Big Best Friend

“Nyuh!” Andy squealed, frustration rising in his young voice. “Ngguhh!”

The boy stretched his hands all the way above his head, reaching for the door’s brass handle, but his little finger pads just barely grazed the shiny metal. As much as he loved being here, Ben’s house was one of those built for taller and larger furs. It suited the tall hare perfectly fine, but wasn’t designed for smaller otters like Andy, and was sometimes difficult for the eight year old to navigate without help.

Annoyance welled inside his little body, spurring his hands to curl into fists, his jaw to tighten, and his soft face to frown, until that feeling bubbled out of him and he grumbled, “Dang!”

He would have asked his big best friend to help him go outside to the backyard, but Ben was off doing something upstairs, and Andy had learnt it was… not a good idea to interrupt Ben when the hare was busy in another room. 

The child had seen some things that still made him feel a little weird in his tummy after walking in on the hare like that. Like that time when he’d walked in on Ben–

No, no. He wasn’t gonna think about that. He didn’t like to think about that. Or those other things.

The boy winced. His tummy did a little spin.

Those things, those times… they were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that didn’t fit the picture of his friend that he knew and loved. It was kind of like he was making a picture, but those pieces were glitchy pieces that didn’t fit anywhere, like pieces of an entirely different Ben-picture had somehow gotten messed up with the real Ben-picture. It was better to ignore them, not think about them, else they might leak corrupting black ink onto the true, real, happy, friendly, nice, kind, safe picture.

It was probably better to be safe than feel sick in this case. He left Ben alone.

There was another alternative, but it was equally unappealing. While Andy was on a simple quest to leave the house and play in Ben’s backyard for a little while, his older brother was already outside and could easily open the door for him if Andy called out to him for help.

But that was the problem. Asking Owen for help. Asking Owen for anything.

Andy had been happy when he heard his older brother was returning from adult-school and going to be living with them again. Before Owen got home, Andy made a big list of all the games he wanted to play and all the shows he wanted to watch with his sibling. 

They were yet to tick a single thing off that list. The otter who came home was not what Andy had hoped for. He was someone different, but he was different in a way that invoked memories the cub had stuffed away and tried to forget. And he had tried to forget those memories of who Owen really was for a reason. 

They made him feel bad in the tummy.

Andy sometimes felt frustrated that he couldn’t understand things. He didn’t know if it was because of that eighty-hatey brain thing the doctor said he had and he had to take medicine for, or because he was younger than the adults around him who knew how the world worked… but he didn’t know why wanting to do anything with his big brother always made him feel… bad inside.

When he tried to, those things always just went… wrong. They went really, really wrong. It happened even with simple things, like that time when Andy asked his big bro to get his juice box down from the bench for him, and Owen stared at him for a while, and then picked up the juice box, and placed it on a high shelf, and didn’t say anything, and left.

What was Andy doing wrong?

And no one could help him figure it out either. He tried to tell his mummy and daddy about these things that his older brother did and said, but they brushed it off like he was talking about something crazy or impossible, and that made him feel even angrier. They said Owen isn’t like that. Owen is sweet. Owen is kind and gentle. Owen wouldn’t do that kind of thing. But he saw a side to the older otter that no one else did. Nobody. 

It was like in some of the cartoons he watched, when the kids could see the baddie but the adults didn’t believe them.

He didn’t think Owen was a baddie… but he could certainly be a meanie.

Andy stretched upwards again, standing on the tips of his toes and grasping at the air with small hands, but his desire to close the gap did nothing to magically grow his height, and his pudgy fingers closed around nothing above him except disappointment. “Dang it!” he huffed.

He dragged a dining chair across the floor, its legs echoing his frustration as they groaned along the floorboards every inch of the distance. He planted it against the door, and climbed up onto the seat so he could open the door. With a grin he turned the handle and tugged the door towards him. Of course, he almost tumbled off the chair he was standing on when the door thudded against it and he jerked backwards, but he held onto the handle. A success was still a success.

Then he was outside in the cool morning air, hands on his hips, a wide smile on his face, standing triumphant in nothing but his tight red briefs.

In front of him was Ben’s backyard, bathed in the orangey glow of the morning sun, grass glistening with dewy drops from a rainy night. There was a small swing set and slide erect on the grass – something Ben had installed only last year as a present for his little friend to make it even nicer for him to visit. Glancing at it sparked happy memories of Ben pushing him on the swing for as long as Andy wanted, endlessly catching him on the backswing with firm helping hands against the boy’s butt even when the otter insisted he could maintain the momentum by himself. The bun was so silly in the way he tried to be helpful sometimes. 

The small otter plodded down wooden stairs from the house with heavy footsteps, having some difficulty navigating the gap between each step with his short and pudgy legs. Eventually, he reached the raised porch between the house and the grass. It was on this porch that Andy found his older brother. Owen sat with his legs over the edge, his back to the cub, wearing his purple hoodie which recently seemed tighter.

Andy had a feeling in his chest and belly that was hard to describe as he walked up alongside the other otter. His heart felt kind of tingly and happy because he wanted to do stuff with his brother and get along with him and maybe play on the swings with him, and because he hoped that maybe this time things would randomly be different and they’d be able to do that together. When he had no idea why things went wrong between them, that made as much sense to his mind. 

But at the same time, his gut felt a little sad, because it knew how things had gone in the past, again and again, in instances he could remember as well as those he couldn’t.

The boy smiled, hoping that in some way it might also make his brother happy if he looked happy. It didn’t matter, since Owen didn’t turn to look at him.

“G’morning”, Andy said quietly beside Owen. Standing, the cub was about the same height as the sitting adult otter.

Owen glanced over his shoulder at the house, and muttered under his breath, “I thought I locked that”.

Andy gently prodded his brother’s purple-clad arm. “Whatcha doin?”

Owen let out a very long sigh and shook his head slightly. “Trying to have some peace and quiet”.

The cub studied his brother’s face from the side with curiosity, wanting to understand him. “Why?”

“Because I need as much as I can get these days”. He sounded a little sad, and that made Andy want to cheer him up. The boy smiled wider, hoping that would work. Owen still didn’t look at him.

“Why?” 

“Because I don’t feel very peaceful or quiet”.

“Why?”

This time, Owen didn’t reply. He stared ahead under sluggish eyelids, his lips parting just slightly enough to show his closed teeth.

“Why don’tcha feel quiet or peaceful?” Andy prompted, giving his brother’s arm a little shove, just to get his attention.

The only response from the older otter was a stifled groan.

“Owen? Why?” the boy said again.

For some reason, Owen acted like he had turned into a statue, not making a sound, staring ahead, not moving.

“Why aren’tcha moving?” Andy asked, prodding him again.

He got no response.

