FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Hey everyone,

sorry for the delay on posting this chapter, on the top of a cliffhanger nonetheless ! It has been two busy months for me, with preparing a big exam and my love visiting me here in Roma, but that isn't really a good excuse, I know. Wit this chapter, I'll put notes on the Italian phrases and words which was quite difficult to translate smoothly in story. Hope you'll enjoy this chapter and I promise that the next won't take more than a month to be posted :-) As always, I want to thank my Gritou for been there for me and helping me with this story, I love you so much !

Only the rain falling could be heard for a few seconds, each drop trying to carve its way through the pavement stones of the piazza and failing, but their failure composed a quite concert full of sadness. The furs in the portico didn't make a noise, as to better listen to the watery music, but in reality they were absorbed in their thoughts and no one dared or cared to break the silence for their own reason.

Luca's mind was in full motion, trying to discern the various emotions that a simple name had brought to him: foolish hope, deep desire, alarming confusion, sudden fear and many others. Could it be that Stanley, his Stanley, was coming back to Roma? What kind of coincidence could deliver him the sexy lynx who was haunting his thoughts and dreams?

He gave a quick look to his side and saw that Alessandro too was taken aback by this discovery, his mouth open a little and his eyes showing some shock in them. Seeing his friend like that made him feel glad that his own features were fixed in a smiling mask thanks to all the practice he had done during his most boring classes in university.

The lupo centered his attention on Sara again, a messenger of hope and love who was concentrated in reading something on her phone. Luckily she didn't notice how much surprise her simple revelation had caused, and the silence hadn't stretched long enough to be awkward. Gathering all his courage, Luca succeeded in uttering one single word.

"Stanley?"

"Uh? Oh, yes, it's his name" the squirrel said, averting her gaze from the tiny screen," I don't know much about him, but my mother guaranteed in her e-mail that he's a fine guy, eclectic and with a taste for art, it sounds like she wants me to hook up with him."

"What else did your mother say about him?" The lupo asked with a mildly curious tone, while congratulating himself for keeping a calm façade.

"Well, not much, only that his company has transferred him to its roman branch, that he will stay here for quite some time and that he could need some friends here." The restorer concluded while putting away her phone, still oblivious to the frozen expression of surprise on Ale's muzzle.

Luca managed to stealthily kick the rottie, putting him out of his stupor and maybe even making some blood pump in his shocked brain.

"Stanley?" was what he succeeded to utter, making the lupo facepalm himself in his mind.

"Yeah, that's his name." Sara said with an annoyed tone. "I already told you that. Are you slower than usual, Ale?"

"He must be still high for his new crush" Luca joked, earning a hateful stare from his friend.

"It's not that!" The black dog stoically said. "It's just that I met a Stanley recently, so I was wondering if it was the same one."

The other dog would have kicked him again if it was possible, he sounded too suspect and he knew the squirrel's curiosity had been awaken. He liked Sara, but he really didn't want to talk about one night stands with her, more so if the fur in question was an acquaintance of hers! He could have been subtle in his question, but now all he could was watching Ale meeting his doom.

"Really? What does he look like?" Sara asked, putting her full attention on the black canine and placing herself between the two dogs.

"Well, he is a lynx, about my hei-" Luca shook his head slightly.

"I mean, taller than me!" The correction was met by a nod from the canine.

"He is slimmer than me." Nod.

"But built." Another nod.

"He is around twen-" Shake of the head.

"I mean thirty years old, leaning more on the forty." Luca nodded, and silently mouthed "Americano" to his friend, since he had forgot the main characteristic of the feline.

"Oh, yeah, and he is American!"

Sara tilted her head, like she was examining a crack in a fine fresco, her silent making the rottie very nervous and the lupo hold his breath in expectation of the answer. It arrived slowly and with an amused pitch.

"I could have stopped you to the lynx part, but you were talking too fast."

"So, it isn't him?" Alessandro asked.

"It's highly improbable that two huskies can give birth to a lynx, isn't it?"

The rottie was taken aback by the response, and his dumbfounded was a simple "Yeah".

"His mother is from New Haven, so that's why he has an English name. But tell me," Sara continued, her eyes lightened by the fires of curiosity ", where did you meet this Stanley lynx guy?"

"Uhm, I meet him, uhm, it was ..."

"It was two weeks ago at that pub, isn't it?" Luca came to the rescue, seeing how his friend was in too many difficulties to keep the lies going.

"Really?"

