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"So you didn't even know who I was before we met in class?" Jason asked, as he walked with Dox in the chill of the early November afternoon. The breeze was brisk, and smelled like dry leaves and grass clippings.

"Sorry, buddy," Dox said with an apologetic smile, squinting into the afternoon sun that hung low in the late autumn sky. "I guess I kind of knew you were on the team, but if I saw you on the street without your letter jacket on, I probably wouldn't have recognized you. But even if I didn't know who you were," he said, looking up at his boyfriend with an appreciative smile, "I still would have thought you were dead sexy."

"When that picture you took of me showed up in the paper, I thought maybe you were watching me, at least a little bit." Jason admitted. He couldn't help feeling a little let down. He thought that everyone on campus knew who he was, and learning that his fame wasn't as universal as he'd imagined poked his ego a little bit, not enough to bruise, but certainly enough to notice.

"What, like I was stalking you, or something?"

"No," Jason said, laughing, "not in a bad way. I thought maybe you were paying attention to what I was doing on the field. For a couple of weeks after that, I really did some wild stuff out there, hoping you'd notice me."

"I don't think I've ever submitted a picture based on who someone is," Dox said, thinking about it. "It's all been pretty random. Whoever happens to be flying through the air usually gets submitted! I think the Asshat has probably shown up more than anyone."

"What's the deal with that?" Jason asked, enjoying the chance to poke a little fun at his boyfriend. "Are you crushin' on Joey, or something?"

"I don't choose the pictures," Dox protested, "the sports editor does that. He just loves how that big vein throbs in Joey's forehead when he's angry, and he's angry a lot. But now that you mention it," Dox added, looking thoughtful, "Joey's not a bad looking man." If Jason could dish out a good teasing, he'd better be able to take one in return! "Oh yeah," he said, his voice taking on a dreamy quality, "that thick forehead of his with the sexy Cro-Magneon ridge..."

"I'm standing right here," Jason reminded him.

"And those big strong hands..."

"I can hear everything you're saying."

"And he's so assertive..." Dox trailed off, gazing into the distance

"My hair's on fire."

"Huh? What?" Dox said, as if shaking off his reverie. He took a few playful slaps at his boyfriend's head as if putting out the flames and laughed with Jason as he weakly defended himself. "Seriously! He's not a bad looking guy. If he wasn't such a jerk, he'd probably have a girlfriend."

"You're probably right," Jason said, "much as I hate to admit it."

"So have you ever had a crush on one of the other players?"

"Naw," Jason said, "they're not what I'm interested in."

"Really?" Dox found this hard to believe, especially since he thought that many of them were damned handsome.

"Yeah, really," Jason chuckled, reaching out to give Dox's shoulder a quick rub. "It would be like making out with a goat."

"Baseball, huh?" Dox asked, looking at Jason's assignment list. By this point in the semester they'd completed almost all of the projects on the list. One of the last ones was a sports shot, and since Dox couldn't manage to convince Jason that mounting a camera on his football helmet in the middle of a game was a viable option, they had turned their attention to baseball instead.

"Yeah, might as well," Jason said, then headed their conversation back where it had been going. "If the guys treat you so bad, why do you keep taking pictures of them?"

"Money!" Dox said, with a grin, "Filthy luchre! The paper pays me fifty bucks for every picture they use." Then he shrugged and was serious again. "They're not as bad as they used to be. When I started, they'd all turn their backs to me and make a human wall every time I got close to the team area. They stopped being such jerks when they realized that being nasty was killing their chances of showing up in the Annual or in the newspaper. They're still not very nice off the field, but at least they let me get some good reaction shots now."

"They've been better since we've been dating, right?" Jason asked, hopefully.

"Yeah, well," Dox admitted, "its better than it's ever been before. And really, Joey's the only one who still blows me shit at school. I guess I have you to thank for that?"

"I haven't made any secret of the fact that we're dating," Jason told him, "and the guys are usually pretty good about respecting each other's girlfriends, even..." he paused, looking embarrassed.

"Even if they're gay, or even if they don't like them?" Dox asked. He couldn't help sounding annoyed, but it wasn't at Jason. "It doesn't matter. At least they're not throwing Slurpees in my face or stuffing me into lockers any more."

The two walked towards the baseball diamond, where the baseball team was running drills during forth period. "Will this qualify for my assignment?" Jason asked. "They're not playing a game, or anything."

"As long as it's sports related, it counts." As they approached the cyclone fence of the backstop they saw a player practicing his swing. Handing the camera to Jason, he suggested, "Don't bother trying to hit the shutter at just the right time," he advised. "It's easier to put the camera in burst mode and hold down the shutter button from the time you hear the pitcher grunt until you hear the bat hit the ground."

Jason followed Dox's suggestions to the letter for the first few batters in the cage, then as he usually did, he started fiddling with the camera's settings to see how he could take that perfectly good but average picture and turn it into something that was uniquely his.

"Try slowing down the shutter speed so the bat shows some motion," Dox suggested.

"I'm waaaay ahead of you," Jason said, absentmindedly.

"Baseball's really easy to shoot," Dox told him, "Once you know a few tricks, you can get all the shots you need in the first five minutes of the game, then you can go home." Lowering his voice, he confided, "Baseball bores the crap out of me."

