and peered out at his unexpected visitor. The snow leopard was surprised to discover that Death was, well, a snow leopard. It was every bit the stereotype that one associates with death; tall, skeletal, long hooded black robes and a tall scythe. Plonq could not decide whether to think of Death as "he" or "she", since neither the hollow voice nor the skeletal build lent themselves to a particular gender.

Steeling himself, Plonq yowled angrily, "The chocolate and tuna loaf is still in the oven. Here you got me all shook up over nothing. Good evening, madam… or sir, or however you prefer to be addressed!" He slammed the door and locked it again for good measure. There was a very long pause on the other side of the door, though when he pressed his ear to it the snow leopard could hear the rustling of robes, and a bony finger flipping through pages. There was another moment of silence before the voice across the threshold exploded in Death’s best approximation of a thunderous roar.

"Are you shitting me? You were supposed to have baked that thing three hours ago! What the hell is your problem, boy?"

"I didn’t have any molasses," replied Plonq, his tail trashing angrily. "Have you seen the crowds at the mall today? I’m lucky that I even made it home today, let alone three hours later than I’d planned." He suddenly noticed that he was still clutching his glass of scotch. He punctuated his last statement with a solid swig of the amber gold.

"Good grief! The molasses is in the cupboard by the sink, behind the kosher salt!" said Death in exasperation. "Seriously dude, you need a girlfriend or something to help organize your kitchen. You don’t even want to know what is growing in the back of your refrigerator!"

"Mental note: clean out the fridge," thought Plonq. Out loud he said, "Whatever! How could you know where I keep the molasses, but not know that I hadn’t even eaten the loaf yet?"

"Well, fine," said the sepulchral voice with a touch of bony petulance in its tone.  "I’ll reschedule you for now and come back in about three hours. But let’s have none of these childish antics when I return."

"Buh!" said Plonq, taking another swig of scotch. "In your dreams. You’re nuts if you think I’m going to eat that loaf now."

"You’re not even going to taste it?" demanded Death incredulously. "After all that work, I can’t imagine you would just throw it out without at least trying a nibble."

The thought had crossed Plonq’s mind, but he dismissed it with a thrash of his tail and a firm flick of his whiskers. "Not a chance," he said. "As soon as you’re out of here, it’s going straight down the garbage chute. That includes the pan it’s cooking in and the bowl and utensils I used to mix up the ingredients."

He had been expecting another retort from Death, but the entity on the other side of the door was quiet for a very long time. Plonq wondered if Death had left, but when Death finally spoke again there was a rasp of resignation in the voice.

"Can I at least come in and use your bathroom? I knew this would be an all-nighter and I hit the coffee pretty hard today. I was going to use it after I, you know, harvested your soul and stuff but it looks like you’re off the hook this time and my undead bladder is still full." Plonq cracked the door again and peered dubiously out at the tall, dark figure.

"Doesn’t it empower you or something if I invite you into my abode?" he demanded dubiously. It was hard to tell from the skeletal expression, but he was pretty sure the figure would have been grimacing if it was able.

"That’s a vampire," it said flatly. Plonq stared for several heartbeats before his sense of empathy got the better of him and he unhooked the chain.

"Fine, come in and use the toilet, but no harvesting of souls." He stepped aside to allow Death to enter his apartment. "And please put the lid down when you’re done again so that my cats don’t drink the blue water. I don’t need you harvesting them tonight either."  As Death swept by him, tattered black robes fluttering in the air, Plonq caught a faint wisp of incense, cedar and cinnamon. He had been expecting Death to smell of fetidness and rot, but Death smelled surprisingly nice.

Then he remembered a bit about ancient Egyptian mummification and he suddenly found the smell a bit less pleasant.

As soon as his guest disappeared into the bathroom, Plonq closed the front door and retired to the living room again to refill his glass. He held up the Dal Whinny and gauged how much drunk he could get from the remaining third of the bottle. It was starting to look like he might have to break out the Glennfish as well before the night was through. The little feline was just taking another sip of scotch when there arose a fearful clatter and sharp vulgarity from the bathroom. There was some more frantic cursing and shuffling before he heard the sound of the toilet flush, and a skeletal hand fumbling with the door. Death emerged looking as sheepish as Death can look.

"I’m so sorry," said Death without preamble. "I leaned my scythe up against the sink while I was doing my, uh, deathly business and when I stood up to grab it, it caught on the hem of my robe and went right over into your shower curtain." The tall figure began to fret. "Oh, this is so embarrassing. I usually take so much care in avoiding property damage when I do my thing, and here I’ve made a mess of your bathroom." In spite of the situation, Plonq felt a twinge of sympathy.

"There now," he said. He placed a reassuring hand on the tall figure’s bony shoulder and guided Death into a chair. "It’s okay, the curtain already had a few claw holes through it, and I have been meaning to replace it for some time." He pressed his half-empty scotch glass into Death’s bony hand. "You’re having a rough night. Why don’t you just sit down for minute, take a sip of Dal Whinny to soothe your nerves while you recompose yourself?"