Andy decided to wait with him. He dropped his little body beside his big brother’s, close enough that their legs were touching and he could share some of the warmth from his brother’s body against his own exposed skin. He started swinging his feet back and forth over the edge of the porch. They weren’t long enough to rest on the ground like Owen’s were. The misty green blades lightly tickled his paw pads and left cool streaks of wetness on his skin. He started giggling to himself at the sensation.

Next to him, Owen sighed. The long-haired otter brought something to his mouth and inhaled deeply. Andy watched with interest, noticing that it was a small white and orange stick-like thing, with a trail of smoke leading from the end after the adult stopped breathing through it.

“What’s that?” he asked.

Owen exhaled and smoke poured out of his pierced lips, rising vertically into the still and calm morning air. “None of your business”.

Andy caught a whiff of the scent and wrinkled his nose at the smell. “Is that a cigar?” He’d seen a fat businessman holding one in a cartoon. He knew they smelt bad, because the cartoons always made a big deal about them being gross things that made you cough really bad.

“It’s not a cigar, it’s a cigarette”, the older otter replied in a tired voice.

“What’s a cigarex?”

“Cigarette”.

“What’s that?” Andy asked.

Owen rolled his eyes. “How the hell do you not know what a cigarette is?”

“I dunno. What is it?”

Owen didn’t reply.

“It smells bad”, Andy said.

Owen didn’t reply.

“Why are you breathing it in?”

The big brother’s reaction in that moment was confusing. His stillness and silence suddenly broke. For half a second he smiled, and laughed. Then as his body shifted, he inhaled sharply with what sounded kind of like pain, and he clutched loosely at his belly. Then his face morphed into something sad and lost, and he sniffled, and then he wiped that expression away, rubbing a hand over his face as he complained with a desperate tone, “Andy”.

“Yeah?”

“Are you trying to be annoying, or is it just who you are – an annoying little brat?”

The hopeful optimism in the child’s heart was vanquished in that instant, smothered by the wave of sadness washing over it from his unsurprised gut. Andy’s posture sank. But then the anger hit him and forced his body upright again. What had he done now? This always happened! He wanted to understand his big brother and it all went wrong and he didn’t know why! He hadn’t even done anything! “I just got here!”

“And somehow you’ve already exhausted me with how annoying you are”.

Andy frowned and crossed his arms, complaining, “I’m not annoying!”

“Yes, actually, you really are”, Owen said with a superior tone.

“I’m not! I’m not annoying!”

“You–”

“I’m not annoying! I’m not!”

The big otter dragged his tongue over his top lip in a slow and bitter and pondering way. He inhaled from the orangey-stick thing, and then turned to face the boy. The look on his face was unnerving enough for a second that Andy flinched, bracing for a face-full of stinky smoke.

After a brief pause, the older otter opened the side of his lips and breathed it out sideways. 

“Forget it. Whatever”, Owen said.

Andy inhaled deeply and exhaled heavily too, letting out his anger like smoke. “I just–I was… I was just wondering, that’s all”, he sulked. “I just wanna understand but I can’t and–and I wanna do things with you and know things so I ask questions and I”, he ran out of breath and paused to inhale, “don’t know why you get angry when I do that but that makes me get angry and then everything gets messed up”, he paused to breathe in, “and that makes me really sad because I don’t know what’s going on and I can’t figure it out and y-you don’t tell me and I don’t know why so I’m sad!”

Somewhat foolishly, he still hoped that Owen might take the opportunity to comfort him after Andy expressed how he was feeling. All he got was silence. This time, the cub sat there in silence with him. 

Unfortunately, the silence and stillness quickly became unbearable for the hyperactive boy, and he started swinging his legs over the edge again and humming something soothing to himself. He would have left, but… it didn’t feel right. He still wanted to be here with Owen and keep him company.

After a while, the cub found the packet of smokey stick things resting on the porch, and picked it up. “Can I have one?”

Owen snatched it out of his little hands roughly and placed it on the other side of his chunky body. “No”.

“Why?”

“I said so”.

“But why?”

“Because they’re bad for you!” Owen groaned.

“Then why are doing it?”

“Because, Andy, sometimes I do things that are bad for me!” Owen yelled. His volume was increasing.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t care that they’re bad for me!” 

“Why not?”

Owen suddenly twisted around on the spot, quickly enough to make Andy jump, and he looked down at the kid with a bitter expression. “Because I–” And then the older otter paused. His lips twitched angrily, mouthing words but not speaking them, until he gave up. “Grrrrr!” The big otter flopped forward, his long blond fringe flopping against his muzzle and obscuring his expression. When he spoke again, all the anger that had been surging through his tone a moment ago had evaporated, and he sounded defeated. “Nevermind”, Owen said. He placed a hand over his face, closed his eyes, and rubbed his thumb and forefinger over his eyelids.

Andy kneaded one hand with the other. “Sorry”, he said quietly.

Owen laughed to himself. “Why are you sorry?”

The cub sniffed. “Because you hate me”.

The older otter became still for a moment, and lowered his head to look at the ground. The chirps of early-rising birds from the trees around them filled the air, but the silence still hung heavily between them in that moment. He chewed on his lip in thought, and then took his smokey stick and grinded it into the concrete until it stopped smoking. After a long inhale of clean air, he spoke in a voice that was so quiet the words could barely be discerned, “I don’t hate you”.

“Then why do you act like you hate me?” Andy asked in a soft sad voice.

Owen sat there for a moment, shook his head, and then gave a sluggish shrug. With the way he was staring intently at nothing in the distance, he looked like he was thinking something over, so the cub waited for a response.

It didn’t come.

And that was that. Yet again, in this endlessly repeating pattern of sibling interactions, there was no resolution and no catharsis. For just a moment, the cub considered saying You’re a big fat stupid meanie. He decided against it, but the resentment and anger of that feeling was still now nonetheless well-seated in his young body. 

He didn’t have the patience for another silent-sitting contest, so he gave up and turned away. There were some birds picking worms out of the dirt amongst the dewy morning grass in front of him, so he left his jerk of a brother behind, jumped down from the porch, and ran off after them. He giggled breathlessly to himself as the birds soared off into the sky, easily escaping their chubby-legged pursuer, only to return a short while later looking for food and be chased off all over again. They had no luck, and they didn’t learn, but neither did they give up. Andy liked the birds.

He had worn himself out a little and was headed back inside as he walked past his brother, still sitting there, staring at the ground below his feet. He was surprised when Owen actually spoke, because he expected nothing but more silence.

“Andy”, the older brother said in an urgent tone.

“Yeah?”

“Can you do me a favour? Don’t tell Ben I was smoking, please”. As Owen looked at the boy, the older male’s eyes were heavy with what looked like guilt and shame.

The kid couldn’t help but smile. It felt good to see the big meanie looking the same way he made Andy feel. “Why?”

“I don’t want him to know”.

“Why?”

