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"Does that still mean what it used to mean?"

The great Leonberger, shifting an armful of flattened empty boxes to one side, pointed to the handle of the dorm room door, grinning broadly. The well-dressed wolverine to his side, carrying his own share of neatly folded cardboard, shook his head in wonderment. "I suppose we can always find out."

Pausing first to admire the unquestionably cheap necktie draped over the door handle, Dean Nelson Williamson knocked discreetly on the door. "Mr. TopPaw?"

Muffled voices finally resulted in a single voice calling out, "Mal, is that you? Forget your key?"

"Actually, Mr. TopPaw, it's Dean Williamson. Coach Stackhouse and I are here on Mr. Lamar's behalf. We do have his key and his permission to enter, but we thought perhaps..."

"Yeah, uh, I mean, yes sir, could I have a minute or two please?"

"Yes, of course." Nelson looked up at the coach, neither of them far from bursting out in gales of laughter. "It would seem," the dean offered, sotto voce, "that some university traditions are still ongoing."

Perhaps closer to three minutes later, the door opened a crack to reveal a large and shapely sky blue draconic snout, the bright green eyes seeming reasonably alert and aware, but clearly something else was occupying the student's best attention at the moment. "I apologize," he said softly. "We weren't thinking Mal would be back so soon this morning..."

"Actually," the big Leo said, equally gently, "young Mr. Lamar will be living elsewhere. We came to gather his things for him."

A tiny wisp of smoke nearly formed a question mark above the dragon's nostril, reminding the coach very much of Benedict's expression of curiosity. "Is he all right? What's happened?"

The coach and the dean glanced briefly at one another. "He's fine, actually," Nelson ventured. "He's quite safe. There's been some... I'm guessing you haven't heard the news."

"I guess not. We were a bit... occupied last night. Um..." The dragon looked back over his shoulder with a whispered, "You okay?" Stackhouse didn't hear the answer, but he guessed that it was affirmative. The door slowly opened wide. "Please come in."

Nelson entered first, pausing discreetly just inside as Stackhouse followed close behind. It would seem that neither of them were quite prepared for what they saw. The young dragon with the sobriquet of Spike TopPaw stood just short of two full meters in height, and his wings, though furled closely in the comparatively small space of the dorm room, were unquestionably large enough and structured to enable flight. The fine blue of his scales turned to white scutes from under his chin to down his torso (or so Stackhouse could imagine from what he saw peeking out of the tightly-clinging athletic shirt that the dragon had so hastily donned). It was no surprise to imagine that the handsome young student would find company for his Thursday night pleasure, nor that it had lasted comparatively late in this Friday morning. The surprise was that, next to the tall, well-formed, wide-winged blue and white dragon, there also stood an equally well-formed young female German shepherd in tandem with an athletic-appearing male lynx who the coach imagined he'd seen at some gymnastic function or other. The trio tried to behave casually, but they still seemed to shift uncomfortably from hindpaw to hindpaw, the shep's tail bouncing slightly, the lynx looking much less enigmatic than was usual for his kind. Being early December, the dorm's central heat was on, thus the windows were closed up tight. Although all three had managed reasonable success with what the Leo suspected was collective panic-dressing, the mixture of scents on the air left little to the imagination... or perhaps it would be better to say that it sent the imagination spinning. The permutations would have required a math major.

"Mr. TopPaw," the dean offered with a quiet smile, "this is Coach Bruno Stackhouse."

"Spike, please sir," the dragon offered a foreclaw to both of his visitors, then made introductions of his own. "This is Frieda and Dakota."

Pads were pressed in pawshakes all around. Stackhouse, slightly taller than the dragon, was inwardly amused by the mild embarrassment of the trio. "I take it that you weren't surprised that Malcolm didn't return to his room last night?"

"He said he'd probably stay with... a friend," Spike offered, trying to be discreet about one thing at least. "Thought he might go directly to class, be back later. We figured he wouldn't mind if we got together for some... um, I mean, we've been..."

