you. I treated you like dirt, like an outcast, so people would think I was normal, and they wouldn’t do the same for me”, he said shamefully, looking away from the half-breed now, like he didn’t deserve to gaze upon the stray’s face. But now wasn’t the time for guilt, and he couldn’t take his eyes off Balto until he talked some sense into him, so he looked back at the half-breed to see his expression was surprisingly unchanged.

“You’re lying. You’re just doing this to wind me up or something”, he said, still in denial.

Steele growled, and ran his paws over his face. How much more proof did Balto need? Then again he was trying to convince him that Nome’s hottest bachelor and ladies’ man had a thing for a male he supposedly despised. “Would I be trying to save you if I was?”, he asked.

“If I die, you’ll lose your favorite doormat, and I reckon you don’t want that to happen”, Balto countered, backing up. Backing up towards empty space again.

Nothing had worked. Steele had tried everything, but Balto just couldn’t be talked out of this. He had to convince him his words were the truth, he just had to!

But what if words weren’t enough?

Balto always the kind of guy who had to see things to believe them, and sure enough when he turned around he saw the craziest sight - Steele, climbing onto the ledge with him. “What are you doing?”, he asked, raising his eyebrow.

“If you want to kill yourself, fine, but I’m going with you”, Steele insisted.

“I know you Steele, you’re not gonna kill yourself”, Balto said confidently.

“Why not? If you’ve lost your mind maybe I have too. Besides, I have nothing left to lose, just like you wolf-dog. I’m a loser, a failure, a reject, why should I stick around where I’m not wanted?”, Steele replied. “Besides, this will prove that I’m telling the truth”, he added determinedly.

“Miss Joan Redfern” by Murray Gold begins.

For the first time since their conversation began, Balto’s eyes widened; color started to return to their dull, distanced glaze, and Steele knew that he finally believed him. But he wasn’t going to stop here.

The malamute swooped into Balto’s face, and before the hybrid could pull away, latched his lips onto his, kissing him like he would any female of his kind. Except…unlike his legion of female admirers, Balto didn’t want this. The guy wasn’t even gay; so Steele was forcing himself on him. But he figured he was already a social outcast, and (by religious standards) an abomination, he might as well become a molester too if it meant enjoying the kiss of a half-breed before death.

Indeed, Balto wasn’t gay. The hybrid had never showed the slightest bit of interest in males of his kind. And the idea of kissing Steele should have been the thing of nightmares for him. But instead of it being cringe-worthy, locking lips with the former sled dog just felt…right. More than right, it felt magnificent. Like the kind of thing he had been waiting for his entire life. He hadn’t felt this good since the last time he kissed Jenna. He slowly let his body relax and eased his lips open, allowing Steele passage to his mouth.

The purebred was elated. Balto wasn’t just on the receiving end of his advances anymore; he was actually giving some back, which meant he wanted this. He actually wanted Steele to kiss him. And the malamute was sure as hell gonna give it to him.

Down below them, the crowd (which now consisted of dogs and humans) watched the spectacle with wide eyes and open mouths. People and animals from all walks of life couldn’t believe they were witnessing something like this - which was already forbidden for humans - being performed by animals. Among the shell-shocked citizens was the famous troop 51, the most top-notch team of sled dogs in Nome.

“I didn’t see dat coming”, Nikki exclaimed, and Star nodded silently in agreement.

“Holy shit”, Kaltag whispered, before the tan husky burst into laughter. But he wasn’t doing it to be malicious, or because he wanted to mock them. It was because he was really watching the impossible, and it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. Not only was their fearless leader gay, but he was kissing Balto. The dog who had been obsessed with beating the crap out of the other dog all the time was now kissing him shamelessly in public. “Go on now”, Kaltag thought, whistling.

There were so many thoughts rushing through Balto’s brain. He knew that letting Steele do this to him was just as horribly wrong as the malamute’s actions, making them both sinners, but he didn’t care. There was no denying this was pure nirvana for him. Besides, he had lived amongst humans all his life, and he never understood human religion, and he certainly didn’t understand why they would taboo something that was so pleasurable. Maybe they did it out of fear of the unknown, like how they had pushed him away and pretended he hadn’t existed. But just because few understood something didn’t make it wrong, he was a prime example of that.

So when Steele finally released him and pulled away from him, Balto didn’t care about how he was a man, or that he was his enemy, or even that they had just had one big grope-fest in front of the entire town. All he cared about was that Steele was the guy who had put him on cloud nine. “Steele…I…I don’t know what to say”, he mumbled.

Steele (who had been denying his lungs precious air for half a minute now), huffed and puffed like a wild animal. “You can tell me you’re gonna listen to me, and not jump off this goddamn roof”, he snarled.

Balto nodded, and as carefully as he could, walked to the other side of the ledge. He jumped back onto the safety of the roof, and Steele wasn’t that far behind him. The malamute’s plan had worked; he caught Balto’s attention and gave him a reason not to jump.

It seemed Balto’s story wasn’t over yet after all. In fact, there was a whole new chapter just waiting to be explored.

“Okay Steele, I’m listening”, the wolf-dog said, folding his arms across his chest.

((()-()))

Time passes, and people change, but life moves on as usual, never stopping and never slowing down. The four seasons came and went, and pretty soon it was January again, the one-year anniversary of the serum run. In one night’s time, the entire town would have an enormous celebration to commemorate the brave canines who saved the lives of their loved ones. But that big bash was still to come.

Right now, two of those brave canines, instead of sleeping and resting up for the big day, were slipping into a crawl space beneath the local hospital. It was a tight squeeze (since both of them had gained a bit of weight from a year of inactivity), but they made it through with only a few cobwebs as causalities. Of course, the brown one had to listen to his partner complain the whole way, but he, for the most part, ignored it.

When they finally reached their destination, the black and white one kicked up his complain-o-meter up to a thousand when he saw what greeted them.

“Steele relax, it’s not a joke and these aren’t just bottles”, his half-breed mate said reassuringly. He gathered the broken glass in one big pile, and pushed them into a shaft of light coming from the above floor. And when the light touched the bottles, the room lit up. Both dogs took a big step back so they could see the entire multi-colored splendor.

How did they get here? It was a long and crazy ride. And it all started the moment Balto decided not to take his life.

Apparently, Steele did want him for a mate, as hard as it was to believe. The idea of being Steele’s boyfriend was a ludicrous one, especially since he wasn’t gay and the malamute had been his own personal bully ever since they were kids. The odds of that ever happening were a thousand to one, but then again, Balto was familiar with those odds.

Steele had offered him a choice, a possibility of finding a mate, and Jenna’s last request was for him not to let a chance like this pass him by. As much as he loved her, she said it herself that she wouldn’t want him to waste the rest of his life missing her. The least he could do was honor her last wish and at least try to move on. Besides, the fact Steele had offered him a choice instead of trying to force himself on him proved he had changed. So even though there wasn’t a chance in hell of it ever working out, Balto accepted Steele’s proposition.

Naturally, they took things slow. Relationships don’t start with grand gestures, or kisses hello and goodbye, or even proclamations of love. Instead, Steele would stop by the trawler every few days to see him. Boris found the whole thing just as unusual as Balto did, but he accepted it because having a gay son was a million times better than having a dead one (Balto had never seen his goose father so furious as when he found out the half-breed tried to commit suicide).

Balto and Steele’s conversations were incredibly awkward, and even though Steele insisted he kept dropping by because it was the kind of thing lovers would do,