FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

---In Hungary---

"Emir, I do love you; you must relax and be happy for both of us." Dustyn said into his headset connected to his laptop as he looked at the tired faced lion on the webcam.

"It's just been very hard, Dustyn, work and school are catching up up with me; and you being in Hungary on vacation is also rough." Emir said into his headset.

"I know baby, but on Friday, I'll be home and we can be together again. So stay happy." Dustyn begged, looking into the lion's once loving eyes, which had now grown cold and empty from his stress and recent bouts of depression.

"Okay, I will. Goodnight, baby." Emir said, faking a smile.

"I know that's fake, and goodnight." Dustyn said and shut his laptop as he curled up into the the hotel's linen bed.

---Back in America---

Emir sat at his desk, looking at the blank webcam which read "stopped" at the bottom. He sat at there for ten, twenty, maybe even thirty minutes looking at the screen, not knowing what to do next.

After the small eternity, the beast stood up in the quiet room and walked to the bathroom, turning on the shower and letting his long white thobe roll off his shoulders. Emir stepped out of his thobe and stepped into the shower as the hot water needles pierced his golden fur and coal black mane. This was one, if not the only, pleasure the lion had when he was depressed. But soon, his pleasure there, too, was gone. His blue-grey eyes filled with tears and he let them go. The tears mixed with the water, but the lion knew they were there. He was so sad, so lonely, and for once, for some odd reason, afraid; it wasn't the fear of harm or even death, no, it was the fear his depression would cause problems to his and Dustyn's relationship, the fear he could actually lose Dustyn. He had tried for the past two weeks to get happy; but he just couldn't, not even in prayers which had once brought him joy in knowing he fulfilled a religious obligation. Tired and seeing nothing else, the lion turned the shower off and grabbed his purple bath robe and wrapped himself in it. The lion turned the lights off as he walked out of the bathroom. He walked over to his bed, letting the robe fall to the ground and curled up in his bed, naked. The cool silk sheets covered his body as he lay there. There was a slight coldness Emir felt, it was focused around his heart. As though anything warm in his body was no longer there. Emir quietly thought to himself.

"Why...why am I like this?" he asked.

"What have I done that makes me this sad..."

"What is wrong with me..."

All these questions filled his mind as he lay there in the dark, his only light being his night light, which he needed when it was dark so he could see to get to the bathroom without tripping over something.

---The next day---

Emir woke up at 5:32 a.m. for his morning prayers and after which he went to shower. After doing his usual routine, Emir got his things ready for school.

---Economics---

Emir paid little attention to the teacher as he ranted and babbled out the horrible economy, to Emir, he sounded like this "Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah."

Emir felt his phone vibrate and when he checked it, it was a texted from Dustyn.

"I'm on the plane, I will be home when you get off work. E&D4EVA!" read the text, ending with a little code they had made standing for "Emir and Dustyn Forever."

In the lunch room, Emir sat with his friends, Chelsie, Daniel, Joey, and Sarah. They chatted about boys, girls and perverted things (which was Deniel's speciality) and they all made jokes like "Sarah, your breasts don't even register on the cup scale." or "If you dressed like a girl, Emir wouldn't have to." But Emir paid no attention to the jokes, he just kept quiet and closed.

As he was leaving lunch for Spanish, Emir heard a voice.

"Hey! Sand Faggot!" yelled the voice.

Emir turned and saw it was, like all the other times, James Doriean. The wolf had a somewhat bigger group with him today, both females and males.

"What, James." Emir said, not caring what the homophobic-Islamaphobic wolf had to say.

"You better keep your mouth shut about my girl!" the male said, pointing to a trashy dressed female wolf.

"Thats right, baby, he called me a whore." the female said hugging up on the male looking innocent.

"So you want me to lie?" Emir asked.

"About what?" James asked.

"That she isn't a whore." Emir said.

"Man, I'm givin' you three seconds to shut up." James growled.

"Or what?" Emir said as his friends walked up and stood by him.