"...studying," the dean offered, without a trace of a smirk on his decorous muzzle. "With finals just around the corner, it makes perfect sense." He set his boxes down on a chair that wasn't being used. "You'll be able to do more of that, if you wish. Malcolm will be moving into other quarters for the rest of the semester, probably the rest of the school year. May I ask which of these desks is his?"

With a casual gesture, the dragon indicated the desk with the otherwise empty chair. "The far dresser and closet is his, too. Would you like us to help?"

"Just to make sure we don't include any of your own things in our collection. We appreciate it."

"Is Malcolm okay?" the shep asked, her voice lower than the coach might have expected. The term "sultry" could have been appropriate, although that was clearly not her intent at the moment.

"He's fine." The Leo began filling a box with textbooks, notebooks, paraphernalia from the somewhat Spartan desk that university saw fit to provide its dormitory-bound students. He noticed Spike moving to the closet to gather clothing, as the lynx turned to the second laptop in the room and tapped rapidly on the keys.

"He's a good kit," the dragon observed as he gathered most of Malcolm's clothing in a single swipe of his long arm, his wings carefully furled. "He was always patient with my weird little ways."

"I'm somewhat surprised that they paired a freshman with... are you a senior, perhaps?"

"Only in years, sir," the dragon smiled amiably. "I'm 26, but I'm a freshman, like Mal. I got a late start."

"By the Maker..." the lynx breathed softly. He looked at his friends, then back to the computer's wide screen. "Harris was outed."

"What?" The dragon's voice was probably louder than he had intended, but he was more concerned with what Dakota had found on the Internet.

"There's pictures of Mal and Harris together," the young feline continued. "No sex pics, but they look pretty cozy. That's someone's house."

"Probably Mal's parents. He said he was taking someone home for the Thanksgiving break. I wouldn't think they'd take pictures..."

"You knew?" Nelson asked quietly.

Spike looked up sharply, then seemed to quiet himself again. "I suspected. I mean, I knew about Mal. We never... well, we understood each other, I guess. He started spending a lot of nights away from the room, and I asked him. Just wanted to make sure he was okay. He wouldn't tell me who his lover was, but he started following JV football, and I knew he was a tutor to some athlete or other..." The wry smile on the dragon's snout was more sympathetic than anything else. "I'm a history major, but even I could do the math."

At that moment, a short trilling sound caught everyone's attention. Stackhouse reached into a pocket, removing his smartphone. "Text," he said simply. He worked the touch controls swiftly. It was from Velasquez, who had joined Holm and a few other players in volunteering to clean out Harris' dorm room. Graffiti on Harris' door; we cleaned it off. Press may have got it, sorry.

Thanks for heads up. Ring if you need help. Dean w/me.

He pocketed the device again. "My apologies. We've got some others who are cleaning out Harris' dorm room also."

"Trouble?" the lynx enquired.

"Minor." Stackhouse shrugged and began shutting down and packing up Malcolm's laptop. The shepherd wasn't idle either, already working on folding up the tiger's bedclothes and arranging a neat stack at the foot of the now-bare mattress. It occurred to the Leo that the beds in the dorm room were fulls, and he wondered how the dragon would get comfortable on one, much less be joined by another furson... or two...

"Can I visit Mal?" the dragon enquired. "Or is this a sort of Witness Protection Program sort of thing?"

The dean managed a chuckle over that one. "Nothing so severe. But we did agree to let them have the weekend in peace. He's got his cell phone, if you have his number..."

"I do." The dragon moved toward his own desk, then seemed to think better of the idea. "Maybe I should wait a bit. I was thinking I should congratulate him on landing Harris. That lion's hot!"

The coach was amazed at how much of a sky blue dragon could turn bright crimson in so short a time. The coloration would have amused Benedict no end. Nelson was facing away from the spectacle, trying to keep his muzzle arranged properly. Stackhouse managed to keep his smile modest. "I certainly can't disagree with that assessment." He turned to the lynx, who again had trouble being as inscrutable as the legends might have thought proper. "Not, mind you, that I'm interested in the kit from that perspective. He's a damned fine quarterback, though, and that interests me a lot."

The shepherd stopped her folding, her voice holding a hard edge. "Are you defending him because you want him to play ball for you next year?"

"No. I'm defending him because he doesn't deserve to be hated for loving someone."

