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The Big City

Part I: Come Together

By

Dissident Love

All characters contained and referenced within are wholly original works, or are used with express permission of the original creator. Any resemblance to any other characters from any other works are probably just intended to be affectionate homages and you should probably just take it as a compliment, because life is short and we are here to love.

Saturday night in the green room of the Crimson Imperial Grand Hall, a rather impressive name for what amounted to one half of a rather skeevy casino in the part of town where muggings were considered the best of several possible outcomes, and DL Bender was rethinking more than a few decisions he’d made in his life.

I could have gone into engineering, he thought, checking his wraps for the tenth time. His knuckles pumped and flexed, blood struggling to force its way through to his constrained fists. Another few minutes and his blood pressure would be so jacked he wouldn’t even notice, but in the brief, suspended hiatus before his walkout he was acutely aware of just how uncomfortable sixteen feet of bamboo cloth strips could be. I could have gotten my red seal by now, worked as a chef somewhere nice. I could have bought the Fas Gas if I’d saved up my money like Dad told me to…

The big human bounced on the balls of his feet, back and forth, nervous energy coming off him in waves. He felt paws on his shoulders, the big mitts of his coach’s assistant’s assistant Rog trying to knead some calm into him, but it just made him bounce all the harder. “You gots this,” the barrel-chested, barrel-necked, barrel-fingered Doberman rumbled. “You gots this.”

By now I could have bought a couple houses in Forks, maybe even the other Fas Gas that opened up. I could have gotten into real estate like Heather. Or maybe I could have gotten used to living in tour busses…

The lights just beyond the curtains dimmed and a roar went up from the crowd. This was the seventh bout of the night and the bar service was close to being cut off, so this was what DL liked to call ‘peak liquor’. Anything that happened in the next eighteen minutes would get a deafening explosion of approval, which he appreciated. It was nice to lose in front of a happy crowd.

“THE NEXT FIGHT IS SCHEDULED FOR THREE ROUNDS IN THE CCFC MID-HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION!” bellowed the announcer, another human ironically nicknamed The Silver Fox. “INTRODUCING FIRST… IN THE RED CORNER…”

“That’s yous,” Rog prodded, pushing DL forwards. “Let’s goes.”

Does he really have to talk like that? A couple extra esses, sure, I can see that, but every word? He pushed through the curtains, leaving the dismal green room behind and stepping into the sweltering, sickly-sweet atmosphere of under-under-league competitive fights everywhere.

“THIS MAN IS A HUMAN, A FREESTYLE MIXED MARTIAL ARTIST WITH A PROFESSIONAL RECORD OF THREE WINS, FIVE LOSSES, ONE NO CONTEST!”

Love that no contest at the end, he thought. It seems to make the thing before that seem less important.

“DANIEL LEWIS ‘RAGING’ BENDER!”

The DJ knew his work, and the opening chorus to ‘Hey Man Nice Shot’ boomed over the PA system. DL only had to pass twenty rows of folding chairs before he reached the elevated octagon, a brilliantly spotlighted oasis in the midst of the darkness and the screaming. Officials and referees patted him down, checked his cup, checked his teeth, checked his hair, and in deference to his unusual species gave his body a quick once-over for any lubricants that his curiously hairless pink skin could take advantage of.

With that out of the way, he turned and shook hands with Rog, the only representative of Kenny’s Boxing that was free that night to help warm DL up. Rog had been a superheavyweight contender some thirty years ago, with a win/lose record both well into the double digits but known for always crowd-pleasing knockouts, and he was a good coach and a good friend, but it stung that DL hadn’t gotten anyone ranked higher to come out to his events. He knew he wasn’t a real prospect anymore, not with a record of three five and one, but they could at least check him out live, give him pointers-

“Gets up there, boy!” Rog grinned, one eye drooping lazily.

DL grinned back and nodded, stomach lurching but otherwise feeling wonderfully numb. He supposed that was an advantage. He’d heard stories of pre-fight jitters, but all he ever got was the sense that his belly was trying to hide behind his other organs. That wasn’t so bad. He jogged up the four steps and walked resolutely into the blazingly illuminated octagon. The crowd loved a crazy character, and watching a human in the CCFC was always good for a chuckle.

“AND NOW, FIGHTING… OUT OF THE BLUE CORNER…”

A-a-a-a-and I’m fucked.

“THIS GRRL IS A REAL TIGER, A JUDENKO COMPETITOR WITH A PROFESSIONAL FIGHTING RECORD OF ONE WIN IN THE VERY FIRST ROUND, NO LOSSES!”

Wait, first round? Rog never mentioned that!

“JULIENNA ‘TIGERBOX’ BOLEA!”

Shi even has a cooler nickname than me…

The music switched to something fast-paced, pulsing electronic beats that the more metal-savvy human didn’t recognize. From the other green room, which was really just the corridor connecting the Grand Hall to the bar kitchen next door, three shapes approached wearing matching emerald green silk robes.

They even have a cooler posse than me! I knew I should have gotten a silk robe for this…

Most places, DL cut a fairly imposing figure. Six-foot-four and broad shouldered, he was heavily built and usually walked around at about two hundred forty pounds. He was a lean two-fifteen at the moment, up from two-oh-five for the weigh-ins the day before. A smattering of small, indecisive tattoos adorned his body, but the upper right portion of his back was dominated by a stylized, swirling fox seemingly composed of fire. He bounced again, clad only in black and gold fight shorts, black and gold six-ounce gloves, and a black and gold mouth guard.

Some female singer began to bellow about roaring when his opponent finished hir own pat down and stepped into the ring. Shi was indeed a tiger, ochre fur glowing under the punishing spotlights, and on any normal day he might have considered, briefly, offering to buy hir a drink. Shi loomed, long and lean and probably closer to six-foot-eight were shi not hunched forwards in that manner most felines had. Hir emerald green fight gear was furtight, and he noted that the herm’s cup was definitely one of the larger varieties on the market. The multi-layered, criss-crossing and stretch-panelled sport tops shi wore worked hard to keep a full but compact bosom under control, but he figured that was only buying him maybe twenty pounds of leeway. No, this was two hundred pounds of jungle cat, and shi was looking at him with an expression that he knew all too well.

I have to kill you, shi smiled. Nothing personal.

They walked forwards, standing almost nose-to-nose in the center of the ring. Naturally shi rose to hir full height, back flexing and neck straining until he was pretty sure he only came up to hir chin. The in-ring ref approached, ran through the usual rules, and stepped back.

DL rolled his neck, returned the smile, and touched his gloves to hirs. Cats were fast and athletic, and pound for pound were among the strongest competitors in the game. Shi was definitely buff under all that fluff, something herms had no trouble developing, but he would put his own raw strength up against hirs any day. No, his issue was going to be maneuverability, particularly if shi was judenka. He had to keep away from the cage, keep the fight on his feet, and focus on the counterpunching.

You had to know your strengths, after all.

“ROUND ONE!” cried the Silver Fox from somewhere outside the ring. “FIGHT!”

The tiger dropped to a three-point stance, carefully blunted claws briefly extending, and came out of hir corner at a dead run.

A-a-a-a-a-all right, DL sighed, glancing skyward before shifting his right foot back and setting his weight. We’re going to do this the HARD way.

. . . . . .

