FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Fourteen year-old Brady wandered into the abandoned playground, his paws stuffed deep into the pockets of his hoodie. He was shivering, despite his wolf fur and favourite blue jumper. Why Oliver felt the need to meet him at a playground at 11:30 at night he had no idea, but the dog was often prone to pulling stunts like this. The breath coming out of his muzzle was visible, making him look like a smoker. When they were kids they'd always pretended they had a cigarette, like almost every other pup on the planet.

"Hey Brady! Come up here!" The Labrador's voice in the darkness startled him, but after a second of looking around, the teen saw that his friend was camped up high in the play equipment. He was leaning casually against the rails on the fourth level - the highest point in the playground. It was typical Oliver, seeking out the highest point around.

"Did you call me out here just to play on the playground with you?" The wolf called up. He heard the Dog scoff as his paws came out of the pockets and landed on a metal ladder. The surface was cold in the chilly night air, but it was hardly unbearable. The wolf hefted himself up to the top layer, sliding under a low bar in order to join the Lab. They were both by this point a little too big to actually fit on the play equipment, and would never be caught dead on it during the day, but it was night - nobody else was around to see their shame.

"Finally." Oliver huffed dramatically, pressed up close to his friend in the small surface area. "I thought you weren't gonna come!" He whined. Brady rolled his eyes.

"Don't be so sensitive. Now why the hell'd you call me out? I'm s'posed to be in bed." Brady grumbled. His friend grinned, eyes lighting up.

"I asked Marley today if she'd be my girlfriend, and she said yes." He said with a giggle. Brady instantly beamed right back, knowing that his friend had had a crush on the other lab for some time now. He felt a little sad, he'd been hoping that maybe Oliver liked boys too, but it was okay. And besides, they were best friends, which would just make it weird.

"Cool, when are you guys gonna go on a date?" Brady asked, fully aware the new couple's options in the town were limited. Oliver furrowed his eyebrows, cocking his head a little.

"I...I don't know. I guess we have to go on a date now, don't we? I didn't really think about that." Oliver confessed, his cheeks warming up with embarrassment. Brady just laughed.

"Well did you at least kiss?" He asked eagerly.

"Well...um, not...exactly..." Oliver replied slowly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Oh, come on! Everyone knows it doesn't really count if you haven't kissed! You haven't even been on a date yet, you idiot." He joked in a cheerful manner. The Labrador glowered at him.

"Shut up. At least I have a girlfriend." He retorted, Brady's laughter stopped, and his face fell a little, now his turn to grow red.

"It's good she said yes. You're gonna be the coolest guy in our class." He said softly, leaning on the rails and looking out into the park.

"Damn right." Oliver said smugly, joining his friend in leaning on the rail, their shoulders pressed right up against each other. The two didn't speak for a bit, thinking their own thoughts and enjoying the silence.

"We still gonna be friends?" Brady asked cautiously. He was reasonably popular at school, but he knew that was mostly due to being friends with Oliver. After he'd brutalised the older would-be bully last year in the wolf's defence, the Lab had gotten somewhat of a reputation. Played off with his extroverted personality, he'd scored major friendship points on the school ground. And Brady had come along with him, but he knew if they stopped hanging out his choices of new friends would be slim. It was like other teens just knew he wasn't like them, some kind of antigay sixth sense.

"Of course man! You think I'm gonna drop you just because I have a girlfriend? I know I'm a dick, but I'm not that bad surely?" Oliver replied, laughing. "But what about you? You don't even talk about girls you like, you ever gonna ask one out?" He said teasingly. Brady looked over the edge at the ground, slightly dizzy from the distance. His face grew hotter and redder, and even under his thick grey fur Oliver could see it. Mercifully, he didn't say anything; he merely waited for the answer. Brady took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut and -

"I think I like boys." He said quickly, instantly beginning to shake with nerves, regretting what he'd said. He'd already talked with his brother Jake about it, who took it surprisingly well for an eight year old, but this was a whole other level. They all made constant jokes at school about gay furs, liking other boys and how gross and silly that was. Part of him expected the Labrador to just lean over and push him over the edge; the other part wished he would.

"That's okay." The dog said simply. He shuffled to the side a little, his arm no longer pressed up against the wolf's, but he didn't run away or anything. Brady looked over to his friend.

