FSE

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The story's main character is bi, so don't read if you don't want to. As ever, your comments are great - let me know any places/ways I can improve. Is everything making sense, more or less? Did it flow along well and/or draw you in (or especially, why didn't it)? Good parts/bad parts? Your questions and critiques are welcome.

Thanks for reading!

• Xi

All's Fair - Part 9

A single tear gathered quietly beneath a pool of liquid gold, and, when it had gathered enough weight, it slid out over the lid and trickled down Ivan's finely-furred cheek. He stood in the wide-open doorway to my room at the correction center, his face shining in the sunlight from the window. A rose slipped out of his paw to fall on the concrete floor.

I smiled warmly at him, not bothering to pull the tangled bed sheet up over my hips. Jake hadn't woken up yet; his even breathing still rumbled against my belly. "Come on over," I invited.

The lion stepped hesitantly forward to stand at the foot of the bed, still clutching a bottle of champagne for the party we'd been planning. I leaned back into the pillows, watching him, and realized that the bed had been changed while I'd been at Jake's; now it was just a moldy old mattress tucked in a corner, piled with old clothes for warmth against the icy draft.

"Show it to me," my mother commanded from the foot of the bed, clutching her beer bottle in one paw. The sunlight was gone, replaced by smoky, writhing shadows, but I could still see her dim form. She looked a lot like me - same black-and-white coloration but not quite as much black, same sky-blue eyes. Older, obviously. Fatter. Suddenly her reek struck my nose: old sweat, filth, asphalt.

Alcohol.

And other, heavier, less recognizable scents from her other pastimes.

I silently handed her the piece of paper, creased and folded into a one-inch square, clutching my knees to my chest, tail wrapped around my ankles. She unfolded the paper and moved her beautiful blue eyes blearily over it, and I wondered if maybe it was good. I still didn't fully understand the markings on it, although I knew my letters.

"Ivan?" I asked tremblingly, shivering. My voice came out higher, younger, with its rough edges smoothed out and replaced by fearful, loving longing.

This is a dream, a voice told me. It sounded scared. My chest tightened in answering terror.

"This isn't - you!" my mother said sharply, still looking at the paper. "What is this? You stupid, fucking incompetent asshole! Damn you!" She wrenched at my ankle, dragging me over the mattress to her. My fear doubled, and I clawed uselessly to get away. It hadn't been a good day for her, then.

She leaned over me, her breath smothering me. "You can't do this! It's not good enough!" she shouted, waving the paper violently in front of my face, her face contorted in fury. Then she hit me over one ear so hard I blacked out for a second and stared tearing at my jeans.

That was when I stared screaming. She clamped a paw over the sound, holding my muzzle shut with violent pressure. "Not - can't," she muttered crazily, holding me down. I kept trying to scream, looking around frantically for a way to get out. Jake was standing a few feet away, but I couldn't reach him and he wouldn't help. The panic swelled in my chest and I looked pleadingly at him, whimpering in the back of my throat. But he didn't move, didn't even look away. He just watched in silence.

Then my mother wrenched my face up, forcing me to look into her golden eyes.

This is a dream! Wake up! The voice shouted. It sounded just as scared as I was.

But I didn't wake up. Not for hours.

• : -

A little after noon, a quiet knock on the door intruded on my thoughts. "Yeah," I called out dully. It opened slowly and Dan peeked in. I was sitting on top of the shelf by the window, not doing much of anything.

"Nick? We were planning on heading out to the Highlands park. D'you want to come?" At least he kept his voice down a little.

I made the mistake of looking at him, saw his eyes widen further in concern. I quickly cast my eyes down again and shook my head in silence.

"All you all right?" he asked. I nodded, not trusting my voice. I saw him lift a foot hesitantly, set it down again right outside my door. "Do you want to talk about it?" I shook my head, biting my lip and trying to keep my eyes from watering. God, please make him leave. He's been nice; I don't want to hit him. I don't know if I can.

