The moment Dedan left Enoch's office after the meeting, Japhet whirled on the big guardian. "All right, what's going on? Start talking!"

Enoch's eyebrows went up, and he paused in organizing Japhet's papers. "What do you mean?"

"Pluck you! You know very well what I mean!" Livid, the great bird puffed out his dense chest plumage. "Oh, you and Dedan think you're subtle, but a half-blind chick wouldn't miss the way you're always mooning after each other nowadays! Were either of you even paying attention to my report?!"

"To be fair, Zone 2's smoke surplus isn't exactly an emergency requiring our undivided attention," Enoch pointed out mildly.

"Don't be obtuse!" Japhet fluttered up and pecked him sharply in the gut. "Lately you and Dedan seem to go out of your way to leave me out of things. Think you can treat me like that with impunity, do you?" Peck! "Well, you've got another think coming, you fat oaf!"

With an explosion of canary-yellow feathers he took flight and chased Enoch around the room, raining down pecks on him like a furious, living hailstorm. Enoch was forced to alternate between shielding his tender head and trying to wave Japhet away as if he were a songbird defending its territory from an unwelcome guest. The big guardian let out a gratifying yelp with each jab.

"We never meant to make you feel left out," he protested. "How were we supposed to know you cared so much?"

"Don't give me that!" squawked Japhet, pelting the other guardian's skull with kicks. "Am I supposed to just forget how we'd all been friends for so many years? For a while we raised a son together! And now… now you don't even…!"

All his anger suddenly drained from him, misery flooding in to replace it. He sagged back to earth, landed with a soft clopclop of hooves and turned away from Enoch, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing his face. "Forget it," he rasped. "I'm returning to my zone."

Despite himself, he didn't resist when gentle hands slid beneath him and lifted him up.

"I'm sorry," Enoch said quietly, holding him close.

Japhet did not reply, but after a time he allowed himself to bury his face in the other guardian's chest. It was warm and wonderfully soft.

Dedan probably knows all about that, he thought bitterly.

As if reading his mind, Enoch said, "You know, what we have is more of an open relationship. It's not as if we're planning on riding off into the sunset together or some such. Heavens, no!" He stroked Japhet's glossy feathers tenderly. "So don't think you can't come to one of us when you're feeling lonely. Okay?"

"Very well," Japhet replied diplomatically, then sniffed. "Though I can't imagine what you and Dedan get up to together that's so plucking great."

There was another pause, and Japhet could hear the grin in Enoch's voice when he spoke up again. "Would you like me to show you?"

"Really?!" he exclaimed, then composed himself before adding, "You're not thinking of trying any funny business, are you? I won't be made a fool of!"

Now the big guardian was carrying Japhet over to his desk. "Of course, of course," he replied cheerfully.

Japhet narrowed his eyes as Enoch laid him on his back. "Hold on. Is this going to be something dirty?"

Enoch laughed. "Well, what do you think Dedan and I are always doing?"

"I… oh." Japhet was glad his feathers would've masked any redness in his cheeks. "Whatever. Do what you want."

"If you insist." Delicately Enoch spread open the bird's legs and dipped his head between them.

"This probably won't even feel good," Japhet mumbled.

He had a swift change of heart when Enoch carefully exposed the bird's cloaca with his thumbs and pressed his warm, wet tongue to it. A sharp cry caught in his throat as pleasure, hot and prickly, thrilled through his whole being.

"I-Idiot," Japhet said hoarsely, struggling to keep his tone even as Enoch went down on him. "You know birds don't just mate from there, right?"

The big guardian shrugged. "Never bothered me with Dedan."

For some reason that just made Japhet tremble all the more with each sloppy, shamelessly noisy slurp against his sensitive vent. "You'd best join in," he snapped. "It's not fair that I'm the only one who has to lie here looking stupid, and—ahh!—and somehow I doubt your tongue is a reproductive organ."

"Will do," said Enoch brightly, standing up to unzip himself.

"Good. Now let's make this nice and quick and what in the Queen's holy name is THAT?"

Enoch blinked. "I thought you wanted me to use my reproductive organ."

"That doesn't look like a cloaca to me!"

"Well, that would be because most mammals don't have one. Honestly, I would have thought you'd be more knowledgeable, what with those books of yours."

Japhet sniffed primly. "I don't read those kinds of books. Really, the very idea!"

"Oh?" The corners of Enoch's mouth quirked upward. "Silly bird."

He slid the underside of his massive—thing—against Japhet's vent. The bird hissed at the contact. It was warmer than it looked, and pulsed just perceptibly as if in tandem with Enoch's heartbeat.

"Ready?" the big guardian murmured.

"Just get on with it," Japhet growled, then felt his voice contract to a strangled chirp as Enoch began to thrust smoothly against him. After the gentle touch of the other guardian's tongue, this was so intense that Japhet's vision blazed white at the edges, and his short-lived effort to form even the tiniest coherent thought was laughable. He wrapped his legs tight around Enoch's thing, throwing back his head and peeping wordlessly like a day-old hatchling begging for food.

Enoch obliged with gusto. The noise of flesh squishing wetly against flesh echoed in the otherwise silent room, and had Japhet not been utterly swept up in ecstasy he would have hidden his face under his wing for the sheer obscenity of it all.

The bird soon lost all track of time, and it seemed an eternity before Enoch groaned and shuddered above him, spattering his pristine yellow plumage with what looked like watered-down gobbets of cake icing. The taste, however, was another matter entirely.

"And what in our generous Queen's name is this vile stuff?" he groused, far too exhausted and sated to really be angry with Enoch.

"Ah, my apologies," the big guardian panted. "I meant to pull away first."

Japhet raised an eyebrow at him. "Well then, you'll just have to wash it out for me, won't you?"

Enoch smiled tiredly. "Sounds fair."

He picked up Japhet and headed for the bath, and the bird curled up in his arms, contentedly dozing off against his old friend's belly for the first time in ages.