ShapeShifter fiction: Human (The Early Days)

Reader alert: there’s the middle part of the old sex, drugs, and rock and roll happening in the following fiction. If that bugs you, stop reading here. I’ll understand. I’ll think you’re missing out on a really good moment, but I’ll… make fun of you when you can’t see or hear.

There was nothing comfortable about lying on a picnic table. Nothing. Apparently, a guy couldn’t get stoned enough to make a picnic table comfortable.

They were only here because it was a band bonding moment. Trevor and Mitchell had agreed: no matter how much they liked Daniel and Eric, they weren’t going to bring them to their spot on the river. Since Mitchell knew the way into the Park after sundown, this was where they’d come instead. Even if Daniel had wussed out on them. Again.

It was a pretty cool place once it emptied out of screeching little girls and whining and crying babies and their not-so-hot-at-the-moment moms. He’d seen a few bats before they’d smoked much. And Eric had been convinced they’d heard a coyote.

The park was definitely cooler after dark. It had this edge to it, like something deliciously bad lurked in every shadow. And there were lots of shadows. Trevor had wanted to explore them. Mitchell had said no, not this time.

So here they were, three guys on three picnic tables, getting stoned. Whoopee.

Eric mirrored Trevor’s position of flat on his back, knees bent – and the joint held in the air while he examined it. “What is it,” he asked, “about the condition of being human that makes it such a hard state to be in?”

“Everyone else around us sucks,” Trevor said before he could think. But that’s how it was when you were stoned, sometimes. The words slipped out.

Good thing he was here and not at Hank’s. It was bad when words slipped out around Hank.

“No, not everyone,” Eric said slowly, like he was trying to think and talk at the same time. “I’m not an asshole.”

“Yes, you are,” Trevor said and sat up. He had to turn to face Eric, but that was okay. It let him put his feet on the bench. “You’re such an asshole, I don’t know why I let you in my band.”

“Whose band?” Mitchell asked from Trevor’s other side. “And Eric’s not the asshole. You are. Remember? You made me promise to not let anyone in the band who’d take that title away from you.”

Trevor stood up, lunged for the joint Eric was still holding but not smoking, and delivered it to Mitchell’s face. “You need more.”

Mitchell batted him away.

“See?” Trevor said, resuming his seat on his picnic table. “I’m an asshole!”

“Yes, Trevor, but why are you an asshole?” Eric asked. He, too, sat up.

Trevor figured the guy was looking for his stolen joint and didn’t bother to answer. No real need to. Not when he held the remains of the last joint.

“Is it because of your home life?”

“My home life is with the Vosses.” Trevor looked over at Mitchell, who hadn’t gotten off his back yet. That wasn’t like Mitchell. This was the sort of talk he loved to be part of.

“Do they remind you of what it means to be human and not some… some…”

“Eric, let it go,” Mitchell said quietly.

Trevor felt, somehow, the force of Mitchell’s words ramming through him on the way over to Eric.

“So what is it about being human?” Eric asked.

“It’s about me knowing it’s time to split,” Trevor said, jumping off the table. He liked the way it felt, with his hair flopping behind him, his wallet chain jingling, and his boots thunking on the concrete pad in the picnic pavilion.

There was no way to put it in words, let alone words that Eric would understand, but that was what it meant to be human. It was all right there, in the act of jumping off the table.

Maybe Mitchell got it, Trevor thought, because the big blonde was right beside him. “You know you can’t go home without me.”

“You’re just worried your precious ass will get in trouble.”

“I get in more trouble when we’re together.”

Mitchell threw a look over his shoulder at Eric, who was starting to catch the drift. Time to go. “I think it’s part of being human.”

“Yeah, but…” Eric sputtered, then trailed them out of the picnic pavilion without another word.

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