The Cats in the Box
#27 of Hockey Hunk Season 3
Hehhey, welcome to The Hockey Hunk!
I am most glad to welcome you to read the amazing 99th chapter of the series so far - and I have a feeling that it'll be going on for a while yet! :)
Before that, though, it is the time for Gruffy's summer hiatus, effective on 15.6. - meaning that we shall have to let Rory and friends have a small rest as well. The series will go on hiatus with a mid-season cliffhanger on next Friday, with the 100th chapter entitled "Time To Be The Hockey Hunk" - expect fun plot twists in these two chapters before the break, and in the exciting second half of the third season once we get back in the business!
Before that, though, don't forget that comments, faves and watches will be appreciated as much as always. Keeping the story on the front page is the only way to give new readers a chance to find these stories to enjoy as well.
Thank you for your continued following of the story - it really means a lot to me!
But now is the time to get to business, so...enjoy!
*
"Rowreeh!"
My eyes left the vaguely phallic shape of the Eiffel Tower on the poster on the wall in front of me, and rather flicked over to stare down the corridor to catch the sight of the cougar coming along the hallway, with his case stuffed under his arm.
I lifted a paw and gave a token wave as I waited for Peter to arrive within conversational range, which he did within the space of a few seconds spent in idle ear-flicking and smiling a little.
"I hope I didn't take too long, Rowreeh," Peter snuffled as he reached my side and gave me an once-over with his eyes.
I chuffed and shook my head quickly.
"Nah, not at all," I rumbled, "feels like you were hardly gone."
Peter's ears flopped down and he let out a little rumble.
"And here I was hoping you would've missed me," Peter mused as he pushed his spare paw into his pocket and took out his phone for a quick browse, it seemed, since he put it back almost as soon as he had taken a peek. "And it's almost twelve...I did take longer than I thought."
"Nothing to worry about," I shrugged and let my tail bat the side of the couch, just for emphasis, "besides, I had some company for most of the time."
Peter's ears perked even further than they already were.
"Oh?" he exclaimed.
I grabbed my crutches from my side and began the tricky process of getting up from the couch without putting any extra weight on my right leg. Even with the help of a crutch to lean on, it was still something that made me a bit nervous...considering that a slip might, at the worst case scenario, put me back into the operating room.
Or maybe the doctor was just trying to scare me to make sure I'd do the rehab properly, but you never knew. I didn't want to risk it.
"Yeeeeeeah," I huffed once I got myself onto my footpaws and flexed out my tail comfortably after being seated for a while as I had been, "I ran into Mason again."
"Ohhhhh," Peter's ohhh'ing gained volume and duration as he nodded energetically at me.
"Yeah," I nodded quickly.
"Well let's get going, and you can tell me all about it," Peter elbowed me softly.
I snuffled and decided that getting away from the English department would probably be the best idea of the idea, considering that His Royal Highness Nicholas Faye held his court here, and I didn't want to risk another accidental audience with the lion king. I was to lead the way, it seemed, for once I started my slow trek along the corridor, Peter stayed by my side and followed me with miniature steps that probably felt a bit silly for him, but I guess he didn't mind either. At least I would have someone to collapse against if I suddenly lost my strength, I figured.
"So what was the wolf up to?" Peter inquired at me, giving me a sideways glance while I concentrated on scanning the corridor for possible lion-traps.
I snuffled and rumbled and puffed out my cheeks. At least I wasn't feeling breathless with this business yet, nor did my arms ache.
"Well I guess he was originally going to get some book from the store room here but he mostly ended up talking with me, I guess," I noted.
Peter chuckled and winked at me.
"Been missing you?" the cougar suggested.
"Dunno," I replied. "Guess he wanted to hear how I was doing, and I got the idea that he was still feeling a bit awkward about the whole incident with his buddy Haakon."
Peter nodded once more as we rounded the corner in the corridor and began our slow descent towards the lobby section and the escape it provided.
"Ahhh yes, I remember. Got you into a proper old-fashioned bar fight, woo!" Peter flapped his tail against the small of my back.
I rolled my eyes.
"What's funny about frat dudes beating each other up?" I frowned.
"As far as I remember, it was a rather one-sided fight."
I snuffled.
"Well, yeah, Haakon didn't get to throw a punch back," I said.
"So did Mason tell you why he freaked out?"
I bared my teeth and hissed.
"I'm not sure," I mused
"Oh?" Peter flicked an ear at me.
"Well I know that the girl was involved in it somehow...uh...Jessica, but I'm not quite sure what her role might be," I replied. "He wasn't too keen to tell what went on between him and that girl and Haakon."
