FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

A beacon.

It stood at the centre of a dark hallway, a place that smelled of fur and decay, dead to the point that even flies were nowhere to be found -- a candle, its small orange and yellow flame flickering to and fro like a lone dancer in the night, drawing him in like the moon did moths. That was it, the same candle that was seen three nights ago.

Communication. The presence of another. That very thought almost made his heart skip a beat. Someone that wanted to be found.

In those three days he’d been surprisingly patient. The desire to forego all sense of reason and rush to whomever was calling out to him was there, strong, tugging at the back of his thoughts as he tried to go about his life, but he never acted on it. Survival above all else.

He took the time to observe, think, and rationalize what he’d seen. Another hallucination? And what it wasn’t?

Hope. Not something he’d felt in so long that the feeling, and the emotions they evoked, were as foreign to him as the concept of talking to someone else. He tried not to let it get to him, that hope, knowing full well how easily such things could shatter and break him, but as the days wore on and as he settled on the thought that he was going into that building, he found it impossible to not hope.

Something about the way it now burned, so close to him, gave the man pause.

It was real -- he had his doubts right up to this very moment. Now he knew it was real. Shadows bouncing across walls, the softness of light at the very edges of the flame’s reach, and even its warmth which, distant as it was, still resonated somewhere deeply within him. He couldn’t have imagined all of these things, all these small details far too accurate to distant memory for it to be a dream, and far too real for the fancies of a hallucination.

‘Come to me,’ it said, the message that the candle was meant to deliver. He saw it, and just to its right noted the only open door among the rows of similar-looking entrances equidistant from one another. This… this terrified him down to his core. The message, it replayed in his head over, and over, and over again. Nothing had ever given him so much pause. Nothing had ever left him feeling so much doubt.

It wasn’t a matter of safety -- he’d convinced himself long ago that he could handle whatever came his way. Nor was this a matter of truth or fiction -- he was now convinced that whoever lay waiting inside that apartment was as alive and real as he was. This was… the man had no real words to describe the burden of knowledge he now felt.

He couldn’t describe the feeling of not really knowing what the proper formalities were. He couldn’t reason why he hated the sound of his own voice, a revelation he came to just two nights prior as he spoke with the grizzled reflection of himself. He had no answers for anything that had happened. He didn’t even know if they’d get along.

And what if the other asked for his name? That much he remembered -- introductions, asking each other’s names. How was he to say that he couldn’t remember his name? A memory so long ago forgotten; he’d come off as insane.

One thought steadied his breath, stilled his feet, and kept him from abandoning this meeting: this other person, he or she had survived for as long as he had.

From that thought stemmed so many branching others: they knew what it was like to be alone, feel alone, while knowing that there was nobody left but themselves; they understood how simple concepts like names, birthdays, and age could be forgotten with the constant strain of survival weighing down on their shoulders; and they had all the reason to believe that they could come off as crazy he might.

These thoughts, they eased his nerves. It's not like he ever had a choice, did he? He needed this.

He needed this.

Time had passed since he spotted that candle. The minutes could have been hours; it very well could have been hours since he made it to this floor and halted his advance. The flame, once shimmering bright, had dulled as it burned through the last few centimeters of its wick.

One hand fell on his hip, to that rough-edged and blunted tool that had brought him more comfort than it was of use, as he took a step in the direction of the flame, leaving once and for all the safety of the staircase’s heavy metal frame. With the tip of his foot he braced the door, letting it gently glide into place rather than clang shut.

“English?” he called out, his voice soft.

Seconds passed -- nothing but the familiar stillness of a dead world. Someone lived up here; they wouldn’t be crazy enough to live somewhere with those things. Meant it was safe to talk. Safe to say, “Español?” in an accent that caught even him by surprise. He wracked his brain at the lack of response, noted that the flickering flame seemed to pivot in the direction of the open door, and continued, “Français?”

Relief came in the rustling of… fabric? A foot scraping against solid flooring. Something thumped dully just beyond the open door, and under an uncertain weight floorboards creaked. He paid attention to it all, these little sounds that once upon a time would’ve been inconsequential and unimportant. This was… life. Restrained and sentient.

Though reaction, be it known or subconscious, made him take a step away. Distance. Safety. He pulled back just as something approached, and in turn he noted a sudden stillness coming from within the apartment. It wasn’t a sound heard or a shadow seen but rather a feeling, like the air had been vacuumed out from around him. This feeling told him, in no uncertain terms, to stop backing away, for the person inside had stopped moving.

And then… a sigh. It was low, deep, and came with a sort of gurgling froth at the back of the throat. The walls croaked, dust kicked up from the ground, and the flame itself seemed to respond to this little gesture of exasperation, doubt, and relief with a little bounce and flicker of light.

Just after the end of that long sigh came a voice, a whisper, yet it came around from wall to wall and screamed into his ears. It was… androgynous, guttural and a lot better sounding than his own. It came with a sudden start, loud enough to make the man jump, yet tapered at the end with something reminiscent of a whimper.

“English,” it -- he -- said. The power behind that voice spoke of a mountain. Then came the odd pause, the long pause, where both realized they’d just spoken to someone else. The man let go of his hip and almost slumped back against a nearby wall, a sudden wave of vertigo overcoming him. From somewhere in the apartment, the other must have done the same. Two deep, well-paced breaths later, the voice called out again. “I speak English.”

Words left the man’s lips before he could even think as he asked a simple, “What’s your name?” To which the other replied softly, even somewhat bitterly as well:

“Summer.”

“Like the season?”

“The one.”

“Ah… Summer.” Everything had stopped wavering. He had his breath again. “That’s a nice-”

“What’s yours?” Summer cut in, his voice coming a little more loudly from within the apartment -- confidence, and an infectious one at that.

“Mine?”

“Yours.”

He swallowed and rather dumbly asked, “My what?”

“Your name, friend.”

Friend.

The sentiment rolled around in his head like the alluring fragrance of a sweet-scented flower -- roses. So quick to throw out such strange words full of… of optimism. And so honest as well, almost to a fault. They were strangers, not friends. He reminded himself of that -- the other would be better off doing the same.

“I… ah,” His hesitation, what little there was, must have been obvious, for Summer quickly called out from the safety of his apartment;

“If you don’t want to share…”

“I do,” corrected the man, what little hints of a smile there once had been faltering as a pressure settled at the bottom of his heart, “or, I would like to.” His voice -- it was like grinding stones against his ears. Words came oddly paced out, the pauses seemingly unnatural to him and, undoubtedly, to Summer as well. He gritted his teeth and fought through the sensation; Summer had yet to complain. “I would like to.”

“But you can’t.” Summer seemed to understand. That single breath of a moment was enough to bring the man closer to the apartment’s entrance, whereupon Summer laid in wait. “I get it.”

“You do?”

“It’s okay.” The words, simple as they might have been, were comforting. “You don’t have to explain yourself. I would like to call you something.”

“Right. Of course… Eris.”

He blinked, swallowed, and rested the back of his head against the wall. He could almost hear Summer’s breathing now, deep lungfuls of air that were held for far longer than he could ever have hoped to. Beside the odd bit of phlegm toward the back of the throat, Summer sounded… healthy.

More relief, albeit one for the safety of another this time around. Another feeling that came at odds with the strange itch at the back of his neck.

“Your name is Eris?”

“You can call me Eris.”

“That’s a nice name, uh, Eris.”

If only it’d been something… better. Personal. Real.

“Thank you,” he whispered, voice hollow, as shoulders sagged while he found himself at the very edge of the apartment’s entrance. How did he get here? So close now he could almost smell Summer. Eris -- he’d have to get used to this name -- found himself reaching for the candle that had yet to die at the centre of the hallway. Its warmth brought him little comfort -- having done its job of drawing him in, the candle almost looked like it was ready to bow out of the conversation.

“Is that you, Eris? Of - Of course that’s you. I-”

“You see my arm?”

“I could touch it. I want to see you.”

It sounded needy and desperate. Not that he faulted Summer for saying such things, he couldn’t judge the person for wanting to see someone else. Eris just couldn’t bring himself to… well, in truth he didn’t quite know what he wanted anymore, especially now that he was here.

