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Chapter 2: An Enticing Journey

I don't know why I agreed to this.

I mean, it should go without saying that the only course of action for any fifteen-year-old at five thirty in the goddamn morning should be to lie, sprawled against your tainted, stinking bedsheets whilst simultaneously waking the entire house with your obnoxious snoring, and up until this point, I'd been doing exactly that. But how could I have refused? That bright-eyed, loopy-tongued look Nathan had given me after shaking me firmly into life, I...I'd never seen him look that excited before. My eyes, ears and muscles had just flat-out stopped talking to one another for the next twenty minutes, but before I knew it, I found myself alone in a distinctly tatty, ancient Honda Civic parked slightly off-centre inside the semi-detached house's run-down garage, fighting a losing battle with my sleep-deprived brain, and still with more questions than answers. That last part sure wasn't helped by my jeans; they did jack-shit to soften the constant rub of the car's ancient vinyl passenger seat underneath them. He'd refused to tell me anything about where we were going; I'd just followed his frantically conveyed instructions of throwing on a batch of clothes to the book and hoped for the best, but what in God's name was taking him so long?! The last thing he'd told me before disappearing back into the bedroom was he'd packed most of what we needed before waking me, so what else would he-

"Sorry t' keep ya' waitin' Tommy-boy; forgot me' wallet." I soon got my answer as his unmistakeable Irish tongue mingled with the sound of a pair of forty-something-year-old hinges creaking open; their pleas for a lashing of oil rubbing uncomfortably against my left ear.

"It's, it's fine pal; I wouldn't expect anyone to be on the ball at six in the morning" I chuckled half-heartedly, coercing my weary eyes around to face the smooth-furred Labrador as he manhandled a gargantuan backpack past the tipped-forwards front seat before gingerly clicking the seat back into place and gracefully manoeuvring his athletic physique under the low-hanging bridge of the car's roofline. The faint strands of moonlight filtering through the garage's grimy windows above us had only just revealed what he was wearing, however, before his next move threw me for a loop; reaching down towards the garage floor, he casually tossed a forest-camo textured pair of chest waders over the seat-back where they flopped lifelessly into the single rear bench, before returning his eyes to their initial view out of the dusty windscreen. As he did so, he subtly flicked the snake-like, glossy beige tail of his over the right edge of the seat, shooting me a sideways smirk as he relaxed as best he could into the miniscule driver's seat.

"Um, O.K...fishing's fine, I-" it must've been something in my voice; the uneasiness, maybe, but before I could even come close to finishing my sentence, the narrow, floppy ears dangling adjacent to Nathan's face twitched upwards; his all-too-familiar childish smirk cutting me off for good.

"Pfft; as if I'd drag you outta' bed at this hour to throw bread to some ducks all morning; nah, we're going somewhere a bit more excitin' than t'at." Leaving me clamouring for an answer, he danced his radiant blue pupils into mine as a jingling mass of keys was retrieved from a concealed pocket woven into the olive-green fabric of the chest waders covering his entire torso almost up to his nipples. A pile of sentences lost their sense of direction on their way to my jowls as a succinct, metallic click echoed through the eerily-silent cabin, with the Civic's instrument cluster momentarily bursting into multi-coloured life before extinguishing much of its warning lights like a defective Christmas tree. With a wonderful air of assuredness, his supple paw gently coerced the choke lever away from the facia to its furthest position, and as his mud-specked wellington boot thrice pumped the miniscule throttle pedal, I finally pulled my groggy vocal chords out of their slumber.

"Erm...wh-whose waders have you given me?" I asked quietly, deciding there and then that the most innocent question should break the silence as the starter motor sprang into action, shaking the little car from side to side before a final suppression of the accelerator coerced the cold engine into hesitant life.

"Oh, t'ere me Pa's; he practically forgot about t'em when he stopped goin fishin' wit' me a while ago. They don't leak...much" he smirked, wrapping his paw around the choke lever and slowly pushing it back in as the engine note incrementally diminished from its high idle. My brain suddenly took a roundhouse kick at itself for failing to realise a crucial piece of the puzzle that had gone ignored until now.

"Wait, your Dad; isn't he still here?! Won't this wake him up? Besides, isn't this his car you're-" a sly undertone tinged Nathan's grin as he placed a stretched paw-pad against my muzzle, softly shushing under his breath and nodding reassuringly slowly.

"Relax Tommy-boy; you worry too much. Ya' heard him last night; he doesn't get out a lot, and...well, I am insured on his car, so in my book we're all good. Hell, he hasn't driven it in over a week, and I can't just let it sit here and gather dust now, can I?

"But...but what about-"

"...wakin' him up? Well, yeah, he normally has trouble sleepin', but t'at sure won't be a concern when his stupid brain put twice the normal amount o' sleep medicine into his bedtime tea." The end of Nathan's quip became muddled in a gleeful chuckle, but despite the steady influx of revelations nabbing at my conscience, I couldn't help but replicate his reaction. Come to think of it, I wouldn't have even started dating him in the first place if I didn't have a soft spot for his almost uncanny ability to put people at ease. Gradually settling down the engine at the will of the choke lever encased in his paw, Nathan rotated the end of the thin, plastic stalk jutting out of the steering column, basking the grimy garage in a pair of pale, tired light beams. I was only just getting used to the situation playing out as expected, but just as I settled down as best I could into the seat, he suddenly shoved open the driver's door and skilfully replicated his contortionist act necessary to meander his six-foot-two physique out of the little Honda.