"Don't you remember? It was that night we went in Trastevere, there was that bunch of Americans with whom we laughed and joked all night!"

"Really?"

"Really." The lupo said deadpan, wishing for the brain of his friend to run again.

"Stanley was the nicest of the bunch," he turned toward the squirrel ", so I think Ale was kinda excited at the idea of him moving into town."

The restorer seemed to be elaborating the new information acquired she just acquired, and then just shrugged her shoulders. "Okay, I understand now, though I have a feeling that this isn't everything...."

The two dogs began to sweat a little, both knowing too well that they weren't going to keep up the web of lies for much longer. They were so concentrated in thinking more details in those few second of respite that they almost missed Sara's rest of the phrase.

" ..... and I could remain here to further question you two, but I think the basilica is waiting for me. I'm going inside now, see you there!"

With that, she disappeared inside the Romanic church, leaving the two friends alone finally. Luca sighed, grateful that he managed to get from this encounter mostly unscathed.

"That was close" The rottie said with a sigh.

"Too close to an embarrassing moment" the lupo added.

"I know, she was pretty close to discover your nightstand".

"That wasn't the embarrassing part." The tall canine replied.

"Really?" Ale asked, his head tilted in a demonstration of canine curiosity.

"Her discovering that we were covering that with such complex lies would have been! What were you thinking?"

"Oh, well" he began to answer, his brown eyes fixed on his shoes, "I know you don't like to talk much about your private life here at work, so ...."

".... So when she caught you being surprised, you needed to construct an excuse for it." Luca ended for him.

The rottie just nodded, still not rising his head.

"Didn't you think it was much better to say that it was the name of someone I met? My lies would have been easier to make and more realistic."

"I-I didn't think about that."

"Don't take that so badly Ale" Luca sighed, putting an arm around those wide shoulders. "In the end, nothing really happened."

"Okay, just feared you were angry about me being stupid."

That remark earned a rightful hug from the half-lupine. "Now you are being dumb! You aren't stupid, far from it; you just tend to not think well while panicked."

They remained like that for a few seconds, and then they released each other from the embrace.

"I think we should go inside now". Ale said, regaining a little of his cheerfulness.

"I think that too".

***** *****

It was still raining when their work day finally ended, the light fading more quickly than usual thanks to the heavy cloud cover; they headed slowly where Luca had parked his car, a short walk today since the dog had found, almost miraculously a free parking lot in one of the streets near the basilica. For someone from outside Roma that could seem to be only a small joy, but to the locals finding a parking lot near your destination and, on top of that, it being completely free was seen close enough to a miracle, more so if you had to find it in the narrow streets of the older parts of the city.

They got in the car and began their journey without much noise or talk, simply content of having done a good work in renovating an architectural jewel and basking on the feeling of blending in the traffic that sided the river.

"So, do you want to go somewhere?" Luca asked while turning left to take one of the many bridges that crossed the Tiber.

"Nah, I just want my couch and a cold beer in my hand, watching something not too complicated on the television."

"There is really anything complicated in television?" The lupo mused.

"Well, those HBO series are complicated. So many characters and names to remember!"

"So I guess you're not up to see a new episode of Spartacus, are you?"

"Uhm let me think ....." Ale answered, actually beginning to ponder on the proposal. "Violence and sex are attractive, and it's always a pleasure to see Xena's boobs ..... But no, I have to have a more rested mind to remember all those names! Though I should have thought you wanted to see that, with all that eye candy for you too!"

"I wished I was born in the ancient times ....." The driver said with a dreamy tone.

"So that you could have your way with the slaves, eh?" The passenger smirked.

"Hey, you would do the same!"

"Not the same, I would have banged only the female ones! Though for you gays those were easier times, I think."

"As long as a Roman citizen was the top, there was no problem with whom you bedded." Luca added.

"Oh yes, the preservation of Roman Virility came always first, I remember my history lessons. I wonder when Crassus and Pompey will show up...."

"Are you changing your mind about watching Spartacus?" The dog asked, casting a passing glance to Castel Sant'Angelo just across the river.

"I prefer to watch it another time. I would probably fall asleep even in the middle of a fighting scene." The rottie said, leaning his muzzle on the car window, really looking like he was going to fall asleep there.

"Pity that Il Grande Fratello has finished after only six months of broadcasting, eh?"

"I know, it would have been perfect for tonight!"

Luca simply shook his head, still being fully aware of the cars around them and keeping an eye on them, just to look out for the marvelous feats of driving that often happened in the Roman traffic.

