When his phone’s text message alert decided to rouse him, Liánlí woke up in a bed he only recognized from the night before. All over the flannel sheets its owner had put on after they’d rolled around the previous set, a pattern of seasonally appropriate but religiously neutral multicolored snowflakes begged Liánlí to try and count them all. One flake, two flake, red flake, blue flake—and a second, self-insistent ding! from his phone.
Despite the arm still lazily draped over his waist and the hot breath steaming up the back of his neck, Liánlí wriggled away enough to pull yesterday’s jeans off the floor. Idly humming The Killers (I wanna stand up, I wanna let go. You know, you know, no, you don’t, you don’t…), he retrieved his phone from the pocket. Pulled up his texts without checking the notifications (too many lurking there from his socials, probably, and he’d spend this entire day in a stranger’s bed if he opened up Twitter and Tiktok without his meds).
Several of his conversations in “Messages” had lit up since he’d set his phone to “do not disturb” last night. Chief among them, his Youtube manager stood out with inquiries about which songs from Midnights he was thinking about covering, and maybe doing a longer “behind the scenes” video about, something into which they could actually insert an ad break. (“Anti-Hero” seemed an obvious answer, being both extremely catchy and wildly popular—to say nothing of the controversy that people had drummed up about the music video for whatever reason—but Liánlí didn’t feel like thinking about that discussion right now.
In defiance of orders that no one had actually made, he kept humming, I wanna shine on in the hearts of men, I want a meaning from the back of my broken hand…)
The most recent two texts were far more interesting than any of the rest. On one hand, an automated notification from CVS that they’d filled his Adderall. On the other, Hayden asking if Liánlí still felt up to coming along to Lola’s appointment with her vet.
idk how you do it, Hayden’s text professed, but she always behaves SO much better for dr. schaefer when ur there
With a private little smirk, Liánlí texted back, maybe it’s really magic, who knows?
but yeah ofc
come pick me up and i’m good to go
Almost immediately, the ellipsis of “The person on the other end is typing……” popped up.… Then, it faded.… Popped up again.… So, maybe Hayden had to finagle a little about how best to reprimand Liánlí for phrasing things how he did when he knew how easily Into the Woods got stuck in Hayden’s head.
Disentangling himself from the arm of Last Night’s Man, Liánlí looked around the mostly unfamiliar room for where he’d dropped, among other things, yesterday’s shirt, his layers of outerwear, and his trusty backpack. Fortunately, both objects quickly made themselves apparent. As he shoved the crumpled old tee (a relic from the first concert he’d gone to after arriving in Destiny City) into a spare pocket on the bag, Liánlí wondered how stern the reprimand for unfair invocations of Stephen Sondheim would be today.
As he got himself ready, tried to wrestle back into his black skinny jeans and catch up with his own “good to go description,” Liánlí kept humming as if nothing had made him stop, Another head aches, another heart breaks, I’m so much older than I can take…
Fishing out a clean top from his backpack’s main compartment, he heard the ding of another message.
Dragging his hair back into a moderately tamed ponytail, he wondered what he’d find there or if it would even be from Hayden. Who knew? Maybe his Youtube manager needed to fuss at him about this, that, or the other.
Even without confirmation that he had remotely the right idea, Liánlí deliberately turned up the volume on his humming, And my affection—well, it comes and goes…
(Half-guiltily and still half-naked, he glanced over his shoulder at the bed. Last Night’s Man hadn’t roused. He groaned a bit while Liánlí wriggled into his new tee—basic black with the cover art from Placebo’s Sleeping With Ghosts album splashed across the chest—but never properly stirred. Idly, Liánlí recalled the sandpaper scratch of Last Night’s Man kissing him all over with that five-o’clock shadow, now filled in to a more proper shadow of stubble.… He’d probably make someone really happy someday.)
