FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Been here before?" Jacob asked Sarah gruffly as the three walked into the dusty little town.

"Once, just passed through." she replied in her usual stony voice.

"I'm surprised you and your friends didn't visit more often." Jacob said, eyeing the windows of the dilapidated houses as they stepped through the dry ground that had once been the lawns and gardens of once stately houses now sitting in ruin.

"It sits at the outer limits of radio contact and the only quick way to get here from the Fort was by truck, and the trucks were only for emergencies." Sarah replied.

Jacob swiveled his ears this way and that and tested the air. "Catch anything Joshua?" he doubted the presence of a large number of raiders, though he supposed there was always the possibility of a few camping out to try to catch travelers passing through. His biggest fear however, was stumbling across a feral ghoul in one of these dark houses; he'd run into them before and remembering the encounter was enough to make his fur prickle unpleasantly.

"No. We should get inside soon though, we're almost out of daylight." Joshua replied after testing the air himself.

Jacob nodded and selected a two-story house sitting roughly in the middle of town and had its windows boarded up and its door unlocked. The door creaked ominously when Jacob slowly pushed it open with the toe of his boot, his paws gripping his carbine with the flashlight on. The light illuminated a small dusty parlor with a wall at the far end separating it from a kitchen and dining room, directly in front of Jacob stood a flight of stairs leading up to the second story. He indicated for Joshua and Sarah to check the other first-floor rooms and he crept up the stairs.

Jacob gritted his teeth as the wooden steps creaked and groaned under his weight, his unease growing with each step. It was unlikely that ghouls would be here, there didn't seem to be any source of intense radiation nearby, but nevertheless, fear gripped him as he imagined running into one of those things upstairs. It was just as dark on the second floor, the windows boarded and the sunlight waning. At the top he turned around a corner to find three doorways standing along a hallway, two on the right, one on the left.

He began to clear them one by one until he had reached the last one, his paw turning the knob slowly before pushing the door open quietly. Suddenly a thump from behind Jacob made him yelp in fright and he spun around, expecting to find a screaming ghoul about to tear him apart, and almost shot Sarah square in the chest. He swore violently in a hushed voice and said, "You ever do that again and I swear to god I will fucking shoot you!"

Sarah scowled. "The first floor is clear. What the fuck are you so worried about anyway? There's no one here."

"I take it you've never run into feral ghouls before." Jacob whispered and pushed past her and into the hallway.

"Ghouls? What the fuck are..."

"Don't ask." the wolf cut her off and found what he was looking for, a pull string dangling from the ceiling. He gave it a tug and a trap door swung open and a ladder thumped to the floor at Jacob's feet.

Jacob climbed the ladder and swung his carbine and light around the dusty attic, mostly empty but for some boxes.

"All clear?" Sarah's voice floated up from the bottom of the ladder.

"All clear." he called as he climbed back down and then began to head down the stairs.

"Think we can have a fire?" Joshua asked from next to the front door. "There's wood in the fireplace."

Jacob didn't see why not, the smoke wouldn't be seen easily in the night, and with the curtains drawn over the window no light would escape. He set the dry wood in the fireplace alight and drew the curtains closed and shut the front door and locked it. He turned to find Sarah and Joshua pushing the old sofa towards the fire and Jacob noticed a dusty but comfortable looking recliner in the corner and cracked a small smile. He pushed the recliner up to the fire himself and unslung his bag and dug through their remaining food and pulled out three cans, opened them, and set them on the grate over the fire.

He sank into the recliner with a contented sigh, his stress evaporating as he sank into the cushions. It sure as hell beat the rocks and hard floors he had been sleeping on for weeks. "I'm going to sleep well tonight." he said with a smile.

"Do you think we need to do watches?" Joshua asked from the couch, sitting nearer him than Sarah. "It's not like we'd see anybody coming..."

"Yeah, we'll do watches. To keep an eye on that one." Jacob replied, pointing at Sarah.

"The fuck am I going to..." she retorted.

"Shut it." Jacob cut her off, he was far too comfortable to have an argument right now, and just wanted to wait for their food to cook as he for once sat inside out of the dusty wind. When the food was finally ready he pulled the cans off the fire and allowed himself another smile as he dug into his can of pasta and meat sauce, he may be on the run from raiders and sharing a room with a human that had kept him locked up for two or three weeks, but the recliner and food more than made up for it after the hell he'd been through recently.

"Jacob, can I ask you something?" Joshua ventured a few minutes into their meal.