“Are you cold?” asked Summer.

“I am.”

“Hungry? I… I saw you from out the window. Dragging that large bag around. You must be hungry.”

Eris nodded, eyes now closing as he allowed himself a small moment of rest from the conversation. It was exhausting.

“Thirsty?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to come in. I want to meet you.”

“May I?” asked Eris, to which Summer replied with a cautious;

“Yes, but…”

And there the conversation died, with Eris patiently waiting for whatever clauses were about to be sprung on him while Summer found himself at an apparent lack of words. Eris could make out the slight smacking of lips and loud clearing of a throat, some false starts to a sentence, a stumbling of words as the tongue twisted itself against the backs of teeth, and a frustrated grunt.

At the end of it all Summer said, “Two things.”

“Mhm?”

“Promises.”

“Promises?” Eris knew he had no choice, and so did Summer. So he agreed with a silent nod of his head. “Okay.”

“One -- You… ah, you’re carrying things with you, right? Like-”

“Things?” asked Eris, and Summer once more stumbled in his own words.

“-wea - weapons. You know… things. Things to keep yourself safe.”

“I…” he looked down at himself and counted the one. He could hardly call it a weapon, but “... yes. You’re right.”

“Okay, I… I know this is going to sound crazy, but I need you to get rid of it for me.”

“Get rid of it?”

“Only temporarily!” The sudden panic in Summer’s voice made it sound like he’d been scared of alienating Eris with his odd request. “Please just, please just do it, at least until we’ve gotten to know each other.”

And to that Eris had only one reply: “Trust.”

“That’s… that’s right. Trust. I need you to trust me.”

“And me?”

“You?” Summer asked nervously.

“You don’t trust me?”

“I do. I-”

“Do you?”

“... No.”

No. But somehow, Eris had to be the one to trust Summer.

“But you look like a good - like a good person! I want to trust you. I want it. I’m just… I’m just scared.” The pain in his voice was palpable, almost saddening. “It would really help me if you, well, if you just did that for me. Ease my nerves a little.”

“You’re right.”

“Really?”

“This does sound crazy.”

“Eris…”

“I should put my trust in you that you’re not going to-”

“Harm you?”

Eris nodded. Somehow, Summer caught on to that silent gesture.

“I would never harm you. That… that… Inconceivable! I wouldn’t. You have to trust me that I wouldn’t because I… because I don’t think I could bring myself to -- I mean, I-I wouldn’t do that.”

“I believe you.”

“I would never -- You believe me?”

“I do.”

“How. I… I mean why?”

“Do I need a reason why?”

“I guess not.”

“Promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t try to hurt me, because I’ll hurt you back.” He kicked a knife that he’d placed on the ground. It came to a stop just beside the candle. “I don’t need a knife to defend myself.”

“I understand. I do. I won’t try to -- I won’t.” Summer didn’t even want to say the word. Eris found it endearing. “This is important to me.”

Somewhat reluctantly Eris replied with an uncomfortable, “... Important to me too.”

“Yes, okay. That’s good. That’s good. This is good. This is good.”

“Summer?”

“We’re doing good.”

“Summer.”

“I -- Yes?”

He held two fingers up just beyond the door, far enough for Summer to see them. Clause number two -- why were they doing this to each other? Why didn’t Summer come out to greet him?

“Sorry, right. Promise number two. Number two is simple, simpler than what we - what you just did.”

“I hope so.”

“It’s simple. I just need you to promise me one thing, Eris. Will you do that for me?”

With a slight roll of his eyes and the impatient stamp of foot against floor Eris replied with, “Already made you one promise.”

“Right, yes! You did. You did!” Words came quick, like the flow of a river of thoughts, nearly indecipherable from one another. “Don’t-run-away-from-me.”

Eris dipped his head, turning ear to the door, brows furrowing as the words slowly coalesced in a pool of strange emotions wherever it was that his thoughts resided. He brought that hand he’d still been holding up back to himself, formed a tight fist, and held it close to his chest. His heart -- the way it beat was frightening.

Cracked and bloodied lips pressed tight to one another before parting so he could ask, “Summer? What-”

“Don’t run away from me.”

“What do you mean?”

And as if to further push the point, ingrain it into Eris’s thoughts, and cement this request, Summer repeated with a slow, steady, and well-paced out, “Don’t. Run. Away. From. Me.”

The immediate silence, one which Summer might probably have preferred to last a few minutes, was short lived. It wasn’t words that were shared, but rather a clearing of the throat that brought attention back on Eris; some desperate attempt at keeping the momentum rolling along.

“Why would I run away?” he asked, as the sudden outburst and odd darkness in Summer’s voice gave cause for concern. “After coming all this way-”

“You don’t understand.”

“Why would I leave?” Hurt in his voice, though it wasn’t that either.

“I’m scared.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll see me and you’re not going to like me at all.”

“W-What?” he gasped in between the odd attempt at a chuckle -- it was unnatural and strange; Eris instantly thought to himself that he’d never do it again. “I haven’t even seen you. I’m sure you’re not-”

“You won’t like me,” Summer spoke with a finality to his tone that hushed Eris in both spoken words and passing thoughts, “but I want you to like me. I want you to… What I mean to say is… Gods, I don’t have the words.”

Eris chose silence, closed his eyes, listened.

“... Please give me a chance.”

He had given Summer a chance, done so when Eris acknowledged that flickering light in the night; already gave a chance when, from his little alcove across the road he shined a torch he’d found long ago to see if he’d get a response; gave a chance when they waved at one another, silent communication between shadowy, amorphous silhouettes; gave a chance when he climbed fourteen floors to be here, now, to have this conversation.

“Okay, you’ll get your chance.”

“You will?”

“I won’t scream,” promised Eris, speaking more with himself than with Summer, just as the other had apparently done before, “and I won’t run. I don’t know why -- Never mind that, you have my promise.”

“Thank you.”

“And I promise I have no weapons on me.”

“Thank you.”

“And I promise…” What? What else could he promise? “I promise you’ll have your chance. A fair chance. I know you…” And now he was the one left without words, unsure of what to say. It felt wrong to leave things as they were, half open for further interpretation, as if there was more that he wanted to say -- there was more that he wanted to say -- but it also felt wrong to try and push this any further.

He’d said what needed to be said. So had Summer. All that was left now was for the two them to-

“Come in.”

The entire apartment was dark -- sunlight was kept at bay by large sheets of black fabric that hung from the few windows he could see. A little hallway at the entrance gave way to a bedroom at the opposite end, recently cleaned up. He leaned in, peeked around a corner, and noticed a living room that looked like it hadn’t seen much use. A black sofa was covered from top to bottom with a thick teal blanket, and scattered all around it little bits and pieces of paper, books, and journals. Even through the darkness Eris could see that the walls were a lively cream and…

And all the fur. Everywhere. Little strands here and there sprinkled like salt and pepper with shaggy tufts haphazardly scattered at visible corners. With it came the smell -- dog. Wolf. Wet and humid like the worst of a distant rainy summer. The air was thick, clammy, uncomfortable to breathe -- Eris almost stepped out just to get a fresh lungful of air. A dozen scented candles wouldn’t have alleviated the sudden pressure he felt in his lungs.

Further observation -- a few seconds was all he needed to see it all -- showed the telltale marks of pinpricks and scratches clawed along the walls, through the hardwood flooring stained a honeyed colour, and even up by the ceiling. Just like everywhere else, a dozen different rooms all with the same marks, the same signs; it spoke to Eris of some innate desperation to… well, he wasn’t going to pretend like he could even begin to understand.

Yet despite all of this, one thing was missing. Summer, nowhere to be seen. He was here, Eris knew, by the breaths he caught. Hiding, or at least keeping himself back.

“I’m here,” Summer said, voice loud -- exceptionally loud. Deep, guttural; “in the kitchen.”

Just out of sight from the entrance where Eris stood. He glanced over his shoulder to his exit and held back a frown, knowing well how important it would be to seem a bit… friendly was the only word that came to mind. That man that’d looked at him in the mirror the night before was nothing pretty or exciting, but at least he tried.