Peter chuckled.
"Maybe he wanted to impress her," he suggested.
I chuffed, unable to keep back my amusement at the outrageous sentiment Peter offered to me as an exclamation to the sudden punch attack.
"If he did, it didn't work," I said, "Apparently she even removed him as a Facebook friend."
"Owww!" Peter's tail made a rapid loop and a whip behind him. "The modern pinnacle of the severance of social relations...goddamn...I'll be..."
"It wasn't so funny back then, I can tell you."
Yeah...stuck out in the street with a bleeding Haakon and a near-hysterical girl who kept telling that we should call the police to throw Mason behind the bars...the wait...and the drunken slurs the wolf had muttered to me over the phone...certainly not a savory episode at all...if only to be eclipsed by the other shit I ended up into during that very same Rory Gliese Week of Hell.
"I bet" Peter murmured.
"But I guess things are now back to normal with his buddy Haakon," I continued. "Mason said they were going to hang out later today, so I guess they're still friends, more or less."
Peter winked.
"Good job, Dear Rory."
I snuffled.
"I'm not sure I make a very good Dear Rory at the moment," I snorted.
Peter batted an ear at me.
"Sure you do, if all of your co-workers rely on you for sex advice."
I made a face.
"Mason didn't ask me for sex advice!"
"He asked you for dating tips, didn't he?"
"Well he did," I huffed, "but punching best friends wasn't one of then."
The elevator was already looming in the distance. My forearms were starting to feel a bit tired by now.
"Well he's a dude..."
"I didn't take him to be an aggressive type, never," I said, "Unless it has something to do with whether Iron Maiden is better than Metallica..."
Peter chuckled.
"Obviously he hasn't yet realized that Kate Bush rules the world with her quirky lyrics, eccentric vocals and innovative studio techniques to produce an ethereal quality that really makes her a genre in herself," Peter mused.
I gave him a proper WHUT? look, and decided to carry on my way towards the elevators looming at by now what seemed to be an easily reachable distance.
"Are you hungry, Rowreeh?" Peter asked.
I shook my head.
"No, not really," I breathed. "Didn't we just eat, anyway?"
15 yards.
"Good," Peter winked. "Then you can't spoil your appetite with the ice cream cone I'll get for you once we get down to the cafeteria."
I gave him a surprised look.
"Ice cream?" I flicked my ears with surprise.
"Yeah, one from the freezer because those tend to be hygienic enough, but it's yours if you want one," I said.
"What's the occasion?" I asked curiously.
"There's never a bad occasion for ice cream," Peter replied.
I chuckled.
"Well as long as it's lactose free..."
Peter batted me with his tail again in a surprising display of physical contact.
"I'll get you a tofu one if you meow prettily," he replied.
I shook my head a little, but at least the act of pressing the elevator call button before Peter asked me to offered a momentary distraction. We only had to wait for a little while, and this time, once the elevator was empty and we stepped in, I didn't risk waiting for any unwanted guests, and slammed the button as soon as we were safely in, tails and all.
I leaned against the wall and let out a deep breath.
"You like how I meow, huh?" I gave Peter a look across the few feet between us.
Peter winked, and I bet he was smiling under that mask of his.
"Especially when I stroke you for being the good kitty you are...or just stroking you reeeeally specially," his tail swayed.
"Sounds like you haven't done enough stroking of your own," I mused.
"Twice a day, religiously," he nodded. "I think you know my habits well enough to know that too."
"Yeah," I snuffled.
Peter smacked his lips under his mask.
"So what flavor you'd like? Chocolate? Vanilla? Strawberry? Rum and raisin?"
I flicked my ears at him.
"Surprise me," I rumbled.
"Always."
*
The ice cream was certainly nice, and enjoyed out in the sunlight at the university courtyard, while Peter and I sat on a bench and waited for the taxi he ordered for us. The ride to Peter's place was mostly quiet as well, spent with me staring at the cougar's profile wile Peter looked out of the cab window and into the bustle of the town. It was hard to say what he was thinking, looking out into the...what he probably saw the world of the normal furs, with none of the worries that had caused him to become trapped into his very own little protective cocoon that he deemed essential for his very survival. I managed to exist somewhere within that space, just about, I thought...but some distance was needed, at least at times, to make sure that Peter felt comfortable with himself.
Our conversation only really started to pick up once I was propped on my usual place on the kitchen table, allegedly, by Peter, so that I could admire his wonderful cooking skills while the shower-fresh cougar made a racket with his pots and pans.
