FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Pika was a mess the next time Wires saw her. The white fur on her muzzle was dingy and stained dark with tearmarks. Her tail was scrawny and held low, and as she panted, he could see one tooth moving loosely along with her tongue. "Did you speak to Tokui?" she asked, her bandaged paws clasped around the large hot coffee he'd just bought her. "Yeah." he replied. "She was okay, I guess. I mean, I haven't seen her in years. She's dating some wolf guy. She asked how you were." "You told her "fine", right?" "Yeah, I said you were fine." "I'm fine." "Yeah." The two of them sat in silence as Pika sipped her large coffee, occasionally brushing her paws against her stained gray hoodie. They trembled more than he'd remembered, and one of her digits was shaved in the shape of a ring. Wires watched her silently until her piercing green eyes caught him, and he found himself politely looking away. "I'm fine." repeated Pika, wiping her nose on her sleeve. It left a faint red smear behind, and she quickly rolled up the sleeve to hide it. Wires took note of the places on her face where the fur looked patchy. She picked up one of the napkins on the table and started wiping away at the tearmarks on her face, making very little progress. "Hey...do you want to come home with me?" asked Wires suddenly. As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Pika regarded him with wary slitted pupils. "I have some free space. It's warm." "I'm not fucking you, Wires. Don't try to fuck me." "Fine." said Wires, suddenly relieved. He took the last sip of his coffee and started to get up. "I'll see you later then." "Wait." Wires stopped, staring over at Pika. She seemed defeated, her claws extending and brushing the Styrofoam of the cup. "It doesn't matter if you want to fuck me." "Nobody wants to fuck you." barked Wires, his face twisting into a sneer. A few of the other Starbucks patrons turned their heads towards the two. Wires looked around for a few seconds, then sighed heavily. "Let's get out of here." "Where are we going? To your mom's?" "To my house." "Where is that?" "East Flatbush." "Oh." "What?" "It's a shitty neighborhood, Wires." "It's gentrifying." "I hope it's rent controlled, then." said Pika, wrinkling her nose and shaking her head. "You never told me you moved." "I guess I didn't." "You work tech, I thought you'd be able to afford somewhere nicer, y'know? I mean, what are you making? More than 35k a year, right?" "Stop it." Pika looked up at Wires, only to be met with a steely glare. He got up suddenly, and Pika scooped up her coffee and followed after him. The two of them walked silently, side by side, out of the bookstore and out onto the street. It was quiet and gray, the middling hour between sunset and total darkness, and tiny speck-like snowflakes fluttered to the ground. Pika's fur fluffed up in her threadbare hoodie. "Wires, can you go on ahead? I'll meet you at Hoyt-Schemerhorn, okay?" "Sure." Wires watched as Pika broke off from him and headed down Atlantic. He stopped at the local deli to pick up a tuna sandwich and kill some time. When he arrived at the bus stop, Pika was carrying the tattered backpack he remembered and a rolled up sleeping bag. She stiffened slightly as he looked at it, but relaxed when he said nothing. "Is your house nice?" she asked, and he ignored her as they walked down into the blackness of the subway. By the time they reached their stop at Utica the sky was pitch-black and the snow had picked up, coating the ground in a powdery layer. "You live really far away from the bus stop, Wires." "I know." "Why didn't we take the bus, though?" "Because I live really far away from it." "Yeah, but we coulda got closer. I didn't wanna walk, my fur is really nasty now." "The bus is shitty after ten. It would have taken longer if we waited." "But my sleeping bag got soaked." "Grow up." "It's really nasty, Wires..." said Pika, attempting a final plea, but Wires simply ignored her and started walking. When they arrived, Wires punched in his code and headed inside the apartment complex. Pika shook herself off and followed him through the door. The interior was small and cold with an elevator door sitting inconspicuously in the corner. There was a strong smell of urine, and the hall was covered in cracked paint. Pika sneezed a few times, spraying mucus onto the back of Wires' windbreaker. Wires grimaced, but pretended not to notice as she wiped it off with her wet sleeve. "We're going up." he said. "What floor do you live on?" "The nineteenth." "Can we take the elevator?" "It's broken." "Oh." "Do you want me to carry your bags or something?" "No, I'll carry them." Wires stared back at her for a few seconds, but proceeded briskly up the flight of stairs. Pika followed behind him, straining and panting. After the third floor, she slowed down noticeably, but he simply continued ahead to his apartment. He unlocked the door, stepped inside, shut it behind him, and enjoyed fifteen