Getting himself changed, Liánlí lightly bit his lip to keep his brain relatively focused on the task at hand. On the song currently stuck in his head—I need direction to perfection, no, no, no, no, help me out—and using it to keep himself moving forward.
Next thing’s next, rearming himself in his protection from the December cold. Cardigan number one (black and fitted). Black and white-print tartan flannel (significantly less fitted, hence feeling comfy over top of a sweater), the one that somebody he used to know—someone unworthy of a second thought—always said made his er-di look like a virgin sacrifice for a coven of homicidal lesbians (but truly, ******** da-ge and his hot takes). Cardigan number two (black with lilac stripes and about the same size as the flannel, which made sense when Liánlí had had it since undergrad; maybe he didn’t need to keep it, but it had been a gift from Hayden and hadn’t fallen apart yet, so Liánlí had no plans to rid himself of it). Hooded sweatshirt (yet more black, with art on the back of a chubby cartoon unicorn eating sparkly, white-and-purple cake).
As he strapped on his backpack, he checked the mirror. Nothing out of place. Needed to do a better job on his hair, maybe, but he’d worry about it later. These changes ain’t changin’ me, went the lyrics only he could hear and his faint humming along, the cold-hearted boy I used to be. Yeah, you know you gotta help me out…
Maybe it was rude to leave without saying anything.
Last Night’s Man had been fun. He’d let Liánlí borrow his shower when they were done, and changed the sheets while Liánlí had cleaned himself up. Normal courtesy when hosting, sure, but still, maybe something that merited reward? Or at least the reciprocal courtesy of waking him up before tossing on his old boots, waiting for him by the door, and battered leather jacket? Leaving behind a note to say “goodbye” instead of saying nothing?
But with arm already coated up, Liánlí’s phone nagged him with another angry ding! to check Hayden’s message already.
Simple, it read, come downstairs, I’m already outside
Huffing, Liánlí finished putting on his coat. Picked up his backpack again. not at home, he fired back easily. gertrude’s for breakfast
Strictly speaking, the diner in question sat a couple blocks off from the townhouse Liánlí ambled out of. But it was on the way from Hayden’s to the local shelter where Lola saw her vet. With the morning traffic in Destiny City, Liánlí definitely had time to get to Gertrude’s and pick up something at least loosely breakfast-shaped.
Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2023 2:39 pm
Sure enough, Hayden’s van rocked up outside of Gertrude’s and managed to snag one of the parallel parking spots mere moments after Liánlí had paid for his sausage, egg, and cheese panini with a to-go cup of coffee and as many packets of hot sauce as the manager on-shift would allow the kitchen staff to give him. (Sweet chili sauce, always, marked a vast improvement on normal hot sauce, and yes, Liánlí had a bottle in his backpack. But truly, it never hurt to have options.)
Climbing up in the passenger seat, before so much as looking at the belt, Liánlí turned back and beamed at the gorgeous girl behind him. Bright-eyed and shaggy-tailed, with her luxurious black and brown fur all flopping together, Lola sat right down and yipped at him eagerly.
Liánlí raised a hand to greet Her Highness with a finger-wave. “Morning to you too, Sweetheart.”
Blue eyes fixated on the bag in his hand, Lola barked again, then tamed her expression into the pleading face of a Very Good Dog who had definitely gotten breakfast already, but believed with all her heart, on a deep and poignant emotional level, that Liánlí’s food was also For Dogs.
Got a snort of amusement out of him, like she always could. A play-swat at his shoulder said he ought to sit his a** down and try being a helpful fur-uncle, like he’d promised—but first, the spirit moved Liánlí, telling him to sing, “Oh, I met her in a club down in old Soho, where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola…”
In what was truly his greatest achievement with any of his friends’ pets, Lola answered him, singing back in a way that more or less matched the next part of The Kinks’ famous melody, C-O-L-A, Coooooola.…
“She walked up to me and she asked me to dance, I asked her her name—”
“And if you don’t sit. down. and buckle your damn seatbelt, you can go somewhere else for ******** Christmas.”