"So, do you think Faye has already started chasing student tail?" Peter declared, with his back to me so that the best I could see of him was the flicking tip of his tail.
I snorted and looked at him, with my chin resting against my left palm, and my elbow propped onto the table.
"You think he does?" I proposed.
Peter gave me a look over his shoulder, but his paws did not stop chopping some freshly washed vegetables on a plastic cutting tray.
"Well he was kinda undressing that jaguar and your buddy Mason while they were having that little 'heheheh' talk in the corridor," Peter said, licking his lips.
I made a face.
"I doubt Mason would be flattered by that kind of attention," I snuffled.
"Perhaps not, Peter chuckled. "Maybe the jaguar would, though."
"You think?" I chuffed.
"Seemed a bit...happy-go-lucky to me," Peter replied as he moved onto splicing a pepper he had washed before.
I recalled the jaguar's touchy feely behavior towards Mason and wondered what the wolf thought about such...fond physical contact coming from someone of a...certain persuasion, to put it mildly. I'd always known to keep my distance from the hyper-masculine guys whose mental culture included homophobia and bullying, and I didn't want to become a...mark in some unhappy table of statistics. Not that I'd think that Mason would ever consider...but then again, he did smack Haakon...
Nah, it was something of a ridiculous thought, thinking that Mason would be some sort of a bully towards gay furs. Didn't seem to be something that'd fit into the wolf's personality profile, whatever else he was, and I certainly didn't want to think such things about him. To me, he seemed to be a genuinely good guy...and that ought to include some tolerance for some extra friendly belly-patting.
"Yeah, wouldn't surprise me, really," I mused.
"Oh Doctor Faye," Peter purred, and let his ears flick flippantly while he chopped and put on a high-pitched voice I suspected he considered to be an accurate imitation of the jaguar's purring tones, "ohhh please doctor Faye, can we have some private tutoring tonight, say, at 8 o'clock at your office when everyone else has left...oh Mister Faye..."
_ _
I made a face.
"Somehow I'm getting the creeps even thinking about Doctor Faye," I huffed.
"Well I don't think you're the only one," Peter smirked.
I shook my head and kept staring at the slow sway of the cougar's body while he worked with his cooking.
"You know," I breathed, "for a moment I thought he was going to get all paws on us when he was telling them that we used to go to the university together."
Peter chuckled, a ringing sound as it ever was...though nothing like Nicholas Faye's musical twang, of course.
"Besides trying to kiss dudes?" Peter questioned.
"Yeah."
"You never know with Nicholas...Faye..."
"Ugh," I harrumphed.
Peter gave me a look.
"Are you worried that he might tell your buddy Mason about your sordid past?" the cougar proposed.
"Sordid?" I chuckled. "Don't think it was quite that bad..."
"Might surprise the wolf dude though," Peter suggested.
I tensed a bit. He was right, of course...the wolf wasn't privy to that particular piece of knowledge, the fact that my own wild college years were not spent chasing girls but...yeah...and, as a matter of fact, I hadn't stopped the other kind of chasing ever since. It simply wasn't something I had really gotten around...dunno what to call it...introduce into the collection of facts that made up the entirety of Rory Gliese...besides the fact that I didn't really think it made much of a difference at work, really. I wasn't looking to date fellow staff or customers, and since I really wasn't a believer in somehow casually bringing up something like "Guess what gay stuff I did yesterday?", I really hadn't...well, really hadn't come up with any good reason for telling either. I'd never had the problem of having to sneak around talking about a partner either, considering that Graham was history way before I had started to work at the Albrecht Brothers...
...but yeah.
My stomach got something of an ugly clenching sensation thinking about all that.
Things had changed recently, hadn't they?
Victor...
...Victor, the Dobie who...despite the state of limbo we were involved in at the moment had already made something of a headway into my professional life as well. I'd mentioned my friend, hadn't I? Mason knew that his buddy Haakon knew a Dobie called Victor who knew Rory, Mason's workmate...though of course, all that was complicated by my foolish lie about Victor and I knowing each other since college.
Guh...
"Yeah, it might," I rumbled.
"You shouldn't worry about that now. It might or might not happen."
I rubbed my chin.
"I suppose," I said.
Peter's ears perked.
"Isn't that your phone ringing?"
I listened.
"Yeah," I said as I picked up the faint ringing coming from afar. "I must've left it in my jacket pocket."
Peter put his knife down.
"Let me go and get it for you."
"Thanks," I rumbled.
*