Max P.O.V
     Have you ever woken up and for a few minutes have know idea where you are or how you got there? That was how my morning started out.
     I was nice and warm, my face in a pillow, wrapped up tight. I couldn't remember why I felt happy, I sincerely thought I was back in the city in my closet sized bedroom. I slowly remembered we have moved, I also remembered I've had this feeling before. Like I was wrapped in a warm cedar smelling cloud, but this time there was something else, something flowery.
     I opened my eyes, unable to make my brain think on the subject anymore. Turns out the flowery something I was smelling was Emmy, more specifically her soft pillowly boobs, right in my face.
     Whoops...I made to move away, but found my path barred by Clayton and he must have been having a good dream without me, judging by the bulge pressing gently against my ass.
     I was stuck, but saw no reason to try to hard to get myself free. If you were stuck between two of the most drop dead beautiful people you had ever met in person, would you really try and eacape?
     Emmy curled her knees up tighter, knocking them between mine and Clayton's legs. She murmured indistinctly and hugged tighter to me. I was pretty sure steam was coming out of my ears, not made better when Clay looped his arms around my waist and kissed the tip of my burning ear.
     "Emmy, why are your nipples in my boyfriend's face?" He asked sleepily.
     "Well, why are you hard?" She quipped, not opening her eyes but shifting her knee between our legs, nudging against Clay.
     "It's the morning," He said exasperated, "What's you excuse?"
     "It's cold in here and you're a blanket hog." Emmy said opening one clear blue eye to more effectively pout at Clayton.
     "How do you feel about this?" Clay asked hotly against my ear, making me shiver slightly.
     "Honestly I can't ever remember waking up in a better situation."
     "Good then you won't be mad Bradly is spooning me." Clay chuckled.
     "Fuck you." Bradly sighed distantly. The bed shifted as he sat up slightly and then quickly double took, pulling his arm off from around Clay's chest. "Oh shit I was wasn't I. My bad bro," He said rolling over so their backs were together. "Didn't mean to poke you."
     Emmy started laughing as she rolled over, but her laugh turned into a squeak of fright that made the three of us flinch horribly.
     "Goddamn! you cat! Every fucking time," She ragged, sitting up.
     "Oh Blackberry! Come here fuzz nuts." Bradly cooed rolling over to pat his chest invitingly.
     I thought Emmy was being over dramatic about her scream until I actually saw the cat...it wasn't a cat. I have seen smaller dogs, hell there were probobly smaller bobcats!
     All black and fluffy, about forty-five pounds at the least, it's long tufty tail held high as it stalked across the foot of the bed and climbed onto Bradly to lay across his chest.
     "Jesus Christ!" I couldn't help it, the cat was almost half my body weight! "That's not a normal cat!"
     "Yeah, pretty brutal isn't he?" Bradly said happily, scratching the cats ears. It's purr sounded like a distant chainsaw and could be felt throughout the bed. "We think he is part something else, but we arent exactly sure what."
     "Mountain lion." I suggested dryly.
     Seriously, was it just me, or was everything this far north bigger than me, or at least capable of eating me?!?!
     "I don't know?" Bradly said thoughtfully. "He did eat the hindquarters off my last deer."
     So, I don't have to worry about the bears, just the moose and when the moose weren't around I had to worry about the house cats... damnit...
     "He's harmless." Clay said as Blackberry, unsatisfied with only set of hands petting him, crawled to rub his face into Clay's side, purring more insistently.
     "He looks hungry."
     "Don't worry, he only needs two virgin sacrifices a week." Bradly said laughing, scooping up Blackberry and carrying him out of the room. We followed him down the stairs and into the kitchen. Two red headed twins were already there, identical right down to the black eye they both had.
     They growled a grumpy 'hello' in unison and went back to their toast. A...viking, for lack of a better descriptive word, was sitting at the head of the table, smoking a pipe. He was also red headed and build like Thor. It was easy to see this was where Bradly got his height. He was in a button up shirt and vest, his sleeves rolled to the elbows reveling tattoo sleeves of celtic design. In short, he was one damn good looking dad.
