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Asher set a hand on his sister's shoulder, "Is he alive?"

Claudia nodded, "yes, but barely"

He walked over to Chris's feet. He knew what to do. He grabbed his waist and lifted him off the ground, wincing from the pain in his shoulder. Claudia was perplexed, "What're you doing?"

Asher just grunted, "We're taking him back home with us". Cory took a step forward to try and offer his help, but Asher just waved his hand, "It's ok, I've got him. C'mon, we need to get the hell out of here."

Ash turned and started walking towards Claudia's SUV. Cory's voice was panicked. "They shot at us! I... I just..."

He whirled at Claudia's touch, but she persisted, putting her warm handpaw against his backk. "It's okay, Cory. Don't worry."

"Don't worry?" Cory spat at her, stopping them in their tracks. "Don't worry? These guys stole my kids, blew up my house and tried to kill me! How can I not worry?"

She didn't take his hand off her arm, choosing instead to cover it with her own. Her voice was absolutely calm. "This is why I was so worried about bringing you in, Cory. This is all new to you so it's scary, but Ash and I have been through this before. Look at him." She pointed at her brother, who had stopped and was looking at them, with her free hand. "Does he look scared?" Cory turned to look, but said nothing.

"He doesn't look scared because he knows what to do," Claudia went on. "If he's not scared and I'm not scared, then you don't have to be scared either."

She turned and resumed her walk. "Trust us, Cory. We know what we're doing, and we know how to keep you safe." The human followed them not because he believed them, but because they were his only hope.

Once back at the tiger's house they got out of the car, but didn't move toward the house. Asher knelt and opened the plastic lid of a box set into the ground, It looked like a water shutoff-valve box, but there was obviously something else hidden inside there. Cory could see the tiger's arm making short up and down motions, like he was pressing a code into a keypad.

"They're probably still watching," Claudia warned.

"I know," Ash replied, not taking his attention from what he was doing. "it doesn't matter. We won't be staying long," he finished whatever he was doing, then stood and walked toward the detached garage, "and we can't come back anyway."

The double doors of the garage slid upwards on smoothly oiled tracks as they approached, and slid shut after the last one had entered. Overhead lamps flickered on as if of their own choice, bathing the inside of the garage in cold fluorescent light.

"We've got to get Chris downstairs," Claudia said, her voice concerned. "He's not doing well."

"I need a few minutes," Asher said, distractedly. "You want to take him down?"

"Yeah, let me have him." Claudia pulled the bloodstained white tiger off her brother's shoulder and heaved him up on her own.

Asher paid no more heed to what she was doing than if she'd taken a large bag of dog food from him. He rolled his shoulder a few times to restore circulation, then turned his attention to the workbench in the corner. "Cory, stay with me,"

Cory watched in fascination as the tigress pushed a button hidden underneath the gardening bench to expose a concealed set of stairs leading into what he assumed must be a basement. When she had disappeared and the door had closed, he turned his attention back to Asher, who had opened a dusty, old laptop computer sitting on the bench. "What are you doing?"

His response was distracted. "Sending out a decoy."

Cory watched over the tiger's shoulder as the computer's screen came to life. It booted far faster than the age of the machine suggested it should, and the large screen was surprisingly clear. He didn't know a lot about computers, but he suspected that this one was far more sophisticated on the inside than it looked on the outside.

Using the touch-screen, Asher brought the house's surveillance system online and zoomed in to the boathouse at the end of the pier Cory had noticed on their run that morning. He watched silently as the tiger pinched, zoomed, and tapped the screen with his large fingers, bringing a small cruiser into focus before overlaying the image with a satellite view of the coastline.

"It's insane what you can do with Google and GPS," he said, with a grin. With a fingerpad he traced a line leading out to an island about a hundred miles offshore, then set a countdown timer for 10 minutes and shut the laptop's screen. "When the boat takes off they'll assume we had some sort of tunnel from the house to the dock, and they'll scramble to follow the boat." He turned to Cory and patted the man gently on the shoulder. "Come on - let's get downstairs."

"Asher?" Cory's voice was small, making the tiger turn and pay more attention to him than if he'd screamed at the top of his lungs. "What's going on?"

