Somewhere Down the Line
After ten years, a former couple are reunited by chance. Will the reunion go well? Only time will tell!
This vignette was written for Burgabandit as their Patreon flash fiction reward for September 2018. It contains romantic drama and the beginnings of some intimate goings on between a male and a herm, both consenting adults. :3
Somewhere Down the Line
Louie's eyes widened as he saw her. It had been years, ten at least, but there was no mistaking those striped markings. No mistaking the sound of her laughter ringing out through the mall's food court. He was next in line to be served, but with an apologetic smile to the person standing behind him in line the buff cockatiel ducked out of the queue and walked over to the table at which he could see her sitting with two other figures. His heart raced as he moved towards her, and his head span. He didn't know what he was going to say, what he was expecting to happen when they saw one another, but despite all his nerves he knew that he had to say something. That if he just left her to her life and carried on with his as they both had for the past decade, he might never be able to truly forgive himself for whatever potential he might have squandered.
He approached the table, the tigress he had spotted and heard from across the food court still commanding the attention of her two companions as she giggled and told them a rather lewd, graphic anecdote. Louie smirked. Same old Annabelle. By the looks on the other two figures' faces, a pair of donkeys sitting not just side by side but hand in hand, they were used to her conversational style. They were smiling and laughing along, even if the larger of the two donkeys did seem to be bright red in the face as he did so.
Given the direction from which Louie approached, it was the donkeys who noticed him first. Who cleared their throats as he nervously stood there a metre or so away from the table, waiting for a lull in Annabelle's conversation so that he could interject. The two equines nodded towards him, and as Annabelle's voice trailed off and she turned her head, their eyes met. His, and hers. She looked up and down his leather clad body, a tuft of fluffy white feathers poking out through the partially zipped up length of his jacket and the yellow crest of his head slicked back slightly with gel into a shark-like curve. Louie saw the two donkey's faces react in surprise as Annabelle's clawed hands dug into the table at which she was seated, dragging claw-marks through the varnished wood, though he himself could only grin sheepishly at the corners of his dark, curved beak.
"H-hi, Annabelle. It's been... i-it's been a while."
With a loud grinding creak of its feet against the ground, Annabelle roughly shoved her chair back and rose sharply to her full height, every bit as tall as the buff bird himself. She turned to face him, teeth bared.
"A while? A while, Louie? It's been ten years. Ten. Fucking. Years. And you just stroll up to me in the middle of a food court, like it's nothing?!"
She took a deep breath, visibly attempting to calm herself though seeming to only partially succeed in that regard, and looked back to the two stunned and worried looking donkeys sitting at the table.
"Sorry Jen, Snap, I'm gonna have to call a rain check on our afternoon plans. I... I need to deal with this instead."
She jerked a thumb in Louie's direction, only to grab him by one wrist and begin to immediately drag him away. Louie tried to say something, to find the words to put what he was feeling and what he expected that Annabelle was feeling in that moment into words too, but he couldn't. Thus all he could do was allow himself to be dragged across the mall's food court and beyond. Down a set of escalators and to the very far side of the mall, the plump tigress' hand not releasing her vice-like grip on him for a moment the entire way. She dragged him through a set of double doors, then another, out of the mall itself and into the attached parking structure beyond. She dragged him up a level, then across to where a deep red pickup truck was resting in a parking space somewhat separated from the next nearest car. A hand delved into her jacket pocket and fumbled for a moment before she pulled out a key-ring, shutting off the alarm and unfastening the door's locks. Turning her head to face Louie at last, she snarled savagely, and as she did so the cockatiel saw tears in her eyes.
"Get. In."
He nodded, and did as the tiger commanded. She slipped into the driver's seat, but made no effort to start the engine or even to put the key in the ignition. She slammed her door shut, sat there for a few moments, and then...
"G-god fucking dammit, Louie."
She glared at him once more, eyes not just tearful but with heavy droplets of liquid streaming down her striped cheeks.
"I moved away. I... I broke your fucking heart you idiot. I chose my work over you, a-and... and now you're here, smiling at me like you're happy to see me?!"
Louie shrugged.
