FSE

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Hi everybody.

Not sure why this chapter was so hard to write. I guess with a lack of explosions and excitement, my lack of practice with character interaction shows through maybe? This chapter got scrapped twice before I could come up with something that seemed halfway right.

Anyway, feel free to critique. Do the conversations seem natural and realistic? Are the characters interesting? Am I just being my own worst critic?

Argh. Enjoy!

Chapter 31

The golden Atrian sun beat down on the exposed black fur ofDerry's back, drawing out a bluish luster that hid in his pelt. Nivea Gordon trotted along a few paces ahead of him, down the resort town's boardwalk, the brown-furred timber wolf dressed in a grey bikini top and wrap bottom that left just enough to his imagination that Derry was able to keep from embarrassing himself by walking around with tented-out trunks.

Watching her cream-tipped tail wag about above her muscular, toned legs and ass was almost more self-tease than he could take. The wolf chuckled at himself and shook his head, before checking his sectors again by reflex. As his carefree partner in crime stooped to check the sign pasted along an ice cream cart, he instinctively moved up to cover her back, though neither of them were armed in any case. Something told him to stay alert, though he knew there was no reason to be so worried. They were so far behind friendly lines at this point that being attacked was a virtual impossibility. Nonetheless, letting his battle-weary edge go was a challenge, only a few days after being released from the hospital aboard the Fist.

"Hey boss, how's the paws?" she asked, while swiping her fingers over the payment pad. A credit chip implanted in her index fingertip delivered her personal credit information to the machine, and the chubby teenaged cat girl behind the cart handed over a pair of fruit pops to Nivea's waggy-tailed delight.

Derrysighed and looked down at his casted-up paws, the plaster covering him from fingertips to elbows. Nivea had received significant nano-surgeon treatment, resulting in a complete recovery in a matter of days. His injuries had been deemed less severe and less pressing, so he was left to heal with only minimal nanite treatment and a pair of surgeries that had put his compound-fractured right paw back together.

"Itchy...Shitty. How's the brain damage?"

She snorted and whapped his ass with her tail, causing Derry to jerk and whap back at her with his cybernetic tiger tail, drawing a crinkled-snout grin from his best friend in the world as she reached over and smeared one of the fruit-pops across his cheek.

"Hey, that shit's sticky!" he yelped out, slurping at the thing, or rather trying to as she pulled it away and whapped his cheek with it again, leaving a sticky blob of fruit and sugar in its wake.

"Whatcha gonna do about it, gimpy?"

He growled playfully, and mock-grabbed at the popsicle-wielding woman, his casted paws utterly worthless for the task. Laughing, the pretty wolf girl stepped into his move, hitting his pelvis with her hip as if she were going to grab his arm and throw him per their close combat training. Instead, she stuffed the fur-speckled fruit pop into his muzzle, and stood all too close while sucking on her own with a grin that was either intentionally provocative or just looked that way as a result of his own prurient imagination.

The grin faded a second, as a more serious question came to mind.

"How's your sister doing, Dare?"

Still trying to get his tongue out enough to lick at the far bits of his cheek without dropping his fruit pop,Derryplayed off the worry and protective concern he felt. Trisha was in good hands, after all, and thanks to the top medics on the Fist had survived the most dangerous part of her recovery. Nivea reached up and pulled the thing free, letting him get the words out finally.

"Getting better, but still kinda rough. She called me from the Fist's medical bay this morning. Looked like shit, but told me the docs said she'd be okay."

Nivea nodded slowly and looked relieved, the rumpling of her brow disappearing as the worry-muscles vanished from her expression. Her grin had returned,Derrynoticed, and was mirrored by a dog-wag of his tiger tail that had it whipping around behind him awkwardly. She moved quick, and before he could dodge, she'd shoved the popsicle back between his lips, to his eye-rolled consternation.

"So," she continued, taking slow laps of her popsickle with a long pink tongue, "what d'you wanna do today? It's our first day off bed rest, I figured we should take it easy and go see a movie or something."