"And I am defending him," Nelson put in, "because this university isn't going to allow hate crimes to fester. I would hope that our curricula will teach better ways of thinking than that."

The young female lowered her muzzle a little, her ears splayed, eyes dimmed. "Forgive me," she said softly. "Sore subject with me."

Packing paused a bit longer as Spike and Dakota moved close to her and hugged her gently. It was the Leo's turn to be a bit embarrassed, not because of the display of affection, but because he had not expected it. He and Nelson were interlopers on several levels - older, officials of the campus, teachers, administrators. These three students had no reason to fear them, but neither would they have reason to be so open among them. Bruno wondered if he might be suffering from the prejudice that the earlier generations have for the later, the kind of prejudice that led to the possibly foolish phrase "putting an old head on young shoulders."

Nelson took a small, non-threatening step toward the shepherd. "Frieda, was it? Is it anything I can help with?"

She looked the wolverine in his eyes and smiled. "You already have. Thank you."

The dean closed his eyes, bowed his head slightly in salute, then stepped back and resumed packing. Stackhouse found the gesture perfect. The three students separated and turned back to their own bits of packing. Spike made sure that none of Malcolm's things were intermingled with his own, and the job was done far more quickly than anyone might have thought. The Leo's phone went off again. He looked at the text: Found Bobby's old stack of Playkitten mags. Think he still wants 'em?

Bruno snorted a little and replied: Pack everything, let him decide.

After a very short pause, another text came in from Velasquez: Dibs.

* * * * * * * * * *

The dragon, lynx, and shepherd seemed quite insistent on helping to carry everything to the van that Stackhouse had appropriated for the task, so the entirety of Malcolm's dormitory life was moved in a single carry from room to vehicle. The coach managed to unlock the side panel and put in his boxes before stepping aside and seeing a sight which, somehow, did not surprise him at all.

"Rhonda Shelton, Campus Newswatch." The shouting ocelot appeared slightly winded as she ran toward the van, her Dalmatian colleague following with a mobile camera system that, despite being compact, seemed a bit much for the slender pup to be wielding with great success. "Coach Stackhouse, do you have any comments about last night's game?"

The Leo was, as always with the press, quick to respond with the professionalism that both Nelson and Benedict had helped to instill in him. He always was able to think quickly on his hindpaws. "I think that Coach Carbajal made the best of a bad situation. I commend him, and our second string quarterback, Martin Wagner - they did a great job."

"What about Harris?" the reporter spat.

"I'm glad that the injuries were superficial after all. He took some pretty hard hits."

"How do you feel about Harris being gay?"

Stackhouse, like the dean, kept his muzzle carefully set. Behind him, the students had finished packing up the van and now stood slightly behind the older males, the lynx a bit further to the right than others. The coach managed to catch a glimpse of something from the corner of one eye, confirming his suspicions. "Is Harris gay, Ms. Shelton?"

"Don't tell me you didn't know." The ocelot sneered as if moving in for the kill. The Dalmatian kept pace with her as she took two more steps toward the great Leo. "You planned the whole thing, didn't you? The fake injuries, the secrecy..."

"Ms. Shelton, I think you'll find that we had quite legitimate concerns about Harris' physical condition. After taking several very hard hits, because of the sudden incompetency of his defensive line, he lay on the field as if stunned, injured, or worse. We would treat any player the same."

"What about this?" The ocelot produced her smartphone and brandished it like biblical truth under the coach's nose. "That's Harris' dorm room door."

"We'd have to take your word for that," Nelson observed. "One dorm room door looks a lot like every other."

"How about the paint job? What do you have to say about that?"

Stackhouse looked at the smartphone's display. Taken at a slight angle, as if hurriedly, the picture showed a dorm room door at the end of a hallway (which could, in fact, have been Harris' room - the larger rooms for athletic celebs were built onto the ends of the athletic dorms that way). Splashed on the door in what looked like spray paint were six letters: FAGGUT.

As the wolverine leaned in to have a look for himself, the Leo made his voice particularly laconic, just for the occasion. "I'd say that I'd better talk to Dean Williamson here about strengthening our English requirements. We seem to be failing our students."