"I am happy to see you, Annie. It's been ten years. Yeah, it hurt when we said our goodbyes last time. When you told me you'd prefer a fresh start, and didn't wanna do things long distance, but... you made the right call. You were the smart one then, I was just... well, I was dumb and in love. I didn't want a long distance relationship any more than you did. I just didn't wanna admit that meant we had to be over. After you left, I was sad. I was heartbroken, sure. But... then time passed. Life happened. I understood, I forgave you and... I moved on."
Annabelle grabbed at the steering wheel, clenching it like she wanted to rip it clean off the steering column.
"You forgave me?"
Louie frowned as he saw her face creasing with even more intense emotion.
"Of course I did, Annie. You're a good person. A wonderful person. I loved you because of who you were, who you are. The only reason for me to not forgive you would be that I never should have been upset with you in the first place, so there was really nothing to forgive."
Annabelle's right fist slammed against the steering wheel, the horn honking loudly and making them both jump sharply. She winced, and glanced apologetically at the cockatiel as she slumped in her seat.
"Dammit. I... I'm sorry. It's just, ten years, Louie. It's been ten years and... I never really forgave myself for what I did. For ending things the way I did, cutting things off cold turkey, not giving you a chance to say goodbye. I thought that somewhere down the line I'd stop feeling bad, I'd imagine you getting on with your life and forgetting all about me, and tell myself that made it better. But, I never really did. And now you're here, and... you're telling me I didn't need to feel so guilty. That I didn't need to ask myself if I deserved it every time I met someone I cared about, because in the back of my head I was still this horrible person for what I did to you."
Louie shook his head in frustration.
"Shit, Annie. I don't know what to say. I... I wish I could have let you know that I was doing good. Doing great, actually. I wish you had been able to let go of all that shit. But, hey. I'm here now. And, I'm telling you... I'm promising you, I'm good. We're good. You have nothing to be guilty about, and... god, Annie, I really hope that overall the last ten years have been good to you too. Because, I want you to be happy. I've wanted you to be happy, ever since the last time I thought I could be the one to make you feel that way."
Silence fell over the interior of the truck. It lingered for a minute. Then two. Rapidly moving towards five. Louie glanced over at Annabelle now and then, and he could see that while she wasn't crying any more she had a certain look upon her face that he remembered all too well. A look of deep thought and focus, of the tigress wrestling with a problem, with a decision that she wasn't sure how to make. Ten years ago he probably would have probed and pushed and asked her what was wrong until she told him, but now he had to trust that if she wanted to let him in on this dilemma, she would. He wasn't a part of her life any more, not really anyway despite this recent reunion, and he didn't have any right to understand on share in her innermost thoughts.
Though, if he had, perhaps Louie would have been less surprised when a few minutes later Annabelle growled, pushed her door of the pickup open and stepped outside, slamming it behind her. The cockatiel watched as the tigress stormed around the front of the truck, dragged his door open, and... scrambled up onto his lap.
"I missed you so fucking much, Louie."
She growled as she kissed his beak, the male's eyes widening, but his feathered hands instinctively wrapping around the plump feline's beautiful body.
"O-oh. Oh god, Annie."
He moaned back at her, chirping and blushing as her hands caressed his face, his feathers in a manner so familiar and yet one which he hadn't felt in a decade. His hands slid down her body, further and further down until they were cupping her buttocks, squeezing gently at the rounded, plump globes held within her jeans.
Their eyes met, and Annabelle nibbled bashfully yet hungrily on her bottom lip as they trembled together
"For old time's sake, Louie... would you?"
The cockatiel's whole body shook beneath Annabelle's own, and he chirped once again as he glanced out of the car's windows at the empty parking structure surrounding them.
"Here? Right here?"
Annabelle growled tenderly, and nibbled on the buff male's neck. He melted beneath her, and groaned happily as he felt her fingers darting between them and beginning to fumble with the buckle of his belt.
"Somewhere down the line, I'm sure we can find a bed..."
The tigress purred longingly.
"...but right now? Yes, Louie. Here. Right here. It's been ten years since I've felt you inside me. Ten years since I've felt your arms around me while we... while we're together. And, after ten years of thinking I'd never feel this, never feel you again? After ten years, I can't wait another second longer."
By Jeeves
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