FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

It wasn't Harley who ended up sobbing by the time he'd finished retelling the whole thing. He had gotten close a few times, during which I touched my nose to his and slowly dragged my claws through his fur, but - a little surprisingly, he managed to hold himself together. I, however, could feel the unsteadiness rise up in my breathing, could feel my mouth start to twitch and strain, could feel my ears lower down. I was the one who buried my muzzle in his chest fur, and it was my body that was racked with sobs.

"I'm sorry," I choked out, again and again. "God, Harley, I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."

Then, his claws tightened on my lower back, and he shifted his position a little. His muzzle wriggled its way down near mine, whiskers tickling at my cheek, warm breath wrapping around my nose and face-

"It's not me you should be sorry for, Danny. It's okay. I'm-"

I looked up through tear-fogged eyes, moved back a little so I could face him without his longer canid muzzle poking against me, swallowed and wiped my face. Gentle green gems glittered at me, catching some of the light from the window across the room; a soft smile lifted his whiskers, his ears, and the corners of his lips. Then, he came forward and touched that little black-leather nose of his to mine, cold and wet and embarrassingly drippy. Harley didn't seem to care.

"I'm okay. I'll be okay. Everyone always told me that talking about it will make me feel better, but I was always paranoid that they were just curious and didn't really care... but then..." The coyote's nosed traced down along my cheek towards my neck, where he pressed his muzzle. The mattress creaked a little beneath the shifting of weight. All that surrounded me now was the gentle spicy scent of coyote, of Harley - that faint sand-and-cinnamon bite, the same aroma that had lightly dusted the other pillow on my bed following last Thursday. It was the scent that first brought me such intense desire and need, then dread and guilt, and then...

What was it now? What was this feeling pulsing in the middle of my chest, that weird blossoming warmth that I'd called hope earlier? That wasn't quite the right word. Harley looked back up at me, and then with one thumb carefully wiped the rest of the tears away from the edges of my eyes.

"You really do_care about me, don't you, puppy? That's... a bit of a weird feeling for me... I feel like I'm a little - _selfish to want it, even after everything that's happened..." Tall sandy ears lowered back down, green eyes averted. He shifted one of his legs, sliding it up between mine a little bit. "...You're not the first person I've told, you know. There were some friends from high school who I told about it shortly after starting therapy, and... I didn't really_feel_ anything when telling the story then, so I figured... I figured I was over it. You know? And then - here you come, Daniel, and you..."

I started speaking, choked on my words, cleared my throat, tried again. "-fucked up everything you thought you knew?"

Those eyes lit up again. Slowly, gradually, I could see that light start to seep back into them, from where it would then shine out as brightly as it ever had. "Yeah. But not really in a bad way. Sure, a lot of shit came with it, but..."

"But it's not so bad once you clear through all of that shit." During all of that, my phone on the nightstand had vibrated a few times, but - more important things at hand; like usual, I'd ignored it. Honestly I wasn't really sure who would be texting me so much now that William and I had broken up... though I guess I did still have some things to talk through with him. Since my talk with Zoey, that was something that hung resiliently in the back of my mind, and always came back whenever I found myself unoccupied.

Harley's whiskers twitched. "How's that saying go? Dawn is always darkest right bef- wait, that's not right..."

Even I hadn't been sure of the truth of my words when, Sunday evening-Monday morning, whatever, I'd said to him - everything's going to be okay. You'll be okay, but now... things have a funny way of turning out right. For a moment, I kept my paw to my lips, not to hold back sobs but rather to keep from spitting all over him thanks to unexpected laughter.

"God - dammit," I managed. From behind him came a rhythmic thump - thump - thump, of his tail thwapping gently against the blankets. "Harley, you're - an idiot..."

"Yeah. Yeah, I... I really am sometimes..."

His ears threatened to lower back down again, just as did his whiskers, but - I kept one paw around his hips and one on his chin, keeping his muzzle tilted toward mine. There once was a time in my relationship with William where I'd be happy to do this, to just lie down with him and... and look at him, inspect all the little details of his face, and find my tail to start wagging and my face to pull up into a dumbass smile.

Harley, though... up here, this close, there was a lot more to his eyes than just that rich green. Gemstone color, sure, but - a gemstone that had been popped with a hammer a good time, fractures and lines of lighter shades, of bits of blue and yellow fissuring through them, impossible to see from a distance but so sharp and clear now. The grain of his fur along his muzzle, coursing back from his nose over his cheeks, up over his face and down towards his neck, darkening as it went, sand and slate and stone moistened by pouring rains, just now starting to dry.

It just felt right. Again our noses bumped together (and God damn was it cute seeing his tall ears perk up at the contact) and rubbed briefly, and then I brought my paw further up his chin, tilted his head back... and pressed my lips to his, sweet and gentle. There was that same electric shiver rippling through my body like when we'd done this last week, when we weren't supposed to, except this time it was just - disbelief, almost. An entirely different sort of "am I really doing this?", one that seemed too good to be true.