They were trying.

He left the door wide open and with his body half-turned to it he rounded his way to the small kitchen on his right.

Funny how the eyes sometimes fail to see, or perhaps more accurately they refuse to see. Maybe it's the brain playing tricks or protecting from trauma. Or… or maybe he was just slow to react, far too slow for his liking. Despite the seconds, he thought of nothing.

The kitchen was narrow. Little stove that’d seen no use to the right, a refrigerator that no longer functioned just beyond it, sink to the left, some counter space of black marble to either side for what Eris gathered was cooking or storing. Centre of it all, it.

A creature he’d seen a thousand times, body thick with bristles of fur black and white and grey. Large hands tipped with claws as long as his middle fingers capped off long and girthy arms full of natural muscle and strength that came down to just above the creature’s groin. Its stomach -- a foamy sea of white fur that surrounded the navel, licked the fringes just past a narrow and well-defined waist, and formed into a teardrop tip at the very centre of an expansive chest that heaved with every familiar, slightly-phlegmy breath.

Summer was tall. Summer shifted uncomfortably. Summer’s ears just barely managed to hit the ceiling, twitching as it moved from foot to foot. Summer’s tail came down to the ground, a paintbrush of black and grey that curled between long legs in some slight show of… of submission, if he remembered the behaviour correctly. Summer held itself close to its own body, with shoulders that should have been expansive drawn tight toward his chest and a back that would have made it tower like Chicago’s massive skyscrapers curled and hunched to an almost visually uncomfortable depth. Summer’s face, snout barely hiding razors within, turned itself into the false facsimile of a smile. The hint of a tongue, long and pink with a deep reddish tint, showed itself through the slight lick of invisible lips before diving back into the depths of that terrifying maw which parted open and-

“Hello, Eris.”

• for the first time in his life he found himself staring down the beast eye-to-eye, feet firmly rooted with blocks of cement. Impossible to move, and he was just barely able to breathe. He couldn’t help but stare, take note of these otherwise unimportant details, because he wasn’t dead. When all else failed, observation was all Eris had left to work with.

“I know this is…”

The words weren’t natural. Forced, like shoving a square block through a circular hole and somehow managing to make it work. They rumbled from one chest to another, shaking Eris to his core because… it was one of them, standing, speaking to him, and bowing lower when he lacked any response. Then it took one half step back, cocked its head, and asked in a low and nervous tone;

“Would you please say something?”

Eris opened his mouth when he found it hard to breathe through his nose, now tasting that insufferable miasma of… of musk and sweat that filled the apartment like a heavy morning fog, and almost choked on it, just managing to hold it back and keep himself together. The arteries in his throat pulsed; they bulged, tempting targets on weakened prey.

Summer. He did understand that this… it… he was Summer.

But he still said it, the first words out of his mouth even when Summer mentioned seemingly in passing that his own heart was beating much faster than what it probably should be. Eris asked, “Summer?” his voice so shaky, cracking at the seams, that even he didn’t recognize it anymore.

And Summer, of course it had to be Summer, nodded slightly, muzzle parting so that it could say, “Yes. That’s… this is me. I’m Summer.” Its head straightened out, and it flashed Eris another one of its strange little smiles, as it said in a slightly more upbeat tone of voice, “Hi.”

Eris was small, Summer noted, and he was so very frail. The clothes the man wore, that thin coat draped carelessly over his black checkered flannel, barely managed to fill out his form, and if anything only further accentuated the lack of… of anything. Muscle, fat -- it was all gone.

Summer studied the man who still stood in a stunned silence, noting the way Eris’ eyes were the only things still moving as they scanned his own body. He stood hunched under the weight of whatever it was Eris held strapped to his back, more than likely supplies for his day’s journey, an uncomfortable-looking position that would have been rectified with a quick straightening of his back. He was unclean, tracking mud and dirt with every step he took, and looked as if he hadn’t groomed himself in… well, that was best not asking.

He didn’t blink nor did he speak beyond that initial question, leaving Summer with no option but to carry on the conversation as best he could, in as non-threatening a manner as he could muster. So he held his hands together, covering and holding together what little bit of modesty he could still keep in front of this stranger, and again tried another smile. The beginnings of a laugh formed in his throat but he held them back with an awkward pause. When nothing came to mind, no words of comfort or reassurances to the man’s sanity, he simply took a step back and remembered;

“Water?”

Without waiting for response Summer reached behind himself, eyes still locked on Eris, while the man watched as this creature rummaged amongst some boxes that’d previously been out of sight. Seconds later came the procured item: the promised bottle of spring water, unopened and clean, dwarfed by Summer’s impossibly large leathery hand.

“You must be thirsty,” murmured Summer, echoing sentiments he’d voiced before. “I know how hard it can be to find -- I have plenty, more than I’ll ever need. If you… if you’d like some, you can have it.” He gestured again, palm upturned, the contents of the bottle somehow shimmering under the apartment’s ambient darkness.

Still Eris did not respond, though now his back was to the wall. He’d somehow found his footing again, brought his hands away from his chest and to the straps that held his backpack tight to his body, and managed to regain some portion of his thoughts.

He looked to Summer, some figment of his imagination it had to be, and said to it, “You’re not real.”

Summer frowned, not quite upset as much as it was sadness, and quickly replied, “I’m very real. So are you.” Eris shook his head, Summer nodded, and then Eris refused to even look at him. Without thinking Summer tossed the bottle in Eris’ direction, watched as reflexes took over so that the man snatched the bottle out of the air, and asked him, “Is that bottle real?”

It was. He squeezed it between his fingers and felt the weight of it shift from wall to wall as the liquid contents shook in whichever direction he moved his hand. That’s when thirst took hold, some unquenchable desire he didn’t realize had been firmly grasping at his heart till his parched throat suddenly gave way for a slight wheeze of disbelief. He forgot about the creature that he’d been sharing the room with, the one that could talk and smile like he could, and put a now-opened bottle to his dry lips.

Water had never tasted so good. I’d never been so real.

“Thank you,” Summer continued after a moment’s pause, “for not running away. I know this is… I know that I misled you. I’m sorry. You wouldn’t have come had you know that I was-”

“You-” Eris choked himself out of finishing his sentence as a gulp of water slid down his throat, coughed, and tried again. “You can… you can talk.”

With a nod Summer replied, “Yes. I… I can.” He backed away as well, putting as much distance between himself and Eris. “And I-I can feel things too, Eris. And the way you’re looking at me, it hurts. But that’s okay, I understand that you just… you just need to get used to seeing me. Seeing this.” He jabbed a thumb into his chest. “Despite that, I’m happy you’re here.”

“Happy.”

Summer nodded. “I’m happy.”

“Why?” He was talking to this thing, this creature, this… monster. Talking to it like he would a person. Memories of conversations he’d once had came flooding back and this was so, so familiar, uncannily so. Why was he talking to it? Why was he still here? “Why?”

Summer shrugged -- the motion of it looked to be uncomfortable and strange, like something his body wasn’t meant to do. The shoulders rose too high and the body slumped a bit too far back.

“Are you hungry?”

“No…” A growling stomach betrayed Eris’ lie. “... Not really. Not anymore.”

“Tired.”

“... A little.”

“Will you, well, will you stay?”

The candle just outside the apartment had finally burnt out.

“It’ll be dark soon. I think -- I mean, maybe it’ll be best for you if you decided to… to, you know, to stay the night. Here. There’s,” Summer waved a hand across the room; Eris, with how closely he’d been staring at Summer, couldn’t help but catch a slight hint of what the creature had been hiding beneath his hand; “plenty of room. You can - you can take the bed.”

“You have a…” His throat was dry again. Eris took another gulp of water, savouring its crisp and slightly cool sensation as it flowed across the expanse of his tongue; “bed?”

“I do!” Summer replied excitedly, his smile returning, as the tail that’d been tucked between legs raised and wagged for the first time since Eris entered the apartment. “It’s big, and there’s fresh blankets if the smell bothers you.”

“And… you?”

“Me?”

“Where will you stay?”