“Oh ffff–”. The long-haired otter clenched his hands into fists and very slowly uncurled them again. “Please, just do it because I asked you to, okay? Be a good kid”. In a lower voice, he added, “For once”.

“Okay”.

“Promise, Andy”.

The cub smirked. Owen wanted something from him? After that? “I promise”.

Owen narrowed his eyes, looking unconvinced.

Andy left the big otter there, and with his ass raised in the air, crawled back up the stairs on his hands and knees to get back up the large steps. He had left the door ajar a little on his exit so he was able to get back through the door without a grown-up’s help this time. 

The unpleasant interaction lingered in his mind and left a chilling trace on his young heart, and the young boy wanted comfort and distraction. He paced around the house for a while, grumbling to himself, and angrily ate a leftover pancake from the fridge, ripping it to pieces with his pudgy fingers and cramming them into his mouth until his cheeks were bulging, but even that didn’t help. 

Finally, he called out, “Ben? Ben!”

His voice was only loud enough for the hare to hear if he was downstairs, and no response came, which meant that Ben must have still been upstairs in his room. 

And so, after a few moments of hesitation at the bottom of the staircase, the cub plodded up a storey to find his friend. Up here, most of the rooms’ doors were open. The only closed door was the one leading to Ben’s bedroom. 

He stood there and frowned at the hazelnutty wood for a minute. He really hoped the bunny who opened it was his friend and not… that other… person. 

But he didn’t worry too long. When it came to hoping for the best in people, Andy was a little bird in search of a worm.

He never gave up.

He never learnt.

He flopped against the door, resting his bare belly against the wood, and called out in his lilty preadolescent voice, “Beeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnnnnnn!”

With his ear against the wood, he heard some light ruffling and shuffling. Then, he felt minor tremors in the floor from Ben’s footsteps as the hare approached.

The tall adult cracked the door open by a few inches, standing in a weird position with his upper half exposed through the crack and his lower half obscured by the door. Andy could still see that the bunny was wearing grey tracksuit pants, and that was the only thing he was wearing. It was common for Ben to not wear much around the boy, at least when it was only the two of them hanging out. After all, the hare had said that since Andy didn’t like wearing clothes, he wanted to make him feel comfortable by not wearing much either. Of course, he had made Andy promise not to tell anyone because it was an immature thing to do and he didn’t want to be embarrassed. 

Andy liked sharing a silly secret with his big friend.

Ben swallowed audibly, his voice somewhat croaky, as he looked the little cub up and down. “Oh, hey little buddy. Uhh, what’s up?”

The cub’s heart lifted at the sight of his big friend, and he smiled up at him, but it wasn’t a big smile. He still felt bad after Owen was not-nice to him, and he squished his way through the gap in the doorway, a grumpy expression taking over his little face. He crawled up onto the lagomorph’s bed and then flopped down onto it like a ragdoll as he grumbled, “Oh Ben, I’m upset!” 

“Aw, kiddo…” the hare mumbled, lingering at the door. “Where’s your big brother?” 

“He’s outside smoking a cigarex”, Andy confessed with a slight sense of glee.

One of the hare’s ears perked up. “Huh. He smokes?”

The otter grinned cheekily. “Yeah, he told me not to tell you, but I tell you everything, cuz you’re my best friend”. 

The adult chuckled and smiled. “Yeah, I am your best friend”. Andy grinned even wider at those words. And then Ben’s eyes darted back to the doorway, and his tone was uncertain. “Did Owen say he was… gonna come back in?”

“Nuh-uh”, Andy said. “He’s just out there being mean and boring”.

The hare waited by the entrance for a moment, his eyes glancing between the frustrated boy and the door. He seemed lost in thought for a few seconds, but then his gaze steadied upon the child, and he silently closed the door. A beam of light from the hallway that had been streaming into the bedroom was extinguished, and only the dimness of this room remained. “Oh, kiddo… You poor thing”, Ben said with a very sympathetic tone. “Do you wanna tell me about it?” 

“Yeah”, Andy sulked. He rolled around atop his friend’s bed restlessly, bundling up the blanket inside his short limbs and squeezing it tightly. It was slightly warm, slightly damp, and had a weird smell to it. But lots of things around Ben had a weird smell to them that was hard to describe. He was used to it. 

The hare walked towards him, his hands lingering in front of his waist for some reason. When the otter looked up at him, he noticed that his big friend’s smiling face was a little red. His chest was rising and falling with a rapid pace too. 

“Why are you worn out?” the cub asked curiously.

The hare gritted his teeth for a moment and looked away, and it took him a few seconds before he replied, “I was doing a bit of exercise”. The hare gave him an unusual smile.

Andy smiled in response. He didn’t know why Ben was smiling, but Ben smiling often made Andy smile too. Ben often gave weird smiles. Strange smiles. Funny smiles. Andy always smiled back. It was nice to be around someone happy, even if he didn’t know why they were happy. He much preferred that to being around a big brother who was the opposite – grumpy and mean for reasons he couldn’t comprehend.

“You were doin exerskises in your bedroom?”

“Yeah”, Ben breathed. Slowly, the hare leant forwarded, extended his long limbs, and crawled forward on the bed, closing the distance as they spoke.

“What exerskises can you do in your bedroom?”

The hare nibbled on his lip for a moment. “Special ones”.

“Can you show me?” Andy asked.

Ben made a funny sound with a low voice. “Maybe one day, Andy… I’d love to. But we can’t”.

“Why not?”

The hare cringed. “Because you have to be… you’re meant to be grown up to do them”.

The otter wrinkled his nose and grumbled. “Aww”.

“Yeah…” the adult sighed heavily, maintaining strong eye contact. “I know”.

Andy sat up and looked up at his big friend with sad eyes. “Will you show me one day?”

The lagomorph huffed a lungful of air out of his chest all at once, and stared at the boy with low eyelids. “Yeah, Andy, I will. Maybe when you’re grown up, or… maybe when you’re… y-you’re…” The hare paused and swallowed, finally breaking eye contact. “Yeah, I’ll show you one day. I definitely will. One day”.

“You will?”

“Yeah. I promise”.

“Heh. Yay”, the cub giggled.

The hare sat cross-legged on the bed, his athletic body leaning close to the cub’s, his fur faintly slick with sweat. “So, you’re upset…” he said. He lifted a hand and ran it through the boy’s pink-tipped blond hair. While stroking him, the bunny tilted his head on an angle as he studied the cub’s face with warm eyes and a funny smile as his tone became a little darker. “Would a cuddle make you feel better, Andy?” 

The cub nodded his head eagerly. “Yeah, I like cuddling you”. Ben smiled even wider, and tentatively placed his other hand on Andy’s bare chubby thigh, rubbing it gently with his thumb. His hand was hot. 

“Come here then, you squishy little thing”, the hare growled in a… funny voice.

