Category: Novels

Caveat Two: These novels usually bounce back and forth between the Breed at the school and Rox’s runaways, but I don’t have an outline, or even a solid idea of what their B story is; right now, this is the immediate story I feel compelled to tell, so I’m going to stick with it. Probably means the final draft will be wildly different.         

Two

“This roadtrip felt right,” Demi said through her hand-sewn cloth mask. “Obviously, not the reason we’re on it, but being back together again, all of us, not just hanging out on web cam or face time; I was actually starting to pine for classes, I’ve been getting so stir-crazy.”

“We missed you, too,” Mayumi said. “Though I still feel ridiculous in this mask,” she adjusted it over her nose.

“Oh, hush, I sewed it for you, and it looks adorable. Besides, it’s more a solidarity thing. We can’t all just tell our bodies to karate chop the coronavirus. It shows other people, especially vulnerable people, that you’re safe, that you care about their safety even if you’re not worried about your own.”

“You might be the first person to ever accuse me of being ‘safe.’”

“Well, sure, you’re still the deadly murder pixie you were trained to be, but now with more empathy, free will, and a superior fashion sense.”

“I still would have preferred to wear my underwear mask,” Iago muttered, futzing with his own mask. “Not that I don’t appreciate the gesture.”

“One, those were not your underwear,” Tucker started, counting on his fingers. “Two, I’m pretty sure them being lacy would make them a lot less useful at filtering out disease.”

“Please tell me they weren’t yours,” Drake said.

“Ew,” Tucker said, wrinkling his nose. “No. For one, depraved as my brother is, I hope he wouldn’t put my underthings on his face, even fresh from the wash. And when I became a man, I put away lacy underthings.”

“Became a man?”

“I was paraphrasing.”

“Corinthians?”

“That where that’s from? You know what I meant. And I’m surprised you of all people recognized Corinthians.”

“You don’t become that militant an atheist without getting personally burnt by religion,” Demi said. “Though on the other hand, who amongst us hasn’t been personally burned by religion?”

“Fair,” Tucker said. “And  I mean, I can still rock a lace thong, it’s just… it’s not the me I want to be.”

“Hmm,” Drake said, and frowned.

“You’re picturing me rocking a lace thong.”

“No poking around in my upstairs.”

“I wasn’t, I just recognize the look on a straight-ish guy’s face when he’s mentally poking around in my downstairs- and wondering if that’s ‘okay.’”

“And is it?”

“It’s a free country,” Tucker shrugged.

“Unlike your brother, I bet you would pull them off.”

“There’s a story there I’m not going to want to hear, isn’t there?”

“Ironically, he also had trouble pulling them off once he got them on- not that anyone asked for him to do that in the first place. Either ‘that.’”

“My butt cheeks clenched around them like a vice,” Iago said, a little too loudly. “Like when you’re flossing and there’s two teeth extra close together and you kind of fray the floss even getting it between them-“

“I may never floss again,” Mikaela said.

“You can probably just get by with your waterpick,” Tucker replied. 

“I could feel my testicles atrophying from lack of circulation. I thought for a moment they were going to have to cut me out of them with the jaws of life.”

“Or a pair of scissors. Really any moderately sharp knife would probably do it, too.”

“We really needed this,” Demi said.

“A walk in the brisk Seattle air?” Mikaela asked, trying to stifle a shiver.

“No. For our pack of gross weirdos to get a chance to get most of our gross weirdness out of our systems. Cause this is going to be a mostly somber affair, and probably most people wouldn’t have the same, um, appreciation of a discussion of Iago’s choice of lingerie, or his atrophying balls.”

“Had the devil of a time getting everything in them in the first place, then the atomicest of wedgies happened… I know there’s two in there, but I usually still kind of think of them as one unit, but in that thong, they were very separate.”

“Well, from the sounds of it they were women’s underwear, literally designed to accommodate neither twig nor berries.”

“There’s a fruit of the loom joke in there, but this conversation’s already spent too long rooting around in my underwear.”

Okay, so parts of the world are literally on fire right now, and apparently, that has not been an environment in which I creatively thrive. So I’m a book behind in all this madness on Breed, and the fourth book is essentially happening right now- and I feel like I need to be working on it right now. I don’t have much to give, but what I can do is try to keep up on this, now, maybe entertain some of you, maybe just make some of you feel less alone with this moment than you do now. Daily chapters is the goal, in solidarity with those doing the hard and necessary work of protesting, until my spirit or my fingers break. And I’m going to make sure we catch up on any remaining posting, here, too.

I guess, the important thing you need to know is the missing third book is all about kids in cages (seriously, fuck Trump and every asshole who’s enabled/ling this quagmire). If you’re new to the series, or me, hi, the Breed are an attempt at a modern, relatively real-world, representative X-Men, where the kids are also dealing with all of the non-metaphorical real-world bigotries while trying to learn how to use their fantastic abilities to craft a better world. Quick caveat: the school is in the Pacific Northwest, so the events take place in Seattle, even if they’re more of a composite of issues nationwide.  