"As long as it isn't about ghouls, go ahead." Jacob replied, feeling generous enough.

Joshua paused, obviously puzzled by this remark but continued anyway, "You never did tell me much about your friend, Daniel." the German shepherd asked. "He sounds pretty important to you."

"He was." Jacob said irritably, of course he wanted to ask about his least favorite subject of conversation. He thought about telling Joshua to shove off, but then sighed as he saw the look of genuine concern in the shepherd's eyes. "He was my best friend back in Junktown. He looked a lot like you actually, German shepherd with the white fur going up to the muzzle." he said, looking at Joshua.

"How did you meet?" Joshua asked.

He turned to look into the fire and ate some more, preparing himself. "He found me on the road outside of Junktown, I was in shambles, clothes torn and dirty as hell, no food, no water. He took me to the sharecroppers outside of town and gave me new clothes and some food and water. I couldn't believe it, thought it was some kind of trick; nobody does that, not without some kind of catch. I was about to leave when he offered me a job on the farm. I didn't know what else a ten-year-old could do to survive, so I accepted."

"He sounds like a good man."

"He was. Always stuck up for me and I stuck up for him." Jacob said, eyes sliding out of focus as he recalled memories of good times with his friend, memories he had been trying to bury for a long time. "He was the kind of guy who was always there when you needed him." Jacob let out a laugh. "Man we could cook up some trouble, one time we slipped one of those mutated geckos into one guy's room after he tried to steal our comic books." Jacob grinned as he remembered Henry's terrified screams upon finding the creature under his bed. "He was a good guy, kinda like you I guess."

"He..." Jacob began, but paused, unsure if he really wanted to dig up the memories. "He... picked me up after things fell through with a girl I was after (her father made me stay away). Even offered me all of his life savings so I could run away with her, start a new life..." Jacob shook his head and continued eating.

They were all quiet for a while before Joshua spoke again, "What happened?"

Jacob sighed and rubbed the side of his face wearily with a paw. "He just up and left, out of nowhere, I didn't see it coming... I just found him packing one day and we had a huge argument..."

"Daniel, what's going on?" Jacob asked as he walked into their room to find his best friend throwing his clothes angrily into a large pack.

"I'm leaving. Going to join the army." Daniel growled without looking up.

Jacob's jaw fell open and he stood dumbfounded for several moments before finding his voice. "What?" he said stupidly. This had to be a joke, Daniel had never expressed interest in joining the army, or leaving Junktown for that matter.

"You heard me." the shepherd snapped.

"Daniel..." Jacob couldn't believe it, it didn't make sense. He stepped forward and laid a paw on Daniel's shoulder. "Why would you leave? You never said anything before..."

Daniel shrugged off his paw and turned to face him. The fur around his eyes were damp, and his eyes themselves were bloodshot. "Why? Why would I leave?" Daniel suddenly roared in anger. "I'm leaving because I have nothing here!"

Jacob was thunderstruck. "You've got me..."

Daniel laughed humorlessly and turned back to his packing. "I've got you? Yeah right. You don't give two shits about me!"

"That's not true and you know it!" Jacob said, growing upset at Daniel's accusation.

"Bullshit!" Daniel roared. "You never show me that you care!"

"What? Just last week I bought you that damn album you love so much even though I can't stand it!" Jacob yelled back, he couldn't believe what Daniel was saying.

Daniel stared at him for several moments before speaking curtly, throwing the last of his clothes into the bag, "I can't believe you. You'll never get it, will you?"

"Get what? Hey, we need to talk about this!" Jacob grabbed Daniel's arm as the shepherd headed towards the door.

"You don't even know what to talk about." Daniel said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jacob demanded. "Fuck it, you know what? Fine, go ahead! Go join the army and get yourself killed!" he snapped angrily and shoved Daniel's arm away.

"Fine." Daniel said stonily and stepped into the hall, but paused for several long quiet moments before turning and speaking in a choked and broken voice, "Goodbye, Jacob." And with that disappeared down the hallway.

"...and then he just walked away. I haven't seen him since then, probably got himself killed fighting raiders or something off god-knows-where... I've never had a friend since." Jacob said as he remembered the fight vividly. He was silent as the emptiness he had felt after Daniel's leaving filled him again after years of trying to squash it down with all his might. He had been angry at first, sure that Daniel was going to come back after a couple hours, a couple days at most, but when weeks passed and nobody had seen hide nor hair of him. Jacob was left feeling completely hollow.