And then, with suddenly quick and surprisingly rough movements, the hare pulled the boy into his long-limbed grasp. Andy let out loud high-pitched squeals, giggling and gasping for air as Ben wrestled with him for a moment, big hands wriggling over and tickling the cub’s little body. After a while, Ben pulled him into a tight hug and flopped down onto his side with Andy in his grasp against the bed.

The child sank into the hare’s touch and sighed, Ben’s hands settling on his lower back in a nice hug.

Ben gave hugs and cuddles like no one else. Andy’s mother, his father, his friends and family – Owen excluded – they all hugged him around his chest. But Ben hugged him all over. Hugging him was like… a full-body hug. Ben didn’t just hug him around the torso like everyone else did, Ben hugged Andy all over, rubbing his big hands up and down the boy’s body, squeezing him firmly in all the otter’s soft places. Andy liked being hugged like that. It was comforting. And it felt kind of… secret. Ben only hugged him like this when they were alone. That’s what made it feel special and cool.

And Ben seemed to like hugging him like this too, because he closed his eyes and moaned, “Mmmmmmgh… that’s… nice”. Lying next to the boy, the hare was in a strange curved position, with his hips arched backwards so his waist was angled away from the cub.

“You’re silly”, Andy chuckled.

“Am I?” Ben said with a pleased smirk on his face.

“You make funny sounds”.

The hare chuckled darkly, and didn’t say anything. Yet while his mouth didn’t move, his body did. His hands wandered downwards until they dragged lightly over the boy’s rear. They didn’t linger there long, quickly moving on down to Andy’s thighs. But then they crawled back up again, and his fingertips danced lightly on the young boy’s butt. His movements seemed like someone testing if something was too hot to hold, too afraid to grasp it in case it burnt them. Andy wasn’t hot, so it was strange to him.

The hare leant forward, nudging the cub’s head upwards so they could look into each other’s eyes. When Andy stared into his friend’s blue orbs, there was a look to them that was… far beyond the child’s ability to extrapolate. There were lots of things in those eyes. Lots of emotions. So it was just a… funny look.

“Go ahead and tell me what’s wrong while I give you a real nice cuddle”, the hare said quietly. After he finished his sentence, his lips quivered.
 
Andy wrapped his little arms around the big hare’s damp and warm torso and squeezed while he pouted. “Owen is mean to me”.

Ben scoffed with disbelief. “Owen? Mean? Really?”

Oh, why do people always say that about Owen? He knew Ben was gonna say that! Andy always said Owen was different around him, but nobody listened. The cub asserted, “He’s different around me! He’s always super nice to you and everybody else and nobody ever sees it but he’s super not-nice to me. And-and he keeps stealing my undies!”

The big hare paused what he was doing for a moment, and looked down in thought. His hands hovered above the kid, not touching him. Slowly, the lagomorph said, “I’m sure he isn’t”.

“He is!” the cub complained. “He steals them cuz he doesn’t like me. He-he wants me to get in trouble”.

Ben tugged the little otter upwards until their faces were closer to each other. With his face even redder than before, the adult said, “Come on, Andy. Owen wouldn’t do that. I promise, your big brother isn’t stealing your underwear”.

Andy’s lower lip quivered as a pang of sadness struck his heart. His eyes widened woefully, and he sulked, “But… but you’re meant to believe me. You’re my friend”.

Ben frowned, afflicted by an emotional wound. “Hey, don’t say that. I… I know I’m your friend, but, you know, uh, sometimes friends have to point out when one of them is wrong, you know?” The hare didn’t look Andy in the eyes as he spoke.

But the cub stared straight at Ben’s eyes. “I’m not wrong! I keep getting in trouble! I-I try really hard to p-pay attention and keep track of things b-but–”

“Shhhhhhh”, Ben soothed. He finally made eye contact, and cupped the boy’s face with both hands. “It’s alright. Listen to me, okay?”

“Okay”, the young boy sniffled.

Ben seemed to cringe for a moment, closing his eyes, before he opened them again. This time, his face showed more certainty and confidence than before, and his gaze was stronger and slightly… intimidating. “Owen doesn’t hate you”, Ben said firmly. “And he’s definitely not stealing your undies, alright? It’s you. You keep misplacing them. It’s you, no one else”. 

A pained and worried expression overtook Andy’s face, but Ben smiled warmly instead, right in his face. It was all Andy could see – a big happy reassuring smile. “But I’ll keep buying you new ones, alright?” Ben said. “So don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of you. You don’t have to get upset about it or tell anyone, because I’ll fix it for you”.

“But–”

The hands around his face tightened ever so slightly. “You trust me, don’t you, Andy?” Ben told him. “You know I wouldn’t lie to you. We’re best friends”.

The child curled his lower lip and looked down sadly. “Yeah…” he said quietly. 

“Are we best friends or not? I want to be your best friend, but…”

Andy sniffed. “Yeah. Yeah, we are best friends”.

The hare relaxed his grasp and his smile. “So just forget about the undies. Forget about them, for me. It’s not doing anyone any good”.

“Okay…”

“It is your fault, Andy. But it’s not a big deal, is it?”

“No… It’s not a big deal”.

“That’s a good boy. You’re a really good boy”.

They returned to their cuddle.

Ben gave the child a nice long rub from the backs of his shoulders down to his thighs, touching everything in between, and lingering on certain places this time with confidence in the place of any former hesitancy. Andy smiled sadly, taking some comfort in the hare’s attempt at soothing him. It was hard to shake the feeling for the boy that he was right… but he trusted Ben. He trusted him even more than he trusted himself, because Ben was not only an adult, but his best friend. 

Andy rested his head on the hare’s chest, his pink-blond strands of hair interlocking with the fuzz of the older male’s torso. It was still rising and falling more rapidly than usual. For a few minutes, he allowed the rhythm of his big friend’s breathing to comfort him, but something still bothered his young mind.

“Am I annoying, Ben?”

The hare made a sympathetic sound and nuzzled the top of the boy’s hair with his chin. “Of course not, kiddo”. As he spoke, the lagomorph’s hands lingered over the cub’s rear, gently caressing the surface of the flesh over the top of his tight briefs. A very faint moaning sound formed in Ben’s chest that the cub wouldn’t have heard if his ear weren’t pressed against it.

As he ran his hands down Andy’s little body, his grasp was starting to become twitchier and more unsteady, and every now and then his fingers closed around one of Andy’s curves tightly enough to cause him some minor discomfort. 

For now, though, something else was on the boy’s mind. “Do you like being around me?” the cub asked quietly, fearing his friend’s response.

But Ben scoffed again, and gave a small laugh. “I love being around you, Andy”.

A smile exploded across the boy’s face, and he perked up, resting on his elbows as he looked up at the adult’s face. “I love being around you too”.

Looking down his muzzle, Ben smiled in return. But Andy shared in the happiness for only a moment. He now noticed that there was a surprising look in the bunny’s eyes, and Andy could recognise this emotion.