     "Morning," He rumbled, streching an arm out to hug Bradly, who kissed the short ginger whiskers on his cheek.
     "Morning!" An enthusiastic voice said as yet another red head, a woman this time, put a platter of bacon and eggs on the table. Well this had to be Bradly's mother. Thank the good lord she was only a few inches taller than me! Lean and pretty with freakles on her cheeks her hair pulled back and a frilly black apron tied around her waist. She flitted around hugging each of us.
     "Wow, you are so cute!" She said happily as she wrapped me in a hug.
     "Mom," Bradly said pointedly.
     "Right I'm sorry, I'm sure you don't want to be called cute, you are very handsome." She giggled and swooped a chair under me and pushed me up to the table. "But sweetheart you are as thin as Bradie." She piled my plate with four eggs and a wad of bacon as thick as my fist.
     "Oh baby Bradie is so thin," one twin cooed.
     "Cute little wolf pup needs some mammas milk." The other snickered.
     Their father cleared his throat, pinning them in place with a single look. "Knock it off." He said placidly.
     "Pack leader has spoken." They chimed in unison bowing to him and leaving the kitchen howling like wolves.
     "You really couldn't have one more kid so I'm not forever the wolf pup." Bradly said to his dad as Clayton chuckled.
     "I think seven kids is enough." He said with a frown. "I'm too old to raised another one for eighteen years. How would that look, having another kid at fifty-two years old?"
     I might have choked slightly on my peice of bacon. Fifty-two? Maybe thirty-five, but Bradly's dad did not look fifty-two. How old did that make his mom...? Yeah...there was no way she had seven kids, there was just no way.
     "I refuse to have one of my children be younger than my grandkids, deal with it Bradly, your forever the wolf pup." He concluded, blowing a puff of blue smoke over is head and standing up. "If you don't want to be thought of as the baby, get married and start having kids, that's what I did." He kissed his wife, ruffled Bradly's hair and left.
     "Speaking of which!" His mother chimed in happily. "When are you going to start dating Emmy?"
     Bradly choked, his face turning as red as his hair as he sputtered at his mother.
     "Mom!" He cried, embarrassed beyond belief.
     "I was just wondering, I mean you talk about her all the time."
     "Will you please get out if here, I think I hear your mother calling, or the cat wants out or Jakes and Grant are fighting, please just go." He said every exposed inch of his skin blushing pink and red as he got up and bodily pushed his mother out of the kitchen.
     As dickish as it sounds, me and Clay just laughed. Bradly looked as though he would like nothing better than to vanish. Emmy was pink too as she looked intently at her plate, just as flustered as Bradly.
     Clayton harassed Bradly as he finished the food on my plate. Bradly eventually threatened to sick Blackberry on his ass if he didn't knock it off and with Emmy's help they finally got him to shut up.
     "So, what are you guys doing today?" Bradly asked leaning back in his chair, his ears still pink.
     "Hiding from Franky." Clay said scowling.
     "He is there?" Bradly asked with his eyebrows raised.
     "Yes, he is here." Clay said shortly.
     "At least you only have one brother, I have six."
     "Your brothers aren't all assholes like mine."
     Bradly snorted and rolled his eyes. "I thought you met all my soulless ginger void brothers. Just pop Franky one in the face and be done with it."
     It was Clayton's turn to snort. "Yeah, that will go over great. One punch might kill him. I already got into deep shit for face planting him at the table."
     "Don't be a pussy." Bradly said with a yawn. Clay frowned across the table at him.
     "Oh please, if anybody here is a pussy it's you."
     Bradly let the legs of his chair fall back to the floor as he narrow his eyes.
     "I am many things, many brutal things, but a pussy is not one of them."
     Emmy rolled her eyes and gave me a smirk. "Gotta prove who is the tougher man. They have youngest child complexes." She whispered to me, giggling. Clay and Bradly were still arguing.
