"Can you still name them Foster and Dingo when it's pretty clear that they're not, in fact, anything other than certified grade-A American pound mutts?" Jesse ruffled Foster behind the ears, and then made a face as the dog seemed to take that as a cue to provide an enthusiastic licking. "Oh, come on. Down, boy. I said down. No, my face is not a drool rag. Down."

Lance watched and tried to hide his smile. He knew that if he teased Jesse about the way that he was slowly warming up to the dogs, Jesse would protest yet again that he really wasn't a dog person, and he was only doing it because Lance liked dogs, and that it really all was part of his nefarious plot to seduce Lance, entrap him, make Lance fall in love with him, marry him, and then steal all his money. ("That kinda works better if we could actually, you know, get married," Lance always drawled when Jesse brought it up. "I'm just sayin'." "Vermont's pretty nice this time of year," was always Jesse's response. Even in the middle of winter.)

It had been a while before Jesse had been comfortable making the joke, and he'd waited until Lance had made it first, and he'd waited until after they'd both said the L-word and discussed the future of their relationship and agreed on what they wanted and didn't want from each other in the long term. It had been after they'd had the talk about Lance's history, and about Freddie, and about how Lance really was far too gun-shy for his own good after having been screwed over one too many times.

It had been after they'd been walking past the pound, and Jesse had tugged lightly on Lance's sleeve, the casual touch that they were both long-accustomed to using in public, and said, "Let's go in and look around." And they'd both fallen in love with the boys, but Jesse had fallen harder, and when Lance had signed the adoption papers and paid the fees, Jesse had slipped a hand into Lance's back pocket for just a fraction of a second and murmurred in his ear, "So, neither of us is ready for the whole kids thing, but I think we can handle a pair of mutts, right?"

"I think we can name them anything we want," Lance said, and scritched Jesse behind the ears. Jesse leaned over and licked a stripe up his chin.

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