The wolf eventually shut the door again. I sat quietly, listening, hoping I hadn't just ruined their trip. A few minutes I heard the garage door open, then shut again, and I breathed a sigh of relief and buried my face in my arms. I focused on the scent of my fur, trying not to think.

For a couple of hours, I succeeded.

Eventually restlessness overcame melancholy and I started pacing, but that didn't work well without my cane, and pacing with a cane is just plain stupid. It's like using spell check on a spelling bee. Throwing bed covers across the room doesn't help either. I collected some clothes and made my way to the bathroom, head down. If anyone had stayed behind I didn't want to see them. So I didn't.

I couldn't do this. I needed something to distract me, and the house was feeling uncomfortably like a mausoleum. Remembering the cell phone I'd gotten the other day, I quickly started hunting through the bags still on my closet floor, tossing books, movies, clothes, and school supplies all over the room. It figures that it would be at the bottom. I flipped it open and spared a grateful thought to instant-gratification consumer culture - there was no setup on the phone. I got through six digits of Todd's number before I ran out of energy; then I collapsed back onto the floor. It's not like I'd never called anyone before. Even at the center they let you use the phones, if you've been good. I'd been allowed on once in a while. But not often. My thumb slowly began pushing the backspace: once, twice. Then I took a deep breath and redialed them, dialed the last number, hit "talk".

He picked up on the fourth ring. "Hello?" he asked, panting.

"Um, hi. This is Nick," I said.

"Oh, hey Nick. What's up?" He sounded like he was fighting a laugh.

"Not much. I was wondering if you and Becky wanted to go see a movie or something?"

"Oh, well -" suddenly he yelped, and there was a muffling sound as he covered the mouthpiece. He came back a minute later, sounding rushed and panting again. "Hey, some other time, 'kay? Becky and I are kinda busy right now."

"Oh. Sure," I responded, carefully hiding my disappointment. Let's try to limit the damage one fur's depression can cause. "See you later then." I hit the "end" button, looked at the time. Fifty-six seconds.

Um. I didn't know many other phone numbers. Jake's, for all the good that did. Eventually I tried Claire's.

She picked up on the third ring. "Hello?" She sounded a little down.

"Hi, Claire. This is Nick."

"Nick?" Surprise tinged her voice.

"Yeah. I was wondering, do you want to do something?"

"Do -? Um, sure, I guess." The surprise was stronger. "What did you have in mind?"

"I dunno. Maybe go see a movie at the theater by Rose?"

"Sounds good to me. Meet you there in half an hour?"

"Actually, could we make it like forty-five minutes? I just got my casts off, but I'm not walking very fast yet."

"Oh. Congratulations!" she said. "D'you want a ride?"

"No thanks; I need to get back into shape. See you then?"

"All right. 'Bye." She hung up.

I sighed, wondering if I really wanted to see anyone. On the other hand, my only alternative was to see no one, and that wasn't working well for me at all.

Well, if I was going I needed to go. I checked the mirror over the shelves in the closet, making sure I was presentable, stopped to quickly comb out the fur on my head. Then I headed out the door - and backtracked, remembering that I was supposed to leave a note.

Exactly forty-five minutes later, a beat-up pickup truck pulled over by the theater, let Claire hop out of the passenger seat, and left. Looking inside, I saw an older male bear behind the wheel.

"Hey," Claire said when she got into range. She was wearing semi-casual jeans and a long-sleeved sweater in dark green.

"Hey. Was that your dad?"

She shook her head, biting her lip. "Older brother. Actually, my parents are kind of fighting, so thanks for getting me out of the house."

"Um, sure," I said, taken aback. "Sorry."

The bear-fox shrugged. " 'S not you. So what are we seeing?"

We went and looked at the show times, decided on something with fairly low faux pas potential, bought tickets. It wasn't bad, either, but mostly I remember joking with her about the trailers before it started.