Dox waited patiently while Jason practiced his technique, adjusting his shutter speed and aperture between batters until he found one that gave him the effect he wanted. "So what about the football games?" Jason asked while squinting through the viewfinder. "Even when we're so far ahead that we can't possibly lose, you stick around until the very end. "You always have, even before you knew the rules of the game."

"You noticed?" Dox teased. He'd always hung around the sidelines until the last second of the clock ticked down, but he couldn't ever remember telling Jason about that.

Jason stopped shooting for a moment, just long enough to turn and give Dox an odd look. "Yeah. Believe it or not, I noticed."

A wave of tender emotion passed through Dox when he realized that long before he knew who Jason was, Jason had been watching him. It made him feel special.

Especially after hearing that, he would have been uncomfortable admitting to Jason that part of the appeal of shooting the football games was the visceral charge he got from walking through the milling crowd of players on the sidelines. Simply getting close to them in their protective gear made Dox's head swim It was, he imagined, like walking among a pride of lions; safe for the moment because they were distracted, but ultimately, still very dangerous. It was the same thrill he might have gotten by juggling knives, if he'd been so inclined.

"Even though I didn't understand the rules back then, there was an energy on the sidelines that I'd never found anywhere else," Dox explained. "The first time I really shot a game, it was the last thing on my assignment list, and I did not want to do it. The jocks scared me off the field so I tried to shoot from the bleachers, but the pictures I came back with were really crappy. So Mr. Griffon asked me to tag along while he was shot the game down on the field, and it was only about ten seconds before I was completely hooked."

Jason listened to Dox talk with fascination, not minding the interruption to his shooting. He loved hearing different perspectives on the sport he knew so well, and he was especially interested in this one since it had a piece of Dox's history tagging along with it. Since Dox talked about himself so rarely, Jason tried to listen carefully whenever he did.

"That electricity down there is completely missing in the bleachers. Sure, the folks up there get excited and all that, but it's like..." he paused for a moment, searching for an appropriate metaphor. "It's like looking at a picture of a flower instead of standing in the middle of a field of flowers," he said, finally. "The smells, the textures, the sounds, they're all there when you see it up close in real life. When I'm on the field, It's not like I'm just watching the action, I feel like I'm almost a part of it."

Jason nodded in understanding, encouraging Dox to go on.

"And it sounds really stupid to say it," Dox admitted, "but it feels good to be able to go wherever I want to. All the other spectators are stuck in the bleachers, twenty feet away behind a chain link fence, and I can go wherever I want to. Hell," he said, thinking about it, "I can even go places y'all can't. You're stuck in the player's box, and I can walk around the end zone, off to the sides, where ever."

"Come to think of it," Dox said, "I guess I could probably even get access to the locker rooms if I wanted to. But I'd need ten pound brass balls, to do that." Then Dox got what Jason liked to call his "creative face". "Hey! You could actually do that! Can you imagine what great pictures you could take for the Annual in there after the last game of the season?"

"Coach doesn't let anyone take pictures in the locker room," Jason said. "He even put signs up."

"Yeah, but that's to keep the perverts out," Dox guessed. If you shot everything above the belt and let the coach look at all the pictures you took before you left the locker room, I'm pretty sure he'd run with it. I'll ask him tomorrow. And... Oh my god..." Dox had a look of shocked discovery on his face.

"What?"

"When you're in there, can you get me a picture of Joey's wiener?" Dox asked, his eyes wide with over-eager excitement.

Jason's mouth dropped open for a split second before he saw the wicked grin building on Dox's face and realized that his leg had been successfully pulled. Rolling his eyes, he shook his head in mock disgust.

Smiling, Dox clapped Jason on the shoulder. "Come on."

Jason was momentarily confused, and when he saw where Dox was heading, he reached to grab his shoulder. "Wait!" he hissed. "You can't go in there!"

"Oh yeah, you're right," Dox said, pausing to take the camera from Jason and strap it to his own hand. "That's better," he said, satisfied, and continued on his way.

Ignoring Jason's sputtered protests, Dox opened the gate leading to the baseball diamond and, bold as brass, walked in. Once inside, he looked at Jason as if surprised that the football player wasn't right behind him. "Come on," Dox encouraged, the look on his face adding, Duh!

"We can't be in here!" Jason hissed.

"Sure we can," Dox said, calmly. "I have my camera." Then he shot Jason a private look that was so full of devilish mischief that Jason had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. Dox did have a naughty side! It might be buried deep down inside him, but it was there!

"Let's get down low and see what happens," he said, getting so close to the batter that the camera was in the shadow of his head. Dox aimed upwards at an extreme angle so that the sun made an intense halo behind the batter's head. Clambering off the ground, he brushed the dust from his jeans and handed the camera to Jason. "You try it."

The two spent five minutes firing off shots from different angles, and to Jason's surprise, none of the players or coaching staff did more than give them a mildly sour look.

On their way out, Dox waved at the head baseball coach. "Thanks, Coach Jameson!"

Jameson shot him a look of long suffering and moved his hand in what might be taken as a wave, but then again, it might not have been.

