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Was there such a thing as mayor-sexual?
Sheriff Stone didn't keep up with all those labels—kids these days—but if there were such a thing, he was it.
Mama had always impressed upon him the importance of the duty a sheriff must bear and of the power a mayor must wield, of the bond they must share to best serve each other and the people.
He'd come to think of mayor and sheriff as husband and wife, of love not as something given to a person but as something given by a constitution: the "sheriff's handbook" which dictated the sheriff love his mayor and none other.
Then he grew up, and justice proved elusive, and the mayor was a man. The rules and regulations they copied by the dozen held nothing of his handwritten handbook.
Sheriff Stone had long wept over all that spilled milk, but he found it tasted sweet all the same.
After all, Mayor Jones was handsome as any Caesar or maybe Machiavelli, charisma sat braided and bleeding atop his head like champion's laurels, a city at its command.
Their bond wasn't that of husband and wife, nor that of husbands, but that of...boyfriends? Something silly and simple and shared, where Sheriff Stone hid flowers behind his back on his way up to Mayor Jones's office in the morning and Mayor Jones brought a bottle of his finest whiskey down to Sheriff Stone's desk in the evening.
Was it just their work keeping them together?
Sheriff Stone thought the only thing that kept them from finding out was the boy, Mayor Jones's son.
Even as they fucked atop the lumpy cushions of that tiny couch in his office, whispering lest his secretary should hear, Mayor Jones refused any pleas for a dinner date as well as any self-invitation to his place, "out of respect for Fred's mother" gritted like his teeth; but Sheriff Stone knew in his bones the kid was a criminal, leader of his gang and heir to an empire.
Mayor Jones wanted that kid to be mayor, and, well, Sheriff Stone just hoped he was retired by then.
Little did they know…
Sophomore year—after C&C, before Scooby—Shaggy got lost after an assembly as the crispy aroma of snacks hooked its fingers in his nose, and stumbled under the bleachers, through smelly smoke, into a group of stoners, all graphic tees and bloodshot eyes. He shied away, blushing and stuttering, when offered a joint, but he skipped calculus to come back the next day.
Now, a senior, he spent more time here than in class, smoking the days away under shade and slats of sun.
Sometimes, like now, he got lucky and got to watch Freddie practice with the boys from the soccer team: sweat soaking his shirt, shorts riding up his thighs, kicking up dirt like a whirlwind in double-knotted cleats.
He thought sports were too much work for some sticky victory, but he would always watch for Freddie, even showing school spirit in a jaunty cap and sold-out concession stands for the few games Freddie played in: screaming Freddie's name from the bleachers, keeping Scooby from chasing after the ball, and wishing he'd never come as Freddie ran off the field, high on win or loss, to twirl Daphne in his arms.
And speak of the devil...
A silhouette emerged from the sunlight, shoulders so broad they filled the opening in the bleachers and legs so long they took the steps two at a time. "Shag," it called, and he knew it was Freddie.
Shaggy flopped back in the grass, kicking a bare foot up in the air with a joint dangling between his fingers. "Like, over here, man."
"Are you"—Freddie huffed a breath—"smoking?"
"Chill, dude." Shaggy took a puff, imagined smoothing those wrinkles of disgust in Freddie's nose, breathed out. "It's just, like, weed."
Freddie bent to pick up a bottle of Coke half-full yet forgotten, empty it on the ground, and toss it into a nearby trashcan before taking his place next to Shaggy. "Oh, that's okay then."
Shaggy laughed, as the blunt smoked itself to ash in his hand.
Sometimes Freddie was laced straighter than his straitjacket ("it's for this trap, Shag, where I yank this rope..."), but sometimes he was groovier than Shaggy's wildest dreams: groovy like the swell of his chest, the line of his neck, the hook of his nose; not groovy like the frown on his lips.
Shaggy tried to catch Freddie's eye, even as a butterfly—all blue wings and beauty so delicate—landed atop his big toe. "You okay, Freddie?"
It was hard to tell with him: maybe he wasn't in the mood to laugh, or maybe he just didn't get the joke.
"Daphne dumped me." Freddie fisted his hands in the grass, came away with blades and roots alike. "Again."
Shaggy wiggled his toes, and the butterfly fluttered away.
"She's all like 'Freddie, your trap ruined my favorite dress,' 'Freddie, your cologne smells worse than Scooby's doggie bag,' 'Freddie, I should be more important than the gang,' like nothing I do is good enough." Then, more softly, "Like I'm not good enough."
"I feel that, man." Shaggy sighed, thinking he was too high for this, or maybe not high enough. He remembered how he'd felt Velma dreading her first "F"—the one she'd get if she had to turn him in for a grade—back when they were dating. "Like, if they have to fix us to be with us, like, maybe they don't really want us."
"Yeah, Shag," Freddie murmured, "that's really wise of you."
Shaggy didn't get that a lot. He grinned. "Like, thanks, man!"
Still, Freddie didn't join in, staring up at the sun.
Shaggy flexed his fingers, thinking, and then walked them over to Fred's, waiting for welcome before twisting and tangling. "Aw, Freddie, like, I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Freddie squeezed Shaggy's hand. "I just want us all to be together."
Shaggy squeezed back. "For what it's worth, like, I want us to be together too."
Fred sat up just to lean over Shaggy, in his eyes a little flicker Daphne would douse with a hose before it burst into flame—before it ate her alive. "You mean we could date, and you'd let me monitor and control your every move?"
