Capital Furs

Chapter 1

With night already fallen on the city, rush hour nearing its end a young blond snow leopard walked down the side of the streets and looked upward with frustration at the street signs.   He was soft in features and proportions for a male of his species and age and his hair running half way down his back with fringe in the front didn’t help things.  Either arm was weighed down with a small case from the liquor that was several blocks from his university campus and a nylon, pocketed messenger bag hung off one shoulder.  He had managed to get lost in only a few blocks by not paying attention after a few intersections.  His wriggled under the weight of the cases and the cardboard handles edging into his fingers.  Letting out a sigh he lowered his head a moment only to be surprised by his own cell phone going off.

“Ahn, what?”  He said after setting the alcohol down and answering the phone.  “Yeah I got it…  …No they didn’t really ask… …I dunno when… …Cause… …Cause I’m somewhere where I dunno where I am… …I don’t always get lost!  …Those tunnels are confusing!  …Just give me like fifteen or twenty minutes, alright?  …Okay, see ya.”  The leopard snapped his phone closed and eyed the digital clock display on the outside of the shell.  “Why didn’t I get the one with GPS?”

“Hey there little cat, are you lost?”  Called out a voice to the leopard who had become lost in his own thoughts of directions and orientation.

“Eh?”  He looked up to see a white police car with black and gold markings and lights across its roof pulled up along the curb.  For a moment he took it as a campus security car before reading the large print ‘POLICE’ across the doors.  A uniformed officer leaned out window with one elbow on the edge and his other arm at the wheel.  He was a wolf to be specific and not that bad looking either to the leopard’s eyes.  “Ah, uhm, kinda.  I’m just trying to get back the university and all these streets look the same at night.  I think I took a wrong a few lights back.”

The wolf looked back into his car; distracted by text on a computer screen mounted next to his seat and stuck his head back out after a moment.  “What’s your name?”

“Aub.  Er, Aubrey Ramsden.”  Replied the leopard, before he took a look over each shoulder and back to the officer.  “I really just need directions back to Helm Street so I can get back to the school.”  Aubrey was starting to feel nervous and his ears folded back somewhat with the cop starting to ask questions rather than giving answers.

The officer pointed out of the car with raised brows towards the cases at Aubrey’s feet.  “And you’re twenty one, right Aubrey?”  He asked with a slight grin.

“What?  No, I’m,” Aubrey stopped and looked down remembering he was lugging home eight bottles of a drink made mostly from Vodka.  “Shit.”  He looked back up and made a sad attempt at feigning a smile.  “I could be!  I’m just small, ya know?  The runt of the litter.  All my older brother are like half a foot taller than me or more!”

The officer wasn’t buying it and shook his head without letting that grin escape his face.  He then turned slightly away as he mentally ran the streets threw his head to give directions.  “Alright Aubrey, you’re only two blocks off from Helm.  Just go back to the last intersection, go left and you’ll be on your way back home.  They’re doing construction on William’s so that’s probably why you got confused.”  Finally he looking back to Aubrey, still with that grin, and pointed off in the distance.  “Like three blocks up Helm, after the Caliber Building on campus, there’s one of those all night diner places.  I get off shift at ten, if you meet me there at ten thirty, then, you’re twenty one.  Sound good?”

Aubrey blinked, realizing he had a police officer telling him to meet him for dinner or he’d get in trouble for possession of alcohol while under the legal age.  Looking over the police officers face he couldn’t quite tell if he was kidding or not, he was grinning but not wickedly so.  The thoughts of his position muddled threw his head before the realizing that it was another guy asking him out and the boy snapped back to reality.  “Hey!  What makes you think I’d even go for that kinda thing with guys anyway!  And isn’t this an abuse of power!?”

The cop barely let a moment slip before he pointed to Aubrey and responded.  “I’m pretty sure most jeans for guy don’t fit around the hips that way.  The bangs hanging around your face.  That sure isn’t beer or you’d be carrying a two-four, its wussy party drinks and finally, you have that rainbow pin stuck to your shoulder bag there.”

Aubrey looked down at the messenger bag that hung off his shoulder and held it out so the colorful pin could be seen more clearly.  “This is an old Apple Computer’s pin, my brother gave it to me!”

Having mentally stumbled over the realizing that the rainbow pin was an old corporate logo and had nothing but pride he seemed surprised for a moment but hook it off.  “That doesn’t explain the rest.”  He was clearly trying to smooth over his foul gracefully and he put the police cruiser into gear.  “Ten thirty.”  He said before letting the car pull away and leaving Aubrey no opportunity to retort.