“Ah… yes, uh,” Summer looked around; Eris cautiously did the same. There was little else to spend the night. A sofa, but Summer was- “I’ll find someplace. Don’t worry.”

“That’s-”

“Assuming you’ll stay.”

They both now looked to one of the curtains. The window behind it was massive, took up the entirety of the wall, and led out to a small balcony. The black fabric still glowed from sunlight, though its hue had changed to the warmer colours of the evening.

“You still have time,” added Summer, somber notes impossible to ignore, “if you want to go.”

“Letting me go?” gasped Eris, words laced with the same disbelief he’d had when he first set eyes on Summer. “You’re letting me go?”

“You were never a-” Summer stopped himself, sighed, and nodded. “If you want, you can go.” And then he turned to face a wall, back to Eris, with arms now crossed over his expansive chest.

Summer was… Summer was huge, and even that felt like a disservice to the sheer size of the creature. The biggest wolf he’d ever seen. At his full height Eris was almost eye-level with Summer’s groin. He kept his eyes locked on Summer’s back because even from behind he could almost… almost see…

“I would like to sleep on…” What was he doing? “... a bed.” Summer’s tail, despite the outward appearance of a dejected individual, once more raised and wagged for two side-to-side strokes. The door was open. He glanced at it quickly, before Summer could look back at him. He could go. He had the permission.

So why, he asked himself, wasn’t he leaving?

Eris saw it again, that awful smile, as the wolf turned to glance just over his own shoulder. Their eyes met, gold to brown.

“I’ll get you blankets.”

***

Tension.

Summer hated it, wanted to be rid of it, yet knew no way of breaking it. He could smile and talk and play the part of a submissive person all he wanted, but it did nothing to ease that tension. It was distrust -- of course there would be distrust -- but it felt to him like a one-sided affair.

Eris found some odd comfort in it, reminding him that he hadn’t quite lost his mind yet. This did shake him up, but the world had gone so crazy… One more thing to add to the pile, one more question that wouldn’t be resolved.

He couldn’t sleep tonight -- neither did Summer. The two of them had fooled themselves into thinking that they could ignore one another, even if it was for a few hours, even if thoughts of the other burned in their heads.

For Summer? Curiosity at the human that had walked through the door; an insatiable desire to talk. Eris, on the other hand, felt nothing but conflict, already thinking of the creature as he, as Summer, rather than some entity born of mistake.

Eris peeked out of the bedroom and struggled to find Summer. Darkness bode well with him, blending him into the night like black painted on black. It was Summer's eyes that gave him away, glowing a gold as if they were bioluminescent in nature.

Once he found that, focused on it, then the rest of the body slowly began to take some shape. In the dark Summer was nothing more than a shadow. The silhouette of a silhouette. Eris could somewhat make out arms stretched wide across the sofa, reaching each end of it and then some. Long legs stretched far out into the living room, taking rest on a softly padded white rug. The head turned a little to the side, as if curious, and where ears should have been Eris could only see the slight twitch of a shadow.

Summer had been staring for a long time. His eyes were focused on the entrance to the bedroom, waiting in silence while he listened to the rustling of fabric.

Who knew how long Eris had been out there alone for -- well he had a good idea, but the number terrified him. Instead he raised his voice, called out to the person that now looked at him, and felt something like a fluttering of the heart as he spoke;

“You aren’t tired?”

Eris shook his head, still clutching tight to the corner of the wall, unable to look away now that they were sizing each other up. He tried to talk but found the words got caught up on the backs of his teeth. Instead he cleared his throat and straightened out a little, as if to make himself big in Summer’s presence, yet he knew he was still woefully small.

“Well, I can’t sleep either,” continued Summer, his voice now deeper than before. The echo of it thrummed in Eris’ chest; “so… yeah.”

“Yeah…”

“Would you like to…” A hand came down to just beside Summer, patting down the sofa where there was an open space, “join me?”

“I’m good here,” replied Eris, his voice cold, yet his eyes betrayed a glance at the spot that Summer had pointed out.

“If you say so. You don’t have to -- I mean, you’re free to do whatever you want.” Summer looked away. Eris peeked around the corner a little more to see what he was looking at; the curtains were drawn open, revealing the city's dark skyline illuminated by the silver backdrop of a faraway moon -- just beyond that, a portion of the city burned orange. “I’m sorry you wasted your time.”

“What do you mean,” Eris asked, his voice a low whisper now. He couldn’t help himself, something about the quaint atmosphere of their surroundings made talking loudly feel like some transgression.

“You stayed so you could sleep comfortably; as comfortable as you can be around me.” Summer shrugged, another awkward motion he hadn’t quite gotten down yet. “Couldn’t even do that. Guess I’ve been on your mind, haven’t I?”

He wordlessly nodded.

“You’ve been on my mind too. But… What I mean to say is that you could’ve left earlier. Now you’re stuck here until,” and he silently nudged his head in the direction of the outside world, foreboding in its oppressive silence. “Long ways to sunrise.”

“I can wait.”

“You won’t try to get more sleep?”

“No, not anymore.” Eris chewed on his bottom lip till he tasted something similar to, but not quite, blood. “The bed was comfortable. I --” He struggled to say the words, almost found it impossible to do so, but Eris somehow forced them out, “I mean… thank you.”

He really had lost his mind.

“Are you hungry? I have food.”

“No… no, I’m alright.”

Not even a clock so that it’s ticking could fill the silence of the room. Just their breathing. Eris oddly found himself trying to keep pace with Summer, but after a few failed attempts at holding his breath for so long he simply went back to what he was used to. He could see a little more now, less of a silhouette and more of a solid mass of muscle and fur, but it was still far from clear.

“So I guess… I guess you’re leaving tomorrow.”

“I think-”

“It’s okay,” quickly cut in Summer, finally turning his head away from Eris yet again, as if he no longer wanted to look Eris in the eyes, “I get it. You don’t want to stay. I’m not going to force you.”

“It’s just…”

“It’s just that I’m not what you thought I’d be, right?”

“Right.”

“Haaah… I get it. I get it.”

Eris left the safety of his room. Summer hadn’t moved in all this time. He said, “You’re not going to eat me,” more a statement than a question, to which Summer huffed in what Eris took to be a chuckle before replying with a curt and annoyed;

“No.”

This was the truth. Somehow… somehow Eris knew. Truth went a long way to trust. Not that he was thinking to himself that he trusted Summer, but he realized that he didn’t quite distrust him either.

“You could have done anything to me,” continued Eris, much to Summer’s physical discomfort. The creature who once seemed large and imposing now huddled a little closer to himself while scooting to an edge of the sofa far from where Eris stood; “but you just sat here doing… doing what? Thinking about me?”

“...Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because, why would I do anything to you?”

“Why wouldn’t you,” continued Eris with newfound confidence in his line of questioning. Questions… so many questions that he’d wanted to ask; “do anything to me? You’re one of-”

“I am NOT one of them,” snarled Summer, suddenly taking a stance that made Eris stumble back as the creature stood his full height. Those hands were clenched into tight and trembling fists, and in his eyes a leer that stilled Eris’ heart to a cold stop. “Don’t even go there.”

“S-So… so you really just wanted to talk?”

“Talk,” huffed Summer, who now caught his breath and found regret settling in his stomach when he took another look at Eris, who despite somewhat standing his ground still managed a terrified visage beyond the beard and sunken eyes, “and get to know you, and… and…” He sat -- the entire sofa groaned under his sudden weight. “... and it was stupid.”

“Stupid?”

“You’re leaving anyway,” continued Summer. “Just go to bed.”

He found his footing once more -- found his heart. Eris took another step toward Summer; the whole room seemed to flush several degrees warmer. “We have a few hours to dawn.”

Summer had been looking away, chin resting on the palm of an upturned hand, but at those words he glanced cautiously at Eris and said, “We do…”

“Okay, so… let’s talk.”

There was disbelief in Summer’s voice, but there was also hope, and that in itself was reflected in the way he smiled, muzzle prying open to reveal rows of drooling fangs and a long tongue that couldn’t quite settle into place for more than a second before it slithered across the gaps of teeth.

“If… if that’s what you want, then,” he once again patted the sofa beside himself, “sit.”