Muzzle stuffed with popsicle and without any means to pull it out without dropping the thing in the dirt,Derryjust gave her two raised eyebrows and a shrug. Obviously, he figured, if she'd stuffed his muzzle full of popsicle, she intended to answer her own question. She grinned, knowing he'd understood her tactic, and slid under his left arm, wrapping her right around his trim, trunks-clad waist to steer the effectively muzzled and bound-pawed wolf toward the building she'd strategically 'randomly' wandered in front of.

He rolled his eyes at her, then hissed and started wriggling his lips, as the popsicle had started to freeze his teeth. With a laugh, Nivea nabbed it from his maw, leaving her own sticking from her muzzle, and led him into the theater without further complaint. Deep inside the suddenly cool, dim cave, Derry felt at peace, her arm wrapped around his waist, just barely able to release some of the paranoid ultra-vigilance he'd felt out on the street.

Great, he thought to himself ruefully, claustrophobic AND agoraphobic now...

He'd only noticed the feeling of itch between his shoulders, as if someone had a scope sighted down on his back, when it went away as they entered the intentionally-dim building. Surrounded by vintage movie postres in a lobby with a real marble floor and aged wooden paneling, the flip-flop wearing wolf felt immediately out of place. Sighting an employee dressed in a cheap tuxedo, he felt a little better, but only just. At least the place had a popcorn stand and not some kind of rich-person food.

"Hey sweet, they serve beer!" Nivea crowed. She stuffed the slowly melting popsicle back into his maw before he could respond with admonitions about alcohol and medication and slipped from under his arm to rush the concession stand and start buying vastly overpriced junk food. Derrytook the opportunity to watch her shapely ass wriggle about, barely hidden by the fabric half-skirt of her bikini bottom and the soft fuzzy brush of her slightly curled tail.

With a gust of breath, he finally let himself relax, slow increments of stress and strain draining off him. The first had gone when he was out of the open and inside the windowless theater. The second when Nivea had trotted off to chat with the possum behind the concession stand. It was as if seeing her relax and let down her guard let him feel better about doing the same. He knew that even if his own judgment were compromised by fatigue, she had his back and would take the slack for him.

The concessionist tore their tickets, and she came trotting back, laden down with a bucket of popcorn they could both have comfortably stuffed their heads into at once and a drink tray she'd shoved into its top. The four foam-plastic slots in the cup holder contained a large drink apiece, and the hopsy scent of cheap beer tickled his snout from each, causing him to crinkle up and snort at her in mock-derision.

With his maw still shoved full of peach and strawberry-flavored frozen goodness, though, he couldn't do much commenting. She gestured with a flick of her shapely butt and a lash of her tail, and he obediently followed toward one of the double doored old-fashioned theater rooms. They were alone, when they entered the cavernous chamber beyond, such a place largely unused thanks to the ongoing draft. Come to think of it, he'd seen virtually nobody their own age since his unit had arrived in the resort town. Everyone was a kid or a grandparent.

Given there were so few people, the air conditioning seemed cranked high, andDerryhoped his fur was enough to keep him from shivering through the show. He sat down, chewing up the last of his ice cream, spitting the stick into the drink holster on the arm of his seat. Niece plonked down next to him, distributing four large drink cups of pungent-smelling beer to the nearest four cup holders, putting a long straw in one of them as Derry looked up to the blank screen.

"So...What're we watching anyway? And dear god, Niece, you don't expect me to dirnk beer with a fucking straw..." He considered a second, then snorted and glanced sidelong at her. "You didn't stop at the ticket booth...This was planned ahead of time. Where'd you keep the tickets anyway? You don't have any pockets."

She smirked at him, and tilted her head forward and downward to look up through her lashes.

"Are you accusing me of storing things someplace naughty?" she chided, voice full of joking flirtation. Derryrolled his eyes at her, knowing this for yet another of her games. She loved to tease him, as much as he liked to tease her back.

"Yep. Probably stuck em right up your butt, like a good stuck-up rich kid."

She snickered, hitting him in the upper arm with a light blow of her closed fist, causing the bigger black wolf to shy away grinning, taking a sip of the mediocre beer as the screen started slowly lighting up. With his eyes on the screen,Derryslowly sat straight again, and reclined back into the cushioned seat while gentle strings of music rose through powerful antique speakers.