"Okay," Jason said as they walked away, "now explain to me what just happened back there. Why didn't we get tossed off the field?"

Dox smiled at him and gestured with his Nikon. "That's the magic of the camera, my friend. As long as you've got one of these in your hands, you can go just about anywhere and people leave you alone.

"The coaches don't mind?" Jason sounded skeptical.

"You've seen me crawling all over the practice fields," Dox reminded him. "The coaches want funding for their programs, and the players want their faces in print. You don't get either of those if you're hiding in the shadows.

"Last year, Mr. Griffon had a huge fight with the baseball coach over how much space he'd get in the Annual," Dox continued. "Each page costs a couple of hundred dollars to print, and Coach Jameson wanted more space for the baseball team. Now, Jameson used to be such a prick about disturbing his practice that we couldn't get any decent shots of the team, and Mr. Griffon finally told him we couldn't justify giving them more space in the book if we didn't have any pictures to put in there."

"So when it was in his best interests, Jameson stopped being such a hard-ass?" The sun wasn't putting out a lot of heat at this time of the day, and Jason stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep them warm.

"Pretty much," Dox said. "Most of the coaches are smart enough to realize that the more their teams are in the paper, the more recognition they get from the public, and the more money they can get reserved for their programs. And people don't usually read articles that don't have pictures." Dox laughed, "Jameson was acting like he had the biggest dick on campus, and he ended up tripping over it." He slung his camera over his shoulder and put his left hand into his own jacket pocket. The right one he snuggled into Jason's pocket, where he clasped the running back's large, warm hand in his own.

Jason squeezed Dox's paw. "Hey, puppy?"

"Yeah, meathead?"

"You know when you told me the jocks all scared you off the field?"

"Yeah," Dox said, curious what Jason was getting at.

"You had a camera with you then, right?"

"Yeah," Dox said, resisting the urge to deliver a smart-assed answer. Jason wasn't stupid, and he rarely asked pointless questions. There was a reason behind this line of questions, even if Dox didn't know what it was yet.

"So what was the difference between the first time you were on the field, and the next time you were out there without Mr. Griffon?"

"I don't know, babe," Dox said, "what are you getting at?"

"What I'm getting at," Jason said, pulling his hands out of his pockets and turning Dox to face him, "is that the only difference between then and now is right here," he patted Dox's chest, right over his heart. "The camera doesn't make the difference you think it does. It's your self-confidence that makes people think you belong where you don't. You can't see that, but I can."

Dox didn't say anything, but the look in his eyes told Jason that his point had been taken. The wide receiver gathered Dox's paw up in his own again, and put their hands back in his pocket as they enjoyed the last few quiet minutes by themselves before their next classes.

***

Wandering up and down the edges of the field as the action moved back and forth, Dox was watching the game more carefully than he ever had. Before meeting Jason, his only concern had been to catch the next photographic opportunity. Now that he was actually able to follow what was going on, he found that it distracted him from his main reason for being there. Several times already, he'd missed some good opportunities because he was so wrapped up in the game.

Although the Trojans had been playing their hearts out, tonight it wasn't enough. Unless they could pull a rabbit out of a hat, they were going to lose their first game this season, to their arch rivals, the Mustangs. They were only behind by three points and their loss would not be a humiliating one, but putting any number other than "0" in the "lost" column after nine consecutive wins would feel like a monumental failure. And this was their homecoming game, for God's sake! Why, Dox wondered, couldn't they have picked an easier team to play?

Jason was trying his best to run around, climb over, or in one instance, crawl underneath the Mustang linemen to get clear enough that Tony could throw the ball to him, but getting through their defensive line had proved to be a challenge. When the Trojans were forced to turn the ball over to their rivals late in the fourth quarter, a collective groan went up from the crowd.

Dox was getting some fantastic shots on the Trojan sideline, but as the game progressed, he became more and more distracted. Every hard crunch on the field drew his attention, worried that he'd see Jason lying motionless at the bottom of a dogpile.

On their last defensive effort, Jason was watching the action from the sidelines as Dox sidled up to him. "Their defense is pretty good, huh?"

"Yeah," Jason said, frustrated. Heat steamed off his body in the chill evening air. "It doesn't matter that we've got the best passing record in the league if I can't get past their damned defensive line!"

A thought was tickling the back of Dox's mind, but he couldn't quite get a grip on it. "I still don't know a lot about this game yet," he admitted, "but it seems like all the Mustangs are either crowded together at he middle of the field or hovering over our players downfield. Is it illegal to throw the ball backwards?" Nothing they'd tried yet had worked, so why not try something unconventional?

Jason snorted. "If you throw it backwards, that means your runner is even farther from the goal line, and would have to run through the entire defensive line. Why would you want to... Oh, hey..." he said, his eyes glazing over. All of a sudden, he thought he knew what Dox was getting at. Unfortunately, it would never work. Would it?

When Dox saw Jason's eyes lose focus and start darting back and forth, he immediately backed off. He's seen that look before when they were brainstorming, and knew that the best thing to do was to just be quiet and let Jason crunch the numbers. Considering possible scenarios one by one, Jason played through them in his mind, discarding them one at a time until he hit on one that might actually work.