Saturday night in the Metrotown Citytrain Station, three storeys below street level and chillingly cold despite the midsummer heat, and Amber was rethinking more than a few of the decisions in hir life. Based on the faces of those around hir, travellers either heading home from thankless weekend shifts or heading out to the sort of bacchanalial behaviour that would have made hir teenaged self blush, shi wasn’t the only one.

“Why does no-one ever look happy on public transit?’ shi murmured into hir phone, tucking hir free paw into hir armpit for warmth. “I mean, it’s pretty much free, and you’re flying underground from one end of the city to the other, completely ignoring traffic. It’s like fucking magic.”

“We got you out of the small town too late!” Cindy wailed on the other end. “You’re going to be a hick forever!”

“I’m from the same town as you!”

“Yeah, but I was sick of that place way before you were. Mentally I’ve always been ahead.”

Amber squeaked with rage, but shi supposed in a few ways it was true. Amber had always lived in the here and the now, even if shi’d done nothing but worry about the future. Cindy, ever the go-getter, had her eyes focused squarely on her career goals and she’d seen, well, MOST of them come true. Amber might have been the Terror of Circe, but Cindy had always been the one who seemed too much woman for one small town.

“Anyways, you’re still coming to the Boiler, right? I told everyone you’d be there.”

“Why would you tell ‘everyone’, and who exactly is ‘everyone’, and I should just say no right now just to piss you off. I’m tired, my paws hurt, and I have a coffee bean SOMEWHERE in my bra that’s making me very irritable.”

“I bet we could get one of the boys to try to find it for you! OOO, that could be a game! They can only use their noses-“

“You know, I really need to change my phone number.”

“Fine, we’ll get the girls to do it.”

“Not what I meant!”

“You don’t know what you mean!”

“WE’RE NOT GOING THROUGH THIS AGAIN!”

“WHY ARE YOU YELLING IN A CROWDED PUBLIC PLACE?!”

Amber froze and turned slowly away from the wall against which shi’d been trying to steal a modicum of privacy. People were staring, but shi had enough experience with that particular activity to be able to rapidly sort the various bystanders into a couple broad categories. The current majority was ‘jaded City inhabitant watching a loud spectacle unfold in a quiet space’, which was generally harmless and, to be perfectly honest, shi rather enjoyed doing that hirself. A few of the onlookers had the slow eye-widening realization that the curvy kitteh was a hyper, and thus fell into the category of ‘jaded City inhabitants getting an eyeful of something that they might see every day but was still kind of fun to check out’.

Shi liked that category a lot more than the old Circe reaction, which was ‘small town folks who heard about these sorts of things but never really expected to see one in PERSON, so I better make this one time count!’

The voluptuous feline was dressed semi-casually, having just come from the City University Downtown Annex. Shi’d neglected a coat because it was so warm this evening, which meant shi was shivering slightly inside of an attractive white lace blouse. Moron, shi grumbled to hirself, hugging hirself a little tighter as hir ever-frustrating right ear flopped down over hir eye. You knew you were taking the late train!

Shi couldn’t wear heels, or rather shi didn’t want to spend money on heels that were designed to take the sorts of stresses hypers could give. Hir bare, oversized footpaws shifted back and forth on the chill concrete, and shi once again regretted not at least wearing stockings. Amber was in an azure mood as of late and hir swishing blue skirts reflected that, shimmering streams of a dozen different shades cascading from hir full hips.

The second category of onlooker seemed to be somewhat startled by the fact that those skirts hugged a collection of bulges that could easily have been mistaken for a trio of healthy watermelons.

“Hey,” shi smiled, waving at the impromptu audience. “Sorry. Long-distance telemarketer.”

There were a series of ‘aaahs’ from most of the onlookers, who went back to their own little private affairs, most of them involving their own small phones. The cream-and-gold kitteh glanced down at hirself, pleased that shi’d managed to keep everything in hir restraints under control. Watermelons though they may be, this was about as small as shi could manage anymore.

Hir lips twitched. Lucky me…

The hem of hir skirts fluttered as the train whizzed into the station with an efficient, electric whine that always sounded like a colossal microwave. It carried with it a burst of warmth that fluffed hir tail out and bought a bit of a spring to hir step. “Anyways, babes, yes, I’ll be at the stupid Boiler tonight for stupid drinks with stupid people, but first I need to head home and change. I’m frickin’ exhausted.”

“Oh, you just want to eat everything in the fridge like you do every night!”

“That’s just what I do when I’m stressed out!” Shi paused and amended that thought as shi trotted towards the train doors, hir skirts and several hundred pounds of hybrid flesh bouncing gaily in front of hir. “Ok, that’s one of the things I do when I’m stressed out…”

“Eeeee, I knew Horny Amber would make an appearance tonight! SWEET! See you there, sweet cheeks!”

“Later, sugartits,” shi replied lovingly, causing a young male beaver, probably about hir own age, to cough in order to cover up his giggle.

Hey, at least here they own their oddness, shi smiled. Back in Circe he’d just have walked into a wall. There wasn’t much room on the later trains, not on a Saturday night, and shi found hirself pressed up against several people at once, or at least parts of hir were. They were polite, though, and avoided eye contact. Shi couldn’t stand long train rides where someone was fetched up against one faintly rumbling teste and trying to chat hir up, ask about hir day, get hir phone number. Unless they were cute, and even then they had to be especially cute.

The doors hissed closed and everyone leaned reflexively as the train accelerated. Shi could feel the coffee bean somewhere in hir left bra cup, but it was just far enough from the edges that shi couldn’t get it without getting particularly R-rated in public. It was just one of the many hazards of the modern, nay, millennial student. By day Amber was taking a variety of fine arts and telecommunications courses at the University, and most mornings and evenings shi was also manning… er, grrling, one of the busiest Stardoes on campus.

“Three years in the City,” shi sighed. “Eighty-eight credits. Three diplomas. Five jobs. Seventeen boyfriends. Four girlfriends. One… other.”

“Pardon, dear?” asked an elderly woman of somehow indeterminate but exceedingly egg-shaped species.

“Nothing, nothing, just… checking the night’s scores. Go Whitefish!”

The woman just laughed and nodded, as if that somehow made all the sense in the world.

. . . . . .

Saturday night in the Puck Lively Botanical Gardens, one of the many luscious greenspaces adorning the carefully-cultivated ultra-urban sprawl of the City, and Rian was rethinking more than a few of the decisions he’d made in the last three months.

The Gardens were right next to the University campus grounds, which is to say on three sides they were walled by ancient but meticulously maintained cement architecture in the grand old style that was popular when money was no object and most people were happy for a job that paid in soup, and to the south in gleaming chrome and steel. The University had started building vertically before being forced to expand into the surrounding floorspace, and now elevated aluminum skybridges strung back and forth above the lush green canopy. It was under one of these bridges where Rian liked to stop on his way home, because it was one of the few places in the city that was well and truly blocked from sight of nearly anyone.

“Will you be all right if I go out tonight?” the stocky little mink asked, walking slowly around one of the great redcedars that shouldn’t have existed in this temperate Eastern location but for the graces of several dozen dedicated and well-funded horticultural students.

-Of course, Master,- came the reply, tickling the back of his brain like rose petals. –I have gotten quite good at commanding the television. There will be many murders for me to solve.-

“You know I don’t like you watching those shows,” Rian chuckled, tracing his fingertips along the bark, his heavy tail doing likewise behind him as he travelled. “They’re not… good for impressionable people.”