“You can’t just make me…!”  Aubrey stopped, looked down at the cases by his feet and realized he’d been let go.  With the cop gone he couldn’t enforce the legal age limit and he was let go without reprocution.  The only thing he wasn’t sure of was if he was really expected be at the diner or not.  Was it an abuse of police power to take advantage of him or just an interesting way of asking for a date?

---

Aubrey had returned to the school and carried the prize back to his dorm room.  Setting the cases down next to his bed by the door he cast his phone and shoulder bag onto his bed which he then threw himself onto afterwards.

“Geez, Aub.  Why do you always get the fruity stuff?”  Asked his roommate, who came from the bathroom which was shared with the adjacent dorm room.  Trent, a raccoon, taller, more like Aubrey’s older brothers and he was in one of the athletics programs at school.  He was shirtless and clad in off white cargo pants with a shirt between his dark furred hands.  “It costs more too.”

“I can’t carry an entire case of beer home and that stuff tastes like burnt toast or something anyway, I want to drink some of it too if I have to buy it.”  Aubrey’s tail swayed behind him with irritation and he uttered only a groan and huffed threw his nose.  “You owe me twenty bucks and one of those cases is still mine.”  Aubrey turned his Trent rather than eye down at his bedding.

Trent raised one hand to his dark masked face and looked down at the case.  “Twenty?  Come on, that’s what they’d cost in the campus bar.”  He reached down to one case, claimed it as his own and pulled open the cardboard packaging.  After loading the bottles into a small fridge they shared in the door.  When finished Trent left a twenty dollar bill on Aubrey’s desk before going back to the bathroom to finish washing up.

“You’re welcome to get kicked out of the bar instead of using me if you want.  They’re a lot pickier about ID’s.”  Aubrey was curling up over his sheets until he could eye the tip of his own tail that twitched unconsciously and felt tired.  “They know better than to let someone with an ID like mine in.  It’s that store off campus where they’re really lazy.  If you wanted beer you should have come with me and carried it.”

“Well at least then you wouldn’t get lost.”  Trent said from the bathroom as he looked into his fur for blemishes on the skin in the mirror.

“Ya know, even if you completely break out, she can’t see it under the fur, right Trent?”  Aubrey said back.  He knew full well what Trent was doing even if it was out of his view.

“But I know it’s there!”  Trent said as he continued.  “Oh, shit, right.  Aub, bout her, Sarah and I meeting at ten and I was wondering if you could be somewhere else for a while.”

Any motion in Aubrey’s tail stopped and his ears shifted forward as he lifted his head.  “Uh huh.  And you want me gone for how long while you’re fucking her?”

Trent didn’t answer for a moment, he’d hoped to dance around the specifics of why he wanted Aubrey gone but he had gone straight to the point.  “Midnight, maybe?”  With a shirt pulled over his head now, Trent looked out of the bathroom to Aubrey with annoyance.  “It’s not like we can use her room, she’s on one of the floors that doesn’t let any men in.  At least this floor is co-ed.”

“I thought everyone on the women-only floors were lesbians or crazy feminists or both.”  Aubrey sat up on the bed despite wanting to lay back down into it and reached for his bag and phone.  “Whatever, someone asked me to meet them after ten anyway.  It’s like nine thirty; I can just show up early.  Have fun.”  He said with a mild tone of sarcasm and he walked out the door.

---

Aubrey had been more than a half hour early for the ‘date’ as it were and spent most of his time waiting, sipping on a cup of coffee and playing a puzzle game on his cell phone.  He didn’t even know the name of the cop or if he’d even show.  This could have been trick to make Aubrey waste his evening or something worse.  Between stages on his cell phone game he’d glance out to the parking lot wondering if he’d see a police car pulled in but he never saw one and would return to lining up colored circles each time.

“Wow, you actually came.”  Said a voice coming to the table, it was him, that police officer, the wolf and standing over Aubrey with a surprised look.  He was dressed down without his uniform and there was no white police car sat in the lot.  The car wasn’t his, property of the city and Aubrey hadn’t realized this.  Instead he drove older model black Chevrolet as his own vehicle.

Aubrey cast his eyes up from the phone without moving his head.  “I’m surprised as you are.  Do you always threaten people with arrest to get them to go out with you?”  The phone closed between his hands and he looked up with one brow raised.