"Chick flick huh?"

Nivea grinned and shrugged mysteriously, then shifted in the corner of his vision.

When her warm tongue lapped across his cheek, his heart nearly stopped. Sitting dead still, he turned his eyes toward her, to watch his best friend and longest crush licking the fur of his cheek, combing it with a very lupine sort of kiss. The grin was gone from her face, at least for a moment, as she looked so concentrated he could imagine her holding a rifle and scoping in on some poor fool.

He didn't want to break the spell, whatever it was that had her licking at his face. It was a tender, intimate thing, an act of familiar trust and grooming, and when she realized he was looking, she returned his glace with a bright sunny grin and a blush, hunching her shoulders in a mock-nonchalant shrug.

"What? You couldn't wipe the popsicle goop out on your own...So I did it."

Derry's face split in a grin, though his ears were back and flushed scarlet, right up til she hit him in the shoulder again and sat up straight.

"Don't read into it too much, Dare," she said through a shy sort of grin that looked strange to him on her face. Nivea had rarely shown him anything but confidence, a sort of braggadocio he knew sometimes covered for deep insecurities underneath.

The movie started then, and he settled in, not sure how to respond or whether a response was warranted. It started with music, something light and slow, with scenes of pastoral life and peaceful morning. He sipped at beer as the wolf next to him munched popcorn, and settled in, wondering just what sort of show this was, and whether he'd disappoint Nivea by falling asleep halfway through if it was some silly romance flick.

He wasn't too surprised, when the film's opening turned into something more action-oriented. Obviously meant to heighten the shock of a dramatic plot shift, when the farm was burnt down by marauding aliens, he found himself shaking his head at the cheesy special effects, munching popcorn out of Niece's paw whenever she offered it up, careful to lick the salt from her paw pads when it became evident she'd let him.

Still alone in the theater, they didn't bother with being quiet. They settled in to ruthlessly mock the terrible film, laughing uproariously at the antics of computer-animated monsters in what he eventually recognized as a vintage 23rd century B-movie, starring an entirely computer-generated Bruce Campbell.

Niece had just finished her second large cup of beer and flung a pawful of badly-aimed popcorn at the laughably fake green alien monster on screen when the speakers let out a bellowing roar of sound and blew out. Derrywas on his feet, grabbing at where his rifle would be stowed over his shoulder, before the lights flared and went out. Standing there in utter darkness, his ears picking up nothing but his own and Nivea's frantic breathing, the big wolf turned to and fro, scanning as his ocular quickly generated a computer-interpreted three dimensional of their surroundings.

To his right, Niece had gotten up out of her seat, only to hunker down in the aisle between rows, hugging her arms tight around her chest and panting, tail tucked under her rear.

"Hey," he whispered out in a hiss, instinctively dropping down next to her and reaching out a cast-covered paw, "Hey, Gordon, snap out of it!"

The second he touched her, she grabbed his arm, and flew into his chest, grabbing hold of him like a drowning swimmer might a life jacket. Her breath was blustering out against his chest, blowing hard with what he realized was a panic attack, as his arms closed around her shoulders. He inwardly cursed the hard plaster, for being less than ideal for comforting his suddenly terrified friend.

"Hey, Niece...You're okay, everything's fine. Just a power surge, probably. We're safe, okay?"

If his own heart hadn't been thundering a thousand beats per second, he might have sounded more genuine to his own ears. As it was, he felt the urge to grab her and run, or find a weapon and hole up to wait for reinforcements. Luckily, with his one eye still able to see, he wasn't cut adrift in a sense-deprived sea that his recent battle fatigue could fill with imaginary foes.

Her voice sounded pinched and frightened, not quite hysterical but tottering on the verge of it.

"J-just...Stay down t-t-till the lights come up, r-right Lead? Right?"

