FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

After what had seemed like an endless trek, they were finally nearing their destination.

“That must be it, Skinny." Kelsey said, crouching behind a bush with him. Beyond them, in the distance, was a long, white building, on the corner of a crossroads, with some other buildings around it. A small gas station, an old church, and a corner store. Typical small town fare. Most of the other buildings in the area had long fallen to ruin. “Matches his description perfectly."

“It does? What did he say about it?"

“Four unhit buildings." She grinned. “I bet there's all kinds of great stuff just waiting. Come on! Let's go check it out!"

They approached the town, first to the white building. As they got near it, they saw there were all kinds of things on the outside of it as well. Piles of old junk, just waiting to be prodded. She motioned to him and spoke quietly. “You check out that side, and I'll check this one out. Then we'll go in."

Erik split off from her and began scoping out the far side of the building. Besides the stains of rust on the building, it was in pretty good condition. Outside, piles of old metal pieces lay in the dirt, rusting away to nothing. Broken skids with giant weeds growing out of them. What was once a steel barrel. This place looked like some kind of factory or workshop. In a dumpster, old scraps of galvanized steel stock; white powder mixed with rust in the form of a sheet just laying in wait for someone to finally look at their sad state. None of this junk was particularly useful, but it was good to see that nobody had made off with it yet. He climbed over the edge of an open dumpster, carefully, to look around at the old junk inside. Shredded garbage bags full of unidentifiable junk, paper pulp, and deteriorated cans. Looks like garbage day never came. A couple bits of garbage seemed to be okay for some future use: a screw end for a hose, with a hose clamp. A stainless water bottle, slightly dented. A plastic toilet seat.

“Psh, bunch of junk here."

A sudden bark came from the other side of the building, a yelp, a clatter. The sound made him drop the toilet seat. If not for the bark, he would have thought she just hurt herself, but the bark was an alert. Something was wrong. He struggled to climb out of the bin, eventually managing to stretch his leg over the edge and rushed around the building to where he left Kelsey. She was gone. Only a claw hammer lay on a piece of sheet metal where she once was, something she had most certainly scavenged. Various paw prints led away from the scene, their claws hastily tore into the dirt as they fled the scene.

“Oh shit!" Erik grabbed the hammer as an instant defense, and looked around. There was a small group of three anthros hauling her off, squirming, into the old church across the street. “Fucking kidnappers?! Thought this place was deserted! I've gotta get her..." He quickly ran across the road, and crouched down behind a bush, listening for anything he could use to determine what to do. Another bark, this one much quieter. They were definitely still inside. With his aged hammer drawn back, he crept along the side of the building, trying to be as quiet as he could be. But anthros all had better ears and noses, they would at least hear him coming if he didn't lighten his load. He took his pack off and set it on the ground, next to the building. There was no way he could be quiet with that thing on his back.

Inside, he could hear a voice. “Fuck, bitch bit me good! Shit's gonna get infected! This was supposed to be easy."

As he approached a doorway, he knelt down next to it, and heard a claw tap against the ground. Someone was coming. A sudden voice. “Quit bitchin', let's get this over with. Go send the signal." A brief moment passed, of the sound of stairs, and then a shaggy brown foot stuck out of the door, and another. A big wolverine lumbered out of the door, not looking particularly guarded, or aware that someone else was there. The perfect target. Erik didn't give him a chance to sniff the air, he sprung up from his hiding spot and struck it directly in the side of the head with the face of the hammer with a sickening thump, then again as it began to crumple over. When it fell, he kicked it, just to make sure it was down. Who knows how long it would be stunned for, he had to make his entrance if he wanted to get to Kelsey before something worse happened.

Slipping in the door, it was only a set of stairs, one going up, and the other going down. He decided to go down the stairs, heading down at a bouncing pace, sidestepping all the way to keep himself available to swing. At the bottom of the stairs was a rickety door, the white paint now streaked with black from years of neglect. He quietly turned the knob on the door, and began to push open the door. Whoever was on the other side noticed and spoke up.

“Joey? He here yet?" Another male's voice. The third voice.

