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Shawn's muzzle fell open, but all that came out was a terrified squeak. Something flat thumped against his back, and he realized after a moment that he'd scrambled back against the closed door behind him. Being naked in the doctor's office had made him self-conscious; being naked under the open sky was simply more than he could handle. The bottle of pills he'd been holding fell to the pavement with an accusatory rattle, and the squirrel slid down into a squat against the door, hugging his knees, wrapping his bushy tail around in front of them, and squeezing his eyes shut.

“Whoa there, boss. Easy. Just breathe. I don't want to set a record for the fastest heart attack of a new breeder!" Jason knelt quickly beside him and leaned in, studying his charge's face with worried green eyes. The black wolf's nearness helped, if only because it made Shawn feel as though he was at least partly obscured from judging eyes, but the lack of any palpable body heat immediately reminded him that no one else could see - or have their view blocked by - his newly-formed AI daemon. “Y'know that line about having nothing to fear but fear itself? That's you, right now. Everyone on this side of that wall is used to seeing folks walking around naked. But your heart rate's scaring me. Come on. Breathe in… and out. In… and out." The fact that the gray-furred teenager couldn't feel Jason's pantomimed breaths served only to drive his unreality in further.

Shawn squeezed his eyes shut, panting ragged breaths against his knees, and ducked his head down to hide behind them… at which point he felt a faint twinge of pain from the back of his neck. Apparently the local anesthetic Dr. Sheridan had used when installing the implant that linked him to Jason - and gave the pseudowolf his awareness of Shawn's vitals - was choosing that very moment to start wearing off. How very good. He choked back a sob.

Jason grimaced. “Doc Sheridan is great at intakes, but he does rush people out the door when he has baby batter to file." The wolf looked around without getting up. “Look, bro. You're in luck, there's no one here." Shawn risked peeking up over his knees, and realized after a moment his daemon was telling the truth. He thought he'd seen a couple of folks walking by before he'd shut down, but they must have wandered away without noticing him. With a gulp, he opened his awareness to his surroundings again, and got his first real look at the city of New Dawn.

The first thing that hit him was how open it was. Most cities worthy of the name Shawn had visited in his nineteen years were characterized by close-set buildings reaching skyward in a bid to maximize the value of every square foot of real estate not eaten up by a spider web of eternally congested roads. Here, though, it was more like he was on the edge of a park, with lazily winding paved paths wandering through a manicured lawn dotted with trees, benches, and the occasional small pond. The squirrel suppressed an atavistic urge to scramble up into a nearby maple in search of safety. In the distance he could see a handful of skyscrapers towering over the nearby treeline; one shining central spire in particular drew his eye upward to a network of geodesic struts supporting the mind-bogglingly vast number of huge triangular glass panes that made up the dome to which Dr. Sheridan had alluded. Shawn's eyes followed it back toward his location, head tilting back further and further until he got another warning twinge from his recently-incised nape and winced.

“Cool, right?" Jason grinned at him. “And it's not as fragile as it looks. Whatever that dome's made out of, it would be offended if you called it glass; it's some fancy new military-grade stuff that's supposed to be able to withstand having bombs dropped on it!"

Shawn's head whipped around. “Why would they use that in a place like this? Are they expecting something like that to happen?"

The daemon's lupine avatar made a dismissive motion with one of his paws. “Pshaw, no, around here it makes the news if someone throws a punch. But the government did kind of put all its eggs - or sperm, in this case - in one basket here, so when it comes to safety, even the redundancies have redundancies." Even overrun by anxiety as he was, Shawn thought that sounded a little odd coming out of Jason's muzzle - but then, his daemon had told him he'd be varying his speech habits to feel out what made his sciurine charge most comfortable. And he wasn't done. “It doesn't even rain in here because of that thing… but let me tell you, we have a lot of folks who will just sit outside and vibe when it rains on the dome. If you're in one of the outer rings the sound is something else."

Shawn glanced around the area again, trying futilely to get his bearings. “This place is built in rings? Where are we, exactly?"

“Well… technically I'm in there," the wolf replied, pointing at the central spire in the distance. “That's the Repopulation Bureau headquarters; among a lot of other things, it has all the central computers that run New Dawn's 'smart city' systems, including everyone's daemons. You didn't think that little thing in your neck could run someone like me on its own, did you?" The lupine avatar gave his squirrel a cheeky smirk. “But as for what you actually mean…"

Jason held out a paw, and a mostly-opaque two dimensional diagram of the city popped into existence over it. The perimeter made a perfect circle, if you accounted for some blocky protrusions jutting in and out from the thick wall. There was also a circle 'cut' into the middle, which Shawn supposed corresponded roughly with the area where he saw skyscrapers in the distance. Radiating from that inner circle, four lines crossed nearly to the wall at the edge, before hitting what the squirrel assumed had to be a circular perimeter road. The radiating roads were diagonal, to his view; assuming Jason hadn't rotated the map, that meant the quadrants corresponded to the cardinal compass directions. And within those, arcs of slightly curved 'blocks' did indeed give the impression of rings…

The wolf launched into his explanation while Shawn was thinking. “So this is New Dawn. In the middle here is what folks call the Hub District. It has all the government and corporate offices involved in running the place, from administration to bulk storage to R&D." The central circle lit up in white as Jason described it. “Breeders are allowed to visit if they want, but honestly, there isn't a lot of reason for you to go there. It's the only part of the city that's not designed as an all-hours paradise for lucky guys like you. As for the rest, it's all divided into four themed quadrants." The top wedge of the pie lit up in red. “The north quadrant was designed with an urban feel, for mammals who enjoy crowds and want to party all night." Off to the right, a section turned gold. “Out to the east, things are more spread out and quiet, with more of an 'upscale suburbia' feel. Or as close as management could get it, anyway." The bottom quadrant lit up in green. “Down south, an entire quadrant is reserved for natural spaces, mostly forested over - and let me tell you, importing all those mature trees to stand this place up quickly was a huge headache! Some mammals do live out there, in cabins or just perpetually camping, but it's mostly used for getaways." The remaining wedge turned blue. “And the west quadrant is kind of an… avant-garde hodgepodge with one unifying concept: water everywhere. If you get a craving for a water park or otter pussy - or both, at the same time - you know where to go." Finally, the wolf tapped near the right edge of the display, and a little red dot appeared just south of center on the outer edge of the gold wedge, captioned 'You Are Here.'

Shawn stared at the map for several moments, struggling to internalize the information. Fortunately, having something to focus on helped to quell his panic, and his heartbeat receded to normal levels. Well, normal for a high-strung squirrel, at any rate. Shortly, something his daemon had said tugged at his thoughts. “Wait a minute, you said 'otter p- puss…'"

The wolf grinned and wagged, still crouched conspiratorially close to him. “Pussy. Vagina. Gash. Cunt. Come on dude, you came here to get some, might as well get comfortable saying it at least!"

The squirrel felt himself blushing again. “Yeah. That. But I thought all of the folks actually living here were guys. Well, aside from the staff I guess. Do they just automatically send any aquatics who come here to… get knocked up… to the blue area?"

Jason looked slightly surprised. “Only guys? Who told you that?"

Shawn paused. “Well, I just kind of had that idea from the news and such but… oh yeah, Jet. A horse I met on the flight here. He said that if you actually wanted to, um, hook up with someone you'd had a chance to get to know, it'd be another breeder."

The wolf paused, looking up and to the right as if thinking. Probably accessing a database somewhere, in reality. “Oh hey, that studhoss came back after all! Yeah, most of the permanent residents are male breeders, but the Cradle does hire women too, to act as live-in baby factories. That wasn't part of the original plan, but it turned out that even with everything we were doing here, the national birth rate was still way below target. A lot of women were deciding they didn't want kids that didn't come from their husbands and going childless rather than wrestle with the psych issues that come with surrogacy. So we stepped up our game and started making babies entirely in-house. That started about a year and a half ago, shortly after Jet bailed on us. I guess he hadn't heard." Jason grinned again. “Any guy whose balls still don't shoot blanks gets in automatically, so long as he's healthy enough for it, but management's a little choosier when it comes to the ladies. Not super restrictive - one whiff of the word 'eugenics' is enough to make watchdogs everywhere start drooling - but the medical screening's more rigorous, and there's a psych eval to make sure they can handle the job and aren't the sort to bring tons of drama into paradise. We want bitches, not bitches, if you get my meaning!"

Shawn managed a faint chuckle at that. “Okay, I guess that's cool. Although I wouldn't have minded it being more of a sausage-fest in here." He looked at the map again. “So uh, where do I live?" The question sounded timid, even to his own ears.

“The whole city's your oyster! Don't feel like you have to hide in your room all the time. In fact, I won't let you!" The wolf's grin looked a little predatory as he said that. “But yeah, we should get your stuff put away before we do anything else. And for now, that would be… here." The wolf tapped a claw on the map, and another dot - a green one - appeared a bit inside the eastern edge of the northern quadrant, slightly inwards of center. A zigzagging line of chevrons appeared linking the two dots, presumably showing the quickest path from A to B. “Red Quadrant, ring five, sector H, or R5H as folks say around here. You've got a studio apartment in what's basically an apartment building."

The squirrel gulped. “The uh… noisy, crowded quadrant, right? Oh boy…"

Jason shook his head, and closed his paw, causing the map to vanish. “That's only relative to the rest of the place. New Dawn's built for a much bigger population than it has right now, so it's not as bad as you're thinking. But yeah, with only a few exceptions everyone starts there. Show me you can be the stud you're meant to be without all the pussy coming to you, and we can talk moving options, capisce?"