Getting out of the building would be smarter, he thought, but by her trembling and the lack of any smell of smoke or sight of fire, he judged staying put would be less likely to set her off, and the chance of physical danger was minute. Acute battle fatigue, he knew, could sometimes set in after just a single combat. Nivea, himself, and the others had just been through a horrible protracted fight, suffered traumatic injuries, and just generally had a bitch of a last few months. He settled in, sitting down, and gathered the quivering wolf woman into his lap.

Nivea didn't waste a second, curling up against his chest, bikini-clad and soft furred body shivering with nerves and the trapped chill of the empty theater room. Meanwhile, one of the speakers made a rumbling noise, and then went entirely dead. His long, pointy-tipped ears picked up noise carryover from another theater room, an announcement from the reedy-voiced possum telling everyone to sit tight, that lights would be back soon.

The lack of safety illumination struck him as damn annoying, his ocular implant reading where the non-functional things sat, inlaid into the floor, entirely burnt out from years of disuse.

"Heh...Good first date, huh Niv?"

She managed a reedy, choked laugh through the trembling fear, huddling even more into his strong furry chest, until he rested his chin atop her head, licking at the tip of her ear.

"Wh-wh-who said it w-was a date?"

Derrymanaged a laugh, rolling and rumbling in his chest, and it seemed to slowly relax her, perhaps in tandem with all the beer they'd imbibed over the last hour. Clumsily, he rubbed her back, wishing the damn casts were gone so he could actually feel her, this very first time they'd ever gotten so close to one another when one of them wasn't critically wounded.

"Are you saying it's not a date?"

The verbal jab hit its target, and she smiled against his chest, laughing softly, airily, still frightened but amused all the same. Familiar good-natured digs and sniping seemed to be helping, and she recognized the tactic.

"W-well...I'm a t-trembling virgin s-sitting in a cute guy's lap...I'd say that counts..."

"Wait what? Virgin?" He blinked down at her in the dark, and she buried her face against his chest, ears pinned back as far as they could go. The ocular told him she was blushing, by displaying the waves of changing body heat.

"Well...Heh...With guys anyway...Um..."

Derrychuckled and kissed the top of her head, pressing his lips to her scalp between ears that tickled his cheeks as they flicked. She just pressed tighter to him, and spoke her mind, there in the dark where she couldn't see herself making awkward admissions. Her arms, muscular and clenched tight around his chest, had slowly ceased to shake.

"I told everyone I'm a lesbian because it was easier than putting up with being hit on. Back home, every boy I ever met was thrust at me, like some sacrificial offering. People wanted their kids to marry me for my share of the family's money. It was fucking disgusting. So I just...Y'know...Made myself into 'one of the guys' by swearing off dating dudes, and acting as much like one as I could, just to push the pressure off me and onto my sisters."

Taking a deep breath of his clean-scented fur, she steadied herself further, until the jitters and panic were largely gone, replaced by calm stillness as her body mostly managed to relax against his hard muscles and soft pelt. He knew better than to interrupt right now. Nivea wasn't one to share her feelings this way, or talk about herself, and to start talking would just increase the awkwardness. It seemed to Derry as if a long-strained dam had broken, and she was finally letting out truths she likely had never admitted out loud before.

"I joined the Corps to get away from my old life. Wanted to be real, you know? Not some...Pampered fairytale corporate princess who had to watch her every word to avoid some stupid scandal for my uncle. I know to you, the 'problems of the rich' probably sound pretty stupid and petty, but the stress...It was too fucking much, you know?"

He thought a few seconds, giving her a chance to add whatever else she might need to say. She was right, after a fashion. He'd grown up in a horrible hell-hole, scavenging from the rusting dying city like a feral rat just to survive, dodging gangs and violence all his life, never able to sleep except with one eye proverbially open. Nonetheless, he knew stress was stress - the source didn't matter.

Derrykissed her forehead again, and gave the athletic Marine girl a squeeze that had the pleasant side effect of pushing her firm c-cups into his pecs.

"Can't compare our childhoods, Niv. Pain is pain, no matter what the source is, right? Anyway, I respect you for being honest, brave, honorable, all that shit. You made yourself into a person worth respecting. Money doesn't factor into it."

"That's...Thanks, but that's not what I was trying to say."