It was snowing when we got out - fairly heavily, too. I turned my nose into it for a bit, feeling a huge smile grow on my muzzle to match the bubble of joy growing in my throat.

"I should be getting back, I guess," Claire said, sounding unhappy again.

I looked at her in surprise. "Don't you like snow?" I asked.

"No, I love it!" she protested. "It's just -" she stopped as I took her paw and tugged on it, grinning.

"Well then come on!" I urged, hopping backward on the sidewalk. She balked briefly, but gave in with a grin and let me pull her down the streets. We laughed as cars honked when we ran in front of them, as furs hurrying for home under black umbrellas stared. After fifteen minutes we both looked hilarious with frost and snowflakes on our fur and clothes and smiles plastered across our muzzles and in our eyes.

I took her around behind the single-story visitors center for a four-story apartment and made a flying leap for the ladder hanging partly down from the roof - what are those for, anyway, except jumping onto? I wound up plastering myself against the side of the building, but I did catch it and climbed the rest of the way to the roof, then turned to grin down at Claire. "Come on!" I called down encouragingly.

She hesitated. "Are you sure it's allowed?" she asked, picking up my cane and tossing it to me.

"No!" I answered. "But no one's stopping us, and ladders are made to be used!" I reached my arm down over the parapet, even though with the ladder there it was pretty useless, and gave her my puppy dog eyes for good measure.

She finally jumped for the steel rungs - more decorously than I had - and climbed up, taking my extended paw anyway. As soon as she was up I hop-skipped over to the other side of the building and jumped to the fire escape on the apartment. Hey, if they're only going to stick it four feet away, you may as well. Claire followed me, shaking her head like she'd given up asking if it was okay.

The wind was blowing harder four stories up, making the snow swirl madly and cutting visibility to a couple dozen yards. I sat happily on the aluminum, instantly soaking my pants but not caring. They were pretty wet already. Claire sat next to me. "You're crazy," she said, shaking her head again.

"Yep," I agreed with good cheer. She laughed, then oddly winced and pulled her arm away from her side. I looked down and saw a dark stain on the green fabric. She looked away when I turned to face her and took her paw in concern.

"I must have scraped it on something on the way up," she said.

"Without tearing the sleeve?" I asked quietly, slowly rolling the sleeve up while looking at her face in case she wanted me to stop. I already knew what I'd probably find under it; a lot of furs at the correction center did this. It would never had occurred to me that Claire might, though; she didn't look like someone who would. Sure enough, there was blood matted in the fur on her forearm, and a couple of the cuts had broken open again. She took a deep breath and looked straight at me, her eyes half a question, half a challenge.

Not knowing what else to do, I hugged her. It was a little awkward because even sitting she was a couple inches taller than me, but she hugged back gratefully.

" 'My parents are kind of fighting'?" I asked softly. She nodded, burying her short muzzle in the fur of my cheek and neck. "Do you want to talk about it?" I went on, realizing as I did that I sounded a lot like Dan. The thought nearly made me sigh, but I didn't want Claire to take it the wrong way. She didn't say anything in response, and I didn't press her. We were quiet for a few minute - I think she was crying, but she made virtually no sound.

"I'm sorry," she whispered at last, her voice fogged as her breath steamed against my neck.

"Why?" I asked.

"Well - talk about a mood killer," she said brokenly. I gave her a little squeeze.

"No fear. But - next time just call me and we can go climbing or something instead," I murmured into her ear. She snuffled.

Maybe ten minutes later she pulled away, rolling her sleeve down again. "I really do need to go," she admitted, looking at the aluminum roof. I nodded and let her go, lightly ruffling the fur on her face. She fished a phone out of her pocket and started typing. "Where are we?" she asked a moment later.

"Um, Coal and 2nd, I think," I answered, trying to trace our running progress earlier. Once she'd finished texting we helped each other down to the top landing on the fire escape and followed the stairs to the ground. Claire spent a few minutes straightening her clothes while we waited in the snow. Eventually the old pickup truck pulled over for her.