-I am hardly impressionable, Master,- Silk seemed to pout. –I am older than you.-

“Yes, yes, but that’s… you know what I mean. I don’t want to come home one day and find you wearing dark little shades and making pithy one liners.”

-I’m sure that would… suck,- Silk replied, and in his mind’s eye Rian saw dark little shades being slid onto a long, sleek alabaster muzzle. –Yeah.-

“Please never do that again,” Rian muttered, but he couldn’t keep from giggling. Ahead of him Silk’s tail swayed enticingly back and forth, the base of it vanishing around the far side of the vast tree trunk as the two minks chased one another in painfully slow motion. He reached out, stroking the cloudy floof with his blunted claws, and squeaked when he felt similar digits touching the very tip of his own tail. “Ack! Did you know I was going to go that?”

-Lucky guess?- Silk hazarded, his lovely serene face swooping down from high above to plant a little kiss on the back of Rian’s neck. –Three weeks we have been coming to this tree. Everything’s eventual.-

The redcedar was vast, almost bigger than his apartment. He used to make that joke, but one day with a little help from Google and a tape measure he realized it was true. Silk’s tail continued to bob and sway, just within arm’s reach before him, while Silk’s lips were just able to complete the circuit. It was moments like these that caused him to wonder, with some trepidation, just what he’d gotten himself into.

Then again, they also caused him to wonder how one boy could get so lucky.

“We will definitely go out tomorrow night,” the much, much smaller stormy grey mink blushed, turning swiftly to try and catch a kiss before Silk could move away, but as always his lover was just out of reach. “Somewhere… nice.”

-Where no-one can see me,- Silk noted.

“That’s… look, this is one of those ‘I’m still figuring things out’ conversations, all right?”

-I know, Master.-

“This is still a lot for me to take in.”

-Oh, I know­, Master.-

“That’s not what I meant!”

-I know, Master.-

“Would you stop that?!”

-I? No, Master.-

Rian stopped in his tracks, whirling around to glare up at the impossible, absolutely impossible sight of his Silk. “How long have you been waiting to use THAT?”

-Going on three weeks, Master. It came to me while watching one of your star-space television programs. One of the funny ones.-

Rian was about five-foot-ten, heavily-built for a mink. Purple streaks mottled his dark grey hair, carefully maintained with the help of some reliable styling products, while his fur was of a more steely hue. He wore sensible slacks and a striped polo shirt, the whole artful combo topped with wire-rimmed reading glasses, every inch of him the shining example of a well-behaved college student. If not for the impressive weight straining at his zipper or the unusually full, rounded heft to his tail, he might never have gotten a second look from anyone on the street.

Silk, on the other hand…

-Master? Are you all right?-

The rest of Silk trotted slowly and gracefully out from behind the tree, both sets of hind legs working in a complicated dance to bring his full body into sight, something he knew his Master loved. Once those distant hips ceased shaking the vast, bulging tail hove into view like a blissful white fog bank. Silk was, for various reasons, based on Rian himself, complete with his physical peculiarities, but then exaggerated to what even Rian would have considered an extreme.

“Y-yes, Silk,” he managed, throat thick. “I like what I see.”

The hexamink was close to twenty-five feet long, with another twenty-five feet of tail swishing back and forth with a sound like an oscillating fan on low. His pristine white barrel was thick and shaggy but always immaculately brushed; Rian could lose a paw up to his wrist anywhere he cared to touch on the immense creature. Towering over him at the front, Silk was nearly twelve feet tall at the tops of his wiggling little ears, a mink of almost classical chiselled beauty, but so pretty it would be tough to tell just from sight if it was male or female.

Of course, the pair of breasts so vast even the great hexamink’s arms could barely touch in front would be a clue, but the modern viewer still wouldn’t be convinced. Rian’s eyes drifted down from Silk’s ever-serene expression of placid love, down across a bust he could actually sleep on (and had, on a few occasions), down to a trim belly cascading with glossy white fur, and then further back to where one would then notice that the six-legged taur seemed to be having some issues with ground clearance.

Silk’s forebody was burdened with a sheath that nearly filled the space between his front legs and his middle pair, plump to excess and swaying back and forth even when the mink wasn’t moving. The next portion of his body supported fully a dozen gravid, sloshing orbs, pushing out to each side well beyond his hips and often gurgling with suppressed desire whenever Rian walked by.

And then… and then… there was his tail…

Silk leaned down, the upper curves of his bust just brushing against Rian’s nose, and planted a proper kiss on his Master’s lips.

-And do you know that I will be there, waiting for you, when you return tonight?- the demon spoke in his mind, as he always did.

“Yes, Silk,” Rian breathed, closing his eyes and trying to steady his nervous palms.

-And do you know that I like you when you’ve been ‘out’, because you’re usually very… suggestible?- Silk continued, tracing a finger down Rian’s thick chest, down his own belly, down to where his slacks strained to hold back a bulge like a volleyball.

“Mmm-hmm?” the little anthro squeaked, trying to keep control. It wasn’t easy. Silk well and truly did obey his every whim without protest and without complaint, but Silk also seemed to be a little too good at getting Rian to say things he’d never have thought to otherwise utter.

-Good,- Silk finished, breath touched with the scent of strawberries rustling Rian’s whiskers. –Then you are going to go out… you are going to have a good time… and then you are going to come home, tipsy and singing strange songs, so I can hear all about it. Master.-

“Y-…” Rian took a deep breath. “You’re invisible again, aren’t you.”

He opened his eyes, and found himself alone against the base of a titanic redcedar, rolling hills and shrubberies stretching away into the distance, hidden from the thousands of omnipresent City windows. He could hear the footsteps on the skybridge above him, and in the distance he could even hear the laughter of other students no doubt taking one of the winding paths through the botanical gardens. No path led to this particular tree, and to date no-one had come across the pair on their nightly excursions.

-Yes, Master,- Silk’s voice seemed to fade. –Let us continue walking. I must remain near you until I am able to once again… be touched.-

“You always make me feel bad when you put it like that,” Rian sighed, shivering despite the warm night air and adjusting the rather awkward mound his sheath was making. “We just… need time.”

-I have all the time in the world, Master. It is you for whom I worry.-

The grey anthro shook his head and exhaled, setting out for the far side of the gardens, and the bus that would take him home. He needed to change out of his dull daytime clothes and into some clean, fresh, dull nighttime clothes. He needed to make sure that his schedule was in order for the next day; he had two shifts back-to-back at the library, and he needed to make the best possible use of them. He needed to make sure that Silk was properly set up in the tiny, super-urban bachelor suite, with the little bargain-basement television nestled into his cleavage.

He needed to figure some things out.

-Don’t leave me waiting too late, Master,- the minkubus added helpfully. –I get… restless.-

. . . . . .

Saturday night in the spacious, couch-strewn back rooms of the Boiler, and Brandy was rethinking more than a few decisions shi’d made that week. Chief among them was the decision to include a few electro-swing covers in the night’s set, the decision to allow hir drummer to tweak his own pickups, and the decision to try out a new brand of fishnets without proper time to break them in.