Erik didn't want to leave him hanging, it might seem suspicious. He tried to mimic the voice he heard, and dropping the tone down a lot to sound bigger, figuring Joey was the wolverine he just bashed. “Nah, not yet."

“Fucker better hurry up, I don't want this bitch here. Too dangerous... givin' me the stink-eye, like she's gonna eat me."

“Yeah." Erik agreed in his deep voice, then quickly burst open the door, brandishing his hammer, and swung at the first person he saw that wasn't Kelsey. Right between him and her was a large raccoon, looking haggard and scraggly. He raised his paw as quick as he could in self-defense, but it wasn't fast enough to deal with the hammer blow. It struck him in the shoulder, knocking him down with the shock of it. As he fell, his claws slashed into Erik's side, but the sting of the sharp claws wasn't enough to stop him from swinging again, hitting the raccoon in the forearm. Crunch. He quickly kicked it in the face as it was down, and it snarled a bit, but could do nothing but lay there in agony.

He rushed over to help Kelsey, who was bound on the floor, with a wrapping around her snout. Using the claw of the hammer, he managed to tear the weak threads of the binds apart, the worn old cloth easily shredding on a sharp, if not rusty, edge. With her hands, feet and mouth finally freed, she gasped. “Shit! You clobbered that fucker!"

“Yeah, the other one, too! Let's get the fuck outta here!" He replied, finishing off her binds.

“No argument here! Go, go!" She grabbed her bag of loot and bolted for the door. She ran a lot faster than he did, and ascended the stairs quickly, but the area was so small, they were able to get away into the street in a matter of no time.

Erik breathed heavily, swinging his bag onto his back once again, the adrenaline starting to wear off. “Shit... we gotta get outta here, this is some kind of fucking bandit nest."

“Yea- wait a second..." Kelsey stopped and turned, looking past Erik to see a familiar face sprinting at her. “Colton?"

“Look out! Human!" He called, charging directly at Erik. Kelsey quickly stepped out in front of Erik, arms wide, and Colton practically skidded to a stop in front of her. “What are you doing?!"

“He's ours, Colton."

“ Ours?!"

“The family's. He's our servant, he helps on the farm, and he's helping me. It's a long story."

“Helping you? A human?! They're monsters!"

“He just saved me from some shitty bandits." She explained. “You were almost just in time t-" She stopped mid sentence, looking at his handsome, but angry face. She sniffed the air. Something was amiss. Her brows and ears both lowered slightly, as Erik watched on, quietly studying the situation. “What are you doing here, right now?"

“I was coming to save you! I smelled human. I smelled it on you earlier, but I wasn't sure what it was."

“Coming to save me... from an unfamiliar smell?" Her hackles began to rise, the fur on her shoulders standing on end. “I'll ask again. What are you doing here, Colton?"

Erik watched her hackles rise, and his tail and ears drooped a bit. He was starting to get a hang of the body language here, at least of the canines. “Ar-"

He was immediately cut off by Kelsey, asking the exact same question. “Are you who they were waiting for?!" She was furious, nearly ready to strike at him.

No sooner did she start to unravel Colton's scheme, the three bandits stormed over to them, in the middle of the street. The wolverine, holding his head, the raccoon, holding his arm, and a ferret, holding his arm as well.

“Oh shit." Erik grumbled, readying the hammer, claw side forward this time.

“Hey! Dickhead!" The raccoon started shouting. Colton looked back to them, now finding himself offsides. The raccoon lead the charge right to the hubbub in the street. “This ain't what we signed up for!"

“S-shit..." Colton's eyes shifted, backing up slowly.

“You didn't say shit about a... fucking human!" He waved his paw over to Erik, bracing himself to strike again. “I should rub this creep out now!"

“Stay away from me, and the girl! I'll fucking do it again!" Erik snarled at him, turning fiercely protective in this high-tension situation, shaking the hammer threateningly.

The adversary was taken aback by his demeanor a bit. “You've got spunk, lucky I respect that! But I don't care about you or the girl, long as you don't hit us anymore. You don't belong here. It's really this guy..." The raccoon glared at Erik and his puny hammer, then back to Colton.