Even covered by the shadow of his helmet, Dox could see Jason's eyes snap back to focus as a grin worked its way over his face. "TONY!" Jason yelled, hastily searching for his quarterback among the throng of players, "Get over here!"

Fortunately the Mustang's offensive line was weaker than their defense, and the Trojans were able to regain possession of the ball after the Mustangs had come far too close to scoring a final, fatal touchdown. With less than a minute left in the fourth quarter, the Trojan's had the ball on their own thirty yard line.

The instant before the play clock hit zero, the Trojan's Center snapped the ball towards Tony's waiting hands. Each of the guards on the offensive line threw themselves, body and soul, into protecting him with everything they had. This wasn't just the last play of the game, it was the one that determined whether they would go home with their heads held high as triumphant winners, or with their tails between their legs as defeated losers.

Tony wasn't the biggest guy on their team by a long shot, but he was probably one of the sturdiest. Considering what they had planned, that was fortunate. Instead of fading back and trying to pass the ball to one of his runners like the Mustangs expected, Tony eased to his left. One of his running backs dashed in front of Tony and the quarterback faked handing the ball to him. Clutching the imaginary ball, the running back tried to get through the space between the mass of players and the left-hand sideline, but he was taken down by two of the opposing team's players.

The Mustangs who were paying attention knew that Tony still had the ball in his hands, and they all scrambled to bring him down and cement their victory. In all the commotion, nobody noticed Jason quietly walking to the right-hand side of the field with his hands on his hips, not even paying attention to his quarterback. His body language suggested that he'd already given up on the game, and was impatiently waiting for the clock to run down and the final buzzer to sound. The man guarding him took one look at Jason's attitude, dismissed him, and ran downfield to guard someone else.

Four of the defensive linemen from the Mustang team broke through the Trojan line at the same time. All of them ran straight for Tony, eager to drag him to the ground under a thousand-pound heap of muscle and hard plastic. They were so focused on sacking the quarterback that it never occurred to them that perhaps it had been a bit too easy to get past the Trojan lineman who, now that all of the Mustangs were behind them, immediately started jogging down the field.

A split second before he was buried under an avalanche of blue-shirted Mustangs, Tony tossed the ball over their heads to a lumpy halfback named Sam, who was a mere twenty feet away. There were four Mustang players between him and the end zone, and they all immediately ran at Sam with mayhem in their eyes.

Sam lumbered along the left side of the field towards the goal line with a great deal of enthusiasm but not a lot of speed, and the home team crowd collectively stifled a groan of disappointment. He didn't have a prayer of making that final touchdown that they needed to win, and everybody knew it. Sam might be able to evade a single one of the Mustangs, or maybe, on a good day, two. Never in his wildest dreams could he get past four of them. In fact, to the consternation of the crowd, he didn't even look like he was going to try to outmaneuver them, choosing instead to smash his way through the opposition like a bowling ball knocks over pins.

As soon the pass was complete and everyone's attention was fixed on Sam, Jason calmly started jogging towards the goal line, careful to stay a few yards behind Sam's progress on the other side of the field.

Just as the Mustang players reached him, Sam quickly chucked the ball slightly behind him to the right side of the field, towards a completely unguarded Jason Thomas. It wasn't the most picture-perfect backwards pass on record, but it got the job done. Jason accelerated, timing his run perfectly to intercept the ball before exploding towards the goal line.

The Trojan linebackers, now back in action, placed themselves in a defensive wall between the Mustangs and Jason, trying to form a corridor of safety for him to run through. One by one they sacrificed themselves to the Mustangs who chased them. They weren't fast, but they were big, and they did a good job of using their bodies to keep the defending players away from Jason as he ran towards the end zone faster than he had ever run before.

"Run, Jason, RUN!" Dox shouted excitedly, forgetting that he was supposed to be taking pictures as he ran down the sidelines as fast as he could, trying desperately to keep up with the action. Tomorrow he was going to be hoarse and sore, but tonight he wanted Jason to know he was rooting for him.

And Jason did hear him. Over all the people in the stands screaming madly at the top of their lungs, Jason was able to pick out Dox's voice, encouraging him to run just that much faster. He felt the hand of an opposing tackle grasp for his heel and almost stumbled, but managed to stay on his feet and run the last fifteen yards to cross the goal line with no breath left in his body at all. He collapsed flat on his back in the end zone, chest heaving, football raised in one victorious hand.

This was a moment that Jason would remember for the rest of his life. Not only had he just done what every young pup dreams of by scoring the game-winning touchdown, he had done it with his boyfriend standing right there, cheering him on! Jason yelped in surprise when his exuberant teammates lifted him up on their shoulders to carry him off the field as the game's most valuable player.

Wiggling his way past fifty other screaming fans, Dox crouched down on one knee to capture images of his victorious team as they jogged past him into the locker room, helmets in hand, all smiles after their victory. Through the viewfinder of his camera, he saw Jason in the middle of the pack, lifted up on the shoulders of his teammates.

Oh my God, what a shot!

As the pack of exuberant players who were holding Jason up paused not twenty feet away from him, Dox caught at least ten frames of the man he loved being honored by his teammates. He was so intent on capturing that moment that he didn't notice the single Trojan player jogging towards him from the edge of the pack.