Anxiety. 

“Are you okay?” the cub prodded. 

“Huh?” the hare breathed, his mouth hanging open after speaking.

“You’re making silly noises and breathing weird and you look nervous”.

“Oh, uhh…” The rabbit swallowed hard. “It’s fine. I’m fine, don’t worry about it”. His fingers twitched around Andy’s rear.

“And your hands are being weird…” Andy added.

Ben laughed anxiously, quickly moving his hands away from the cub’s butt and resting them flat against Andy’s back instead. They felt a little sweatier. “It’s just, uhh…” He nibbled on his lip, and examined the boy’s face for a moment, before continuing. “I, ungh, I just…” He clenched his eyes shut and grimaced. “The exercise I was doing before you came in… I was really close to finishing it, but I didn't quite finish, so this is… ha… aha… difficult for me in ways you can’t imagine”.

Andy lowered his brow with concern. “Oh, I’m sorry”.

“Mmmh… It’s okay”, Ben panted. His eyes leapt back and forth between the cub’s face and his body. “It’s, urghhhhhhh… it’s fine”.

The cub frowned sadly. He didn’t know what kind of thing Ben was doing, but he could still tell that it bothered him. He wanted his friend to be happy, and hated the thought that he might have made things harder for him. “Do you wanna finish it?” the cub asked.

Ben’s eyes widened and he gasped. So quiet he could barely be understood, he groaned with some kind of pain, “Ffffffuhhhh… uhghh… stop tempting me”.

Andy’s face twisted with anxiety now, worrying that he had done something wrong. “Wh-what is it?”

A look of anguish washed over the hare’s face, and he flopped back on the bed, eyes closed tight, panting, “Andy, you’re so… you have no idea what you’re doing to me”. He released a loud, helpless sigh.

The cub considered what to say for a while, but was confused. He hated this. He hated not knowing what was going on and not knowing why people seemed to react the way they did around him. When it happened with Owen, things spiralled out of control and got worse and worse. But with Ben… he at least had a chance to make it better, even if he didn’t understand the source of the problem. So, Andy mumbled, “I’m sorry”. And then, feeling bad for a reason he couldn’t comprehend, the young otter rolled onto and crawled up the hare’s body, pressed himself against the lagomorph’s torso, wrapped his arms around Ben’s chest as far as they would go, and hugged him tightly. “Don’t be angry”.

Underneath him, the hare made a pained sound of longing and frustration. Andy’s attempt at comfort, somehow, seemed to make things worse for Ben. He heard the hare mutter something inaudible. And then, with a hint of defeat in his voice, the lagomorph grunted, “Screw it”.

The cub pushed himself up, asking, “Huh?”

He jumped when he made eye contact with Ben, and it was as though a different person were looking back at him than the anxious one he had seen a moment ago. This person was somehow… the opposite of anxious. 

“You’re feeling down?” Ben grunted.

“Yeah”, Andy mumbled, a little confused.

“I know what’ll make us both feel better”.

Ben gave a funny smile.

“Oh–”

The hare lunged for the boy and threw him back against the bed, swapping their positions so the adult was on top and pinning the boy underneath him. Now, Ben was no longer troubled. Instead, he playfought with the cub, attacking him with playful, tickling, determined hands. 

Electric sensations overtook his little body as Ben’s hands tickled all over his pudgy chest and ribs and soft nipples, and Andy writhed, clenching his eyes shut, giggling until he couldn’t breathe. He squirmed to escape the overwhelming tingles, but the hare was firmly pinning him in place with one leg kneeling either side of the child. “Ahhhahahah! Stoppp!” Andy squealed with the decreasing air in his lungs.

Even though he was the one doing the tickling, Ben was similarly breathless. “I’m making you feel better”, he insisted.

The big unstoppable wriggling hands slithered over the young boy’s body, tickling at his neck to make Andy raise his shoulders, only to take advantage of his exposed sides to touch and attack him there. “Aaaahhnn… Gaahaah! Nnoooo!” the boy whimpered, twitching and spasming.

“Yes”.

Andy’s little hand paws fought against the adult, but Ben was so much bigger and so much stronger. The cub was totally helpless as those hands slid down his body to his soft belly and wide waist, touching him lower and lower, in softer and more sensitive areas.

“Andy… I'm gonna be rough with you, okay? But I'm just playing. Just playing”, Ben murmured, his voice liquidy and thick and dark as his words drooled down onto the otter like tar.

“Too much!” Andy laughed.

“Mmngh… that sounds good coming out of your little mouth”.

“Ehehee! Stop!”

Ben didn’t. It had been light and gentle at first, with teasing, grazing, dancing fingers. But it had rapidly morphed into something different. Now, those initially playful fingers started to squeeze and grasp and clutch at Andy’s flesh, groping, kneading, needy and craving. 

The otter tried to tickle the large male back, prodding and jabbing at his taut stomach, but Andy’s paws didn’t seem to cause anywhere near as much havoc to the hare’s body as Ben’s did to his. 

“Oh, you wanna touch me back, huh, you little rascal?” Ben grunted with a breathy voice. “Go on. Touch me. Touch my adult body with your tiny little child hands”.

“Heeheee!” Andy did try to tickle him, but it did him no good. In fact, his attempt at fighting back seemed to have the opposite effect. Above him, Andy saw rows of teeth glimmer in the dim light of the room as the hare sneered from his position of power and control. Ben’s hands became rougher, and went after the kid’s softest places, causing him joy and torment, seemingly becoming more energetic with every strained and pleading and woeful sound the boy made.

Seeking a reprieve, the cub struggled to roll over and crawl away, but Ben pressed more of his weight against the boy to pin him against his bed even harder and leant forward. Between creased and teary eyelids, Ben looked so, so big, towering over him. And for a moment, with his teeth bared and gritted, and his brow low and angry, and his eyes intense and wild, he looked just a little bit… scary.

Andy froze for a moment, nervousness entering his wails and gasps as his eyes widened with anxiety. He begged, “P-please… I… nee-ahh! B-break!” But he didn’t get one. Broad hands grasped Andy roughly by the hips, and fingers wrapped around his pelvis, digging into the flesh of his ass, squeezing it hard.

Andy still had a big grin on his face because he couldn’t help it even though the happiness of this had faded and he was truly starting to become uncomfortable. “Ahh-ah! Haha! Oww! Th-that’s–ahh! That kinda h-hurts!” he wailed.

But Ben mustn’t have heard him. He didn’t stop. 

Andy begged with all the air he could muster, which wasn’t much, and pressed back against the big male with all the strength he had, which wasn’t much either.

And Ben didn’t stop.

It didn’t matter what words Andy managed to wail out, or what desperate sounds escaped his little mouth, or how much he squirmed, the hare continued playing with him.

