Hey Guys! So after spending the past several hours writing, the next chapter is ready! I had tons more fun writing this chapter, the ideas just keeping coming to life! Like always I love Constructive Criticism, Suggestions, Ideas, and comments! This chapter will be set to Adult settings as it does actually contain some sexual content. You have been warned.(sorry to any readers under the age of 18 =( ).I had actually originally planned for this chapter to have sexual interaction between Andrew and Max but decided it was too early for that so I replaced it with Max's imagination of what the interaction between the two might have been like had it occured. Once again, thanks to novastar for helping me review the chapter. This is a M/M romance story, so if your not interested, move along. I decided to do away with the colored character dialogue text as it's just too time consuming. So, without any further hesitation, here's Chapter 3 of The Road Of Life!

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The Road Of Life

Chapter 3 - Sticks, Stones And Broken Bones

The sound of a loud alarm clock woke me, the unexpected noise causing me to jolt up in a slight panic. I opened my eyes, my vision blurred by the fact that I had just woken. I heard a soft groan to the side of me and looked over to see that Andrew had been sleeping beside me. I rested my forehead on the palm of my paw to gather together my thoughts about the previous night. Nothing had really happened that night, we had just cuddled together on Andrew's bed and fallen asleep together. The loud, annoying beep of the alarm clock still rang in my ears as it continued its song. I looked to the right and slapped the button on the alarm clock to turn it off; It read 5:50 A.M. 'Damn.. he gets up this early to get ready for school?' I thought to myself.

I laid back down and snuggled close to the charming wolf beside me, planting a soft kiss on the side of his cheek. He shifted a bit as his eyes fluttered open, a happy smile crawling onto his face the moment he saw me next to him.

"Good morning.." he whispered before yawning.

"Good morning. I guess we should get up and get ready for school?" I asked, also yawning afterwards.

He gave a slow nod in response and then sat up, stretching his arms. He slowly got out of bed and walked to the closet to pick out some clothes for the day.

"Are those the only pair of clothes you have?" He asked. "I can loan you a pair for today, though they might be a bit big on you.." he continued, without waiting for my response.

"That'd be great, thanks." I answered.

He gathered together his outfit for the day and walked for the door. "I'll let you pick something out. I'm gunna go take a shower, be back in a few minutes, okay?"

I smiled and nodded, watching as he left the room. I stretched a bit before getting out of the bed myself, walking over to the closet to pick out my own attire for the day. I picked out a plain orange T-shirt and a pair of jeans, I also picked out a belt because just by eyeing the pants I could tell they'd be big on me. I smelled the shirt I had picked out, which was covered with Andrew's scent. The scent of Andrew made my heart beat a little faster as well as caused a stirring down below as my mind drifted on to thoughts of doing naughty things with Andrew. I shook my head and cleared my mind of those thoughts for now, as right now I could do nothing about it.

I set the clothes I had picked out on the bed and sat down, waiting for Andrew to come back. After waiting around for about 5 or so minutes Andrew walked back into the room. He was still drying his hair with a white towel; The shirt he intended to wear slung on his shoulder, leaving his built chest exposed. My ear twitched and my mouth hung open a bit as I examined his well defined chest, the stirring down below returning once more. He must have noticed that I was staring in stupefied awe because he blushed and pulled the shirt over himself, covering up his chest.

"Stop gawking will you?" he said with a bit of a teasing tone in his voice.

"S-sorry." I shook my head to stop myself from staring like I had been.

The blood in my cheeks heated up a bit, causing me to blush. He walked over to me, smiling a bit as he kissed me. After a short few moments passed our muzzles parted.

"I like being able to kiss you.." he stated, taking a short breath before continuing, "your turn for a shower."

I grabbed the clothes I had picked out and headed for the door before realizing that I didn't know where the bathroom was located. I turned back around, with a sheepish look on my face, but Andrew spoke before I could say anything as if he had read my mind.

"It's the first door on the left, I left the light on." he stated.

I grinned, the sheepish look still on my face as I left the room and found the bathroom. I closed and locked the door behind me so no one would walk in uninvited, not that I expected anyone to anyway. I de-robed quickly and turned on the shower, testing the waters warmth before stepping into the shower. I sighed softly as the warm water washed over my body. Water had always had a calming effect on me, and if I had the time I could probably stay in the shower for a couple hours, but I knew I had to make this shower relatively quick. While I showered my thoughts began to drift back to Andrew and the thoughts I had been thinking earlier. I closed my eyes imagining all the things I wanted to do with Andrew, as the water washed over my head. My member began to poke out of its sheath and I opened my eyes, looking down at it as the need, the urge, to do something about it continued to increase.

