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Bo took a seat at the end of the bar, watching quietly as his friend Sam did what he did best. The huge gorilla served drinks, attitude, and much-needed advice in the precise proportion to control his crowd. He knew which of his patrons needed their drinks watered down a bit to keep them in line and which of them were better off being a little tipsy.

The crowd that gathered in Sam's place wasn't usually a rough one, but it was definitely blue collar. In anyone else's tavern it could easily have degenerated into a brawl at any time, but Sam kept a tight reign on his little empire.

The door opened, and a furtive couple entered cautiously. It wasn't the first time such a couple had come into his bar. Obviously not locals, they had only just sat down before beginning to look nervous. Several years ago, one of his idiot sons had gotten it into his head that Sam needed to do some aggressive marketing. As a result, Sam's Place had appeared in a dozen different travel guides, from New Bride to the ill-named Country Squire, when it should realistically have only appeared in "Biker's World." Anyone planning their road trip using an old version of those guides might walk through Sam's front door expecting to find "a delightful and welcoming family atmosphere," only to dance their way around bar fights until they realized how errant the information was and ran out the door.

With a flourish, Sam waved his most conventional-looking waitress over and sent her out to the couple with an inexpensive bottle of champagne, hoping it would get there before someone fell across their table and ran them off. He watched her deliver the iced bucket, and saw the grateful looks that warmed their faces. The barkeep smiled back and gave them a little wave before returning his attention to the glass stein he was polishing. "Now they'll feel like jerks if they don't order something. And they'll probably leave Kitten a nice tip, too "

Bo had done office work for Sam from time to time, and he knew how low the profit margin was on his food. He had a pretty good idea what that bottle of champagne had cost, and no matter how many appetizers the couple ordered, Bo knew that Sam wasn't going to come out of this deal any richer. Sam wasn't ignorant of basic economic theory, he simply couldn't resist doing a good turn for someone. Whether his kindness would ever be repaid didn't enter into his decision.

His pleasant demeanor took a turn for the worse when a scraggly-looking varius wended his way through the crowd toward a small group of the bar's less reputable patrons, ducking low in an attempt to stay out of his sight. "Hey!" Sam shouted across the bar, the power of his voice almost blasting the man directly across from him off his barstool. "Get that shit out of here!"

Bo turned in the direction Sam was looking, and saw the man stuff a small plastic bag into an inside pocket of his tired leather jacket. Sam's voice alone was enough to put the fear of God in any rational person whether varius or sapiens, and the man all but ran out the front door. "Damned punks," Sam muttered, picking up another glass mug to dry.

"You want me to go talk to him?" Bo offered, not really wanting to give up his comfortable chair, but knowing that if someone didn't do something the problem would only get worse.

"Naw," Sam snorted, attacking the mug he was polishing with unusual vigor, "let it go." The tone of his voice was unconvincing. "With all the crankheads out there, it's better to not make a stink." The big man finished drying the mug and picked up another one without taking his eye from the front door. Thirty years of maintaining a scrupulously clean bar had made the motions instinctive. He didn't need his eyes to see what he was doing.

"As long as they keep it out of here, they can do what they want." From the instant the words left his lips, he knew it was a lie. It wasn't all right. Letting something like this go was as good as putting his stamp of approval on it, and that was something he could not bring himself to do. He wasn't about to manage anyone else's life, but he'd seen far too many of his patrons, and more than one of his friends, get chewed up in the maw of the brutally addictive synthetic narcotics littering their streets. Sam cast a glance at Bo from under thick, ridged brows and saw nothing but gentle understanding in his friend's eyes.

Sam felt disgust roll over him in a wave, and he quickly averted his gaze. His refusal to take action would make him an accomplice to that which he despised, and he'd turn into one of those people who refused to take responsibility for their sorry situation after they themselves had let it develop.