“Capisco. Um, are there… buses or something? That looks like it'd be a long walk." Steeling his nerves, the squirrel finally unfolded himself from in front of Dr. Sheridan's door and stood up, trying to ignore the feeling of a faint breeze brushing his groin. Wait… breeze? Inside the dome? Oh right, they'd have to have air circulation set up somehow, wouldn't they? He started to instinctively pull his luggage in front of himself, but forced himself to stop. It wouldn't hide much anyway unless he picked it up.

The daemon remained crouched for the moment. “There are, but folks only use them when traveling in groups. And they can only run on the main roads anyway. For the solo traveler, we have something way more convenient." Jason stuck a couple of digits in his muzzle and whistled shrilly; Shawn was struck again by how realistic it sounded, despite being emitted by a couple of tiny speakers in his ears. It was even modeled for the acoustics of the wall against his back. He'd barely finished marveling at that when he heard a soft hum and the sound of approaching wheels.

Weaving along one of the wandering paved paths through the park in front of him, a sort of… two-wheeled scooter drove up to him and stopped, tooting a tinny little horn at him twice as if in greeting. Its frame consisted of a cushioned, high-traction platform between its wheels - where one was clearly meant to stand - and a vertical shaft, atop which there was a textured grip. It also had a basket, low in front of the shaft, that looked large enough for his luggage. Curious how such a contraption could remain stable while not moving, Shawn crouched down again, and spotted a couple of supports deployed under its carriage, like a pair of bicycle kickstands. Either from his sustained scrutiny or due to some action of his daemon, the squirrel was then surprised by an augmented reality text box appearing over the 'vehicle,' reading “Your Zoomy" and “Destination: Home."

“Wait, this thing is mine?"

“Well, for the moment it is, anyway," the wolf replied. “When you get where you're going, it'll either pick someone else up, or scoot off to get itself recharged. We don't use gas vehicles in New Dawn, except for the rare few deliveries that get brought in from outside without being dropped off at the perimeter wall. But don't worry, you can call for a Zoomy whenever you want. They're free!"

A strange look passed over the squirrel's face, and then he laughed. “So basically, everyone in New Dawn has the Zoomies."

Still crouching, Jason double-fingergunned at Shawn. “That's the joke dot jpeg." The squirrel blinked at that phrasing. It felt a little weird for his initially dudebro daemon-buddy to be getting nerdy at him, but he couldn't deny that the wolf was feeling more and more like one of his friends from the outside by the minute. That thought kindled a fragile flame of hope inside him. If the bio-terminal was this good at creating a friend for him that made him feel safe, maybe it would find some way to make him comfortable with… other things. Feeling slightly optimistic for a change, the squirrel took a step toward his mechanical 'steed'... and was brought up short by a pointed cough from his daemon. Looking back and down, he saw the wolf passing his insubstantial paw through the dropped bottle of Viritol and giving him an exaggeratedly pouting look.

“Oh. Right. Oops." Shawn bent down, scooped it up, and unzipped his luggage enough to stuff the bottle inside. “I wondered why you weren't getting up. Sorry."

The wolf wagged, getting to his feet, his customary grin back to full strength. “Don't worry about it! Remembering stuff for you is one of my main jobs. Along with getting you whatever you need, and getting your dick wet as often as I possibly can." He winked again. “Helping you live your best life in here is my best life. That said, Zoomies only have room for one passenger, so…" Giving a playful little wave, the wolf vanished into thin air, complete with a rather convincing misty dissipation effect. Shawn's pulse started to race again at the realization that he was suddenly alone in this strange place, but a second later, Jason's voice came back, seeming to come from inside his head. “Don't worry! I'm still here. I just don't want to superhero-run along with your ride. It ruins the illusion."

Taking a moment to steady himself again, Shawn stuffed his luggage into the Zoomy's basket, trying to get it seated as firmly as he could, and then tentatively stepped up onto it, gripping its handles. His foot claws instinctively dug down into the rubbery padding as he looked for controls… but then, without further warning, its parking supports retracted with a faint click, and it started to roll slowly forward, causing him to fight for his balance. “W-whoa!"

“It's self-driving, boss. Don't fight it, just lean into where it wants to go and you'll be home in a few minutes!"

Easier said than done, Shawn thought, swallowing his heart back down into his chest. Forcing himself to look forward instead of down, he suddenly realized there was an AR display in front of the handle, showing a single flashing forward chevron, and he cautiously shifted his weight forward a bit. The contraption steadied, having been shifting back and forth to keep itself situated under him, and started slowly rolling forward. The chevron vanished, only to be replaced by an arrow slightly curving to the left; as soon as he leaned to the side, the Zoomy went into a slow circle, and then straightened out again, carrying him back into the park at what would have been a relaxed jog.

“There you go! It'll warn you before it steers. For now, enjoy the view! I'll be here if you wanna talk as you ride."

Shawn had to admit, the view was definitely worth appreciating. The trees around him rustled softly in the artificial breeze, and the smell of freshly-cut grass from the manicured lawn filled his nose. It struck him that the absence of fuel-burning vehicles was just another part of the unreality of this place; the air in New Dawn smelled fresher and cleaner than city air had any right to smell. By this point, the sun was sinking off to the west, casting a reddening glow over the whole affair and making the dome overhead glitter faintly in the growing dusk.

“Isn't this a weird place for a park, right against the intake offices?"

“Management wanted the first thing new breeders saw to be nice and relaxing. And it's working, isn't it?"

“Yeah, I guess it is."

“Of course, not everyone who comes here does it to relax. Heads up, ten o'clock!"

Shawn's head swiveled a bit to the left… and he felt his ears burning again. Right there, on a bench in the medium distance, he spotted a pair of tigers sitting on a bench. Only, more accurately, it was a male tiger sitting on the bench, and a woman kneeling over him, bouncing slowly in his lap as the two of them made out with each other, oblivious to their surroundings. They were not only fucking in a public park, they were doing it without any indication of self-awareness or discomfort… and despite himself, Shawn felt his body responding, the tip of his cock peeking slightly out of his short sheath as if it wanted to watch as well.

He heard Jason chuckle inside his head. “I'd offer to stop the ride and let you watch, but there's no one else here to deal with that stiffy you're getting, and I don't want to tempt you to break the rules before you even see the inside of your apartment. Don't worry, if watching is your thing you'll have plenty of chances to do that on a daily basis!" As if to spare him, the Zoomy followed a turn to his right, taking the feline lovers out his field of view.

Fighting down his embarrassment, Shawn cast about for something else to talk about, as the northern edge of the park came into view. “Oh hey, the doctor said there was a way for me to talk to you silently? It'd be nice if I didn't have to go around in public looking like a madman talking to his invisible friend."

“Pshh, it's not like there's anyone here who doesn't know about us. But yeah, it is a handy trick to have. Hearing a bunch of one-sided conversations around you can get annoying. It's simple, really. As I hear you talk, I learn to read your vocal motor impulses. I've already got a pretty good read on you, although it's not perfect yet; that'll take a few days, assuming you don't go silent on me. All you do is turn down the volume until you're not actually making a sound. You can even reduce your lip and tongue movements most of the way if you want, but you still have to sort of 'intend' to talk so you're sending the right commands to your throat and mouth. Think of it like muttering silently to yourself. We call it subvocalizing. Give it a try?"

Pondering for a moment, Shawn licked his lips, then tried to speak without actually speaking. (What's this park called?)

“Sunrise Point. Since it's way on the east edge of the city. I'm not a fan of the name, personally; this close to the city wall, you actually don't get a very good view of the sunrise at all. Not bad by the way, that was pretty clear!"

“Man, that's cool. How does this city have all this fancy tech, anyway? I get that the government was willing to burn money since the breeding program is a super big deal, but I didn't think most of this stuff even existed yet." The scooter emerged from the park onto a broader path still not worthy of being called a road, and showed him three chevrons pulsing forward. The squirrel leaned into the suggested shift, and the Zoomy earned its name, picking up speed until he felt some real wind flowing over his naked form and causing his tailfur to flutter behind him. For as strange as the device had seemed at first, it turned out to be surprisingly intuitive once you learned to stop fighting it!

“Hah! You haven't even seen most of our cool stuff yet. Well, except for me; I am admittedly kind of awesome." Shawn chuckled; somehow, his daemon's bravado emboldened him in turn. “To answer your question though, they'd been quietly working on this stuff for about ten, fifteen years before the Empty Nest Plague hit. The fossil fuel crisis, pollution, climate change, transportation issues, and honestly just how much a lot of metropolises outright suck from being beholden to their original designs… they'd put a think tank together to envision 'the cities of the future' and to figure out how they could make them happen. The fertility pandemic just gave them a perfect excuse to pull the trigger and put up a proof of concept for everything they'd come up with… and now you get to live in it!"

The Zoomy signaled a deceleration and a left turn, and Shawn accommodated it, the responses rapidly becoming almost second nature to him. As it arced to the left, Shawn got a clear view of the center of the city, with his mini-road looking to have a clear shot all the way to the periphery of Hub District. He must have reached one of the main radial roads. Having completed its turn, his scooter sped up again, to the point that Shawn had to narrow his eyes against the blast of wind in his face, and he felt his fur slicking back from the force of its passage as it roared in his ears a bit. “Still, it's incredible… and I mean that in the literal sense, I'm having trouble believing it. Even if this worked for a single special case for an urgent need, how would they have the resources to do this all over the place? It seems like a pipe dream."