Although the threat mostly made Liánlí pout and roll his eyes—not least because he knew it had as much weight behind it as a balloon animal—he listened to Hayden anyway. He didn’t know Lola’s appointment time. Turning up late wouldn’t let her get the time and attention that she needed from her vet. Wouldn’t have been very polite to Dr. Schaefer, either, when she already had so many patients and all kinds of new strays and rescues coming in all the time, in need of tending.
Shaking out his chin-length, ginger curls with a sound halfway between groaning and sighing, Hayden pulled out of the spot. “Why is it that Lola understands ‘sit’ better than one of the humans who taught her how to do it.”
Humming no particular tune, Liánlí dug in his backpack for his bottle of The Good Stuff. “Because I can’t be so easily plied with food.”
Bold words for a man who quickly found himself in the process of prying his panini apart enough to slather sweet chili sauce all over his eggs and sausage patties. But whatever, Liánlí had a perfectly valid point, thanks much. Also, a mouthful of sandwich, once he’d satisfied himself with the addition of the Best Flavor.
Hayden didn’t roll his eyes, but the desire to do so clearly came through in his tone. “What are you even doing on this side of town so early?”
A brief quirk of the shoulders. “Maybe I wanted to go to Gertrude’s. It’s not that complicated.”
“You’ve got about five other twenty-four-hour diners significantly closer to your building that are every bit as good as this place—if not better.”
“But are they owned by lesbian couples who just radiate the feeling like they’ve got histories more checkered than the World Draughts Championship, though? Do they count the fine drag and burlesque artists of Scandals Bar among their wacky casts of regulars?”
“No, but all of them are on a first-name basis with you.” Held up at a red light, Hayden took a chance to shoot Liánlí a Significant Glance over top of his silver-rimmed glasses. “That’s gotta count for something, yeah?”
Again, Liánlí chose to shrug. Again, his silence came from the strategic choice of when to put food in his mouth.
Another sigh out of Hayden—the sort of exasperated sound that screamed I know exactly what you did, you told me so without even using your words. “So, what was their name? Whoever you slept with last night.”
Around another bite of sandwich, Liánlí gave him a noncommittal sound rather than shrugging again so soon. Same intention behind the offering, but maybe different enough that it wouldn’t feel entirely repetitive, dismissive, or worst of all, boring. “Been mentally calling him ‘Last Night’s Man,’” he admitted, reaching for his coffee in the cup-holder. “Nothing offensive about him or whatever? I’d say ‘obviously not,’ since I did sleep with him? But his name……eh, superfluous?”
“Yeah, most people tend to at least pretend they’re interested in someone’s first name.”
“Maybe if he’d held my interest long enough for a second round, I’d bother, but since he didn’t……?” A quick tear to yank open one of the hot sauce packets. A moment’s pause to artlessly squeeze it all over the bottom of the styrofoam container. Daubing the panini around like a painter wetting his brush, Liánlí offered by way of explanation, “He doesn’t have any spices in his kitchenette, Hayden. Not even black pepper. Pretend that someone’s god is watching and tell me honestly: can you really see anything long-term working out between me and someone who probably thinks that KFC is a couple shades too spicy because their recipe uses eleven whole herbs and spices?”
“Well, you’ve obviously decided that the answer is ‘No’—”
“Because it is—”
“Which is fine if that’s really how you feel, man, I just…” No consideration had proven necessary when Hayden started that thought, but as he pulled into another red light, something gave him pause. Held him up as he tried to get his thoughts back in the vicinity of ‘together.’ “Are you reconsidering on whether you’re aromantic or not? Because it’s fine if you are. And I want you to do that thinking, if you have to. So, is that what I should be reading into your allergy to dating?”
For a decent moment, Liánlí fixed him with a flat look, pointedly chewing so Hayden couldn’t possibly miss the point. You keep asking me questions that I can’t answer, Liánlí might have told him under other circumstances, and worse, you keep doing it when I have food in my mouth. Talk about ******** rude.