“Nah.”  He said, shaking his head and sitting down from across Aubrey.  “First time I tried that honestly, but it worked so I might try it again.”  He picked up a menu off the table and looked over the cover before looking back to Aubrey.  “My name’s Eric, by the way.  I guess I didn’t introduce myself back there, did I?”

“Not really.”  Aubrey said.  He felt slightly anxious and unsure what to say in this situation.  It wasn’t a standard date and he didn’t understand what expectations Eric had if any.  Unable to come up with a better answer he instead nudged his phone with a finger while his tail slowly swayed unseen next to his leg.

“Actually I come here after my shift most nights.  It’s hard to make something hot at home when you get off this late.”  The waitress approached the table and had recognized him immediately, he offered her a smile and handed her his menu.  “The pot roast, with mash potatoes and coffee, thanks.”

Having not really thought about his order, Aubrey looked down at the menu that had been sitting in front of him for the last half hour and looked it over quickly.  “Can I just get some fries and, uhm, do you have low fat mayo?  Can I get a refill too, please?”  He asked after holding out his own coffee cup.  “So you would have showed up anyway even hadn’t come?”

Eric laughed a little as the waitress left with their orders written down.  “I didn’t think you’d show up, I was just having fun.  I mean, you’re cute actually, that lost look on your face on the street and getting caught with the alcohol.  I figured it was worth the risk to ask you out.  You don’t exactly look like the prime example of masculinity so I thought, ‘What the hell?’ and went for it.”

Not seeming impressed Aubrey nudged the phone in front of him again.  “So, you’re gay then?”  He asked.  “Just cause, it’s pretty daring anyway for a cop to be asking someone out from their car like that.  Even if you think that’s a rainbow pin on someone’s bag, it’s not exactly the most open line of work after all.”

“No, not really.”  Eric reached back to scratch behind his head nervously as he thought up an explanation.  “I mean I’m, I dunno actually.  You just seemed cute and appealed to me so I didn’t really care.”  Eric leaned in to Aubrey with his head lowered slightly.  “Does that make sense or sound like a lame excuse?”

“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”  Aubrey said before sticking his tongue out at the wolf.  “I’m cute enough to make you look twice, that has to be worth something I think.”  He smiled because things were beginning to get more interesting and less awkward and their food bring brought to the table lightened things up.  Aubrey liked food after all and maybe liked it a bit too much.  “Okay,” He forked a few mayonnaise covered fries into his mouth between sentences.  “Then what else do you do, Mr. Police Wolf, other than harass snow leopards just trying to bring back the goods to their dorms?”

Eric couldn’t help but smile at Aubrey’s sense of humor and smiled with a piece of beef hanging off his fork.  “Hey, you were still lost and I was just trying to help out.  Maybe you shouldn’t be walking the streets in possession of alcohol while under the legal age?”  He paused to take a bite of his food and swallow and then continue while he looked over Aubrey and into his eyes.  “Not much, my shift right now sucks and I’m trying to get on a day shift so I don’t miss everything in the evenings.  It’s hard enough to still be awake in the morning.  I’m on the force baseball team on weeks and…”  Eric seemed to be thinking for a moment, he was either trying to come up with something more interesting or how to word something better.  “There’s some other stuff but you probably wouldn’t like it.  How about yourself?

Aubrey didn’t have time to wonder what ‘other stuff’ could be as he’d had the question turned onto himself immediately after.  “I’m majoring in history right now but I think I might switch to literature or something.  Taking other classes as well, you know, pre-reqs and stuff and I got stuck in a women’s studies class after my Interspecies Politics class got canceled.  I needed another class to remain a full time student this term so I got stuck in that.”  Aubrey looked upward, thoughtfully for a moment while trying to bring up something he’d heard in class.  “Ya know, I’m pretty sure that this meal right here is a prime example of the oppressive patriarchy with its males in power abusing the smaller and weaker for the sake of sexual conquest to affirm the male’s own masculinity.”  With a fork half in his mouse Aubrey grinned wide after stitching various political term’s he memorized into an accusation that he probably could see his own classmates making.

The wolf defiantly looked impressed with Aubrey’s words and smiled wider.  “If you thought that was true you’d be back at school instead of here.  Hmm?”  Eric was cut off by his own cell phone going off.  “Hang on.”  He said pulling the slim black phone from pocket and answering.  “Yeah… …Okay, okay… …Calm down Lizzy…  …Well badly is he bleeding?  …Why did he run into the wall?  …Don’t let him chase him around…  …Alright, alright, I’m coming home now…  Don’t worry, he’ll be fine, don’t freak out I’ll be right there.”  Eric slid the phone across the table to Aubrey while reaching into his pocket for money.  “Hey, I’m sorry Aubrey, I have to go, something’s come up.  Put your number into my phone, okay?  I’ll call you later.”  Eric left thirty dollars on the table, more than enough to cover both their bills and stood up from the table.  “I wish I could stay longer, honestly.”