“It looks impossible because… well, because it looks impossible. Hear me out. A lot of the effort that goes into building and maintaining a place like this is only doable because we have the tech to automate a lot more than people think. New Dawn is powered by a ginormous array of solar panels, along with a single beefy nuclear power plant. The construction was mostly handled by robots - under mammal supervision, yes, but machines that know what they're doing can actually work faster and more precisely than people doing the same work, in a lot of cases. And they don't have to stop to sleep or eat. Folks are attached to the old ways because it's what they're used to, and in some cases because the mammals with all the money stand to benefit if the rest of you are stuck looking for shitty jobs because society has decided you don't get to have food or shelter if you don't slave away for half your waking hours. They lobby the government and shut down any attempts to shift things away from the paradigm that lets them feel special, because they think that quality of life is a zero sum game. The MRV-1 crisis gave lawmakers a credible excuse to politely flip those people off, and now we've got a door opened to what I hope will be a better future for everyone. The plague is a disaster, sure, but sometimes a forest needs a fire in order to stop choking itself to death."

Shawn clung to his Zoomy in shocked silence for the better part of a minute, only snapping out of it when it gently slowed and signaled a right turn. As it rounded the corner, the squirrel found himself passing down what looked like a stereotypically old fashioned residential neighborhood, complete with white picket fences. The road arced slightly to the left here, limiting his visibility, but above the houses he could see taller buildings coming closer in the distance. The edge of Red Quadrant, he supposed. Clearing his throat, he finally spoke up. “That was… surprisingly political for an AI assistant. Did management tell you to say that?"

There was a brief pause before Jason replied. “Nnno, not as such. Spouting ideological crap isn't one of my mandates. But at the same time, the core behavioral gestalt that each of us starts off with before we customize ourselves for our assigned people was trained on tons of interaction with the people who initially designed us - the personnel of the New Dawn Project. It was called that long before this city got started, just to be clear. So naturally that colors my thinking. It's a lot like how kids start out believing that whatever their parents taught them is the objective truth. I guess what I'm saying is, feel free to take me with a grain of salt. At the end of the day I'm still just a mountain of ones and zeroes."

“Dude, I just flew across the country, got a sci-fi gizmo installed on my spine by a doctor who stole my clothes, and now I'm riding a self-driving scooter to an apartment I've never seen before where I'll have to get used to the idea of sticking my gay dick in women I don't even know. My brain-sponge is so far past capacity I can't even laugh at it anymore."

Jason chuckled inside Shawn's head. “You're right. I'm sorry. I'll try to avoid going on unnecessary tangents until you figure out which way is up, okay?"

“Sounds good. So how much longer until we get there?"

Instead of an audible reply, Shawn got an additional element on the Zoomy's AR display. ETA: 3:47. It immediately started counting down.

“Am I likely to have to go 'zooming' around the city like this on a daily basis?"

“Naw bro, not unless you want to. You could probably stay within walking distance of your place until it's time for your monthly checkup if you felt like it. Well, outside of any other appointments you might end up getting…"

Shawn swallowed hard at the reminder. The next time he got on one of these things, it might be to meet with a woman halfway across the city that some computer had decided he was obliged to impregnate. The ultimate, no-frills booty call. He felt himself getting dizzy at the prospect, and shook his head briskly to clear it, grimly settling in to ride out the rest of the trip in silence.

The Zoomy warned him of deceleration again, gradually dropping to barely more than walking speed as he approached the first real street he'd seen since coming into New Dawn. The divide was stark; on the near side was purest suburbia, while just across the four-lane road squatted a neon-lit Italian deli, backed against a three-level parking garage on one side and what looked to be a retro music store on the other. The Zoomy paused only long enough to confirm that there were no off-grid vehicles coming from either direction, then rolled on across the boundary into the Red Quadrant.

Shawn had spotted a handful of mammals here and there during his trip through the Yellow Quadrant, but he'd been moving at such a speed that he'd barely had time to register more than their vague presence before he was past. Here, though, the scooter stayed close to a walking speed, out of deference to the amount of foot traffic, and the squirrel got his first real look at the denizens of his home for the next year.

Sure, the rampant nudity was going to take some getting used to - although he quickly realized the rules weren't quite as inflexible as he'd been led to believe. There was a cute, if sullen-looking, meerkat guy off to his right wearing a black hoodie - and nothing else. Oh, and there to the left was a zebra in what looked like motorcycle leathers… that left his considerable junk in full view, the dark material framing his loins in a way that made them look like they'd been put on deliberate display. Leon's 'less than nothing' comment rapidly started to make a lot more sense. Still, aside from that, most of the folks he was seeing looked surprisingly… ordinary! With one notable exception. Of the relatively few women he was seeing, a solid majority were visibly in some stage of pregnancy, ranging from a faint swell to a massive bulge that looked ready to pop at any moment… and the ones that weren't showing, well, a fair number of those were visibly on the prowl, either moving with a swaying strut that betrayed their intent, or in some cases getting pinned to a wall or a bench and bred in full view of the locals. Shawn felt his blush returning as his Zoomy slowed to a stop in front of a three-story apartment building and clicked its parking supports back down into place, letting out a quick double-chirp. A glance at the AR display confirmed the obvious; the ETA was showing 0:00. The squirrel dismounted, feeling oddly wobbly as he got solid ground back under his feet. He found the effect was not unlike stepping off of a boat after he'd gotten his sea legs. He stretched self-consciously, his entire body tense from the unfamiliar experience, and clumsily retrieved his luggage from the vehicle as Jason coalesced back into existence beside him.

“Welcome home, bro! You're on the third floor, up on the right. Follow me!" The black wolf trotted off into a small hallway that opened onto some sort of central courtyard, and Shawn followed him, sniffing the air as he went. Was someone… grilling burgers?

His suspicion was immediately proved correct. As he entered the courtyard, he found a dozen mammals gathered around a pair of charcoal grills, maneuvering paper plates and plastic cups between a trio of tables. Presiding over it all was a spotted hyena who looked to be in his forties, an apron his uniform and tongs his scepter of office. Shawn only realized he had stopped to stare when a jerboa with more enthusiasm than decorum suddenly called out, “Look! Fresh seed!" The amiable conversation all cut off as the lot of them turned as one to stare back, causing Shawn to will himself into a merciful implosion that would not come.

A little voice in the back of his head wondered if he still had any functional capillaries left in his face at this point.

It was the hyena who saved him. He turned away, pointing his tongs at the jerboa and clacking them in regal reproach. “Now see here, you remember what it was like when you walked in here for the first time. Don't go giving our new neighbor a heart attack before he's even settled in!" The interrupted conversations slowly sprang back to life, creating a soothing background murmur, and the abashed jerboa scratched the back of one of his giant ears, before becoming keenly interested in his dinner. The hyena ambled closer on broad paws, smiling at Shawn. “Don't mind Caleb, he's uh… he's a whole kind of person." The tongs were transferred to their owner's left paw, and he held out the right toward the squirrel. “I'm Vinny. You go on ahead and get settled… but then get your cute butt back out here and get yourself some grub, you hear? They've got every kind of restaurant you can think of around here, but I'll put my burgers up against the best of them any day."

Shaking Vinny's paw on autopilot, Shawn found himself too overwhelmed to meet the hyena's eyes... but that just caused his gaze to drift downward onto the apron, which had 'Kiss the Cook' printed in block letters. And an arrow pointing downward toward the hyena's covered groin. Shawn suddenly found himself acutely aware of the fact that Vinny wasn't wearing anything under it.

Realizing he'd held onto the hyena's paw longer than social niceties dictated, he suddenly dropped it and turned away to see Jason standing on the bottom flight of stairs, green eyes sparkling with mirth. The squirrel collapsed his luggage's handle, picked it up, and quickly pursued his grinning daemon up two flights of stairs. Apartment 307… it already had a little nameplate under the number reading 'Shawn Farrell.' He heard a click from the door as he approached, its lock apparently responding to his presence, and hurried instead, shutting it behind himself more forcefully than he intended as the lights turned themselves on.

Shawn stood with his back against the door, breathing heavily as he fought down his jangling nerves, staring unseeingly at his new home for the foreseeable future. Gradually, details started to filter into his awareness. Bed against the back right wall. Bathroom, back left. Kitchenette to the right, closet to the left. Window over the table beside him, its curtains closed. Swallowing his heart back down into his chest for what felt like the hundredth time of the day, he pushed himself off of the door and ran a paw through his headfur.

“Hey, you didn't end up on your butt this time. Progress!" Jason was grinning at him again, arms folded as he leaned against the wall next to the bathroom.

“You're all heart, man."

“I try. So, what do you think?"

Shawn scanned the single-room apartment one more time. “It's uh, kind of small. About the same size as where I lived before, actually. Given everything about this place, I kind of expected…" He gestured indistinctly. “...I dunno. More?"

“Hey, this is just the basic model, man. We don't know what folks like until after they get here. Besides, it's part of the idea to give you a reason to go out and stretch your legs, especially at first. Early on, we started breeders off in Yellow Quadrant, but we found it led to a really slow start before they worked up the nerve to get to work. So nowadays we throw all the fresh seed in the deep end to break 'em in. We may be all about making your lives as easy and fun as possible, but you gotta remember, at the end of the day that's so that you can prevent the collapse of civilization as we know it. For all the decadence of New Dawn, it's actually the first, last and only line of defense against the extinction scenario everyone's been shitting themselves over for the past four years. Domestically, at least. This is the most important job you're ever likely to have."

“So, y'know. No pressure." Shawn forced a smirk, but neither of them bought it.

“Exactly! So how about you unpack and see about some dinner? I could practically hear your stomach growling when you smelled the grills."