It became even harder for Andy to make himself heard when Ben started making sounds too. They were deeper and different than Andy’s noises, but carried with them the same desperation and angst. With increasing volume and frustration, Ben grunted and groaned and huffed in Andy’s face, bathing him with the heat of his heavy breaths, and filling his young ears with half-spoken words in a tone full of agony and need. 

“Stop! Please!” Andy screamed, still laughing despite his growing misery. “It’s too–hurk!”

Suddenly, the boy got a different kind of reprieve than he expected. Ben abruptly collapsed onto him, balancing on his elbows so as to not crush him, but still pinning him under his adult weight from the waist upwards. A drop of sweat landed right between the cub’s eyes from the hare’s long fringe, and Andy jolted. In this position, their faces were level, and for a moment, they looked at each other from only an inch apart, both of them panting heavily and open-mouthed, with Andy’s eyes wide and desperate, and Ben’s eyes full of angst under heavy eyelids. 

No sooner had the cub taken a deep breath and filled his exhausted lungs with humid air than he felt something else that captured his attention. Ben grunted and Andy whimpered as the child’s private parts were jabbed with something very big and very hard that was somehow between their bodies. Against lower part of his belly, Andy could feel a heat radiating from it.

“Wh-what’s what?” the cub gasped.

Ben maintained a strong gaze with the boy’s eyes and let out a long low groan before he replied. “Somethin… in my pocket… don’t worry about it”. 

Andy’s brow creased with confusion. “What is it?”

“Shhhhhh”, Ben soothed. His eyebrows also contorted, showing a different kind of discomfort.

Face-to-face with his big friend, straining uncomfortably under the adult’s spread weight, and with a dull ache in his underage balls from the hard thing against it, Andy whimpered, “It doesn’t… feel nice”.

Ben leisurely licked his lips. “But you said you wanted to help me, Andy”. His voice was… weird.

“W-with what?”

And then the hare gave a very big and very strange smile. “Exerskises, kiddo”.

“Oh…” Andy mumbled. He winced, repositioning himself a little to try to avoid the discomforting ache radiating from his groin, but the big thing was hard to escape from. “But… I don’t understand. I-I don’t know–”

“It’s okay”, Ben panted, smiling in a way that seemed reassuring but was weirdly off-putting at the same time. Andy didn’t know how to feel. He tried his best to read into his friend’s expression, but it was frustratingly beyond his young grasp. “You don’t need to understand it”, Ben continued, “but… you can still help me with it, and it… it won’t t-take long. I promise. And I, uhh…” He swallowed, and his expression shifted to something sad and woeful and pathetic, and cracks appeared in the firmness of his voice, through which doubt and dread and fear dribbled. “But y-you… you can help me, and this way, you don’t even need to know wh-what… uhh…”

Ben gritted his teeth and looked away, his face burning increasingly red with embarrassment.

“I shouldn’t, but… I need to. Please. Please, Andy, I need it. You can help me. Let me do this. Please”.

“Do what, Ben?”

Ben studied the young boy’s face for a few seconds, and his lips quivered into a smile, and then the bunny’s face crumpled entirely with a wave of shame. For a while there was silence in the room except for their heavy breaths, and after a moment, Andy started to doubt that Ben was going to ask for whatever he wanted, because it seemed to trouble him so much.

But in the end, he did. 

“My… exercise”.

The words seemed painful to say, but Ben said them nonetheless.

Andy had no idea what it was or what Ben meant, but he just wanted his big best friend to be happy. That was all he ever wanted. He just wanted to make people happy. And so, as he sometimes needed to do around Ben, he swallowed down the weird feeling in his belly that he couldn’t make sense of, stopped fighting the vague sense of shame that stewed under his heart, and trusted his friend. 

“Kay”.

Ben let out a small laugh and smiled happily, and Andy smiled too, feeling happy that he made his friend smile. The hare looked lighter and happier now, having found all the relief and permission he needed in Andy’s confused consent. 

Now, the lagomorph moved with confidence. He planted his hands either side of the cub’s face and pushed himself up by the arms. At the same time, the hare shuffled upwards, and the hard thing in his pocket pressed against Andy’s belly. The cub sighed quietly with relief now that it was no longer hurting his testicles, though a dull pang of pain remained in his crotch and tugged on nearby muscles for some time.

Andy didn’t understand what happened next, but he believed that the adult knew what he was doing. Ben started moving his hips against him, bouncing up and down while moving his hips back and forth, grinding the hard thing up Andy’s tummy a bit and pressing it into him firmly, squishing the boy against the mattress with it for a second, then pulling back and letting the cub bounce back again. He repeated that action, each time doing it a little bit harder and a little bit faster. And he continued doing this until the bed started to rock and they joined in a strange kind of rhythm together – Ben would push Andy down and sandwich the hard thing between them and then pull back, and as the cub’s little body rose, the male’s hips would meet him and squish him again. 

What the point of this was and why it was so important to Ben was lost on the young boy, and that made him feel a little bit stupid, but… he trusted him. He didn’t question it, even though he was full of questions, and he didn’t fight it, even though a tiny part of his brain told him to.

Kinking his neck forward, the cub tried to peer down over his soft tummy and figure out what the hard thing in Ben’s tracksuit pants was. He let out a tiny squeal when the bunny interrupted him with an urgent command.

“Look at me”, Ben ordered. “Just look at me. And keep looking at me. At my face”.

“A-alright”, Andy replied. He wanted to be good. He wanted to help. He lay there on his back, kneading one hand with the other, massaging anxiety and nerves out of his little body, staring up at the bunny’s face.

As he bounced away over minutes, Ben’s face looked… funny and weird and silly. Some moments, he looked like he was in pain, his eyes flickering, his brow furrowed into ridges on his forehead. Other times, he looked like he was very happy, so happy he could hardly stand it, with his mouth open wide and his tongue visible between his open lips as he exhaled hot breaths. And then other times still, he looked angry. It was at those times that Ben bounced against him the hardest and fastest. 

Time drooled on, and the space between them grew hotter and more humid as Ben continued moving. Drops of sweat dripped from the bunny’s long hair onto the sheets around the boy below, and sometimes onto Andy’s face. One landed with a salty taste on his little lips, and he wiped it away with a quivering hand. The heating air between them seemed to grow thicker, and Andy could smell the funny kind of scent that adults made from their armpits when they exercised, so maybe this was a weird type of exercise. The cub breathed heavily, but not because he was yet to catch his breath, and he felt a little tight in his chest and a little dizzy in his belly, but not because of the motion of the bed.

While Andy’s discomfort grew, Ben’s seemed to as well, in a confusing way. He continued slapping his waist and the hard thing inside his clothing against the boy with growing frustration and desperation until each thrust started to push against the cub’s belly so hard it pushed air out of him and the bed started to groan and creak. Like the bed, Ben made louder sounds too, groaning through an open mouth and gasping through gritted teeth, his voice growing in pitch and volume, sounding both pleased and agitated at once. The bunny had said he wanted this, but Andy could barely tell whether Ben was enjoying this or hating it.