The pleading tone told Asher that the man was nearing the end of his fragile rope. Ignoring his own pain, the tiger turned his full attention to his friend. "Come here, Cory." He motioned the human to come closer, and noted with anguish that although the man obeyed, there was a hesitation in his step, as if he were suddenly afraid of the tiger.

"I'm sorry," he said, pulling the man into his arms. "I had no idea this would happen to you." He nuzzled the top of the man's head, like a den mother nuzzling a cub. Cory's hair was dirty and smelled like smoke and sea water. "We haven't heard anything from them for almost four years, and we thought we were finally free of them." He sighed. "And then the day you come along, they come back.

"Who is Chris?" Cory asked, quietly.

Asher rubbed the human's arms, but did not let him go. "He's...he was...an old friend of ours. He was our best friend, but something happened." His voice grew quiet. "We last saw him ten years ago when he went off to take some super-secret job."

Ash shifted uncomfortably. "Hey, let's go downstairs so I can get this taken care of, okay? It's starting to hurt."

"Oh, yeah," Cory said, as if only now remembering that the tiger had been shot. "Sorry."

They went down the same damp, dark concrete stairs Claudia had descended a few minutes earlier, into a cool subterranean room that was obviously unoccupied. "Where-" Cory began, but was hushed by Asher.

"Wait for it."

After a short delay, a latch clicked and a seam opened in the rock wall. Asher pushed against the concealed door and admitted them into a space that was as clean and well-organized as the home above them. "This is the cat-cave," Asher joked, leading Cory through to a room where their erstwhile best friend was strapped securely to a stainless steel table. "So what's wrong with him?" he asked his sister, "Chris would never do that."

"Don't get confused," Claudia said quietly, as she worked on the white tiger. "Just because the body belongs to our friend doesn't mean the mind still does."

"You think he was brainwashed, or something?"

Claudia grimaced as she ran the scanner over the white tiger's torso. "I don't know. All I know is, the look in his eyes when I was fighting him wasn't anything like the Chris I remember. I don't think he lives here, anymore."

"Here, Cory," Asher said, handing the human a small spray bottle from the medkit. "Spray this on her arm. It'll stop the bleeding."

Cory had never done anything like this before, but it seemed simple enough. Although Claudia's attention never wavered from her ministrations, she held her injured arm out as Cory approached.

"Spray until the fur is wet all the way down to the skin," Asher instructed, "Then give it a few minutes for the bleeding to stop. If it doesn't, spray it again, but not more than three times." Cory followed his instructions, and was heartened when the blood oozing out of the laceration on Claudia's arm instantly coagulated.

"Thanks," she said, pulling her arm back to hold the end of a bandage she was wrapping around the white tiger's head.

Cory moved to give the bottle back to Asher, but was rejected. "Hold onto it," he said. "Once usually isn't enough for something that deep."

"What about you?" he asked, wanting to do more to help his new friend.

"Just...uh..." Asher started, looking around the room. "Bring that red box over here - the one with the white cross on it."

Cory picked up the box, which was heavier than it looked, and brought it back to Asher's side. With a grunt, the big cat snapped open the latches and flipped the box open to expose a long, snake-like probe and a monitor in the lid. "You're not going to try to get it out yourself, are you?" Cory asked, horrified.

"Naw," Asher said, "I throw up at the sight of my own blood." He leaned back in the chair with a grunt of pain. "You're going to do it."

"Fuck no!" No way was Cory going to do anything of the sort! He watched in disbelieving horror as Asher pulled a hypospray out of the kit and, with his left hand, awkwardly pressed it against the side of his left shoulder. It hissed, and within seconds the cat had slumped into unconsciousness. "Claudia!" he called out, in panic.

"I'm a little busy here," she said, as she removed a pre-threaded needle from its sterile packaging. "I've got to sew this guy up before his guts all spill out." She looked up, focusing her eyes on Cory's. "It's not that hard. Just turn the machine on and follow the directions."

"But..." Cory looked back at Asher's body, slumped into the chair as if he were dead.

"You've got to get that bullet out of him, Cory," she said, her attention on her task. "Just put on your big-cub panties and do it."

"Right," Cory said, shoulders slumping. He did not want to do this, but for Asher, he would give it his best shot. Turning to face the machine, which suddenly looked much more complex than it had a moment ago, he located the red button and pushed it.