"R-really?" He asked, feeling silly for being so damn nervous. Oliver shrugged.

"Yeah. I mean, it's not like...a total shock. But...it's okay." He said, sounding somewhat hesitant but genuine. "And besides..." He added with a sly grin. "This way you won't wanna steal my new girlfriend." Brady laughed now, rolling his eyes.

"Stop saying girlfriend so much, Marl's in our class, I know who she is you dickhead." The wolf replied, feeling much better already, his heart rate slowing. Oliver beamed.

"But I just like saying it so much. She's so great Brady; I can't believe she actually likes me too."

Marley eased herself into the chair, eyes on her coffee mug, placed carefully on the coffee table. Oliver had a mug in front of him as well, steam still rolling off of the hot surface, but he paid it not mind. If she had to guess, Marley would say neither of them would finish their drinks. Her boyfriend's eyes were red, swollen around the edges as if he'd been crying. His fur was matted and unkempt, his ears uneven; he was a mess. She looked better, but felt the same. To summarise her current emotional state in one word, Marley was tired. She was exhausted. She'd explained to her parents what was going down, and they'd (thankfully) left to go In Town, treat themselves to a meal or something.

"I still feel bad about that." Oliver said out of the blue, nudging his chin at the now-fixed window behind her. "How much did it cost to replace? I...I'll give your parents the money." He said, his voice growing quieter with each word. Marley glanced back absentmindedly, that fucking window was the last thing she cared about right now.

"It doesn't matter, don't worry about." She said dismissively, sighing. She was trying to build herself up to this, but in the past any break they'd had as a couple had been done in the heat of the moment. This sort of thought-out and rehearsed breakup thing was a new field for her. She looked up to see Oliver open his mouth to protest, before shutting it wordlessly. Desperate to do anything to break the tension, Marley picked up her coffee mug and sipped the drink, it was still too hot to drink and burnt her tongue, but she swallowed it back nonetheless.

"Were they mad?" Oliver said suddenly, causing her to wince. She placed her cup back on the coffee table, looking up again.

"What?" She asked.

"The window...were they pissed about it?" He asked, looking genuinely concerned. Marley just shrugged.

"They weren't impressed. But I didn't tell them the truth, they think you were just drunk, tripped and knocked Brady through."

"Oh." The dog replied, staring down at his paws, flexing anxiously in his lap.

"I don't really know how to do this Oliver, I'm sorry for making it awful." She said in a voice barely above whisper. Her boyfriend smiled sadly, but let her keep talking. "I just think we...I think we have to be honest with each other. Not worry about each other's feelings and just say what we really feel."

"I love you." He said without missing a beat, biting his lower lip. Marley squeezed her eyes shut.

"Don't say that. Please don't do that." She groaned, shaking her head slowly. He gave a slight nod.

"Yeah, I'm...I'm sorry." The word was practically squeaked out. He swallowed. "I...I really do care about you though, I mean that."

"Oliver...do you actually like being with me? Or do you just like not being alone?" She asked, heart beating fiercely. He looked away. "C'mon. All we do is fight; we have barely anything in common and the only time we have fun together is when we're both on so much shit we couldn't even be called conscious."

"I know we have our...d-difficulties." He said meekly. Marley ignored him for now.

"I feel like I barely know you, I don't know what you want anymore, if I'm honest. But I know what I_want, and what I don't. And I don't want to spend all my time either on drugs or thinking about them, on so much shit that my life just melts right by. I don't want to spend my entire life living in this god damn town, buying shit off Paul to make it through another week of nothing happening. I hate the fact that Brady is the only one of us who moved away, why the hell did we stay here?" She inhaled deeply, breath shuddering, her mouth dry. "You know why I really started taking all the shit we take? Cause I'm _bored. How depressing is that?"

"I don't have a drug problem and neither do you. Like you said, we've gotta do something. You've been spending time with Max as well then?" He said, his eyes hard, gaze narrowing. Marley threw her hands up in exasperation.

"I haven't spent any time with Max, Jesus Christ Oliver when did you get so damn paranoid? Are you listening to yourself? You...you spend so much time being scared of me leaving that you strangle me. And it's fucking hard trying to love that." She stopped, swallowing in an attempt to prevent herself from crying. "And, I didn't say I thought you had a drug problem."

"You were thinking it." He said with a low growl.