“Shut. Up!" Colton snapped back at him, seething through his bared teeth, his own hackles raised. “You're-"

“I don't give a shit! Your fucking plan or whatever! You want me to get hit with a hammer, it's double! Quadruple to scrap with humans! And since I doubt you have double, this is over."

Erik held Kelsey by her backpack, slowly trying to pull her away from the scene, and let the other two factions duke it out, but Kelsey was not about to let this go so easily. The pieces came together well enough.

“Colton Donaldson! You thought you would win me over by saving me from bandits you hired?! Were you just going to walk in and push them down and save the day? To get on my list?"

The ferret spoke up. “Yeah, that was it."

Colton couldn't even answer, he was too embarrassed to be found out.

“You fucking snake!" She howled in a rage Erik had yet to see, breaking out of his grip and tore at Colton with her claws and fangs. He fought back somewhat, he was much stronger and bigger than she was, but she still bit him and gouged him a couple of times, tearing into his arm, snout and his ear. Erik managed a scramble to grab her backpack again and pull her backwards, while the bandits, surprisingly caring about Colton, pulled him away from her. “L-let me go! Skinny! I should kill him!"

“No, we're going. Now!" Erik protested.

She resisted somewhat, but allowed herself to be dragged away by the persnickety human, as she continued to bark at him. “Fuck! You idiot! You were already on it! You know that?! You were the only fucking one on my list! Stupid fucking shithead!"

The bandits were holding him back as well. “Can't believe you thought that was a good idea. No hurting the woman, though. And no getting hurt yourself. You still owe us."

“Can't you see I'm a bit overwhelmed right now?!" Colton barked back at them.

“Not my fault you blew your whole future, we're just the actors. Can't have you die and not pay us, dickhead. We've got hazard pay to discuss!" The raccoon growled back at him, all three of them surrounding him. “My arm is fucked up, Joey's lucky he's got no brain. But there's a lot of damage your plan has to account for..."

Colton growled in frustration. What would have been such a simple thing got a major wrench in it just by Erik being there.

Erik had finally taken Kelsey away from the area, just leaving whichever way was the easiest. They walked together along the edge of the lake, just trying to grapple with what had happened. It was the first he had seen a dog cry, but of course, she was no ordinary dog. They finally stopped at a driftwood log on the edge of the beach, bark stripped off and bleached white from the sun. Kelsey sobbed into her paws as she sat next to Erik, who tried to comfort her as best he could, his hand on her shoulder. They were there for quite a long time, each getting over their adrenaline and wrestling with their emotions.

“Oh... oh I'm such a f-fool. This shouldn't have happened." She blubbered, her fur drenched with tears.

“Don't be so hard on yourself, Kelsey. You didn't know he would do this."

“Just... I shouldn't have considered him, Erik. Even with the bad vibes I had from the guy, I considered him. I considered that snake for my future husband. And everything t-that's happening... I fucked up, man." She groaned through her tears, her eyes red and irritated.

“Well, just cross him off the list, then. You don't need that guy, you can find a better one."

She tried to laugh through the tears, but it just came out as an insulted sort of chuckle. “You don't understand. It's... it's not like that. There's a lot to this... tradition."

He stood up and offered her his hand. “Why don't we keep walking, and you tell me all about it?"

“You don't want to hear about it, it's boring."

“No, I want to know. Tell me all about it." He insisted, still holding out his hand to her. She looked up at him, seeing it, and resigned herself to it with a single tail wag. Deep down, she knew the distraction of conversation would help her cope with the events of the day. He put her big, fuzzy paw into his hand, and he pulled her up to her feet.

“Well... alright. If you want." She said with a heavy sigh. They started walking again, down the beach, as she tried to figure out how to describe it all.

“Okay. Uh. So I told you that women are supposed to choose a mate on their twentieth birthday, right?"

“Yeah."