"One," he said, reading aloud. "Locate entrance wound. Remove or cut away interfering clothing." He looked at the contents of the red box and spied a pair of what looked like bandage scissors. Pulling them out, he used them to cut away the arms of Asher's over and undershirts.

"Oh, Jesus, there's a lot of blood," he moaned, feeling ill as he poked at Asher's shoulder with the tips of his fingers.

"Just think of it as a piece of beef you're cutting up," Claudia suggested, sounding totally calm.

"Beef, right," Cory echoed. He took a deep breath and tried again. Looking closer, he could see blood pulsing from an open wound. "Oh, God, I found it." He sounded halfway panicked. "Do I use the spray?"

"Read the directions."

"Right..." Cory touched the button marked 'next' on the display with a very shaky finger. "Two. Sanitize head of probe and push one inch deep into wound." He looked back in the kit. "Sanitize...sanitize...what the fuck do I sanitize with?"

"Read. The. Directions."

Cory looked at her for a moment as if she were teasing him, then looked back to the display. Sure enough, above the words was an animation of a button at the base of the probe being pushed. "Oh, fuck me."

"I think Ash was trying to," floated over from where Claudia was working.

"Huh?"

"Ha ha," she said. "Just keep working."

Cory pushed the button, and watched as the head of the probe crackled with a short, high-voltage electrical discharge. "Oh." He leaned over Asher's shoulder and tried his best to think of what he was doing like pushing a thermometer into a piece of grilled meat. But this meat was still alive, a corner of his mind protested. This meat was attached to a living, breathing man, one whose bed he'd warmed. As Cory pushed the tip of the probe into the living flesh of his new friend, a wet belch escaped his belly.

Claudia's loud voice cut through his mental haze. "If you're going to throw up, for God's sake, don't do it on the wound!"

"I'm fiiiiiine," he yelled back in annoyance, belching again in the middle of his statement. This time, a bit of bile entered his mouth. He spit it on the floor and took a moment to compose himself. His eye caught the screen, and he reminded himself to read the directions.

"Three. Brace the body of the probe and push the 'GO' button." He watched the animation, and saw the body of the machine pressed against the torso of the animated victim, then an arrow point to the large green button in the middle of the base. Pushing the rectangular body of the probe against Asher's chest, he pushed the button and felt it click under his finger. Whirring to life, the articulated arm of the probe sank itself into the flesh of Asher's shoulder, following the tunnel of destruction deeper inside the man's body.

For the third time that day, Cory's stomach emptied itself. Fortunately they were little more than dry heaves at this point, consisting of little more than the remnants of a chocolate-covered granola bar Ash had given him on the drive to his house that afternoon, back when he'd thought his kids were safe and sound inside their house. Back before his world had been turned upside down. Back when life was simple.

Cory wasn't sure how he did it, but he managed to keep the horrible machine anchored as he heaved. He felt it vibrating under his hands as it searched for the lead slug. A few times the neck of the probe pulled back slightly before adopting a slightly different angle and pushing itself deeper. An eternity later, a beeping noise came from the case. "What's that?" Cory said, agitated. "I can't see the display!"

"Calm down," Claudia soothed. "It's found the bullet. Now it's mending the tissues around it."

"Okay...okay..." Cory almost panted. "How much longer is this going to take?"

"A few minutes," the tigress responded as she continued to stitch up her patient, "maybe five...six."

Cory stared at her, watching her work. "If...if you've got a machine that can do this shit, why are you sewing him up with a suture?

Claudia smiled back pleasantly at him. "The asshole cut me," she said, reasonably. "I'll save his life, but I want him to have a nice, puckery scar to remember me."

"Oh."

Three minutes later the sound of a bullet slug hitting the floor startled Cory, bringing his attention back to the machine. He watched in morbidfascination as the stainless steel head of the probe worked itself back and forth like the head of a charmed snake, knitting the tissues back together with a web of synthetic fiber as it retreated from the wound. "That's amazing," Cory muttered, as the probe shut itself off.

He pulled the body of the probe away from Asher's chest and checked the kit's display. "One slug detected. One slug removed." He pushed the 'next' button. "Four. Spray wound with adhesive bandage number twelve and administer antibiotic hypospray number three."

Cory was looking around in the medkit for the appropriate items when he felt Claudia's gaze on him. "You kept it together." She nodded her head approvingly. "Good job."