Salt of tears, spice of coyote, saccharine-sweetness of... of whatever that weird thrumming warmth in my chest was. I was certain I'd felt it before, but couldn't quite place where- and it just flared even brighter when we pulled apart, and smiled at each other. Things really were going to be okay, weren't they?

"So," I said, licking my lips. At the same time, I had to shift my hips backwards away from his; that kiss had caused a little bit of a complication. "How about that mac and cheese?..."

~ ~ ~

Everything had just about cleared up by the time Mom got home, thankfully. I wasn't used to making that particular kind of mac and cheese, so not only did it take a while longer than usual, but I also felt it didn't turn out too great... not like Harley seemed to care, though. He hovered around me in the kitchen like the scent of chlorine on a swimteam otter, tail always swishing behind him, paws on my hips or my sides or my shoulders whenever I wasn't leaning over the stove... and then once I dropped it all into a bowl and handed it off to him, he tugged me down to the couch in the next room with him, through an arm around me, and ate with the other.

And not only did this casual, easy closeness feel right, it - it also felt good, damn better than I could ever remember having with William. Maybe we were both finally free of something that had been keeping us constrained for so long, though the wounds and sores cut by chafing shackles must remain for a while longer. Harley had borne his for three years now, and something like that...

My phone remained in my pocket almost the whole time we sat there, forgotten and untouched with the sound of the TV on across the room. It was just so nice to be able to sit down with this coyote, to lean against him and feel his warmth on my body and taste his scent on the air, and - and not feel any sort of guilt or fear about anything. With William there had been so much of that, so many questions: do I really love him, does he really love me, are we only still together because it's what we're used to... at one point Harley got up - he'd eaten everything in his bowl,save for some slightly-congealed cheese sauce - and went off to the bathroom. This was when I fished my phone out of my pocket and opened the new message screen.

So many things in my mind, so many things to say... but no matter how I tried, none of them could come out. From when I heard the sound of Harley opening and then closing the bathroom door down the hall to the quiet rush of water in the sink, I just sat there with nothing more than a "Hey." addressed to - to my ex. Two more words joined that one by the time the coyote sat back down beside me (and placed a kiss on my cheek), and those would have to do:

Hey. I'm sorry.

Mom got home a little bit later, asked if we were hungry - "nah, Harley just ate, and I can find something later" - then made small talk about how nice it is that we have tomorrow off and about our plans for the afternoon, and then headed off to her room. When she'd mentioned homework, I suddenly realized - we had that project due soon!

"Oh, that?" was Harley's nonchalant response, given with a flick of the wrist to change the channel. "When my anxiety got to its worst and I... um. Well, I focused on that to keep my mind occupied with something else. So - I've actually got most of it done. I left my laptop at home today, though, so. I can email it to you later."

And here I'd been, worrying my tail off about both it and him- "Harley..."

His eyes remained focused on the screen for another second before looking down to me. "Hmm?"

And because Mom was away in her room doing who knows what, I didn't have to worry about being seen (you didn't break up with him for that coyote, did you?) and threw my arms around his neck for a moment. "You're amazing."

Harley's paws did not hesitate in coming up and hugging me back, though his voice did carry a bit of the heavy self-pitying tone it'd had when he told me about Natalie. Hard to believe that that was hardly two hours ago... yet again, this was a totally different coyote than the one before, this time the one caught under the suffocating claws of anxiety earlier in the week. This was the harley who'd grinned at me from the next seat over in class that morning, who had somehow managed to steal my heart even after I thought I'd already given it to someone else.

"That's a new one."

Warm late afternoon light coming in through the window behind the couch notwithstanding, his eyes had indeed started to reclaim the verdant energy they used to hold. Strange how long a single week can sometimes seem. Needless to say, the two of us were both exhausted from everything we'd had to endure during this past week, and as such made our way back down the hall towards my room almost as soon as the sun started to dip down under the line of trees outside the window.

Mom briefly came in to check on us after hearing my bedroom door close, but - her ears perked and her look of questioning turned to a warm smile when she saw me and the coyote kneeling down on the floor spreading out the sleeping pad. Honestly, though, she probably didn't really care whether he and I slept together, and was just holding up the appearance for some reason or another. That's just what moms do.

Though to be honest, I _did_only meet him the Monday before this past one, and then we'd taken a definite leap down that path the following Thursday... actually, I hadn't quite noticed when the soreness under my tail had entirely stopped. There had been too many other things on my mind.