Even less tolerable was the fact that Bo, a man so close to him that he was practically a member of his family, would know of his weakness. Although Bo would never judge his friend harshly, indeed he would most likely never say a thing, he would still have no choice but to hold him accountable for his actions. Sam knew then that he'd have a hard time looking himself in the mirror if he couldn't make the hard choices his situation demanded.

With a tired sigh, Sam set down the heavy mug he'd been holding and reached under the bar for the meter-long hickory bat that hung there for crowd control. Pulling it loose from its holder, he muscled his way around the bar and headed for the front door. Bo watched his friend walk out of the bar, wishing he could do something to help but knowing that anything he did would worsen the situation. He sat silently, pulling long draws from his beer every minute or so and trusting in his friend's judgement.

Within five minutes Sam came back through the door, resuming his station behind the bar without a word. Bo knew better than to ask for salacious details, but since Sam had walked back through the door and the pusher didn't, he didn't really have to. He watched as Sam silently wiped the bat off with a cloth soaked in bleach water, dried it and hung it back in its holder. The white rag, Bo noticed, came away tinged with red. He knew Sam well enough to know that despite his massive strength and fearsome appearance, despite having only done what needed to be done, the barman would not sleep well tonight.

Bo left the bar sometime after midnight, and on his way through the parking lot he walked past the remains of what had to be the young drug dealer's car. Even given Sam's sketchy background, Bo was surprised at how much damage one motivated varius could do with nothing but a wooden stick. If there was a piece of glass in the car that wasn't broken or a body panel that didn't have a huge dent, Bo couldn't see it. In less than five minutes, Sam had reduced the car from an expensive imported sedan to a worthless jumble of bent and broken parts.

Glancing inside, Bo noticed that the seats had been ripped out, the instruments smashed, and the interior splattered with... better not to know, he thought, finding somewhere else to look. He pulled out his communicator and called the local police station to report the abandoned car. By the morning all evidence would be removed to the police impound yard, and despite the questionable bodily fluids on the interior, no evidence of wrongdoing would ever be found. There would be no questions asked of either him or Sam, not officially, at least. Both men were well known to every policeman on the beat, and were widely acknowledged as the good guys. Bo had even gotten out of a well-deserved ticket every now and then. Being known as a two-hundred kilo goody-two-shoes had its advantages.

***

Dan picked up a half-dozen empty beer bottles and tossed them in the processor. Dinner had turned out excellent, entertainment on the vid that evening had been surprisingly good, and he was looking forward to a fun-filled evening in the sack with his partner. All in all, he thought, it was a pretty darned good way to end a Saturday.

As he was making a final trip through the kitchen turning off lights, a scrap of paper on the table caught his eye. Curious, he uncrumpled it and was surprised to see that it was a lottery ticket. He'd never played, figuring that the lottery was financed by people who weren't smart enough to understand how miniscule the chances of winning really were. He hadn't figured Bo for the type to play, either.

Dan walked back into the living room and handed Bo the ticket. "So are you going to make us rich?" he asked.

A second after Bo took the ticket from him, a look of recognition passed over his face. "Hey, I'd forgotten all about that! I was feeling lucky, so I wasted a credit last week." He took the ticket and examined it closely. "It says the drawing's tonight."

"Yeah, they do it after the evening news," Dan replied, stifling a yawn. "Do you want to stay up and watch?"

Bo considered his options, then leaned over and pulled the remote control out of Dan's fingers. "Nope," he said decisively, pushing the buttons that put their entertainment system to sleep. "I've got other plans. I'll read about it in the news tomorrow." He pulled Dan to him and affectionately nuzzled his ear with his blunt nosepad. "We can be poor for one more night, can't we?"

"Yup. C'mon, Joy. Let's go outside," Dan called to the adolescent, mixed-breed dog that they'd adopted a few months back. When Bo had gotten up from the couch she had rolled into the warm depression he'd left in the cushions. Turning her lazy gaze to Dan, she delivered a jaw-cracking yawn, then collapsed back into her sleepy stupor.

