FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Look, it's not up for discussion. I've already been missing enough days of work as is, and I need the hours.

Eli rolled his eyes, reading over the message one more time. He'd thought several times about responding with some manner of vitriol - Well, why the hell did you ask me to go out with you, if you knew you couldn't do it? - but that would just make things worse, as it always had. Three days since Marlin had sent that message, with no follow-up from either of them. The wild dog had already purchased the tickets, and with the printed pages lying folded up on his nightstand where he'd left them, he felt acutely aware of how Marlin offered no apology for pushing him to buy them.

Well. It wasn't really a push._It was just that the fox made no mention of buying them himself, and when Eli had finally asked _Do you want me to buy them? he'd come back with a _Yes?_as in, "uh, duh?" Sometimes he _really_didn't know why he still put up with him.

And then he stripped down to go to bed, and his paws started wandering, and his mind floated back across their five years, and he remembered_precisely_ why. He just wished it wasn't so difficult so often. He wished it could be... easy, like things were with Lynn. His fur tickling in the stirring from the ceiling fan overhead, Eli flicked in his phone over to the messages from the striped hyena. Those were a lot shorter, a lot nicer; it just felt different, talking with her.

That was something he'd come to realize over the course of the week. Waking up to send her a good morning text, receiving one a few minutes later in return; poking her every now and then during lulls at work, breaking into a steadier conversation around lunchtime, pinching back off afterwards. She was...

The wild dog licked his lips, swallowed, re-focused his eyes on his darkened phone screen. "Yes!"; "Well, I had a good friend in elementary school, this weasel..."; "Haha no shit? That's awesome!"; "Yeah, talk to you tomorrow."

She was nice. He hadn't really made a new friend since he finished college those couple of years ago; sure, his coworkers at the library were friendly enough, but he hadn't really spent any time with them outside of that. There still remained a few good friends from high school, then one or two plus a couple 'close associates' from college... and then there was Lynn, and within one day of meeting her, the two were having lunch together. She made him laugh, and he made her laugh, and... it felt different, almost.

3:23 PM, his phone clock said. Still about an hour and a half to the movie. Maybe that different feeling was what gave him this odd nervousness in his chest, this anxiousness. A familiar enough feeling, but not one he'd felt in a while - like he was excited to do something, but nervous about how it might turn out. That was still sensible, wasn't it? First new, _real_friendship in a while, and he didn't want to mess it up.

The thing was, though - Eli turned his phone screen off and pulled himself up out of bed - there was just something about the way she talked to him. At first he worried that he was texting her too much, since at the start of the week it'd take her a while to reply and she seemed distant or distracted, so he slowed down... and then she started doing the same thing to him, buzzing him throughout the day even if only to ask what he was up to, or how his day had gone so far. There was something there, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

He had his ideas, sure, but those seemed... far-fetched, somewhat. He felt a little guilty, too. After all, Lynn knew he was gay. She _knew_at this point that he was interested in Marlin. Giving attention to that little thought bouncing around in his head made his tail wag a little bit and put this odd warmth in his chest, but it was still silly, and he pushed it back as soon as it came up. Not to mention that that sort of thought just brought up other thoughts of a different variety, and _those_started his heart thumping in a different way.

He'd noticed that excitement fairly early on, too. The wild dog slid his phone back into his pocket and started his way down the hall, trying to give himself something to do for the remaining hour before he'd head out for the theater. Around Tuesday or Wednesday, he noticed that his heart started jumping a little bit whenever he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, and then it would... drop, sort of, if he saw that it was just Marlin texting him. That part wasn't necessarily new - it was either zero or a hundred with him - but it came out a little bit more with what he felt when he saw that it was Lynn who'd texted him.

Something Marlin hadn't made him feel in a while.

~ ~ ~

Those thoughts were still on his mind even by the time he'd headed out and arrived at the agreed-upon theater, a couple of streets down from the music shop and restaurant Lynn had treated him to. Still technically within easy walking distance, as long as you'd be willing to wait three minutes at each intersection for the stoplights to change. That's just how it went sometime.

