The dust began to clear, and there, in the destroyed entrance to the barn, were a hornless unicorn and a half-giant.
Tiggy stood with his big hands on his hips, scowling, but also trying hard not to smile, which made for an interesting combination as he looked me up and down, taking me in hungrily. He didn’t look all that different than the last time I’d seen him. His thin dark hair was still wispy around his head, his nose bulbous, face kind and sweet, even though he’d just smashed a heavy barn door. He was wearing trousers that came just below his knees, and a patchwork vest my mother had made for him a few years before for All Hallowed Day, which he took great care of, saying he’d never had anything so nice before.
I wanted to hug his face until it fell off.
Next to him stood Gary, the air around him shimmering with glitter. His mane and tail had been dyed with streaks of purple and pink. His chest was puffed out, one leg raised in the air, bent at the knee and—wait.
I frowned. “Are you two posing?”
Gary snorted. The sparks that came out were periwinkle and teal. “Of course not,” he growled. “That would just be ridiculous.” He flipped his mane. It settled gracefully on the other side of his head.
“Tiggy.”
“Hi, Sam!”
“Are you posing?”
“Yes.”
“Tiggy,” Gary hissed. “Remember the plan.”
Tiggy’s face scrunched up. “Oh. Right. The plan.” He bared his teeth at me. “Sam in big trouble. Gary gonna bring the pain.”
“Oh,” Gary said, slowly turning back to look at me. “That’s right.”
“I am hard as a fucking rock right now,” Kevin muttered.
“Dude!”
“What? I am.”
“Not the time!”
“It’s never the time.”
“Yes, but of all the times, this is the one where it’s the most not the time.”
“That… wow. Your Veranian really took a hit in the woods, didn’t it. Are coherent sentences hard for you?”
“Enough!” Gary bellowed.
“Meep,” Kevin and I said.
Gary and Tiggy glared at us.
Kevin and I tried to make ourselves smaller.
“Now,” Gary said, “here’s how this is going to work. I am going to murder the both of you. And then I am going to resurrect you using arcane magic. And then I am going to murder you again. And then I will resurrect you again. And only then will I entertain the idea of setting a date far in the future in which I will consider the idea of possibly forgiving either of you for your crimes against Tiggy and myself.”
“Tiggy hug Sam now?” Tiggy whispered to Gary.
“No, you can’t hug Sam now. We still need to make him grovel—and you’re already hugging him.”
And he was. He’d taken three large steps forward, and before I could even react, I’d been swept up in his big arms and held tightly against his chest. His heart was beating rapidly, and he was breathing heavily, and I realized my wonderful friend was shaking. My eyes prickled with tears as I heard him sniffle. I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his throat.
“My Sam,” he said quietly. “My Sam. My Sam.”
“Hi, Tiggy.”
“Hi.”
“I missed you.”
“Me too. No more, okay? You stay here with Gary and Tiggy forever.”
“Okay.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah,” I said, voice breaking just a little. And even though I knew it was a promise no person could ever make, I said, “Forever,” because I wanted nothing more.
“Tiggy!” Gary growled. “I have never experienced such disappointment in my life. We had a plan. There were going to be threats and intimidation and blood, and then we were going to make them do things for us like laundry and a dance choreographed by yours truly involving unflattering costumes for our specific amusement. And then we were going to cry and hug them and all that other stupid feelings crap.”
“I cry now?” Tiggy said, eyes filling.
“Oh no,” I whispered. “This is going to get very wet.”
“But if you start, I will,” Gary said, lips trembling. The Unicorn Rage glitter was starting to fade. “And at least one of us needs to be angry at them.”
“No angry!” Tiggy wailed, tilting his head back. “Hugging and crying! So happy and sad!”
“I didn’t mean to leave!” I cried. “You have to forgive me!”
Gary ran forward until he collided with Tiggy, who wrapped him up in his other arm, squishing both of us against his chest. “This is going to ruin my makeup,” Gary sobbed, his nostrils pressed against my eyes. It was terrible and wonderful all at the same time. “It will streak down my face, and I will look like the aftermath of a festival celebrating the art of bukkake.”
“That’s so disgusting,” I wept. “I hate you so much for saying that so close to my face.”
“Well, it’s true. And I hate you for making me say it!”
“What bukkake?” Tiggy asked tearfully.
Gary was still crying when he said, “It’s when a group of people take turns ejaculating on someone.”
“Gross,” Tiggy bawled. “Everything happy and sad and gross.”
“I missed you guys so fucking much,” I said, pressing myself closer to Gary. “You have no idea.”
“I expect I do,” Gary said. “And if you think I am letting you out of my sight again in the near future, you’d be sorely mistaken. I am going to cling to you like herpes, you understand me?”
“Tiggy too,” Tiggy said, squeezing us tighter. “I be herpes on your mouth.”
I sighed happily at the thought, which was an impressive feat, seeing as I was still crying along with them.
“Oh look,” a voice said from above us. “Kevin is here too. We should all give some love to Kevin so he doesn’t feel left out or anything and start to doubt he belongs.”
We all slowly looked up at him.
He looked around, eyes wide. “Now, who could have said that? I mean, it’s true, of course, so whoever said that obviously knew what they were talking about.”
Gary pulled away from Tiggy and me, tail up, chest stuck out as he pranced toward Kevin. “Did you fuck other dragons?” Gary demanded.
Kevin peered down at him. “No? One is like my brother. Two are lesbians, one of whom thinks I’m her baby. Which I am. The other is a cranky old man.”
“Did you fuck Sam?”
I gagged. “What? Of course not!”
“Not even when he begged for it,” Kevin told Gary.
“I didn’t beg for anything—”
“Yes,” Gary said, “that sounds like him.”
“In what fucking world does that sound like me?”
“He dressed saucily to try and entice me,” Kevin said, lowering himself until he was eye level with Gary. “But I resisted, no matter how often he tried to present his asshole for my inspection.”
“None of that happened,” I told Tiggy. “Literally none of that.”
“Shh,” Tiggy said, squishing my face back against his chest. “Shhh, Slutty Sam. That’s capitalized. It true now.”
“I will deal with that whore later,” Gary said. “So if you didn’t have sex with dragons or Sam, who did you have sex with?”
“No one,” Kevin said. “Because I was saving myself for you.”
Gary gasped. “You were?”
“I dreamed about going to your bakery,” Kevin growled. “And putting your poppy seed muffins all over my face.”
“Well maybe my bakery is closed permanently,” Gary said, turning his head away to gaze into the distance. “Maybe it went out of business and I don’t have the finances to open it up again.”
“Or maybe it just needs a cash-flow injection,” Kevin said, tongue flicking out. “Something to give it a boost.”
“Oh my,” Gary breathed. “I do like cash-flow injections. And then I could open my bakery and banana nut all over your chest.”
“Tiggy,” I said, struggling to get free, “we have to get out of here. They’re going to have filthy reunion sex, and your soul is far too pure to witness such atrocities!”
“Do you feel that?” Gary purred, rubbing his snout against Kevin’s. “I feel my bakery having a grand reopening celebration right now. In fact, I think there’s something hot in my oven as we speak.”
“Maybe I should get in there and take it out before it burns,” Kevin rumbled.