"Or something might happen to your brothers or sister." James said, which had to take some courage, since next to Dustyn, Emir would die for his siblings.

"Listen you son of a bitch, you go anywhere near them, I promise, you will beg me to drag a knife over your throat just to end the suffering." Emir said and walked off.

As he sat in Spanish, Chelsie asked what had happened and Emir relayed the story, to which she relayed to Sarah who told Daniel and Joey.

---That evening---

Emir walked into his bedroom and layed down on the bed, shutting his eyes.

"Heya baby." said a voice and when he looked up, he saw Dustyn standing before him.

"Hey, hun." Emir said quietly, "how was the vacation?"

"It was boring, I didn't have my lion to snuggle with me." Dustyn said as he layed next to Emir.

"I'm sorry baby." Emir apologised.

"It's okay baby, it wasn't your fault, it was a family vacation." Dustyn smiled, "Are you still depressed?"

"Yes." Emir said sitting up.

"Here." Dustyn smiled as he sat up and started rubbing his lover's shoulders and neck.

Emir murred as his muscles loosened.

Before they knew it, Emir was fast asleep on his bed. Dustyn could only smile as he undressed the lion down to his purple briefs. Dustyn quickly got undressed himself and slid into the bed covering himself and his lion up with the sheets.

Dustyn couldn't understand why Emir was depressed, but he was bound to find out one way or another.

---the next morning---

Dustyn sat up in bed and looked around, Emir wasn't in the room. Sleepily, the leopard pulled on some jeans and a shirt and he walked down the hall to see where his lover was, but he was no where to be found.

"Mrs. Asad?" Dustyn asked the lioness as he walked down the steps and watched her as she placed her childrens' books on the book shelf.

"Oh, hello, dear. What do you need?" Ma'alikah asked her son's boyfriend.

"Do you know where Emir is?" Dustyn asked.

"I believe he said he was going to the cemetary." the lioness said as she tightened her pink hijab, headscarf, that she always wore whenever other non-family men or boys where around.

"The CEMETARY?!" Dustyn all but yelled.

"Yes, he left about two hours ago." Ma'alikah smiled.

"Which one?" Dustyn asked.

"The one on 3rd and Elm Street." Mrs. Asad said.

"Thank you, Mrs. Asad."

"And, Dustyn?" Mrs. Asad said.

"Yes?" the snow leopard asked.

"Remember what I said about calling me "Mrs. Asad"? " the lioness asked.

"Don't?" Dustyn answered.

"Right." the lioness smiled.

Dustyn walked down the streets and avenues as he headed toward 3rd Street.

---at the cemetary---

Dustyn wandered through the cemetary, the emptiness in this land of the dead always made Dustyn nervous, he hated cemetaries. As he wandered around the limestone headstones.

"Where is that boy!?" Dustyn screamed in his head, furious he had to navigate through this creepy place.

Then Dustyn saw something that may have been where Emir was. Stratch that, he was possitive. Far back in the cemetary, Dustyn saw what appeared to be a white marble mausoleum with large gold gilded doors. As the snow leopard walked up to the building, he saw an engraving above the door, written in Arabic, which Dustyn had no idea what it meant.

When he entered the mausoleum, he noticed it was empty. Nothing, nothing at all. Just a large open room with four windows on the walls, two on each side of the building. Dustyn looked back and forth, kind of nervous to enter the tomb, but, this is where Emir had to have been. In front the snow leopard, Dustyn saw a door on the far wall of the empty room, slightly cracked, he could hear quiet sobbing coming from the other side. The snow leopard felt uneasy as he walked over to the door, peering through the crack into the room beyond it, but, the door slowly opened on it's own and Dustyn could see inside.