Without a word, Shawn lifted his luggage up onto the table and unzipped it. Compared to the enormity of his change in circumstances, his paltry pile of belongings seemed insignificant. His clothes went into the closet, to be ignored until he left the program, he presumed. The laptop stayed on the table; his handheld gaming system went onto the nightstand. Pills into the kitchen for now… oh, his phone! He hadn't checked it since getting off the plane! He looked around for an outlet. “Hey Jason, where can I plug… this… in?" His voice trailed off as he stared at the battery indicator, which was showing 100%. How in the hell…?

The wolf ambled closed and peeked over his shoulder - a performative display, since the daemon could see anything he could. “Since we don't charge for electricity here, we have no reason to make power difficult. There are wireless charging fields over just about the whole city. That's what keeps your bio-terminal from running down, and it so happens that it works on modern phones too. It's not enough for big consumers like the Zoomies, though. And there should be an outlet under the table for your lappy."

So there was. Shawn got it plugged in, then stared at the messages from his family on his phone. Feeling utterly unequal to the task of giving them a response worthy of what he was going through, he just tersely told them that everything was okay and set it down next to his computer. Breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Again. Again. Feeling almost guilty, he glanced over at Jason again. “Do… do you think they'd mind if I got some food and just brought it back up here? I could really use some alone time."

Jason looked up and to the right again, as if thinking. “Mind? Eh. I think they'd understand. Everyone's been through this, after all. But if you can manage it, I'd really like to see you get to know a few of them. You'll feel less alone once you do. I mean, I know I'm awesome, but I'm just a digital ghost. They're real people, just like you. And if you promise to at least try to eat out there with them, I'll give you a present!"

The squirrel's ears perked, but he eyed the wolf warily. “What kind of present?"

Jason grinned again, and started wagging. “Information! We keep profiles on every breeder and client in New Dawn. If you think you're ready, I'll start showing you things about people around you." The wolf rubbed his paws together. “I love to gossip, and I think you'll find it very eye-opening."

Despite everything, the wolf was succeeding in tugging on Shawn's technophilia… and his curiosity. “Okay, okay. I'll at least eat before I come back in here, okay?"

“Awesome!" The lupine avatar's tail sped up like he'd been offered a treat. “Okay, so here's what it looks like."

Suddenly, an augmented reality infobox appeared in the air over Jason's shoulder. The background was a light purple, and the border, a darker shade of the same color.

Jason - Daemon

Assigned to - Shawn Farrell

Unbelievably awesome

Thinks you are too

Shawn sputtered, and a laugh escaped before he could catch it. “You can just write whatever you want in there, can't you?"

“Yup! We can take a bit of creative license, but we make it a point never to lie to you outright. If you don't trust us, we can't do our jobs. Now, the text is usually black, but I can change it if I really want to make you notice something. The background and borders though, those matter. The background color I use indicates how I think you'll feel about someone. If it's red, then maybe don't try to hang out with that person, I'm pretty sure you'll hate their guts. At the opposite end, if it's green, then I'm pretty sure they're worth your time! The borders are the other way around; that's what their daemon tells me about you, from their person's perspective. So like, a red border with a green background means I think that person's right up your alley, but they might not be a big fan of you in return. Finally, blue and purple are special. Blue means someone I'm specifically trying to get you to pay attention to, for whatever nefarious reasons I might have, and purple means that person has a special significance to you. Like yours truly!" The wolf spread his arms.

Shawn nodded, absorbing the explanation easily enough. “But why would a daemon even have an infobox? It's not like anyone else can see you anyway."

“Weeelllll… that's not entirely true. It's possible for you to make me visible to some or all other people, if they opt into seeing me. But the mighty oak does not grow in a single season, grasshopper. We'll save that one for after you're in the New Dawn groove. There are still a lot of other things I have to teach you before that. Now. Go eat!"

The gathering was still in full swing when Shawn made his way back down into the courtyard. Aside from a few smiling glances, his new neighbors made it a point not to inflict undue attention on him, for which he was extremely grateful. It struck him that the noise of the cookout had been completely inaudible while he was in his apartment; the soundproofing in his new home was a cut above what he was used to. The squirrel poured himself a soda and tossed back both his anti-anxiety pill and his first dose of Viritol, then surreptitiously cast a sidelong look at Caleb while the jerboa's back was turned. As if sensing his intent, an infobox popped up immediately.

Caleb Granger

Breeder

Friendly but somewhat immature

Vigorous lover

Seems interested in you

That last part rather surprised Shawn, but it was right there in the box; while the background was an indifferent yellow, the border was a pale green. Huh! The squirrel's eyes shifted to the hyena, who was tending one of the grills while talking football with a coyote Shawn hadn't met yet. This time, the box was a soothing (and rather encouraging!) green on blue.

Vincent Ellsworth

Breeder

Pillar of the community

Enjoys younger partners

Absolute 'daddy' material

Loves receiving oral

Shawn felt his ears burning again… and then did a double take. The borders of the box were blue? Did that mean Vinny's daemon was… nudging him?

To spare himself from having to think about that too much, the squirrel busied himself fetching a plate and a hamburger roll, then shuffled over toward the grilling hyena. He had to fight his tail to stop it from looping shyly in front of his legs as Vinny looked over his shoulder to smile at him.

“Oh hey, if it isn't the man of the hour! Perfect timing, I've got one that's just coming ready." The hyena slid a hamburger patty onto the squirrel's open bun, and Shawn felt his mouth start watering anew. “Toppings are on the first table, sides on the second, drinks on the third." The hyena seemed to look past him for a moment. “Oh, and I see your daemon's turned on gossip mode already. Nice."

Shawn had just started turning away, but paused at that. “Wait, how do you know that?"

The hyena gave him a lopsided grin. “It's a two-way thing. Won't show you info about someone who hasn't had it turned on yet. So uh… Shawn, is it? You know where to find me if you're hungry for a second helping." As the hyena turned back toward the grills, his apron shifted briefly, affording the squirrel the briefest of glances beneath at the startlingly fat glans jutting out of Vinny's heavy sheath.

Yeah, no. That had not been an accident.

Shawn swallowed hard, stammered out his thanks, and escaped to anoint his dinner with cheese, ketchup, mustard, pickles, and a generous slice of onion. He saw Jason in his peripheral vision, wearing what could only be described as a shit-eating grin, and grimaced slightly. (You didn't tell me you'd start tattling on me if I agreed to that,) he subvocalized.

“You didn't know I wasn't doing it already," the wolf countered. “Besides, you know damned well you want that man's cock in your face, and I can tell you that the only reason he didn't offer it to you explicitly is that he's too much of a gentleman to do that to 'fresh seed', as we call newbies here. So eat your dinner so that you can get to dessert, already!"

Ears burning, Shawn moved down the line. The eternal question: macaroni salad, or potato salad? Screw it, both. He refilled his cup, then managed to locate a seat at one end of the middle table without looking up enough to make eye contact with anyone, and settled in to eat.

Vinny's comment earlier hadn't been an empty boast. Even accounting for how hungry he was, this was still possibly the best burger he'd ever eaten. Good food has a way of calming the worst cases of nerves, and it sure didn't hurt that his anxiety meds started kicking in at exactly the same time; about halfway through his meal, he found he had relaxed enough to risk looking up from his plate again.

And directly into the smiling blue eyes of the twentysomething white rabbit doe sitting across from him.

Had he just failed to notice her there before? No, it was actually even simpler than that: he had refused to notice her, or most of the people in the courtyard, until that moment. He was like an ostrich burying his head in the sand to feel safer. He paused for a moment. Did they actually do that? Eh, didn't matter. He dimly registered that the lapine woman seated across from him was wiggling her fingers in greeting. Reality to Shawn, are you receiving? He shook his head to escape from inside of it.

“Uh, hi." Real smooth. Engage rizz circuits! “Pleasant unweather we're having." Nice, that's definitely not going to haunt you in your dreams for the next thirty years.

The rabbit laughed into her paw. “Relax! You look like you think I'm going to stick a straw in you and crumple you up like an empty Capri Sun." She laughed again. Despite it all, Shawn found himself smiling. There was something easy and natural about the way she laughed. Disarming, that was the word. The sound was disarming.

“Sorry," he managed to chuckle out. “First day here. And I uh… I've always been about as smooth as sandpaper around the ladies."

The rabbit's eyes darted up over his shoulder, then back to his face. Was that sympathy he saw in her expression? “This must be really awkward for you. I just wanted to say, I admire what you're trying to do here, and I hope it works out for you. I'll be around if you… want to talk or anything, okay?" Her eyes went past him again, and lit up. “Oh my god, Sharon, look how big you are!" She got up, scurrying past the table. “Whose is it? Whose is it?!" Shawn tracked her with his eyes until she moved past him, but… that movement had put her tits at eye height on him. He abruptly realized it was a good thing they allowed bras for the women. He had to imagine someone like that rabbit needed a bit of… support.

Jason lowered himself into the seat the rabbit had vacated, smiling at him. He rewarded it with a faint frown. (How come you didn't show me any of her info?) The wolf just shrugged. “You didn't ask?" When the squirrel continued to scowl at him, he sighed. “Look, I can read your reactions to things, remember? When you looked at the guys, you felt curiosity, so I popped up some info for you. When you looked at her, all you felt was fear. So I didn't. I could have decided to shove it in your face - and believe me, I was tempted - but I'm trying to respect your wishes here, and let you do things at your own speed. Do you want me to start pushing you harder?"