“Well, it's called the suiting. It's a new tradition, our people aren't that old yet, but I want to keep the tradition alive, I think it makes a lot of sense." She explained, starting to get her normal voice back from the crying before. “We choose a mate from someone we've gotten to know over the years, as I guess you do, too, with your 'dating' thing. When it's time for the suiting, we call for potential candidates to stand before us, proving themselves to be available for us. We have our own running lists of who we value as options, and if a candidate is someone we have on our 'list', that is, in our hearts, we publicly recognize them. And, when a mate is settled on... we have a marriage announcement."

“What happens if the bride-to-be recognizes more than one candidate?"

“Happens often, really. She'll usually favor one over the other, but it's really up to the men at that point. They may boast, or argue, to prove who has the most merit for the position. Frequently, though, they don't reach an agreement, and they fight. We try not to do it to the death, but fangs and claws are sharp, I'm afraid." She shrugged. “In either case, the last one standing, that's proven themselves the most capable, ends up being the husband."

“Survival of the fittest. Very Darwinian."

“Don't know what that means." She sighed. “But anyway, in my case, I've been so busy running around all my life, that I only really had two people on my list. One, got married to someone else last year. And the other..."

“That guy."

“That guy..." She groaned out her echo.

“Why's he so impatient?"

“Oh, don't be so naive, Skinny. He wants to fuck me." It was such a crude, but simple statement that he was surprised that was all there was to it. “He's wanted to fuck me for years now, and I bet he'd leave once he's had his fun too, the creep. But I'm upholding this tradition, and he doesn't care about it. That's why he's constantly trying to get to me, he wants me early, no responsibility, he wants me to crack. But I'm saving myself for my husband, and that's the end of it, and if he wants me... he has to prove that he can be a good husband."

“If he's just horny, might as well scratch him off the list. Especially if he doesn't care for the tradition. He can find anyone. Right? Just don't recognize him."

“That's the thing... in some situations, I might be able to. But Colton... people know about us, we've been seen together in town enough times. People can argue that he was good enough to get on my list to start with, it's not a mark that will leave, or that he has good genes - he does - or that he's just trying to prove himself to me, that it was good natured and I should believe his heart, but... I'm not happy with it, not after today. But, if he stands at my suiting, I have no choice. If I deny him, I have... nobody. No suitors. I'll have failed my family." She spat out an awkward chuckle. “Imagine being a healthy daughter to a man in good standing, energetic and useful, and she's without a man after twenty. How embarrassing. No... Colton, he'll show up to my suiting, regardless of how he feels about the tradition, and... well, I won't have a choice but to accept his candidacy. He'll have caught me because I won't abandon the tradition. Beat me at my own game." The doom-and-gloom in her rambling was palpable.

“Well, how long do you have before your birthday?"

She sighed. “Five days."

He nodded as if he had any idea what to really do. “So, we'll need to find you a man by then."

She snorted lightly, in a shocked sort of way, almost insulted. “A man? You're out of your mind, Skinny."

“What do you mean?"

“Look. You ran into an unknown building and beat the shit out of two strangers with a hammer. The consequences of that, you don't even know what those are going to be. You're brave, I'll give you that, but foolish. You don't even know anybody in this world, where are you going to find me a man I would recognize in a mere five days? That's... just not enough time to get to know someone. That's fucking stupid."

Erik was silent for a moment. He really had no idea. “I... I was just trying to help."

“Well, you're not." She snapped at him. It was silent for another awkward moment, as she plodded on next to him. She shook her head and looked down a bit, but eyed out the side of her head in an extreme embarrassment to him. “Shit, I'm sorry, Erik. That was rude, I didn't mean that. You really are helping, a lot, I'm... just having a moment."

Erik hummed, unsure how to feel about all of this. “Something else is bugging you, Kelsey."

“Huh?"

“Something's different today, you're not the same. And it's not that dickhead Colton."

She sighed and scratched her collarbone, looking up at the sky, not wanting to talk about it. She quickly changed the subject. “Shit, it's actually starting to get late."

Erik looked as well, and saw that it was starting to get dusky. They hadn't prepared for anything. “Sun's going to go down in like, an hour... we've gotta find some kind of shelter."

“And food. All that crying has made me hungry..."