With an evil laugh, Joey slammed his helmet into the front of Dox's lens as he jogged by, shattering it and driving the body of the camera into Dox's face. He didn't even look back as Dox collapsed against the building in confusion and pain.

Clutching his face in agony, Dox didn't see Jason frantically scramble down from his teammate's shoulders and run to him. "Are you okay?" he hollered when he was only halfway there, frantic with worry. "Did you see that?" he asked his teammates, "That fucker just smashed him in the face for no reason! God damn it!"

Jason knelt down next to Dox, gently taking the camera from his shaking hands. "I'm here, baby," he soothed, "I'm here. Are you okay?" Quickly looking around, he carefully handed the camera to Dick. "Here," he said, "keep this safe." Turning back to Dox, Jason gently pulled his hand away from his face. "Let me see."

The top of his camera had dug deeply into Dox's forehead, leaving an ugly gash that was streaming blood into his eyes. It looked horrible, but Jason had received enough head wounds in his life to know that they usually looked a hell of a lot worse than they actually were. "Don't worry, buddy," Jason said, soothingly, a hand on Dox's shoulder, "I know it hurts, but it's not as bad as it looks. You're gonna be okay."

Tony knelt on the other side of Dox and pressed a clean towel against his forehead, supporting the back of his head with the other hand. "You're gonna be okay," he said, echoing Jason's words. Although he couldn't really understand why Jason had fallen in love with another man, he had nothing against Dox, and he hated to see anyone treated the way Joey had treated him. And this little dog must have a lot of guts, to take a hit like that without making a sound. An injury like this must have hurt like hell, but he was enduring it as stoically as any member of the team could have.

"Dox, look at me," Jason said. Obediently, Dox looked up, and when he was convinced that clarity had returned to his lover's eyes, Jason told him, "Stay here with Tony."

He looked back and pointed at Dick as he stood up and walked towards the locker room door. "Don't let anyone touch that camera."

He had the door halfway open when an arm reached around him and slammed it shut. Spinning around, Jason had murder in his eyes for the person who was keeping him from getting even with Joey. To his surprise, the same players who had carried him on their shoulders just moments before now blocked his path, preventing him from making Joey pay for what he'd done to Dox. As unprepared as he was to face the five biggest men from his defensive line, he was determined that they would not stop him.

"MOVE!" he roared, veins popping out on his neck.

"We can't let you do that, Jason" their star nose tackle said, calmly.

"Why the fuck not?" Jason shouted into his face, "Who's going to stop me?" He was going to take them all on, if that was what was going to be necessary for him to get at Joey.

"You go in there," the big black mastiff to his left said, "you gonna kill dat bastad. You ain't never gonna play college ball, you fuck up yo chances like dat."

All five men formed a defensive circle around Jason, closing ranks until he couldn't see light between them. A deep brown pit bull spoke for them all. "Dude, you're the only one of us who's good enough to make it out of here, and we're not gonna let you fuck it up."

"Take care of yo man," the mastiff said quietly, "We'll take care of our own."

Jason stared into his eyes for a moment, then nodded and slapped the man's chest pads. He knew these guys, and he could rely on them to make it right. As emotional as he was, Jason's voice wobbled slightly, and he chose to say only, "I trust you."

He stood back and watched the five big men go into the locker room and shut the door behind them. A moment later, over the noise of the crowd milling around him, Jason's sensitive hearing picked up the crashing noise of a two hundred and fifty pound body repeatedly slamming into the metal locker banks. The defensive line was, indeed, maintaining the honor of their team. If anyone in the crowd thought it odd that the rest of the team wasn't running into the locker room like they usually did, they said nothing, probably assuming that the players weren't through celebrating their hard earned victory just yet.

"How are you doing?" Jason said, returning to his knees beside Dox.

"I'm okay," the small dog said. Putting a hand up to his forehead, he took the bloody towel from the quarterback's hands. "Thanks, Tony."

Listening carefully to the sounds coming from the locker room, Tony said, "Let's give them a minute to finish their business. Do you think you can stand?"

Dox nodded, and with the guys help, he managed to get to his feet. He was shaky, but with Jason propping him up on one side and Tony keeping the crowd back on the other, he managed to maintain his balance until the noise inside the locker room abated. "Come on," Jason said, gently pulling him toward the door.

"No, I'm okay," Dox said, hastily, trying to pull his arm from around Jason's shoulder. He almost ended up on the ground again, but once again, lightning fast and without being asked, Tony was there to help. Jason looked at Dox in surprise, and saw that his beautiful brown eyes were polluted with terror. He didn't let it spread to his face, but he didn't need to. His eyes alone told the entire story.

Jason stopped in his tracks and stood close to his boyfriend, not caring what anyone in the crowd might think. Damn them to hell if they didn't understand. "Look at me, babe," he told Dox, tenderly holding his head and stroking his cheeks with his thumbs, "look in my eyes." When Dox had calmed down enough for him to focus on Jason, the bigger dog continued. "I know you're not comfortable in there, babe, but Alex is going to help you."