"Could have been the other team, I suppose," Nelson mused softly. "I hear their academic programs are slipping terribly."

"Is it true?" the ocelot insisted.

"About the other college?" Stackhouse asked, nodding. "Very possibly."

"About Harris!"

"No, I'm sure Harris can spell better than that."

"Is Harris gay?"

"Are you?"

The ocelot nearly dropped her smartphone. Her eyes popped open comically as she spluttered, "What? No! Of course not! And what business is it of yours?"

Stackhouse and his four companions simply stood and smiled.

The female feline tried desperately to recover as even the Dalmatian had trouble suppressing a smile. Apparently at a loss for anything better, she resurrected the great cliché: "The public has a right to know!"

"To know what, precisely? Who someone else is sleeping with?" Coach and dean looked at one another, their eyes creating a conspiracy without words. "I'm sleeping with my wife these days; how about you, Nelson?"

"Oh, me too."

"You're sleeping with my wife too?"

"No, I'm sleeping with my wife. You're wife's to busy sleeping with you."

"So you're definitely sleeping with _your_wife?"

"If our boys aren't keeping us awake, yes, I'm sleeping with my wife."

"It varies, for me." The German shepherd took a few steps to end up on the other side of the dean. The Dalmatian, perhaps for reasons of his own, tracked the movement with his camera. "Last night, I shared the company of two amazingly wonderful males, but I'm not sure if they'd want me to advertise the fact to the whole world..."

"Proud to have been one of them." Spike stepped behind the shep and put his foreclaws affectionately on her shoulders. "She happens to be a very tender and romantic lover, and I'm proud to know her. In every sense, not just the biblical one." He bent down to kiss the top of her head gently as she giggled slightly.

"I'll second that," Dakota added, moving to join them. He put one arm around Frieda, leaning into her embrace as the dragon put his wings out to cuddle the two of them closely. The drake fetched another kiss, this to the top of the lynx's head, then all three looked toward the camera, smiling.

"Your turn," Spike said.

Still pop-eyed, the ocelot was speechless. After a lengthy pause, from behind her, the Dalmatian said, "My fiancée is out of town, but I sleep with her when I can."

Rhonda whirled on the camerafur. Stackhouse was certain that the camera itself was in danger of shattering, with the look that she conveyed. Turning back, she leveled cold fury onto the coach. "People in public view must not be allowed to air their perversions where kits and pups could be influenced by them. A sports hero is someone to be looked up to, and if Harris is gay, then he shouldn't be allowed to play anymore. That is why the public has a right to know. Now... are you going to tell me the truth, or do I have to find Harris directly?"

Stackhouse caught a movement from Dakota, then openly and rather dramatically grimaced and seemed to shrink a little. "Off the record?"

"Okay."

The coach sighed softly. "There's a lot you don't know. And there's a lot that the public shouldn't know. I just want to keep my players safe, can you understand that? There's a lot of hate out there, and it's starting to find its way into the college, the game, the students." He paused again. "I know I've made a lot of choices in my own life that could have led to trouble. For all I know, I might not even have been hired here, if they'd known everything about me; prejudice just works that way, no matter how slight the indiscretion might be. Look, it's not about me anyway; I just want my athletes to be safe out there, okay?"

"So you're okay with Harris being gay?"

"Off the record, right?"

"Sure."

"Yes, I'm okay with Harris being gay."

After a moment, the ocelot began to smile. There was no kindness in that smile, no consolation, no mercy. Over her shoulder, she said, "Got it?"

"Yes," the Dalmatian affirmed.

Stackhouse looked aghast. "You said it was off the record! You can't use that!"

"A little editing, and I can use everything," she said savagely. "You'll look as much a danger to the college and the community as Harris and Parker."

"You can't get corroboration," the dean took a step forward. "It's off the record, and it'll stay that way."

"Not when I'm done with you. You'll all be out on your tails."

"I doubt it." The young lynx looked to Stackhouse and smiled. "Well played."

"Thank you."

For a moment, the reporter looked less than certain of herself. "What are you talking about?"