A paw on his shoulder made him snap out of his reverie abruptly. "I'm sorry, Jacob." it was Joshua. Jacob looked at the shepherd and despite the gaunter face he couldn't help but be reminded of Daniel by the sympathy written upon his features. "Listen... I don't want to try to replace Daniel, but we all need friends, Jacob..."

Jacob opened and closed his mouth, unable to find the right words, so instead he just nodded slowly. "Thanks." he said quietly. "Well, we better get some rest." Jacob said after a little bit, setting his empty can to the side and kicking back on the recliner. He closed his eyes and tried to forget everything he had just recalled, but it clung to him, and haunted his dreams through the night.

"Good morning campers." Jacob shook Sarah and Joshua awake. It was mid morning, he had gotten up earlier, fed up with his disconcerting dreams. "It's time we got to searching this town." He picked up his pack and carbine as the other two slowly woke and opened the curtains and peered outside between the boards as they collected themselves.

"Best sleep I ever had." Joshua said, entirely failing to stifle a big yawn as he stretched.

"Sure beats a hard floor." Jacob replied as he opened the front door and checked outside. Finding the coast clear he led them outside and down the street towards the long low building he had seen last night, guessing it was a general or grocery store. Before long they arrived at the highway, which acted as the town's main street, and found the building Jacob was looking for. "SWEET GLEN GROCERY" was emblazoned in faded and peeling paint above a set of wide double-doors. The inside, though a dirty mess, was well lit enough to let Jacob stroll in without feeling the need to clear it aisle by aisle.

He let the others search for food while he checked the service counter and offices where he found an old paper map of the Mojave region. He spread it out upon the grimy counter and found a tiny little speck labeled "Sweet Glen" sitting astride highway 15 and traced a finger along the roadway to the next establishment, a slightly bigger speck called "Baker". He figured it would take the better part of a week to get there, even traveling on the highway. They would need plenty of supplies and rest before starting on the next leg of their journey.

"Find anything?" he called out from behind the service counter.

"Some food and a couple more jugs of water, not much else though." Joshua replied as she and Joshua met him at the front of the store with some canned goods in their arms.

"We should search the town then." Jacob said after surveying the loot. "The next town is about a week away, so I figure we can spend today looking for supplies and tomorrow we rest up before heading out."

"Rest?" Joshua said with a grin, feigning disbelief. "Since when do you rest?"

Jacob allowed himself a small smile. "Only when I have to drag around a mutt like you." he said jokingly and then continued in a more serious tone, "I figure that we can search the shops on the main street together and then split up and cover the rest of the town." Jacob tucked the map away in his duster and led them down the street. They stopped at a garage where Jacob found a couple of rusted tire irons that he decided to take along and a couple other shops before they arrived in front of what appeared to be a small diner.

The place was well lit by the big front window and several windows along the wall and Jacob had no trouble seeing when he pushed open the door. "Looks kind of like the place back home." he said with a smile as he surveyed the dusty counter and tables, old but in otherwise good condition. He stepped around the counter to look through the cabinets when he noticed a radio sitting on the far side of the counter and out of curiosity he went over to it. There was no way it could work, but it couldn't hurt...he blew the dust off the dials and turned on the power and it crackled to life. "It works!" he cried, looking up at Joshua and Sarah as they walked inside.

Jacob couldn't help grinning to himself as familiar music flooded the diner, music that would have filled the diner back in Junktown. There turned out not to be much left in the cabinets but he was pleasantly surprised when he happened across several glass bottles of amber liquid. "I used to come to a diner like this all the time back in Junktown." he said as he stuffed the bottles into his bag and went around the counter and sat on one of the stools. "I'd sit right here, chatting up Elizabeth..."

Jacob stopped mid-sentence when suddenly an all too familiar tune came from the radio playing at the end of the counter. "Maybe you'll think of me... When you are all alone..."

"Daniel and I would come here too, share a drink after working in the fields all day..." Jacob said in a quieter voice. He stared ahead at the wall behind the counter, his back to the others, and his eyes lost focus as he remembered better times all those years ago...

"Maybe the one who is waiting for you... Will prove untrue, then what will you do?" the radio by the wall sang away as Jacob opened the door to the Junktown diner and sat down at the counter sullenly. He ordered a beer from the waitress as Daniel sat down next to him. "Maybe you'll sit and sigh, wishing that I were near... Then maybe you'll ask me to come back again... And maybe I'll say maybe..."

"I have to listen to this damn song here now too? Even after buying you that album?" Jacob said crankily. Daniel's song wasn't helping his sour mood and was glad when the waitress set down a cold glass of beer in front of him.

