FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Three weeks into the trip and just passing Saturn. The ageing ship chugged and it's crew with it. Plenty of optimism and a small degree of life. A lot more equipment and supplies meant for kickstarting a colony's infrastructure.

A dream for the mouse this time, for once. One that was full of barking and yelling. Four legged rottweilers and teeth that sank right into the rodent's bones. For the mouse, being thrown around by his leg like a doomed chew toy, it was pretty comparable to what he imagined being mauled by a bear was like. Faces. Feelings. A pair of striking, sad eyes. An evaporating continuity was all that really stuck with Acamar by the time he awoke, glaring through half lidded eyes at an alarm clock that wasn't set to go off for another six hours.

"Ffffuuuuck." Why had sleep become so elusive in the past couple weeks? Maybe it was the looser schedules. Maybe it was the lack of a proper day and night cycle. "Maybe I'm losing my mind." Whispered the rodent to his pillow, his recently estranged bed time companion. Flat and distant.

Eventually the mouse brought himself to a sit, head in a haze, stomach in knots, foot paw aching to it's core. Idly, the tan toned mouse massaged his foot in a vain attempt to ease it's dull throbbing, daydreaming of more sleep and knowing that it would be fruitless to try. Knowing there'd be no coffee in the ship's dining room and knowing all the old hands would tell him to suck it up. Meds are for furs who're actually sick they'd say.

"Up and at 'em sailor." The rodent rose to his feet, swaying and rubbing at his eyes. Good God he wasn't going to make it like this. Where was his fur brush? Where was the light switch? Where did he kick that pile of clean clothes? The aformentioned pile of clothes apparently didn't exist as a seperate entity anymore and Acamar made a mental note to get his quarters cleaned up properly. Sometime soon at least.

Somewhere along the line the murine spacer managed to get his clothes on and stumble out of the cramped hole in the wall that everybody insisted was a legitimate bedroom. It had a door after all. And a bed! Talk about a utility closet with some real utility eh? "God damn tail tuggers. What am I even doing right now?" Wandering the dim halls of the ship apparently. Passed crew furs who gave him dirty looks. Which he reasoned soon after only looked dirty because he was sleep deprived and grumpy. If he was more alert their looks would probably more of an... openly worn concern. Appropriate when you share a tin can with someone who might be going crazy. Especially a mouse, the rodents most infamous for their nippiness and temperment.

"Shhh. You're not going crazy. Heh. Shit." Acamar tugged at his ears and let out a pathetic, strangled groan. He didn't want to go back to his quarters to wrestle with the concept of sleep or stare at the insides of his eye lids for hours. Assuring himself of his own sanity, the mouse covered his eyes to shield them from the buzzing lights for a few beats. "Just need to chill out. Like the dark side of the moon."

In the rodent's ear there was a familiar chirp,"Still not sleeping?" Managing to avoid jumping out of his skin, Acamar dropped his paws down to his side and gave the speaker a sidelong glance. The chipmunk, Avery, his incredibly flat chested supervisor who's physical sex was a completely informed attribute. She'd be cute if she wasn't his boss. Or if she didn't have the authority to order him sedated on whim.

"Um. Yeah. You could say that." The mouse wobbled in place, keeping balance with his tail. Trying to look like he was in better shape than he actually was.

She crossed her arms, "Alright. Well don't come in for your shift until that changes. And if I see or hear about you being in maintenance I'll get a doctor's order to back it up. Clear?" Acamar offered up a meek bob of his head that the chipmunk likely didn't see as she prowled off. Or maybe scurried was a better word to describe her locomotion.

The mouse was alone again and terribly aware that he was staring off into space down an empty hallway. Thankfully nobody had seen that as far as he was aware. Maybe there was still old coffee in the dining room or some stale consolation biscuits from dinner earlier? It was just a quick scramble down the hall after all.

It wasn't a particularly long or eventful journey to the dining room that doubled as the intersection to all of the ship's major hallways. The lighting was softer there. The furniture was mismatched. At the table there was a well groomed golden retriever devouring biscuits, gnawing, crushing them in his maw as terribly as any four legged feral dog would in his place.