“Fuck-diddly-uck,” shi muttered, plucking at where another fishnet cord was starting to fray. Two had already gone completely. The netting was small and tight, a vicious eye-wrenching fuscia, but the only reason shi got away with it was because it was too difficult to tell just exactly what the material was stretched across. Not that everyone in the audience didn’t already know, of course. There was just a certain line that you couldn’t cross with regards to wardrobe for public performances.

“Stop picking at it and it’ll stop HAPPENING!” Buchanan hollered from somewhere near the bar fridge.

“I’m seeing how bad it is!”

“You’re making it worse!”

“Just mind your beer, wiseass.”

“And you might have fewer rips if you laid off the-“

“HARD NO!” Brandy snapped, nearly tearing the cord with hir long white nails.

The rest of the Bones laughed. The discussion had come up more than once in recent months, usually with Buchanan at the head, but it was always shouted down. There might be some debate as to the artistic merits of biopharmaceutical augmentation in musicians, but no-one was going to doubt that the music was still the heart and the soul of the band.

And besides, the rest of the band rather liked the view.

Brandy Bones was a five piece unit, and generally preferred to describe themselves as ‘sexy evil rockabilly’. Brandy, naturally, was front and center of the stage, though shi was quite often hidden behind hir tremendous stand-up bass. Buchanan ‘Buchy’ Lanyard backed hir up, behind a minimalist and borderline antique drum setup assembled from several piecemeal jazz kits. Big John and Clevold strummed and twanged away on guitar, alternating lead and rhythm whenever the pair felt like it, and rounding out the quintet with a collection of instrumental skills that even the rest of the Bones could barely believe was Mister Kris. At the moment he was taking up an entire couch by himself, carefully inspecting his saxophone, harmonica, keyboard, keytar, flute, lute and assorted percussive shakers and rattles. He had trimmed down his collection for this tour.

Brandy finished hir own beer, stretched (to the terrified plinking of untested clothes) and got to hir feet. Shi was still getting used to hir current figure, hir center of gravity somewhere just in front of hir belly button, and the traditional pre-show ales weren’t helping, at least not physically. “So are we really doing ‘Lone Digger’?” shi asked, trying to sound more indignant than plaintive.

“It will kill,” Mister Kris replied, tapping out the lead silently on his alto sax. “You nailed it in all the rehearsals.”

“And you think people will even try to dance to it.”

“Yes.” Mister Kris pulled a small black hat down even lower over his lean, knowing face, fingers constantly in motion. The eccentric instrumentalist might not have all the cheese left on his crackers, but no-one was willing to second-guess the weasel’s instincts for music.

Brandy shrugged, hir not-entirely-antique underbust corset creaking. The lacy cups, riveted with bronze, fairly overflowed with a couple gallons of creamy white flesh, just one of the many reasons that Brandy Bones posters were considered collectible items. Shi was human, more or less, and with the exception of the towering boar Buchanan shi was the tallest member of the band. “All right. You punks about to get this show on the road?”

The rest of the Bones murmured vaguely, trying to conserve their very limited post-millennial energy for the actual performance. Big John and Clevold, polecat and beaver respectively, were busy sorting out patch cords and distortion pedals, repeating the same argument they had almost every night. Despite the names they were nearly the same size, both just a couple inches shorter than the six-foot-something Brandy, though Clevold outweighed Big John by better than a hundred pounds. Ironic nomenclature never seemed to go out of style.

The back room was low, dark, and smoky, like every back room they’d ever show-prepped in. It seemed to be a mandatory requirement, along with the bar fridge stocked with cheap beer, the couches that smelled like cheap beer, and the dressing mirrors that seemed to be coated in a fine glaze of what everyone sincerely hoped was just cheap beer. The Bones occupied the furniture nearest the black sound curtain that separated the room from the rear of the stage itself, while the night’s ‘main’ entertainment slouched bonelessly in a threadbare green recliner.

“I can’t believe we’re the opener tonight,” Clevold muttered, once the six-string disagreements had been resolved. “The opener! We’ve been headlining for two years!”

“Headline pubs on weeknights,” Brandy noted.

“Still headlining! What’s he done?”

The Bones glanced over, everyone thinking the same thing but none willing to be the one to say it out loud. The headliner was supposed to be a four-man band, but so far only the singer had showed up. Brandy blushed softly, thankful that hir multiple synergistic layers of bone-white makeup would cover anything short of scarlet fever. I still have one of HIS posters in MY room, shi thought. I’m proud to be opening for him.

Out loud, though, shi said, “He showed up early for a gig. When’s the last time YOU managed that?”

“Ah, shut up.”

“You started this, you shut up.”

“Real mature.”

“FIVE MINUTES!” a voice whisper-shouted from just beyond the sound curtain. “FIVE MINUTES FOR BRANDY BONES!”

“There, you happy? You’ve angered the gods of Five Minute Warnings. Now we’re all going to die.” Brandy upended hir bottle and swallowed the last few drops, shaking out hir immense cascading waves of black hair struck through with bleached white plaits. “It’s gonna be a great show tonight, or else.”

“Or else what?”

“Or else Mister Kris is paying for drinks after.”

The weasel’s paws froze, but only for a moment. He looked up, shrugged, and went back to fine-tuning his harmonica. “It’ll be great,” he said with infuriatingly calm certainty, his greying moustache fluffing with each word. “You’re some of the best folks I’ve ever played with.”

Clevold traded looks with Big John. Buchanan traded with Brandy. Mister Kris was older than any other two members of the Bones put together, and no-one was entirely sure exactly when he joined, but if even half of his long-winded and somewhat pointless anecdotes was true he’d played with nearly everyone on the B-list scene and a sizeable chunk of the A-list.

“Are you a rotten liar,” Brandy said kindly, grabbing another beer from the fridge and tucking it into one of the fraying pockets of hir cutoffs. “OK, losers, get ready to suck.”

“Suck like champions,” Buchy nodded.

. . . . . .

Saturday night at a corner booth just a handful of yards from the cheap plywood stage of the Boiler, and Cindy was completely unaware of even the mere concept of rethinking decisions from her past. It wasn’t that she felt all her decisions had been good and right and perfect from the get go, far from it… it just never occurred to her to ponder how things might have gone better, or even differently. Every decision just paved the way for new, interesting challenges and experiences.

With that in mind, she was perhaps feeling some irksome new emotions with regards to another promotion down at the station that seems to have missed her and landed on someone that could be impartially considered significantly less awesome.

“Her lips move when the teleprompter is scrolling!” the tall and almost ponderously-buxom fox griped with a cheerful grin on her face. “She actually mumbles what the SPORTS GUY is saying! Can you believe it?!”

Tawny locks bouncing, Cindy Shasta would have been (and indeed was) considered drop-dead gorgeous by virtually all modern metrics. A statuesque former cheerleader with striking green eyes, she had the sort of smile that caused an immediate echo on the lips of all those nearby. What’s more, she knew it. She was all too cognisant of her appearance, and the way others tended to react to it.

She knuckled her side where a bra-strap, currently coping with loads normally reserved for suspension bridges, was digging into her ribs. She might have been a trim, svelte six-foot with dainty paws and bedroom eyes, but nearly all of her salient characteristics seemed secondary to a bustline that was well into the triple digits and, according to her most recent fitting, was closing in on a buck-fifty. Several hundred pounds of soft, fuzzy flesh spread out before her on the table, a great deal of it exposed by a black button-up blouse that at once seemed professional and distinctly naughty.