"Come on, buddy," Tony said, putting a hand on Dox's back, encouraging him but not pushing. "You're safe with us. You know that, right?" He didn't know what Dox had gone through, but whatever it was must have been Hell, for him to be so freaked out. This wasn't any bullshit drama that Dox was pulling to get sympathy, Tony thought sadly, it was the sort of mindless terror that only comes from long and constant abuse, and seeing it wrenched at his heart.

Dox had looked over into Tony's eyes when the quarterback spoke, but his eyes instantly tracked back to Jason's. It was obvious who he trusted in this picture. In a flash of insight, Tony realized that Jason had not only soldiered on under the weight of his own burdens, but had somehow managed to become a source of trust and protection for Dox as well. He'd long considered Jason to be a good friend, but until this very moment, until he saw the loyalty and trust that Dox placed in his friend, he hadn't realized that somewhere along the line, Jason had also become a good man as well.

Dox looked into Jason's eyes for a moment before seeing something in them that gave him whatever confidence he needed to pull himself together. The small brown dog nodded his head, but the look in his eyes told Jason how much faith he was putting in the two players.

***

Dox almost collapsed when Jason told him that they were going into the locker room. One of the jocks had just slammed him in the face and probably ruined two thousand dollars worth of camera gear, and now they wanted him to go into the fucking locker room with them? No way in Hell was he going in there! He'd chop his own fingers off first. "No," he protested, "I'm okay!" I'll wait out here for them. Yes, that's it! I'll wait out here where it's safe!

Not realizing how wobbly his legs still were, he tried to pull his arm from around Jason's shoulder and almost collapsed as his legs buckled underneath him. Strong hands came out of nowhere to hold him up, and a far away part of Dox's mind was grateful to whoever they belonged to.

Stepping closer to him, almost nose to nose, Jason dominated his field of vision. From a distance he could hear his voice saying, "Look at me, babe", but the words were blown away on the winds of Dox's terror. The touch of Jason's hands, still wearing their football gloves, on his face brought Dox back to reality. "Look in my eyes," he said, gently compelling Dox to concentrate on him.

When he had calmed down enough to regain his focus, Jason told him that Alex was the person they needed to see right now, and intellectually, Dox knew that he was right. If he went to the emergency room, his mother would go into a panic, and she'd probably go right back to her aloof, overprotecting behavior again. If he chickened out now, they would all suffer for it.

He felt another hand rest gently on his back. "Come on, buddy," Tony encouraged, "you're safe with us. You know that, right?" His words warmed Dox inside, and he wanted so badly to believe him, but so many years of abuse had stolen his trust. Jason was the only one he could depend on. Looking over at his boyfriend, his protector, his hero, and seeing him nod calmly in agreement, Dox grabbed onto his screaming, groveling, drooling fear and shoved it into his mind's lockbox. With an effort that was almost physical, he slammed the lid and clamped it shut. Jason said it's going to be okay, he told himself, so it's going to be okay. He nodded his head in assent, and they started into the last place on Earth that Dox wanted to go.

For years, this had been a secret fantasy of his, to be in the football locker room after a big game, among the biggest, strongest guys in the school as they stripped off their muddy, sweaty gear and showered themselves. Now, at least a part of that the fantasy was going to come true, and he didn't give a rat's ass about it. He just wanted his head to stop hurting.

Jason was saying something in his ear, and Dox fought to concentrate on it. "Stand up straight," he said. "throw out your chest, just like you did in the bar. It's time to be strong."

Dox took a deep breath. He understood what Jason was telling him. 'Act like you belong here and you'll be okay'. Standing up straight, he took his arm from around Jason's shoulder, and allowed the other man to guide him into the noisy, humid, odd smelling cave that belonged to the jocks.

Dox was so involved in looking disinterested that he didn't notice the condition of the locker banks as they passed. Not that he would have known the difference since he'd never really been in that room before, but Jason and Tony did. The two shared a significant glance over Dox's head as they passed, both of them having noticed that several of the lockers weren't usable any longer now that they had huge dents in them, dents that were the size of Joey Halburten. Neither of them saw any blood, but there was far more fur floating around the room than was normal. Mentally, Jason stamped Joey's debt 'paid in full', and wondered where the guys had dumped their star tackle.

Jason rested his arm around Dox's shoulders possessively, guiding him through the crowded locker room to the training area. True to his word, Tony stuck to his other side like glue, a barrier between Dox and the pack of meatheads. Even through his disorientation and pain, Dox noticed that none of the jocks got near them, and he even heard several of them ask Jason if he was okay. That gave the little dog a shred of hope that he clung to. Wanting to believe the best in everyone, even those who'd hurt him, he held onto that hope, tucking it away into a safe place in case it might grow.

Alex was waiting for them. "Hop up here," he said, patting the padded examination table he stood next to. "Tommy told me what happened."

Taking great care and speaking in low tones, he took the bloody towel from Dox and held his paw in his hand with clinical detachment. "Get one of those sanitary wipes, Tony," he asked, putting the quarterback to good use. As agitated as he was, Jason wasn't going to be of any help. "Now, wipe his paw clean, please." While Tony did that, Alex examined the cut on Dox's forehead. He whistled through his teeth, then began a nearly constant string of doc-talk as he worked. "Okay," he started, "the bleeding's mostly stopped, and I'm sure they've told you that it's not as bad as it looks."