Daniel ordered a beer as well before turning to Jacob. "About that, thanks for the album, Jacob, I really appreciate it." he said.

"Don't mention it." Jacob replied darkly. "No really, don't. I'm going to regret it when you start playing it non-stop."

Daniel opened his mouth to say something but hesitated. "Jacob..." he paused again, looking rather uncomfortable. "You've been going on about Elizabeth for a month now..."

"So what?" Jacob snapped and took a sip of his beer, it didn't taste good enough to wash away the bitterness left from his forced separation from Elizabeth. "She was the perfect girl and now I have no chance with her."

"I know it's tough..." Daniel began, placing a paw on Jacob's shoulder gently.

"You have no idea what it's like!" Jacob cut him off angrily, brushing off his paw. Daniel's ears went flat back against his head and his lip trembled slightly, but the wolf continued anyway, "I've never seen you with a girl let alone go through a breakup."

Daniel turned away and sipped from his beer as Jacob did the same. There was silence between them as Jacob tried to drown his bitterness in his glass. "Maybe, you'll sit and sigh, wishing that I were near... Then maybe you'll ask me to come back again." the radio continued, oblivious to their argument.

"You know, what if she wasn't right for you? I mean...there are...other people out there..." Daniel said quietly and Jacob suddenly felt the shepherd's warm paw rest on his, grasping it gently. The wolf snapped his paw away reflexively and stared at Daniel. The deep sadness written on the shepherd's face and in his damp eyes would live with him forever.

"He was more than a friend, wasn't he?" a voice said from next to Jacob. For a moment he thought he was back in Junktown all those years ago, with Daniel's paw over his; but no, it was Joshua's paw that was clutching his.

"I'm an idiot." Jacob blurted out. He felt like he couldn't breath, like his heart was beating furiously and stopped at the same time. "I'm a complete fucking moron."

"Jacob?" Joshua said in a quiet and concerned voice, gripping the wolf's paw a little tighter.

Jacob looked down to where their paws sat entwined on the counter, Joshua's looking so much like Daniel's, how could he have missed all the signs. "How could I be this stupid?" his voice was a whisper now.

"Jacob, you're not stupid at all. What's wrong?"

Jacob tore his gaze from their paws and looked at Joshua. "You are right, he was more than a friend, but... I didn't realize it... that's why he left, because I didn't even..." he trailed off as he felt as if he stomach was sinking lower and lower inside himself.

"Realize that he loved you?" Joshua finished his sentence for him. For some reason this made Jacob draw his eyes back to their entangled paws on the countertop. This time he didn't move his, and only nodded as his eyes grew damp.

They had sat there for a long time and it was only when the radio's music faded away as its batteries died did Sarah call from outside that they should get moving. Jacob remained silent as they split, Joshua taking the eastern half of town while Sarah and himself took the other. He moved mechanically as they searched the dusty old houses, without full realization of what he was doing.

He kept thinking of all the signs and hints that Daniel had given him, and how he had completely ignored or explained them away in some stupid fashion. He didn't know what hurt worse - the realization of his astounding asininity, or the realization that the throb in his heart that he had felt for years every time he thought of Daniel was in fact love. His anger at Daniel's leaving had evaporated, instead turned on himself. He was the one who had made Daniel leave, he was the one who made Daniel join the army and go get himself killed god-knows-where.

Anger swelled in him until he lashed out at the first thing he laid eyes upon, an old lamp on a table next to a musty old bed, flinging it across the room where it smashed against the wall, sending shards of porcelain everywhere. He kicked reflexively, just needing to kick and break something, and ended up banging his shin hard against the frame of the bed. As he swore from the pain he heard a soft thump against the wall on the other side of the bed and realized he must have hit something under it.

He went around to the other side of the bed and found a small black case made of hard plastic resting on the dirty carpet. He crouched and found the case's latches and opened it to find a 9mm pistol resting on soft foam inside. He picked it up, his paws working reflexively as he looked it over and pulled the slide back; and it was then that he became keenly aware of just how capable the weapon in his paws was of killing something...something like him.

"Hello?" Sarah's voice called from the bedroom's doorway. "I heard a crash...did you find something?"

Jacob stared down at the pistol in his paws for several long quiet moments before replying. "Yeah, this." his voice sounded strangely alien as he held up the pistol for Sarah to see.

"That would explain these." she said, holding up a small box of ammunition. "I don't think there's anything else here, we should get going." Jacob nodded and stuffed the pistol and its two magazines into a pocket and followed Sarah out the door and to the next house.