"Are you sure you don't want a ride?" she asked as she climbed in.

I flung my head back and looked at the darkening sky. "What time is it?"

"A little past five."

"No, I have time. Thanks, though." Just before she shut the door, I smiled at her. "Take care of yourself."

She smiled back and closed it.

I stood for a long time after the truck was out of sight, then sighed. "And I though I had it bad," I murmured to no one. No One, naturally, answered only with the whispering breeze.

I took my time going back, thinking. By the time I finally arrived, even I was beginning to feel uncomfortably chilled and damp. Which was why the dry towel hanging by the door was particularly welcome. I stopped on the doormat and started trying to dry off. Jake and his family were playing some board game in the living room. I suppose I must have looked fairly pitiful, because as soon as she saw me Halo jumped to her hooves. "Nick! Are you all right? You look half frozen!"

I smiled at her from between fluffy folds of white. "Yeah, I'm fine," I said. Then I backed into the door and yelped as she stole the towel and started rubbing my head vigorously. "Oi! Really, I'm fine! It's just a little snow! Gerroff!" I may as well have held silence for all the attention she paid, though. Eventually I gave up.

By the time I was more-or-less dry I looked even more bedraggled than when I came in, with my fur sticking out everywhere. It didn't help that I was blushing furiously. Halo looked me over critically, without a trace of remorse on her red-black-furred face. "Next time you could at least take a coat, you know."

I beat an ignoble retreat to my room and pulled off my clothes so that I could brush my fur down again, then got dry ones for dinner.

It wasn't until halfway through the meal that I glanced at Jake and the memory of where I'd seen him last slammed into me like a ton of bricks. My grin slipped away before I could catch it, and I couldn't find a replacement. My appetite evaporated.

Had I been given a little warning I might have been able to control my face, at least, but I hadn't and I wasn't. Dan, Jake and Aislyn were all looking more-or-less my way at the time; Dan and Jake's grins quickly followed mine, and Aislyn's small smile flickered.

"What is it?" Dan asked, sounding concerned.

"N-nothing," I managed, my voice barely over a whisper and unable to help it. I shoved my plate and my chair back, laying my ears flat against my skull at the chair's loud scraping. "I - please excuse me for a moment." I rushed out the back door into the snowy darkness before anyone could object.

Once the bright indoor lights were safely out of sight behind some trees I sank down in the lee of a largish rock and started swearing at myself, too softly to be heard past a foot or two. Damn it, it's not like I'd never had nightmares before. Quite the opposite. There was no good reason for this one to bother me so much. And anyway, you're not supposed to think about them - that's how you get by. Just add this one to the pile.

Yeah, right. Let me know how that one goes, mutt.

Don't ever call yourself that again.

After a while I shook myself and growled. "He's not the boogeyman - just go talk to him," I said aloud. "You know where he works now - he might still be there, if he works the late shift." I picked myself up, remarking wryly that at least the ground where I'd been sitting was fairly dry because of the rock, so my clothes weren't terribly wet. The snow had wound down to a fairly light fall instead of a storm.

I'd left my cane inside, and not even noticed on the way out. Now that I was paying attention, walking was significantly more difficult, aided and abetted by the fact that I'd already put in quite a distance today. Talk about mind under matter.

Dan and Halo were washing dishes in the kitchen. My plate was still on the table, set on a warming tray. I quietly gathered them up and padded over to the counter, opened a cabinet for a plastic container, transplanted the remains of my dinner, put it into the fridge. Then I lifted my eyes to meet Dan and Halo's. "I'm really sorry for freaking out earlier," I said. "It was just a thought I had." I bit my lip and lifted one foot, tapping my claw against the hardwood. "Um, I know this is awkward, but I need to go for a few hours." There - not quite asking permission, because I was going one way or another, but hopefully enough to smooth feelings out all around.

