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Years later was years later. She met Ennen a little after she'd briefly gone through a transformation herself: settling into her own fur as an adult, knowing what she liked wearing, the small things she liked in bed, and navigating the nightmare that was mating season whenever it hit. A cute kitty like her didn't come around commonly unhitched--in some sense of it, she'd turned into her own mother; just without putting out. She tried hard not to think about it.

"Ierkai," her roommate, Rumiko, a tawny shortfur who'd grown fond enough of her to ocassionally stick around whenever it was Ierkai needed someone to take the heat off without the fear of contraception, returned back from greeting the door: she wasn't a tiny thing like Ierkai. She was slightly chubby, completely curvy, all boobs and butt, and by the time she crawled back into the bed to kiss Ierkai's cheek, she was soaking wet. "There's a dog handsome as fuck by the door asking for you. Go see him or else I'm going to bang him five ways to Sunday."

Rumiko would've fucked anything that moved. And as it was, Ierkai had given up on dogs. It was probably Zayden; wanting to hook up again, or something. She'd been angry one night, angry and drunk, grinding on his knot, and implied something that was the completely opposite of how she really felt. Ierkai wasn't ready.

"Ierkai~" Rumiko purred, licking her nose. "Come oooon, I know you're awake."

Ierkai burrowed her face into her sheets, into her blankets, into her pillows. It smelled like safety as it did of Rumiko. She forced herself awake though, pulled on Rumiko's shirt which hung on her, slipped on a pair of panties, and trudged to the door.

She didn't recognize the big dog at first. His fur was brown, yeah, and damp from the rain that'd been pouring outside, but he was barrel-chested with handsome-set features and his muscles were obvious from under his uniform.

But his face lit up as he saw her. "Ierkai," he said, and his tail was wagging slowly. His voice was low.

"What the fuck," Ierkai said, as he drew closer, her hackles raising, alarm apparent on every part of her fur. Her tail standing upwards on end. "What--"

"Ierkai," he said again, stopping just before touching her, paw out palm out, and the way he looked at her--

She hesitated, before she reached out despite herself.

"Ennen?"

--

Rumiko left, presumably to report to Zehkia who'd put the two of them together in the first place that the real reason Ierkai didn't hook up very often with other cats during her heat (reasonably to how her mortification to sudden sexuality could handle it) to an acceptable degree was because she had a Hot Piece of Junk in the Trunk.

"Piss off," Ierkai yelled as Rumiko left the building, and then whirled on Ennen. "What the fuck were you thinking, coming back?"

But Ennen wasn't the same Ennen years ago. He didn't look sad that she was yelling at him, but he did look somewhat troubled. "Though' I'd see how y'were." His eyes were dark and he looked down at her body: his nostrils flared.

"Well," she said, feeling self-conscious. Rumiko's shirt was big on her, so it ended off at mid-thigh and just at her butt; she wished she hadn't. She'd put on better clothes. "I'm doing fine, as you can see." She felt nervous, springy. "I'm going to go change, okay?"

Ennen didn't say a word. Instead, he loomed over her in a way that made her feel inadequate.

And then he licked her on the face and sniffed at her neck.

Ierkai blanched. "What are you doing," she hissed, paws at his shoulders, the flush rising to her face. It didn't show on black fur, but it was what it was.

"I don't bite or nuthin'," he was saying. He was a big guy now, gruff. Different from how he'd been all those years before. Somehow it took a different meaning now, him nosing Ierkai's ears, wet nose on the sensitive underside of Ierkai's jaw. "Don't needa be afraid."

It made Ierkai feel weak. She could smell his scent from here--all masculine and heady, and it was dizzying. She'd always been more sensitive to Ennen than any other animal. She just...hadn't remembered how much.

"M'not." Ierkai squirmed, face heating up. Pawed at him, feeling shy in a way that worried her at the same time it frustrated her, because maybe he didn't like it when his partners weren't confident or unexperienced, and maybe she didn't like not knowing what she was doing, didn't like this feeling of just utter want and affection spilling up in her throat. She wasn't easy, she reminded herself. "Maybe I just don't like you being so friendly all of a sudden. And I'm not afraid of you. You just--you smell."

