Don't ask. Old nickname.

"Might as well." I sit down on his right. I could really use a cigarette right about now.

So I stay there with him a few minutes (while he runs through every song he's ever known to try and remember which one he was going to try to sing before he was so rudely 'pushed down'), when suddenly I hear an unusual sound. I turn my head and look toward a nearby clearing which seems to be the source of the noise. And now it makes perfect sense to me why we weren't meeting any fiends—they were scared out of the area by the humongous freaking freak thumping around.

Ah, the Ochu. The deadly intersection between a s fls flytrap, a shark, a squid, and a ballerina. Its Latin name is motherfuckerus unpleasantus. I didn't expect to see one here.

"Feel like standing up, Brother?"

"Not…nuh. Nuh gun pass out."

"Come on, pick up your little stick. We got a fight to go to."

His eyes light up. In half a second, he's loaded for bear again. He grins crazily and snatches his crowbar up off the ground, stands up, and yells at the top of his lungs:

"YESSSSSSSSSUH!"

…scaring off every bird within fifty miles, and drawing the attention of our Friendly Neighborhood Ochu.

"Now remember, Buddy—don't you touch the carcass! You could get malaria or something."

With those inspiring words, Brother charges the thing—runs up and hits it in the side hard with the nail-pulling end of his crowbar. Makes a little dent, but doesn't stop the thing from knocking him back on his ass. He takes a couple more swats at it, mostly aiming for the feet, and I walk nearer to the fight to back him up. I have four shots before I'll need to reload, and six more shells in my pockets. Should be about enough.

Now I know that there's only one way I'e abe able to shoot at the ochu without any risk of killing the one and only true love of my life. I have to stand either in front of, or directly next to Brother. And for a baddie of this mass and volume, point-blank is really the best way to go.

Meanwhile, as I'm approaching the fight, Brother gets pummeled. I've seen it happen before. It's amazing, some of the blows he's taken in battle over the years. Son of a bitch just won't die.

"Take a sbackback. I'm gonna take a shot at him."

"Snay owdda ndis, ban."

"Broke your nose?"

"Ead shid."

I go on in front of him, push him gently back a little, and fire off a couple shots. God. Gooey, gooey ochu goop. Yech. It's not dead yet; not even really crippled, but it's hurting. I give Brother a potion. He takes a little time-out to drink it, and I fire twice more. While I'm reloading, Brother recovers.

"Stand back, Buddy, I'm going to use magic!"

Oh shit.

"No—!"

"Fir-AH! You sexy bitch!"

I drop my gun, throw myself down on the ground, cover my neck with my hands, shut my eyes and pray. It sounds like Armageddon for a few terrifying seconds—screeching, yelling, crackling and burning, then a loud thump—then silence. Then laughter. I open my eyes and sit up.

…I'll be damned.

The last bits of the ochu's smoldering remains are dissolving into pyreflies and floating up and away like rising steam. And Brother's having a good, hearty laugh about the whole thing.

"Oh, Buddy—you…you chickenshit! Did you see yourself!? I can't believe you!" He falls backwards, convulsing helplessly with laughter. Then suddenly, he starts wailing, "Ohh, ow, ow! Ow! I burned my thumb!"

Nutjob.

"C'mon, it's getting dark. Grab your magic fairy-wand and let's go back. You look like shit."

"You're acting like you don't even care about my thumb!"

By sheer force of will, I manage not to kick him. I kneel dow fro front of him on the dusty ground and take a look at his nose.

…You never quite get used to the way he looks. It's a truly jarring sight. The full-body tattoos, the eyeshadow, his hauntingly weird posture and mannerisms. His nose seems all right though, as far as I can tell, and he was talking normally a minute ago. Must be okay.

Abruptly, he reaches up, grabs the sides of my face, and pulls me down into a wet, warm, malt-beverage-flavored kiss. He's got a little bit of a five o'clock shadow, so it's a little scratchy. And it's not very neatly and artfully executed, since he's still crocked to the gills. It's sloppy, and just a little bit gross>

And just so damn sweet.

After about a minute, he pulls away, and looks at me, gaping in genuine amazement. I raise an eyebrow.

"You taste like a battery," he says.

Trying to banish the mental image of Brother sucking on batteries forever from my brain, I sort of settle over his lap and kiss him again. After about a minute for two, I begin to notice that he's mostly asleep, so I pull back and give him a couple good friendly slaps in the face.

"Wake up, Daisy-chain."