It was dusk when they arrived back at the hideout, finding Joshua already back. "I found myself a bag and some food, also I grabbed this lamp. I figured we could use it if we're going to be here a couple nights." Joshua said as Jacob closed and locked the door behind Sarah and himself.

Jacob said not a word as he mechanically lit a fire, drew the curtains back, and grabbed the lamp and clomped up the stairs, lacking his usual stealthiness. He went to the bedroom farthest from the stairs and closed the door behind him and dropped his bag at the foot of the bed with a soft thump before setting the lamp on the bedside table and collapsing onto the musty mattress. He lay on his back, staring up at the moldy ceiling for a long time, his mind completely numb. It felt like his soul had been sucked out, leaving him little more than an empty husk.

It was dark long before he finally lit the oil lamp sitting on the nightstand and grabbed his forgotten rifle after sliding onto the floor, figuring that cleaning it might relieve his mind from his misery. He had only managed to get the upper and lower receivers apart before his paws seemed to fail him after taking apart this same weapon so many times, refusing to handle the small parts properly while he languished. He pushed the rifle away angrily and pulled one of the bottles of whiskey out of his bag and unstoppered it and began to drink, ignoring the burning it caused in his throat. He sat staring at the rifle for seemingly an eternity, taking generous swigs of whiskey as he sat with his knees pressed against his chest and his arms around them. Somewhere in the back of his mind a voice reminded him drinking alcohol in the wasteland was a bad idea; but he didn't care, nothing fucking mattered anymore, now that he realized that he himself had caused all this with his own sheer idiocy.

He didn't say anything or tear his gaze from the partially disassembled rifle when Joshua stepped into the room after knocking softly on the door. He closed the door behind him and sat next to the wolf and held out a can of hot meaty pasta to Jacob while holding another can in his other paw. "I thought you might be hungry." the shepherd said quietly.

Jacob finally turned his eyes upon Joshua, whose face was reflected the dancing light of the lamp behind him. "Thanks." Jacob hadn't meant it to be a cracked whisper, but that was how it came out when he accepted the food and began to eat. They ate together in silence for a while, which suited Jacob just fine as he tried to enjoy his food but found himself unable to.

"Don't you ever take that coat off?" Joshua asked suddenly.

"What? Oh, no. I guess I don't." Jacob replied, caught off guard.

"Here, maybe you'll be more comfortable this way." Joshua said and set down his can and began to pull the beaten old duster off of the wolf, leaving him in his black pants and shirt. "There, isn't that better?" he said, setting the coat aside. When Jacob didn't respond he continued, "Jake, maybe what you did was kind of dumb, but you got to let it go. I mean, how many years has it been?"

Jacob looked at the wolf, startled. Nobody called him "Jake", nobody since Daniel. "Seven." Jacob replied stonily after finishing his meal and tossing the can aside.

"Seven years since you've last seen him. You have to move on." Joshua rested a paw on Jacob's thigh.

"I lost the best friend I ever had, hell, more than best friend. The only person that saw more in me than the caps I carried, the only one that cared...I don't have anything..." Jacob said numbly, shaking his head.

"That's not true. I care." Joshua said. "And you've got me." Jacob turned to look at Joshua and the softness and care in the shepherd's eyes made Jacob's head move forward inexplicably until their lips met. He closed his eyes as he lost himself in the kiss, the dancing of their tongues awaking inside him a repressed hunger for affection that now roared within him like a fire. The kiss seemed to go on forever and he felt Joshua's paw slide up under his shirt and through his bare fur, and still it didn't break as the shepherd moved and straddled his lap. It wasn't until Jacob found both his paws under Joshua's shirt and running through that white fur did the shepherd pull his muzzle away.

"Well, I guess that means you won't kill me for that." Joshua smiled.

"Shut up, mutt." Jacob managed to crack a small smile and his paws seemed to move on their own as the pushed Joshua's shirt off over his head, revealing the shepherd's surprisingly clean fur.

"I managed to find a way to clean up a bit earlier today." Joshua said with a smile as he saw Jacob's eyes wandering up and down his white bellyfur. "Want to see more?" he asked as he gripped his belt buckle. Jacob grew suddenly hesitant, he would be admitting his sexuality to himself. He'd already fucked Daniel plenty of times, and he hadn't kissed Joshua and pulled his shirt off by accident, but still...