Like wet dog. It probably came with having just come in with the rain, but her nose was sensitive and he was driving her crazy. Crazy embarrassment, crazy--her eyes flickered down and then shot right back up.

"Course y'aren't," he laughed, and damn it, he probably had read her--if he hadn't noticed the look, then by how she hadn't pushed him away. Nuzzled her cheek, seemingly pleased with the scent. "A sweetheart, arent'ya?"

He was scent-marking her, she thought, half-indignant, half-thrilled, as he walked her backwards.

"I'll 'sweet' your heart," Ierkai managed out as he pressed her down against the desk. He was big and_hard_ and he was pressing it against her and she was losing her breath. "Just you try."

"That's the plan, darlin'."

"Don't call me that," she told him, but her voice was fainter now. "That's not you, Ennen."

He was different now, now that the years had taken him. It felt like he'd grown up in the span of time she hadn't seen him.

Military made people different, she knew that.

A part of her wondered what he saw when he looked at her now. Whether or not she was just one string of many. Ierkai usually wouldn't have minded; adults had sex, that was what they did, and if it were anyone else, she'd have said Good For Them.

But it was Ierkai who really couldn't commit to something like that.

But it was Ennen, and she had loved him since the day he had decided to slobber all over her cute new dress and speck it up with mud, calling her "Erkai" because he couldn't master the idea of dipthongation in his tone. Thinking about how somebody else had just.

It didn't matter the amount of partners, she thought. But it did matter about--just Ennen.

How much might he have changed?

Ennen had stopped pressing forward. Instead, his big paws were stroking down her sides--she was shaking, she realized. She. Ierkai.

"Talk to me," Ennen said. "Darlin', talk to me."

"I am," she snapped, and she hated how all of her insecurities seemed to channel themselves into two words. She scowled at his expression. "Don't coddle me." She hated it here suddenly and shoved at his hovering bulk.

Ennen kissed her, instead of answering her. He kissed hard, rough, and it didn't feel like anything of that clumsy kiss she'd had with him when they were six and getting married. The gross one when they'd touched tongues and they'd both been disgusted and spitting out saliva. She felt like she was drowning in him, felt like he was pushing her and punishing her for something that she didn't even know about.

"Stop," she whispered, desperate, frightened.

He did.

It surprised her how obediently he went; and how fast. He held his hands behind his back too, as if he was afraid he had crossed his boundaries or hurt her.

She took the time to swallow in her breathes, settle her fur--it was all standing on end, no thanks to him. Ierkai tried to breathe normally. Tried not to shake. She slid past him to sink down on her bed and put her face in her paws. "What do you want?" she demanded. "You don't want me."

"Ierkai," he said helplessly, "Wanted nothin' but you for the longest time. Just was too stupid to know."

It was like something on the end of her mother's spat with gazillions of lovers, gazillions of beaus who had crossed the line from reasonable to desperate. Ierkai would've given anything when she'd been younger for Ennen to have said this, but now it felt so fake and rehearsed. She ended up curling up where she was.

"Ierkai?"

"Why'd you really come back?" she demanded, into the sheets. She felt pathetic. She hated what she was doing now--she was a cat. She had her pride. "You could've come back at any time."

"Erkai," Ennen murmured. His forehead was pressed against the space between her shoulder blades, and his nose brushed her spine when he spoke. "I'm sorry."

It was an ambiguous apology: he could have been apologizing for so many things. But they weren't children anymore: getting angry at him until he came around with a proper apology or anything--that wasn't going to work. And like it or not, she'd missed him. She missed him and her heart hurt so bad.

"You're so stupid," she told him, through grit tears. "I've loved you since you were a cub."

"I know," Ennen replied, and a remnant of his younger days, pawed at her until she was rubbing at her eyes and flung her arms around his neck. "M'sorry."

"You'd better be," she whispered and burrowed her nose into the scent she hadn't smelled since they were teenagers. "Welcome home."