Don't ask. Old nickname.

He opens his eyes. And lets out an impressively loud, melodramatic groan.

"I hurt all over! My hair is tired!"

"You're practically bald, dumbass! I think the little bit of hair you've got is actually just some weird kind of pottery. Stand up, it's getting late. We need to head back to the ship."

"Speaking of head…you shouldn't use language like that!"

"Well, you shouldn't fall asleep out here. You need a hand up?"

"Hey, Buddy."

"Yeah."

"Let's squish."

"Wha…? Out here? No."

For those unfamiliar with the term, 'squish' is an Al Bhed euphemism for sex. And probably the dorkiest one ever conceived in any language.

"Oh, c'mon! It's nice out."

"Nice and muggy. Let's get back."

"Here, kitty kitty. I wanna rub you down with a clean napkin."

…This is the point at which I'd like to be correcting him on his vocabulary, except I can't guess what in the holy hell's t's trying to say. And what really scares me, is that it's possible he truly meant exactly what he just said.

"…God. You're just…just God. God."

"Who, me?"

I kiss him again. Can't explain it, can't believe it, can't help it. When we pull back, I look at him and sigh. There's no way of getting out of this—my opinion has very obviously been vetoed…and to be perfectly honest, I'm happy with the decision. I reach in his pocket for the lube. (We end up doing this kind of thing a lot.)

…Wait a minute.

"Brother. Where's the lube?"

"The grease? I don't have it. Why would I have it?"

"What? Well, maybe I just assumed you'd have it, because you always have it."

"When you make an assume, out of an ass, and me."

"Oh, hell."

"Hey, don't be mean. I said I was sorry."

I stand up on my knees and shake my head, willing myself to stand up and think in spite of my raging hard-on.

"If we don't squish now, Buddy, I will kick you in the face."

"Hold your horses. We'll have to go back if you don't have the lube."

"Anything but that! …I have butter! Look! There is butter!"

By some inexplicable witchcraft, he pulls out one of those little individually-wrapped square paf buf butter, horribly mangled and melted from being in his pocket, and eagerly presents it to me.

"Daisy—That's good, Brother. That's very good. Just whatever you do, don't tell me where you got that. Okay?"

"O-kay!"

He begins to enthusiastically take off my clothes. He has a little trouble, but I don't help. I unsnap his overalls, though, and start pulling them down.

"I thought you were going to kick me in the face?" I say, making conversation. He thinks about it for a moment while he takes my shirt off.

"I want to get my foot a little dirtier first."

"Ah, so that's what you're doing. You know, you make it look so easy."

"I am stlong like bull."

Because of my incredible cunning and dexterity, I've already got him mostly naked; although part of that could be because he never wears anything but his overalls and underwear. Just his shorts to go, now. He seems to be too involved with my clothes to notice that his are coming off, though, so he won't move his ass. I to to pull hard to get his boxers off.

"Buddy? You have to…you know."

"Hmm? I don't know what you're talking about."

"You have to! You promised yesterday!"

"Okay, but I never promised I wouldn't bite."

"Oh just come on!"

I scoot down a bit and take him in mouth. He s has happily, but he doesn't move. I do the usual tricks, swirl my tongue around, lick, up then down, take him back in deep, suck a little. He sighs again, breathier this time. I catch myself smirking. Which actually isn't real easy when you're giving a blowjob. I knead his thighs with my hands.

Sometimes—every rare once-in-a-while—Brother can devastatingly outmatch me in speed. He decides to use this as one of his rare once-in-a-whiles, and before I can even be surprised, he's got his dick out of my throat, and me yanked back up on his lap. He's unwrapping the butter.

"Uh, Brother? Didn't we have an agreement? You were on top last time."

"What are you complaining about? You're on top, aren't you?"

There's nothing I can say. He's right…I am on top. I can't help smiling, even as I shrug and sigh.

"Oh, all right. You win. Do whatever."

…You know, it's times like this, I can't help but think about the first time I saw him. I'll never forget it. We were two farm-fresh, wholesome shit-kicking little teeny-boppers trying to show off our flying scooters, getting scuffed up all the time and picking fights, and since we were two-of-a-kind, we eventually met. We got kicked out of the same bookstore. He wore really weird goggles back then. They were huge.

But anyway, I was a real show-off. The other kids were always awed by my supreme talent of stealing leaves from books in the 'adult' section. There weren't many bookstores back Home, and the ones that there were were cramped, and mostly filled with technical manuals. But no society can exist peacefully without porn, so there was always a little section set off.