Inside was a large burial chamber, Dustyn was in awe of the beautiful room, until he remembered it was a place of burial. The floors were of black marble with white marble walls, pillars carved into the four corners of the room. A massive chandelier hung in the center of the ceiling, which was the inside of the dome, mirrors lined the inside of the dome, reflecting light everywhere; calligraphy in Arabic lined the eastern and western walls of the building. On the wall to Dustyn's left, hanging in the center of the marble wall, was a painting, a massivethree foot by five foot painting of a lion in a sand coloured military uniform, possibly the Saudi army. His shoulders had gold ranks of a sergeant and his uniform displayed the metals and ribbons he had earned, everything from leadership to athletics to bravery, his left paw was wrapped around the hilt of a golden sheathed sword and his right hung at his side. What entranced Dustyn was his eyes, the same eyes as Emir's, and the lion's black mane was streaked with gold locks. But is couldn't have been Emir, the lion in the painting had to have been at least 18 or 19, and Emir had never left the country, so he couldn't have been in the Kingdom to earn such ranks, the longest the two went without comminucation was when Emir went to the pilgrimage to Mecca, which only took maybe a week or two, to earn such ranks, the Emir would have had to have joined the army recruitment reserves at 10, the same age Emir was when he met Dustyn. Dustyn had seen a painting similar once before, it was at Emir's house when Dustyn wandered into an old room that he hadn't seen before, Mrs. Asad caught him and shoo-ed him out, but as he looked back, he saw her wiping tears from her eyes, and he never thought to ask Emir.

Then Dustyn saw it, directly underneath the crystal chandelier was a marble sarcophagus, and on his knees beside the sarcophagus was Emir, crying into his paws, as his forehead rested against the marble tomb. As Dustyn approached, he saw that the tomb was as beautifully made as the surround complex. The tomb was about three feet high, two and a half wide, and maybe seven and a half long, which made Dustyn wonder who could be buried here. The sides were engraved with gold calligraphy, a small plaque on the side with the buried person's name, but Dustyn couldn't see, Emir was sitting in front of it. The lid of the tomb was the most intricate carving Dustyn had ever seen, it was of the same lion in the painting, carved perfectly as though the male was just laying on it, his hands folded over his lower abdomen, his body covered in his army uniform, eyes shut to look like he was sleeping. No detail had been missed, even his mane was perfectly carved out of the rock, it looked like it was spread out, like a normal mane would look when the male was laying down, even in the mane, Dustyn saw that some of the marble mane was covered in gold to, again, make it look like the lion in the painting.

Emir cried loudly, saying things in Arabic as Dustyn waited. After about ten minutes, Dustyn accidentally sneezed, making a loud echo in the room and Emir jumped to his feet, turning to see who would intrude on the burial place.

"D-Dustyn?" the lion sniffled, wiping his eyes.

"Emir, what is this? Who is this?" Dustyn asked quietly.

Emir turned and placed his paws on the tomb. Dustyn walked over and looked at him.

Then Dustyn saw the plaque, and his jaw dropped.

The golden plaque read:

Hassan bin Rashid Asad

Born: August 1st, 1982

Died: September 11, 2001

Son of Rashid and Ma'alikah Asad, he left his family and siblings for a better place, the Garden of Paradise. May he smile from the Gardens with happiness and may we join him some day.

This stunned Dustyn, he had known nothing about a brother, nothing at all. He realized that must have been the reason that during the week of September the 11th that Emir's family had retracted him from school for about two weeks. Emir had lost his brother.

"This, this is my brother, Dustyn, Hassan Asad..." Emir said, sadness in his voice, "His name meant, Handsome Lion..."

"W-what happened to him?" Dustyn asked nervously.

"On...on that day, September the 11, 2001, Yassir, Nassir, Ali, Omar, and I were at the mosque in town. We were taking lessons in perfecting our reciting of verses in Arabic." Emir said and Dustyn listened quietly.

"We had left the mosque at around seven that evening, unaware there were riots taking place all across the city and country, the mobs targeting mosques, Islamic schools and even individual Muslims. As we walked down the street..." Emir said, relaying the story of the past as it replayed in his head.

[This is a flashback]

Emir and his friends were walking down the street and rounded the corner of Asala'am Street and Booker Avenue as they saw the mob in the distance, they didn't know what was going on, so they walked toward it to see what was happening.