The wild dog pulled his hoodie tighter around himself with his paws in his pockets and fingers wrapped around his phone there. The gathered clouds from last weekend never really amounted to much, though on his way out the door tonight he'd noticed they'd come back, coating the sky in pale greyish-white while the sun still had time to shine, and now a cool - not cold, but just cool; it was still summer - breeze blew through the parking lot every now and then, trying to bite through the fabric of his clothes. He knew he should've worn a thicker jacket today. Besides, theaters tend to be a bit cold on the inside, especially for a savannah dog like him.

Lynn hadn't shown up yet. That was okay, too, even if it just fed even more into his excited nervousness; fifteen minutes left to the showtime, so that meant probably a good thirty or forty until the previews stopped and the actual movie went on. There was still time. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to check that he had told her 5 PM the other day, though right as he reached his thumb in to tap the 'Lynn' heading in his messages, another one shifted to the top and pushed everything down.

Eli's first instinct was to roll his eyes and sigh, though he still opened that message as soon as he read the name.

Sorry about yelling at you. I've had a lot going on. Are you still down for the movie?

Before typing his response, the wild dog scanned the parking lot before him. Still no sign of Lynn. At six foot whatever she was, he felt like he'd be able to see her from clear across the highway. No. Are you? I thought you had work. It wouldn't do well if Marlin were to show up while Eli were here with someone else, and a woman no less...

I decided fuck it. They don't pay me enough. Eli rolled his eyes at that. If there was one thing he could trust that fox for, it was to be irresponsible at the least convenient times. That, and he always had a fat knot to bury under Eli's tail. I could also fuck you if you like. How about later tonight? Will you be free then?

Despite himself, he swallowed, and shoved his free paw into his pocket for a moment. Cooler this afternoon than it had been for the rest of the week, though summer had just barely started to tighten its grasp on the city; it wasn't quite the oppressive sickly heat of the height of the season, but at the same time, Eli wouldn't have minded a little extra warmth right then. A little focused, intense heat against his muzzle, his cheek, on his tongue and in his throat, sliding up beneath his tail...

Maybe. I'll see what I have going on.

Okay. That was enough texting. Especially on that subject. He slid his phone into his other pocket, kept his arms close to his body, rocked slowly back and forth on the balls of his feet... and then a few seconds later, took his phone right back out and looked at his messages again. Already he could tell that this would feel like... like one of the times where he went down the rabbit hole of porn, and only realized what the hell he'd jacked off to after he came. That same sort of hesitation, confusion, and slight disgust, yet not enough for him to really do anything about.

That was how Marlin had made him feel for the past two years or so. But this rhythm the two had, rhythm in a few ways, had become such a part of the wild dog's life that it felt wrong to go without it. That was what had sent him back into the fox's bed all the times the two had broken up in the past. It wasn't optimal, Eli knew very well, but since high school Marlin had been his only option. Nobody else had come through into his life yet both willing and able to take that fox's place in his heart, mashed and warped as it was from repeated attempts to force it there, and Eli had almost started to think that-

"Boo."

Her voice, close to his muzzle, made him jump and nearly throw his phone. Lynn leaned back from where she stood behind him, her own paws in the pockets of her jacket and an amused smile on her muzzle. It looked as though she'd brushed her mane tonight.

Eli tried to give her a glare, but quickly found that it only widened her smile. "How long've you been there?"

"Just, like, three seconds. I could tell you were mentally elsewhere." She rolled her shoulders and popped her neck. "Got the tickets?"

"Yeah. Um..." Eli glanced at his phone one more time - Marlin hadn't responded back, though knowing him, the next message might very well be a picture of a certain six inches of him. That would be a bit unfortunate to open in a dark theater... maybe Lynn would want to see. That seemed like a hyena thing. "Ready to go in?"

