Page 5 of Stags

The thing was, of course, Bruin wasn’t really his uncle. He was his father. Stockton didn’t know why he had hidden it. He was pretty sure, if there had been no other deerkin there when he revealed where he was staying in the city for his internship, he would have simply said he was staying at his father’s place.

But it hadn’t been that way. Athos was standing there, Athos with his huge rack of antlers, tucked into his gray, pinstripe suit, Athos who had said in passing, during some other conversation, that he was a product of two generations of women, and that he didn’t have a single mom, not at all, and he wouldn’t stand for the pity that got heaped on preykin for simply organizing themselves the way nature intended.

So.

Anyway.

It wasn’t as if Stockton hadn’t mostly been raised by his mother and aunts. His gran had been gone by then, but the family was as closeknit as you please amongst deerkin. He and his mother and siblings lived in one of the wings built onto the main house. His mother had actually grown up there and her mother before her. Stockton suspected he’d be spending large swaths of his adult life going back there himself. He would probably stay there for several months any time his sisters had new baby fawns, for instance.

But Stockton, unlike his brothers and sisters, had spent every fourth weekend and one month of each summer living with Bruin.

It was an arrangement the stag had pursued himself, after finding out he’d impregnated Stockton’s mother, something Bruin said was only fair.

But Stockton wondered if it was only because Bruin himself didn’t have a family, if he were just lonely.

Most bucks had no idea how many children they might or might not have sired. In season, even if deerkin didn’t go to organized breeding rites like this one, there tended to be a lot of hooking up—casual flings, lots of action at local bars, things of that nature. Women during that time would not be remotely monogamous, either, so there was no way—short of DNA tests—to know who fathered what fawns, and mostly, no one cared.

Sure, there were your deerkin who decided to couple up. They’d get a house together in the suburbs, both get jobs to pay off their student loans, and live in a pair bond, just as if they were foxes or hawks.

Stockton might have liked a life like that, to be honest. He and Maibell had both claimed to be on the same page. Then, last season, he was busy studying for a test and she’d gone off to some party with friends, “just the girls,” she said.

She never came home.

She was teary about it when she apologized the next morning. She said she didn’t mean it, that the buck she’d let fuck her meant nothing, that she was still in love with him, that she’d never do it again, that she’d do anything if he forgave her.

And he… tried.

Maybe he would have even managed it, that was the thing. It was only that she wanted him to be over it too quickly. He had an urge that she should check in every time they were apart, but this made him feel like an abusive, abrasive fuck-face, so he didn’t ask. Then she got home, and he was jealous, and she would cry again, and…

Anyway, she was the one who cut it off, in the end, only about four months ago.

And Stockton was here, at a rite, about to chase some literal doe tail and… and…yeah.

“Like what other things?” Athos was saying.

It took Stockton a moment to even place what Athos was talking about. “Oh, uh, boats and vehicles and stocks and gold bars and… things,” said Stockton. “When his mother died, he was the only kid, and she left him money, and he started buying stuff then.”

“His mother? You mean, your gran?”

Stockton winced. “Let’s not talk about Bruin. Nothing to say about him. He’s mostly boring.” He leaned backwards, looking behind Athos. “Where’s the bartender?”

Athos reached up to toy with the point of one of his antlers. “He’s not, like, your uncle on your father’s side, is he? Wait, do you know who your father is?”

Stockton caught sight of the bartender and flagged him over.

The bartender was sparrowkin, and he fluffed his wing feathers where they came free of his suit jacket as he approached. “What can I get for you fellows?”

Athos grinned. “Right, my treat, Stockton, didn’t I say? I’m buying. What are we drinking, though?”

Stockton shrugged.

The bartender said, “I recommend the IPA if you’re looking for something in the beer selection, and if you’re interested in some of the whiskey, which has been donated by the local distillery Barrels and Blues, there’s a selection here of signature mixed drinks made especially for the occasion.” He flipped over a menu between the two of them.

“Whiskey,” mused Athos. Then, lifting his gaze to shrug at Stockton. “What are your thoughts on gin and tonics, Stockton, my boy?”

“Love them,” said Stockton.

Athos nodded at the bartender.

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