"HEY! There's five of those terrorists' kids! Get 'em!" someone yelled as they approached.

The boys screamed and started running as hard as they could in the opposite direction, hoping they could outrun the mob. Thier hearts wear pounding in their chests. Then they heard a gunshot, soneone had a pistol and was trying to shoot them.

Emir, Ali, and Omar got on the ground, huddling over Yassir and Nassir to protect them since they were younger. All five boys were crying in fear, thinking they were about to die.

Just as the sound of the mob got so loud the boys couldn't hear anything, something covered them. The boys looked up and saw Hassan's handsome face, his thick black and gold mane hanging over his shoulder, and his flowing white Arabian robe making him seem like he was an angel sent to ensure their lives continued, his arms stretched around them, sheilding them with his body.

"I am here, I will protect you, little guys." Hassan said reasuringly; Hassan always had done this whenever the boys were scared, he didn't care if four weren't even his brothers, he loved them.

Then, the unthinkable.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The boys looked in horror as Hassan's face was contorted with agony as three bullets struck him in the back.

The sound of police cars immediatly came to the boys' ears, and the mob quickly dispursed. Ali, Omar, Yassir and Nassir quickly got out from under Hassan's protection and hurled stones at the wolf who had the pistol, hitting him in the head as he fell to the ground. Hassan's finally fell onto the street, the back of his white robe covered in his blood. Emir rolled Hassan over and started doing his best to perform CPR to save his brother.

"Please, Hassan, don't leave us, please!" Emir screamed as he tried his hardest to keep his brother living.

Hassan then stroked Emir's right cheek, smiling softly as he bled out.

"Please Hassan! Don't leave us." Emir cried as he kept trying.

The other boys bound the wolf with some electrical wire they found on the street and rushed over to help Emir.

"Dearest brother," Hassan managed to say, breathing in a broken breath before coughing, blood getting coughed up onto his chest, "I love you and your friends, I did this to make su-sure you made something with yourself, to become something great."

"Hassan, don't give up." Ali said holding the big male's head so he didn't drown on his own blood.

"Hassan, why didn't you just save yourself!" Emir screamed, tears making small rivers down his cheeks, "We would have entered Paradise if we were killed!"

"But *cough* mother and father need you. You all need to get an education, grow up and get married; but now brother, I will enter Paradise and wait for all of you." Hassan said.

"Please...please don't die, Hassan..." Emir pleaded.

"Goodbye, dearest brothers..." Hassan said as his paw fell from stroking his brother's cheek, a faint smile on his face, as though he had watched the boys do something cute or heard an amusing joke. His eyes closed for the final time, the smile remaining.

They tried their hardest to keep Hassan alive with the CPR, but by the time the police arrived two minutes later, Hassan had died; Emir and the others knew Hassan was walking through the Gate of Struggle into Heaven.

[flashback is over]

Dustyn listened to his boyfriend as tears ran down his face.

Emir placed one paw on the chest of the marble carving and the other on the carving's right shoulder and leaned down, softly kissing the carving of his brother on the cheek, wish his brother could have felt it.

"Emir, lets get you out of here and back home." Dustyn said, and Emir walked out with him, their fingers interlaced.

---later that evening---

As Dustyn and Emir laid in Emir's bed with the lights low, Dustyn nuzzled his lion's chest.

"Emir, was that the reason you have been depressed? The birthday of your brother?" Dustyn asked, stroking the lion's mane.

"Yes..." Emir said quietly.

"I think that is the first time I've ever seen you cry." Dustyn said, licking the lion's muscled chest.

"Maybe." Emir smiled.

Dustyn rested his head on Emir's chest and listened to his lover's heart.

"Emir?" Dustyn asked, not moving.

"Yes?" Emir asked.

"I love you, my lion prince." Dustyn smiled and Emir softly stroked his lover's hair soflty.

"I love you too, my snow leopard angel." Emir smiled.

The two then drifted off to sleep in the quiet room, the two felines purring at the feeling of their lover's body near their own.