He could feel more of the hard thing inside Ben’s pants as it pressed against him harder now. It seemed to take on a life of its own was somehow able to move and flex by itself as it squished against the boy’s tummy. Bouncing up and down in an increasingly chaotic and clumsy way, Andy tried his best to watch his friend’s face as he had been instructed to, but the rhythm of movement flopped his head forward at one point, and he saw a flash of Ben’s pants. He saw it. The hard thing stretched and strained against the fabric, and around its tip was a big dark patch of wetness. Whatever it was, it seemed bigger than before. As it pounded against his belly, harder and faster and angrier, it certainly felt bigger than before.

“It’s big, isn’t it?” Ben grunted, catching him looking.

“Yeah”, Andy panted, confused.

“Nnnghf…” It was around that time that everything Ben was doing flipped. Arms tremoring and trembling, voice lowering in pitch and seeping exhaustion, movements fluctuating, pace slowing, thrusts becoming more forceful, the bunny groaned, “Ohhhhhh… fucckkk…”

Andy gasped, moving his hands to his mouth. “You said a swear”.

Ben grinned, eyes flickering, “Unnnghh… that’s such a kiddie thing to say… mmngh…”

The hare shifted, pressing his big hands against Andy’s shoulders to pin him roughly against the mattress, and he gritted his teeth, stared intensely into his little eyes. “Look at me”, he moaned.

Startled, Andy whimpered, “I-I am, B-Ben!”

Ben started thumping and grinding his hips and hard thing against the little boy with all his energy. “Look at my face!”

Andy giggled nervously because he didn’t know what else to do with all the confusion bubbling inside his belly. “I am!”

And then, above him, with intense and scary eyes, a heaving and sweaty chest, chaotic rapid humping thrusts, and with soaring intensity and volume and pitch and agony and relief in his voice, the hare cried out, “Look at my face as I cuuhhhmm!”

Andy wasn’t able to respond to that. Ben threw his weight forward, shaking uncontrollably, gripping the cub’s shoulders painfully, compressing the boy against the mattress underneath him and cramming the big hot twitching leaking thing in his pants hard against the child’s belly. He froze there, squishing him, clenching his eyes shut, gritting his teeth, tensing all his muscles, holding his breath, tension bundling up inside of him and multiplying until it exploded out of him as he roared, “Unnnnngggghhhh!” at the same time as fat streams of hot white goo erupted from the wet spot in his pants so hard that they spurted all the way through the fabric into the air and landed on Andy’s underage chest and belly with a splat. 

The cub gasped in surprise as the heat of it seeped through his fur and into his skin, and the strong scent of it wafted up into his nose immediately, triggering memories of things, some of which were mundane, while others were things that made his tummy wring around itself and feel icky. 

“Fffffuucccckkk!” Ben wailed, still not breathing in, still not moving, still tense in what looked similar to agony but wasn’t quite pain. Another stream of the white stuff spewed out of his pants and splattered Andy’s chin and neck. The young boy whimpered quietly, uncertain what was happening to Ben and starting to feel scared by it. “Rrrggguuhhhhhhnnnghh!” 

More stinky white glop spurted out of the damp fabric of Ben’s pants, but with less force, and it oozed down the curvy tip in fat thick globs, pooling messily against the crevice between the hard thing and Andy’s soft belly. Ben shuddered uncontrollably and bucked his hips, squishing and smushing it between their bodies and leaving long sticky streaks of it in the wake of his weak thrusts.

“Guuuhhhhh…” Ben groaned, with exhaustion overtaking his voice. “Ohhhh… shittt… no… no… I’m… sorry… uggghh”.

All the tension and tightness in his body suddenly evaporated, and he collapsed on top of the child beneath him, their hot and sweaty and humid bodies slapping together, the sweat feeling cold and the goo feeling hot as it squelched between their bodies.

Ben’s chest heaved as he gasped for air against Andy’s ear, their cheeks pressing against each other and the hare’s body totally covering the boy’s in a strange and unpleasant embrace. Andy also struggled to breathe with the adult on top of him and not propping himself up quite as well as before, but even as the boy strained for oxygen in Ben’s long floppy bunny ear, the larger male seemed too exhausted to move or care. 

While the hare caught his breath and resummoned his energy, the slurry of sweat and sloppy goo between them dribbled down Andy’s sides and onto the mattress and sheets. Ben still didn’t seem to care. Andy could feel the hard thing against his young balls again, but as minutes oozed on by, it seemed to stop pressing into him quite so badly. In those long minutes, Ben didn’t say anything.

Andy didn’t say anything either, because he didn’t know what to say.

He was confused. He hated feeling confused. He felt too confused too often. He was sick of it. He hated it so much. Maybe that was why he felt really stupid right now – because he didn’t understand it. Maybe that was why he felt so little, so tiny. Maybe that was why he felt a little bit sick and a little bit scared. 

Ben started crying.

“Forgive me”, he sobbed.

“Nngh… Wh-why?” Andy said, still struggling to breathe and talk.

Hearing that, Ben finally pushed himself up on wobbly elbows again. Andy gasped for air to fill his lungs and catch his breath, and then looked at the hare’s face, equal with his own. Ben’s expression was woeful, full of despair and shame. His lips trembled, and his eyes dripped with tears that pattered the young boy’s face. A different Ben was back.

“Just say that you forgive me, please, Andy”.

“But I don’t even kn–”

Ben sniffled. “Please”.

Andy didn’t know what he was saying, or what he needed to forgive, and why, for some reason, a little part of him didn’t want to forgive it. But he knew that if he didn’t say it it would hurt his friend, and for whatever reason his friend looked like he couldn’t handle that right now. “I forgive you”, the otter said quietly.

The hare smiled pitifully, and rolled an arm around to stroke the child’s hair and caress his face. “I’m sorry”, Ben said gently. “Are you alright? D-did I hurt you?”

“I’m okay”, Andy said, without really considering whether he was or not.

“Good. Good…” Suddenly, the lagomorph’s eyes fixated on the cub’s chin and widened. He wiped some of the sticky white goo off it, and looked at it on his fingers with… disgust.

“What happened?” the boy asked.

Ben swallowed and breathed in slowly, thoughtfully, before he replied. “I… had a big bottle of shampoo in my pocket. It was really silly of me. I suppose it exploded while I was doing exercise”.

“But it’s hot”.

The hare blinked several times, and wiped the goo from his fingers on the sheets. There was already such a big mess on them that it made little difference. “Yeah, uh, it’s special shampoo. You have to keep it warm or else it goes bad”.

Some of the tension eased inside Andy’s belly. It felt nice to hear that as an answer, for some reason. It was good and it made sense and it fit with things in a way that he liked.