"Forgotten something else?" I hadn't intended my jab to be so snidey, but I didn't exactly have much control over my extremities this early in the morning.

"Nope; ya' know how bloody expensive electric garage doors are?" he quipped, stretching his limbs into place as his bare shoulders materialised aside the car's hood before slowly revealing the waders as his entire body grew gradually smaller before becoming illuminated by the car's headlights. Suddenly, he curiously whisked his tail to the left, and...was that his muzzle flicking backwards in my general direction just there? The flash of his sharp incisors at the forefront of a sly grin confirmed it, but my eyes had already been drawn to another part of his body; even before I'd fully taken in the show, I shuddered; my member had already got the message. The fabric of his waders was creasing, contorting and flexing under the strain of his athletic crouch, but as he wrapped his paws under the base of the flimsy metal door, the shiny rubber was pulled against its will around his backside, perfectly outlining its gorgeous curvaceousness as it was thrust into the limelight by the Honda's headlights. The curtain of his tail was pulled out of the way a split second before he stuck his left boot backwards and thrust his backside towards me, only now starting to actually lift the garage slats. By this point he may as well've been dancing his moist tongue around mine for what it was doing to me; a cold sweat was breaking out over my forehead as I clenched my eyes shut, just imagining...if only I could get a little closer to that taught rump, I-

"Alright t'ere pal?" The shaking of the Civic's ancient springs as Nathan climbed back inside threw me out of my trance, but I couldn't stop a childish giggle escaping my jowels.

"Don't pretend you didn't do that on purpose!" I grinned, not bothering to cross my legs as I'd done so many times before to hide my true feelings towards him.

"Did what?" His innocence was well and truly shot down mere milliseconds later as his nearside eye flashed a revealing wink at my defined bulge, "nah, why would I do a t'ing like_t'at_? Come on, let's hit t' road; we've faffed about enough already."

?

Our journey to this secretive place was intercepted only by a minor detour to a remote fast-food joint; hell, it was so far outta' town I was amazed that it even had a drive-thru at all. As the last of the ever-dwindling buildings slipped from my roofline-hindered vision, my stomach decided to finally start digesting the bacon roll I'd put into it, forcing my muscles to relax the plaid over-shirt-covered torso as best it could against the forty-three-year-old seat. Sighing contently as the duopoly of black and white fur covering my head rested against the interior-b-pillar, I allowed my eyes to soak in Nathan's moonlight-exposed outline as he guided the car along one in a series of hedge-lined country roads. It was the perfect time to catch up on lost sleep, but try as I might, my eyes simply refused to close.

"Huh?" My eyes began to refocus; frantically I crossed off all possible reasons, until they landed on the Labrador behind the wheel opposite me...as crazy as this sounded, even to myself, I'd become utterly mesmerised by the way Nathan drove. Admittedly, the only other time I'd been in a car with someone of a similar age was when a Primary School friend's brother picked us up one time. It'd been just one in an endless loop of friends I'd had at that time, but that one journey was enough for me to unfriend him for good. I've tried to put that near-death experience out of my mind ever since; hell, that's being kind_to him! Nathan, on the other hand? Every muscle, every _sense was an...an orchestral harmony of dog and machine; jeez, who did I think I was, Mozart? I couldn't tear my vision away from his paws gently wrapping themselves around the thin, two-spoked wheel in a perfect quarter-to-three position; their smooth rotations akin to a harp player as he coerced the little Honda where he wanted it to go. He remained silent, no doubt listening acutely to the engine's muted, deep thrum that was accompanied by the transmission's infantile whine. I mean, he _must've_been, as even before those artistic details had soaked themselves into my eyes, he smoothly separated his right paw from the wheel and guided it downwards on a seemingly predetermined path to rest against the faded snooker-ball of a gearknob, completely unfazed by the absence of a tachometer.

"Stop this, Tom; for God's sake, he's only driving a car!" barked my protein-charged brain, but the latching of my now-wide-awake eyes onto Nathan's plush, rounded paw as it tentatively guided the transmission into fourth gear resolutely overrode it. I couldn't stop myself; my arm and my brain were now communicating only by morse code, and before I knew what I was doing, I gingerly stretched my quivering left paw outwards, praying he wouldn't notice...no, no, I-

"Y'alright, there? Tryin' t' sleepwalk, are we?" he chuckled, briefly turning to glance at my uncertain paw, mere millimetres from his atop the gearstick.

"I...I'm sorry, you're driving; I really shouldn't..." I grovelled, guiltily retracting my arm against my plaid over-shirted torso and painfully completing my feeble attempt of a visual apology by turning my head away, but that left my guard down; the next thing I knew, that luscious, silky paw had clasped itself around mine and yanked it firmly back onto the top of the gear-lever.