Jacob nodded jerkily and Joshua undid his belt and unbuttoned his pants and pushed them down a bit, revealing his already hard red shaft. Jacob's paw wandered down and gripped it gently, feeling its warmth and firmness and making the shepherd shiver slightly. "Haven't got any attention in a while." he said with a slightly nervous laugh.

"You have no idea..." Jacob said as Joshua got to his feet, he hadn't even jerked off in weeks. He stood and kicked off his boots as Joshua pulled his pants the rest of the way off and the shepherd went for Jacob's belt before he could get to it. Joshua pulled Jacob's pants down part way when they were finally open and gripped his rock hard member, eliciting a gasp from the wolf's muzzle.

"Oh, the ladies must love you..." Joshua said with a smile and gave the wolf a slight push and even though Jacob must have had at least four inches in height on the shepherd he fell right backward onto the small bed. Jacob pulled his legs up onto the bed as Joshua crawled on, settling himself between the wolf's legs. Immediately he began licking at Jacob's cock and balls, making him shiver and moan in pleasure as the shepherd's tongue ran up his length. He watched as Joshua licked away at him, his black and brown face lit from the dancing firelight.

Then finally Joshua's muzzle descended upon him mercifully, enveloping his member with warm and tight wetness and making him close his eyes and moan even louder, not giving a damn who heard. He turned his gaze back on Joshua as the shepherd began to move his muzzle up and down over his length, sucking tightly as he caressed it wonderfully with his tongue. Jacob smiled as he saw Joshua's arm moving, his paw between his legs, he had to be eager to not bother waiting for Jacob to get to him. Jacob stroked Joshua's muzzle with a paw softly as it bobbed up and down, making the shepherd open his eyes to peer back at him. Jacob really realized how intensely blue the shepherd's eyes were, dimly noting their difference from Daniel's green; but what drew him in the most was their caring softness, he loved how Joshua looked up at him like that.

It didn't take long before Joshua's sucking and licking pushed Jacob towards the edge and his knot began to swell. "I'm gonna cum..." he warned Joshua, but the shepherd only continued to bob his muzzle up and down eagerly over his shaft, lowering his ears and gripping his knot. With a loud moan the pleasure grew too much and he screwed his eyes shut and thrust up into Joshua's muzzle as his cock throbbed hard and the shepherd immediately slid his muzzle all the way down as Jacob began to shoot his warm cum into the his muzzle. Jacob grunted and held Joshua's head down on his cock without quite meaning to, each spurt feeling wonderful as he was finally able to release after being pent up for so long.

He panted hard and opened his eyes again as the pleasure tapered off, releasing Joshua's head. "Sorry." he said but Joshua only smiled as he pulled away from Jacob's shaft, licking the remaining cum from his lips.

"That's okay." Joshua said, breathing heavily himself. "I'm close too..."

"Come here." Jacob said on impulse and Joshua moved to straddle his chest, his cock still held in his paw, knot swollen. Jacob looked up at the red shaft, only a few inches from his face, and once again he was very keenly aware of his homosexuality as he took it in his paw and stroked it a bit. He thought about letting Joshua finish all over his face, but decided he didn't want his face to be sticky all night, and besides, he felt that he had to do this, he needed to...

He lowered Joshua's shaft and took it into his mouth, finding he rather liked how its warmth filled muzzle, and squeezed the knot gently. "Fuck..." Joshua breathed and placed a paw on Jacob's head just like he had done and the wolf found that he rather liked that too. He was completely unprepared however when the shepherd's cock throbbed in his muzzle and shot a huge load of warm semen right into the back on his throat. Jacob almost gagged and pulled his muzzle back slightly and let Joshua shoot the sticky fluid onto his tongue. It tasted slightly salty, and the clingy texture was odd, but he decidedly liked its warmth and the feel of sheer eroticism it gave him and he let it collect in his mouth. He looked up at Joshua and almost laughed at the foolish grin that the shepherd wore as he unloaded into the wolf's muzzle.

Then finally the spurts of fresh semen stopped and Joshua panted even while his cock continued to throb in Jacob's muzzle. "Need to spit?" the shepherd asked with a grin when he realized Jacob still held his cum in his muzzle. Jacob looked up at Joshua as he swirled the cum around his mouth. He shook his head and swallowed, and then coughed as it clung to his throat on the way down.

"God damn, mutt." Jacob said hoarsely but with a smile. "You coulda warned me."

Joshua laughed and eased off of Jacob's chest and leaned down to grab something off the floor before proffering a bottle of water to him. He took it gratefully and drank, finding that it couldn't quite wash away the stickyness left in his throat. "You could have warned me how much was coming, I almost drowned!" Joshua said in mock indignation.

