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The bus ride was a blur to Wires. He nodded off, leaning his head back into the window as they rode. Pika woke him up when they reached his stop, and they walked back to Wires' apartment, arm in arm for steadiness. Pika later told him that they went to the liquor store, but he had no memory of it at all when he looked back. They went up the apartment slowly. Wires had barely sobered up despite the long walk, and Pika still seemed to be having trouble climbing up the steps. At one point, there was an audible click in her knees. He wondered if she even noticed.

Their fingers were cold and numb, so they used their teeth to help each other drag their jackets off. He accidentally brushed his tongue against Pika's hood when he grabbed it, right at the back of her neck. It smelled so thickly of fear and stress that it nearly made him sick. Pika shrieked in horror and hopped away from him when he dry-heaved. They left the jackets lying on the floor.

Wires watched Pika down beer after beer as he lapped at a cup of water. She'd turned the TV on, and the quiet hum of some talk show was on in the background. She was looking in the direction of the television, but her eyes were blank and unseeing. She looked naked somehow to Wires, as if all of her fur had been shaved off and she was standing there exposed. The hands that had less than an hour ago, been fastened to his with an iron grip, were trembling as they clasped an empty Bud can. She still looked scared.

"What happened to you?" he muttered more to himself than her. Where had the girl with the black metal bangles and the lollipop-patterned messenger bag and the assortment of colorful rings gone? He remembered the bright purple and yellow fur she sported in spring and the sleek, healthy look.

"I made a bad decision." she said. She sat on the very edge of the couch as if she was ready to jump up and flee at the slightest provocation. She was holding a wire-pin brush. He had no recollection of ever having seen it, and she gave it a few lazy strokes through her fur. A dusty clump came out, and Pika shot a faintly disgusted look at it.

"When you left?" asked Wires. Pika frowned and glared at him, but he rolled his wrist at her.

"When I moved out of state, yeah." she said, taking a long swig of her empty beer. She set the can down and hunched over forward. Her fur was pricked in an inelegant ridge down her neck. "I started staying at this boarding house, and I met this ewe."

"Do you ever actually date inside your species?"

"What about Broken?"

"That was in high school." grumbled Wires with a shake of his head. "And at least she ate meat."

"Do you want to hear this story or not?"

"Yeah, alright."

"She had one of those kitschy family names herbivores have. Fly-Over-the-Moon or something. So we just called her Monosodium."

"MSG? Really?"

"She was a food chem major and she was always talking about monosodium or maltodextrin or whatever. So we hit it off, and we had this thing going. But I think someone in her family died, I'm not exactly sure. She started drinking a lot and having these outbursts, and it was making us all really uncomfortable." Pika stopped for a moment, flipping the wire-pin brush over in her paw, then dragging it idly down her chest. Another clump came free, lodging in the brush. She stared at it, her whiskers twitching slightly. Wires perked his ears toward her, and she reluctantly continued. She seemed smaller and smaller with every word, as if she were trying to shrink away into nothing.

"She's-A-Problem tried to talk to her about it and she freaked out and ran off to her ex-girlfriend's place. A few weeks later we got a letter from her grandparents saying that she...an heroed. So some of the boarders started to blame me, because they thought I was her girlfriend. And they were from upstate, right? So they were saying things like I was a city bitch and corrupted her. And I was already doing sketchy shit for money, so-"

"Drugs?"

"No, fuck you! Stop asking me about that."

"Why won't you tell me?"

"Not everything is your business, Wires. Okay?'

"Whatever."

"Are you going to have another tantrum?"

"No."

"So that's when I left. I worked a couple of extra hours, then I just kind of took off. I got to the city fine, but I was having a hard time getting a real job."

"How? You're a Royal."

"I'm _part_Royal. Part Royal, part wild, and part foreign in New York fucking City."

"Well, it still has to count for something."

"Not as much as being part wild does."

"That's bullshit."

"Yeah? Tell me how easy it was for you to get a job, Wires."

It had not been easy for Wires to get a job. After he graduated, he showed up to interview after interview, his diploma fresh in his hands. Employers took one look at his rangy tan coat and his bright golden eyes and it was if a switch went off.

"I'm sorry, we aren't hiring."

"We're interested in someone more...easygoing."

"Who did you say your father was?"

