FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The moon hung in the sky like an off-centre painting mounted on the pale, night sky - a spot of colour in the all-encompassing darkness of the heavens above. It cast slight visibility onto the cold forest far below, barely illuminating the thousands of dormant trees and the silky-smooth snow that coated the ground in a thick layer for a distance far beyond the horizon. Everything seemed so still, so silent on the early January evening. Not a single sound could be heard, and nothing moved at all. Every little particle was seemingly asleep, dreaming of warmth. A small gust of wind picked up a handful of snow and threw it against the base of a tree, scattering it in a small semicircle. This was, to tell the truth, the most activity that had occurred for many hours. But, as the Earth's only moon inched further along the celestial curtain of the sky and the faint shadows cast by the pine pillars grew longer, a noise suddenly disturbed the serene, precious silence of uninterrupted nature.

" ALEX! Fuck! That one HURT!"

That one had, in fact, hurt. It was a snowball, but possibly the densest, hardest one the world had ever witnessed. And it was thrown at a speed that was likely several orders of magnitude in excess of the speed of sound - Chuck Yeager, truly, had nothing on that snowball. It had been released from the paw of a lean, mean, killing-machine of a white tiger named Alex (obviously). His soft, white fur allowed him to effortlessly blend into the icy background with a decent level of success, much to his friend's dismay. A retaliatory snowball came hurtling towards him, and he simply stood still and watched with a smug grin on his face as it grazed his fine whiskers and impacted the tree behind him.

"Jeez, you need to work on your aim, Lyle. That one missed me by a mile. You haven't got an excuse, you're blessed with the loveliness of feline eyes too."

Lyle, a shorter, lither lynx rolled his sapphire eyes in dismissal, but couldn't prevent a small chuckle escaping his slightly parted lips. It was true, he could faintly make out the outline of Alex in the darkness, but the snowball just hadn't... it hadn't travelled where he wanted it to. The desired place being his annoyingly smug companion's stupid face.

"Shut up! I... you dislocated my shoulder with your dumb snowball, there's my excuse!"

Alex laughed at that, leaving his 'hiding place' which happened to be just a few metres in front of the lynx and approaching him with a smile, placing a paw on his shoulder and gently feeling it. The tiger shook his head and directed his grey eyes to meet the faintly glowing blue ones of Lyle, a saddened expression written on his face.

"Lyle... I'm so sorry to inform you that tragically your shoulder has been catastrophically dislocated by a couple hundred grams of snow. You'll never be able to jerk off again..."

"Oh, piss off you magnanimous twat."

"Magnanimous? That's not the right wor- "

"Sh-Shut the fuck up! I know my words! I've been speaking English for like... like 19 years!"

"Did you seriously just have to take a few moments to remember your own age?"

"...n-no..."

Alex giggled. Okay, that was cute. Lyle was adorable in general - his smaller build, fluffy ears and drop-dead gorgeous eyes convinced him of that. But mostly it was his personality. He acted like a young, largely innocent teenager - despite having to pay taxes and do boring early adult stuff. He was silly, he was always bursting with energy (besides that one time Alex had to carry him to his bed in his arms - he had fallen asleep playing videogames... that was a fun day), and he swore like a schoolboy trying to impress his mates. Would Alex ever admit he found Lyle attractive? That he so badly wanted to just... feel him? Hell no. Well, at least not in the foreseeable future. God, he couldn't imagine doing something like that.

"...Alex?"

The larger feline blinked dumbly, his senses returning to him. He had been gazing deep into Lyle's eyes that entire time. Fuck. Lyle seemed... not angry, though. Something else. Something Alex couldn't interpret, try as he might. Something strange.

"You're still holding my shoulder."

Oh shit, he still was. His paw was still gently grasping the lynx's shoulder, and he hadn't even realised. Alex quickly released his grip and averted his gaze, a small hint of blush touching his cool cheeks. His outrageously long tail froze in the freezing air and he turned away, partly to hide his reddened cheeks but mostly so he just doesn't have any chance of staring at Lyle like that again. He kept quiet, solely the sound of gentle (if not a little hastened) breathing leaving him.

"... you do that pretty often, you know that right?"

Alex's ears twitched and turned slightly towards Lyle, but he closed his eyes and remained turned away.

"I do what pretty often?"

"You stare at me pretty often."

The white tiger's eyes shot open and he felt his heart miss a beat within his chest. He looked at Lyle, genuinely perplexed yet terrified.

"What? No, I don't."

"Uh, yeah, you do. Whenever we meet or something, at some point or another you always end up... I don't know, just sorta staring at me. If we're close, it's almost always my eyes. What's up with that?"

Alex hadn't even noticed he had been doing that. Sure, he had made the conscious decision to look a few times, but... fuck, even now Lyle looked good. Really fucking good. Alex cursed himself, he couldn't look away, he hated being like this. His subconscious made him do things similar to this ALL the time. It sucked so much. His feet dragged through the snow as the pair talked, completely alone in the woods. That was both a blessing and a curse to the tiger. He struggled to find any words to say, and what felt like an eternity to both of the felines passed before he spoke.

"I... I don't know. I daydream a lot, and I guess I happen to be looking at you when I drift off?" He lied.

"Alex..."

Lyle doesn't normally use Alex's name this often. His long-time crush's expression was that of sincerity, reassurance and overall warmth. Alex's cheeks flushed with colour and he held his tongue, waiting for what was surely to come with bated breath, unable to look away from the gentle blue eyes of his 'good friend'.

"Just tell me you like me. In that way, I mean. It'll make things so much easier for both of us, I promise."

And then the sky fell.