"Sorry, kid," he apologized, as he pulled her boneless body off the couch and made her stand upright on her own four legs. "You know you gotta do this."

She yawned again, shook her fur into place, and gazed up at Bo with an obvious look: Daddy, do I have to?

"Go on, kid," he encouraged, sending her trotting off behind Dan to empty her bladder outside.

"Does she have to get your permission before she does anything I tell her?" Dan asked, indignantly. "I'm daddy, too!"

"Mmmm," Bo hummed, noncommittally. "That takes care of the dog. Where's the cat?" he referred to their temporary roommate, Kensuke. The lion had come to Central City expecting to find a great job waiting for him, but his new position had been temporarily blocked. He'd filled the time between jobs by working at Magnum Metals alongside Bo and Dan. The three men had become fast friends, and within a few months Ken had been invited into their Circle.

Without the high-paying job he'd been expecting, Ken had been forced to cut corners. He'd moved out of his expensive apartment and into Dan's house, where he was trying his best to stay out from under their feet. Still, living in a modestly-sized house with two full-sized varii, three when Ken was joined by his oversized bovine boyfriend Jack, was sure to cause occasional friction.

"Out celebrating Ken's new job," Dan reported.

"Eating, again?" Bo asked, "Or was it a movie this time?" They'd all celebrated together, as was appropriate, when Ken first learned that his new, high-paying job was online again. The thought of trading in the dirty industrial manufacturing plant for the clean, comfortable environs of a biomechanical research lab was one of which Ken was quite fond. He enjoyed celebrating, and had done it far more than the stodgy canine varius considered appropriate. One night was enough for Bo; for Ken, the sky was the limit! It was quite possible that he'd be turning the town on its ear for the next two weeks after he actually started the new job.

"I think they went dancing," Dan snuggled up to his partner, suggestively. "They should be home late, so it looks like we'll have the house to ourselves for a few more hours."

***

The next morning Bo shuffled out of the bedroom looking decidedly content, if a little ragged around the ears. He'd had his share of sex partners in his life, but Dan was by far the most energetic of the lot. In his community it had always been assumed that trans-species sex would be rather lackluster, and that great care would be necessary to keep from breaking one's partner. Perhaps it was only because he was another sturdily built male, but Dan had proven quite able to keep up with Bo in everything the canine desired.

At this point, Dan's versatility was being displayed in the kitchen. Aromas of coffee and frying bacon had wafted up to the bedroom to awaken him, and now he enjoyed the smells of pancakes and hot syrup as well. On his way through the living room Bo opened the back door long enough to allow a shivering Joy to scamper inside, where she nipped at his furry toes with obvious delight.

From the far end of the house, Bo could hear the throbbing rumblings of Jack's bovine snoring originating from behind Ken's bedroom door. The two celebrants had gotten home late enough that neither one of them had been overly interested in having sex, a fact for which Bo, with his super-human hearing, was eternally grateful. Even the standard modesty filters built into Dan's house had trouble coping with the rutting howls of two adult varii, and Bo disliked being forced to take part in their nocturnal activities, even if it was only aurally.

"So are we billionaires?" he asked his mate, as he turned the corner into the kitchen, in a voice a half-octave lower than his normal baritone. He startled Dan, who was in the process of flipping a pancake on the griddle. Fortunately, he caught the tumbling flapjack just before it hit the burner. Dan grinned at his luck and tossed Bo the remote control.

The black-furred morph settled onto a barstool and began pushing buttons. The side wall of the kitchen disappeared, replaced by a screen showing a very large sapiens man wearing chef's coat and toque sautéeing something vile-looking in a pan. Bo grunted and thumbed the remote. "Why does he always have to leave it on a cooking channel?"

"What do you have against cooking shows?"