Dan immediately opened his mouth, but Halo quickly touched his paw, in such a way that I'm not sure I was supposed to see it. She regarded me for a moment, her dark eyes impossible to read, then nodded. "All right, Nick. I'll go get your coat, okay?" I nodded gratefully.

"Take care of yourself, all right?" Dan said, his eyes clouded with worry. I suppose, considering what he'd seen of me today, I must have come across as someone preparing for suicide or something. Or maybe murder.

"I will," I promised. For a night, at least. Probably.

Halo came back down with my jacket. "Give us a phone call if you're going to be out past midnight or if you need a ride. Don't worry about waking us up." I nodded. "By the way, your room looks like a bomb went off in there." The deer grinned at my wince and swung the jacket around over my shoulders.

On my way out I stopped and looked straight into Jake's eyes, keeping mine as cold as I could. "I'll be careful," I said clearly, dropping my voice a couple notes. "Don't follow me." I didn't wait for his response, vocal or in expression. I also didn't worry about what his family made of it. That was his problem.

I did make a point of keeping to the well-lit streets with cars rushing past. It had nothing to do with my saying I would; it was just common sense. A little more than an hour later I was parked outside a car dealership repair shop, on a bus stop bench. I looked in the open garage doors, but I couldn't see him and I was suddenly too shy to go in and ask. Go figure.

Which was how I wound up sitting at a bus stop at nine at night in a new part of town while it snowed. Top that for prepositional phrases. Slightly pathetic. I dropped my head to my paws, grabbing my fur.

I didn't even notice him come out; had he chosen simply to walk past I may have spent the night on that bench. His fingers were snapping an inch in front of me. "...earth to Nick. You there?" I looked up, and there he was. Standing. Right. There.

"Don't touch me!" I yelled, scrambling backwards and falling off the bench onto the sidewalk.

He jerked his paw back in surprise and stood there blankly for a moment. Then he snorted in disgust - at me or himself I couldn't tell - and started to walk towards his car.

I pulled myself together quickly and hurried after him. "Ivan - I'm sorry - I didn't mean - I-I was thinking about something else." I caught at his arm, covered at the moment with a dealer uniform and coat. Irrelevantly enough, I found myself really wishing I could see him in clothes he'd picked.

He brushed me off of him. "Can it, fag." God, I couldn't tell if I'd accidentally hurt him under his usual gruffness. He brushed me off a second time, then whirled and backhanded me into a light post when I tried again.

"Please, Ivan, I just wanted to be with you for a while."

The lion gave a nice, cheery false smile. "Well, isn't that just peachy - for you. I'm going home, and you're smoking something if you think I'm taking you with me." I just looked at him pleadingly, making him growl in exasperation. "You are smoking something. Tough luck. What, did you get yourself kicked out already? I should call Jake and congratulate him."

I had to smile because he dovetailed so perfectly with my thoughts about foster care. "Nah, they're not that smart." Ivan chuckled sardonically, and I felt my tail start wagging.

He leaned against the car door, resting his arms on the roof. I held my breath. Please. Just don't let me blow this; he's actually thinking about it. He shook his head, opened his mouth, shut it again. Bit his cheek.

Then he shook his head harder. "Hell no. Get in: I'm taking you back." My tail slowed to a stop, but I forced myself to smile. At least he was giving me a ride - that was ten, maybe fifteen minutes, as well as a first.

"Thanks," I said once I was sitting. Ivan just grunted irritably.

I couldn't get my eyes off of him. The street lights lit his mane from the window and cast a profile of his muzzle, his arms, his paws, while his eyes sparkled. I reminded myself that he'd pitch a fit if I drooled on his car.

Then his muzzle lengthened, tapered, his mane became a red-grey ruff, his arms changed shape subtly, his paws became a wolf's. The light reflecting from his eyes flashed from vibrant gold to deep red, and Jake was driving the car, a bare two feet away, his body heat against my face.