Even as we separately climbed into our respective beds only until Mom's bedroom door closed with her going to sleep as well, that same familiar desire burned in my chest and in my loins, but - still there were other things not necessarily obscuring it, but more... pushing it off to the side. Good thing we'd remained separated at first, too: maybe ten minutes later, my bedroom door creaked open and the end of Mom's muzzle stuck through the open door, with her whispered voice soon to follow-

"Goodnight, boys. Sleep well."

K-chk of my door, a few quiet padded footsteps in the hall - and then the sound of her door closing, too. And then, wordlessly, Harley rose up from beneath the thick blanket I'd given him, stretched his arms over his head, and started coming over, to slide into bed alongside me. The little cartoon otter faces all over his pajama bottoms grinned silently in the glow of the night-light.

Then, when I moved over to the side, when he ran his muzzle up my shoulder and neck, when we each draped an arm over the other... again it felt goddamn right. Were this William clambering into my bed, things would doubtlessly make their way to sex before too long, even if I wasn't really feeling it or if he had to repeatedly squeeze and grind against me before I rolled over to let him do his thing (which nevertheless would result in me getting into it, sometimes enough to hold him down), but with Harley...

I tilted my head down, touching my nose to the soft sand fur of the back of his neck. He steadily drew his claws along my back, fingers extending and then coming together, extending and coming together. He made me feel like I hadn't with William in a long time, with this pounding warmth in my chest that I called hope but was very obviously something else, something more.

That's what made me tighten my grip around his body, then, when he started sniffling, started sobbing quietly. His claws dug into my back, a gentle but sharp pain very real against the what-if_s and _maybe_s of my rampant thoughts. This time it was _my turn to slowly pet him, to run my claws down along the ridge of his spine to the curve of his tail, and then back up towards his shoulders. The heat of his body, his still-slightly-unfamiliar scent on the warm air, the - shaking and shivering, the tremors rippling through him. Hell - that same pressure started to well up behind my eyes, to fog over my vision so I had to blink it out-

"I miss her," he managed, words coming out as hissing breaths near my ear, only a hint of his voice underneath. "I miss her so much, Daniel."

"I know." What could I say? I held him tighter. "I know, Harley."

"I wish I could tell her I'm sorry." Wet sniffle, swallow, shuddering exhalation of breath. The coyote reached up behind me to wipe his nose on the back of his paw. "I never - never got the chance... at the end-"

At the end. A lot more finality to that in this relationship than with others.

"-I think she knew, but... it doesn't - matter..."

...and he broke down into a series of sobs again, squeezing me tight. It took a certain kind of person to be able to live through that not once, but twice, once in person and once in memory - without taking into consideration the possibly countless times he'd gone over it in his head before. That said something powerful about this coyote here, hanging on to me and crying into the fur of my shoulder. Felt like a wound had opened up across my heart when he'd told me the story, and I wasn't even there.

Meanwhile, Harley'd had to carry that with him every day for the past three years. The brightly-grinning coyote with gemstone eyes in my history class had been shouldering a hellish burden for three years, and he still moved as easily as the rest of us because - at least for a while - he'd gotten used to the weight.

What did that say about me, though, and how he felt for me? If he was willing to share all of that with me, a chapter of his life that I doubt most people knew...

He sniffed again. His voice had evened out somewhat, and he moved back away from me to be easier able to wipe his eyes. "I hated myself for a long time."

"Harley..."

"She did too, near the end. She had to. That was why... why she..." He swallowed. "I don't know what it was she was gonna say right before... um, right before she couldn't. That was almost all I could think about, once I could actually - really think_again. _I love you too, maybe. I hate you, equally likely to my mind... I'm sorry... or you deserve this... you know, when I managed to get Dad to bring me by her - her parents' house, I thought that's what they were gonna say to me."

"You spoke to them?"

"Yeah. They moved to a new house to avoid the newspapers and the teenagers trying to break into the home of the girl who'd died, like it was some - something to brag about. I didn't know what I was going to say to them, didn't know what they were going to say to me... but when they opened the door and saw me there - Mrs. Cordova... I couldn't tell if she was forty or sixty-five anymore. But she brought her paws to her mouth, kind of gasped, her face scrunched up, and I thought she was going to yell, but she - she hugged me. Said she was relieved to see I was okay, said that she was glad to see me... I didn't get it. I still wasn't in a stable state of mind, exactly."

As he spoke, he dragged his paw down through my bellyfur again, claws coming dangerously close to the waistband of my boxers but stopping right before. "Everything felt wrong, though, I didn't recognize the house, they all smelled different, they all looked different... Mr. Cordova didn't say much at all to me, and I'm not sure about Nat's brother. I never saw him again. Think he left for college or something. But I was getting nervous just being there, so before long I got up to leave, and she... Mrs. Cordova hugged me again and told me that - that they love me like a son, and if I ever need anything, to let them know... every Saturday for about two years we'd talk on the phone for an hour or so around noon, and it'd end with her asking me when I'd come over for dinner, and me saying soon, hopefully, but never quite making it. Then one week I called her, three times, and she never picked up. And that was that."