Eris had a choice: he could refuse outright and go back to bed, he could choose to sit on the floor, he could stand like he was doing now, or maybe even move to the balcony. From the moment he set foot inside this apartment, all Eris had was choice. Yet he was drawn to the one option that always seemed to favour Summer -- staying in the apartment overnight, choosing to speak with him, and now moving so the two could sit side by side, the closest they’d been since they met just earlier today.

Nothing but a few feet apart. The tail was the closest thing between the two of them. It brushed slightly against Eris’ hand and -- well, he didn’t know if Summer had felt that, but he still shivered at the touch and retracted his hand back to his lap. So flushed with heat he was now that it felt like his shirt was threatening to steam him alive. Little droplets of sweat had already broken into his eyes.

“Are you scared of me?” asked Summer, and Eris nodded. “Nervous about being so close?” Again, Eris nodded in agreement. “Well, me too. Not that I’m scared of you, but I’m nervous.”

“Why?”

“I can’t remember the last time I was this close to someone.” Summer shifted a little uncomfortably, dragging his tail back to himself before setting both hands over his lap. Deep breath, he filled his lungs till they were ready to burst, turned his head away, and blew out. His breath, Summer now realized, must have reeked.

Eris smelled good.

“Must have been long,” carefully mused Eris, his words coming slow, as if he were thinking through each one before saying it. “Very long.”

“Yes, that… it really does feel like that. And-And you?”

“Me?”

“Yes. You. Has it been long since you,” Summer waved a hand around himself, as if to say that this was what he was talking about -- the action of being in a situation such as this one, “talked to anyone?”

“Long,” echoed Eris as he once more chewed on his lip. “Yeah, it’s been long. Not since-” His voice fell from a whisper to a dead quiet; the implication was all but clear to the two of them.

“Right… right. That is a long time. So this must feel as new to you as it does for me.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“How would you put it?” Summer asked, reluctance seething through his words.

“I’m talking to a wolf.” He stammered, stopped himself, and quickly corrected. “I’m talking to you. This is new. This is uncomfortable and strange, and I don’t really know what to do now.”

“Huh…”

“This is the most I’ve talked in years. I’m talking too much.”

“No, I-I think you’re fine. You’re making sense. I would appreciate it,” Summer’s emphasis on the word was clear, “if you didn’t call me a wolf. Just… just call me Summer.”

Eris sighed while stuffing his mouth against the palm of his hand as if to wipe away the grimy residue of his words. “I’m sorry.”

The silence was, once more, short lived. Summer turned, now fully facing Eris, and rather bluntly asked him, “What would you like to do?”

“I said I don’t know.”

“If one thing came to mind,” Summer was comfortable, far more comfortable than Eris was. It was both an inward feeling and outward appearance. Trying his best to seem as non-threatening while silently encouraging Eris to do the same, whichever way that manifested itself as. For now, at least, Eris did keep his eyes on Summer, which pleased him; “what would it be?”

“Well I… I would ask you questions.”

“About me?”

“Yes. And others too.”

“Like what?”

“Anything. Everything. Nothing.” He shrugged. “The world, I guess. But I don’t think you have any of the answers I’m looking for.”

“And I don’t think you have any answers for me either.” The gesture was quick, just a small bump of a fist against Eris’ shoulder, catching the man off-guard hard enough that Eris had little reaction save for staring at that hand as it came back down to Summer’s lap. All Summer wanted to do now was touch him. This… a tease, really. He craved that physical comfort. “Would you look at that, something we’ve got in common.”

With a nervous laugh Eris stated, “Who would have thought,” before briefly turning his eyes down to Summer’s lap. He stared at the hand that had touched him and wondered, momentarily, if he could do the same. Reach out, touch Summer, and pull back as if the two of them had spent every day doing this.

It nibbled at his thoughts, even as he filed it away to the back of his mind.

“I know physically we are -- we aren’t alike at all. I know I can look scary considering, you know, them. But I’m… I mean, what I’m trying to say is that I’m not so different from you, Eris. You know that, right?”

Did he? Eris couldn’t stop staring at the hand. Summer took note.

“The thought of you coming here terrified me to my core, really. I almost didn’t… well, we could have easily never met one another.”

“I didn’t know you were here,” admitted Eris.

“And you’d have never known. But I knew you were out there. I saw you. I smelled you. It was like spring heat in the middle of a cold winter. Unexpected, strange. I doubted myself. I thought I was going crazy.”

At that Eris laughed, a forced sound that more resembled a half-hearted choke, and he smiled. Summer’s heart warmed at that, that wonderful smile. He wanted to see more of it.

“Why the laugh?”

“Because,” another chuckle, shorter this time, and less full of energy, but it was still genuine, “I felt the same way when I saw your little candle. I thought, ‘Maybe another fire.’ But then the candle moved. Then I saw it again. And honestly, the thought that someone might be reaching out to me crossed my mind, but for the most part I thought I’d lost my mind.”

“Another thing we have in common!” Summer did it again, reaching it out to give Eris a friendly bump on the shoulder. Eris watched this time -- expected it. The hand was massive; that fist looked ready to turn the bone of his shoulder into dust, but the tap was as light as a feather’s touch. He barely felt it this time, but he still felt it. “Think we can make it three?"

Eris looked down at his fingers which twitched without his consent and said, “With enough time, maybe.”

“Oh, come on. I’m sure you can think of something!”

“And why should I be the one to find it?”

“Because I found the last two. Come on. Look at me.” The hand came back when Eris didn’t look. Summer’s confidence, while not outright infectious, was… interesting, for a lack of better words. As if the creature knew what he was doing. Frankly, Summer did know, and reveled at the fact that his hand wasn’t swatted away when it came down around the bend of Eris’ bony knee. He gave it a light squeeze, gentle fingers wrapping partway down the leg, as Summer tried his best to smile. “Think of something. Anything. We have all night, you might as well.”

It was like being touched by fire. He had the urge to pull away, and fight, and scream, but Eris swallowed it all down and simply watched as the hand came down on him. Fire spread, fire burned. The skin beneath his trousers shimmered and itched. It boiled his blood, and that sensation spread to every fibre of every muscle in his body as his brain screamed at him: touch.

Reach out and touch. Find out what that fur felt like, deceivingly soft, or as rough as it looked? And the skin of Summer’s fingers, as callused as his own or immaculate -- as immaculate as a wolf could be? He struggled to not move either away from or toward Summer and realized that this… this touch? He wasn’t regretting it. Some part of him that he’d long forgotten about had longed for this moment.

This was good.

“Do you like the cold?” He dumbly asked. Eris brought a hand to his own lap, close to Summer’s wrist yet not quite touching either.

“No. I hate it.”

“Figured. You have a lot of blankets.”

“And you?”

Now Summer shifted a little, rolled his wrist, squeezed down on Eris’ knee yet again as if to tell him that it was okay to touch. He wanted this, why couldn’t Eris?

“I like it. But, ah… I don’t like winter.”

“But that’s when it’s coldest!”

“It is,” admitted Eris, unable to help his smile again, “but it’s too cold.”

“So… autumn?”

“You mean fall?”

“That’s the one.”

“Better, yes.”

“Mm. I’ve always liked fall. The trees are really pretty that time of the year. It’s…” Summer’s breath hitched. He felt it -- gentle touch it was, the slight grazing of thumb against the bare skin of his hand. He turned his head away and couldn’t stop his maw from splitting open in a smile as his tail thumped repeatedly against the sofa’s backrest. He caught himself and, deciding not to push his luck anymore, satisfied with what he’d felt, continued; “beautiful. You can almost lose yourself in all the colours.”

Eris nodded, unable to stop thinking about… about how surprisingly soft Summer’s skin was, though rough as well. Like pushing in on a malleable pebble. It’s one thing to see from afar and another to actually touch something so…

… strange.

“There’s your third,” he told Summer, who huffed a loud breath of air and replied with;

“That one wasn’t fair.”

“How?”

“I basically found it for you!”

“Mmm… No.”

“I did!”

“No.”

“How so?”

“I guided you there.”