"Is this what life is like for you two all the time?" Cory asked. His teeth were nervously chattering together, squeaking against each other from the bile.

"No," her voice was low as her face clouded over. "We were like anyone else until Mom and Dad died." She glanced over at her brother, but Asher was still out cold. "After that, he went a little crazy, I guess. Got caught up with a bad crowd for a little while. Ever since he was little he's been an adrenalin junkie, and they encouraged him. They thought it was fun, to see how far he'd go."

She shook her head, sadly. "I managed to get him away from all that by getting him to channel his energy in a productive direction. He's a little calmer now, but he's always going to walk on the wild side."

"Is that what I am?" Cory asked, his voice sad and tired. "A walk on the wild side?"

"No," she explained, "he really likes you." She tilted her head slightly and looked at him with those oddly intense cat-eyes. "I think you're probably a step in the right direction for him, Cory." She smiled softly. "A man who loves his kids as much as you do can't be all bad."

At the mention of his children, Cory nearly broke down again. In the excitement, he'd almost forgotten about them.

"They're still alive," Claudia said, with certainty. "They're not worth anything to them dead. They probably flew all three of them out to a remote island somewhere and dropped them off with a case of supplies.

"Sounds more like a vacation than a kidnapping," Cory said, dubiously.

Claudia shrugged. "It's easier that way. They don't have to worry about them escaping when the only way back to civilization is across a hundred miles of shark-infested water. And there's no evidence of kidnapping if they never have your kids with them."

She looked at him intently. "It's us they want, not your kids. They're hoping you'll do something to rat us out to them." Reaching into her hip pouch, she pulled out a cellular telephone and handed it to him, careful not to drop it. "I'm not going to stress myself out looking over my shoulder every five minutes wondering if you're still loyal to us, Cory. If you're going to call them, call them." She suddenly looked as if she were very tired of running. "It's got a full battery but no charger, so keep it turned off until you're sure."

He stared at the phone she handed him, running his fingers over the buttons. "I don't even know their number."

Claudia chuckled quietly. "You are new at this, aren't you?"

"It's my first kidnapping," he said, apologetically.

"If they've got your wife, they also have her cell phone," she explained. "If you call her phone, you'll get them."

He hung his head, and at first Claudia thought the man was crying again, but after a moment she saw that she was mistaken. He was laughing. "Four." He said, tossing the phone onto the white tiger's belly. "She's speed-dial number four. I've got a horrible memory for numbers," he explained, "and even though I've been talking to her for almost a decade, I still don't know her number."

Claudia rolled her eyes. Walking over to her brother's unconscious body, she took one of his paws in her own and stroked the orange and black fur. "You're so much like Asher, it's not even funny."

The machine behind Cory beeped insistently. "What?" He looked at the display, which was blinking in time with the beeps. "Oh." He pressed the hypospray that he was still holding against Asher's uninjured shoulder, then sprayed liquid bandage on the one with the wound. "I guess I wouldn't make a very good doctor."

"We're all playing it by ear these days," she admitted. "Just gotta make it through to tomorrow, you know?"

A groan from the gurney behind her instantly snapped her out of her tender, introspective mood. "Here," she said, handing Asher's paw to Cory, "Hold this. I want someone here when he wakes up." Before going back to Chris' bedside she bent down to whisper softly in Cory's ear. "Don't say a word. Just listen."

Cory thought it was odd to be holding another man's hand like this, but he also had thought it odd to have woken up in the man's bed that morning.

"Chris?" Claudia's voice was firm. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes, Petunia, I can hear you," the white tiger groaned. "Stop yelling."

She was quiet for a moment as she considered what to say. "Care to tell me what that was all about?"

"They have my family," the tiger moaned, his voice shaky with pain and emotion. "Luka said he was going to kill them if I didn't bring you in."

"Oh, Chris," Claudia crooned, sympathetically. "That's awful!" Reaching up, she tenderly stroked the side of the tiger's face with the back of her hand. In response, the man turned his head into the contact, pressing his cheek against her touch. "Oh, God," she whispered, "I've missed you so much."

"It's just us, now," he said, visibly reining in his emotions. "You can let me up, now. I can tell you where they are, and we can get Cory's kids back."

"That's great," Claudia soothed, speaking softly as she smiled down at her old friend. "I'll get word to the boss, and I'm sure he'll let you go after he talks to you."