Nose wrinkling like a bunny who’d gotten caught with their paws in the cookie jar, Hayden sank a bit in the driver’s seat. “Do you want me to shut up about it?”
Liánlí didn’t know. Not really. No idea how he felt about that question, or what he wanted that might remotely relate to it.…… So, instead, he answered Hayden’s previous query: “I’m not reconsidering frickin’ anything. Thought about it more than enough. Listened to enough people who are aromantic about their experiences to figure……yah, no? That don’t mesh with any of mine, exactly.” He crossed his legs, unsettled the styrofoam takeout container, caught it just in time to stop it crashing to the floor. “I’m just not looking for some wicked romance. Very ‘If you wanna be my lover, ya’ gotta have the ability to ******** without getting entangled in all that godawful ********’ mess.’ No, sir. Thanks, much. I could care less for all’uh that.”
“……Southie,” Hayden told him, picking out the lapse in accent rather than replying to the content. “Unless you don’t want to rein that back in before we get there.”
“Holy—are you frickin’—” Where was Liánlí’s spare toothbrush in his backpack? Scouring all the Boston—all its obnoxiously identifiable accent and asinine dialect, like saying I could care less when you meant the opposite—out of his mouth didn’t make any logical sense, but something about the idea made it seem completely reasonable. Except for the part where it required him to dig the thing out when he didn’t entirely want to. “This ********’ guy.…… Me, meaning, not you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry for pushing you that hard.” Hayden pouted. “But…don’t you ever get lonely?”
He asked that question very seriously, with the sort of poignance that meant Liánlí should’ve taken more time to think about his answer, or at least treated the question with something more obviously adjacent to respect. Not that he meant to disrespect it, nor to disrespect Hayden and the fact that he’d asked it. Hayden wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t feel like it was important. But still, Liánlí didn’t hesitate in shaking his head.
Without missing a beat, he gave his simple answer, “Not even a little.”
CW: discussion of pet neglect/abandonment & mistreatment of animals.
The downside about playing helpful dog-uncle was, as ever, how it would end up consuming so much time but involving very little actual work. The tasks Hayden did ask Liánlí to handle today barely felt like chores, and while Lola did overall behave better with Liánlí around to distract her from anything she may not have enjoyed, the parts that he thought of as more intense didn’t end up involving him. For some, probably the last round of business, Hayden gently nudged him out of Lola’s exam room, as if the privacy the humans around wanted actually made much of an impact on the dog’s point of view.
Well, no matter. If nothing else, Liánlí was used to this part. Accustomed to finding ways of entertaining himself without any of the fun things perpetually in his backpack, because some people in the world were assholes enough to make backpacks a security risk. For a little while, Liánlí contented himself with just tapping at various games on his phone, but……eh. Something viscerally satisfying was missing when he couldn’t have the sound turned on out of respect for everybody else in the waiting room. (Made sense, he guessed, in the logical part of his brain that knew good and goddamn well how easy it was to toy with people’s emotions through music. Something as simple as a fake fanfare celebrating their victory, piddling as it probably was even by any given game’s standards, could get people to shell out microtransaction after quickly rallying up microtransaction because the music kicked them steel-toe hard in the dopamine and made them ravenous for another hit.
It was why Liánlí didn’t allow himself to download mobile games that had more microtransaction options than “remove ads for one payment of $2.99” or similar. Unfortunately, this also meant that his phone’s games quickly got boring. They’d been designed with simplicity and functionality in mind, rather than tricking nine-year-olds into burning thousand-plus-dollar holes into their parents’ credit card statements by promising how much more fun they would have with the Angry Birds or whichever other game mascots any given nine-year-old had grown attached to.)