At that, Shawn's gaze fell, and he shook his head a little. “I'm sorry." He cursed under his breath as he realized he'd said that part out loud and quickly finished his dinner, feeling properly full for the first time since he left home… how many hours ago had that been, now? The sun was properly down at this point, and he'd flown almost two time zones to the west… it had definitely been a long day. A long, and very strange, day. He looked up at the soft light of his room shining through the curtains, and thought of the warm bed and soft comforter waiting for him up there. He could slip into them right now… but in spite of it all, he felt unfulfilled. The madness of his enrollment, all the conflicting things he'd been feeling, they demanded closure. Something to tie it all together before he could put the day to rest. Heart pounding at the enormity of what he was thinking, he found his gaze sliding back to his right, where Vinny was shutting down the grills for the night.

Jason followed his gaze, and started wagging again. “Do it, bro. He's pent up; if you don't, he'll find someone else who will." He started chanting rhythmically. “Do it! Do it! Do it!"

Shawn balled his paws into fists; he swore he could hear his pulse pounding in his ears. Even so, he somehow managed to force himself to his feet. The crowd was already starting to disperse as he circled around the topping table, although a few people stayed behind to help clean up. His traitorous feet started to take him toward the stairs, away from the situation that scared him, but he forced them back on course, and came up to the hyena just as he was tossing his apron over a cooling grill.

“Hey there, Shawn. How was dinner?"

The squirrel cleared a frog out of his tightened throat. “It was great. But, um…" Hesitantly, a paw came up and hovered in the air for a moment, before splaying over the hyena's belly. He could feel a layer of firm muscle under the soft padding that age was conspiring to force onto the older man. “I've… decided I want seconds after all." With intense effort, he lifted his gaze to Vinny's face, and found the daddyeen smiling warmly down at him.

“Well then," he murmured, “feel free to help yourself."

Lidding his eyes, Shawn let his paw drift downward… and let out a soft whimper of need as the side of it bumped into the warm, soft, slightly damp head of the hyena's cock. Almost of their own accord, his pawpads slid over Vinny's glans, glistening faintly in the stark white light of the overhead lamps, and felt it respond immediately, the stud's cock sliding quickly out of hiding into his gentle touch.

Shawn had no recollection of getting down onto his knees, but suddenly there he was, face to face with the cock he'd been fantasizing about all through dinner. It was only slightly longer than his - which was to say, shorter than Connor's had been - but damn was it fat. His own didn't hold a candle to it, ragingly hard as it was. And the smell… he found himself snuffling at Vinny's penis as if it could get him high. Which, in fact, it could. It had been a long day for the hyena too, one of continual arousal but no actual release, which left his shaft with a thin sheen of musky sweat that held Shawn's hindbrain in an ecstatic vice grip of pure virility. He had to have a taste, and then another, his soft little tongue flicking over the taut skin of the hyena's shaft in a way that made the bigger man's eyes flutter shut to the sound of a deep, hungry groan. The squirrel felt Vinny's big paws both wrap around behind his head and pull him in close. Three words were all it took.

“Drink me, boy."

The rumbled command caused the straining dam of lust in Shawn's mind to give way completely. Whining in submissive need, he opened his maw and took Vinny's cock fully into his mouth, nursing on it softly in a way that drew a sharp hiss from the older man. Holding the squirrel's head steady in a gentle grip, the hyena started thrusting slowly but firmly between his lips and against his tongue, pre spilling from him in quantities that reminded Shawn of Connor's protracted canid orgasms. But the taste… Shawn could not have articulated just what was so different about it, but on some level it was just more raw, more purely masculine than what his ex-boyfriend had fed him so many times.

Maybe Jet had been right. Maybe fertile men just tasted different. Better. So, so much better. The squirrel's cock twitched, aching desperately for attention, and he struggled not to touch himself. Touching Vinny, though, that was fair game. Both paws came up, each wrapping under and around one of the hyena's massive testicles, hefting and rubbing them gently as he heard a gasp and another, more urgent groan from the man towering over him. The grip on his skull tightened, and the thrusting sped up.

“Oh fuck, I'm gonna cum. I'm gonna cum in your face, boy!" The flow of pre thickened, and then cut off as the hyena's powerful body tensed up, and his lips drew back to expose his sharp teeth as his eyes shut and his head tilted upward. “Ohhhh fuuuuck yes, suck it down squirrel, gulp my fuckin' breeder-seed down into yooouuu aaaaAAAAAGGGHN!"

Shawn felt Vinny's powerful body quake in overwhelming bliss, his thick legs trembling as orgasm overcame him. Mashing the squirrel's nose firmly into his pubic fur, the hyena dug his claws into the dirt, and the thick sausage filling Shawn's mouth twitched and swelled to its utter limits. Shawn felt the hyena's massive nuts tug upwards in a subtle, steady rhythm, and an instant later, the stud's thick cum blasted into the back of the squirrel's throat. For a single moment, he gagged; this was by no means his first blowjob, but Connor had never pressure-washed his tonsils with such force and volume! As his maw filled with Vinny's potent essence, he quickly got himself under control and started swallowing to clear it… but within moments, he realized that he was losing the battle. His maw was flooded to the lower incisors and his throat was closing up from the thick coating of hyaenid semen as it threatened to cut off his air; this beast of a man was simply ejaculating faster than he could drink the viscous stuff, and as it leaked out onto his jaw, Shawn felt himself starting to fall in love.

Vinny let out a heavy sigh as his climax finally ebbed, and remained still for several moments as the squirrel cleared his gullet and started to lick him clean. Neither was in any rush to end the moment. Smiling as Shawn looked up at him with wide eyes, the hyena rubbed over his playmate's head with both big paws. “How's that for a 'welcome to town', kiddo?"

An involuntary cough finally forced the squirrel teen to pull back, giving him a chance to wipe at his face with the back of a paw. “Five stars, would move in again." He coughed again, surprised at how rough his voice sounded, and suddenly realized he felt slightly nauseated. Man, no matter how gay, was not meant to drink that much semen in one sitting. “Ooogh…"

“Yeah, I have that effect on people," Vinny commented sympathetically. “Three straight years of the fun pills will turn anyone into a cum hose, and I was already a producer before I signed up. There should be something in your medicine cabinet to help, but next time maybe don't try to swallow it all."

Shawn felt himself perk up at that. “Next time, huh?" His giant tail swished against the grass behind him; he still hadn't gotten up off his knees.

The hyena chuckled. “Lived around here since I signed up, and I'm not aiming to change that anytime soon. Apartment 103. …on which note, I'd better go shower before I skunk up the inside of my sheath. Wouldn't be a bad idea for you, too." He gave the squirrel one more affectionate headrub, then sauntered off to do just that, leaving Shawn kneeling there for several moments more as his head reeled.

“Feeling better, bro?"

Shawn scrambled to his feet, startled; he'd been so lost in the moment with Vinny he'd completely forgotten about his daemon! Jason gave him an apologetic look. “He was right, by the way. You're kind of a mess." Looking down at himself, the squirrel had to agree; he hadn't realized just how much yeen spunk had dribbled down his chest and… damn, he'd even gotten some on his own dick. Which, as his head cleared, started reminding him in no uncertain terms that it hadn't gotten in on the fun. Groaning, he started the mercifully short 'walk of shame' back to his own digs.

He let himself stand under the blast of hot water for a few minutes before he even bothered to open a bottle of shampoo. Somehow, it wasn't even all that weird to him that Jason was leaning against the wall just on the other side of the glass; the daemon was leaving him alone with his thoughts in any case. At least, that was until he got a little too thorough washing his cock; that got him a warning cough, and he forced himself to stop. The need to cum was driving him nuts; the fact that there was a hot wolf in the room with him wasn't doing him any favors on that count.

“So hypothetically, if I pawed off in here right now, what would you do about it?"

“I would, hypothetically, warn you that you lose credit with the program when you break rules like that. You're right that I can't stop you - although I can make you see and hear gross shit if I really wanna be a dick - but please don't screw yourself over before I even have a chance to show you the goodies you can earn if you play along. Not to mention the money when you check out!"

“How does all that work, anyway?" Shawn found it oddly comforting to have someone to chat with while he was showering. Even Connor hadn't been inclined to hang out while he got clean - unless they were in there together, in which case… god damn it, he was never getting rid of this erection!

“Well, you can earn credit in a variety of ways, but by far the biggest one is breeding. Obviously. Number two would be collection - you got a little initial nudge from that back during intake." That cleared up what he meant by 'collection.' “Everything else is pretty much chump change, but management has an interest in building a happy society in here, so playing nice does count for a bit on its own. And it adds up three different ways. One, your payout at the end of the year. Two, your ability to get extra goodies in New Dawn - that has its own 'balance', it doesn't take from your payout. That's what you'd use if you wanted a place in Yellow Quadrant, for example, or on a much smaller scale, if you take a liking to the massage parlors around here."

“Food's free though, right?"

“Yeah. Well, if you wanna get fancy that does take credit, but groceries and fast food level stuff, that's free."

“Alright. What's number three?"

The glass door was steamed up by this point, but Shawn could still hear Jason grinning as he replied. “It lets me do nice things for you. So if I see something I think you'd enjoy, I can spring it on you without using your credit."

“Right now, the only thing I want 'sprung on me' is a way to get off so I can sleep."

“Your wish is my command."

Shawn blinked, and cracked the door open to peer at his daemon. The cheeky bastard was standing there, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, with a literal halo floating over his grinning head as he utterly failed to elaborate. “What do you-*"

“New Dawn's universal safeword is 'pineapple.' If you don't use it, I'll have coffee and breakfast waiting for you when you wake up tomorrow." Without another word, the wolf dissipated into mist.

“Jason? …Jason?!"

Knock knock.

Jumping in the shower is really not a best practice.