Once inside Eli eyed the snack stand. He'd already eaten dinner, but it wasn't really a movie without something to snack on throughout it... but just as he cleared his throat to mention it to Lynn, he turned to find her muzzle half-turned his eye and eyes settled on him, and immediately he lost his words. As if she could tell, her smile came back for a second, and then she drifted aside to let Eli pass the tickets forward to the usher waiting by the halls leading back toward the theaters themselves.

"_Galacticarus,_huh." Eli squinted at the text on the stub; there was a subtitle, but it got cut off in the middle of a word. "Wasn't this a comic book?"

Lynn reached over and swiped her stub from him, trimmed claws grazing lightly across his knuckles as she did so. "I think so? I was never really into comics. I think it was a pretty obscure one, too, which is why it's only getting a movie now. Have you looked up reviews at all?"

"I haven't. Theater 5?" Each door had a rather large number beside it, a void space in front of a splash image of some popular movie. He recognized a few of them. "Should I have?"

Lynn shrugged. "I'unno. I don't like to spoil myself, so."

"Well - _Galacticarus_is, like, deep space sci-fi, right? Like, laser blasters and weird alien races and stuff?"

_ _

"Did you even watch the trailer?"

"What? I like the, like - the near-future sci-fi stuff."

Lynn lowered her voice when they passed into the heavier darkness of the theater. Even in that, Eli could see the silhouette of her ears perk up with the faint rumble of bass from the next one over. The several rings hanging from those tall triangular ears caught and reflected the dim lights hanging far up on the carpeted walls. "Isn't that hard to find?"

"Well, it's just not as popular_as your standard _Star Wars type of thing."

"Wait." The two switched sides when they turned the corner, with Lynn resting her paw on the handrail leading up the shallow steps and then pulling forward. "Near-future, like, Contact?"

"Hey, when you think about it, technically that's near-past now-"

Suddenly there was warmth and weight against his chest, causing him to stumble back and nearly tumble down the stairs if not for a sudden vice grip on the handrail. After he'd settled himself, Eli looked up towards Lynn ahead of him - who leaned precariously backwards off the step above, looking back over her shoulder at him with a sneaky grin on her face. After ensuring he'd seen, the hyena straightened up and continued along the steps as if nothing had happened; were the two still side by side, he felt confident that that would have been an elbow jabbing into his side instead.

"Oops," she said, a jaunty amusement beneath that single word. "My bad. D'ya wanna sit in the middle row, or up near the back? My last boyfriend and I would always take the back corner, but... y'know how it is."

That didn't quite click in the wild dog's head until after they'd shimmied their way down the row and picked their seats, side by side. This theater was one that gave each seat a total of one armrest, which Eli always assumed to be on the right; this combined with her statement - "my last boyfriend" - made him pause, though, and keep his paws in his lap until the screen turned from solid black to the beginning of the previews and advertisements. Really, it all seemed to fall into place for his suspicions: how she'd invited him out to lunch and paid for him; the way she asked for his number after; all the _good morning_s and _good nights_that had come since then; this movie...

...well. He shifted and leaned on his armrest. The movie was his part. He tilted his head to his side a bit, and thought he caught Lynn's muzzle flicking forward towards the screen. As if she'd been watching him sit down and adjust and stoically avoid accidentally using her armrest. A buzz from his phone in his pocket made him jump a little bit, but he ignored it; Marlin could wait. Besides, he did have something he needed to do. After another moment - the current preview looked like it was for yet another action-spy movie - he leaned over, glanced towards Lynn, then tapped his knuckles against her shoulder to get her attention.

She looked his way, then leaned in as well... and the movement sent a soft wave of her sent wafting around the wild dog's head. There was that faint floral note again, above a drier, sharper spice that just... Eli swallowed, sniffed, realized what he was doing, and coughed into his paw.

"I think I'm gonna go get something for a snack."

"Sure." Lynn looked down into her lap, then leaned back towards him. "I didn't bring a purse. If anyone tries to take your seat, I'll just bark at 'em."