“Oh, that’s -- that’s not fair.” Summer wordlessly brought the hand back to himself -- they didn’t need to share any words to know that both of them had, to some lesser or greater extent, enjoyed that brief moment of physical… contact? Affection? Kinship?

Summer’s only thought now, in this moment of silence the two shared with one another, was on Eris. Did the man really have to leave?

And frankly, Eris’s own thoughts weren’t so far away either. He just looked to the creature and mused, “Three for three…”

“Guess we’re not so different from one another, huh?” Summer said after a nervous laugh.

“Guess not. You’re… It’s scary that you’re so… I mean, what are you?”

“I… don’t know.” Summer shrugged. He said it as if this were the first time he’d come to such a thought. “I don’t know.”

“I just needed to ask. I just needed to know. You must have been-”

“Maybe one day, a long time ago, yes I was physically similar to you. But I can’t remember.”

“Nothing at all?”

“No.”

“Anything?”

Summer’s eyes drifted down. “Not even a passing dream.”

“That sounds,” he cut himself off with a sharp breath, “rough.”

“A long time ago,” echoed Summer, “yes. Could we change the topic now? I want to ask you something.”

“Sure.” He caught on to Summer’s lack of comfort far too late and figured that it was too late to apologize. “Anything, I guess.”

“I need to know if you’ve, I mean… you know.” To Eris he seemed flustered. Frankly, he was.

“I… don’t know.”

“If you’ve changed your mind. About leaving.”

“I don’t-”

“I know it’s not been very long since you made up your mind,” cut in Summer, truly afraid of what Eris had to say, even though he really did like the sound of that man’s voice. “Less than an hour, really. I guess it’s felt a lot longer for me. I don’t know about you. I just figured that, I mean, look at us!” His laugh sounded as desperate as it felt. “I want to believe we’re having a good time right now. We’re talking, getting along, finding similarities and… and I can tell that you’re not as afraid of me as you were earlier today.”

“How can you tell?”

“The way that you talk, the sound of your voice. It doesn’t shake so much now. There’s more confidence. And also how you’ve been holding yourself while we talked -- a little straighter, a little taller. And-And how you let me… you let me touch you, and I saw you were a little uncomfortable but you grew used to it. You,” Summer paused to take in Eris, the slightly-widening eyes, the dilated pupils. He was shocked, but he was listening; “liked it. You liked that I touched you.”

“You don’t know that,” whispered Eris, his voice slipping between the cracks of chipped and straight teeth. “You can’t say that.”

“I can say that,” Summer protested as he turned again, bringing one leg up on the couch, almost trapping Eris where he sat, “because I can tell. Maybe you can’t, but I do! I can… I can tell by your breath, how it quickened then deepened. Your eyes wouldn’t stop looking me over, then you just stared at my hand like you wanted to touch it. You should have touched it. And your heart-”

“Oh, what, you can hear my heart too?”

“As if you’d been knocking on my door. I just had to… to focus on it, on your heart. It beat fast, very fast. Not fear -- I know what fear sounds like. You were excited. And your smell, “Summer took a deep breath and shuddered while breathlessly saying, “- smell so good.”

“This is-”

“You gave me a chance already. I wasn’t so bad, was I?”

“No… No you weren’t.”

“So why not give me a second chance? Stay here. Let’s -- together. Why not together? Why be alone out there.” He jabbed an arm out to the window. “What else is out there, Eris? What do you have out there?”

Eris bluntly replied with a simple, “Nothing.”

“So why leave?”

And again, just as bluntly, though with some remorse to his words, Eris said, “Because I’m used to it.”

“You came here ready for change.”

“No.”

The flat tone of voice, the quickness of his reply, and the blank look in those brown eyes stunned Summer to a standstill. He could say nothing, which for once gave Eris the chance to actually say something.

“I came here because I wanted to see someone else. I wanted to talk to someone else. It wasn’t what I expected but I did that. What I didn’t come here for was change. I like my life.”

“That’s a lie.”

“And you’re making too many assumptions, Summer.”

“And what if I am?!” he screamed, rising a little, gnashing teeth. Strands of saliva fell from his maw, drizzling down to the bare sofa between the two of them. The power in his voice was now what brought Eris to a standstill of his own. “You want to be out there alone? I can’t believe that. I refuse to believe that.”

“Things are -- It’s normal. Things are normal. Calm. Quiet.” Eris sighed. Summer’s intense wide-eyed stare was burning a hole in his head. “I don’t want that to change.”

“Please don’t,” insisted Summer. “Please don’t lie to yourself like this. Don’t lie to me.”

“Summer…”

“Just give me a chance to make this work.”

“Make what work?”

“This! You and me! Our… Whatever this is. You don’t want to be alone, Eris.”

“You’re sure about that,” he whispered.

“I don’t want to be alone.” He slumped back, that overwhelming aura of him gone. “If I were human you’d have stayed…”

“If you were human I’d have answered-”

“The same?” cut in Summer. “Enough with the lies, please.”

He hadn’t considered his words lies. Eris felt like he’d been telling the truth. He did believe in what he said. Summer’s insistence, however, nailed home a thought he hadn’t had in a long time.

Was it worth it to be so alone?

“... Hey Summer.”

“What is it?”

“You can tell what I’m feeling, right?”

Summer reluctantly nodded.

“Listening to my heart, observing my body language, all that-that fun stuff. You can tell?”

“I… can. Yes.”

“How accurate do you think you are?”

“I don’t know. I just interpret.”

“If you had to give me an answer?”

“Pretty accurate.”

“So then what am I feeling now?”

Summer sat up again, interest once more piqued. He set his hands on his lap and crossed his legs as best he could in the small space afforded to him, paying close attention to the man that now seemed so suddenly interested in talking to him. “What do you mean?”

“It’s a simple question. What am I feeling?”

He sniffed, nostrils flaring wide, and said, “You reek of fear. Uncertainty.” Then he turned his head, slightly closed his eyes, and murmured, “Heart’s beating really fast. Way too fast. It’s frightening. You’re frightened.” And then Summer opened his eyes to find something warm in Eris, like… well, like warm water that's been sitting out in the sun for too long: not exactly refreshing, but better than nothing. “Fear and uncertainty.”

“Huh.”

“Afraid of me, Eris?”

“That’s… really unnerving how you can do that.”

“Eris.”

“Huh?”

“Are you afraid of me?”

“Oh, you? No… no, I don’t think I’m afraid of you, Summer. Not anymore -- Not right now.”

“So what’s got you feeling so-”

Eris shrugged. He didn’t know himself, and voiced it as such with a simple, “Who knows.”

The twenty minutes that passed flashed by in an instant, so caught up they’d been just… staring at one another. As if nothing else mattered in the world. Each one, in their own way, found themselves wishing to get into the other’s thoughts.

Summer wished that he’d pushed further, pried some more, tried harder. Maybe then Eris would have changed his mind. What had he done wrong? What had he said wrong? And was there still time to fix this?

Eris just… thought about what the next few hours would bring. Silence or conversation? An awkward stumbling of words? He voiced his concern with a straight forward, “What now?”

“The night’s far from over,” replied Summer, unable to help his own dejection.

“Want to… want to talk about anything else?”

“Frankly?” Yes. Yes he did. There was nothing more Summer wanted to do in the world. “I’m not feeling it.”

“Yeah,” lied Eris. “Me either.”

“But you’re not going back to bed, are you?”

“Not really. I’m… I’m not tired.”

“Me either,” whispered Summer. “Do you… what do you want to do then?”

“Sit here,” replied Eris in a low voice as he felt some unseen chill run its course across bare skin, “and just, I don’t know. Feels like I’ve never been here before.”

“Here, like…?”

“Like next to someone else.”

“I feel the same way.”

“... Four for four.”

Summer laughed that awkward laugh that to Eris still sounded forced and unnatural, then suggested, “Would you like to… hold… my hand?” with a cautious tone and a grit to his jaw that prepared him for the worst.

Yet the reply he got set him aflutter, twisting his stomach up into wonderful little knots, while he briefly forgot all about the little notch in the road that they’d bumped into what felt like hours ago now.