She fumbled around in front of all that blindly for a moment, found her beer, and lifted it to her muzzle, taking a very energetic swig. “Gyah. That’s the problem with cheap beer night. The first nine taste like shit.”

“The first nine,” Amber sighed, leaning back against the booth, hir own vastly disproportionate assets safely stuffed beneath the table. As long as no-one wanted to sit on hir side, or wanted any leg room whatsoever, things would be just peachy, but already Cindy’s own footpaws were making furtive little excursions beneath the kitteh’s trembling sac. “So it’s one of THOSE nights.”

“THEY PROMOTED THE COFFEE PIG!” Cindy snorted, an unaccustomed flicker of actual grumpiness passing over her face. “Hah. Uh. Heh. Sorry. I’m fine, really. I just… long day.”

Amber nodded, patting hir best friend’s and roommate’s paw. “I know, sweetie, I know. Look, you know they’re going to put you back in front of the camera eventually. They HAVE to. You STILL get fan mail.”

Cindy smirked and somehow arched her back, her breasts actually managing to lift a few inches higher. “Damn straight I do. But they keep putting me in for managerial and production training! I DON’T WANT TO MANAGE!”

“Or be managed.”

“WHAT?!”

“Nothing.” Amber lapped daintily at hir own drink, some lemony concoction that was ostensibly ‘like a wine spritzer’ according to the bartender, but it was already making hir nose go numb. “You sure other people are coming?”

“I invited them! I haven’t seen Rennie in weeks, but he’s all busy with ‘wedding plans,’” she pouted, making little bunny ears with her fingers. “Rian’s maybe going to show up, but HE’S been flaky as fuck. Jelena said Saturdays are hir busiest nights, and then made some very un-ladylike comments.”

Amber’s cheeks colored, imagining the hyper-skunkette making lewd remarks to Cindy. Jelena and Amber had kept in touch over the years, more often than not hitting the gym together when their schedules allowed for it, but the young kitteh always felt slightly nervous around the sensual escort. Shi was perfectly wonderful company, but shi kept dropping hints as to ways both feline and fox could make a LOT more money…

“Oh, you know hir. Always on the job.”

“Lucky job,” Cindy smiled, glancing knowingly at her shorter boothmate. “You know shi still carries a torch for you.”

Amber’s eyes widened. “No torch! No carrying! No nothing! I just mooch hir gym membership!”

“Ri-i-i-i-ight!”

“Oh, drink your beer.”

“I just did. Need another one.” Cindy put two fingers to her lips and wolf-whistled so hard a passing waitress nearly kneed herself in the stomach. “Yo! Two more?!”

Amber smiled apologetically to the startled waitress and resumed lapping at hir own drink. Life in the City… shi lived within ten miles of a hundred people shi considered somewhere between friend and acquaintance, but seeing any of them more than once a month seemed impossible. Everything was so busy, so scheduled, so filled!

Shi felt a rumble from beneath the table and sighed, slipping a paw down to pat hirself reassuringly. “Not enough things are that filled lately,” shi whispered under hir breath. How long had it been since shi’d been out on a date? Three weeks? Shi was wondering if shi was going to go mad from loneliness. Any longer and Cindy’s constant low-level flirting was going to yield some seriously fertile results.

The entire booth seemed to lurch and shi was yanked back to the present. “Ack! I mean… hey, DL! How’s… oh, sweet merficul fuckbunnies…!”

The big human grinned, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the bruising and the smattering of bleach-white bandages holding different things together. “Don’t tell me. You finally realized how handsome I am.”

“I… well, I mean, you do have a certain rugged zombie quality to you right now, but-“

“WHOA, DILLY!” Cindy crowed, taking over the conversation as smoothly and efficiently as a steamroller. “YOU GOT JACKED!”

DL scooted a little bit closer, but his glances beneath the table showed he was trying to avoid getting close enough to accidentally third-base the little kitteh’s loins. “Yeah.”

“You didn’t need to come out if you had a fight tonight!” Amber managed before Cindy could be even more helpfully sensitive. Shi leaned closer, tight black crop top shifting and straining. “Are you, like… OK, in there? Did you win?”

The somewhat battered human accepted his own drink from the waitress and took a pull from the bottle before answering. “In order… I know, yes, and… no.”

“Awww…”

“Judges decision, though. Shi didn’t finish me.”

“SHI?!” Cindy gasped. “You fight chicks?!”

“In my defense, shi was like six inches taller than me.”

“BUT YOU FIGHT CHICKS?!”

“Does it make you feel any better if I lose to them?”

“YOU…!” Cindy paused, tapping her teeth. “Actually I guess it’s fine. Shi signed up for it. And shi beat you!”

Amber shot Cindy a withering glance that the fox completely missed. “I’m sure what Cindy MEANS to say is, you put up a valiant effort and we’re all proud and congratulations, and for the love of beer, Cindy, stop talking.”

DL just shrugged, taking another drink and watching the roadies assembling the collection of instruments on the stage. “It was a good fight. Shi’s very talented.”

Amber gave his pink paw, or whatever humans had, a squeeze. Shi’d met DL at the gym, where he’d been taking part in one of the many ‘sport combat’ classes, this one focused exclusively on traditional boxing (shi severely doubted shi could possibly take part in anything with kicks). Shi’d first mistaken his general silence and lack of expression for indifference or even active dislike, not wanting to train with a grrl, but eventually shi’d discovered that was just his way. He was a helpful partner, a good teacher, and after a few months of going to the same classes, he was a reliable bodyguard for the late-night train rides home.

“Did shi take your back? Mount you? Choke you?”

Amber and DL both gave Cindy a glare for that one.

A couple drinks later, the table now a battleground between Cindy’s breasts and the mountainous platter of Boilerplate Nachos that DL had ordered for his post-fight binge-snack, and the night’s entertainment finally mounted the stage. The drummer was first, a boar perhaps even larger than DL who absolutely loomed over his piecemeal drumkit as he started tapping away. A be-hatted and dapper older weasel was next, standing amidst a small forest of instrument stands; he fondled and inspected a harmonica before blowing a few slow, somber notes to complement the gentle backbeat.

“These guys are awesome,” Cindy grinned, bouncing in excitement and sending everyone grasping protectively for their drinks. “Oh, man, I saw them last year at the DMZ when I was dating that hipster guy.”

“I thought you said he had the worst taste in music out of anyone who ever lived ever of all time?” Amber asked innocently, nibbling on a jalapeno-covered nacho.

“Well, yeah, MOST of it, but even a stupid clock is right now and then! Shh shh shh!”

The guitarists were next, an almost skeletal polecat wearing a too-large suit that would have looked at home on a funeral directly, and a somewhat oblong beaver that ambled in a manner that reminded Amber of hir own early-morning gait. Very carefully avoiding facing eachother, they both began to pick and strum away, two discordant riffs slowly merging together in harmony with the rest of the band.

“Oooooh, here shi is!” Cindy wiggled, her bushy tail flapping like laundry caught on the line in a windstorm. “DL, you need to check hir out! Shi’s a human!”

The dark-haired and otherwise mostly fur-less man blinked. “What, you think we all know eachother? Only date within our own kind? Is it amazing that someone with as many natural and obvious defects such as us should rise to the rank of ‘being in a band’?”

Amber snorted, covering hir grin with another drink. “I think she just means that Brandy might be your… type.”