Derrytilted his head, though she couldn't see it in the utter black of a closed-up theater room. He, on the other hand, could see her just fine, thanks to the sonar-like system built into his ocular implant. With her eyes closed and her cheek pressed to his chest as she shifted, he watched her beautiful body curl up in something like fetal position, side to his chest, his casted arms wrapped around her. The tension in her body was draining off, to be replaced by a sort of hesitant relaxation.

"So keep talking. I'm a big dumb jarhead but I'll get it eventually."

She snorted, and elbowed him again, thudding her arm into his muscular abdomen.

"I care about you,Derry, and I wanted to.. I mean I dragged you out here.. Uh.. God, I'm bad at this."

"You wanted to ask me out and couldn't figure out how?"

Her laugh felt good, rustling the fur on his throat as she turned her head toward him again. One of her paws came up, tracing along his chest and up to his neck, finally to his chin so she could curl fingers around the line of his jaw. Without waiting for her to tug on him,Derryleaned in, directing his muzzle to hers, staying still when she jerked back an inch out of surprise and hesitancy.

Her voice was a husky whisper, a little frightened and a lot nervous.

"O-okay...Okay, this...Yeah, okay. Y-yeah."

Then she came back, letting the stammered agreement trail off, and their lips touched. Like a circuit through their bodies had just been closed, a spark shivered throughDerryfrom his lips to his toes and back up again, eventually settling somewhere around his crotch, where her sculpted bikini-clad ass rested over his thickening package and trunks-covered lap.

A sense of sublime comfort settled over him like a blanket, warm and comfortable, as they explored one another's lips, his casted paws rubbing over her back and shoulders, the wolf girl's weight shfting in his lap until she could rest comfortably against him. Derryleaned back against the base of a seat and settled in, comfortably making out with the girl he'd fantasized about for months.

It took a laughably small effort to push back the thought that this couldn't last. His ever-present cynicism tried to bark out at him to watch himself, to avoid disappointment. The newer, happier side of him told that little devil-voice to get stuffed, right before Nivea's muzzle parted and their tongues touched, drawing a shivery panting from the surprisingly shy girl.

When she finally pulled back, softly sucking deep breaths to fuel her pounding heart, Nivea barely managed to get out a question beforeDerry's tongue was lavishing her throat, forcing her head to tilt back.

"Sh-should we wait for Jenny's permissiummm..."

Derryshook his head, relishing the warm softness as he trailed his tongue along her throat.

"She already said to go for it, if the opportunity came up."

Nivea bashed him in the forehead with her chin, leaping off his lap as the lights suddenly flared back on. Blinded in one eye and wincing with a paw to his face,Derrylooked up to see her fists balled and raised by pure reflex. She'd gone from snuggling to combat-ready mode so quickly it would have shocked him if he hadn't been trained to do the same. The reedy-voiced possum from earlier called out.

"H-hey, it's safe to come out now, b-but the projectors broke down...I'll issue you some gift certificates for other shows, okay?"

Derrygrowled as Nivea calmed down and helped him up, glaring at the possum for no other reason than he'd interrupted.

"Nah man, it's cool. I don't think we'll be back. Home, Niece?"

"Y...Yeah, please..."

Corpsman Derkin looked so out of place, Olliver couldn't help but snicker at him, as the maitre d' seated them. Though they hadn't needed to assume formal dress, thanks to the resort-town atmosphere, the burly seaman stuck out so badly that other guests were not-so-furtively watching him, as if half-expecting a mob hit to go down over dinner in their favorite five-star beach side restaurant.

"Whatcha laughing about, Olly?" the grinning 'dillo queried, waving with a chrome-bright smile at a snotty-looking coyote, who turned his nose up and looked away.

"They think you're a mafia goon. Here escorting some poor crippled nephew of the don or something."

Derkin threw his head back and let out a hearty laugh.

"What seriously? Me?"

Olliver grinned at him, depressing a button on his chair that had the seat rising on hydraulics to set him at a comfortable level with the draped table. With a decent set of flatware for once, Olly finally felt he could relax at a table, instead of having to constantly remind himself not to reach for forks that were inexplicably not there.