"Can you really say it's not true? Be honest with me. Are you even sober now?" She asked.

"Just...just Xanax..." He grimaced, flinching, eyes flicking away from hers.

"Ollie." She said softly.

"I get anxiety. Do you even know how much stress you cause me, throwing your little hissy-fits all the time? Deciding one week that, oh, now you're too good for dope, only to come back three fucking weeks later asking for some of mine. Then we fuck and it's done. We go through it every three months, it's always the same with you. So why don't we just skip that now, we'll take some molly and fuck?" He said, practically spitting the words out, lips pulled back to reveal his teeth. His knuckles were white, paws gripping the sides of his couch tightly.

"You arsehole." She said, standing up.

"Where are you going?" He snarled, also standing. "We're not done here."

"Outside." She snapped, storming out into the backyard. Oliver let out a large and dramatic huff before following her out. He found Marley standing on her back lawn, lighting up a cigarette. She inhaled, held the drag for a moment, before letting it seep out the sides of her muzzle. She shut her eyes, rubbing the bridge between her eyes with a free paw. "I don't want to fight with you Ollie. Really I don't." She said in a defeated voice. She heard him take a step towards her.

"So don't. Look...I-I'm sorry, I...overreacted. Let's go inside, sit down and talk things over some more." He said, coming up behind the dog and wrapping his arms around her waist.

"Don't do that." She said softly. Oliver responded by nuzzling into her neck affectionately.

"I don't want to lose you." He murmured into her fur, squeezing tight around her stomach.

"It's too late for this." She replied, twisting forwards and away, wrenching out of his grasp. It was only half finished, but nonetheless Marley dropped her cigarette onto the concrete, stamping it out. Oliver gave her the wide-eyed look of a fur whose Xanax just kicked in. Marley looked away and went back inside, going to the kitchen and leaning against the bench, unsure what else to do with herself. Oliver followed after her, his eyes soft and sad, staring after her. He found his own bench space across from her.

"Do you still love me?" He asked her, unsure. He was beginning to think that this might not be the usual fight they had. "Do you feel...anything for me?" Marley sighed, rubbing her closed eyes with her paws.

"I don't know..." She sighed, her eyes (and now her paws) wet from the tears starting to form. It was a lot easier to be angry when he was shouting, or saying hurtful things. Soft Oliver, the one she saw so rarely nowadays, he was much harder to hurt. The scared little puppy, who was really just terrified he'd end up alone again. His parents were distant and cold; he had no brothers or sisters and spent the first years of his life with nobody, at least until Brady came along. She knew that. She knew he had issues. But that only made it harder.

"You don't know? Don't give me that shit Marl, either you still have love for me or you don't. So what's the answer?" He asked, his voice aching with hurt. She looked up and met his eyes, seeing that they were also teary. "Don't lie to me."

"Love isn't enough Oliver. It's just not. I thought it was, but the fact that I love you doesn't mean I can be with you. I don't even know how much is really you anymore; you barely spend any time sober these days. So do I love you? Or the sweet, cuddly, drugged version of you?" She said, realising for the first time that the things she was saying...they were things that she'd known for a long time. These weren't new thoughts, but this was the first time she was actually addressing them. It felt weird, almost like Déjà vu. "Everyone's nice on MD."

"Marley I...I can stop the drugs. I can quit drinking; I don't want to lose you." He pleaded.

"It's not just that. We don't connect anymore. We're together because it's convenient."

"That's not true." Oliver argued. Marley just looked at him. After a second, he looked away, unable to take her stare. She let her legs give out, slowly sliding down to the floor. Oliver did the same, so they were sitting splayed out opposite each other.

"I'm sorry." She added. Oliver just nodded. They sat there contemplating the future. This hadn't played out at all like she'd thought it would. Marley had expected a TV kind of scene, she'd say they had to break up, he'd fight it, cry and beg her back, but she'd be strong and kick him out. It had begun almost like that, but then everything went off the rails. She wished life would just stick to the script for once.

"So we break up then?" Oliver asked, shocking Marley out of her thoughts. She looked at him again, nodding.

"Yeah."

"Okay." He said, finally seeming to accept it. "So...what now?" He asked. "I don't even...know how my life fits together without you." He explained.