Absent any other ideas for how to entertain himself—at least, absent any feasible ones, since turning any semi-public spaces into practice venues rarely ever turned out well—Liánlí double-checked to make sure the sound was off (it was) and pocketed his phone. Thus far, his youtube manager had remained quiet, which at least offered the comforting thought that Liánlí hadn’t done anything terribly egregious on the professional front in the past few days. So, he’d likely be okay to not think about work for a while—about which videos needed editing, which ones were already lined up to post, and which tricks he was planning to use to exploit Christmas for as many clicks and as much AdSense money as he could get out of it—and to instead, ask a few questions of the receptionist, then head in to visit with the shelter’s various potential future pets.
It wasn’t his most frequent pastime by a long-shot, but Liánlí had done it often enough since Hayden had adopted Lola that he more or less knew the ropes. How to behave with the dogs, how to read their cues pretty reliably, how to clean up any messes or respect their boundaries as necessary. Nellie, one of the longtime staff members here, remained on-hand if any questions or situations were to occur (which had rarely ever happened before and even then, Liánlí mostly kept them to shelter policy about this, that, and the other). Round-faced, freckled, and perpetually earnest, she’d been Hayden’s adoption counselor, back when he’d first gone out for Lola, and Liánlí liked her well enough. Didn’t know if she thought he and Hayden were An Item or not, but regardless, she was always sweet and welcomed an extra set of hands to help out with the dogs, even just for a little while.
Such a simple procedure and it had never once hit a snag for Liánlí—except today had other plans.
Specifically, Today’s Other Plans couldn’t have weighed more than fifty pounds. Black all over, save the bright red of her collar and a few white patches on her belly and back-paws. With floppy, folded-triangle ears and big, soft eyes, the same color as the honey that Hayden insistently put in his tea like some kind of barbarian.
Like several of the other dogs in the shelter, she didn’t immediately venture out when Nellie and Liánlí came in. While some of them understood that Nellie had the bag of treats and that Liánlí could probably also be seduced into giving them such rewards, others had come from all manner of bad situations and they didn’t trust that easily. Or they didn’t believe in their own ability to vie for either attention or food against all the other dogs with whom they currently shared quarters. Or they didn’t feel like the other dogs would allow them that ability without smacking or shouldering them out of the way, relegating them to, at best, second-class status. Even when most of the other shy babies had cautiously wandered out in search of pets, or playtime, or treats, though? Today’s Other Plans stuck to the sides, curled up on a pile of blankets with a hopelessly forlorn expression.
Wrinkling his nose, Liánlí tugged gently on Nellie’s sweater. “That little one over there,” he said. “What’s her story?”
“Oh, that poor darling; it’s terrible.” Nellie shook her head in a way that reminded Liánlí of certain people he used to know—all of them, same as his older brother, unworthy of a second thought. Fortunately, the reminder came by way of contrast: it struck him that Nellie shook her head with actual sympathy, rather than a wet tissue-paper façade laid out over top of some fundamentally selfish disappointment. “She lost her first home in a divorce. They tried to save the marriage by getting the kids a puppy?”
Liánlí winced. Not that he knew the first thing about what healthy, successful marriages looked like, but even he could guess that buying a puppy sounded like a terrible way to save a marriage. If anything, the stress of trying to help said puppy acclimate to a new home sounded way too likely to hasten the end of things.
“Exactly,” Nellie went on, agreeing with everything Liánlí hadn’t said. “Her second home wasn’t a good fit either. Not anybody’s fault, at least? They just weren’t a good fit with her. Couldn’t give her what she needed. Better for them to let her try again, but her third home?” Nellie paled under the fluorescent lights, screwing up her face into an expression both sympathetically miserable and politely outraged but increasingly tired of the ‘politely’ part that was required of her by her job description. “One of our staff members found her abandoned in the woods outside town, back in October.”
“What the—you mean when the pumpkin thief was still out and about? Stealing pumpkins and being a danger to anyone who got in its way?”