Spike pulled his wings back a bit as Dakota stepped forward, brandishing his own smartphone. "These little things are amazing. So many apps and connections and quick-load options...? I've got the whole thing recorded. And just how long do you think your sources will give you information off the record if you lie about keeping it that way?"

"What?" The feline managed to pale, which Stackhouse wouldn't have thought possible, and damned if he didn't enjoy the schadenfreude all the more because of it. "You can't..."

"Whoops, too late." Dakota looked up at the sky as if searching for a satellite flying overhead. "Great reception out here. Even with bandwidth issues, that may have been the fastest YouTube post I've ever made."

The Dalmatian lowered the camera, his own muzzle gaping in shock. Rhonda Shelton of Campus Newswatch spluttered for several seconds before trying to rally herself again. "You confessed! If you post that, all of you will have confessed to..."

"To what?" Nelson, too, looked like he was enjoying himself. "Would you like to rewind your own video and see what was said? We all spoke of who we were sleeping with, which might be a case of WTMI, but nothing that would get any of us into any trouble with moral turpitude clauses in university contracts. Further, Coach Stackhouse's 'indiscretions' could have been gambling debts, for all you know; he made no statements that were in any way self-incriminating. True, he said that he would be okay with Harris being gay... and that's actually a bit of a scoop for you. The official policy of the university and of the athletic department is that Bobby Harris is a fine player, a credit to the team, a good student and friend to his teammates, and his sexuality is of no consequence or bearing on any of these things, nor should they be. Pity you won't be able to use the story."

"What? Why not?"

"Hot topics get picked up fast," Dakota offered, smirking a bit. "Better take your Aciclovir, honey... that bit of video just went viral. Sure you don't want to check it out? If you can't get YouTube, I cross-posted to Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, and Facebook."

"Very thorough," Spike observed.

"Not to worry," the lynx grinned. "Nothing from last night, I promise."

"I'm almost disappointed." The shepherd grinned. "Almost."

It was at that moment that an unfamiliar ring tone dug into the cold December air. Stackhouse had the impression that it was music used for some sort of tabloid news program, and sure enough, the ocelot was fumbling for her phone.

The dean grinned wickedly. "Oh, please, let this be one of those perfect Life Moments... it's Dr. Bittner, isn't it?"

"Head of the Journalism department?" the shep asked. She looked at her male companions, smiling. "It's my minor."

The ocelot stopped just short of throwing her phone to the ground to make it stop ringing. She pocketed the device and stormed away, nearly knocking over the Dalmatian in the process. The five members of Malcolm's moving company, no longer able to contain themselves, laughed uproariously for several seconds. They sobered only when the young male pup stepped over, proffering a large plastic-looking square with "128Gb" stamped on it. It was, the coach realized, the memory card from the camera, which the lad now carried at his side rather like a piece of luggage he'd rather not have to be carting around.

Nelson reached out and took the card gently. "I'll see this gets back to Dr. Bittner. I'll tell him you gave it to me quite voluntarily."

"Thank you," the pup whispered. He turned, tail low and ears splayed, walking away from the group. Stackhouse hoped that the young fur had someone's shoulder to lean on; it had been a tough day for him, and even with Nelson's help in the matter, Bittner might not be in a forgiving mood.

Gently, the dean broke the collective silence, turning to the students and offering a paw to shake. "Thank you for your help. I'll tell Mal you asked after him."

As the goodbyes were made, Spike paused to look into the coach's eyes. "You meant what you said. About Harris."

"Every word."

"Not sure if this is quite the right thing to say, but ... thank you. For Harris, and for Mal. And maybe a little bit for me too."

The Leo smiled a little. "Why you?"

"Because I'd rather live in a world like yours than like hers." The dragon smiled softly, his wings shifting a little. "I'm a history major. No civilization that embraced hate has ever survived... but they can do a ton of damage to the rest of us along the way."

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

"Gandhi."

Stackhouse smiled. "Malcolm chooses his friends well."

"Actually, sir, we were an apparently random pairing from the central housing office."

"Just a bit of good luck, then?"

With a grin on his snout, the dragon put a foreclaw to his chest and looked heavenward. "The Computer moves in strange and mysterious ways..."