I jerked my eyes open, shaking, looked at Ivan in the other seat. Damn it, don't do that. Can't you just leave me alone for two bloody minutes?! Go away! I took a deep, steadying breath, trying to stop trembling. My success was limited, at best.

Abruptly Ivan jerked the wheel and pulled into a gas station by the road. He parked in the middle of the lot and buried his paws in his mane, pulling his head forward. I tentatively reached out to him, but before my paw made contact he suddenly flung his head back, grabbed the wheel, and pulled out - heading the other way.

"One night," was all he said.

It took several minutes to get my heart out of my mouth and shake it into starting again. A little after I got that sorted out I remembered that breathing helped too.

The trip to his apartment took another ten minutes or so. I didn't say a word, afraid I'd ruin it somehow. This couldn't be happening. He parked it, and a couple minutes later opened my door. "Hey, you coming?" He grabbed my arm and pulled me out. "You've got to be kidding me. You're shaking?"

"Unrelated," I assured him, breathless. I followed him into the apartment building.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," he said softly to himself before he unlocked a door on the third floor. That made two of us. There was a living room behind the door, nothing extravagant but not bad. A bit messy. The most expensive piece of furniture was the widescreen television on one wall. As soon as I shut the door behind me he turned around.

I paused just inside, needing confirmation even if I did ruin it. "Um, am I seriously spending the night with you?" I pulled my tail in at how stupid that sounded.

Ivan gave me an exceptionally dirty look. "In separate rooms," he said with equal bluntness. "You can have the couch."

I nodded, and we stood there awkwardly for a couple minutes. "That's a pretty nice set," I offered finally, indicating the television.

Ivan nodded. "You play?"

"Um, a little." A very little - pretty much limited to a couple games with Todd and Becky. But I didn't think I'd done too badly.

We killed about twenty minutes happily obliterating zombies and other agents of evil before we were interrupted by another fur coming out from the hallway. "Hey, Ivan, could you keep it down? I'm -" he stopped suddenly as he saw me peeking from over Ivan's shoulder. He was a lithe grey-furred rat wearing slacks, glasses, and an annoyed expression. Ivan quickly introduced me, and he went on. "Nice to meet you. But I really need to study, so could you keep it down?"

Ivan laughed. "Dude, school's out - what are you studying for?" But at the same time he hit the volume control on the remote.

The rat gave him a half-grin and a sardonic look. "Next semester. You don't think my grades earn themselves, do you? Thanks."

"Workaholic. Hey, you know when Chase is coming in?"

The rat snorted. "Not 'till tomorrow night, I think. Anyway, thanks." He went back to his room.

Around half past ten Ivan went to microwave some popcorn while I called Jake's house. "Hi Halo, this is Nick. Um, I'm spending the night with a friend. Yeah. His name's Ivan - Jake knows him. No, Halo, we're not doing anything illegal. No, Halo. Oi. All right. Yeah, I'll be back tomorrow morning. 'Kay. Thanks. Bye."

When Ivan came back I smiled at him. "Hey - thanks again, Ivan." He grunted. "Can I use your bathroom?" He pointed me in the right direction. Once I got out, I sat down on the couch again and tried to ignore the way my heart was pounding in my ears. Jeez, Ivan could probably hear it too. One deep breath. Then another one. Then I slowly took off my shirt.

He looked, obviously - virtually anyone will look if you start taking clothes off in their living room. It gave me a thrill anyway.

I looked him straight in the eye, briefly, and looked back at the screen like nothing had happened. If only my heart would quit sounding off like a bass drum he wouldn't be able to tell how nervous I was. Well, that, and he could probably smell it by now. And blushing didn't help. And I was shaking again. But he didn't say anything about it, and we played another round on his console.

Maybe half an hour later I tentatively touched his arm. Even in the television light I could see him roll his eyes, but he didn't bother trying to make me stop. Like I said, hitting me was probably getting repetitive for him. The muscles under his fur rippled, was all. Which was one of the hottest things I'd felt in a while.