Swearing quietly, Shawn picked himself up, shut off the water, and grabbed a towel. Quickly wiping himself off, he nevertheless tracked water across his new home on his way to answer the door. Hiding behind it as he cracked it open, he found the rabbit from dinner standing there, rocking back and forth on her big feet, fingers laced low in front of herself. She looked almost as anxious as he felt. Without warning, an infobox popped up over her shoulder, blue on blue.

Rebecca Summerfield

Recipient - Resident

Enjoys easing new breeders into New Dawn life

Kind, patient and understanding

Needs this as bad as you do

Just take it slow, bro!

The text of that last line was bouncing slightly. In truth, he found the reminder that his daemon was actively writing this info for his benefit jarring.

“Um, hi again. Sorry, I was in the shower. I, uh…"

The rabbit smiled nervously. “...would be just as naked if you weren't showering, remember?"

Shawn facepawed. “Right. Sorry, it's going to take a while for me to get used to this." He dropped his paw back to his side. “Did Jason put you up to this?"

The rabbit tilted her head. “I'm guessing that's your daemon? Um, yes and no. Yes, mine kind of hinted that you were… looking for some company, so I guess he must have told her. But… no, I was actually kind of walking back and forth out here already trying to think of an excuse to knock…" She ducked her head a bit in what appeared to be sincere self-consciousness, and gave him a hopeful look. “May I come in?"

Despite the way his heart was pounding in fear at the implications of where this was heading, Shawn was acutely aware that he'd be hurting her feelings if he turned her down… and somewhere in the back of his mind, he was aware that she might well represent his best chance to confront the reality of the situation he'd gotten himself into. Still holding the towel wrapped around his lower body, he found himself opening the door the rest of the way with his other paw. “I um… I have to warn you…"

The young woman slipped in, and he quickly shut the door behind her. Before he could find the nerve to finish his sentence, she did it for him. “You're gay, right?"

He nodded silently, lips pressed together grimly for several moments. “People I just met knowing things about me… that's another thing that's gonna take a while. But yeah. Crazy, right? Me being here…"

The rabbit laid her ears back, but shook her head briskly. “I don't think so. It's a matter of survival, right? It's easy for a lot of guys to sign up for this job when their test comes back good. Heck, for most of them it's probably a dream come true. But here you are, even though you aren't into women. That's part of why I wanted to get to know you, to figure out what convinces someone like you to sign up to breed."

Shawn stood there, dripping on the floor. He wanted to towel himself off, but if he did that… He gritted his teeth. He had just sucked off a man old enough to be his father in the courtyard, and this rabbit had probably been watching. It was way too late to find his modesty now. With a massive effort of will, he let the towel fall away, revealing his raging erection, and then tried to tune it out himself as he rubbed it over his head. “Would you believe me if I pled temporary insanity?"

She laughed - nervously, but once again Shawn found the sound disarming. It was the authenticity, he decided; somehow, she just seemed like nothing she did was performative, unlike most people who just reacted in what they thought was the most socially acceptable way. “I think I'd have to, considering that's what I told my family when they freaked out over me signing up to make babies for a living!"

“But you're still here."

“A bit into my second year, in fact! It just took me a bit to figure out how I fit in, here." She paused. “Would you like me to blow you?"

Shawn tensed up, eyes going wide, and a heartbeat later the rabbit clapped her paws over her muzzle as hers did the same, her inner ears turning crimson. “Blowdry! BlowDRY! I… aaa!" Her paws moved up to cover her eyes. “I'm offering to help you dry off!"

Silence filled the room as Shawn stared in shock and dawning understanding. A sudden, grunted 'huh' escaped his chest without warning. “Hah… haha… HAHAHAHA!" All the anxiety and confusion of his day erupted, uncontrollably, as the squirrel started laughing until tears undid some of his work drying off his face. Hearing it, the bunny peeked out between her fingers, and after a moment she lost herself to it as well. And just like that, the unbearable tension was simply gone.

“Hoo… yes, I'd love it if you would blow me. Rebecca, right? I'm Shawn."

“Just Becca, please." Still giggling, she padded over to the bathroom and started rummaging in the drawers under the sink until she found the blow dryer. Shawn followed her, and in moments he had deliciously warm air blowing through his soaked fur, slowly restoring him to his natural dimensions. His tail, as always, needed it the most; a soaked squirrel tail is a sorry sight indeed.

The process gave him a little time to think about her question. Why was he here, really? “I guess it was a combination of things. My job before this was shit. I mean, physically it was fine, but emotionally it was killing me. When I got my test results back, something… snapped, and I realized that 'sex for a living' was a no brainer compared to where I was. Even if it was with women. …no offense!"

Smiling, Becca shook her head. “None taken."

Shawn turned in place, letting her work. Having someone else dry him off really was luxurious, if he was honest, even though the situation still weirded him out. “On some level, yeah, I guess I did feel kind of… obligated, y'know? It felt so ironic, for this to be wasted on me. But I don't want you to think I'm here as some kind of noble sacrifice to the survival of mammalkind." His voice got quieter. “In the end, I was just running away."

The rabbit was quiet for several moments before replying. “Honestly, I think I was too. I don't really want to go into details, but… I saw which way my life was going, and I didn't like it. So this job was a way out for me too. And it was really rough for me when I first got here, but I found ways to make it work for me. And I think you will too." She flicked the switch on the blow dryer off with a sharp snap, and smiled encouragingly at him.

Still at nearly full mast, Shawn's penis ached insistently at him. It wasn't the first time he'd had to deny himself pleasure for this long, but it was getting painful. Still, he wasn't yet ready to confront the obvious solution to his problem. “So um… I'd offer you something to drink, but I haven't even opened my fridge yet. Would you like to guzzle faucet water with me?" He padded over to see if he would in fact be reduced to that, and was relieved to see they'd at least stocked the fridge with bottled water before he got here. “Nevermind!" He pulled out two bottles, and offered one to his visitor, then curled his tail to the side to sit on the edge of his bed. A moment later, Becca joined him there, and casually rested one of her paws on his thigh, causing him to tense briefly.

Struggling to tune out the contact, he cast about for a distraction. “You said being here was hard for you at first, too? I'm guessing you don't mean you were a lesbian, though…"

Becca smiled a bit sadly and shook her head. “No, nothing like that. I've always loved men! But…" She seemed to stare off through the curtains covering his window. “The guys here… to them, sex is just a thing they do, all the time. It's not special anymore. It's not… personal. Oh, they get into it, don't get me wrong, but most of them have lost count of the number of kits they've sired. Fucking me is just a job to them, even if it is one they enjoy. It left me feeling… hollow. Like a thing to be used." She shook her head. “And yes, I know, that's basically what I signed up for, but it was doing bad things to me psychologically."

Shawn grimaced. “I think I know what you mean. You, um… were you… watching…"

The bunny giggled. “You bet I was. Watching Vinny cum always gets me wet."

Shawn felt his ears burning again, but pressed on. “I think I felt a little of what you're talking about, at the end there. That was…" He coughed. “That was amazing for me. I think I was starting to fall for him. But then, even though he was nice and all, he just kind of… walked off. Like it was business as usual."

Becca nodded rapidly, causing her upright ears to bounce a bit. “Exactly! You kind of expect some kind of a… connection after something like that, but most of the men here have long since burned out on attaching anything bigger than a payday to sex, even when they're intentionally putting a baby in you."

The squirrel gulped some water. His stomach was finally settling down after his impromptu dessert. “So how did you deal with it?"

Becca hesitated, looking away from him, and removed her paw from his leg. “I turned myself into the welcome wagon, basically." She glanced at him sidelong, her blue eyes clouded with worry at how he might react. “I… kind of watch for new guys in this neighborhood. They haven't… haven't learned to be like that, yet."

“Oh. So when you said the gay thing was part of why you wanted to get to know me…"

She shook her head sharply at that. “That's not… not exactly what I meant. I mean yes, in a way, but… I also, honest to god, thought you looked really cute, and I really wanted to be the one to get you to relax, maybe even smile." Her ears drooped back. “...but yes, I also really wanted to make you cum, and… I want to have your kits. Really badly, actually…" Her ears were reddening again.

There it was. The inevitable. Shawn swallowed hard. “Mine? Even though you could have, say, Vinny's? I don't care how many pills they give me, I'll never be half the stud he is."

Becca was silent for several moments, as if weighing her words, then sighed. “I was tempted to not even say this but I don't want to play games with you. He already put twins in me, over six months ago. And yeah, he's good in bed. But did you notice how many times he even tried to chat with me out there tonight? It's a trick question, he didn't." Her paw returned to his leg. “It's not like I'm expecting a boyfriend or something. That simply isn't how it works here; there are diminishing returns on payouts for knocking up the same woman again and again, because they want diversity. But if I'm going to create a new life with someone, I want it to mean something to them. I want them to remember it as something that mattered." She smiled nervously at him. “Being the first woman a handsome squirrel ever had? His introduction to the female body? That's the kind of breeding that's worth my time. So… what do you say?" Her expression was earnest, hopeful. “Wanna find out how the folks on the other side of the fence do things?"

Shawn shivered, the precipice he'd known was coming for the past week looming up before him. For the first time, he let his bashful gaze wander over the beautiful rabbit next to him. Her long, expressive ears, the delicate Y of her nose, and the prominent incisors of her wary smile, so very like his own… and then on downward. The downy white fur of her large, soft breasts, cupped by a slightly frilly bra… her flat belly, wide hips, and finally the blank, pillowy mound between her legs where he was used to invariably seeing a sheath and balls. To him, that was the most alien thing of all, seeing just a faint cleft obscured by her fur and mostly-closed legs. The pivotal difference, and proof of a body designed to bear children. He felt himself stiffen further, the need in his loins surging to the fore again. His head was spinning as inner voices screamed at each other. It was wrong! He was gay, that didn't belong on anyone he was going to fuck! But the unknown, the 'forbidden', also called to him, challenging all his assumptions about himself.

