Time-Wrecked

"I'm stuck here!" wailed a plastered Dr. Drake Voss at the bar. "Stranded! Marooned! Isolated! I've been Time-Wrecked!" He rambled on and on.

Bull eyed the barkeeper suspiciously. "Just what in tarnation did you serve him?"

Shocked by the man's lack of alcohol tolerance, the barkeep held up his bottle. "Just regular well whiskey, the cheapest stuff here. Kid's just got no tolerance, it seems." The barkeep shrugged.

Drake continued his tirade. "There's no photonic particles in the atmosphere! No way home! Now I'm stuck in a timeline that's locked 200 years in the past! They don't even have microwaves!" His arms flailed like a madman.

The barkeep looked at Bull worriedly. "Hey, Bull, I've had my fair share of ranting drunkards in here, but your boy here is scaring even me with his wailing."

Bull chugged the rest of his beer and slammed his stein down. "Yeah, yeah… I'll handle it." The large man stood up, hoisted Drake over his shoulder, and steadily marched out of the bar. "Sorry, Tim! Just put it on my tab!" He waved goodbye as he left the saloon, all while Drake kept rambling and ranting on.

---

As the evening sun dipped below the mountain's shadow, Bull finally opened the hearthway to his cabin and sat Drake down on his bearskin-covered couch.

The lithe man had passed out, his ramblings ceasing about the time they left town, leaving him silent the rest of the way to Bull's home.

Bull shook his head, confused, as he took his shirt off and prepared himself some supper. He wasn't sure if Drake would wake up soon, but he was pretty sure the man just needed to sleep off whatever was bothering him.

Eating his supper alone, Bull sat in his lounge chair, gazing at the strange man on his couch.

"What did he mean by 'stranded' and 'time-wrecked'?" he thought to himself, his eyes examining the blonde young man up and down.

Seeing how Drake still had his pleather jacket on, Bull got up, slipped the jacket off, and laid it to the side before sitting back down in his chair.

"What a curious little man," Bull thought to himself. "Curious, but adorably cute too." He chuckled, continuing to think, "But I can't take advantage of him now… not like this… but boy, do I love me some blondies." He smirked as he finished his supper and prepared his nightly routine before bed.

Soon Bull was only in his briefs, his 6'5" manly body on display, covered in black and white hair over his bulging muscles. He gazed down at the man on his couch, fully passed out.

"Nope. Not tonight, Bull," he huffed to himself. "Just you and your hand again, it seems." He blew out the candles and smothered the fireplace, letting the darkness of the night overtake the cabin.

---

The next morning, Drake was woken by the sound of cracking and banging. This time, at least, he was on a couch.

He sat up, looking around the room, finding himself alone inside Bull's cabin, though the front door was wide open, letting in the cool forest air.

Drake slowly crept out of the cabin door, sleepy-eyed and with a serious pounding hangover, wondering what the incessant banging and cracking was.

"Morning, sleepyhead!" Bull shouted, standing tall in the middle of the clearing in front of the house. He was shirtless, wearing only boots and trousers, with a long lumber ax in his hand, chopping wood for the day's use.

Drake found himself taken aback by Bull's bulk. The man had muscles on muscles. Shoulders broad and round, pecs like two massive couch pillows, arms that looked like cantaloupes, and forearms bigger than Drake's thighs. Every inch was covered in manly salt-and-pepper body hair. The man really was a walking grizzly bear.

"Mornin'," Drake muttered as he sat on a lawn chair out front.

"Feeling any better?" Bull asked as he went back to chopping wood.

With every ax swing, his bulging muscles rippled and tensed, the sheer power of the giant man on full display as the ax cleaved through the logs like they were toothpicks.

Drake was straight, he had a wife and kid back home, but this giant of a man demanded attention. He found himself drawn to the sheer power and masculinity that Bull exuded. "Um, fine, I think."

"I gotta say, son, you're one helluva lightweight!" Bull laughed as he chopped away. "Never saw anyone get that plastered from one whiskey."

"It's because it was real and not synthesized," Drake blurted out without thinking.

Bull paused and stared at Drake, confused. "There you go again, using big words I ain't ever heard of." He went back to chopping, ranting, "Yesterday, you rambled on and on about being time-wrecked. How we were 200 years behind. No photonic whatchamacallit in the atmosphere, and just now, the booze was real and not... how'd you put it? Synthesized?"

Drake went white as a ghost, suddenly realizing he had broken at least a dozen time-traveling rules and regulations, not to mention how much he had contaminated this timeline. "I… I said all that?"

Bull laughed a big belly laugh. "Hah! Sure did, boy! For all the saloon to hear too!"

Drake put his hands over his mouth. "Oh crap… I'm going to get pruned by the bureau for sure…" He patted his chest and looked around. "But I'm still here…"

"I'm sorry, what?" Bull asked, setting his ax down and leaning his head in. "Pruned? Bureau?" He shook his head, confused. "Either you're from really, really far away, or you've lost your marbles and escaped from the loony bin, boy."

Drake was speechless. He had always been so meticulous about what he did and said when interacting with the past, and one shot of real whiskey had led him to commit a dozen infractions.

"But I guess I could also be crazy too," Bull shrugged, going back to chopping. "Maybe I didn't see you shock a Bull-maton with lightning from your fingertips and yank me around like a toy doll."

"No…" Drake stood up, patting his body and face, realizing this was actually happening, that he was not dreaming, and that the bureau had not shown up yet to arrest him. This confirmed his theory that this was an unmonitored timeline. "You're not going crazy, Bull."

He looked up at the large man, realizing that he could say or do anything he wanted without fear of criminal charges from the Temporal Bureau of Investigation. If he was going to survive this wild steam-powered land, he would need allies and friends, and he needed to be honest with at least one of them. "We need to talk."

---

Inside, Bull handed Drake a warm cup of coffee and sat down in his favorite lounge chair, while Drake sat on the couch, sipping his cup.

"I am indeed not from here," Drake began.

"Hah! No kidding!" Bull barked.

"And the reason I was suddenly drunk was because…" Drake tried to articulate his words, "In my time, alcohol is banned, and all liquors are synthesized to taste like the real thing, but without the buzz or harmful side effects."

"Your time?" Bull asked, puzzled.

"In my timeline, I am from the year 2434, and…"

"So, you're from the future?" Bull asked, looking at Drake's slick and chic clothing and attire. "That is the first damn thing you said so far that actually makes sense."

Drake continued, "And in my timeline, instead of everything being powered by steam, we use photonic molecules. Tiny microscopic ions from the surface of the sun. The reason they were never discovered until the 23rd century is that by the time the particles make it past Mercury, they have dissipated. It was only when the Nimen showed us how to safely mine and harvest them so close to the sun that we discovered them and harnessed them."

Bull's face was completely blank and confused.

"These photons power everything for us. Our homes, vehicles, and allow us to use Tegnyks and travel through time."

"So… You traveling back to my time and throwing lightning from your fingertips are powered by these… photons?"

Drake nodded. "I was completely powerless… up until you used that electric canister on the Bull-maton. The energy released was strikingly similar to photonic energy. So much so that my implants were able to manipulate it and use my Tegnyks."

Bull stood up and headed to his cupboard next to his Omni-gun, where he kept dozens of canisters of different neon colors. "So these ether canisters are made from the sun's photons?"

Drake shrugged. "Or something very close to it. Either way, I need to figure out what's in those canisters, and maybe fix my stuff, and get back home."

Bull closed his cabinet and grinned. "Well then, let's head to town and see what we can find out for ya!"