"I know you can't just let me go," he said, "I don't want you to get in trouble over me." His eyes implored her. "My wrist is really hurting bad. I'm not asking you to let me go or anything, but can you just...maybe loosen it a bit?"

"Sure," Claudia said, moving over to where his right arm was strapped down. "Is it this one?"

"Yeah." Something in the tiger's eager tone set alarm bells ringing in Cory's head. He was about to protest when Claudia's words drifted back to him. 'Don't say anything.'

He watched carefully as she took the thick leather strap in both hands and pulled. 'Don't say anything.'

The belt momentarily tightened when the tigress pulled on it, then the retaining pin slid out of the eye that had been punched into the leather. She pulled tighter for a moment, then settled the leather strap back onto its peg, the same peg it had occupied earlier. 'Don't say anything.' "Is that better?"

The white tiger nodded his head in relief. "Oh, yes," he agreed, wiggling his fingers to demonstrate. "Much."

"Good," she smiled sympathetically, once more putting a tender palm against the side of his face. "Now that you're stable, you need your rest, old friend."

The white tiger leaned trustingly into her touch. When his eyes met hers, they visibly softened."Good night, Petunia." A hypospray hissed against the side of his neck, and he slumped into a drugged sleep.

Silence returned to the room, settling like a thick fog. Not knowing what else to do, Cory continued stroking Ash's huge paw with his hands.

"Well, that was a load of shit." Cory jumped in surprise, dropping Asher's handpaw like it was made of hot steel instead of warm flesh.

Claudia sounded disappointed. "I know, right?"

Cory was shocked that Asher could be awake so soon. "Aren't you supposed to be unconscious?"

"Naw," Asher replied, wiggling his damaged shoulder experimentally. "They don't want wounded soldiers cluttering up the battlefield, so the anesthetic wears off fast."

"He's going to be out for a couple of hours, at least," Claudia said, waving at Chris. "How much did you hear?"

"All of it," Asher reached down and retrieved Cory's hand as if he had some claim to it. "Don't freak out," he said. "Cats are tactile, and I just want some contact."

Claudia made no comment on her brother's action, but the look she gave him was practically a smirk. Asher ignored her. "I wouldn't be surprised if he was telling the truth about his family, though. They did disappear a few months after he went away."

"They moved back east," Claudia remembered.

"We never heard a peep from them after the moving van came," Asher reminded her. "We used to get birthday cards from them every year, but then- poof. Nothing." He looked at her archly. "Did you ever hear it from either of them that they were moving?"

"No," she admitted, "but that was before we were suspicious of everyone." She looked sad. "Back when we could believe what people said."

"We thought we could, anyway," Asher corrected. "Ignorance is bliss."

Cory watched as his hand was rubbed between the tiger's two thick handpaws. He felt oddly disconnected, like it belonged to someone else. "So what are we going to do?" he asked. "What about my kids? What about your friend? What about those guys coming to kill you? What about..." he trailed off, waving his free hand around his head as if by doing so he could dispel the confusion.

The pressure on his hand increased. "One step at a time," Asher said, gently massaging his fingers one by one. "Just follow our lead, and everything's going to be okay." He looked up at his sister. "Has anyone broken in upstairs, yet?"

Claudia glanced up at the monitor hanging above her brother's head. "Not that I can see. Why, you need something up there?"

"Food," he said, decisively. "I could really go for a sandwich right about now."

She snorted. "Are you ever not hungry?"

"Rarely." He looked down at Cory, who was still looking dazed. "I think his blood sugar has pretty much bottomed out, too." Cory looked up at him, and his eyes looked slightly unfocused. "Oh, yeah," Ash confirmed, "he needs food pretty quick. He's not used to this."

Claudia sighed. "Okay, fine. If it were you I'd make you go up and get it yourself, but for him, I'll do it." She paused on her way to the stairs and rummaged around in a drawer. "Here," she said, turning back to them and tossing a foil-wrapped package underhand.

It landed square on Asher's chest, where he caught it easily. Putting it to his mouth, he used his sharp teeth to rip off a corner before handing it to Cory. "Here. Eat this. It's mostly sugar, so go slow."