"Nothing," Bo answered back, huffily. "I just want the vid to be where I left it." His grumbling stopped once he settled on a local news feed that displayed topical content. Scrolling through the information, he found what he was looking for and compared the numbers on his ticket to those on the screen. After a few seconds, he grunted and levered himself off the chair and walked over behind his mate. Wrapping his huge arms around Dan, he whispered, "Hate to break it to you, buddy, but we're still poor."

Dan turned in his arms and put his arms around Bo's torso, not quite able to touch his fingers together behind the huge morph's back. "Wrong answer." He stared lovingly into Bo's fathomless brown eyes. "I'm the richest man in the world." He kissed Bo on the nose then turned back to his pancakes. "We eat in five."

Making conversation, Dan asked, "So how far off were we?"

Bo walked over to the recycler and tossed in the crumpled scrap of paper. "Actually I didn't do too bad! I wasn't too far off." He yawned mightily, his outstretched arms nearly scraping the nine foot ceiling.

"How far off is 'not too far off?'" Dan asked. His curious tone stopped Bo in mid-yawn.

"Six out of eight, I think. Not too bad for my very first try!" He walked back over to the counter and sat down again, picking up the vid remote to tune in the old-fashioned 2D cartoons that he enjoyed.

"Wait a minute," Dan said, walking quickly over to the disposal unit. He opened it up, and the ticket was lying where Bo had tossed it. For once, he was grateful that his mate had neglected to push the "Process" button when he closed the machine. "Go back to the lottery numbers."

Bo did as he was told, and Dan compared what was printed on the ticket with what was on the screen. "Here, " he said, pointing at the screen. "Put your numbers in here and it'll tell you if you've won any of the secondary prizes. With six correct numbers, you should have won something."

Bo entered the eight two-digit numbers, then leaned forward slightly in unconscious anticipation. He leaned back with a disappointed whoof of air when he saw what his prize was. "What the hell am I going to do with a golf bag?"

"It's not a golf bag," Dan said, scrolling the screen to the right. "That was last week's prize. Last night's is over on this side."

"A cruise?" Bo said, wrinkling his nose. "Who wants to..." When he felt Dan's excitement through their link, his tune immediately changed. "Sounds lovely!"

"It's not just a cruise, doofus," Dan said, cajoling his partner. "It's that spaceliner I've been reading about."

Bo's ears perked up. A cruise on the water sounded like a waste of a week's worth of vacation time, but in space? That was cool! As interested as he suddenly was, he could tell that Dan had something else on on his mind that interested him more.

"You know." Dan started, hesitantly, "a lot of people go on a cruise when they get married."

"Huh." Bo grunted, unimpressed.

"I've been thinking that maybe we could do that too. You know, after we got married. If we ever did." he trailed off, suddenly feeling silly. Their bond was a hundred times more important than a silly marriage contract. Why on earth should it matter whether or not they were married by law in front of their friends and family?

"That's silly!" Bo barked a laugh, further eroding Dan's confidence in the idea. "Why would we want to go on a cruise when we're already going on this one?"

Dan studied the pancake on the griddle in front of him, wondering if it were too late to rearrange the chocolate chip smiley face into a frown. It disappointed him that Bo had so totally missed the point.

He shot a glance at Bo, expecting him to be wrapped up in watching the vid screen. Instead he found his mate staring at him with the smug, self-satisfied look he often adopted after he'd just pulled the wool over someone's eyes. Again Dan looked at the pancake, this time wondering whether he should serve it to the varius or throw it at him.

Bo got up and walked over to Dan, wrapping his arms around his partner in the warmest, most gently fierce hug imaginable. Before being welcomed into Dan's life, he'd never given much thought to marriage. It just didn't seem like the sort of thing he'd ever do. But now that he'd found his special someone, it finally seemed like a possibility. Opening himself to his bondmate's emotions, he felt the depth of love and commitment the man had for him.

"Dan," Bo asked, as he smoothed the rumpled hair on the sapiens man's head, "will you marry me?"