He found himself visualizing what was inside her, down there, taken from high school sex ed classes. The cushiony vagina, designed by nature precisely to receive what was jutting angrily up between his legs at that moment. The uterus, that vaguely triangular hollow, currently small and empty. Her fallopian tubes, arcing around to her ovaries, an entire architecture that existed only to let new life grow within her. And she was offering it to him. An image flashed through his mind of a fetal squirrel growing in that space, stretching it, swelling out her belly with the future of mammalkind - his child - and a heat he'd never truly known before surged through him, giving him goosebumps that caused his fur to fluff up.

He looked back up.

He met her eyes.

He nodded.

Becca's smile widened as the anxiety faded from her expression, and the paw on his thigh shifted over onto his cock, stroking it gently. The contact was electric; after all that aching denial, he immediately felt himself leaking pre down onto her knuckles. After a few moments, she brought her paw to her mouth and licked it clean, maintaining eye contact with him as she did so. The moment she was done, she capped off her water bottle and dropped it off the side of the bed; by the time he had done the same, Shawn found she'd shifted fully onto the bed and was lying back, spreading her legs and reaching down to rub teasingly over the pink-fleshed slit that peeked out between her furry outer lips. Heart pounding against his ribs, the squirrel followed her, moving to kneel between her legs as she smiled warmly up at him.

He'd always had kind of a thing for rabbits, but this was not how he'd imagined his first time with one would go.

He hesitated then, gazing down at her offered body, as pre flowed down over his length to wet his sheath; he wished he was as unconflicted about this as his penis seemed to be. Breathe. Start slow. He twisted to his left, both paws gently wrapping around her right foot and massaging it experimentally. Even here, she felt a bit unfamiliar; he wasn't used to extremities that didn't have pads. He worked his thumbs into the fluffy underside of the large appendage, drawing a soft sigh from his unfamiliar lover, and then repeated on the other one, careful of the surprisingly dangerous-looking claws on her toes, before working his way upward. Her legs were thick, powerful - only to be expected on a rabbit - and she brought her knees upward as he ran his fingers up along them, baring herself to him.

He wasn't quite ready yet. His paws roamed up over her belly, imagining how it would look gravid with his child, and he felt his balls clench, a small spurt of pre marking his sheets. Leaning over her, he slid his paws up to her chest and froze. He couldn't. He couldn't make himself touch-*

She saved him, gently taking both of his wrists in her soft paws and placing them directly on her covered breasts. His fingers twitched, wanting to squeeze but afraid. He retreated, his bushy tail dancing madly behind him as he squared his weight over his ankles again. His paws returned to her inner thighs - god, her fur there was so ludicrously soft - and slid inward, hovering at the edges of her mound. One thumbpad rubbed oh-so-tentatively just at the edge of her gash, and then, with a thudding in his ears that threatened to deafen him, directly over it, nudging her lips just slightly apart. Becca crooned softly, splaying her big toes in his peripheral vision, and he tried it again, a little more firmly, exploring this wholly unfamiliar ground.

Huh. Somehow he hadn't realized the opening he was looking for was that far back in the whole affair. The things you don't pick up in sex ed…

Suddenly very glad he'd trimmed his claws before leaving home that morning, he - very carefully - probed inward with his right index finger. The first thing that struck him was the heat, radiating from within her body, and his cock twitched again impatiently. The second was the dampness. It wasn't just that it was wet, it was far slicker than his imagination had suggested to him. He and Connor had gone through a steady supply of lube in their time together; he was going to have to get used to the idea that women really did make their own. He rested his left paw on her belly and hunkered down closer as he cautiously slid his finger into that bunny cunny, and the third impression hit him: the smell. It was… sharp, abrasive in its way, but while it registered as very alien to him, he found it actually wasn't particularly offensive. In fact, he found it primally satisfying. No doubt on some level that was a pheromonal response coming from his animal hindbrain, but on a higher level, it only made sense to him that this foreign anatomy, unknown to his male body, deserved a strong and distinctive odor equal to its unique power of fertility and birth.

And then his finger was inside her, up to the last knuckle. He rubbed, gently, experimentally, slowly pulling it out, before repeating the process, sparing a glance up across his lapine lover's body, only to find her smiling blissfully down at him, her mouth slightly opening and breathing deeply as her cute whiskers splayed. He swallowed hard again. “Sorry, I… don't really know what I'm doing."

“And I love that. Don't worry, Shawn, we have all night. Touch me wherever you want, for as long as you want."

Taking her up on that invitation, he let himself fall forward over her, his angrily gushing cock falling into her pubic fur and marking her with his fluids. Bracing himself on his elbows, he brought his paws in, closing them over her breasts and rubbing experimentally. Panting now, almost dizzy with conflicting need and trepidation, he leaned more heavily on his left elbow, slipping his right under her as she helpfully lifted her shoulders, and hunted for the catch on her bra. And searched. And fumbled.

To her credit, Becca didn't laugh at him. Biting her lip, she reached back and undid it for him, letting him do the honors of peeling her one garment off of her and dropping it over the side of the bed. Still smiling as she relaxed back down, she murmured, “Don't worry. Even straight guys take forever to get the hang of that." Chuckling self-consciously, he closed his paws over her breasts again. So soft, so warm, so soft. His thumbs explored through her fur until they found her stiff nipples, drawing a sharp breath from her, and swirled gently over them for several moments. He was suddenly struck by the mental image of a newborn squirrel kit nursing on one of them, and a shudder ran through his body. He couldn't take it anymore! He needed… he needed…

Without removing his paws, he drew his hips back, letting the tip of his aching cock drop down against her vulva. He nudged once… too high, had he already forgotten everything?! Arching his back, he lowered his angle further, and felt the rounded crown of his penis slip into the heat of her vagina for the first time. More. He pressed down and in, her feather-soft labia gliding down over his length. Deeper. Moaning helplessly, he drove slowly in, his fur frizzing up again as his eyes widened and his mouth dropped slowly open. TAKE HER. With a high, desperate whine, he buried his drooling cock fully within her sweltering birth canal, sheathing himself entirely within the fertile heat of Becca's body.

For what seemed like an eternity, he couldn't even move, as the reality of what he was doing assailed his mind. While he'd always loved sex, and had found it deeply meaningful with Connor, it had always been… inconsequential, in a physical sense. Each of them had known the other was disease-free, so they could fuck and fuck as much as they wanted and nothing lasting would ever come of it. But now… that sex ed diagram popped back into his head, and Shawn envisioned his penis spreading the walls of Becca's vagina, tip poised to fire, aimed directly at her cervix. If he came now, his sperm - the abundant, potent sperm for which he had been brought into this place - would flood her fertile hollow. Like an invading army, its ranks would charge up into her tubes. Lay siege to her egg. Penetrate its defenses. Alter it, changing it - a tiny part of her body - into his child. His body had the power to turn hers to a squirrel baby factory.

And he realized he wanted it. To wield the power boiling in his testes. To make himself a father!

The last resistance fell away. As his eyes locked onto hers, he drew back and thrusted. And again. And again, firmer each time, driving into her as deeply as their shared anatomy would allow.

Becca squealed, a small tremor running through her body, and her paws went to his shoulders. “Yes! Give it to me, Shawn! Make me a mommy! Right now!"

Shawn's eyes shut as he drove into her again and again. It was still an alien sensation - and not, mechanically speaking, nearly as intense as the times he'd topped Connor. Becca's pussy was not anywhere close to as tight as his ex-boyfriend's ass had been. But the consequence loomed large. This was a vagina he was fucking, with a womb just beyond, waiting to reward his orgasm with a child. A new life, whose everything would spring from this act of consummate importance. He felt his balls drawing up tight against his body, tingling, glowing, yearning. Shove. Shove. Shove!

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he had to be doing something wrong. He was clueless about what felt good for women. But as Becca clung to him, gasping and trembling, it was easy enough for him to believe his shortcomings were being overlooked. Her ears tried to lie back but, obstructed by the mattress, ultimately succeeded only in folding out and down. She started driving her hips up to meet his thrusts, as hungry as he was to get that cock into her as deeply as possible. She hissed through her teeth, the heels of her big feet pressing in against his rump, and her eyes squeezed shut as she drew a sharp breath. “Kn…knock me up stud! Put a squirrel in that bunny tummy! Give… give me your babies!" Suddenly, her body convulsed under and around his, her pussy clenching down on his cock in fierce, needy spasms.

Shawn slumped forward, chest pressing to her bared breasts, as his eyes rolled back and shut. All control was lost. Pleasure and need fused within him and boiled over as the familiar sensation of ejaculatory inevitability filled his loins. The tiny part of his brain that was still under his control managed to maneuver his muzzle blindly toward her left ear, and in the single second available to him, he forced out a raspy whisper.

“Swell for me, rabbit."

As Becca's climax passed on to him, he felt a painful clench in his groin, and a heartbeat later, his cock leapt in the clenching velvet vice of the rabbit's pussy, the potent heat of the squirrel's semen blasting into her unprotected vagina and womb. Again and again he erupted into her, his consciousness compressed down to the barest murmur of 'I am' amid the roaring bliss of the first baby-making orgasm of his life. As he spent himself into her, he became aware - in a distant, detached way - of someone screaming; it was not until his climax started to ebb that he realized it was him.