"Yes. You. Most of these so-called high-class people barely know how to wipe their own asses, nevermind bench-press twice their own body weight."

That comment won Olly a grin, as the 'dillo sat back in his velvet-padded chair, crossing one tree-trunk leg over the other in a way that had the otter giving his lips a quick wetting. Bermuda shorts, Olliver mused, showed off Derkin's impressive endowment all too well. His burly friend seemed to consider something a second, then grinned again and spoke.

"Wow, okay."

Before Olly could do anything to stop him, the Armadillo had stood up, speaking un-self-consciously to the entire restaurant at once, while the otter slapped a paw over his face in combined embarrassment and amusement.

"It's cool, everybody! I'm a medic, not a mobster mook. You can eat in piece, no tommy gun hidden in my pants, I promise!"

"Would you sit down, before they throw us out?"

Derkin's grin hadn't faded one iota, still brilliant like the Atrian star, as he twisted nimbly back into his seat. Olliver's crossness lasted about a half second, before it was lost, tossed on the brilliant sea of the armadillo's ebullient smile.

"So...Other than mess hall slop, what do armadillos eat anyway?"

"Well, primarily we have a diet of these amazing things made out of bread...We call them pasta noodles, and they're usually garnished with herbs and butter and meats and stuff."

Olliver rolled his eyes, tossing a sugar packet across the table only to have it nimbly caught and deposited on the tabletop, as a waiter arrived to deliver menus and was gone just as quickly, leaving the duo to peruse.

"Let me guess...Otters were designed with a preference for shellfish?"

Olliver nodded, eyes on the menu as he flipped through the selection of fine foodstuffs, muzzle developing the slightest bit of moisture as he glanced over the seafood.

"We were designed for aquatic worlds and zero-gee environments. Half of those are pretty heavy on the fish."

"Hah, makes sense. Feral armadillos are mostly insectivorous, but my genotype was created for enhanced durability and solar radiation resistance."

Derkin tapped one of the keratin plates that armored his back and arms, thumping the one just behind his right bicep. Olly took the opportunity to ogle, grinning slyly as the show-off armadillo flexed for him while continuing what seemed a rehearsed explanation, as if he'd been asked a thousand times before but by far less interesting people.

"We're not a common breed. The GRRP made a lot of species like mine who's 'niche' explanation was just sort of a formality. They evidently just wanted to see what they could make work."

Olly nodded, and trailed his eyes back down to finish making his selection, setting the menu aside with its electronics already tapped to put in his order.

"'We Do Science Because We Can', right? The old saying suited them well."

Derkin grinned at Olliver's sardonic humor, and gave a half-shrug.

"Well, it worked out fairly well for the species, didn't it?"

"I suppose. Marketing and government assistance aside, I doubt we would now be the majority of human population if there wasn't some worth to the modifications."

Olliver looked down to the table again, rubbing his fingertips along the fine high-thread fabric covering. The cotton material was interwoven, masterfully laced together with every strand supporting others in an imperceptibly complex pattern made simple by machines and technology, all engineered to give it a subtly random texture that was anything but whimsical or random. The thought reminded him of just how labyrinthine the rationale behind this war had become, which brought about a shot of aggravation he struggled to tamp down. As Derkin put his menu down with order selected, the otter looked up and furrowed his brow before asking his question in a half-rhetorical voice.

"In the civilian world...What did you do for a living?"

If Derkin suspected where the otter's probing questions were headed, he made no sign, leaning back comfortably in his chair as he answered without really pausing for thought. The stretch of fabric showed off his chiseled musculature, almost enough so to distract Olly from his response.

"A lot of this-and-that. Odd jobs, handyman stuff, I even did some modeling as a teenager for clothing catalogues."

Olly quirked a brow, running his eyes shamelessly up and down his dinner partner with a curl of smile along one edge of his lips. He'd been planning to ask the armadillo about his opinion on the war, and what would happen if the UGF did what it was threatening to do. The conversation was now more interesting than a future no one could predict anyway.

"Yes, I could see you as a model. So what convinced you to join up?"

"I did it for the money, believe it or not. Well, more properly, for the scholarships."