Death turned its empty gaze to the glass as if noticing it for the first time. It looked at Plonq, then back at the glass. "I came here to harvest your soul this very night," said Death with a growing air of incredulity in its voice. "And not only do you invite me into your home, but you seat me in the very heart of your abode and present me with your finest liquor."

"Oh, that’s not my finest liquor," said Plonq with a self-effacing giggle. "Second best maybe." He paused a beat, "Third." Death stared long and hard at the glass in its bony grip.

"I shouldn’t," it said with a hollow wistfulness in its voice. "Not while I’m on duty." It chuckled, which raised the hair on Plonq’s back again. "Not that I’m ever not on duty, but I mean not on one of the busiest nights of the year for me. Do you know how many suicides there are on this night?"

"No," said Plonq.

"Well I do," said Death with a forlorn rattle. It raised the glass and drained it down its muzzle in one quick draught. The snow leopard had been half expecting to see the liquid come spilling right back out through the bones, but the scotch vanished into the robes. "I do."

The snow leopard, who had seated himself in the other chair by this point leaned across and patted Death gently on the knee. "It must be hard," he said gently. "I mean, being feared and hated everywhere you go. I just can’t imagine going through life, er, unlife like that. Well, not entirely anyway." He refilled the other’s glass.

"Oh, not everybody fears and hates me," said Death thoughtfully taking another sip of the scotch. "This is very good, and you’re right, I think I needed this. Anyway, there are those who welcome me as a friend." Another swallow of scotch disappeared down the gaunt figure’s throat. "But it can be really hard too, especially when it comes to the children, and especially tonight."

Plonq shuddered. "I can’t even imagine," he said. He glanced around for a nearby glass, then shrugged and took a slug directly from the bottle. "I hate my job too sometimes," he said, hoping that it didn’t come across sounding too lame.

Minutes turned to hours, and by midway through the bottle of Glenfish, the apartment was alive with roars of drunken laughter.

"You’re serious?" demanded Plonq. "You’re saying he talked for real jusht like in Team Americat?"

By this point Death’s cowl was thrown back carelessly, its boots were long discarded and it was sitting back splay-legged in the chair opposite the snow leopard.

"Bwa ha!" whooped Death in a drunken bray of laughter. "No, he was in a coma when I showed up to harvesht his soul and I didn’t really feel like waking him to talk to him. I really had no use for him, or his father for that matter."

Another half a bottle disappeared.

"Death roulette," slurred the snow leopard, slamming the thick phone book down on the table. "Flip to a random page, pick a random name and we show up at their door and ashk if they have any Grey Poupon or something shilly like that."

"You’re evil," said Death approvingly. "This is a total abuse of offish and wrong on every level. I love it! You pick first!"

Like a dream slipping from lucidity, the night blurred into dawn and Plonq awoke with a start. Two things immediately occurred to the little feline at that moment; he was not dead, but kind of he wished that he was. The room was spinning unpleasantly and his head felt like Santa’s gnomes had set up a workshop in his frontal lobe. Plonq sat up, groaned, and fell back in bed again. Not only did his head hurt, the rest of him hurt too. He felt like he had spent the previous evening running a marathon through brambles. Also his bed smelled of incense.

"Mental note: drink less next Christmas."

Had he remember to prank call Santa last night? Plonq struggled to remember, but his brain kept conjuring silly non-sequiturs such as trying to talk like Kim Jong-il from the movie Team Americat, and… and why were there a half-dozen jars of Grey Poupon on his end table? And why were his back and arms all scratched up like he’d been sleeping with a rose bush?

After about thirty minutes of self-pity the little cat finally managed to drag himself out of bed and got unsteadily to his feet, suffering only a couple of dry heaves in the process. It troubled him that he had no memory of the previous night because he was not normally prone to drinking himself to oblivion. He wondered if he could stomach coffee, then decided that no coffee wasn’t even an option.

Plonq stumbled his way laboriously out to the kitchen and froze on the threshold. He vaguely remembered putting a loaf in the oven the previous evening, but had no memory of removing it.

To his puzzlement and relief, the empty loaf tin was standing in the dish rack, apparently empty and washed. Of the loaf there was no sign.

Then he spied the note on the table.

It was written in a curious, unfamiliar script. It read, "Sorry to sneak out without waking you but I have a lot of work to catch up on today, and your little cat snores were really cute so I didn’t want to wake you. Coffee is ready to go if you just hit the switch. Don’t be a stranger. Merry Christmas!"

The note was simply signed with a stylized, capital D with a little heart drawn out of bones over it.

Memory of the previous night still eluded the cat, but he knew he couldn’t avoid it forever.

He stood very still in the kitchen doorway, holding the doorjamb for support and staring at the note while memories tickled at the corners of his mind like a hairball in the gullet, stirring and churning its way to an explosive release.

Plonq stood there staring at the note for a very, very long time.