A Moment In Darkness
Nicky felt the stillness of the bedroom before he opened his eyes. He turned his head toward the soft blue glow and cracked an eye open to see the time. Three-twenty-one. The fennec yawned and rolled onto his back, trailing a paw down his chest fur. Ceiling looks just the same as always, he thought to himself. He closed his eyes again and tried to relax.
Sleep wouldn't come. Scattered fragments of the dream he'd woken from raced across his mind, unsettling but too cloudy to pin down. He dragged his claws through the thick beige fur of his sides. It was warm under the sheet, but not enough to discard the thin cotton entirely. His paw wandered down to his hips and settled around the warm hardness of his sheath.
He turned his head the other way. On the other pillow, a black-masked muzzle faced him, eyes closed. Nicky sighed and faced the ceiling again. The warmth of his paw was nice, his body tingling pleasantly but not urgently. He let his fingers wander idly around, his tail shifting under the sheet, lying otherwise still. He wasn't sure why he felt so awake. Hopefully he'd get back to sleep before the alarm went off at seven.
Beside him, Cor stirred and rubbed his head into the pillow. Nicky turned to watch the raccoon, letting his eyes travel over the mussed fur. The combined scents and the warm cocoon of the sheets made the silence comfortable and familiar. Nicky let his mind wander back to his and Cor's first date, to their first night making love, to the day just over a year ago when they'd moved in together. They were getting along fine, but every now and then Nicky got these worried flashes of whether something would go wrong down the line. A little of that worry made him focus his ears on the raccoon, as if waiting for some sleepily-spoken word to calm him.
No words came, only the soothing rhythm of Cor's slow breathing. Nicky tried to put those thoughts out of his head. It wasn't anything he could control, after all. He inhaled the smell of the raccoon's breath, the minty mouthwash almost replaced with his natural odor. Cor'd been so worried about his morning breath when they first slept together. Nicky didn't mind. His sense of smell was sharper than Cor's, true, but when you grew up smelling things other people couldn't, you either grew to accept and even like everyone's odor, or you turned into a bitter canid who felt like everyone's lack of immaculate hygiene was a personal affront to you. Nicky'd known a few of those, too, but not in his family.
Cor's scent had actually been one of the things that had drawn him to the raccoon. They'd met at the birthday party of Jaz the ferret, one of Cor's high school buddies. Nicky, who worked with Jaz's college roommate, had met the ferret once, and that was enough to get him an invitation. His co-worker had bailed at the last minute, leaving Nicky alone in a room full of people he didn't know, nursing a drink he didn't really want. The scent of raccoon had cut through the usual miasma of odors at any large gathering, something about it catching Nicky's attention. He was never able to define what it was, but it got him looking around the room. Cor saw him ("those big ears were focusing party noise right at me," he liked to say when they told the story), came over and asked if he was bored, and Nicky said "up until ten seconds ago, I was." They stayed up 'til one in the morning, talking over coffee at an all-night diner once the party closed down. Nicky remembered thinking at the time that that was a pretty darn rare thing to have with someone, that instant comfort that let them relax even when they weren't talking. It was enough to lead to more, for both of them.
Nicky's claws pressed more firmly along his sheath. They hadn't made love that night, but hadn't waited long after that. Nicky remembered Cor's relieved exhale when it was over, and his embarrassment when Nicky pressed him about it. "I hate to say this because it sounds so shallow," Cor said, "but God, I'm glad you're good in bed." Nicky'd laughed and said that was important to him, too, maybe the most important thing, "because you can have lots of friends, but only one lover," and that had started the monogamy conversation, which had led, as sure as that first casual grope had led to sex, to them moving in together. Following this progression, Nicky'd felt more and more for Cor, and even after the novelty of waking up in their bed (their bed!) had worn off, he still felt warm every time he looked over and saw the black mask there. But there hadn't ever been a thunderclap, a lightning bolt and singing angels proclaiming that This Is The One, no head-over-tail moment of falling in love. It had all just sort of happened, and that worried Nicky at weak moments like this. Was this really love just because it was the best thing he'd come across so far? What if there were some truly mind-bending soul-lifting experience that was really love? What if one of them found it?
Cor opened one eye. Nicky stopped stroking himself and smiled. Since he wasn't sure how awake Cor was, he waited for the raccoon to say something.
Cor stared at him. "Hi," he said, finally, softly.
"Sorry," Nicky said, whispering too. "I couldn't sleep. Did I wake you up?"
"Don't think so." Cor opened his other eye. "Is there a reason you're up at four in the morning?"
Nicky turned onto his side. "It's only three-thirty," he said.
Cor made a show of yawning. "Much better. Is there a reason you're up at three-thirty in the morning, then?"
"I don't think so. I mean, I have this thing at work tomorrow, but it's not that stressy. I've already prepped for it. And there's nothing else in my life really bothering me at the moment."
"But you can't sleep." Nicky shook his head. Cor reached out and brushed a paw up and down Nicky's stomach. "Want...something else?"
Nicky giggled. He kissed Cor's nose. "I don't wanna keep you up. You should get some sleep."
"Mm." Cor yawned again, and rolled over. For a moment, Nicky thought he was going to go to sleep, but then he swung his legs over the side of the bed and slid to the floor.
Nicky sat up in bed. Cor waved a paw to him. "Stay there," he whispered, and padded out of the room.
He didn't head for the bathroom. Nicky perked his ears, catching the click of claws on tile, and then the soft glow of light as the fridge opened, and then he knew what Cor was doing. He heard the microwave door, the whirr of the motor and the beep as it finished, and then the door again. That cycle repeated twice more. No other noises reached his ears, no cars on the street out front that was usually so busy, no people talking out in front of the liquor store down the block, and, blessedly, no sirens.