Erik nodded to her. “I have a fishing rod, maybe I can catch something. Can you get a fire going?" Maybe giving her the easier job would be better for calming her down.

“Yeah. Okay, sure, I can do that. I'll see what I can figure out for a shelter around here, too..."

Erik left her for a bit to head down the coast, and began prepping the old fishing rod. The line looked a bit shabby, but it was better than trying to spear a fish. He rummaged through the bit of tackle he got, and found an assortment of qualities of things to use. Broken, rusty hooks, dried, flaky paint, but there was still something of use: a small blue crankbait. “Old faithful, let's hope it still works."

The rod cast, roughly. There was definitely rust in the reel somewhere, and the line was a bit curly from being wound up for decades, but the lure went off to the water and floated, as it was supposed to. For a nice little while, all he did was cast and reel, and untangle a couple of nests of line. It was quiet and calming at the water, nothing to deal with but waiting for a bite. It would be maybe ten minutes before he finally got a decent bite. He set the hook in without breaking it, and reeled the catch into the gravel beach. A nice, chunky bass. Normally, he would put this majestic meal on a stringer or in a bucket at least, but he had neither. To knock it out, he unfortunately had to crack it in the head with the handle of the hammer a couple of times. It squirmed and flinched as one might expect, but died rather quickly. “Sorry, fishy. But we need to eat."

He carried it back, then stopped to look around for Kelsey. She had moved on elsewhere. “Hey, Skinny!" He followed the sound, and found her waving to him. She had made a small fire right next to an dead car off the side of the road. An old Toyota Camry, its driver door wide open to the world, the others long rusted shut. He approached and her eyes lit up looking at the fish. “Ooh! Nice catch."

He handed it over to her. “Here, start without me."

She looked at him with confusion. “What do you mean?"

“You need food. I'll go catch my own, and you can have that one to yourself."

“Aw, well aren't you caring? But you don't have to do that, I can share with you."

He waved it off. “No, it's fine, really." He turned and began to head back to the lake when she snagged him by the belt of his pants with her claws.

She looked up to him as she spoke a bit slower. “No, I insist."

“Alright, alright, you win." She sat down next to her and began packing up the fishing rod, as she speared the fish for another samey meal. They sat in awkward quiet, mulling over the days events and watching the fish cook, until Erik finally broke the silence. “Have you thought about a shelter for the night?"

She reached back and rapped the old car husk with her paw. “I was thinking of this old thing. It's got a roof, and it's solid, and some seats."

“You want to sleep in a car?"

“Sure, why not?"

The car had been derelict for decades. The windows weren't broken for some reason, but all of its fluids had long since leaked out of it, the paint had been worn off, and the body was pretty rusty. Inside, the seat covers had been stained and faded with time, and the floor mats had survived pretty well.

“Sleeping in a car was never comfortable, but... well, I wonder what's under these covers."

Kelsey moved aside to let him at the car. “Check it out for yourself, you know more about this thing than I do."

The cover, especially on the drivers side, was practically threadbare from the elements, but the others seemed pretty stable. He began to take them off, wrestling and cursing at the seats until they had come off, a bit mangled in their brittle state. But underneath, the seats had fared quite well. They might even be okay to sleep on.

“Well, we may have lucked out. You can sprawl out in the back seat there, and I'll use the passenger seat. If we need a blanket, we have these old covers. It won't be the most comfortable, but it's a start."

She winked at him. “Now you're thinking like a scavver. Anywhere is home if you want it to be!" She laughed, seemingly having no remnant of her earlier outbursts within her. “But I don't really need a blanket." She patted her chest, her bosom kept in check by the fatigues. “Warm clothes and fur. You should grow fur sometime."

He rubbed his head, after the couple of weeks from being shorn, his hair was starting to come back. “This up here is basically all I get, Kelsey."

She chuckled, her tail wagging slowly. “Humans don't get much hair, huh?"

“I mean, some can, but most don't. We actually do have lots of hairs everywhere, but most are too fine and hard to see. Not like... fur."

“Well, that doesn't sound too warm." She shrugged.

“It's not. We wear clothes pretty much all the time."