Olliver tilted his head, round little otter ears forward as he gave a curiously quirked brow and made a guess.

"You wanted to be a physician?"

"Eyup. Still do. I was about a year and a half into medical school when the economy went bad back home. My grant got pulled, and the folks have never been wealthy. I didn't really want to go on being a handyman and day-laborer for the rest of my life, and the only other good option for me was porn."

Olliver had lifted his cup while the armadillo was talking, and had a half-mouthful of water that tried to force itself out his snout at that last bit. Coughing around a grin, he managed to set the glass down and grab his embroidered napkin, swallowing hard before coughing into it a second time.

"What...Seriously?"

Derkin grinned and rolled his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug that fit his relaxed posture so well Olly wondered momentarily if he were in some kind of old movie.

"Heh yeah. I actually got job offers because of my modeling. Turned them down, though. Figured it'd be hard to take a doctor seriously once you've seen videos of him plowing some guy."

Olliver was laughing now, shaking his head, glad that the restaurant was arranged in such a way as to make conversations private just by virtue of too many low-level conversations acting as white noise.

"So to avoid an ignominous fate in porn, you elected to get shot at for your country?"

Derkin grinned and picked up one of the smaller forks in his array of silverware, flipping it over his heavy paw curiously.

"Yep, that's about the stroke of it. What about you?"

Olliver looked down, at where the table's skirting hid his withered legs, at where his green silk shirt lay over the atrophied abdomen below his muscular chest and arms.

"It was the only way I could have legs again."

Derkin's smile only faded in type, drifting down from his almost-constant state of calm enjoyment to a half-smile of understanding comfort. From anyone else, the otter would have taken it as condescension, when Derkin stood up, grabbed his chair, and moved around to sit next to Olly's spot at the table, grasping his paw and giving it a squeeze.

"Sorry, didn't mean to bring that up."

For a few seconds, Olliver considered growling at him, or pulling his paw away. The realization that he didn't want to, wasn't even angry, came as a bit of a surprise to him. Raising a brow more at himself than the armadillo his eyes were aimed at, Olliver just shrugged.

"It's okay. I'll forgive you, in exchange for sexual favors."

Derkin snorted out a laugh at the facetious joke statement, then leaned over to kiss his boyfriend, a firm peck to the side of the lips that showed just how little he cared what any onlookers might think.

The normally uptight, high-strung, tense otter felt the muscles in his shoulders relax, and a sensation like the clenching of a fist vanished from his chest. The last vestige of his normally-abundant sarcasm told him that the sappy, warm feeling it was replaced by was probably just heartburn.

"I could get used to this, Derkin."

"Sigmund. Or Ziggy. Derkin's my surname."

"What?"

Nivea shoved the door to their suite open with a grunt as the old-fashioned electronic key card system finally relented on her third try. She gave it a stiff kick, and a glare of personal offense, as the thing banged dully against the far wall.

"Motherfucker..."

Derryshook the desire to watch the glorious, beautiful wolf girl stare angrily at a door, her fists balled and posture belligerent, and wrapped his casted arm around her trim waist, pulling her bodily into the dimly-lit chamber beyond before he could lose his nerve.

He needn't have worried. In the twenty minute walk from the theater, she seemed to have dug up more than enough bravado to cover for the sweet, nervous shyness she'd revealed to him. Derryonly found it all the more stimulating, that the badass leatherneck girl he'd personally seen blowing people away and hurling frag grenades with the best of them was scared of something so mundane as sex with a male. It wasn't that he liked seeing her afraid, just that the contradiction showed a hidden tender, sensual, vulnerable side he wanted to explore.

At that moment, he didn't bother to remember how awkward and fearful he'd been, losing his own virginity just a few weeks before. How terrified he'd been of mating little Jenny Greenway, that very enthusiastic waifish grey cat his unit had met and rescued a lifetime ago from an angry, short-lived, repressive fascist government's ruthless reign.