"You know that you could have me right now," I said softly, not quite meeting his eyes.

He looked back without flinching. "Why did you freak out when you saw me tonight?"

I flinched. Talk about left field. Sort of. "Oh, that was - was, um..."

He grinned without humor, and suddenly closed the eighteen inches between us and placed his paw on my chest, right over my pounding heart. His hot breath pressed against my face, and the memory of blue eyes filled my sight. Yelping, I jerked back and fell off the couch.

Above me, the lion chuckled cruelly. "Nice. You have serious issues. And no: I am straight, and you'd still be a dork even if I weren't."

I quickly picked myself up off the old carpet. "I - could work past that." Sternly I told myself not to run - it would seriously damage my argument.

"Go to sleep, fag. The sooner you do, the sooner it's morning and I can get rid of you."

He started to walk away, and I trotted after him to hug him. "Jake's not here," I said indistinctly, my voice muffled by the back of his shirt. "If you wanted to finish beating me up from the start of the semester you could." Yes, I'm aware of how horrible that sounds, but I honestly didn't mind.

He considered, then turned. "Idea has merit." His fist connected solidly with my ear, and I staggered and fell over. "You really are crazy, you know, to actually ask me to do that." He grabbed me by the shoulder, picked me up, and dumped me back on the couch. A moment later a blanket landed on my head. "Now go to sleep, Nick."

So I did, but only eventually.

Ivan accidentally woke me up around five-thirty while he was crashing sleepily around for breakfast. My first response was to groan and bury my head deeper into the couch pillows, but that didn't really work because doing so made me realize that they smelled like him. So my second response was to groan and sit up, rubbing my eyes and yawning. My third response was to blush right up through my ears and be profoundly grateful Ivan was in the kitchen, so that I could run to the bathroom and fix my pants and underwear, as well as splash some water on my face and try to straighten my fur out a little. I was getting kind of tired of blushing, actually.

Ivan was looking slightly more awake over a bowl of cereal and a large cup of coffee, black. He nodded and waved his spoon vaguely when I silently lifted the box, asking permission. So I poured myself a bowl and sat across from him. He ate fairly quickly while I pondered the insanity of getting up this early on a weekend.

"So how'd you talk your dearly beloved into letting you come alone?" he asked conversationally as he fished the last spoonfuls out of his bowl.

"He is not my dearly beloved, and would you please quite calling him that," I snapped, dropping my spoon so that it clattered on the table. Suddenly the long-standing joke was infuriating. I mean, I'd made my affections pretty clear, hadn't I?

He looked up with a mildly nonplussed expression, which quickly turned into a wicked smile. "Aww, does da widdle puppy not wike it? No, you're right. He's not your boyfriend - I think you two skipped that whole phase and fucking married each other." The lion's smile was fading fast. "You two have been harassing me since the beginning of the year, so if I want to call you a couple of faggots whoring for each other I'm damn well going to!"

I surged to my feet, knocking over the chair. "I never asked for it!" I screamed at him, trying to ignore the tears falling from my eyes. "I never asked to like you, I never asked Jake to start following me! I hate him! I was doing fine on my own!"

"And I never asked to get saddled with a nosy asshole like you!" Ivan roared, also standing. His liquid golden eyes radiated fury. "You won't take a hint, you won't leave, and every time I turn around you're trying to fuck me! Get out of my life!"

"Fine!" I shouted, and whirled away, violently knocking my cereal bowl to the tile, where it shattered. I stormed out of the kitchen, through the living room, and out the door, slamming it in my wake.

A second later a fist crashed into the wood from the other side, rattling the whole building, and the lock clicked shut behind me.

***

So there. Something happened :). Several somethings, in fact - I wrote this over a series of mood swings, which is why Nick's day behaved kind of like a roller coaster. I expect my grammar could use some work, and quite possibly there are some plot holes I didn't catch that you could shove a house through. If you see any of that, or anything else worth mentioning, please let me know. Thanks again.