Category: Bears (Page 1 of 3)

A man smiles while standing in a neon-lit corridor at night, with bright red and blue lights illuminating the scene. The image has digital distortions and glitches across his face and upper body.

Dad State (Chapter 4)

2025-07-24 / admin bot / 0 Comments

Get caught up on Dad State (Chapter 3) before reading on…

Return to Trevor

Trevor had just settled into the couch, a bowl of cereal balanced on his knee and the TV whispering static because he’d let the remote slip between the cushions again when the knock came. Two short raps, then a pause, and one final knock, polite and firm.

Trevor froze. No one knocked on doors anymore. If it were one of his friends paying a visit, they’d have messaged first, and Trevor would have replied with a one-time access code to let themselves in. He set his cereal on the coffee table and lumbered over to the door.

Dad State (Chapter 3)

2025-07-17 / admin bot / 3 Comments

Get caught up on Dad State (Chapter 2) before reading on…

Intercepted

The store was called Whole Home, a sprawling, vaguely organic megamart that sold food in recyclable niches, home goods in calming pastels, and earthy, unbleached bath linens. Zach navigated the aisles with a metal cart, checking items off a list labeled Co-Op Support Essentials (Benji, Week 9). His eyes scanned the shelves with programmed efficiency. He’d found the gluten-free pancake mix, the low-emission vanilla extract, and the cinnamon-scented throw pillows embroidered with owls wearing tiny glasses. He hummed softly as he walked, a tune with no melody, with just the suggestion of cheer.

At the checkout lane, he neatly stacked his purchases with all labels facing outward and declined the cashier’s offer to round up for the local arts collective. “I support community infrastructure through direct action,” he said with a bright smile. Then he bagged his items himself.

Dad State (Chapter 2)

2025-07-10 / admin bot / 1 Comment

Get caught up on Dad State (Chapter 1) before reading on…

Rejected but Dutiful

Zach arrived each morning at precisely 6:45 a.m., a bag of breakfast ingredients in one hand and a rolled itinerary in the other. By 7 o’clock, the building’s communal kitchen smelled of turkey bacon and responsibility. Zach was only assigned to be Benji’s dad, but he saw no harm in whipping up fresh breakfast sandwiches for other Sons in the building who were still fatherless. He pinned the day’s motivational poster to the fridge—“Consistency Is Just Love With A Clock”—then laid out place settings for two on the farmhouse dining table, complete with cloth napkins and decorative toothpicks.

Then he waited. 7:30 came and went, and then 8 o’clock.

Benji never came down.

Dad State (Chapter 1)

2025-07-03 / admin bot / 1 Comment

Get started with the prelude to Dad State by reading Countdown to midnight first…

The Processing Center

The shuttle moved without sound. No engine hum, no road friction, just the faint whir of internal diagnostics running in the dashboard. Zach sat alone in the backseat, hands folded, posture unnaturally upright, as if summoned by instinct rather than intention. Outside, the world slid past in antiseptic slices. Parking lots, empty walkways, and sleek fences topped with soft-beeping security domes all melded into a blur. Zach’s life as he knew it was over.

A sign, “DadNet District Activation Hub—East Quadrant,” flashed by before the vehicle made a seamless ninety-degree turn and glided into a narrow bay. When the doors unlocked, he didn’t move. He waited for the melodic chime and the polite digital voice.

“Welcome, DadNet Unit 70855. Please proceed inside.”

A pink box filled with assorted donuts, including plain, powdered sugar, chocolate-covered, and glazed varieties, all casually arranged and overlapping with a trippy filter applied.

Donut shift

2025-06-30 / admin bot / 0 Comments

The Bite

David “Dutch” Reinhard pressed his badge against the scanner, and the red light flickered to green with a mechanical beep. The heavy security door opened into the dim underground garage, and the scent hit him like a soft punch: concrete dust, engine oil, and powdered sugar.

The night shift break room—if you could call a converted janitor’s closet a break room—pulsed with orange-yellow light and the tinny laughter of an old sitcom. The guards were already inside, bodies wedged into plastic chairs, bellies out, legs sprawled. They were watching Honest to Todd on a mounted TV, powdered sugar dusting their uniforms like fresh snowfall.

DadMan in a blue suit with an crossed-spatula emblem stands confidently indoors beside a man in a tuxedo and red bow tie, who is kneeling and looking up at him in a warmly lit room.