Shaggy took a long drag and let it out slowly. "Yes on the dating and, like, no on the controlling."
He liked the smoke, not the burn.
Freddie slipped a hand under the hem of Shaggy's pants and around the bones of Shaggy's ankle, fingertips meeting as he plotted a place for a microchip. "So monitoring is good?"
Shaggy kicked him away. "No, Freddie."
"I think that's good. I think"—Freddie softened—"I need someone to tell me no."
"Like, oookay," Shaggy gulped. "You got it, man."
At last Freddie smiled. "Thanks, Shag."
Shaggy knew Freddie's heart was a broken thing begging for a healer's touch, but he wondered how rough were its edges, how big its cracks, to make Freddie think like that—sharp enough Shaggy would cut his hands trying to pick up its pieces, deep enough Shaggy would lose his way trying to glue them back together?
Freddie's heart was the one thing he'd face his fears for.
Shaggy sat up, too, offering his joint up to the search of Fred's gaze. "You want some?"
Freddie pursed his lips, dragged hands up and down sticky thighs. "I don't know how."
He was strung so high and so tight, yearning and just learning to bend. Shaggy was happy to help.
"Just, like, hold it"—Shaggy showed him how and showed off too, blowing smoke in misshapen rings—"and don't swallow."
He took a big puff and put his lips to Fred's, tongue darting out to coax them apart—finding them warm, a little chapped, and salty with sweat—and Fred had never caught on so quick in his life, letting him in and matching tongue for tongue. Smoke escaped around this tangle of tongues, amid a skirmish of saliva, but lips clung so tight it could only pass from one mouth to another.
Shaggy retreated, with one last nip at the plump of Fred's lower lip. "How do you feel?"
They breathed together, smoke in whirls and eddies between them.
Fred's face was a palette turned by Shaggy's hand to a painting: splotches of pink, tinges of blue and green, mouth—along with a cough and maybe a smile—hidden behind fingers not unlike those of some demure model. "Like my trap worked and I caught you."
So much for a simple "high."
Shaggy grinned, tongue lolling out between his teeth. "Wanna try again?"
Fred nodded yes, then no, and then he scrambled to his feet. "I gotta get back to practice."
"But you reek." Like Shaggy, not like Freddie, Shaggy didn't say—like reefer and grass stains and sunshine, not like cologne and rope burns and obsession.
Freddie considered this. "So let me borrow your patch—patch—"
"Patchouli?" Shaggy giggled. "Like, sure thing, man."
As soon as he found his shoes.
Little did they know…
Just months later, Fred would be tugging at his ascot, finger-combing his hair, on his way to see his not-dad in prison.
His life left in ruins like that old church, the blueprints of every plan he'd ever made aged and torn like that magazine cutout he'd worshipped for all those years.
He wouldn't give up his soul—he couldn't break up the gang, couldn't leave mysteries unsolved—but he'd known one day he'd give up his body.
With the gang he would win the Crimey and his dad's respect, and only then would he trade the Mystery Machine for a sensible sedan: only then would he become mayor and see monsters unmasked, justice served, using that power vested in him—he would start a revolution, employ a better sheriff, and make Crystal Cove groovier than ever.
Now he was a hobo.
And he'd come not to city hall, but to prison: not to seek the love and approval of his dad the mayor who'd raised him, but to get answers and closure from the Freak of Crystal Cove who'd stolen him.
He came to a tiny chamber with a cheap-looking chair shoved under a Formica table, a little black phone hung on the wall beside it, and on the other side of a pane of Plexiglas—good for a trap, although just how he wasn't sure—sat his dad with glasses barely held together by strips of tape and the grin of a man who'd glimpsed a faint light amid his darkest night.
Fred sat with a creak and fumbled with the phone, looking anywhere else as he put it to his ear. "Hey, Dad."
Too personal.
He folded an arm over his chest and tucked its hand into the bend of his elbow atop the table. "Er, not-dad, I mean."
Not impersonal enough.
He crossed his legs at the knee and hooked one foot behind another calf. "Ex-mayor and convicted kidnapper."
"Don't remind me," Fred Sr. chuckled, tugging at hair still more pepper than salt. "It's terrible in here! I always knew I was too pretty for jail."
Fred didn't laugh.
Sighing, Fred Sr. rapped on the tabletop with bony knuckles and, once he had Fred's attention, tilted his head to catch Fred's eye. "Fred, you have to know…"
"I know, Dad."
Fred had spent most of his life waiting for the words, trying to earn them however he could, but he didn't need them anymore. Not to sound cliché, as Velma would say, but actions spoke louder.
"You could've gotten away, and you'd still be mayor."
Fred would've fallen to his death, Shaggy would've hauled him to the shore, Daphne would've given him breath through her tears, Velma would've beaten his chest black and blue, and Scooby would've nudged him with hopeful paws and helpless tongue.
The Freak of Crystal Cove would've gone unmasked.
"But you saved me instead."
His eyes stung—the Freak before him blurred to a man, his father—and he rubbed them red and raw.
You're dead inside. You're dead inside.
Fred stared at the orange of Fred Sr.'s jumpsuit, thinking of how he'd protested even the orange of Fred's ascot saying, "screaming spider lilies, Fred, it's not a Jones color," and thinking of how Brad and Judy walked free in their blues and pinks after turning the stuff of his dreams to terrors in the night.
"I think that's more than my real parents would've done in your place."
Fred Sr. pressed his hand to the partition between them, and Fred Jr. met it with his own.