     "Ice challange?" Clay asked after a moment if huffy silence.
     Bradly groaned. "Fuck, I can't say no cause then I'm the pussy!!! Fine, ice challange, but let's make it quick. I have to be at the station."
     "You're going to do the ice bucket challange." I said scathingly. That was so stupid, how the hell was that going to prove anything?
     Emmy, Bradly and Clayton all laughed. "No," Emmy corrected. "Just, 'the ice challange'. It's been around up here for awhile. Roy, Allister and my dad started it. Allister is Bradly's dad. We were like, what seven?" She asked looking to Bradly and Clay, who nodded.
     "Have no idea what they were trying to settle, but Emmy's dad won and we have been doing it ever since."
     "That's great, but what is it?"
     I should have never asked...
     We were standing on the edge of the frozen lake by the sauna. Bradly and Clayton were cutting a two meter by one meter hole in the ice while Emmy stood holding towels and hats, a smile on her pretty pink lips. I was still in stunned disbelief that they were really about to do this, a stop watch in my gloved hand.
     "For the record, your an asshole." Bradly said as with a labored grunt and he and Clay heaved blocks of ice out of their hole, cold dark water sloshing ominously around the edges.
     "You can still give up, you don't have to do this." Clay taunted with a smirk appraising the newly exposed watery grave as he shrugged off his coat. Bradly mimed him, dragging down his jeans and stripping off his socks, standing above the ice on his boots.
     When they were in nothing, excepting the red of Clay's briefs and the dark blue of Bradly's boxers, shivering in the cold, they looked to us.
     Repeating my self for the umpteenth time, "you guys please don't do this." But it was too late. They stood on their side of the ice hole, flexing theirs hands and bouncing on the balls of their feet.
     "Ready, set, go!" Emmy called happily, giving the signal for them to slip into the frozen lake water.
     It came up to their chests and, judging by the sharp intakes if icy air and the hissing curses, the water was absolutely freezing.
     "Mother fucking son of a shit cunt bitch!damn! fuck! shit! fuck!" Bradly gasped as he inhaled, his hands turned downward and held against the sides of his head.
     "Mary mother of God! Jesus H Fuck!" Clayton said from behind clenched teeth, his eyes squinted shut and his fists balled and held above his head.
     This was so stupid! Somebody stop them! I was knee deep in snow, it was fifteen degrees out and these idiots we're stripped down to their skivvies in the damn lake!
    "I think my dick is gone." Bradly squeaked, shivering violently where he stood.
     "Brings a whole new twist to the phrase 'blue balls'" Emmy said with a giggle.
     "Don't even say that, mine are numb." Clay gasp, his teeth chattering and his eyes still closed.
     "Fuck! Why do we always agree to this!?!?! My fucking nipples could cut dimonds!!!!"
     'Always agree to this', how many times have they done this before!?!?!?
     "Quit complaining, I'm pretty sure my nipples have frozen off."
     "God damn we are stupid! Gingers are more sensitive to pain!! This fucking sucks, blows and bites all at the same time!!!" Bradly yelled his shivering making ripples in the water.
     "Jou had to be chest deep in a frozen lake before jou realized jou vere stupid?"
     I didn't regognize that voice, it was deep with a thick German accent, and coming from right behind me.
     I jumped as Emmy called "Papa!" She was pulled into a one armed embrace by the owner of the voice.
     He was tall as Bradly's dad, but muscular like Clay. He had short white blond hair and a neat trimmed blonde beard, with cold blue eyes, that were very much like Emmy's, but without the warmth. How the hell he snuck up on us I'll never know. He was frowning at dumbass one and dipshit two, who were still in the water.
     "Might I ask, vhat do jou zink jou are doing?"
     "Just a bracing dip in the lake on this fine fall day." Clay said, his teeth still clenched.
     "Yeah, getting one last swim in before it gets really cold." Bradly said, adding to the poorly put together lie.
     "Ja, I'm sure jou are." He said sarcastically, "how long have zey been in zere?" He asked me.