Nicky smelled milk, and a bit of chocolate. Cor appeared in the doorway, paws cupped around a mug. He sat on the bed and handed the mug to Nicky. "I put some chocolate in it for you," he whispered.
"Thanks." Nicky took the mug and sipped the warm milk.
"I had to microwave it. Didn't want to wait while the pot boiled."
"Microwaved is fine." And it was, warm and not scalding, just enough chocolate to spice up the blandness of the milk.
While he was drinking, Cor crawled over to his side of the bed and slipped under the covers, scritching Nicky's stomach again. "It's so peaceful at night," he said. "It's like there's nobody around but us. Even the police and ambulances are asleep."
Nicky's ears swiveled back. He took another drink as Cor went on: "I'd like to move out of here in a year or two when we can afford it. Somewhere quieter."
"I can live with the noise," Nicky said. "Somewhere closer to your job would be nice."
"Both our jobs." Cor's fingers moved down to the edge of Nicky's stomach where it met his hips. The motion seemed accidental, but Nicky and his sheath knew it wasn't.
He pretended not to notice. "With another room for you to keep your stuff."
"Yeah..." Cor's voice trailed off the way it always did when he thought about having more room.
Nicky finished the milk. He set the mug on the nightstand and snuggled back against Cor. "Thanks," he said.
"Hope it helps." Cor's fingers brushed Nicky's thigh. Not close to his sheath and sac, but not so far that Nicky wasn't getting hard from the attention. Maybe he did want a little something else before going to sleep.
When Nicky turned slightly, Cor pushed him onto his side the rest of the way, pulling Nicky's back against his chest. Nicky could feel the hard ridge of Cor's arousal against his tail. He wriggled back against it, working it around his tailbone so that it slid into the groove between his tail and his rear.
Cor responded by pulling him tighter and brushing his sheath with just the feathery touch of his claws. That was enough to make Nicky's already-hard erection jump up into the raccoon's paw, which grasped it lightly as though Cor had been waiting for just that to happen. Nicky moaned appreciatively at the soft strokes of Cor's gentle fingers along his skin, especially when they teased his tip.
They sometimes just played with each other with no intention of finishing, but when Cor gripped him more tightly, Nicky knew this wasn't one of those times. "The sheets," he panted, squirming back against Cor's warm body, his knot growing heavier between his legs.
Cor's right paw, pressed against Nicky's chest, found Nicky's paw and pressed into it the washcloth he must have been holding all along. Nicky held it down near his shaft, too late to catch the first drops of pre, but in time to catch the spurts he knew were coming closer with every pump of his boyfriend's skillful paw. It didn't hurt when Cor rubbed his muzzle along the edge of Nicky's long ear; in fact, that made Nicky shiver. He moaned again, louder, to show how much he liked that, even though he knew Cor already knew.
It wasn't so much a matter of being objectively good in bed as it was a matter of understanding what the other wanted and being able and happy to accommodate. Cor knew how Nicky liked to be touched; Nicky knew that Cor liked the little noises he made, the squeaks and moans, that he liked eliciting them and liked the way Nicky squirmed and yelped when he came. Nicky knew that Cor liked to be touched in certain ways, too, and when he did that, Cor's grunts and gasps were as rewarding as the sticky paws (or muzzle or rump) he ended up with after it was all done.
He tried to make it last, but tonight Cor was insistent. Nicky panted harder as he felt his climax straining to escape, the tightness in his knot almost unbearable, and then he let out a squealing yelp and held the washcloth against his tip, the warmth of his spurts soaking through to his paw almost immediately. Cor pressed to him, restraining his lighter, shuddering body, while Nicky's tail bristled out all along its length, trapped between his back and Cor's stomach. For five or six spurts he jerked and yelped, and then relaxed, wagging his tail against Cor and moaning contentedly.
"Think you can get back to sleep now?" Cor murmured in his ear, and then nibbled the edge of it.
Nicky squeaked and giggled. "Eee, stop!" He wiggled back against Cor, which is what the raccoon wanted anyway. "I think so."
"Good." Cor nibbled a little longer, just because he was that way, and then kissed Nicky's head right on the little thatch of fur between the ears. His arms tightened around the fennec. "Sleep well, then."
"Thanks," Nicky whispered. He didn't close his eyes right away, though. The room was as dark as it ever got for him with his night vision. He said, impulsively, "Maybe we should get up at three-thirty in the morning more often."
Cor chuckled. "When we don't have work the next day."
"Well, yeah. It's nice. It's kinda private. Just the two of us."
Cor nuzzled his cheek. "I was thinking that too. But then I thought it seemed a bit silly."
"We do silly," Nicky said. His eyelids were drifting shut of their own accord, now.
"Mm-hmm."
In the stillness, in the darkness, it occurred to Nicky that love wasn't built on big moments: the first date, the first sex, the first shared bedroom. Those were important, sure, but they depended on a bunch of smaller moments, things like picking out the same ice cream flavor to share, enjoying the concerts your boyfriend dragged you to, and this moment right here, when not only their bodies but their spirits were in perfect harmony. And maybe that's what love was about: a string of moments in darkness that together illuminated your life.
It seemed that the roof of their house was transparent, and he could see a dazzling field of stars above him. He wanted to turn onto his back to look at it, but Cor was still holding him tightly, so he just closed his eyes, content to bask in the light he knew was there.