"Yeah, and you just swallowed like a champ." Jacob smirked, handing the bottle to Joshua who drank as well. "Tells me you've done that before."

Joshua's ears splayed apart in a cute way. "Umm... Maybe? Sometimes through the bars at night..." he said shyly after setting the bottle back down.

Jacob smiled and nodded, made sense that the morphs at the Fort would have looked for some sort of release from their suffering. "You're good at it." he said and pulled a blanket from his bag before scooting over to give Joshua some room on the small bed.

"Thanks, Jake. Thank you for everything." Joshua said softly as he laid down on his side next to the wolf, putting his arm around Jacob's midsection and resting his head on his chest.

"Mhmm." Jacob replied simply and unfurled the blanket over them, pulling it up to the shepherd's neck. He doused the lamp and he ran a paw through Joshua's headfur as he stared up at the ceiling through the darkness. Joshua was right, it had been seven years, it was time to let go of Daniel, and having this shepherd in his arms made it a lot easier.

Suddenly, Jacob's life seemed a lot less bleak to him and he fell asleep with a smile written on his muzzle.

Jacob awoke to find himself dangerously close to the edge of the bed and nose to nose with a sleeping German shepherd that had apparently decided in his sleep that the mattress was entirely his domain. Jacob only smiled and gently removed Joshua's paw from where it lay on his hip and sat up, rubbing his eyes. He peered between the boards over the window to see the sun hanging under halfway in the eastern sky and turned to check his watch on the bedside table, a few minutes past nine. He thought about laying back down, they were supposed to rest today anyway...

"Hi." Joshua said as he stirred awake. "What time is it?"

"Nine. We can go back to sleep if you want, we have all day..."

"I don't think I can sleep any more." Joshua said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he sat up next to Jacob.

Jacob leaned into Joshua, putting his arm around him and stroking his fur absentmindedly, when he noticed the German shepherd's stiff morning erection and chuckled. "Got something on your mind?" he said with a smile.

"What? Oh, yeah." Joshua said, confused for a moment and then looked down at himself and then turned to Jacob, a grin on his muzzle.

"I should pay you back for that blowjob last night." Jacob said and before long he found himself on his knees in front of Joshua, who sat panting at the edge of the bed, with his ears flat and his muzzle full with cock as he bobbed his head up and down.

Joshua had his paw resting between Jacob's ears, moaning softly in mid-orgasm, when a knock came from the door. "Uh, guys?" it was Sarah.

Jacob choked as he swallowed a mouthful of semen and pulled his muzzle off Joshua's shaft. "Wait! One sec!" he sputtered, cleaning the rest off his lips before standing.

"Uh, Jake..." Joshua warned through his heavy breathing, but Jacob had already cracked open the door and looked outside.

Sarah's cheeks would have put a tomato to shame as she blushed bright red when Jacob stuck his head around the door. "Um, I have breakfast cooking... Uh, you got something... on your..." she pointed at the bridge of her nose and then at Jacob's muzzle.

Jacob touched a couple fingers to his muzzle and they came away sticky and white. "Shit!" he swore and snapped the door shut quickly while Joshua burst out laughing behind him. "Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded as he rounded on the cackling shepherd.

"I tried to." Joshua said. finally recovering after Jacob wiped his muzzle clean. "Oh, your face... The big bad wolf goes to open the door with his face covered in..."

"It was not covered." Jacob said and threw Joshua his pants before pulling on his own, telling himself all the while that it could have been worse. When he finally had his boots and shirt on he left the room with Joshua, leaving his duster lying in a heap on the floor.

"Hey, look... I'm sorry, I should have waited..." Sarah said uncertainly as they came down the steps.

"What, no sermon?" Jacob sneered.

Sarah's stony expression returned. "I never said it isn't disgusting, but I'm not exactly in the position to complain about it, am I?" she said coldly.

"No, I guess you're not." Jacob said as he sat next to Joshua on the sofa and began to eat, but stopped abruptly when he noticed the revolver sitting on the armrest of Sarah's recliner, realizing that he had left his weapons upstairs.

Sarah must have caught his gaze. "Do you really think I'm going to shoot you after making you breakfast?" she said.

"You never know." Jacob said uneasily and returned to his food, keeping a wary eye on Sarah. "I'm surprised you didn't take off last night. You could have found the supplies you needed and left, why didn't you?" he asked.