“What, you think that my type is smooth skin? Flat nails? Tail-less butts? I’ll have you know that… uh… uhm…” DL licked his lips, swallowed, and after a prolonged pause remembered to blink. “Oh… kay then.”

Brandy Bones hirself was cloaked in shadows when shi emerged from behind the stage, carrying a stand-up bass hardcase that was nearly eight feet tall. They caught glimpses of pale white skin glowing under the overhead lights, glossy black hair, but very little else until the case dropped with a reverberating ‘thwump’ and was gently lowered until flat. The lid swung open like a coffin and the infamous bass emerged, and with a dramatic, agonizing slowness, the infamous Brandy turned to face the audience.

The crowd noise swelled, a few whistles drifting out of the darkness.

“Good evening,” Brandy breathed, glossy black lips pursing, almost kissing the microphone. “How’re y’all doing t’night?”

Amber’s eyes widened, and a flick to the left showed that DL’s had done the same. Shi didn’t need to bother checking on Cindy’s face… shi could see the fox’s teacup-sized nipples hardening through the sheer fabric of her blouse.

“Yeah, me too,” the scantily-clad woman purred, swaying against the body of hir bass while the band’s moody tune took on a more bluesy, backroom swagger. “One of those nights where you just… want to feel something warm inside you. Or something hot…”

Shi was technically dressed neck to toe, but whatever wasn’t an extremely small, extremely tight lingerie-style bustier or a pair of tiny denim cutoffs was purple and black fishnet. Just enough of hir flesh was on display to leave absolutely nothing to the imagination while somehow managing to hide every last luscious, supple detail. Shi was a hyper, no doubt about it, hir bust considerably fuller and prouder than Amber’s (though falling well short of Cindy), and the fishnets created an eye-catchingly textured outline of an undeniably equine shaft stretching well past hir knee.

“I think that’s… MOSTLY human…” Amber chuckled, blinking once and squirming in hir seat as hir own secluded sac expanded a couple more inches. “I mean, technically. Right?”

“You’re mostly feline,” Cindy added dreamily, swaying slightly as the music picked up tempo even as it faded into sombre minor chords.

DL was aware of hybrids. He knew Amber was part canine, and a quick Googling of hir name revealed far, far more evidence of this than he’d ever expected. He was surprised to discover that there seemed to be no nudes of hir online, in this day and age, but there were several very popular animated gifs and short film clips of moments when shi experienced ‘wardrobe failures’ on hir show and had to suddenly move the camera away, or try and struggle out of frame.

Brandy would be a perfectly logical hybrid, clearly the gifted offspring of a human and an equine, but that thought just sent him down some other inappropriate mental pathways and he nearly missed when the song properly started. Twangy, watery, dreamy guitar licks filled the Boiler and the crowd finally managed to suppress the urge to hoot and ogle long enough to listen.

“Into the stars they call you away… transcending lifetimes, I call you to stay…”

“Wow,” DL and Amber murmured, briefly awestruck by the smoky, soulful and preternaturally deep voice of the singer. They both leaned forwards, and Cindy would have done similar were it physically possible for her to lean any further forward than her bust currently allowed.

Brandy’s fingers moved sensually over the strings of hir towering bass, a mournful heartbeat of longing. “Fingers entwined, your breath and mine… I writhe and I cry, I beg and I pray…”

DL lived for live music, ever since those last few months in Forks. When he wasn’t working, training, or getting pummeled for money, he could be found at every venue within single-fare train distance of his apartment that boasted flesh-and-blood musicians. He’d somehow missed this band, and he’d never heard this song, but he was already a few beats ahead in his mind when he saw Brandy’s already dangerously overflowing demi corset nearly vanish from sight when the hybrid drew a tremendous breath.

“SO SING A LOVE SONG TO MEEEEEE!” shi bellowed, bordering on a scream, the band behind hir exploding into an unexpected hard-rock chorus. The audience cheered, but was almost entirely overpowered by Brandy’s voice, the angry crunch of distorted guitars and Mister Kris’s eerie keyboard.

DL didn’t know the song but he was singing along by the refrain, and he was on his feet right next to Amber for the thunderous standing ovation some seven minutes later.

“Holy crap!” the kitteh exclaimed, gripping Cindy’s shoulder and giving the fox a good shake. “You should’ve brought me to see them sooner!”

“Nag, nag, nag, that’s all the thanks I get,” Cindy yelled back, but her words were lost in the applause.

Having properly set the tone, Brandy Bones played a few somewhat more recognizable songs, mixing up the hard rock with the jazz and the blues and managing to make even the happiest standard seem weepy and the most depressing vocals seem unbearably erotic. DL felt bad that his eyes kept travelling down to hir fishnets whenever shi was properly positioned next to hir bass, but he had to keep reminding himself that shi probably wasn’t getting visibly larger with each song. Probably.

The corner booth ran through nearly a dozen more drinks and a round of aquavit shots when Brandy Bones finally ended their set. DL couldn’t feel any of the dings or cuts adorning most of his body and was sprawled out comfortably, eyes half-lidded and head bobbing in time with the music. Amber most definitely couldn’t feel hir nose now, and had spent several minutes poking it with hir tongue to no avail. Shi was also fairly sure that the previous song, Three Leg Dog, had caused another few waves of growth beneath the table and shi was going to have a hell of a time getting out of the booth, but that was a problem for Future Amber. Cindy seemed to be dancing all by herself, swaying languidly back and forth, her paws everywhere on her body that the law would publically allow.

“Thank you,” the statuesque mostly-human breathed into the microphone, eyes closed, hir hips rolling slowly against the barrel of hir bass. “I’m Brandy… these are the Bones. Our CDs are for sale at the front. Life is short. Love is free. Live like you mean it. Goodnight.”

The Boiler shook to its foundations as the band left the stage, a capacity crowd of nearly two hundred shouting, stomping, and clapping with all of the considerable pent-up energy the performance had left them buzzing with. DL clapped his own hands as hard as he could manage, while listing ten degrees to the right in his seat. Amber pounded on the table, wishing that the peculiar numbness hadn’t spread to hir lips so shi could whistle. Cindy just seemed to be snuggled against her own cleavage, breathing hard and giggling to herself.

When the noise finally subsided, drink service returned and general chatter once again seemed possible, black-clad and sure-handed roadies emerged, swapping out instruments for the next band.

“So,” came a voice from the far side of the booth. “I take it they were good?”

DL, Amber and Cindy looked up (though not very far up) to see Rian standing there, the stocky little mink wearing a blood red shirt and blue jeans. “You made it!” Cindy cheered. “But you fucking missed the fucking best part! What the fuck?! I told you nine!”

“I got here at quarter after,” the mink nodded. “I didn’t want to come in during the show, so I hung out by the door. I heard most of the show, though.”

Amber goggled. “You didn’t… want… to come in… you… WHAT? Dammit, Rian, we’ve talked about this! BE ASSERTIVE! If we’re in here, COME JOIN US!”

“I didn’t know if you were here-“

“THEN FIND OUT! ARGH! I… YOU… DL, threaten him in a manly fashion!”

DL blinked, still trying to get images of Brandy out of his head. “Do I have to? I’ve had a rough night. Rian, can you, like, hit yourself or something?”