“It smells kinda familiar”, the cub said with curiosity.

Ben’s eyes widened again. “It does?”

“Yeah. My teddy smells like that sometimes”. There were other things and other times that came to Andy’s mind, but his teddy was the most common one.

Exhaling heavily, the lagomorph’s eyes flickered as he responded, “Huh. Isn’t that funny”.

“I guess”.

Ben smiled.

It was nice when Ben smiled.

Andy smiled too.

Nearby the curtained bedroom window, some birds chirped. The hare glanced at the window, and some anxiety washed onto his face again. “We should clean up quickly. I don’t want Owen to find us like this”.

“Why?”

“Ooh, boy”, the adult groaned. “It, uhh… it’s his special shampoo and it’s expensive. I don’t want him to know I squirted it all over… huff… you”.

“Oh, yeah, he’d get angry”.

“You have no idea”.

Ben crawled backwards and sat up and found some dirty clothes he could use to wipe down their bodies with. He rubbed Andy down first, holding him gently by the back as he firmly dragged his clothes down the boy’s chin and chest and belly and sides, but the shampoo was very sticky and it clung to his soft fur. 

Andy was quiet as Ben did what he needed to do. He had lots of questions, but for once, he wasn’t keen on asking them. In the absence of that, he didn’t know what to say, and barely knew how to feel.

After sighing helplessly as he failed to clean the underage otter’s fur, Ben chuckled nervously, “I think you need to have a shower”.

“Okay”.

“It’s… nngh… all over you”.

“Yeah”.

For a moment, the shirtless bunny frowned, put his hands on his hips, and looked intently at the cub’s face to study him.

“Hey”, Ben prodded.

“Yeah?”

“Are you alright?”

Again, Andy replied without really thinking. He just wanted to make Ben happy. He just wanted to be good. “Yeah”.

The big male sighed with a lot of weight in his chest, and sat back down on the bed. “C’mere”, he said, reaching an arm around the boy and gesturing to his waist. He pulled Andy into a loose hug in his damp and dark lap, where for some reason, the shampoo bottle wasn’t in the way anymore. Maybe he had taken it out while Andy wasn’t looking.

He placed his big sticky smelly hands on Andy’s face, rubbed his cheeks affectionately, and looked into his eyes. 

“You’re such a good boy, kiddo”.

The cub smiled slightly. As he looked at Ben’s still-watery gaze, there was no doubt that the hare with him now was the good and kind and sweet and friendly one that he adored. It soothed some of the tightened anxiety in his chest, and he relaxed.

“We’re gonna do whatever you want tonight, alright? It’s a thank-you for helping me with my exercise. We’ll eat whatever you want, play whatever you want, watch whatever you want, whatever”.

Andy grinned. “Really?”

“Yeah”. Ben gave a firm nod.

“What if Owen doesn’t wanna? He doesn’t like doing things that I like”.

The hare shrugged casually. “Screw Owen. I wanna make you happy. You deserve it”.

That made the cub giggle with delight. 

“I just… umm…” Ben swallowed, and looked away before he continued speaking. “I need you to do one more favour for me”.

“Kay”.

Even then, it took the hare a bit longer to gather his thoughts before he said anything else. “This exercise thing that we did, and the shampoo, and all of that, everything… we need to keep it a secret just between us, alright? I really, really need you to not tell anyone, including your big brother, because if you tell anyone, I might get into big trouble, and I don’t wanna get into trouble because you told someone. That would hurt me. I need to know I can trust you, okay?”

Andy gave a reassuring smile and a big nod. “You don’t have to worry, Ben. I won’t tell anyone”.

Ben smiled as his eyes narrowed slightly. “We’re best friends, and a best friend wouldn’t tell anyone a secret like that. We are best friends, aren’t we, kiddo?”

Andy nodded again. “Yeah”. He could tell Ben was a little nervous, and he wanted to make him feel better, so he hugged the hare’s big sweat-damp chest, and said with confidence, “You can trust me, Ben. I love you”.

Ben was silent for a moment. He inhaled slowly, and when he exhaled, there was somehow a sadness in his mere breath. He shrank forward, and hugged the little boy back.

“I love you too”, Ben said quietly, holding him tightly. .

Against the otter’s face, Ben’s chest quivered as he breathed.

“You… deserve better than me”, the hare added softly.

Andy sat back and raised his eyebrows. “What’cha mean?”

Ben just smiled sadly and patted his hair. “Nothin. Go have a shower. Wash yourself really well. And I’ll make you something nice for breakfast”.

* * *

As he showered, Andy smiled and hummed a cartoon’s theme song to himself, thinking about his nice friend, his nice cuddle, and the nice things that awaited him today.

Every now and then, a not-nice thought or a not-nice feeling entered his mind or jabbed at his heart.

With those things, he did what he often did.

There were things in Andy’s mind that he packed into boxes and stored away because he didn’t like to think about them. It was good that way. He only needed to think about those things when another bad-feeling thing happened that reminded him they were there, in a back room where the light was turned off. And that only happened on rare occasions, so it was easy. He didn’t have to go back there often.

It worked, having that room, having those boxes that he didn’t have to see. It meant that the rest of the time, he only needed to think about happy things and happy pictures full of happy jigsaw pieces that fit together nicely and didn’t confuse him and didn’t make him feel alone and tiny and afraid. 

Amongst those boxes were the things that Owen said to him and did to him, even from before the older otter went off to adult-school, when Andy was barely learning to speak.

Like Owen crying about about their parents while pinching Andy’s young body until he bruised in areas covered by clothing. He did that until Andy refused to put clothes on anymore so his big brother couldn’t pinch him without anybody noticing.

And there were the things that Andy had walked in on Ben doing that made him feel bad and guilty and embarrassed for seeing. 

There was the time Ben got changed in front of Andy at the swimming pool and Andy saw his private parts that were big and scary. 

There was the time when Andy thought he saw Ben wearing a pair of undies the cub had lost, but he was mistaken and stupid because Ben told him he was wrong and that was a hurtful thing to think. 

There was the time when Andy woke up while Ben was in his room even though the hare wasn’t staying over that night and it didn’t make sense that he was there and he didn’t seem to be himself and Andy pretended he was still asleep while… well, it was really hard to remember that one. It was stored away real good. Right at the back.

Today… what happened in Ben’s room…

The cuddle was nice. The kind words were nice. He would keep those. The shampoo made sense. It didn’t have to go in a box.

But some of those other things didn’t make sense. They didn’t fit. They didn’t belong in the picture. He so hated being confused.

So Andy stored those things away in boxes that seemed endless, in a room that seemed infinite, behind a door that seemed airtight, and seemed like they always would be.

He massaged the icky sticky goo out of his fur.

And he filled his mind with other thoughts. 

Thoughts of what fun things he might get to do tonight.

With his safe big brother.

And his big best friend.