minutes of relaxed silence while Pika labored up the stairs. He had just begun to nod off when he heard her voice calling his name, and he dragged himself up to the door. Pika stood there limp, wet and bedraggled on the doormat. "I'll get you a towel, wait there." "Okay." Pika's dirty paws left smears on Wires' carpeted floor as she ignored him and walked into the kitchen. She sat on the counter and started inelegantly wriggling out of her backpack and hoodie, leaving it in a puddle beside her and shook herself off, soaking Wires' entire kitchen. Wires returned a few minutes later with a ratty towel, set aside for guests. "Can you take your shit to the bathroom? It's making a mess." Pika slid off of the counter, landing in the puddle forming on Wires' kitchen floor. As she clumsily bent down, he noticed ribs showing under her wet fur. He sighed, wiping his forehead. "Actually, just stay here. I'll put it away, alright?" he said, handing her the towel. "Okay." Pika hefted herself back up onto the counter, dabbing at her body with the towel. Wires returned after a bit, without his windbreaker. He handed her a brush and a hairdryer and after a moment of deliberation, patted her on the shoulder. Pika looked at up him, her eyes wide with surprise. "Wires..." "Look, I'm going to sleep. Don't get my couch wet, and stay out of my fridge until morning." Pika stared at him as he disappeared into his room, and sat on the counter humming to herself as she brushed the grit out of her wet fur. Wires woke up the following afternoon to Pika sitting up on his couch watching the news. Her fur was clean, if mussed, and she smelled like his shampoo. The tearmarks were finally gone from her face, giving her a more open, trustworthy look. She was wrapped in the blankets from last night and a small black kitten sat on her lap amongst a pile of tightly-balled tissues. "Morning Wires." she said as she stroked it absently. "What's her name?" "Kiesha." "That's cute." She stared at him with wide green eyes for a bit, seeming almost guilty. Wires, for a moment, wondered what was making her upset. Then he noticed a glob of mayonnaise clinging to one of her whiskers. His ears and tail flipped forward. "You went in my fridge." "I was hungry. You said until morning. It's almost three." "What did you take?" "Like nothing." "What the hell did you take?" "A sandwich, okay? Just a fucking sandwich with ham, lettuce and an egg and some mayo. Christ." said Pika, her ears lowering. On her lap, Keisha shuffled and mewed uneasily. "And you shouldn't keep your marijuana in your leaky fridge, Wires. It'll get wet and won't light up as good." Wires gave her a long look and walked into the kitchen. The mess from last night was entirely gone, and the contents of the fridge were placed more or less as he'd left them. Two eggs and a few slices of bread were missing, and a bag of salad mix had been torn and left open in the vegetable crisper. The mayonnaise jar was open and a crumb-covered knife was sitting in the contents. All of his ham was gone. Closing the refrigerator door, he noticed that Kiesha's empty bowls had been cleaned and filled. His weed was neatly set on the counter next to his ashtray and lighter. With a labored sigh, he decided to abandon the argument and walked back into the living room. "So what's up with Bravo and Lever?" "They're so-so. I mean...you know how it is with Bravo." "Yeah, I know." "It wasn't nice to ask about Lever though." "I thought he was getting out on parole." "Not 'till like March though." "Right." As Pika glared at him, the fur on the back of her neck puffed up. She looked almost comical, with the missing patches more apparent as her fur stood on end. Wires hid a chuckle by clearing his throat into his paw. Pika's expression wavered, and she burst into a fit of harsh coughing. She frantically scrabbled for a tissue, hacking into it furiously. When she opened her eyes again, it was to shoot a sour expression at Wires. He grinned at her, wagging his tail, but she glared back. Suddenly it dawned on him. "Wait, was he your place?" "Yes. We...we had it set up and everything." she muttered. "We were going to stop dealing too, when we got enough money. Get real jobs. I mean, maybe a little on the side to help me pay for school, but that was it." "...uh. What was Bravo doing during all of that?" "He was selling too. I mean, he was trying to get Back Action to set him up, so you can guess how that went. He couldn't be supplier, that's crazy. You can't just smoke all your own shit." "What was it?" Pika looked sheepishly at her footpaws. "You know, the usual shit. Weed, oxy, acid, E. Heroin." "Herion?" "Yea." "...you can't stay here." "I know." said Pika. Then, absently,"The NASDAAC is down again." "Do you even know what that means?" Pika shrugged, and Wires sat next to her, brushing one of the wadded tissues off of the couch. As it fell, it slowly bloomed to reveal a plug of rusty green-flecked mucus. "You need to go to the doctor, too." "Yeah, I