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Part 4

12/11/1949- New Fur- Thirteen Days to the Performance

The sound of the grandfather clock chimed midnight as Jean sat down on his childhood bed with a groan. Resting his head in his paws, elbows on knees with his back hunched to keep from hitting his head on the bunk above, the white-lion let out a deep yawn and closed his eyes.

"I've been here since ten in the morning. I don't know how I did it as a cub. Living here." The large male mumbles to himself as he looks around his room.

The plain stone walls around the white-lion radiated a chilly air. Two desks in the corner laid unused, covered in dust. Two old wooden chairs that were stained with age sat under the cluttered mess of what used to be the children's study. The shelves of two small bookshelves standing about waist height across from the bunk bed were filled with volumes of operas and the screenplays for some of the most famous of musicals. Smiling softly to himself, Jean stands from his bed, pushing his paws off from his knees, and thumbs the waist band of his skin-tight briefs, outlining and supporting his junk nicely, and drops the soaked garment to the floor so he stands in his white-fur only. Striding over and scratching under his testicles, his sheath bouncing from the motion, the muscularly slim and tall white-lion pics up his favorite musical, "Show Boat" from on top of the short bookshelf.

Bringing his paw from under his shriveled from the cold scrotum and opening the black, leather bound playbook, a blank page falls out and drifts to the floor. Bending over and setting the playbook on his shelf again, his brow furrowed and his tail flicking behind him, Jean turns the white paper over, yellow with age, to find a curling and flowing script written on the front, different from the printed text within the playbook.

"It's from Ralik" Jean whispers to himself as his ears perk and eyes widen, surprised that his step-brother would leave a hidden note.

12/01/1949

Jean,

I knew that this was your favorite screenplay. Ever since we were younger, you were obsessed with this piece. So I knew if I hid this note in here, away from Duke, and I knew that if you ever came back to our home, that you would find this playbook and I could tell you personally, as your step-brother, a few things without being face to face.

I always believed that you were my brother and that Duke was our father. I loved both of you more than anything in the world. Ever since that day yours and my parents died. But I have to admit something to you, my brother, like I did to our father, Duke, all those years ago. I realized when we were seventeen that I wasn't attracted to females. I wasn't

A long space interrupted the letter, the words crossed out with the same black ink. Ralik had obviously been struggling to find a word to describe himself.

Normal. I was a homosexual. I confided in Duke about my feelings. Scared and alone, he was the only one besides you that I could ask about being attracted to other males. And, being afraid to scare you away, he was my only choice.

Jean's ears flatten as his tail flicks at the tip. A feeling like a bottomless pit sinks into his stomach as his eyes continue to scan the sheet of aged paper, a cold ice spreading throughout his veins and hardening his heart as he reads.

Throughout my years down here in this abysmal opera house, with only you and Duke, two males that were not blood related, I realized more and more how alone I was. I had no parents. I had no blood related family. I was a homosexual, with no one to confide in but a marmot under an opera house in a cave of a home. When it became too much to bare, I went to Duke. I cried as he comforted me. He said it was normal. He said that love is love, no matter who it is for. He said that we all deserve love, no matter the form, and we should accept it if it's true.

And then I met David when I was nineteen, you were seventeen. Of all people, I met a stagehand and fell in love with him in the same opera house I grew to hate. He is a kind male. Strong, empathetic, and very aware of the wrongness of today's world. I'm sorry I never told you this. I'm sorry I never could face you in person. I love you little brother. You have far surpassed me in opera, and I know you will go far in this career.

Love is Love if it's True Love

-Ralik

Jean's eyes welled with tears as he held the aged parchment in both paws. Staring down at the script of his brother's right hand, the white-lion's tail lashes angrily as his mind reels and his stomach flips with that empty, bottomless sinking pit, leaving a dark hole of nothing in his gut. A few tears fall down Jeans fur as he wipes his face with the back of his paw, drying the salty ice of sadness from his cheeks.

Setting the aged note on his shelf and taking a deep breath that extends his slim muscled belly and chest, the lion closes his eyes and looks to the ceiling of his room. The cold from the walls and roof closes in on Jean, the stone nothing but grey damp rock. A fake home for two young orphans and a marmot that never knew love. A home for misfits, perfect for castaways that don't know themselves nor their parents.