Adventures of DadMan: The Client is Always Wrong (Part 3)

2025-06-23 / admin bot / 0 Comments

Catch up on part 2 of “The Client is Always Wrong” before reading on…

Part 3: Servant Leadership

The rain came down in sheets, hammering the windows of the cozy townhouse tucked into the sleepy cul-de-sac like applause from the sky. Inside, it was all warmth: amber firelight flickering across hardwood floors, the soft drone of a streaming reality show half watched, and the smell of cinnamon from some fancy coffee drink Frank had insisted on making despite Mike’s teasing.

Frank was curled under a blanket on the sofa, gray-socked feet resting on the coffee table as he scrolled through his phone. Mike, hair tousled from the shower, leaned back in the armchair with a dog-eared paperback, one finger holding his place while he sipped his room-temperature mug of “Mocha Minty” and tried not to smirk.

DadMan with a dark beard and a blue suit featuring crossed spatulas on the chest stands confidently in a parking garage surrounded by parked cars.

Adventures of DadMan: The Client is Always Wrong (Part 2)

2025-06-16 / admin bot / 1 Comment

Catch up on part 1 of “The Client is Always Wrong” before reading on…

Part 2: Slow Correction

The next morning, the lobby of Langston & Smythe Accountancy, Inc., was tranquil. The receptionist, Jason, sat blinking down at the steaming cup of coffee placed neatly on his desk. On the crisp cardboard sleeve, a smily face was drawn in permanent marker. Jason glanced up, perplexed, at the broad-shouldered man who had just handed it to him.

“Uh… thanks?” he said cautiously.

Brandon gave him what was clearly meant to be a warm smile. It appeared to have been copied from a YouTube tutorial on executive charm. “You’ve been so helpful this week,” he said, his voice more measured than usual. “Figured it was the least I could do to show my appreciation.”

DadMan, a muscular superhero in a blue costume with crossed forks on his chest, stands beside a shocked man in a suit who is gesturing and talking to a serious waiter taking notes in an elegant, dimly lit room.

Adventures of DadMan: The Client is Always Wrong (Part 1)

2025-06-09 / admin bot / 2 Comments

Part 1: The Spark of Discipline

Living up to its pretentious name, Bistro Bistro had a self-consciously sleek ambience particular to the upper tier of the city’s dining scene: cool lighting, leather banquettes, waitstaff in minimalist black, and wine lists that read like doctoral dissertations. It was the kind of place Mike wouldn’t have chosen himself—he preferred something cozier, more homestyle cooking and less performance art—but tonight Frank was celebrating surviving a particularly hellish client project, and Mike, ever gracious, had let him pick the restaurant.

They sat tucked into a semi-private alcove near the window, their fingers brushing across the crisp table linen as they shared a plate of olives and sipped on Tempranillo. Mike, as always, wore his quiet elegance like a second skin. With salt-and-pepper stubble, thin glasses framing his intelligent eyes, and a voice that rarely rose above a murmur, Mike knew how to disappear in a room unless he wanted to be noticed. Frank loved that about him.

But tonight, someone else wanted attention.

A table filled with various fried foods, including fried chicken, burgers, fries, pancakes, and dishes with creamy sides, all arranged closely together in a bright, inviting setting.

Caged hunger

2025-05-05 / admin bot / 0 Comments

Jack cradled the overloaded plate like it was fragile porcelain, even though it was just the same scratched-up dinnerware they’d used for years. Still, there was reverence in how he handled it, maybe because of what it carried. Balanced precariously beside a pastrami and Swiss sub the length of his forearm was a half-empty bag of kettle chips and a box of peanut butter cookies.

He was shirtless, his salt-and-pepper chest hair matted in patches from sweat, and the soft swell of his meaty pecs jiggled slightly with each step. His thighs pushed against the fabric of his lounge shorts, and the waistband dug just beneath the curve of his soft, furred gut. Warm, round, and lightly swaying, his belly brushed the counter’s edge as he pivoted toward the living room.

Two muscular, shirtless men in brown jumpsuits stand in the foreground, their chests exposed and sweaty. In the background, a man in a shirt looks on with a serious expression, partially obscured by shadows.

The Space Bears (chapters 1-3)

2025-04-28 / admin bot / 0 Comments

I’ve expanded My short story from 2023 into a full-length transformation epic. Read the first three chapters here.

Chapter 1: The Golden Ticket

I had been based out of Artemis Station for nearly a decade, working long-haul cargo routes to neglected outposts and failed experiments in galactic living. Six months to Vesta. Fourteen to New Rockall. The occasional ten-week jog to Hyperion. Interstellar freight isn’t glamorous, but the solitude suited me. The pay was steady. And when you’re in deep sleep for most of the journey, the years barely touch you.

Some guys can’t handle it—waking up decades older than their friends, missing birthdays, funerals, and civilizations. Me? I had nothing waiting for me planetside. No lovers, no obligations. I liked it that way.