The spark of energy that had propelled Acamar to this moment faded quickly as he padded his way over to the biscuit warmer. It was almost like a suspenseful scene in a film, though the moment was a bit puerile and lacked all of those effective musical cues that actually contributed to supsense or cinema in any meaningful way. Naturally there were no biscuits left when he opened up the warmer and naturally the defeat sent him reeling into the nearest chair, eyeing the dog and flicking his ears all the while.

"Still can't sleep?" The retriever asked between bites, spewing crumbs at the mouse and wagging his tail. Or at least Acamar heard his tail thumping the chair under the table. "Did you try masturbating or something?"

Well that was forward. The mouse smoothed the fur between his ears for a few beats in an attempt to compose a response,"Umm. Yeah. Actually. I just woke up half an hour later all sticky. Then I had to sneak to the bathroom for a shower. And then I was damp the rest of the day."

There was a short lull in the dog's wagging. "Oh. That's shitty then. Sorry if that question was kind of abrupt." The thumping came back with a vengeance, now accompanied by the dog panting, tongue lolling out uncontrollably. And despite his efforts, Acamar was honestly finding it difficult to be annoyed by the biscuit stealing retriever. "Uhh. I'm Otto. Don't think we've actually talked at all."

"Right. Acamar. That's my name I mean. You know?" The mouse ignored the anxiety and distinct feeling he was going to stumble at every encounter he had that day. Even though he knew it was only going to get worse from here on out. What else was he going to do on an hour of sleep? Sleep maybe? Ludicrous.

The dog panted some more and checked his watch before speaking again, "I know now. Anyway I gotta run. My shift is about to start. You get some sleep bud." And off the canine strode, tongue hanging out of his dumb muzzle and tail waving back and forth in strokes broad enough to destroy delicate decorations. It was kind of adorable.

The mouse sat alone in the quiet for a while, lamenting his failure to aquire snacks. His quest a wasted effort. He started dozing in his chair and allowed his eyelids to droop. Not that he coould have stopped them if he tried.

They'd been through so much. All the fights and their scraping by. The hormones and the talk of surgery. The night, after a month of not touching each other or alluding to phsyical desires, she came to him as he studied. The mouse, the one aspiring to be female, traced the edges of Acamar's ears, marveling at their reflexive twitching and scritching behind them. She moved to massage the inside of his legs and looked into his eyes, nose to nose, whiskers tangling Her hands wormed their way inside his shirt and his own tail whipped behind him like a livewire. So many warm months followed that night. How had it come to an end in silence and a pair of striking sad eyes? When the mouse's eyes shot open and he was still at the dinner table he remembered the whys and hows very clearly. He was good at pushing that particular hurt down deeper than all the rest. Just not lately. Or at the very least he was good at convincing himself that was truth.

"What am I doing?" Checking that nobody was watching, Acamar got to his feet again, a bit shakey and for a brief moment completely unsure of what to do. He needed to try and sleep again. Maybe after a trip to the restroom. Maybe after someone else asked him if he still couldn't sleep. He padded along and did his business. Shuffled back to his quarters and locked eyes with a male rat right before he could slip inside his den.

"Hope you feel better soon man. Everyone's worried you're gonna get some kind of space madness before the month is out." Chittering, the rat extended a hand and gave the smaller rodent a gentle, ear splaying rub on the head. The feeling of that sudden, gentle contact melting away the mouse's indignation before it had a chance to rise in the first place. It turned into a hug and Acamar wasn't sure if he should protest or point out they didn't know each other. He took the easy route and leaned his head into the other rodent's chest until they were patting him on the back and resuming their course back down the hall.

"Tail tugging bastards. Why is everyone so weird?" The mouse lingered for a moment, watching the rat vanish around the corner and rather abashadly feeling a bit more at ease. There was a visible flicker in the ceiling lights. A garbled announcement sounded out from the overhead speakers. He just had to adjust to things here. Right? The rodent slipped inside his quarters before anyone else could bother him. He tugged off his clothes and flopped belly first onto his bed. Now he started feel fragile. For a while he stared at his clock. For a time he covered his head. In a silent fit he unplugged his glowing time teller and tossed it across his room.

It will be okay. It has to be. This will be worth it. Take deep breaths. Just close your eyes. Don't cry, the walls are thin. Please.