He came up to me when I was being duly flattered by a small band of my peers, and they were actually pretty tough guys, for thirteen-year-olds. They loved to dish out shit, so their adulation was particly rly rare and remarkable. A couple of them actually chewed tobacco. I remember the conversation perfectly:

"Fuckin' A. Sweet, Brother."

"Ah, you just have to act natural."

"Hey, who's the freak?"

I looked over, and was assaulted by the image of Brother, skinny as a pole and…you know? I think he looked even weirder as a kid. He came waltzing over, apparently having overheard the conversation and wanting to assert his cla claim to coolness.

"Hey, Buddy," one of the other kids snickered. "This your girlfriend?"

"No," I shot back. "My girlfriend is hot."

When he got up to us, he exclaimed, "I can steal twice as much smut! As you!"

…I was immediately pissed.

"You and what army? Your pants don't even fit. You stick out like a horny shoopuf."

In hindsight, maybe that wasn't the greatest comeback, but it worked. He retorted with something no doubt equally stupid, and it was on. Incredulous and indignant, I challenged him.

Long story short, he made noise and got us noticed, and we were quite literally thrown out of the store. In stunned silence, the other kids stood stock-still. Not wanting to become guilty by association, they began to edge away from us.

That's when Brother's pants fell down, and everything went to hell.

After the ensuing ass-stomping that we both got, I offered him a cigarette, and he tried to eat it. That was when my fascination with him really began, I guess. Couldn't believe that anybody could be that…what's the word I'm looking for? Boorish? Demented? I guess I can't think of a good word for what he was. Still is.

Still totally is.

Since that day, though, we've been mostly inseparable. Like two poles on the same magnet. We hung around, we drove around, we eventually flew around, and kicked the shit out of each other. He had an unusual pattern of speech, and a way of tripping over almost everything, and a rare, personal, gorgeous smile that could have knocked me dead. I loved running all around, starting shit with him, drinking liquor and passing out with him, flying with him, getting frequently injured with him. What can I say? It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Mostly, it was the best of times.

The love thing was a sudden and unexpected spin; it'd been developing for a long time, but we didn't see it coming. Or at least I didn't…you can't really tell with him.

I used to be able to do this magic trick, see, where I was able to sometimes actually get hangovers in the morning without having to go through the tedious motions of getting drunk the previous evening. On one such occasion—it wasn't special, just one old morning in the pattern of a million others (wherein we communicated mostly through a very unelaborate grunting system)—he decided to try and make me feel better.

He threw his arms around my neck, looked me in the eye. And if I live a thousand years, I'll never forget what he said.

"Kiss me, you slobbering hog."

…He's so adorable, it's psychologically scarring. He bounces around like a gas molecule. He throws me off-guard all the time, because nobody else is ever like, "Oh, you wanna do something? Well, let's do it right the fuck now. Grab your jacket and the first-aid kit." And he's hot. He's hot enough to burn a hole in the ocean—but you know if he ever did, he wouldn't notice.

And he had just thoroughly and efficiently destroyed every last one of my brain cells. I was mutinously hard. And he was…whatever he is. We got down and did it on the floor.

And incidentally, I never got another phantom headache like that again.

…There's just something about him. He's like…flying. Wind. The feel of the open air. Wild and primal and a little bit too fast, totally uninhibited, totally impetuous, unpredictable. You can see him, and hear him, but you can't interpret him. You can try. Isn't gonna do dick for you. But you can try.

Still, something about him just clicks with me, always has. Right from the beginning. And I understand.

As much as I need to, anyway.

"Fuck me through the floor!" he yells, jerking me abruptly back into the present, shuddering and thrusting up into me hard. Despairing, I shake my head.

"There's no floor! There's no floor here! You say 'ground'! And you're the one fucking! Don't mix up your words, you absolute fucking fuck!"

"Geez, Buddy! Trip out on me!"

"You were the one that…"

"—That was an accident."

I can't answer. I'm almost there. I can't even smell the butter anymore. He's frantic, pushing up in and out, so smooth, so smooth, so hard, so jerky.

"You're…Brother." I almost said 'beautiful', but caught myself in time. I come slow, warm, something unsqueezing inside me, with gradual relief, gradual calm. I feel the movement lag and still. I pry my eyes open to look at him. He's finished, and smiling. He smiles a lot, with me. Only with me. I could never stand to leave him, leave this. Leave that smile. I'd rather ie