know." "Do you like...have anything? Like, in the blood?" "No. Be more of an asshole." said Pika. Wires sighed a loud, deliberate sigh and dragged his claws through his messy black mane of fur. Pika briefly glanced at him, ears flicking, but turned her head back to the television. "What were you going to do if I hadn't taken you home?" "I don't know. Get raped, maybe? Freeze and die on the street?" "That's not funny." "I'm not joking." "Stop it." Pika simply shrugged again. "Where have you been staying? With Bravo?" "Is this an interrogation? Are you interrogating me?" "You sell heroin." "I don't want to talk about it, Wires. It's not like it's fun." Wires' eyes narrowed. "I picked you up off the fucking street, it's literally the least you could do." "You're treating me like crap right now." "You're a drug dealer." "You're treating me like crap." "I'm not treating you any different!" "Yeah, you always kind of treated me like crap." "What the fuck is wrong with you?" "It's okay. You can keep on being awful to me. I don't care anymore." The two of them locked eyes for a moment, her green ones to his gold, and they seemed to burn with a low, sickly fire. She turned away from him, then picked up a tissue which she hacked into furiously for a few minutes. She used another to mop the blood from her nose and then balled them up tightly. Wires felt slightly nauseous, and shook his head slowly. "I...I can't deal with you. I can't deal with this kind of shit." He got up from the couch, startling Keisha out of Pika's lap, and walked out of the door, slamming it loudly behind him.

---

Kiesha had settled back beside Pika and the two were happily working on a bowl of popcorn when Wires walked back inside, the burnt-out stub of a cigarette clenched between his padded finger and thumb. He tossed it into the trash bin and brought his paws to his face, exhaling on them. The television was still on, blaring the news. His trash bin was set next to the couch, filled with tissues, and then topped off with napkins where the tissues had run out. His cigarette stub looked almost like an intruder. She looked at him quizzically as he padded over to stand next to the couch. "You should have brought a coat." she said. "Seriously?" snarled Wires. "Yes. I don't want you to get sick." "I won't." "You'll give it to me." Wires didn't dignify that with a reply. Pika shrugged and returned to her television program. She plucked a piece of popcorn and handed it to Keisha. Keisha ignored it and shoved her face into the bowl. Wires grinned, running a lazy claw down the cat's spine. "We get along better in the Barnes&Noble." said Pika, leaning back into the couch. Keisha leaned back with her, bracing her paws on the inside of the bowl. "Looks like that." sighed Wires, walking over and collapsing on the couch next to Pika, disturbing her popcorn. Pika simply clenched the bowl all the tighter as Wires reached around his cat, taking a few pieces and delicately popping them into his mouth. "Have you ever considered just going back to Japan?" "With who? Kaishi didn't want me in his house two years ago, why now? I--some bridges might have been burned." "I was thinking more with your parents." said Wires. He had met them once at a parent-teacher night. A purple-and-white piebald canine of some sort, and a striped feliform dragon with obvious eastern heritage. Her mother, the canine, had been very stiff and formal. He remembered nothing about the father. Pika clenched her jaw and looked off toward the opposite side of the couch. He couldn't see her tail under all of the blankets, but he would have bet money it was fluffed up like a bottle brush. A strong smell of cortisol was coming off of her. "Uh, okay. You can't just move back in with your fiancee?" Pika shot him an irritated look, her ears snapping back to cling to her skull. She was starting to clench her teeth, and the loose one poked out an awkward angle. "The last time Spring and I talked to each other was in September. I told you last week, remember?" "Oh. The dope?" "Yeah. I mean, you know how she is already..." "Whatever. Was it yours?" "No!" "Just making sure." "Wires," Pika said. Her voice was low and almost desperate. "Wires, I would never do that. I love her like...like. You'll never know how much I love that stupid bitch. I would have never sold that to her. You know I wouldn't have." Wires suddenly felt very uncomfortable, and simply nodded his head. Pika looked genuinely upset, and hadn't even paused to wipe the small trickle of blood leaking from her nose. He handed her a tissue, which she accepted, then started coughing into. "Pika," he said, hardly believing what was coming out of his mouth. "I'm taking you to the free clinic in the next few days." "If you want to waste that kind of time on me." "I want to." then, "Don't OD on my couch." "I probably won't." said Pika coldly. And he would have tried to smile at her, if it wasn't for Keisha, who was chewing a mixture of soiled tissues and popcorn into his blanket.