What an odd feeling that was. Eli tried not to dwell on it on his way back down the stairs and through the hall, instead looking up at the menu and thumbing through his wallet. Really shoulda brought something from home, he thought; damn expensive here. That's, like, half the cash I have on me. It took a few minutes to get up through the line, though likely less than if he were to have stopped before the listed showtime; once he sat down he usually didn't want to get back up, and other moviegoers tended to be the same way.

Another thing he found out once he got closer was that they didn't have the kind of candy he wanted, so he spent another moment poring over the choices... and then another moment poring over another choice. Afterwards he made his way back down the hall and up the stairs with a wallet empty of cash and three bags clutched under his arm.

They all crinkled and complained when he worked himself back into his seat, with Lynn perking her ears and looking over at him. "You really gonna eat all that?"

"Well-" He swallowed again. "No. I didn't know if you wanted anything, or what you'd like if you did, so I... got..." The words all came out in a rush, and he just about dropped all three bags in trying to single out the one he'd picked for her. Lynn managed to catch it, though, her fingers again brushing across his - which just made him jump again and jerk back, which in turn pushed him over the edge of actually dropping the other bags. Her eyes, glittering in the dim lights of the theater, watched him as he leaned down to pick them up. "...uh... th-that one for you. Also this one, for both of us, if you - wanna share, when you finish that one..."

Up on the screen there was the sudden loud bang of a gunshot, making him jump yet again. Lynn looked as though that amused her, but when Eli let his breath out and looked back to her, her smile seemed more genuine.

"Thank you," she said... and reached down to give his arm a squeeze. She kept her fingerpads against his arm for a moment, her warmth seeping out and across him so that he could still feel it after she'd pulled away. Eli fumbled over a "you're welcome" and settled back into his seat, finally turning his attention to the previews; he'd missed at least four or five, probably.

Things went more easily from then out, with Lynn leaning over every now and then (usually startling the wild dog yet again) to say something about one of the previews, or to jab him and make some joke. Then the lights darkened the rest of the way, though, and the both of them sat back for the movie. She wasn't one of the types to keep talking throughout the movie, thank God, though every now and then when Eli glanced over at her to judge how she was liking it, he could've sworn that she'd been eyeing him again; at one point he looked over, and she was looking right at him.

Which he hadn't expected, of course, so he just kind of sat there with his mouth half-open and probably a stupid expression on his face. The striped hyena blinked, tilted her head a bit, smiled, and then popped another candy into her mouth, tongue quickly flicking between sharp teeth to push it to the other side. Eli managed to swallow, cough into his paw, then try to return the smile before looking back to the screen.

It was a good movie, but maybe not the best in the sci-fi genre he'd seen. All the bright laser blasts, and the stupid weapon designs, and the weird spaceships... the explosions, the battle scenes, the odd romance subplot. He couldn't complain too much, though, since the whole thing did draw him in and he found himself genuinely, wholly enjoying it. It did so enough that at one point he realized he'd leaned in towards Lynn's armrest, and the slight warmth against the side of his shoulder let him know that she'd done the same without him noticing. She stayed in place after he straightened up away from her, but Eli didn't want to risk looking back to see her expression. Just in case. Then at another point later on, he jumped at the feeling of her paw worming in between his side and the armrest - but then realized she was just trying to get at the other bag of candy. She kept it in the cupholder between the two of them, and Eli made sure to look over every time he reached for it so that he didn't up grabbing her paw instead.

Didn't seem like she cared. Eli grabbed a few of them at once and held them in his paw while he watched the movie, every now and then reaching forward to pick one up... and Lynn had the same idea, too. Right as he went to take the last, he felt her trimmed claws touching in against his palm, and looked over at her just as she tossed it into her mouth. Lynn held his gaze while she chewed, then swallowed and shrugged. It looked as though a giggle touched her lips when she turned back to the screen.

A little bit longer than he'd expected, too, even though it said right on the ticket. It hadn't felt_like it took that long, too: Eli only realized it once the movie had finished, the credits started rolling, and the lights went back up, when he pulled his phone out to first swipe away the _'picture message' from Marlin and then look at the time. He opened his mouth to ask how she'd liked it-

"So," Lynn began, "how'dja like it? I thought it was a lot of fun. Not the best I've seen, but... fun." She bumped up against him while trying to make her way out from the row, a quiet apology on her breath right after. "I guess that's what people look for these days, huh? Really flashy, too."