Rian frowned, staring at one of his paws and balling it up into a very non-threatening fist. “I don’t think that’s entirely necessary-“

“Oh, just… SIT DOWN,” Amber groaned with exasperation. “Jeez. Scooch over, DL. Yo, Cindy, do that waitress thing!”

The corner booth was normally good for six people, but Amber and Cindy each took up more than their fair share of seat space. It was a little snug with Rian taking up the last of it, his disproportionately oversized tail tucked in as close to his body as he could manage; DL’s leg was now definitely making friends with Amber’s, and he could tell the petite feline was substantially larger than what shi referred to as ‘Business Hyper’. Cindy, after a little more prompting, put her fingers in her mouth and summoned another employee, and soon another poorly-thought-out round of aquavits decorated the table, along with more regular drinks.

Even Amber had to take exception with Rian on that one, though. “A Green Dream? Really?”

“… yes?” the reluctant mink replied, looking worried.

“Even I think that’s a girly drink, Rian. We have got to take you out more. I feel like there’s an entire lifetime’s worth of poor decisions you’ve missed out on.”

“I… have made bad decisions,” he managed, a little defensively.

“Sure, and that drink was one of them.”

“It tastes like apples.”

“And liquor?”

“No!”

“EXACTLY!”

“Girls, girls, you’re both pretty,” Cindy groaned loudly, flopping back in her seat. “Rian, you’re sheltered. Amber, you’re a harlot.”

“HEY!” they protested in unison while DL just tried to keep his eyes on his lone remaining nacho. You’re a good little nacho, aren’t you, yes you are, he thought. You don’t yell at me.

“And in the middle there’s DL. You three make a pretty good continuum of life.”

Amber’s big blue eyes narrowed. “And if you’re on that side of ME, what does that make you?”

Cindy hiccupped, belched in a politely pretty manner, and smiled her most dazzling ‘I was on television for a week’ smile. “The winner, clearly,” she replied, adjusting her shirt to show slightly more cleavage, if that was actually possible. “Rian, we won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

I’ve been hearing that a lot lately, Rian mused, but on the other paw at least Silk genuinely seemed to mean it. All of the many, many, many things he’d done with the minkubus in the last few months… scary things, exciting things, exotic things, kinky things, downright impossible things… he’d most certainly WANTED to do them. Cindy seemed to have a similar streak somewhere deep down, the desire to dig into people’s psyches and drag their innermost selves kicking and screaming to the forefront. It was noble, in a way.

When Cindy was drinking, however, it was just annoying.

“How long did you intern down at the station with her?” DL asked, leaning in close to Rian. As the only other male there (Amber’s questionable gender identity notwithstanding), he felt it was important to maintain at least some kind of masculine camaraderie.

“T-two months,” Rian mumbled, sipping his drink.

“When was that?”

“Last year.”

“You two hit it off?”

Rian stared for a long moment, to the point where DL thought Rian hadn’t heard him, before replying. “Apparently.”

The big human just chuckled and patted the sturdy mink on the shoulder. “Yeah… yeah, she’s like that. Amber, too. You just kinda… find yourself part of their wacky adventures.”

“Do they have to be wacky?”

“With them? Usually.”

“Oh.” Rian tugged his tail in closer, a bulbous, velvety grey mass the size of a king size body pillow. “Lucky me.”

The stage had been empty of activity for some time now, and no-one seemed to notice a scruffy-necked squirrel creeping behind a much larger drum kit than the one Brandy Bones had used. He wore a silk shirt, burgundy, and sported a curly mass of inky black curls that bounced as he started to tap out a simple, windy beat.

The cheering was instantaneous and nearly as deafening as the close-out had been for Brandy.

“Wow, these guys still draw a crowd,” Rian said, the first faint hints of a smile on his lips. “They have a new album coming out soon? You guys know?”

DL shrugged jerkily, eyes stolidly back on his drink. “Dunno.”

“I miss them. They were everywhere a couple years ago.”

“Yeah.”

A lanky, slouched, stretched-out lion wandered out next, looking bored and slightly confused. He would have towered even over Tiger Box, DL’s opponent from a few hours before, were he not bent like a treble clef. He slung a guitar, curved over a little further in order to seemingly aim his gaze directly at the fretboard, and began to strum.

“Do I know this one?” Amber pondered, tapping hir fingers and switching randomly between air-drumming and air-guitaring. “I don’t think I remember.”

I remember it, DL thought.

Cindy wiggled anxiously. “I used to fangirl so-o-o-o hard for these guys when they first blew up big! Saw them at the Commodore and I was THIS CLOSE to groping the singer!”

The cheering continued, a fitting counterpoint to the leisurely and simple strumming. Bit by bit the lights dimmed from the back of the house to the front until there was a single spotlit microphone stand. A roadie emerged from the gloom and hastily lowered the microphone by about a foot from where Brandy had been using it, flashed a thumbs up and disappeared again.

Brandy Bones’ ovation was fully equalled by the crowd’s explosive approval when the lead singer of Lacuna Coyle stepped into the spotlight, a downright twinkish fox wearing only an open denim vest and a pair of faded blue jeans. His coloring was more of a rust red and cloudy, earthy grey, closer to a coyote than a fox, but the vulpine heritage was evident in the tremendously fluffy tail that followed him. His eyes were hidden by a mop of tight black dreds that spilled about his muzzle, but there was the definite hint of sparkle on his lips that certainly implied some sort of gloss.

Rian’s, Amber’s and Cindy’s eyes slid down, none of the three enormously different furres immune from the draw of a bulge the size and shape of a full-sized fire extinguisher outlined in painfully taut detail through the little coyfox’s pants.

“Well, that hasn’t changed…” Cindy purred.

Amber nodded in appreciation. “Is there some sort of a theme tonight? Who’s the closer, Phrase and the Phukbunnies?”

Rian simply spread a small paw across his own bulge, tucked safely beneath the table, and figured that while he might not be able to match the petite singer for length, the sturdy mink clearly won in the girth department. Though there was only so much you could tell when one was sheathed, he knew all too well… No, stop those thoughts! Silk is waiting for you!

“To me you are the warmest season… And you have always been the brightest sun… But these cliches will not be spoken… I choke on my lead tongue…”

The singer swayed slowly, one hand carefully holding the base of the microphone, the other caressing his own thin, bare chest. His voice was subdued, whispering as though into a lover’s ear, and DL felt all the hairs on his body stand on end. The guitarist switched from muted, undistorted strumming to steely power chords, but the beat remained the same: cautious, reserved, waiting.

“So self-aware, it's a burden… Forever crippled by these tendencies… Please evict me from my shudder shell… So I can speak...”

“Ooooh, I remember this one!” Cindy cried out, shaking Amber vigorously. “It was an album cut, I always thought it should have been a radio single! It’s amazing!”

“Why are you shaking me?!”

“Listen! Listen!”

“I AM, YOU DITZ!”

The coyfox, whom Amber suspected was even shorter than shi was, turned and slung a huge (by comparison) blue-stained bass around his body while the guitarist strummed vigorously, sliding his claws up the fretboard. The song might have been mistaken for soft, even folksy rock before, but it was quickly building to a thunderous, crashing chorus.

“THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING! I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING! THIS LOSS FOR WORDS SEEMS TO BURROW DEEPER EVERY DAY! I’M SO MISUNDERSTOOD! CANNOT BELIEVE IN GOOD THAT’S STUFFED DOWN DEEP INSIDE, BECAUSE NEXT TO YOU…” The instruments all silenced, a yawning void that drew all ears forwards, the speakers still sparking and humming. The singer’s muzzle closed once more, leaning in and nuzzling the microphone as he whispered once more, “I’m at a loss for words.”

“Da-a-amn,” Rian breathed, hugging his tremendous tail across his lap. “That is a hell of a voice.”

“He hasn’t even gotten started yet,” Cindy reassured him.

The song alternated between tender and savage, always a hallmark of Lacuna Coyle’s catalogue. The tune was simple, not bothering to spare any effort for unnecessary chords or flashy solos… and yet five minutes later, the crescendo had every pair of paws on their feet, even Cindy’s, although that nearly upended the table.

DL, not having paws, remained seated.

After the B-side opening, Lacuna Coyle switched to their more famous numbers. Around The Fur nearly brought the house down, bordering on heavy metal and deafening Amber’s sensitive ears. The Face really allowed the guitarist to shine, switching between hard southern blues and crunchy post-grunge licks. Three Stones, a mournful and decidedly quieter tune, returned the focus to Myles and his masterful voice, with the other two members of the band joining in on the harmonies.

The audience murmured when, hardly thirty seconds into the song that DL recognized as Love You All, Myles suddenly turned and placed a tiny paw across the guitarist’s strings. The squirrel’s beat trailed off, and there was a hushed conference away from the crowd.

“You OK?” Amber leaned against DL’s arm, enjoying the big human’s warmth. He was good for leaning against, and shi’d fallen asleep against his body more than once during their post-workout partner stretching, but right now he seemed uncharacteristically tense. “You get cracked in the head a little too hard tonight?”

“I’m good.”

“You sure? You look very… serious.”

“I’m fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine.”

“Well…. Fine.”

The band returned, a simple and calm progression that immediately straightened DL’s back. Amber mewled, stroking the humans arm and noting it seemed a lot harder than it had a moment before. “You sure you’re fine?”

“If you deny the wounds of your lover, you will discover… aahhh… that what you had is shattered and wasted… Did you have to take is so-o-o fa-a-ar?”

The leonine guitarist slid his claws expertly back and forth, a warbling, wailing lead break of sadness. Myles’s head was down, apparently singing out the side of his mouth as he thrummed on his oversized bass. “The truth exposed and love is devoured… and the ivory tower is coming down. A vow betrayed and honor is broken… the wounds are open and bleeding out.”

“Harsh,” Rian said, sipping the last of his drink. “I didn’t know they did breakup songs.”

The stage lights flashed brilliantly, and for a moment all three members of Lacuna Coyle seemed to float in midair. The song exploded as they landed, Myles now howling directly into the microphone with such power his lips were pulled back to his pointy back teeth.

“IF YOU DENY THE WOUNDS OF YOUR LOVER, YOU WILL DISCOVER, AAAAAHHHHHH! WHAT YOU HAD IS SHATTERED AND WASTED, DID YOU HAVE TO TAKE IT SO-O-O FA-A-AR!?!”

DL stood up as best he could, nudging Rian to let him out of the booth. He mumbled something vague and pointless, not even sure which words he’d come up with on the fly. It didn’t matter. The mink, eyes wide and worried, began scooting sideways to let the injured human loose.

“DID YOU HAVE TO THROW IT ALL AWAY?! DID YOU HAVE TO SHOVE IT IN MY FACE?! DID YOU HAVE TO TEAR MY WORLD APA-A-ART?! DID YOU HAVE TO TAKE SO SELFISHLY?! NO MATTER HOW YOU HURT THE ONES YOU NEED!?! DID YOU HAVE TO FALL SO VERY FAR!?”

“Holy hell,” Amber blinked. “Think they’re talking about your last breakup there, Cin?”

“Bite me.”

“Later.”

The song continued, considerably more angry than sorrowful now. The drummer’s arms were a blur, the guitarist thrashed through the lead, while the bass-playing little coyfox was-

“Uhm… did he just drop his bass?” Rian blinked, turned sideways to let the human out of the booth.

“What?”

The bass had been leaning up against the stand, but it slid sideways and fell to the stage with a reverberating, distorted clang through the pickups. Myles Coyle, the diminutive front man for the night’s headline entertainment, had completely left the stage and was approaching a certain corner booth with what can only be described as intent.

“Am I the only one seeing this?” Amber managed, surprised but a little too tipsy to try getting to hir feet.

DL took one big step away from the booth, but he was unable to take his eyes off the approaching coyfox. The stage lights dimmed and came back up, some distant lighting technician not sure what to do about the sudden and unexpected change to the set list. The rest of the band continued to play, neither one of them apparently concerned in the least that they’d just lost their vocalist.

And then…

And then Myles was close enough to touch, and DL was acutely aware that none of his professional bouts, not even against heavyweight contender Timber Bigfoot, not even his first main card appearance, had filled him with half as much terror as he felt at that moment.

“Hi-“ he managed, cut off by Myles’s fist smashing into his jaw.

“WHOA!” Amber and Rian shouted, the mink moving away from the violence even as Amber struggled to move towards hir friend. The audience, those that were close enough to see the events transpiring in the corner of the venue, cried out in confusion and, in the manner of drunken crowds everywhere, supportive excitement.

“Look, I-“ DL said, shrugging off the fully-expected punch to the face, but it was hard to continue when two more blows landed on his belly.

Myles’s lips were pulled back ferociously, and Rian was close enough to hear the snarling. “Uhm… do you need any… help?” he asked querulously, not sure if there was anything he COULD do. Myles was smaller than he, while DL was likely bigger than the pair of furs put together.

“I wanted-“ the human pleaded, hands spread, palms up, but another fuzzy fist snuck through and cracked him on the cheek, which was about as high as the coyfox could reach.

“What the FUCK, DL?” Cindy yowled, trying to work her way out the other side of the booth.

“Are you OK?” Amber added, still trying to shove hir way past Rian, which given the current girth of hir loins was simply never going to happen. The song didn’t miss a beat, which only added to the surreality of the moment.

DL still hadn’t visibly reacted to any of the strikes. Myles might be a fit little musician, but even fully enraged he couldn’t come close to approaching the sort of abuse DL was used to taking just in a warmup session. A few more punches landed, scattered around the big human’s torso, before the coyfox’s arms fell to his sides and he simply stood there, chest heaving.

Rian, Amber and Cindy froze, still coming to grips with the last minute or so. Myles Coyle, the lead singer of Lacuna Coyle, the top selling band nationwide for nearly two months a few years before, had just interrupted a song to viciously assault their friend. None of Amber’s psychology courses, none of Cindy’s business training, none of Rian’s art or poetry analysis, really prepared them to cope with such a turn of events.

Amber, however, felt a spark of understanding flare to life inside hir when the coyfox tensed again, leaped vertically, and wrapped himself around DL in a fashion that shi most certainly recognized. Tiny clawed hands dug into the back of the human’s head, anchoring him securely as they kissed with the sort of passion that Amber had only experienced a handful of times. Myles continued to growl as the pair ground together, DL slipping his big hands down to cradle the little furre’s rump, and the song still playing in the background became a good deal jauntier as fox and man slumped to the floor.

“I… guess they know eachother,” Rian said blandly, swinging his legs back beneath the table.