"What?" Ale asked, shaking off some of the sleepiness that was falling on him.

"I always wonder how a sensible man like you can watch the Big Brother ....."

"I know that it isn't the highest show on TV" the other started to explain, feeling the need to do so in his defense, "and that it can be outright crap, but sometimes it's nice to see a program without much complexity, where they toy with the audience's emotions with tear jerking reunions and the fights on stupid things."

"And the complete lack of culture or basic grammar." The tall dog slipped in the list.

"Those are the funniest moments on that show!"

"The only ones, the others are just pathetic."

"You talk like that because the gays on that aren't like you." The black canine accused.

"I wouldn't watch it even if there with less ...... flamboyant characters."

"Okay, okay, it's not like I'm forcing you to watch!"

The silence fell on them for a couple of seconds, only the sounds of the traffic on the background.

"So, what about Ace Ventura?"

"Yeah, it sounds like an Ace Ventura night."

***** *****

The clock ticked, measuring the passage of time with each movement of its hands and showing that in this part of the world midnight had already come. Luca could hear the ticking from his bed, where he was lying in the desperate attempt to fall in the embrace of Morpheus, but the god of sleep seemed to not be interested in the young dog tonight so he was left to his thoughts.

He began with planning for Ale's date with his crush, since he had to impress her they must go somewhere nice, he knew a couple of clubs that would go just fine, but he had to ask his friend about her tastes first, so they could pick up together the one she would enjoy the most. It would have been disastrous to take her to a jazz club if she didn't like that type of music, not completely disastrous sure, but it wasn't the ideal thing to do if you wanted to win over someone's heart.

From the date he jumped to his future role as the guide of one Stanley, son of friends of Sara. He didn't know much of him, only that he should be a husky and that he was coming to live in Roma, the squirrel hadn't many details about him since, apparently, she was doing a favor to her mother and never met this guy. Sure, it was simpler than organizing Ale's date, he only have to do the same thing he did with his clients, adding maybe some evening in a nice place, though that could be decided together with the fur in question. It bothered Luca a little that Sara didn't know the age of this mysterious Stanley, it would have made things a little easier; he probably didn't have the same as his Stanley .....

That though froze his brain for a second. His Stanley? Sure, they have spent some quality time together, and even some sex time, but that didn't mean that the lynx was his, it was just a fun week-end with a very nice fur who he wasn't going to see in the rest of his life. It only hurt a little that he was exactly his type, not only physically, but also mentally, but he lived thousands of miles away from here, in a luxury apartment in some big American city, there weren't any chances to them to be together.

So why did he think like that about him? He admitted to himself that his heart had stopped for a moment when Sara said that fatidic name, his mind illogically hoping that it was the lynx of who she talking, the feline that had haunted his dreams in the past days. Was he that desperate to find someone that he was lashing to the hope that this one week-end stand could develop magically in a relationship?

A quick look to the clock told him that this depressing thinking had marked the beginning of the second hour of the day, and that he needed to calm his mind a little, so he rose from his bed to go and fetch the only thing that could help him.

He passed the closed door of Ale's room and entered their small kitchen, where some leftovers from the dinner remained still to be picked up from the table. He just moved some of the stuff in one place so to have a free corner for himself, and then picked a mug from the collection just above the washbasin. Still holding it in one paw, he opened the fridge to take the one solution to his insomnia, a bottle of milk, so to fill his mug with the white liquid.

After a couple minutes, he could finally seat at the table with one hot mug of milk just heated up thanks to power of microwaves, sipping the bovine product and calming his mind a little.

"Sleepless night, eh?"

Luca jumped for the surprise, almost overthrowing his mug of hot milk and certainly banging his knees to the table, something that was accompanied by some fitting curses.

"Have I scared you?" Ale smirked, amused by his friend's reaction.

"Certo che sì¹! What the fuck you have instead of your paws, I didn't hear you coming!"

"I was trained in the Special Forces to move silently during missions" he just said with a stern expression on his muzzle.

"You didn't even do the mandatory military service, they revoked it before you were of age!"

"That's what I want people to think." He tried to say, but he was laughing before he could finish the phrase.

"You are just a goof." Luca accused.

"Yeah, yeah. Scherzi a parte², what are you doing up this late? I heard you bustle about in the kitchen and wanted to check out on you." Ale said, drying a couple of tears from his eyes.

"I couldn't sleep well, I had so many things to think about." Luca answered.

"Like what?"