"Hey, don't apologise; I don't mind" he whispered assuredly, turning the moistening beads of sweat on my forehead into a series of active streams. He suddenly lifted his paw away; it must've been to make a slightly sharper turn with both paws on the wheel...wait a minute; it was travelling behind my head, what-

"Come on; you're not gonna' tell me t'at headrest is actually comfy now, are ya'?" I'd only just absorbed the collection of words before the paw's underside; a supple, firm set of pads, began to push tentatively against my neck. I let it guide me until a salopette strap, curved around the cossetting pillow of fur atop Nathan's shoulder, softly contacted my cheek moments later. I shuffled my backside on the seat, turning my body enough for the back of my head to get comfortable before finally taking a deep, serene breath, raising and lowering my diaphragm; my nose lapping up the thick, earthy musk that emanated in waves from his lanky body.

"Don't get too complacent, now; we're only about five minutes away."

"I don't care; just take me wherever you want" I whispered with a smile, now more at ease than I'd felt in years. My lead weight eyes needed no further invitation; they'd slammed themselves shut before I knew it, leaving the Honda's purring engine and the rising, falling waves of Nathan's body as the only signifiers of the outside world.

?

As soon as it'd started, it was over; the Honda's forty-three-year-old suspension made short work of informing me to the proximity of our destination with a rude awakening. A series of teeth-grinding clatters and knocks shook us to our very cores, not helped by the onslaught of pebbles torpedoing the car's exposed underside. I coerced my woozy head away from Nathan's shoulder, of which I'd gained new-found respect for as a makeshift pillow, and adjusted my eyes back into focus as I peered through the dusty windscreen...oh wow...I mean, I know Nathan said we were going somewhere a little more exciting than a Canal, but the radiant body of blue stretching out beyond the silver hood had truly caught me by surprise. Well, I was jerked in both a metaphorical and literal sense as I discovered his one mechanical weakness; an ear-grating crunch pinballed through the cabin as he shoved the gearstick into reverse, whisking the messy crop of fur atop his head as he glanced backwards and guided the little Civic a few metres behind us.

"I know what you're gonna say, and don't even start. You ever driven stick before?" I shook my head meekly, "didn't think so." Had anyone else put me down like that, I would've shot them one of my rare glowers, but the warm, sympathetic grin meandering across his pointy muzzle unashamedly excused him. The engine gave a final, pleading rattle as it was extinguished by a flick of the ignition key, but the silence was quickly filled by the squeaking door hinges that sure sounded ready to break off, if you ask me.

Ahhh, I forgot how nice sea air is" I smiled gleefully, swinging my left jean leg over the door-sill; only when it was hovering mere millimetres above the ground, however, did I notice something remarkably odd.

"Erm, Nath, why are we parked behind a bush? The parking lot's over there" I gestured vaguely over the car's roof, towards a few visible pieces of gravel behind a towering hedge that stretched the length of the parking lot. His head poked up above the roofline, but the look he gave me was one as if I'd just told him he'd forgotten to switch off the oven.

"Oh, t'at; right, ya' see" he was obviously getting ready to tell me something; his bare-furred arms came to rest as a makeshift perch for his head atop the Honda, "t'is place gets kinda' busy in t' summer; last year the parkin' lot got so packed that new arrivals started t' go ape-shit. One guy got his windows smashed in, and...well," he chuckled as he patted the roof affectionately, "we kinda' need to get home, ya know; t'is thing wouldn't stand up to a fart, let alone a baseball bat." The last two words snapped me upright before I knew it.

"Baseball bat?!_People actually...you sure this place is _safe?!" My right paw gripped the top of the door-sill as the possibility of diving back into the car drifted around my mind, but Nathan was one step ahead of me; his long index finger waggled back and forth like a broken aerial before darting to the left.

"We'll be just fine, now check t'is out." A reluctant, clockwork rotation of my muzzle swung my eyes around to the source of a steadily encroaching warmth...holy shit; he was not_kidding. In rippling waves, basking in the reflection of the rolling sea, a full-bodied sun poked its head over the horizon, illuminating the cloudless sky in a radiant spectrum of deep oranges that pushed against the resilient blue of the fading night. Words couldn't do this justice; my worries were melting away before my eyes, and before I knew it, I'd slammed the passenger door shut and slid my butt onto the hood, perching my baseball boots on the bumper and gasping at, without a doubt, the best sunrise I was ever likely to see; the reason I say that with near certainty was compounded a few seconds later as the little Civic rocked on its springs, with the _squeak of Nathan's rubber waders on the faded silver paintwork giving way to his beautifully soft arm meandering its way around the back of my neck.

"Pretty good, huh? _Now_you glad I woke ya'?" A timid nod would have to suffice; I...I was absolutely lost for words. For the next few seconds, we sat in complete silence; our five senses overwhelmed with pure bliss from all directions, but all good things had to come to an end at some point.

"Now..." The unmistakeably slippery rubber cosseted my knee from the corner of my vision, "let's get ya' booted an' suited; I have a feelin' you're gonna need 'em."