'Ah.. what the hell? Well, I might as well take care of it while I have the chance.. I don't know when the next time I'll be able to do anything will be.' I told myself as I began to caress my member and coax it out of its sheath. It didn't take much coaxing for it to become fully erect. I grabbed my member firmly and began to stroke it, leaning back against the shower wall as I let my mind resume its naughty thinking.

I was in Andrew's room, he was laying there on the bed, shirtless, enticing me to join him. I walked over and laid next to him as we began to exchange a few passionate kisses. The passion between us kept growing and growing as the clothing we wore began to disappear from our bodies. My hand wandered down to his member and began to coax it out of its sheath. Within moments he was erect; Pleasured, soft moans escaping his throat as I pawed him off gently. He had me lie down on my back as he positioned his member at my entrance. 'I'll be gentle' he whispered as he began to enter me. At first I felt pain, and when I cringed he'd stop and let me adjust to the size. Once I adjusted to the size I felt pleasure, intoxicating, delightful pleasure. His hips rocked back and forth as he thrusted gently in and out of me. He tensed up a bit, a sign that he must be near climax, I too was almost ready. He began to pant, 'I'm going to-'

My hot seed shot out, hitting the shower wall in front of me, a soft moan escaping my throat. My fantasy had done the trick and relieved me of my sexual tension. I sighed, letting my heartbeat return to its normal pace before continuing to wash myself and my seed from the shower wall. I finished my shower and dried myself before putting on the clean pair of clothes I'd picked out from Andrew's closet. I was right, the pants were a bit big for me but the belt luckily helped with that problem. I walked out of the steamy bathroom and headed back to Andrew's room, drying my hair with a clean towel. Andrew smiled when I walked back in, but seemed disappointed that I was completely dressed.

"Aww.. I don't get a shirtless surprise?" he asked with mock disappointment in his voice.

"Maybe another time." I teased him with a grin on my face.

The rest of the morning was rather uneventful. We grabbed a quick bowl of cereal before leaving Andrew's house and heading off towards school. 'School.' the word brought a bitterness to my mind as I knew I'd probably face another beating from my main tormentors at school, Shane and Alan. Shane wasn't the one I really worried about, he was pretty much Alan's lackey. Shane was a Coyote, about my height, but not very muscular. Shane was the one who usually pulled the cheap shots after Alan dealt the main blow. Alan was an equine, He was my age, very muscular and sadly he was a jock from the football team. Alan had always had a beef with me, even all the way back in middle school he'd bullied me. My thoughts on my tormentors were dissolved when Andrew grabbed my hand and stood closer to me. For the walk to school I decided it'd be best to just pay attention to Andrew, my 'mate?' Yes, my mate.

As we got closer to school we had both discussed and decided it would be best to keep our relationship as low key at school as possible, for now. Later on though we would have to come to the crossroad of whether or not to tell the world we were a gay couple. For the time being we'd just act as good friends at school, so we didn't throw any un-needed stress on ourselves. When we got to 'hell, I mean, school,' we went our separate ways since we had different classes the first part of the day. Luckily we both had the same lunch period and decided we'd meet up then and eat lunch together.

My first class was Mrs. Short's Marketing class, completely meaningless to me at the time and usually the class I slept through. Since I had actually gotten a good amount of sleep the night before I was able to stay awake and actually learn something from class. Mrs. Short had been surprised to see me awake and somewhat paying attention to her class for once. The next class I had was Mr. Edgar's Anthroities class, a class that I actually kind of enjoyed. The class allowed us to explore the meanings behind Anthro nature, to teach us to read between the lines to find out what something really meant. Anthroities class led me to find many of my own universal truths, and as the year would progress it would teach me so much more.

The bell for lunch rang and Mr. Edgar reminded us to read a story by Henry David Thoreau in the Anthroities book for us to discuss next week. During the lunch period I met up with Andrew like we had planned and we ate lunch together. While we sat in the cafeteria I could sense a pair of eyes watching me, full of menace and hate. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Alan was watching me with destructive intent. We finished our lunch and since we had a good twenty minutes left we decided we'd go walk outside together. Andrew grabbed my hand, like earlier, as we walked around on the leaf covered school grounds. The leaves made that familiar crunching sound when we walked over them. We stopped when we were a good distance away from the school. I turned to Andrew, smiling at him, he made me feel whole, like I wasn't alone.

"Hey.." I said to catch his attention before continuing, "I love you, Andrew.."

Just those simple few words made him blush.

"I love you too, Max." he responded.