Eris said, “I… Well, I can’t see why not,” as he extended his hand out. It trembled. He was afraid. Cold.

Like a pup, thought Summer to himself, lost and scared. It’s okay. He was safe now.

Summer’s hand was large, an observation he couldn’t stop himself from making over and again over, and despite the leathery texture of his skin Eris found it to be surprisingly soft and… and gentle. They didn’t so much hold hands as they did curl one inside the other. All Eris could see was near-black skin about the same colour as the fur of Summer’s arms enveloping his lighter tones of brown till it completely disappeared.

Summer’s hand was warm, and that warmth spread along his wrist and up his arm to the very core of his soul. Eris eased back against the sofa’s backrest and closed his eyes as Summer squeezed down on his hand. Those massive claws were carefully kept away from him.

Just last night Eris would have never imagined himself doing this. Just last night Summer dreamed of this outcome.

And all Summer could do, as he protectively held Eris’ hand, was smile the widest grin he’d ever had. He loved every minute of this.

For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Eris found comfort in another’s touch.

***

He awoke to a faceful of fur that pricked at his skin and warmed his body, all bent up in an awkward angle, held tight by a strong embrace that refused to let him go.

It was sweaty and slightly oily, that fur that he was pressed against. Black as the night with a little patch of white just barely entering the fringe of his vision. Here it was thick, but he was held so close that he could feel the body below the fur, and it was strong, and it was large, and it was hot with some infernal internal heat.

And with every breath that Eris took that body would rise in unison, lifting him up slightly, and when he breathed out the body would fall and so would he. The arms would close a little tighter around his middle and lower back, and large hands wrapped all the more comfortably across the sharp angles of his thin body.

A musk wafted up his nostrils as he breathed in, unwashed of course, yet inexplicably enticing. It was natural, bitter, acrid, and so different that he couldn’t quite put his finger on what exactly it smelled like to him. Yet at the same time he wasn’t put off by the smell, but rather he was drawn in a little closer, and he found himself taking deeper and deeper breaths so he could fill his lungs with that… that scent.

That powerful, dominating scent that he realized all-too-late had been poisoning his mind from the moment he set foot in the apartment.

Without thinking Eris let out a sound -- a cross between the groan of morning grogginess and a moan of wary excitement -- and brought himself closer against the belly of the creature. He didn’t have his arms wrapped around Summer as Summer had done to him, but rather found himself more… cradled against the beast, with Eris’ own hands held tight to his chest in some unnecessary attempt at warmth and comfort.

He thought to himself, how did he get here? A passing thought, that’s all it was, quickly fading from memory as he took another deep lungful of Summer’s musk and found that he’d been salivating. Eris swallowed what felt like a mouthful of his own spit and struggled to keep fur from getting into his mouth as he tried to lick at his dry lips.

There were no memories besides the ones that came just before he closed his eyes. Summer asked him to hold his hand and, somewhat reluctantly, he’d agreed. Summer looked happy, as happy as a wolf like him could look like with that strange muzzle that spoke familiar words, and then said something about…

… what had Summer said?

And then he remembered opening his eyes to see gold. Brilliant, shimmering gold. What Eris couldn’t remember visually he barely recalled in feeling: hunger, desire, and some unquenchable thirst for the thing that only Summer had been able to give him; the thing he didn’t even know he needed so badly.

Affection.

But this was all speculation. A means to an end so he could justify waking up in Summer’s arms the way he had just now. Until Summer said anything, the one thing Eris could be certain of was that they’d willingly held each other’s hands and it had felt… it felt good.

Eris turned his head a little as he tried to swallow away the bitter taste that had formed on his tongue and through half-lidded eyes gazed down at the body he’d been nestled against.

From being so close he came to understand just how much larger Summer was than him. A literal mountain of a creature that dwarfed him by nearly twice as much in height and width. He could very easily have found himself cradled in Summer’s lap and -

And why was he thinking such things anyway?

As if to answer that question there came another lungful of haze-inducing musk that again brought another whimper of a moan out of him.

Summer could have snapped him in half had he so wanted it. Summer could have picked him up one-handed and threw him across the room. Summer could have pinned him down against the floor, or up against a wall, and he’d be hopeless to stop it. Summer was too strong and far too large for Eris to make any meaningful impact. He’d known this from experience, having seen the other beasts that roamed the streets at night, and yet Summer somehow surpassed them all in sheer size and scale.

And yet he’d never felt so safe.

Eris found himself lost in the rhythm of Summer’s breaths as gaze travelled down the white field of Summer’s stomach to… a sudden patch of black just beyond the creature’s waist. He closed his eyes, took a breath, and opened them again to find himself staring at Summer’s limp, imposing-

Summer was naked. Summer was naked.

It came to him in a sudden panic that, had he not been so tightly restrained, would have made him jump out of his skin and back away. Summer was naked -- of course he was naked. He was… he was… but then, he hadn’t taken such notice of it before, having been so preoccupied with the grander individual rather than the more specific…

His heart beat like drums against his chest. Eris knew, or he thought he knew, that he shouldn’t have stared as intensely as he did, yet now that he’d taken notice of it he couldn’t help but stare at what had been so blatantly presented to him.

More human than it was canine, to Eris’ surprise, with an otherwise smooth skin that was marred by branching rivers of bulging veins that would’ve fooled him into thinking Summer was hard had his member not been laying so limp across Summer’s left thigh. Eris counted out the inches, a rough estimate, till he mouthed nine while reaching sight of the tip of Summer’s cock. Skin barely managed to wrap around half of the creature’s fat head, like someone trying to fit into a jacket two sizes too small. Without thinking Eris glanced down at his hand, formed a fist, and realized that Summer’s crown was a little smaller than that.

With how Summer’s cock hung off to one side, Eris also got a clear view at what rested below. Two large orbs, almost impossibly so, sat nestled tight against one another at the edge of the sofa, almost spilling over the edge. Huge, larger than Summer’s crown, larger than Eris’s own fists as well, each. Maybe even both his fists combined, if not more so, but looks could be deceiving when pressed so tightly like that. They had a thin coating of white fur, the same as the one that spread across Summer’s stomach, the same that Eris was being held against, and… and they almost seemed to churn with life of their own. Factories of productive virility that culminated in an occasional dribble that spilled from the tip of Summer’s cock as it briefly surged -- a dribble, that’s the best comparison Eris could come up with, even though it more equally scaled with the amount of spit he could have let ‘dribble’ from his own lips.

This couldn’t be right, this-this staring, observing, analyzing, but there was nothing else to look at, and no way to budge free from Summer’s hold. Only the imposing sex of an incredibly well-endowed creature. And again, Eris wondered how he’d missed this, how he’d been so preoccupied with the rest of Summer that he didn’t even notice what so blatantly hung between Summer’s legs.

He let his eyes wander over the length of that dick yet again and wondered why it looked so human. He marvelled at the size of Summer’s head -- there were no other words for it, lest Eris admitted to himself that he was in awe -- and found a hard time trying to understand how something so big could exist so naturally. He watched once more as another long strand of precum oozed from deep within those massive orbs and he got to thinking, intrusively so, and just for a second, how much Summer could actually produce. How much could he cum?

Eris thought of all this for a creature that had held nothing but hate for him, for a creature that he had wanted nothing to do with and for which he’d never imagined he’d be so close to, but then… Summer wasn’t one of them. Summer was different.

Summer was special.

“Enjoying the view?”

Summer’s sultry voice shook Eris from his daze, but he couldn’t look up. He wasn’t allowed to look up. The arms that kept him in place held him so tight that he could barely move his head. He couldn’t move his body. All he could do was stare and stammer, “S-Summer?”

“Caught you staring,” continued Summer with an accusatory tone as his legs spread wider than they were, giving his dick ample room to -- Eris watched as it twitched once, twice, before thickening at centre and raising slightly, only to be brought back down under the gravity of its own weight. “You can’t take your eyes off me.”

“It’s not -- It’s not what you think-”

“Oh I know exactly what this is about,” continued Summer as his dick twitched again, and again. Each time it rose a little higher before falling limp once more. Blood rushing to those bulging veins helped give it the girth it rightfully deserved. “Look at it. Don’t tell me that you don’t want it.”