The evening went on as they ate their meal and chatted some more. Kelsey was certainly doing better than she was earlier, having grappled with the topic more inside, and Erik having comforted her well enough. It was now night, the world all around was dark and alive with crickets and owls, and the sky was crystal clear. It was about time to get to sleep, but Erik had another idea first. He laid the old seat covers on the rusty hood.

“What're you doing?" Kelsey looked over the door at him, curiously.

He crawled up onto it, carefully, just in case it collapsed, and laid down on the hood, looking up to the sky. “Just something that people used to do."

“Oh yeah?" She undid her hair, her rather luxurious mane falling out around her shoulders, then strutted around the door, and slid herself onto the seat cover on the hood next to him, trying not to get rust all over her fur, and looked up to the sky with him. They were treated to a full view of the night sky above them, millions of white specks, twinkling down on them as if nothing bad ever happened. “Wow... you know, I never really stay up late enough to look at the sky like this. It's incredible..." Kelsey mumbled, quietly taking in the awe of the view. “Your people used to do this? Stare up at the night sky?"

“Oh yeah. Man was always enamored with the sky and the stars. For countless thousands of years, people wondered what it all was, what was up there, what it all meant. We made machines to fly in the sky like a bird, and even try to leave the world itself. For so long, we tried to make sense of it all, and for so long it was stymied and wasted by ignorance, greed and jealousy. And now... well, the world is a few thousand years behind again. It's going to take forever before we get to those levels again."

“Mm... what are the stars? Do you know?"

“Well, we had been studying them. Some are other worlds that share our sun. Others, their own suns, way far away. Others, further still."

“Each star is... another sun?"

“Or something bigger, yeah. Almost all of them."

She didn't really know what to say to that. “... that's so big. Isn't it?"

“Way bigger than we can imagine. We had determined that it was... innumerable."

Kelsey grappled with the notion and went down the nihilistic route, as so many others had before her. “Then... why does anything here matter?"

He smirked, still staring at the sky. “Man has asked that for a long time. And you know what the answer is? Because this is the only place we are."

Her tail flopped against the hood a couple of times as she considered the answer. “That makes a lot of sense... ooh, what about that star? See? It's moving!" She childishly pointed up to the sky, her ears perking up and tail thumping the hood a bit more.

He was able to pick it out, a faint glimmer sailing silently across the sea of stars. “Huh, satellite. Wonder if that's even used anymore, it's probably derelict."

“What's a satellite?"

“An incredible machine we used to have, floating around the world, we could send signals to them and retrieve signals elsewhere, so we could communicate vast distances really quickly, or look at places from really high up, all kinds of things. So many huge accomplishments we took for granted, now, just space junk to be looked at by a team of scavengers." He chuckled. “Sorry, I'm rambling."

Her tail thumped again. “No, it's okay. I'm sure this has been a difficult adjustment for you to make. It's only been a little while for you."

“Yeah. I'm getting the hang of it, though, I think."

“You are. Doing surprisingly well." She responded.

They were quiet for a bit, just staring at the stars. Kelsey finally spoke up again.

“Hey Erik?"

“Yeah."

“Thanks for what you did today." Another tail thump.

“Oh, well of course. I wouldn't let you get stolen by some bandits."

“You just ran right into who knows what kind of trouble with nothing but a hammer, threatened to keep fighting, and even dragged me away from harm. Any one of them could have killed you without a second thought. That was really manly of you."

“Heh, it kind of was-"

She turned her head, leaned over, and licked the side of his face, and let out a very low growl with a toothy smile. Her tail began to wag a lot more. Complete shock overtook him, but before he could even decide how to react to it, shock took her over as well. She stammered, her face wiping from irrational interest to complete embarrassment, and her tail dropped. “I... oh, no, shit. Erik, I'm so sorry." She quickly covered her mouth with her paws.

“W-what?"

“I shouldn't have done that, that was..."

He pursed his lips, unsure of what was going on. “A mistake?"

“Yes. I mean, no. I... I don't really know what I mean."