Those ever truthful green eyes of his reflected a unique kind of love for me. It was strange to me that I could see the truth and sincerity in his eyes, they were like windows to the soul. I leaned forward, my muzzle connecting with his in a loving kiss. During our kiss I could feel the eyes of Hate watching us from some unknown location and as if to confirm my fear of who the eyes belonged to Alan stepped out of a tree line with his lackey Shane.

"well, well, well! I knew you were a fag." Alan said, the spiteful comment directed towards me.

Our kiss broke apart as I stared hatefully back at Alan while Andrew looked on with a look of panic.

"Mind your own damn business." I spat back with a long forgotten rage building in my heart.

The two of them approached us, Alan cracking his knuckles, "Hey Shane, you know what time it is?"

"Sure do man! It's ass kickin' time!" The Coyote replied, a devilish pleasure lingering in his voice.

Andrew stepped forward, "Come on guys, just leave us al-" he was cut off as Alan punched him across the face, knocking him out of the way.

"Stay outta this!" Alan threatened.

Rage, a nature that lies within us all, a nature that the world would be better off without. Rage built within me as Andrew hit the ground hard.

"How dare you hit my mate.." I said, Anger leaking uncontrollably from my voice.

Alan swung at me and I ducked, with a speed I never even knew I had. In the moment of his stupor I dealt him an uppercut making him stumble backwards. Memories of a forgotten past resurfaced as I unleashed a long contained fury.

~six years earlier~

"Come back here Dickweed! Hey! Don't you ignore me!"

Pain, a sharp pain hit my back and I fell forward, landing on the ground. They were running towards me now, my tormentors, determined to beat me to a pulp. Shane kicked me in the stomach while I was trying to get back up, making me fall over on my side, grasping my stomach in pain. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a wolf, witnessing my suffering, and soon the wolf turned and ran off. Alan grabbed a branch lying on the ground and clubbed me with it repeatedly while Shane kicked me hard in the stomach multiple times, my screams of pain echoing over the empty school grounds...

That day I had been sent to the hospital with a few broken bones. Now it was time to get my revenge. Before I hadn't cared that they bullied me, but they hurt my mate, and for that I had to make them suffer. Alan stumbled backwards after the uppercut I had dealt him. Shane ran from the side and swung a fist at me, which I dodged and returned by kneeing him in the stomach. He fell over in pain, grasping his stomach. Alan had recovered by now and came charging at me. I leapt to the side and grabbed a heavy fallen branch that had been lying on the ground.

Alan turned to face me and charged again, he was blinded with rage, unknowing of the branch I had waiting for him. He got closer, and closer, '3, 2, 1..' Whack! I swung the heavy branch at him as hard as I could. It met it's mark, hitting him hard in the face, causing him to fly off to the side and hit the ground hard. I rushed at him and hit him repeatedly with the branch, my own Rage and sense of Vengeance blinding me. I discarded the branch and began punching him in the face multiple times, 'just one more blow could end him for good!' I thought and my fist flew fast towards him, stopping just inches from his face. He cringed in fear as tears of pain leaked from his eyes.

"If you ever hurt me or my mate again, I swear to whatever God exists.. I'll kick your ass all over again, but next time I won't hesitate to end you." I threatened, releasing him from my grip.

Shane was still doubled over in pain from me kneeing him earlier, so he wasn't a threat. My fist was in pain now as my Rage began to subside. I walked over and kneeled down next to Andrew, who was still trying to regain composure from the hard blow to the face Alan had dealt him.

"Are you okay?" I asked him, concern deep in my voice.

"I'm fine." He assured me.

I helped him stand up and together we began to head back towards school, leaving the two tormentors behind to recover from their pain.

Love. It's a touchy subject. Love can make or break a Fur, it can lead you to do unspeakable horrors just as much as it can lead you to do unimaginable good. The will to protect the thing so highly loved can lead one to stand up and defend himself and those around him. Sometimes all it takes is gaining something to live for and protect for one to stand up and make a difference in his life. In that moment of my lost control to Rage I realized that Love was a very dangerous thing, but that without it I was doomed. I wanted to protect Andrew from getting hurt, I wouldn't ever allow anyone to hurt him like that again. Life gave me a second chance, to redeem myself, to find something to live for. I would live to protect Andrew, because he was all I had to keep the darkness out of my life. Life's lessons never end, not until we end, and I wanted to learn more from life, more from love. I wanted to see where the road would take me, I wanted to live for something, not die for nothing. Today I stood triumphant, a portion of my demons chased away. Life was finally getting good.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a broken bone for a broken bone. Sometimes that's what it took for the bullies to go away.

....TO BE CONTINUED....