Cory put the corner of the pack to his lips and squeezed. The edges of the pack were damp, and Cory couldn't tell whether that was from the contents or from Asher's saliva. The gummy sugar gel tasted mildly of strawberries, enough to keep it from being repulsive, and after a few minutes he had to admit that he was feeling a little better. By the time Claudia came back through the double-doors leading to the main house, he almost felt human again.

The tigress cleared off the top of a stainless steel cart and spread out bread, meats, and vegetables that she pulled from a canvas bag. "I couldn't stay up there long, so I grabbed what I could. There isn't a lot of choice." She looked up. "Let go of him, Ash."

"Huh?" Asher hadn't realized that after almost ten minutes, he was still holding Cory's hand. He blinked in surprise and released his gentle grip. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay." Cory's hand suddenly felt cold, now that it was no longer being massaged between warm, leathery pawpads. Hesitatingly, he pulled it back and rested it in his lap. "I think I probably needed the contact as much as you did."

"Go make us some sandwiches, okay?" Asher encouraged, as much to keep Cory busy as to feed his own hunger.

On his way to the cart, Cory had a thought. "Where's the cat?" At Claudia's raised eyebrow, he searched his memory for the name. "Melanie, was it?"

Claudia took a moment to look around them, then shrugged and went back to making her sandwich. "She's around."

Cory picked up two pieces of wheat bread and a knife. "Mustard or mayo?" he called over his shoulder.

"Yes."

Cory shrugged, slathering some of both onto the bread. "Ham or beef?"

"Yes."

Claudia chuckled. "He'll eat out of the garbage can, Hon. Just put lots of stuff on there, and you'll never hear him complain." She looked at what he'd done so far and suggested, "Just have fun with it."

Cory shook his head and piled random handfuls of meat and vegetables onto the bread, then on impulse, squirted a bit of mustard over the top before putting it all together. He considered mashing it down with the palm, but thought that would be too random.

"Fantastic," Asher said, when presented with Cory's work. "That looks great." After considering the extreme thickness of the sandwich for a moment, he put his large paw on top and pressed downwards, compressing the meat and bread to an edible thickness. "Mashie!" he declared, with obvious delight.

"Don't take it personally," Claudia said, seeing the look Cory was giving her brother at the destruction of his culinary creation. "He loves to do that."

Cory watched Asher chomp into his flattened sandwich, then shook his head and went back to the table to make himself one. "You two have obviously done stuff like this before," he pointed to the room around them with a knife before sticking it into the mayonnaise jar, "but I'm sorta new. What do we do now?"

"We?" Asher said. "You're with us?"

"I can't see I have much choice," Cory said, pulling small leaves of lettuce off the head, "but even if I did, I'd stick with you guys." He paused to think about the men who'd stolen his children and come after his new friends. "They're fucking nuts."

"Good to know," Claudia said, favoring him with a smile that, for all it's smirky quality, seemed quite genuine.

"Because now you don't have to worry about me stabbing you in the back?" Cory asked.

The tigress shrugged. "No. Because Ash likes you."

Cory looked back at the tiger. He expected to see an embarrassed look on the man's face, but instead the tiger just grinned.

"Yeah, I like you," Ash confirmed. "There's nothing wrong with that."

"I'm not gay," Cory said, uneasily. These people had helped him and he was now dependent on their care, but he didn't want Asher getting the wrong idea. "I don't know where you think this was headed, but I'm not."

"Gay, schmay," Asher scoffed. "Nobody's asking you to be anything but who you are." He wiped his muzzle with a paper towel, then wadded it up and tossed it into the trashcan like he was making a free-throw. "I've boinked a lot of women, and that didn't make me straight."

The tiger climbed off the med bed and started taking off his clothing, not caring that both Cory and his sister were standing in front of him. "You know why I brought you back here last night?" he asked. When Cory shook his head, Asher continued. "You woke up this morning and your butthole wasn't greasy, right?"

"Uh, no." Cory said, surprised by Asher's blunt question.

"So I obviously didn't bring you back here to take advantage of you." He grabbed a clean towel from a cabinet, but didn't bother wrapping it around his waist. "I did it because you were shit-faced drunk, and I didn't want to see you get hurt." He looked at Cory significantly. "I like you, Cory. You're a nice guy, and I want to be your friend."