"Well, what to do for your date, how to present the city to Sara's friend, stuff like that." The lupo said while the rottie seated himself in front of him.

Ale just stared to his friends for a moment before speaking again. "That's not all, what were you really thinking that it didn't let you sleep?"

It always surprised Luca how much his friend understood him, way too much sometimes. He was his best friend and the one he went to when he wanted to lift off some weight, but he didn't like to bother him too much with his problems.

"I was thinking about Stanley" he said finally.

"Wasn't that a closed chapter to you? You weren't even interested to know if Sara's Stanley was yours this morning."

"I can mask things, you now," the lupo said, slowly, "but my heart was almost bursting at the idea that he was coming here to work."

"You did say that it was just a one night stand and that you knew that," the rottie said, stifling a yawn so that the serious mood couldn't be ruined.

"You are in the same situation with Clara." Luca weakly accused his friend.

"I have a crush on her, that's for sure, but I'm not a mess because I miss her, I haven't reached that phase yet. And you shouldn't too."

"I know, but there is this thought in the back in my head that says how much awesome and smart Stanley is, just the man I am searching for, and I'm also sure that he is caring and loving and..."

"You are just blowing that out of proportion." Ale stopped the lupo, looking a little worried. "I hate to have to tell you this, but just because he is your type it doesn't mean he can be those things too, after all it was just a holiday affair to him, nothing more."

"I know that too" the taller canine said, beginning to tearing up. "It's just that he was so perfect to me, and I want someone in my life so much, that, that..."

He didn't manage to end the sentence, as a pair of big and furry arms enveloped him, pulling his head to the muscled chest of his owner.

"Shhh, it's okay buddy, I know what you feel, the loneliness and the need of having someone with you, but remember I'll always be there for."

Those calming words just made him cry more, taking all the sadness out of him in a needed cry. It took him some minutes to calm himself, but the embrace of his friend helped him to do that faster.

"Are you okay?" The black canine asked when he finally stopped crying.

"Ye-Yeah, I'm okay now, you can release me from your bear hug."

Ale obeyed, taking his previous seat across the table, still watchful for sign of another break down. He was very protective of Luca and really didn't like to see him in such a state, he thought while apologizing.

"Sorry for the crying, it's just that sometimes it's unbearable and I need to take that out."

"Don't be sorry," the other said, shrugging the apologies, "I understand how you must feel, and I'm your friend, one you know you can tell anything."

"I know that."

Ale just took the other canine's paw, a big paw engulfing another one and squeezing it. "I know that you know, just you shouldn't think like that. Even if you didn't have a stable relationship in a while ..."

"It isn't a while, it has been two years now, after Beppe and I broke up."

"After that jerk and you broke up, sure" Ale growled, his grip tightening a little, "but that doesn't mean you aren't going to find someone soon, got it?"

Luca meekly nodded, and then just coughed a laugh. "You really can hold a grudge forever, even after not seeing the fur in a long time, eh?"

"What can I say," the rottie answered, freeing his paw, "I tend to do that with people who hurt my dear ones, and he was a jerk even before that, I never liked him."

"You made your feelings really clear, I assure you" Luca said with a smile, "I wish I'd listened you back then."

"You really should have done that, I'm always right about in judging furs' characters!" He bragged.

"Still, it is so sweet of you to do that, in a strange way."

Ale didn't answer to that, just blushed a little.

"Ad you are cute when you blush."

That made him blush more.

"I'm sure you will make a girl happy someday."

The blush just worsened.

"Or maybe a guy, it's just a pity you don't swing that way...."

That managed to break his friend out the blush stupor. "I sure don't like cock!"

"Yeah, I know, that's why it's a pity, I would have date you right away if you did."

They stared at each other for a couple of seconds before bursting into laughter and in another type of tears.

"Ahahah, that would solve all our problems for sure!" Ale said between roaring cackles.

"Ehehehe, it would indeed!" Luca echoed. "But I think we should go or keep this down, I don't want to be lectured by la signora Bianchini."

"Ahaha, I think we should go to bed." Ale proposed after his last giggles. "We have worked to do tomorrow morning."

"You are right Ale. Thanks for being here for me, ti voglio bene³."

"Anch'io ti voglio bene.³" The big rottie answered back.

Translation:

1) Sure, why not? It's the closest to the meaning of this expression.

2) All jokes aside.

3) I love you/ I love you too. Though this isn't romantic love but love between friends/relatives, it is near to "I care for you" but a little stronger than that. Apparently, this expression is used only in Italian, so it is quite difficult to explain