Hanging his head and walking to his bed, Jean collapses naked onto his sheets. Spread eagle with his eyes closed, the warmth from the cotton fabric radiates up into his chest, belly, groin and legs, trying to sooth the ice in his veins, heart and the bottomless flipping pit in his stomach. The white lion quickly falls asleep, alone except for a father that did not know True Love.

Duke slowly opens the white-lion's door with his tail. The marmot had a tray of chili and a slice of baguette bought from the Bread Shoppe in town, both fresh and warm still despite the damp chill in the cavernous home. Seeing the white lion asleep on the too small child size bed, Duke quietly walks over and places the tray of warm home-cooking on the bedside table and sits next to the larger male, the smell of chili filling the room and driving the dampness and cold out of the space.

"Jean. Best to get some warm food in you after that cold rain. Don't want you getting sick before the performance," Duke whispers gently as he rubs a warm paw down his sons back. Watching his paw go down the bumps of the white-lion's spine, gently tracing each nub of bone down to the base of the male's tail, the marmot slowly rubs back up and whispers again.

"It's my world-famous chili."

Jean's stomach growls of hunger, ravenous after the bottomless pit had disappeared and the flipping had stopped, making the white lion arch his tail when his father rubbed down his spine.

Arching his back as his father's warm paw leaves, the white lion sits up and crosses his legs criss-crossed, naked next to the marmot as Duke takes the tray of food and puts it onto his son's lap.

"What time is it?" Jean asks as he rips a piece of bread from the chunk with his claws, dipping it into the steaming bowl of brown chili.

"Half past eleven." Duke says as he watches his son, then allows his gaze to wander around the children's room, the old marmot's forehead almost touching the top bunk. "Never thought you would be back here." He says softly, his gaze falling on the bookshelf of playbooks and scripts.

Jean nods as he chews the bread in his maw, looking down at the steaming chili.

An awkward silence develops between the two males as Jean chews and rips off more pieces of the oven fresh bread. Duke gazes from the white-lion to the cluttered and dusty desk, and then back to all the screenplays and musicals, his tail wrapping around his ankle and his ears falling back as he clears his throat.

Jean silently stirs the chili with a small metal spoon, his tail tip flicking gently as his ears fall flat as well. The white-lion concentrates on the brownish chili in the bowl as the awkward silence drags on. Time seeming to slow as the two sit in the drowning silence, disturbed every now and then by the sound of the opera house pipework in the stone echoing quietly in the room, and the movement of Jean's silver tail flicking back and forth to the side of the tall male whose back is hunched to not hit his head on the bunk.

"I see you found the note," Duke states softly as he watches his son eat again.

Jean nods and sets the tray aside. "You knew. And you never told me?" The white lion accuses under his breath.

"Jean. I didn't know how you would react. It was not my place to tell you, but for Ralik to." The marmot states with his ears back as he lowers his gaze.

Jean stands, tail lashing as he walks out of his childhood bedroom and throws his arm out in disgust.

"You were my father!" The tall white-lion roars as he makes his way naked to his now warm and dry clothes hanging on the hearth, his slim muscles rippling under his white fur while his tail lashes.

"Jean, it wasn't my place!" Duke growls back as he stands and hobbles after his son.

"You were our father! You could have done something to stop him! You could have done...something! Anything!" Jean growls louder as he pulls on his stage pants and the shimmering silver dress-shirt, disregarding the soaked pair of white briefs on his bedroom floor.

Striding to the coat rack on which his cloak hung, and swinging it around and over his shoulders, Jean tears open the front door, the candlelight flickering with the wind as he looks back at his father.

"This damned hole of a home raised us up to be part of what this opera house truly is. Hell!" Jean slams the door shut, plunging Duke and the home of misfits into darkness.

His cloak billowing behind him as he walks briskly towards the spiral staircase, Jean growls out, his sharp teeth barred and his chest rising and falling as he steps onto the cold metal of the staircase out of hell, and away from the home he grew to know as his own. Leaving behind loneliness and True Love.

End of Part 4

Thank You for Reading!

-Vergennes