     "Uh," I said consulting the stop watch, "one minute twenty-three seconds."
     "Fuck!" Bradly and Clay cursed together. Emmy's dad rolled his eyes. Her dad muttered something in German and Emmy giggled.
     "I think he just called us shit heads." Clay said though chattering teeth.
     "Not wrong though, is he." Bradly hissed scathingly, chewing on his tongue. They looked at each other across the expanses of lake water for a moment.
     "Son of a bitch! I'm the pussy!" Bradly said angrily as he hauled himself out of the water. His pale skin and freakles were hidden in a crimson tinge the cold had burnt into his skin as he sprinted, still cursing to Emmy. He snatched his towle and ran through the snow towards the house.
     "Oh thank God!" Clay said in a voice broken with relief as he jumped out of the water and sprinted after Bradly, not bothering to grab his own towle.
     "One minuet, fifty-two seconds." I said stopping the clock, watching my boyfriend as he slammed to back door into the house.
     "Just making sure jou vere okay," Emmy dad was telling her. "Come back to the house vhen jou are done." He said, placing a kiss to her cheek as he started back the way he came. "Make sure jou answer jour phone next time."
     "Sorry papa." She said, picking up Clay and Bradly's clothes. "Come on Max, let's go see how bad their frost bite is."
     I hoped they didn't have frost bite. We didn't have to ask Amanda if she had seen two half naked idiots come through the house, because, judging by the way she was laughing, they had. She pointed up at the stairs, shaking her head before we could even ask.
     Clayton and Bradly were in the shower together, the bathroom door open and the curtin not having been bothered to be closed. Clay was standing under the water, letting the water cascade down his red chest and run down his sculpted body to Bradly, who was sitting in the tub. He was so tall that even sitting his head was resting against Clay's hip bone. His long legs were sprawled out and he was leaning back onto Clay, catching the water Clay wasn't hogging.
     "I told you I hated you right?" Bradly said, running his fingers through his hair.
     "You might have mentioned it." Clay said dully. "How's your dick?"
     "Frozen, but thawing. And yours?"
     He pulled the waistband of his briefs out and looked into them. "Fine, but I think my balls are missing."
     "You guys are morons." Emmy said blandly, hands on her hips as she stared at them from the doorway, her eyes lingering on Bradly for half a second longer than Clay.
     "Do you take sexy showers with everybody?" I half teased. It was partially a serious question too though, I kinda wanted to know how many people had showered with Clay.
     Clayton smiled at me. "This doesn't count as sexy." He said pushing his hips against Bradly's head. "There is nothing sexy about his skinny ass." Bradly smacked his thigh hard.
     "Leave my skinny ass alone and keep Richard off my head if you don't mind." He said standing up and pushing him over so he could take more of the hot water. "I might be the pussy this time, but I'm still not taking your shit." He hopped out of the shower and waked out, still dripping, accepting his clothes from Emmy with a small blush.
     "Will you two just get together already?" Clay said seriously. Emmy blushed and I left as she stuttered and Clay stripped completly.
     I was making coffee when Bradly wandered down the stairs, fully clothed, his hair wild from being towle dried. "Are you leaving?" I asked as he grabbed his light jacket from the back of a chair.
     "Yeah, I was suppose to be at the station an hour ago." He said, digging in his pockets for his keys. "So, what do you think of it up here?" He asked, unable to find his keys.
     "It's so cold." I said truthfully. "Did you leave them in your car?" I asked, remarking on his lack of keys as he patted all his pockets.
     He laughed. "Yeah, it gets that way. What the heck? Will you help me?" He asked opening the door and stomping out and I followed. He wrenched open the door to his Land Rover and started digging in the console. I opened the other side and looked on the seat under the emence CD collection living there. "Where you born here, this country I mean?" He asked, frowning at his vehicle.
     "Uh, no. I was born in Spain." I said looking on the floor as he gave a low whistle. "How the hell did you end up here at the ass end of Norway? Ha! Found them!" He cried, fishing his keys from between the seat and center consol.