"Oh, yeah. That's kind of a trend in movies, sci-fi especially. Sometimes they put things in just because it looks good on the big screen, or sounds good in the surround sound..."

The hyena took her place beside him again once the hall allowed enough room to do so. Eli bumped his shoulder against the swinging door and pushed it back once they reached it, holding it open for her; she smiled again and nodded his way. "Oh, thank you. And yeah, I know what you mean. D'you think there's gonna be a sequel?"

"Maybe?" He glanced back before stepping away from it. "They kind of set it up for that, didn't they?"

"I guess that depends on how much this one makes, huh?" She nudged him with her elbow, a bright grin on her muzzle. "Hey, you need to use the bathroom?"

"Not really."

"Me neither. Always gotta check. Movies fuck with you like that sometimes." For a while she turned her head away from him, looking at the large-scale posters for upcoming releases hanging along the walls. The two turned the corner into the main lobby, and through the glass doors up front, the sky had darkened the rest of the way to night. Still those clouds remained, now blanketing the sky in uniform blue-black save for a hazy glow where the moon started to rise.

Eli kept his paws in his pockets and eyes down, trying to figure out what he'd say. Would goodbye_suffice? Probably not. He glanced up to Lynn, then glanced away when she caught his gaze after a moment. _Thanks for coming with me? That was a little better. A good start. This time Lynn was the one to hold the door open, with a cool breeze rushing in through the opened door. Let me know if you wanna go out again? Well - 'go out'? No, that wasn't-

"Hey."

The wild dog stopped, turned, watched as she slunk away from the door and towards him. She kept her paws in her pockets too and briefly pushed her tongue out against the inside of her cheek, looking out over the parking lot. She didn't have to stand on her tiptoes to see over Eli's head.

"It's, what, about 7:30, right? Do you have plans after this?"

He'd been hoping to get to his car as soon as he could, so he could open that message from Marlin... "I mean. Sorta? Not really. Nothing really, like... set in stone, I guess."

"Ah. Dang." Another breeze, causing one of her ears to flick - which made a quiet jingling sound beneath all of her piercings. Lynn pulled her shoulders up closer to herself, then relaxed. "I was wondering if you'd maybe wanna follow me back to my place. Well, my brother's. I think I told you that I'm usually down here for the weekends, and... it's not too late. Hang out a bit." This time she actually shrugged. "Up to you."

"Well-" Eli forced a cough, trying to figure out what he wanted to say. His mouth had started speaking without giving him time to think about it. That seemed to happen when he spoke to Lynn, sometimes. "...Yeah, sure. I could probably push back my plans."

Her ears perked back up and her grin came back, imparting some of that warmth to Eli's own smile. His tail wagged a little bit. "Great!" she went on. "I parked - just over there. You can follow me. I'll also send the address in case you get lost or something."

The hyena took a step forward, for a hug Eli thought - until she grasped his paw in hers, then pressed her other down atop his palm. With a half-empty bag of candy between the two. A small chuckle racked her body.

"See you soon, Eli."

After she went off, the wild dog remained where he stood with that arm half-raised. She'd _definitely_brushed her mane today, clear in how it swung over towards one shoulder before disappearing beneath the collar of her shirt. Then it popped briefly back out between the hem and the waistband of her jeans, then disappeared again... and then came out as that brushy tail, the same light brown of a mug of hot chocolate in this dim light. It swayed back and forth a little bit as she walked, too.

Yeah. Eli swallowed, looked down to the bag, then closed his paw around it and started heading off towards his own car. She definitely made him feel some things that Marlin hadn't in a long time. Things his more regular friends hadn't, either - which reminded him, he needed to text Ryan again about when to schedule their next DND session. It had been a few weeks.

That could wait until later, though.