In one moment, he became reacquainted with his own vocal controls and shut off the inarticulate howling; in the next he realized how very heavy was, and unceremoniously went limp on top of the trembling rabbit. He tried to reopen his eyes, but found he lacked either the physical or mental currency to accomplish this most basic feat, and settled for lying there on top of Becca like a sack of potatoes. Fortunately, he'd never had all that much meat on him, and she didn't seem particularly distressed, at least to his massively dulled awareness. The fact that she started stroking softly down his back seemed to lend credence to this theory. He certainly didn't have the wherewithal to pull out of her, so deep in that bunny cunny he stayed, the last of his seed dripping out of him to join the mess he'd made in her belly.

He wasn't sure if he truly passed out or not. If he did, it couldn't have been for long. What brought him back around was the feeling of his impromptu paramour rubbing one of his ears between her fingers. With a groan, he braced himself on his elbows and picked up the front end of his body, heavy eyelids blinking halfway open to find Becca smiling at him.

“Congratulations, 'dad.'"

Shawn's ears warmed again, but his brain was fried, and he felt too glowy to react as strongly as he otherwise would've. He searched for words, and found none. “W… wow…" He felt a stupid grin splitting his face, and he didn't even care.

Becca grinned back at him. Damn, she was cute when she smiled. But even as he registered that, he realized he still wasn't attracted to her, not in the way he was used to. It was more of a clinical observation. She reached up and rubbed his cheek. “So, not as bad as you were thinking?"

“I um. I don't think I've ever cum that hard in my life. I think half my brain turned to charcoal. But we don't know if I'm a dad yet, right?"

The bunny's expression turned playful, her gaze avoiding his face for a moment. “Weeelllll… technically no, you're right. But let's just say I felt that, and… you guys aren't the only ones who get fertility supplements."

Shawn felt himself softening, and thought about pulling out, but found himself strangely reluctant to do so. “Oh? What do yours do?"

“A bunch of things, but they keep us in heat all the time - not that that does much to me, rabbits are like that naturally - and make us drop extra eggs. And sometimes one or two more when we climax. Which, for the record, I was not faking. So let's just say I'm a target-rich environment, right now." She winked.

The squirrel shivered at the thought, his erection resurging for a moment before it continued its gradual decline. Still feeling like he was full of bricks, he heaved himself up into a kneeling position and looked bashfully down at the slick mess the two of them had made of each other's groins. It still set off alarms in his head, seeing his dick jutting into that unfamiliar feminine anatomy, but there was simply no arguing with how satisfied he felt. At the same time, the act hadn't left him with the same yearning for true intimacy that he'd felt after just going down on Vinny. But hey, that was okay, wasn't it? They were paying him to knock women up, not fall in love with them. With a faint sigh of reluctance, he pulled his softening penis out of Becca's drenched vagina and, after a moment of awkward indecisiveness, shuffled his way around to the edge of the bed. “I think I need another shower. Do you mind…?"

Becca heaved herself up into a sitting position and stretched, a yawn taking over her muzzle. “Not at all! I'm going to head back downstairs and get one myself. And switch my pills."

“Switch your…?"

The rabbit tossed legs over the side of the bed, and Shawn couldn't help but notice a damp spot in the sheets from their hungry coupling. “Yeah. It's what they call a gestational accelerant; pregnancies in here only take about a quarter as long as they do on the outside. Or did, I guess; not a lot of couples get to have kids outside of New Dawn anymore. You wouldn't believe how hungry it makes you, though! I'm not looking forward to spending all my time eating for the next couple of months… but I am looking forward to watching my belly grow, and knowing they're yours." She favored him with another of her genuine smiles.

Shawn's ears burned, and he ducked his head, stammering uselessly for several moments, until he forced himself to stop and wrestled his intense (if conflicted) reaction into submission. Grinning playfully, Becca retrieved her bra, got to her big feet, stretched again, and padded toward the door, but stopped when the squirrel cleared his throat. Without lifting his head, he glanced over toward her, sheepish brown eyes meeting unclouded blue. “W-when… if… when it does… I think I'd like to see." He was surprised to discover he really meant that.

Becca's face lit up like a Christmas tree at that admission, and her little tail wiggled in delight. “I'll be sure to let you know! And who knows… by that point, I may be up for a victory lap!" With a new spring in her step, she winked, and then out the door she went.

Given that most of him was still clean, the followup shower was done in a jiffy. As he blew himself afterward - he was not going to be able to stop thinking of it in those terms anytime soon! - he found himself struggling to decide how he actually felt about what had just happened. On the one paw, it had felt absolutely incredible, and it confirmed he was in fact able to do the job he'd signed up for. On the other, it seriously challenged his orientation, and he found that deeply troubling. Ever since he'd gotten his first crush five years earlier, he had been really consistent on that count; he only ever fantasized about other guys, only looked up male porn on the internet, and his only relationship had been with Connor. Even now, having just (presumably) knocked up a sweet, kind bunnygirl who he objectively understood to be an absolute bombshell by most guys' standards, the most positive feelings he could find in himself for her were gratitude, relief, and a platonic sort of kinship. He tried to visualize himself dating her, and it immediately turned into a sitcom in his head, causing him to shake it in bewilderment. As soon as he was dry, he rummaged in his luggage for his cigarettes and lighter, and stepped outside for a smoke. Jason reappeared the moment he lit up.

“Penny for your thoughts, bro?"

Both of them leaned on the railing as the squirrel collected them, the smoke wafting right through his illusionary companion. “I don't know, man. That… it was great, and I don't think my balls have ever felt this empty. But I feel kind of empty in here, too." He patted his chest with his free left paw. “I'm… grateful to her for helping me out. But that's kind of a weird thing to say about a woman who just had sex with you, isn't it? Despite how nice - and pretty - she is, I'm… really relieved she didn't ask to spend the night or something. I feel like an asshole for feeling that way."

Jason smiled softly, his tail swaying behind him. “There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, on the outside, someone who went looking for girls to fuck without giving a single shit about them would probably be a real piece of work, I admit. But that's because he'd probably be leading them on into thinking he wanted a relationship just to get them to spread their legs, and then ghosting them once he got his dick wet. It's the deception and lack of concern for someone else's feelings that make people like that assholes, not the 'sex without affection' part itself. Did you notice how she lit up when you asked to see her with a baby bump? That was more than she was expecting from you. You did great, bro." The wolf paused, looking up and to the right as if thinking, and then grinned. “I just checked in with Jasmine - that's her daemon - and they're having basically the same conversation while she showers. She feels like she did something bad to you, too, pushing you outside your orientation."

Shawn exhaled a plume into the stark light of the overhead lamps. “Is it okay for you to tell me that? I don't want to invade her privacy, on top of everything…"

“I told you I love to gossip! We all do. But we do it with love, to make our real mammals happier. Jasmine's reassuring Becca right now, so neither one of you has to feel bad about what happened, okay?"

The squirrel sighed, leaning heavily on the railing. The day had taken a serious toll on him, and he felt his new (if slightly soiled) bed calling him, but he had to get his head on straight - no pun intended - before going down. “She didn't do anything wrong, no, and you can pass that along to her. I signed up for this and that was a much gentler icebreaker than I was expecting. But I don't know how to reconcile all this. I still feel like I'm gay… but I just got done washing pussy-whatever off my dick. And honestly, I'm kind of looking forward to feeling that again. What the hell am I?"

“Homoromantic."

One eyebrow shot up. “Come again?"

Jason looked slightly bemused. “You seriously haven't heard the word before? Homoromantic. Means you're only romantically attracted to other guys, irrespective of what holes your dick likes to find itself in." The wolf grinned again, tilting his head playfully. “But I hate to break it to you dude, I think you just dipped your toes into the great, wide world of bisexuality. You damn near overloaded my mood sensors when you nutted in that bun. And in the best way!"

Shawn rolled his eyes and tried to ignore the wolf's ribbing tone. Homoromantic, huh? “I… guess I kind of thought the sex and romance stuff was always, I dunno… linked together somehow?"

The daemon tossed a paw dismissively. “That's just a societal thing. I mean sure, they tend to go together for a lot of people, but the idea that they have to? That's an invention that comes from folks expecting you to fuck the same people who make your heart go 'thud.' There's actually a fair number of homoromantic guys in New Dawn. You're in good company, now that you've discovered the wonders of pussy!" He laughed.

The squirrel considered that, as he finished and discarded his cigarette. “I'd probably still feel better if you could plow me right now to get the 'straight' out of my system."

“Dude, if my tech let me do that I would fuck you senseless over this railing before you had a chance to say 'please.' But it doesn't, so you'll just have to pick someone almost as hot as me to do it… tomorrow. You're about to pass out where you stand."

Realizing Jason was right, Shawn did not so much stand up as ooze off of the railing and wobble his way back through his door, locking it behind him and heading directly for the faint angelic choir he imagined coming from his bed. “Oh. Right. An Italian sub."

Jason popped back into existence next to him, his avatar having been on the other side of the door when it shut. “I beg your what?"

The squirrel smiled tiredly. “For breakfast. I didn't forget your promise, or the deli we passed on the way in. But can I get a decaf sweet tea instead of the coffee? Caffeine when I first wake up is bad for my anxiety problems."

The wolf smiled widely and wagged. “It will be my honor and my privilege… 'daddy.'"

“If you call me that again I'll turn you into a newt."

Jason just laughed. “Rest well, bud. I'll see you in the AM." The lights in the room shut off, and the lupine daemon dissipated.

When his head hit the pillow, Shawn barely had time to pull the comforter over himself before physical and emotional exhaustion pulled him tumbling into a deep, dreamless sleep.