It twitched again and, Eris found, it’d grown harder. Summer’s cock held itself aloft a few seconds longer now, gravity pulling the tip of it into a natural downward-facing arc that ended with a weak yet constant stream of watery precum, already pooling on the sofa and under Summer’s balls.

Eris had no words left. Even though he didn’t outright say he wanted it, he didn’t refuse either, and Summer was quick to capitalize on that.

“You want to touch it, don’t you?” One of those large clawed hands that had been holding tight to Eris now came down to the base of Summer’s cock. It wrapped easily around that dick despite its girth, much more easily than Eris would’ve been able to do, and with a firm grip Summer slowly began to pull his hand backward. “You want to taste it,” he continued while forcing Eris to watch as skin was peeled away from the crown, revealing at last a rounded tip with a wide rim which seemed to engorge under his shocked attention. “I can’t wait to feel your tongue on it.”

“What… what?”

Instead of a response, Summer began to stroke himself with a relentless and desperate fervor, the dry plap of skin slapping against skin slowly being replaced with a slight slick of runny precum coating a turgid shaft. Under his breath he muttered things like, “It’s so heavy,” and, “Feels so… good,” as his shaft rose, with every stroke, into a hard and twitching pillar that was so ready to, “Breed.”

Summer grinned, knowing that Eris couldn’t see it, nearly drooling onto himself and the man as he leaned back and suddenly let go of himself. The weight of his cock brought it down on Eris’ face, who squirmed and tried to turn his head away, yet ultimately found himself unable to do anything but stare at a faceful of cock while breathing in straight from the source that musk he’d found himself so hopelessly addicted to.

“Lick it,” commanded Summer, his voice strong and cold, striking a chord within Eris that made the man whimper in response. Summer throbbed, which raised his cock from Eris’ face for a second before bringing it back down with the same force as it had before, creating an echoing smack! in Eris’ head. “Do it,” continued Summer as his cock throbbed again, lifting, falling once more to smack Eris in the face. And again, harder this time, as if purposefully done by Summer. “I said,” he grabbed Eris by the back of the head and, impatiently so, shoved him toward his shaft, “lick it!”

The yelling, the orders; something in Eris clicked, and without a second thought he opened his mouth and dragged his tongue just under the rim of Summer’s thick bell. It tasted of salt from sweat and precum, and it earned him the breathless praise of someone that hadn’t felt a tongue down there in years. Eris flicked the tip of his tongue against the surface of Summer’s head and watched as it twitched away from him, as if overstimulated, before coming back down for more. He waited for it with the flat of his tongue and savoured the few moments he could spend hopelessly licking up the residue of still-wet precum before it again throbbed away from his eager lips.

“Good boy!” praised Summer, his voice once cold now full of jovial glee -- the tone of a proud father, or a satisfied king. “That’s it -- get it wet. Get it ready, Eris. Because I’m going to -- mmph -- breed you until you’re screaming.” Eris moaned, the grip on the back of his head tightened as he was held firmly against Summer’s quivering shaft. The thought of it… “Gonna… gonna take every inch of me. Ruin your hole. You’ll want nothing more when I’m through with you. Right? Say it. Say you want it. Say it!”

Eris gasped for a breath he’d refused himself for minutes now as he trailed little circles across the surface of Summer’s veiny length before he whispered, “I want it.”

***

He woke up in Summer’s arms, warm, comfortable, something hot and slick coating his thighs. Morning’s light still hadn’t breached over the horizon. For once, it wasn’t cold.

Summer was asleep. The creature’s head was thrown over the sofa’s backrest, aimed high at the ceiling, exposing a thick neck covered in layers upon layers of fur and fluff.

Eris couldn’t move, but he didn’t want to move either. Again, he didn’t know how he ended up here, but at least he remembered just a little before he fell asleep -- holding hands as they talked about… nothing.

The dream -- maybe it was a nightmare -- was still alive and well in his head. Summer’s commanding tone, the smell of him, the taste of him. Like it really happened. He almost believed that it had occurred; almost managed to taste Summer’s salty residue on his tongue.

That was enough of an excuse for him to have a look. Only a quick look, just to make sure things hadn’t really gone the way he thought they did. It was easy to catch a glance with how Summer held him; he swore he would have been able to lean in just a bit more and to taste him.

He was just as large as in his dream, in every aspect. Thick, long, intimidating, drooling pre by the handful in idle inactivity. But he was dry and… well, Eris could find no indication that they’d done anything.

That didn’t keep him from staring now that he actually looked at it. The real thing -- somehow more impressive than the dream. A part of him waited for what came next; having closed his eyes, Eris unknowingly prepared himself for Summer’s bitter words and harsh manhandling, yet all he caught was a slight snore followed by an uncomfortable smacking of lips.

A sigh -- relief, disappointment. Eris squirmed a little, somehow managed to turn away from Summer’s goods, and again closed his eyes. As strange as it was to be wrapped around a wolf’s arms… he was here now. Somehow they’d ended up like this. Who was to stop him from enjoying this just a little further? Not him.

He knew now, he liked this.

It was Summer who woke him up a few hours later. He tried to be gentle with his touch, carefully caressing Eris’ cheek with the back of his hand, unsure of how else to rouse the sleeping man from so deep a slumber. He couldn’t help his smile, even as he nuzzled his snout close to Eris’ ear so he could whisper, “Morning.”

“Morning,” hummed Eris, and in Summer’s arms he turned a bit, pressed himself closer to the creature’s chest, and breathed deeply from his scent. Summer loved this; the physical affection he’d been starved of so suddenly given to him, he didn’t quite know what to do with it all.

Holding hands last night was the best thing he’d ever done because somehow, somehow, it miraculously led to this.

“How are you?” murmured Summer, his snout still to Eris’ ear, leaving a thundering echo in the man’s chest that near enough left him breathless. Eris barely managed to reply;

“Hurting.”

“O-Oh…”

“Just my back. Weird angle. Everything else is…” He paused, pushed back the dream, and whispered, “good.”

“Oh.”

“You’re… very comfortable.”

“Am I?” teased Summer, the wolfish equivalent of a cheeky grin forming across his open snout.

“You are,” admitted Eris.

“Good. You’re comfortable too,” continued Summer. “Very. I like holding you in my arms. It’s… it was nice to hold someone for once.”

“Yeah,” dumbly stated Eris as he pushed his face into Summer’s chest. Fur, so soft and… coarse as well. It was strange but not unwelcoming; “I agree.”

“I guess - I guess this hasn’t changed your mind about you leaving, right?”

“Summer…”

“No, no. I get it. I understand. You don’t -- change is weird. And I’m… I’m a lot.”

“Summer.”

“I get it…”

“Summer,” Eris said more sternly, a little louder, enough to snap Summer out of his thoughts.

“Hm?”

“I was thinking that maybe, well, maybe I could come back.”

“You would come back?” Summer could barely hide the excitement in his voice.

“Yeah. I… mmm…” he found himself snuggling closer into Summer, knowingly so as well, “... could come back here again. Take things…” his lips felt so dry. He hated it; “slow.”

“Slow. Right. I may have tried to… to force things a little last night, didn’t I?”

“A little,” replied Eris, “but that’s okay.”

“Is it?”

“You’re not so bad.”

“Aren’t I? A-Are you sure?”

“No. You’re not. I was wrong to act so -- Well, I didn’t treat you very well. I’m sorry. You’re not so bad.”

Summer sniffed. Eris caught it, knew what it was. He didn’t look.

“Could you say that again,” murmured Summer, voice cracking under the weight of his own emotions, “please. I-I’m sorry. Just-”

“You’re not so bad,” said Eris again, a little more clearly, a little more genuinely. “You’re… you’re very good, actually. And I got to thinking, well… maybe we don’t have to be strangers.”

“A-Are you sure? Please tell me this isn’t a-”

“I’m sure.”

“Oh… hah… oh.... God. God… Thank you, Eris. T-Thank you.” Summer nuzzled harder into Eris’ side -- that warm trickle of water was now impossible to hide against bare neck. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”