Digging in the cart next to him, Alex came back with an antiseptic swab and began cleaning the area around the gash in Dox's head. "That's the thing about these guys," he continued distractedly, "they tell each other that it's not that bad, and then they convince themselves that they don't need medical attention." Taking an exam light and a pair of tweezers, he efficiently pulled a few loose hairs out of the wound before backing up a step so he could talk to Dox's eyes instead of his forehead. "The cut on your forehead isn't so deep that it'll need stitches, but if you leave it alone it's going to make a nasty scar. If we use surgical glue on it, it'll almost disappear." He looked at Dox expectantly.

"Glue."

"Okay," Alex replied. "First we've got to get the area absolutely clean so the glue will bond, and that's going to require the use of this primer agent. The bad part is, it stings like hell. But only for a few seconds, and after that you won't feel a thing in that area for the next hour or so."

Dox was thankful for the warning. Without it, he probably would have jumped out of his skin when Alex put the primer liquid on. It felt like liquid fire for about thirty seconds before dulling to a slow throb, and Dox couldn't help the grimace that came over his face. Seeing him in pain caused Jason to growl dangerously, but he ceased when Dox's face smoothed out. Jason felt a little silly for his reaction. Alex was only trying to help after all, but seeing his partner hurt over and over... how much was he supposed to take?

Blowing air on the cut to dry the last traces of the primer, Alex continued his work as if Jason had never made a sound. "That looks good," he said, examining the wound one more time with his flashlight before snipping the top off a single-use medical glue packet. Dox could see Alex's hands busily working, and could sense that he was putting pressure on the sides of the gash to close them, but the skin around the cut felt nothing.

After ten seconds of hard pressure, Alex took one last look and started cleaning his area. "There you go," he said, "Good as new. Don't touch it for about ten minutes," he advised, "but after that you should be able to brush your hair right over it." Nobody will know the difference."

"Thanks, Alex," Dox said, shaking the man's hand. "I appreciate this more than you know."

"It's nothing, dude. Stay safe." At that, Alex turned his attention to the line of taped knees and ankles that needed to be unwrapped, and Dox ceased to exist for him.

Sighing tiredly, Dox looked at Jason, who looked right back at him without comprehension. Quirking an eyebrow at him, Dox asked, "Which way out?"

"Oh, shit, yeah..." Jason said, stumbling over himself, "I'm sorry. I forgot. This is the first time you've been in here."

"Except for the one time I was dumped into a laundry hamper a couple of years ago," Dox admitted, "but that probably doesn't count."

"Come on," Jason said, leading the way.

"I'm right behind," Tony assured him, closing ranks behind Dox.

As they passed through the main locker room, Dox heard the meatheads clapping their hands together for Jason's accomplishment. They applauded long and loud, with hoots and hollers commensurate with his achievement. And then, something bizarre happened. Jason stopped as if to accept their accolades, but instead of raising his arms in triumph, he slowly turned around to face Dox, clapping his hands along with his teammates. Dox turned to look, and sure enough, those who clapped were looking straight at him. It wasn't as if he'd scored the winning touchdown or anything. All he'd done was get a camera slammed into his face. But still, their applause made him feel better inside.

Blushing furiously, he smiled weakly at them in thanks and turned back to Jason. Taking a step forward to close the distance between them, he grabbed arm of his beloved number 88 and lifted it as high as he could above his head, moving the spotlight of their attention back where it belonged - to his hero.

Not knowing what had happened to Joey, Jason walked Dox to the photography lab and watched as he locked the doors to the building behind him. "Now slide the key under the door to me," he said, voice raised to go through the glass. "If you pass out or something, I've got be able to get to you."

Dox did as he was asked, and watched Jason jog back to the athletic building to strip off his gear and get cleaned up. Before Jason turned the corner, he looked back one last time and, seeing Dox still standing at the door watching him, gave a final wave. Dox put a hand up on the glass, missing him already. It wouldn't be long before he saw him again, but that didn't stop his heart from aching whenever they parted company.

Turning away from the cold glass and aluminum of the door, Dox walked deeper into the dark building to the photography lab. Before the advent of digital photography the room had been used to process film and photo paper, and was equipped with plenty of sinks and water spigots. Dox took off his bloody shirt and, with a handful of liquid soap from the hand washing station, ran it under warm water until it was mostly clean. It wasn't one of his best shirts, and since he'd gotten rid of his old clothes a month ago, if he threw it out, he doubted that his mother would even notice that it was missing. But in the meantime he needed something to wear tonight, so he wrung the excess water out as well as he could and hung his shirt in the old film-drying cabinet.

Sweat and blood still clotted a good portion of his face and chest fur, and that was something that he needed a mirror to remedy. He put a hand on the door to the men's room before considering his options. The girl's bathrooms had larger mirrors and smelled a hell of a lot better, so, shrugging to himself, he used one of those to clean up in instead. But in spite of not smelling as foul, using paper towels to dry wet fur worked no better in the ladies room than it did in the men's. But this wasn't the Ritz Carlton, he told himself, and he made do with what he had available to him.