     "I have no idea actually, Norway is where I was put up for adoption when I was a newborn." I said with a shrug as a truck pulled up into the driveway. I though it was Roy for a minute, but the truck was older looking.
     "Brad." A stocky, dirty blond guy got out of the truck, looking annoyed. He looked familiar for some reason, but I think I would have remembered meeting him.
     "Hunter, what's up dude?" Bradly asked, a little hesitantly, looking back at the house for a second.
     That's why I regognize him, I saw him once in a picture. He was Clayton's ex.
     "Is Clay here?" He asked. He had a harsh sort of authority in his voice. He was obviously used to getting what he wanted and had no qualms about sounding rude.
     "Why?" I asked. What the fuck was I doing!? This guy could snap me in half! Now was not the time to let my jeluous side show through.
     He looked down at me, slowly, as if I wasn't really worth his notice. "You're him, aren't you?" He asked, sounding angry. "You're the fucking reason Clay won't text me back."
     Wait one second, I though they were broke up, why was he texting Clayton?
     "Hunter don't be stupid." Bradly said, intervening.
     He cast a glare at Bradly as he moved closer to us, only a meter away now. "Whatever," He said dismissively. "It won't last anyway. He will fuck you once and when you can't satisfy him he will come back to me like he always does."
     Jesus he was like a freaking sixteen year old girl! "Maybe that's the reason he broke up with you." I said...I said that...oh shit. What's worse, I kept going. "A good fuck isn't worth dealing with the pompous, self absorbed jerk who feels he has to look down on people to compensate for his insecurities. You don't have to be rude all your life by the way."
     Yeah, that about did it. He probobly had about a hundred fifty pounds on me and his fist closed around my coat front as his other drew back.
     "You little fucker!"
     I closed my eyes, what else are you suppose to do when a train is barreling at you and you have now way to dodge? I was jerked forward and the sound of flesh colliding met my ears, but...my face wasn't hit? I was shoved backwards and landed hard in the snow covered drive. A thud of something hitting metal and a grunt of pain made me open my eyes.
     Bradly had Hunter slammed up against his Land Rover. "I said don't be fucking stupid!" Bradly snarled, smashing him against the vehicle a second time. He let go and stepped back. Hunter snarled in rage, wrenching his jacket straight, brushing the blood off his knuckles and stalking back to his truck, reving the engine and peeling out of the driveway.
     Bradly turned back to me and held out his hand to help me up. Hunter had hit him. His eyes was red and starting to get puffy, a trickle of blood dribbling down from a cut on his eyebrow. "You alright Max?" He asked.
     "Your, your eye, I'm sorry! Oh my God. Why did you do that?" I asked letting him help me up, but getting on my toes to prod at the cut. "You should have let him hit me!"
     "Like hell!" Bradly said pushing my hand away. "You totally stood up to that prick, it was fucking brutal!" He said with a shrug and a smile.
     "But-" I started to argue.
     "Max, I am happy to take a hit for you, but," He said looking at me seriously. "Don't tell Clay about this, please. I bailed him out of jail once because he and Hunter beat the living shit out of each other before and I don't want to do it again."
     What? I remember Emmy saying all this before, but I... what the hell?! What kind of relationship did they have? I had so many questions. "Okay, I won't say anything." I mumbled. "Are you going to be okay?"
     He almost laughed in relief. "I'll be fine. I had six older brothers, a black eye is nothing. Thank you, Max. Don't think badly of Clay because of this." He said getting in his car. "Kiss with a Fist" by Florence and the Machine blared from his speakers as he pulled out, casting me a wave as he left.
     ...what the fuck had just happened?

***why hello, it's been awhile! My job has me working five twelve hour shifts in a row... I'm sorry. Bare with me people I'm still alive and all that, but I did sleep for twenty-four hours straight and my roommates where like, 'oh good we thought you had died'...at least they put up with my shit xD I hope you liked this chapter it was pretty long. There is more to come so please, vote, comment, swim in frozen lakes! \^~^/