“Eh?  Huh?”  Aubrey was left confused by phone call from someone named ‘Lizzy’ and how he was running home in such a hurry.  His white furred thumbs punched his own number into the phone and he passed it back to Eric.  “What’s going on?  Who’s bleeding?”

Shaking his head, Eric dismissed Aubrey’s question. “Nothing, don’t worry about it.  I’ll see you later, promise.”  Grabbing the last of his things he turned quickly for the exit and was off and left Aubrey little time to ask questions or understand.

Aubrey blinked several times and looked down at his half eaten plate of fries and Eric’s barely touched dinner with a disappointed look.  Not only had he been abandoned in the middle of a restaurant for something else he had over an hour to kill before returning to his dorm.  “Well… At least the food was free.”

Chapter 2

Aubrey was thumbing text into his cell phone as he walked down the underground hallways that connected the buildings of his campus.  His eyes were more focused on his typing than anything else and he paid little attention to the other students that passed him.  The fair featured snow leopard’s tail hung low and shifted left and right with each step with him ignoring those around him.

“So what’s his name?”  Asked a curious female voice peering over his shoulder.  It was Sarah, Trent’s girlfriend and she had taken an interest in Aubrey’s life ever since he’d started going out with Eric.  Aubrey closed his phone, turning against the wall of the hall to face her.

“You’re always texting him.”  Sarah leaned into Aubrey with her hands closed behind her back and grinning like the Cheshire cat.  Thin and taller than Aubrey by a few inches she was yellowish tan with black spots along the fur of her forearms and back; A cheetah.  “You’re spending less time in your dorm too and you’re smiling more.  And you don’t smile, you’re usually a grouchy little snowmew most of the time, so something is up and it’s probably a guy.”

Sighing, Aubrey side stepped away from Sarah and began walking down the hallway again.  “I told you to stop calling me ‘snowmew’ and does it really matter if I’m seeing someone or not?”

Sarah perked up as she moved up beside her fellow feline to follow him down the hallway.  “Come on Snowmew, it’s interesting and probably better than most of the stuff Trent talks to me about.  Besides, you have to tell me,” She clapped her hands together cheerfully.  “We’re family!”

Rolling his eyes at Sarah’s remark, Aubrey took the turn for the stairs that would lead to the first floor of the school’s student center.  “Being in the same taxonomic family doesn't make us family.”  Climbing the steps Aubrey looked down to the phone he was still carrying and flipped it open again to send the message to Eric he’d been working on.  “Fine, fine, fine.  Eric.  Wolf.  Police officer.  Twenty Five.  About one two hundred pounds and six foot two.”

Given mere raw statistics Sarah was at least partially satisfied and would pass on calling poor Aubrey ‘Snowmew’ again.  Ears perking up with the new interesting information, she leaned in curiously and slightly suspiciously.  “A real cop?  You know, some guys do that whole act to impress chicks you know?”  She blinked and began waving her hands to the leopard.  “And cuter guys too!  They can get those badges for like ten bucks at army navy stores.  All sorts of other stuff too like boots or batons and police tape!”  The cheetah was already beginning to get lost in her own tangent and would soon be gone to the world.  “Oh and hand cuffs too!  But those can be lots of fun for all people; does he have any of those?”

Aubrey snapped his head back to Sarah with a twitching of his eye.  “Stop talking!  I don’t wanna hear about you and handcuffs!”  The path through the student center lead them to the main doors where the parking lot was and Aubrey was taking them right there.  He was trying his best to ignore Sarah while walking down the busier surface halls and even passing the building’s donut shop before coming to the main doors of the school.  Threw the glass of the doors Aubrey could already make out Eric’s white police car with him in his dark uniform leaning on the hood keeping an eye out for his snow leopard.  “Yeah, he’s a real cop.”  Aubrey said boastfully while pushing the doors open to the outdoors and pointing to Eric and his car.

“Damn Aubrey.”  Sarah blinked and made an impressed noise.  “He’s actually pretty good looking.  How’d you manage to meet him?”  Twisting her head to Aubrey she smiled mischievously again.  “Did you get arrested and he had his way with you in lock-up before you melted his heart?”