Cory didn't seem inclined to say anything, so the tiger walked to the bathroom. When he reached the doorway, he stopped and turned back. "But that's not to say I'd toss you out of bed if you wanted to try fooling around, either. I do think you're handsome." A wink of his eye, and Asher turned into the bathroom. A few seconds later, the sounds of water running in the shower drowned out Claudia's chuckling.

It took Cory a few moments to gather his wits. "Did, uh..." he turned to Claudia. "Did he just proposition me, or shut me down?"

"A little of both, I think," She said, gazing fondly towards the bathroom, where her brother had started to sing an off-key rendition of 'Deep in the Heart of Texas,' complete with paw-claps, while he showered. "The anesthesia in the med-kit does a really good job of removing your inhibitions, and his are GONE."

She turned to Cory. "What he told you was the truth. He really likes you, and he really respects you." She wiped her mouth and began to gather the remains of their lunch into the trash can.

Cory saw that she'd gathered what looked like a half pound of sliced beef, and was about to throw it away. "That's still good," he pointed out.

The tigress pursed her lips. "Yeah, I know. But it's going to be a while before we make it back here, and we can't take it with us." She held the paper-wrapped bundle of beef out to Cory. "One last piece? Might be the last real food you get for a while."

He took a few slices and watched as she threw the rest into the garbage. "Thanks."

"Sure." She picked up a clean towel and began wiping down the surfaces with a sterile solution in a spray bottle. "As soon as he gets out of there, you jump in. We'll get you some fresh clothes to wear."

She cocked an ear towards the open bathroom door, where Asher was now singing 'Blue Skies'. "Now, he's just playing. Why don't you go hurry him along? We might not have a lot of time."

Cory nodded and walked into the bathroom, pulling his own shirt off as he went. "Hey, Ash." He stopped and had to smile. The tiger was singing into the bottle of shampoo as if it were a microphone. "Claudia says to hurry up."

Asher stopped singing. "Okay, okay, I'm coming. Just let me get the soap out of my fur." He turned his back to the spray and leaned his head back with his eyes closed. His hips pushed forward for balance, and Cory couldn't help but glance at his thick sheath. It wasn't huge, but it certainly wasn't small, either. It was nicely sized, and in proportion with the weighty pair of testicles hanging below it.

"Caught you looking!" Asher teased, making Cory jump. The tiger chuckled. "It's okay, dude! Go ahead and look if you want. Nothing to be ashamed of. You've probably never seen a tiger's junk before, right?"

"Just...hurry up." Cory was turning to leave when Asher's voice stopped him.

"I need some help."

Cory sighed in exasperation. He just wanted to get out of there. "What?"

The tiger turned his back to Cory, and tried to point to a spot on his lower back. "I can't reach back there."

Cory forced himself to look at where Asher was trying to point, and saw for the first time that the water running off the tiger was still tinged with blood. The reason was obvious - some of the blood from his shoulder wound had seeped around to his back when he was lying on the gurney, and now he couldn't reach it to scrub it out.

"Jesus," the man said, rolling his eyes. He really didn't want to have to get that close to the horny tiger.

"If you can't do it, then go get Claudia," Asher said. "I can't take all day soaking it out."

"All right, all right," Cory said, tiredly. "Let's just get it done." Asher nodded his head and turned his back to the other man. Cory tossed his shirt into the corner and quickly followed it with his pants and, after a moment's hesitation, his underwear.

Walking into the shower stall, Cory reached out his fingers and began working soapy lather through the tiger's blood-crusted back fur. "Oh, fuck!" Asher yelped and turned around quickly, but when he saw that Cory was totally naked and sharing the stall with him, his eyes went wide. He spun back around. "I thought you were going to use the scrub brush!"

"Huh?" Cory said, "what scrub br..." Looking around, he spied a long-handled brush hanging outside the shower's spray. His ears flamed with embarrassment. "Oh...Fuck."

Claudia walked in, drawn by the noise. "What are you two- Oh, Fuck!" Seeing two nude men sharing a shower, her brother's naked butt pointed towards Cory's naked crotch, she whirled around, averting her eyes. "You two work fast!"

"We're not doing anything!" Cory protested, defensively holding up hands white with soapy bubbles.

Melanie chose that moment to un-hide herself. Strutting into the bathroom, tail held high in the air like a flag, she looked first at the two men in the shower, then up at Claudia, then back at Cory and Asher before sitting squarely in the middle of the bathmat. "MEOW!"