Silence again, before - his ears shot up with the rattle of the air conditioning coming on. At least he'd calmed down a bit... I leaned forward and bumped my nose against his, and then stole a quick kiss. My heart sped up a little bit when he returned it.

"Hey, Harley?"

"I'm - sorry, Danny. I'm doing better." Another swallow. "I think telling you all of that helped, I... I feel better. I feel like - like I can trust you, y'know?"

The coyote arched his back against my paw as I traced my claws along his spine, and pressed my fingers into his fur. "I wanted to talk to you about that, actually..."

Ears perked again, but he said nothing. This time when my heartbeat picked up, it was for something entirely different. The words just kind of - made their way out of my mouth, all in a rush and falling over themselves.

"I want - I mean, Harley, I wanna - I wanna be your boyfriend." Inhale, exhale. "Would you maybe, um... want to be my boyfriend?"

At first, his brow furrowed, and he frowned - and I thought I was about to throw up. "You mean you're not... going to make up with William?"

"When I can have you?" I moved my muzzle to the side again, to nuzzle along his shoulder. "Of course not. Two percent or whole milk. It's an obvious choice. So long as you're not lactose intolerant."

"I actually _prefer_two percent..."

"I used to." There was that glitter in his eyes as I spoke, the same that I'd seen so often when we'd first started talking. "But, then, the taste gets stale after a while, and then it just kind of makes you sick whenever you think about it."

Silence again - and then he shook with quiet laughter, sharp white fangs catching and reflecting the dim light in the room. "If I'm an idiot, then you're one, too, Danny."

"You're avoiding the question." Again I leaned in to nuzzle at his shoulder, and slid my paws down towards the middle of his lower back.

"Have you _heard_me when I'm called on in class? I'm really good at that. But, if you want an answer... are you sure?"

"Would I ask if I wasn't sure."

"C'mon. It'd make me feel better."

I nodded. It's not like I was actively going out of my way to avoid talking to William; I just was no longer putting in effort to talk to him. We go to different schools, we live on different sides of town - and I hadn't really been the one to start a conversation between us. Not for the last year or two. We would talk about this whenever it came up. "Yes. I'm sure."

Swsh-swsh-swsh - coyote tail wagging underneath the blankets piled up on top of us. "Then - yes. I'm sure, too..."

Sure, I hadn't really expected anything else, but - hearing him say it still calmed my heart and brought a warm, gentle relief. It felt only right to tilt my head to the side and kiss him again, to bring my arms back up to around his shoulders and hold him there, and - slide one of my legs up between his, feel his warmth against me, and squirm a little as he started to bring his weight over me... _this_was the Harley that I wanted him to be. The Harley that wagged and grinned and made me smile even when he wasn't trying.

This was the Harley that he deserved to be.

"-Hey," he said, breaking off from a kiss. Remember what I'd said about desire earlier, being pushed to the side? Well... "Danny, let's do something tomorrow. Go somewhere. I've been - meaning to actually go somewhere with you, but it's been a... been a long week."

Ear perk! I'd seen an advertisement! "Let's see a movie."

"Is it a scary movie? You should know, I uh - don't really like scary movies... or bloody ones..."

"Sci-fi." Now _I_couldn't keep my tail from wagging, for a variety of reasons. "I can cover it. Don't worry about that."

"Fuck that, we'll split it. And - Danny?"

"Yeah?"

His smile turned into a sheepish grin, and he half-looked away. "You should also know, uh... I've never played an Edgeworlds game..."

It took a few seconds for that to click, but when it did, I couldn't help but laugh again. That was what I'd talked about earlier in the week to get him to calm down. "I have one on console if you wanna co-op sometimes."

"That sounds good. Dammit - one more thing?"

"Mm?"

Harley rested his chin on my shoulder, and squeezed me gently. "...Thank you. I've been a bit... _scared_of getting into another relationship after what happened with her, but you... you've... God, I don't know how to put it into words."

"I put this funny warmth in your chest?" With one fingerpad, I poked at a spot in the middle of his sandy-tan fur right there. Another second - and his heartbeat pumped against that finger in a steady rhythm. "Right here. It's like - like an energy, kind of, that just makes you wanna hug me tight and give me a kiss and never let go?"

"Yeah. Exactly." He nuzzled my shoulder again. "You feel it too?"

"Yeah. I do."

It had been cloudy and unseasonably cold this entire past week, but no storm came. In fact, things actually got a bit warm through the night, and - bright sunlight filtering in through the drawn curtains by my window woke me up the following morning. Through a space between those curtains, there was hardly a cloud in the sky.