“It was just a bear, hun.” As if the serious conversation wasn’t still on the table, Nellie threw a pointed look over the rims of her glasses. “Maybe a particularly odd bear? But just a bear. That’s what the guys from City Animal Control said, based on all the reports they got.”
Pursing his lips, Liánlí bit back on his impulse to ask if Nellie also believed that the Christian Hell was just a spicy hot springs resort. Wouldn’t help, getting annoyed about how easily so many people in Destiny City rationalized their way out of acknowledging the blatant supernatural things that went on in this town. People wouldn’t accept anything they didn’t want to.
Focusing on the real subject, he asked, “Has anybody put a hold on her yet?”
“A few people have made overtures? But nothing’s panned out for her so far.” Nellie shook her head again and sighed. “After what she’s been through, I get it? She can be high-maintenance. She needs some patience while adjusting to new places. Needs to be the only pet. Scared of going outside—and anything that reminds her of bears or the woods, also male dogs—but as much as she wants a routine, she has trouble internalizing them because her life’s been so chaotic.…”
……Oh. Oh, no, sweetheart.
“It’s just terribly sad, y’know? She has a heart of gold; she’d be a perfect dog for somebody. But her person hasn’t shown up here to find her yet.”
Impulse decisions didn’t always work out so well. Hayden had made his thoughts on that known, and usually wound up repeating himself whenever Liánlí did something that struck him as insufficiently planned out. Going over to her was all the Liánlí needed that he knew what he needed to do. He held out his hand for her to sniff, and while she took a moment to consider, he quickly wound up with her butting her head against his chest.
By the time Hayden and Lola were done, Liánlí was sitting cross-legged on the floor, with the little girl in black up in his lap, draping her front legs over his shoulder like a baby. Occasionally, she sniffed at his hair, or licked his cheek. Not that Liánlí could see for himself, but he imagined that the look she gave Hayden and Lola was exceptionally quizzical.
“What are you doing,” Hayden said, nudging his boot at Liánlí’s back and not really asking a question.
Rather than risk upsetting the girl on his shoulder, Liánlí made a noise like the vocal equivalent of a shrug. “Planning to come back here tomorrow.”
“Why.”
“Well, I asked Nellie about the paperwork right now, but she told me to sleep on it first. Then there’s gonna be a trial period because Taotao’s been so difficult to find a home for.”
“That isn’t her name. I know that’s not her name.”
Liánlí shook his head. “They’ve been calling her Wheat Thin. Deserves a better name than that.” Ruffling a hand up and down her back, he added, “Calling her ‘Taotao’ is what got her up in my lap, so I’m guessing she likes it alright.”
He certainly did. “Peaches” was a much more fitting name for this baby than ******** “Wheat Thin.”
A deep breath for Hayden, and then the same exasperated sigh he’d used when Liánlí had first suggested moving to Destiny City with him (and more specifically, doing so while only telling one person he was leaving Boston, not actually telling Xiùyīng where he was going or giving her any way to contact him, and leaving behind any means he had of getting back in his parents’ place).
“If I ask why you’re doing this,” he said, “will you actually tell me? Or is it just gonna get me one of your unhelpful non-answers?”
“Oh, no. You were right. I decided.”
“Right about what? You contradict me as easily as breathing.”
“Yeah, well. Now, I’m not doing that. Because you were right.” Pouting up at him, Liánlí explained, “I changed my mind, okay? I am very. desperately. lonely.”
Hayden nudged his glasses up, pinched the bridge of his nose. “And to address that loneliness, you need a dog?”
Liánlí nodded.
“Rather than anything I was actually asking about, which was your insistence on random hookups you usually never see again? As if the ‘Somewhere That’s Green’ segment in Little Shop Of Horrors doesn’t make you cry like an overtired baby? Even when you’re stone-cold sober?”
“Meh. That’s just a musical, though.” Liánlí briefly stuck out his tongue. “Dogs are always better than boyfriends, Hay-Hay. Everybody knows that.”