"That's for you to figure out. Now we...we go our separate ways. You do your thing and I do mine." She said, shrugging. She didn't know how her life worked without him in it either. They'd been together for so long; it felt bizarre to think that the dog in the room was no longer attached to her. It felt wrong. Her gut was fighting her, trying to make her retreat to the safety of a relationship, to go back to what's known, rather than face the new and unknown. She couldn't do it anymore though, that much was an absolute truth. She was miserable and starting to hate who she was becoming, trapped in this fucking town and feeling even more alone, despite being surrounded by 'friends'.

"What are you gonna do?" Oliver asked tentatively, maybe searching for ideas. Maybe just curious.

"Travel, maybe. Or move." She replied.

"Where would you go?"

"I don't know Oliver, somewhere where nobody knows me. Some place where I can be invisible for once in my life."

"Can we still be friends?" He asked after a pause, sniffling back tears. Marley sighed.

"No. I don't think so. It wouldn't work. We'll...see each other around I guess, for a while. At parties and...and whatnot. Our friends are all the same, so we'll run into one another. But no, we can't be friends." She explained, talking both to herself and to her ex-boyfriend.

"Oh."

"Yeah. It sucks."

"Did you have fun?" Marley couldn't stop herself from smiling a little as she stared over at the sombre-looking Labrador.

"What?" She asked after realising he was serious.

"With me. With us. Did we have fun? Or was...it all just a huge waste of everyone's time?" God, his eyes looked so hurt.

"Our time was a lot of things, both up and down...but it wasn't a waste. I don't think that." She explained, unsure if this was a good break or a bad one. Oliver was busy working on his thousand mile stare, glaring out to someplace far away and alien. He was barely here anymore, and if he was, he was thinking about something else.

"I don't know what to do. I don't want to go home." He whimpered. "I'm so alone, Marley. I've always been alone. Brady's the only one who ever gave a shit, and soon he's gonna be gone again." He said, in the span of three seconds dropping more emotional walls than he had in the last six months of dating.

"I..." She started, but he wasn't finished.

"I'm just...so scared of being by myself. And I hate that I'm like that. What the fuck is wrong with me? Nobody understands how...how much it hurts. I can't be alone again, I just can't."

"I don't, I can't do anything about that Oliver. I'm sorry." She said. More tears poured out of her ex's eyes, even redder than before. He got on to all fours and crawled over to her on the floor.

"Yes, you can. Please. Don't leave me. Don't end this. I love you, and I don't want to be by myself. I'll do anything." He begged, sobbing now. Marley tried to slide away, but he grabbed her forearm with a tight paw.

"Don't do this..." She said.

"No more drugs, no more drinking. No parties, I won't do any of it. I'll learn to love what you love, I'll be with you. Just don't go, please don't go."

"Oliver." She sighed as he curled himself around her, pushing his face into her shoulder.

"Please don't go, I love you. Please don't go, don't break my heart like this. Don't do this to me. I'm sick, I'm fucked up I know, but I can change it. I'll do anything." He whimpered.

"It was going so well, don't do this." She said, wishing she could go back to five minutes ago.

"I thought I was strong enough but I'm not. I can't. Please. I'll marry you. Marry me. Will you marry me Marley? Please, oh my god." He was babbling now, the words getting smashed and crushed together, blended around and flowing into one another in a vicious blur. His face looked terrible, he looked broken and desperate, like a fur that was drowning, clutching hopelessly for air.

"No." She said, more forcefully than before. He stopped babbling, suddenly jerking his head up and looking right into her eyes.

"If you leave me, I'll kill myself. I can't be alone, and I'd rather be dead than with you. I swear to god, I'll fucking OD. It'll be your fault. You can't leave me." Grunting, Marley yanked herself away and stood up. She looked down as Oliver curled into a ball at her feet, shaking. It looked ridiculous.

"I can. And I am. What you do now is...is all on you. You need to go." She said firmly, trying her best not to let him get the best of her. She could feel herself on the verge of tears, emotionally exhausted, but if he saw her cry she lost.

"I don't." He said, pulling himself up and stepping back. "Don't say that Marl." He pleaded. She just stared at him, trying not feel like the bad guy. It felt horrible, doing this to a fur; reducing them to a blubbering mess. He was doing the same though, she knew as soon as the door was shut behind him she'd fall apart and cry herself to sleep. "I don't have to go, don't make me."

"You do. I don't love you anymore Oliver, get out."