By the time he was finished, he thought he looked halfway presentable. With a shot of deodorant from Jason's bag, he might just make his favorite running back an acceptable date. Busying himself with a magazine, Dox killed time until Jason returned.

The dance was going to be held in the school's gymnasium, just a short walk from the Science building where Dox waited, so there was no way they could really be late. Until that asshole Joey clobbered him, he'd been having the best day of his life, Dox thought, flipping through the pages without seeing them.

Realizing that he wasn't really looking at it anyway, Dox flipped the magazine closed and thought about the situation for a moment. No matter what Joey had done to him, it could never undo Jason's triumph. No matter how much of an ass-wipe Joey had been, it couldn't erase the fact that Dox was going to the dance on the arm of the most desirable man on campus. . No matter how much pain he'd just been through, it could never take away the feeling of having half the football team support him when he was down. And Dox would not, he decided, give a douchebag like Joey the power to ruin his otherwise perfect day!

That decided, Dox got up and pulled his mostly-dry shirt out of the film drying cabinet and shook most of the wrinkles out of it. There was an old laminating press in the back cabinet, Dox remembered, and he used it to press his the remaining wrinkles out of his shirt. "Damn, I'm good," he said to himself, admiring the result. Putting his shirt back on and looking at his reflection in the small mirror above the sink, he couldn't help but think that he looked pretty damned good for someone who'd gotten cold-cocked just an hour earlier. "So take that, Joey!" he told himself.

His phone began vibrating and dancing all over the countertop, playing Jason's distinctive ringtone. "Hey!" Dox greeted him, once again his cheerful self.

"Hey yourself!" Jason said back, his own spirits buoyed by Dox's chipper voice. "Why do you sound so happy? Aren't you half dead?"

"Nope!" Dox said, "I'm not going to let something like that ruin a perfectly good day."

"That's the spirit!" Jason said, intensely proud of Dox for his resilient personality. "Hey, do you need a shirt? I've got an extra one in my bag."

"I think I've got it covered," Dox said, "but go ahead and bring it in and we'll see."

"You still in the photo room?" Jason asked.

"Yup," Dox answered, "Hey, did you get my camera back from Dick?"

"I sure did," Jason said, "When I got back to the locker room, he hadn't moved an inch. He was still sitting there where we left him, holding your camera in his lap. The guys said he was growling at anyone who got too near it!" Dox heard Jason's voice coming from two directions now, and he closed his phone and ran to meet him at the door of the photo lab. Wrapping his arms around him, Dox greeted Jason like he hadn't seen him in days. Jason didn't mind, though. He'd missed his puppy just as much.

After a moment, Jason backed up a bit and unslung Dox's camera from his shoulder. "Here you go, pup. Believe it or not, I think it's okay. I think it was just the filter on the front that got smashed. The rest of it looks okay. I took it off and shot a few frames on the way over here, and they seem to have turned out okay."

"Oh, yuck," Dox said, pulling a bloody chunk of his fur and skin out from beneath the flash mount on the top of the camera. He flicked the clump away and hit the 'review' button on the back of the camera, carefully examining the pictures Jason had taken. He didn't want to say anything that might dispel Jason's good mood, but his lens wasn't as "okay" as he thought. After having it as an extension of his arm for over a year now, Dox knew exactly what his camera should feel like in his hand, and something was off. Although it was definitely looser than it had been before it got bashed, it didn't seem to have any trouble focusing, so the body of the camera was probably okay. Since lenses cost about a quarter what a new body did, Dox was happy to take that deal. The pictures Jason had taken seemed to be good, and as he flipped through them, his anxiety decreased considerably. Then something caught his eye - one frame in the group stood out from the rest. "Do we have a second, babe?" he asked.

"Sure, but not too long, if you don't mind." Jason said. "I hear they have a buffet dinner set up!"

"You and your stomach," Dox said, opening his photo drawer and tossing Jason a PowerBar. Pulling out his computer, he downloaded the pictures he'd taken that day while Jason stood by and watched, happily munching his energy bar.

Once on a larger screen, Jason immediately saw what had captured Dox's attention. Sandwiched between pictures of Jason's triumphant exit from the playing field and his test shots a few seconds ago was an image of Joey, clear as a bell, face contorted as he grimaced with the effort of slamming his helmet into Dox's face.

"That one shot can take him out of our lives forever," Jason said, awestruck at the gift they'd just been given by the God of luck. They both knew that picture was all the evidence they needed to not only remove Joey from the team permanently for unsportsmanlike conduct, but to get him expelled from school for the rest of the year for assault with a weapon.

"Maybe," Dox said, chewing on his lower lip the way he often did when he was deep in thought. "But if he's not spending his time at school, he's got that much more free time on his hands to be an asshole while we're stuck in here and can't do anything about it."

"Huh," Jason said, running his thick fingers through his hair, still damp from his shower. "I guess you're right. I didn't think about that."

"That's why you're the pretty one." Dox said, leaning over to kiss Jason on the cheek.

"Bite me," Jason said, but he was smiling. "So what do we do?"

Dox looked thoughtful. "Let me sleep on it, but I think I have a strategy for making things better for everyone. But in the meantime," he said, looking up expectantly at Jason, "I believe we have a dance to attend!"

***