After about three months, he'd heard it all. From the disbelieving snorts to the wary looks into his mouth whenever he started to speak. Once while drinking his sorrows away in an east LA bar, a woman, a tiny ginger cat finally told him what he expected to hear. No-one was hiring him because he looked too much like a wolf.

"I'm not a wolf. I'm a coydog, half coyote." he said.

"Well, dear" the steepled digits, her claws peeping out ever so slightly "it's basically the same thing, isn't it?"

"It wasn't that hard." said Wires, clenching his teeth. Pika snorted in disbelief. Wires leaned back into the couch, and Keisha sprang from his lap and waltzed into the kitchen. "What exactly is a Quilin?" he asked. Pika shook her head. "You should have left poor Ni?o Qún alone. She wasn't going to get with you. Plus, she's been married forever." "You were the one with the ewe girlfriend and hyrax fiancee."

"She's a North American pika."

"So? That's still a rodent. Pretty far out if you ask me."

Pika started giggling.

"What?" said Wires. "Pikas aren't rodents. Hyraxes aren't rodents."

"Not everybody knows that." he said, and started sipping his beer. Pika reached for her empty can with some difficulty. He handed it to her.

"Everybody knows that." she said, and she was suddenly on his lap. Her butt was bony and dug into his legs. He took the wire-pin brush and gently started on her shoulders.

"I usually have a lady do this." she said.

"A lady you pay, or_your_ lady?"

"My lady."

"I can stop. I know how awkward it is having a stranger take care of your fur." "You're not a stranger." she said. She leaned into him, her head over his shoulder as he used firm gentle strokes to pull the loose fur from her coat. At some point she started purring, and the force of it rocked his whole body. "Does this prove I'm not an asshole?" he asked.

"This doesn't prove shit." she said, leaning back so she could look him in the face. She was finally calm, her eyes partially lidded. For once, he wasn't smelling fear on her. It was then he noticed that they were both naked and she was straddling him.

"I'll brush your front." he said with a grin. And to his surprise, Pika grinned back at him, the gap of her missing tooth readily apparent.

"Sure."

Wires brought the brush up to her neck, and started from there. He worked his way down to her chest, then her stomach. The fur he pulled out looked dry and damaged, but he could see a shiny new coat already starting to grow. He put one hand on her hip to stabilize her while he brushed the inside of her thighs when she started purring again. And he took a chance. The paw on her hip travelled to her back, right above her tail. He caught her eyes and traced slow circles at the base of her spine. Pika looked nervous, and her purring hiccupped. Disappointed, Wires pulled his hands away.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"I should stop." "Don't."

"You're flinching. Look, I can't do this if you smell scared."

"I'm fine."

"Are you...are you like, a virgin?" "I'm gay." "...what?"

"I've only slept with women. With men it's always like this."

Wires leaned his head back into the couch.

"Nothing is ever easy with you."

"Shut up." she hissed and her nose was pressing into his. Their lips crashed together, and Wires felt the cut of a tooth. He pulled her closer, and they grasped each other furiously. He ran a finger down her sides and felt a shiver. Not the good kind, the shudders of anticipation that Pride used to make. He broke the kiss and looked up at her, her eyes were screwed shut, her ears plastered flat against her head. She was completely terrified, and Wires' heart sunk. He pulled her into a tight hug, and she started sobbing on his shoulder.

"Just so you know, straight sex is fun. There's no reason it should ever be like this." he said. Pika said something through her racking sobs, but he couldn't understand.

---

He woke up on the couch next morning with her cradled against his chest. When she felt him stirring, she pressed her cold pink nose into his neck.

"Wires, that was a bad idea." she mumbled.

"Yeah, I'm really hungover."

"No, the other stuff." "What other stuff?" said Wires.

Pika frowned slightly. Her green feline eyes searched him, her stained fur stood on end, and Wires was taken aback. She pulled herself off of the couch, all ribs and hipbones and clicking joints. She stood in front of him, her arms hanging limply at her sides. No matter how he tried, he couldn't remember what he'd seen that was attractive about her the night before.

"You...touching me."

"I didn't touch you like that." he said, sucking in his breath. Somehow, that part of last night wasn't blurry in the slightest.

"Where does the Barnes&Noble Wires go?" she said, crossing her arms in front of herself, claws popping from their sheaths and dissapearing into her fur. "The one that actually thinks about my feelings. The one who brought me home. Why can't he hang around? Why do I get this asshole?"

"I don't know." said Wires, and it felt like the truest thing he'd ever said in his life.

---