"The same reason you let us stop to eat at the gas station: I can't make it out here alone, with raiders everywhere." she said simply without looking up.

"Thank you for breakfast, Sarah." Joshua said, making both Jacob and Sarah look up in surprise.

"Welcome..." Sarah mumbled and they ate quietly until she set her empty can down. "So what's our plan today?" she asked.

"Rest." Jacob said and threw his can aside when he was finished and leaned back into the sofa.

"Just...rest?" she said as if she had never heard of the concept.

"Well, we're going to have to go get one of those jugs of water from the grocery before dark, but other than that..." Jacob trailed off, thinking of what else might need doing, and then remembered his partially disassembled rifle upstairs. "I should take our weapons apart and clean them before we set out. Come on Josh..." he said and stood, eyeing Sarah's pistol once more.

"I'm not gonna shoot your boyfriend either." Sarah said with a frown.

Jacob opened his mouth to argue but Joshua spoke first, "I'll be fine, Jake. Go ahead and get your stuff." Jacob hesitated before heading to the stairs, glowering at Sarah the entire way. He quickly threw his bag over his shoulder and grabbed his duster and rifle and made his way back down the stairs and set it all down in front of the couch.

Jacob sat down on the floor and Joshua sat next to him, leaning into his side. Jacob set to work on his M4, comfortable with the shepherd's warmth at his side, and took his time to show Joshua how to take apart the rifle and taking extra care to clean it very thoroughly. "Hopefully you don't have to end up using this, but you never know..." He set the rifle aside and pulled out the 9mm he had found yesterday from his duster and looked it over, it had been a long time, but he had worked with one before and didn't have much trouble getting it apart. Joshua was quiet as Jacob cleaned and lubricated the pistol, watching him intently. After he was finished with the pistol he set it aside and pulled Joshua's rifle towards him and looked it over, he'd never worked with a G3 model before.

"I can help you with that." Sarah said suddenly. "It was my rifle until you bashed me in the head with it." Jacob eyed her and released the magazine and cleared the chamber before handing her the rifle as she slid down to the floor from the couch. Jacob found that his arm had slipped around Joshua and his paw was resting on his side as they watched Sarah pull the rifle apart and clean it. When she was finished she held it in her hands and stared down at it for several moments before shoving it into Joshua's paws reluctantly. She then turned away and began to clean her revolver.

"Do you think we can go outside? Get some air?" Joshua stood and stretched.

Jacob frowned. "The town seems safe for now but I think we should still limit our exposure, don't want to take the chance of being seen when we don't have to. But maybe we could get the upstairs windows open." he said and got to his feet. After a few minutes of searching the house he managed to find a hammer and used it to pry the nails out of the boards covering the window of the upstairs bedroom. He shifted the bed over to the other wall and sat down with Joshua and looked out at the blue sky as he put an arm around the shepherd.

Joshua stirred after a while and suddenly proffered to Jacob something in his paw. "Here, I found this while I was searching the houses yesterday. I fell asleep before I could give it to you last night... I thought you might like it..."

Jacob peered down into Jacobs paw and found a shiny piece of metal, glinting brightly with reflected sunlight. It was a ring. He picked it up gingerly and studied it closer, finding inlaid within its stainless steel surface bright strokes of turquoise. He turned to Joshua to thank him when he hesitated and looked back at the ring. The stone laid within matched the hue of the shepherd's eyes almost perfectly.

"Go on, try it on." Joshua said excitedly and Jacob tried to slide it on, going from one finger to the next futilely - apparently the ring-crafter hadn't accounted for fur. Jacob felt his heart sink and Joshua slumped next to him, his ears lowering.

Abruptly an idea came to Jacob and after rummaging around in his pack some he found a few scraps of paracord and took one length and looped it through the ring and then tied it around his neck. "There." he said with a smile, which Joshua returned with one of his own.

They sat together quietly for a while after that, listening to the wind as Jacob kept his arm around the German shepherd. "Jake, what are you going to do when we get to New Vegas?" Joshua asked quietly.

Jacob sighed and frowned as he stared out the window. "I... I don't know. I guess I never really had a plan for when I finally got there." he said reluctantly, hating to admit any indecisiveness, but it felt easier admitting it to Joshua. "I just wanted a new start, I wanted to get away from the NCR... from everything that reminded me of Daniel." Joshua only nodded quietly, and the wolf turned his gaze on him, peering into his blue eyes. "I guess things are different now though..." he said, stroking the shepherd's side softly. "We'll just have to figure out something."