One

“This time feels different,” Drake said, scrolling through his phone in the back seat. “I mean, there’s brands who’ve never shared any political opinions more controversial than about killing off Mr. Peanut sharing the BreedLivesMatter tag, BlackLivesMatter, the whole Magilla.”

“And I sense a butt, besides your boney one digging into my thighs,” Demi said.

“Don’t be a sore loser just because I won the coin toss.”

“Who says I lost? Maybe I like a sharp butt.”

“To answer the question, it feels… good. Like maybe things could change, and for the better. And that’s just waving a big red flag in front of the raging bull that is our chaotic universe.”  

“Last time we were here in Seattle, the cops marched in solidarity with us,” Mikaela said from the passenger seat in the front.

“They also got shot at, for that solidarity,” Tucker said from behind the wheel. “And I think Drake’s right. This time is different. And I don’t think all those differences will fall in our favor.”

“This a psychic thing?” Iago asked, grinning wide.

“Telepaths aren’t- we read thoughts, not the future.”

“He knows, Tuck,” Demi said, rolling her eyes. “Your brother’s fucking with you. Carful of eligible ladies, and he only wants to Luke your Leia.”

“I hate you,” Iago said.

“We all hate her for that, a little,” Mikaela said. “Though I’d hardly call you and Mayumi back there a carful.”

“I thought you batted for both teams.”

“I wouldn’t pinch-hit him with somebody else’s wood.”

“Cause you and Tuck used to, ahem.”

“Oh, my God, I’m going to drive us off the next cliff I see,” Tucker muttered.

“Partially, yes. It would be a lot like stealing someone else’s bike that was the same model as your lost one… similar enough to feel weird, but still not quite right. either.”

“I’m getting a little uncomfortable with the discussion of ‘riding me like a bike,’” Iago said.

“I don’t know, you look like you could handle some rough back roads to me,” Demi said.  

“But to encourage you to dismount, I think it has way more to do with the fact that Mikaela was into Tucker when my brother was still my sister. I mean, I can’t tell you how many movies I had to try to just ignore the awkward lesbian pawing through.”

“You could have just not watched movies with them,” Demi offered.

“You have no idea how many times we suggested that,” Tuck said.

“Yeah, but my parents wouldn’t let me watch PG-13 movies on my own, and I was already spending what in retrospect was probably a little too much time masturbating as it was. Besides, it prepared me for a couple years down the road when all of my friends were doing the same. Puberty might be necessary, and whatever, but it is gross and sticky, and I still can’t account for all of the stains.”

“I feel like I probably deserve this comeuppance,” Demi said, “but I still don’t have to like it.”

“You should just be thankful you’re on that side of the car. This side, one of the stains never seems to actually dry. It’s not so moist it’ll leave a spot on my jeans, but to the touch?”

“I don’t want to know what you did in my backseat, do I?”

“Please,” Drake put up his hands, “nobody touch that with a ten foot pole.”

“I mean, ten feet is generous, but I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Iago said with a laugh.

“I hate to bring anybody down, but, what’s the plan?” Mayumi asked. “Because trouble has a history of finding us, and I don’t like the idea of improvising on the spot.”

“Oh, shit,” Mikaela said. “I guess it hasn’t been that long since you got attacked at the school. I didn’t even… sorry.”

“It’s okay. And, that feels like a lifetime ago. I’m not the same person. But that’s why I want to know what to do. If things happen. What’s our plan?”

“Our plan is peaceful protest. There’s a lot of people just waiting for an excuse, to call us animals, to call us inhuman, or worse. So we don’t give them a reason- we use force in the only circumstances it should be okay for cops to: to save our lives or someone else’s. And even then, minimum necessary force to get the job done. Just because Iago can instantly build a sixty-story ice phallus and drop it on someone’s head, doesn’t mean he needs to to subdue them.”

“I didn’t say I could, just that I thought I’d figured out a theoretical way to. And it doesn’t have to be a penis.”

“You said ice dick. And it is way past too late for any of us to unlearn that you’re a jackass. Just embrace who you really are. But does that clear things up, Mai?”

“It does. But, if anything does happen, I’d still suggest you get behind me.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about using you as a four foot tall meat shield.”

“We all have our strengths. Maybe someday we’ll really need a giant ice dick.”

“We’re here,” Tucker said, putting the car into park and then removing the keys from the ignition.

“Before we get out,” Mikaela started, “we could be walking into a firestorm. This could be the last quiet, contemplative moment we get and, I’d like to just spend a moment remembering Greg Lloyd. I think we all felt that officer’s knee in our necks, watching the video. He was one of us, and he didn’t deserve to die like that in the street.”