Nivea had her paws on his casted arm as they crossed their suite, clasped there gently as if to hold his paw in place against her flat belly. Derry's snout picked up hints of lilac and something else, subtle yet familiar, the air-filtration system pumping a cool breeze as they moved through a hallway and pushed open the door to Nivea's room. Her scent was spicy, musky, redolent of hormones and horniness, and he grinned at the prospect of what was to come, however awkward it might be at first.

There, sitting on her bed, a massive shadow stymiedDerry's hopes, and sent trepidation and conflicted emotions in equal parts shivering up the black wolf's spine. His fur ruffled, hackles rising, and before he could think twice, the burly Marine was halfway across Niece's bedroom, already yelling, leaving a surprised Nivea to occupy the doorway in his wake.

"Where've you been?! Where were you! Trisha almost died! Who the fuck are you?! What the fuck, old man!"

Tenh stood from the bed with all the smooth grace of a fur half his weight and many times less than his real age. Close-cropped fur showed no grey now, his spine none of the deep bend at the shouldersDerryhad known as a boy to be signs of Tenh's great old age. A few days ago, the wolf had come to realize how little he knew of the ancient lion, how much of his only positive male role model's life might have been lies and manipulation. The evident youthfulness of his features now just hit the fact home. Tenh was no longer old enough to beDerry's grandfather, his nanites having turned back the clock until he looked no more than forty or so years.

Now Derry wanted nothing more than to lay the lion out with his fists, fury boiling over and blotting away the building lust and anticipation that had filled his day until that point. Only the casts on his paws prevented immediate lashing out, though somewhere deep down he knew such an act could only lead to his own embarrassment and injury.

The ancient lion stood stolid and stoic, even asDerrycame so close as to be almost touching snout to his chest. His yelling done, the wolf's tiger tail lashing in fury, he glared up into the steely gold-brown eyes of his mentor and one-time guardian, searching for any sign of remorse or even explanation.

Tenh met his eyes and simply held them, stony and unexpressive, until Nivea cleared her throat and spoke.

"Uh...What the hell are you doing in my private room...Sir?"

Their titanic commander turned his head toward her, away fromDerry's uncharacteristically belligerent glare, and he gave her the slightest of nods. Only then did she notice he was in uniform, standard fleet-BDU olive drab camouflage the likes of which had been in service since well before space navies had first taken to flight. On his right shoulder, the cloth patch showed his rank, a spread-winged silver eagle, head thrown back in a proud roar, sending an instinct to salute to her paws. Out of uniform as she was, however, she resisted the urge as he spoke in a rumbling base that felt as if it might shake fillings out of her teeth.

"My apologies, Private Gordon. I could not tell which room belonged to whom, and was unwilling to invade your privacy by opening drawers or closets."

Derry, meanwhile, stood there glaring and fuming in silence, so close to Tenh's enormous chest that a bystander might have thought this a lovers' spat, if they had not known these males were Marines potentially about to have a fight. The old lion finally looked down at him, as Nivea straightened herself to a near-attention position in the doorway.

"Sergeant Blake, as I am currently in uniform, you will address me as Colonel Kandal, or 'Sir,' not as 'old man.' Do you understand?"

His rebuke came without a raised voice, or even the hard sternness Nivea had expected after their so-brief encounter beneath the burning city of Irontown. The words were spoken clearly, but with a softness that more befitted a disappointed mentor reminding his student of a fundamental. Nonetheless,Derryseemed to deflate as if he were a balloon stuck with a pin, taking a step back and losing some of the battle-ready tension that had suffused his normally calm frame. His casted paws were down at his sides now, rather than half-raised.

"I apologize, sir. We need to have a personal talk, Colonel, when you have time sir." The words were formal, perhaps to the point of being overly so, but all sarcasm was gone now, replaced by the professional cadenced enunciation he'd been trained to use when addressing a superior. Tenh gave him a nod in return, and strode toward the doorway, as Nivea scuttled aside to make room for him.

When Derry passed by, he was stiffer than she'd ever seen him outside of a formation presentation, and never met her eyes. With a sigh of frustration, the bikini-clad wolf shut her bedroom door as the two males strode into the hall, and let her head thump forward against the frame. She felt like her body was going to explode, from frustrated hormones and keyed-up nerves.

"God fucking damnit..."