He turned his head to look at her, it was clear she was grappling with a lot inside. He reached his left hand over to her, finding her paw, now resting on her chest. She instinctively grabbed it and held it. He could feel the heat from her paw radiating into his hand already, as she put it back on her chest. “Kelsey... do we need to talk?"

“Shit. Ah." She let out an exasperated sigh, her paw tightening on his hand. “Curse it... Erik, you were right earlier, I have a problem. I mean, one more that's compounding everything... I'm going into heat."

“Oh. Oh." He replied, two different tones of understanding.

“Yeah. It can get really intense for anyone... it always happens to us near our birthday, makes suitings a very emotional time. I didn't think it was going to strike so soon, and with everything today, it's just... sending me through loops. I'm sorry if I'm so unstable right now, if I do something that's awkward. I'm just trying to keep myself stable."

“I see. Okay." He nodded, trying to take this all into consideration. Rather than ignorantly staying quiet and pretending nothing was happening, he instead felt he needed clarification at this time. “Kelsey, does this mean you're thinking of-"

She interrupted him. “N-Y-No." She garbled her words then corrected herself. “I have to hold myself for the suiting, Erik. It's important to me, to the family. The ceremony has to happen, and then... and then I can finally mate. Blow off all of this steam. But until that time comes, I... have to bear all of that steam. And hope I don't pop."

“Then we'll have to find you a mate, and soon."

“Shit, dammit. Why does everything have to be so hard?" She squeezed his hand harder, pulling it into her chest, then stopped. He could still feel her heart racing. “Oh, sorry."

“It's okay. Crush my hand if it helps you."

She didn't know how to respond. “You have to stop being so nice!"

“Why?"

“It's making this really hard!" She laughed, embarrassed at herself. She finally let go of his hand, and slid off the hood. “I-I'm going to sleep. You should too. We have a long way to go before we get home." Her tail wagged, but it was clear she was still incredibly embarrassed at having to put herself on display like that.

“Yeah. You go first, I'll get in in a minute."

“Okay." She finally left him, the sound of clunking and thumping rattled him around as she tried to wriggle into the back seat of the car.

For a moment, he had quiet time to himself. Just him and his thoughts, his disjointed, yammering thoughts, among the crickets and the shining, speckled sky. “What a fucking day. We went from me just being Skinny, the slave, to Erik, a possible object of her affection. But is it real, or is it just the heat making her lash out? Wait, why do I care? I'm not trying to get with her. Am I? Oh no, no no. I would never have considered this back home. That was some stupid internet shit. She's so fluffy. Oh shit. I would, wouldn't I? But I'd have to be her husband, the suiting is important to her. I couldn't marry a complete stranger, that's not right-"

His manic thoughts were interrupted by Kelsey, from within the car, her feet kicking at the side of it. “Hey, you gotta get some rest!"

“Ah. Her voice is kind of sexy. And all that hair... Shit. Shut the fuck up, Erik." He thought to himself again as he slid off the hood as well, collecting the covers and bringing them with him. “Nope. Stop being stupid, man. Relax. Frankie said relax."

As he got into the old car, he saw her sprawled out in the back, trying to make herself comfortable. It didn't look comfortable, but he could bet she'd slept in worse. He tried to take his advice and not to think about her position, and tossed her back a cover as he moved over to the passenger seat. “Here, have a blanket. Or a pillow. Just watch for tetanus."

“What's tetanus?"

“Oh. Nevermind. I'll explain tomorrow." He chuckled, as he tried to make himself comfortable in the seat. Try as he might, it wouldn't lean back or anything. “Goodnight."

“Heh, okay. Goodnight."

A couple of minutes passed as they lay in the quiet atmosphere of the ruined car. Kelsey finally spoke up.

“Hey Erik."

He mumbled in reply, he was just starting to get to sleep. “Yeah?"

“Wanna come back here?"

He replied to her quickly. “I shouldn't."

“C'mon, not even a cuddle? I'm nice and warm. You look cold."

He closed his eyes to make sure he didn't look back at her. “No, we both need our sleep."

She groaned, exasperated again. She knew he was doing this for her own good. “You're right, sorry..."