Aubrey’s face soured.  “Oh god, where do you come up with this stuff!?”  Shaking his head in disgust of Sarah’s teasing he started jogging across the concrete of the building’s steps to Eric’s car.

Eric noticed the cheetah that Aubrey had exited with before directing him to the passenger side door.  “Friend of yours?”  He asked.

“She’s just my roommate’s girlfriend.”  Aubrey pulled open the unlocked door of the police cruiser and glanced in, seeing all the electronics and equipment.  “She’s trying to stalk me for information about you.”

“Good luck, Snowmew!”  Sarah shouted, hollering from the top of the steps for everyone in range to hear and turn to see.

Eric was only glancing at the tan, spotted form shouting and waving from across the way.  “Snowmew?”  He asked curiously as his ear flicked unconsciously.  The car shifted from their weight as he climbed in with Aubrey.

Aubrey sighed, realizing the word was in Eric’s head now too.  “It’s just a stupid nickname she calls me.  Anyway,” He was quickly trying to change to subject.  “We have to go back to the station before we go out?  Can’t we keep the car?  This is pretty cool ya know?  I’ve never gotten to ride in the front of one these cars before.”

The wolf raised his brow as he put the car into gear.  “You probably haven’t ridden in the back either.  But yeah, I just got off and we have to take the car back and get mine first.  So you get to see where I work, I guess.”

Aubrey glanced down to the floor of the car, thinking for a moment about him being seeing where Eric worked and all those other police officer’s who’d see him and what they’d think.  Police work wasn’t the most liberal of professions and even he knew that.  “Is that okay?  I mean, like, am I going to have to meet anyone there?  What if they say something?”

Nodding, Eric offered Aubrey a smile as the car pulled out of the school’s private roads and onto the main road of the city.  “You look a lot like a girl Aub, you’re even small and ‘Aubrey’ is a girl’s name too.  It’s not like I’m going to march in carrying you in my arms or anything anyway.  It’s not much compared to everyone in front of that building seeing you jump into the front of a police car while some girl cheered you on.”

“Yeah but that just makes me the cool faggot with the cop boyfriend.”  Aubrey said back.  “You’d just the faggot, period, nothing cool about it.”

Eric wouldn’t say anything and just gave Aubrey a quiet look while he continued driving.

“Guess you hadn’t thought about that yet.  Sorry.”  The awkward feeling returned again and Aubrey launched right into distracting himself from his own words.  Without his cell phone in front of him his grey furred paw with spots on the back reached out to the shotgun that was locked in to a rack in the center of the car instead.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”  Eric’s was focusing on driving before he glanced to Aubrey to see his once idle hands prodding the unloaded firearm.  “And don’t touch that.”  He said, swatting the leopard’s paws down as if he were a child.  “No poking things in the police car, okay?”

Failing to appreciate the childish treatment, Aubrey rolled his eyes to Eric.  “Sorry, I just start messing with things after I say something stupid.”

Sighing, Eric shook his head to Aubrey and tried to smile.  “I said it’s fine.  Just something new I hadn’t thought about yet.”

---

Their date had gone like most, only with the recent ones ending with the pair together in a hotel room.  This time Eric had taken Aubrey to the fall midway that had opened up outside of downtown in one of the parks.  Basking in afterglow, Aubrey lie next to Eric under the bedding and nuzzling into his neck.  “I can’t believe you’re afraid of heights.”  He said giggling.

“I’m not afraid of heights.”  The wolf protested as he planted a paw on Aubrey’s face to push him away playfully.  “I’m afraid of cheap Carnie Ferris wheel’s jammed with me at the top while the carriage creaks like it’s ready to fall off.”

Aubrey fought off Eric’s paw with his own and bared his teeth in mock aggression and nuzzling in again.  He ran his fingers threw the fur of Eric’s chest before planting it flat over his heart and began feeling his head beat threw his palms.  “This is really nice; can’t we just stay here like this all night?”

Eric’s larger hand found itself laying onto of Aubrey’s and intertwining their fingers while he turned to kiss Aubrey’s forehead.  “I told you I have to go by eleven.”

Sighing, Aubrey rolled away from Eric and propped his head under his own arm.  “Why?  You don’t have the night shift anymore, we could just stay here, it’s a hotel room, you’re supposed to sleep in it.”

Eric rolled his eyes while shaking his head to Aubrey.  “It’s complicated Aubrey and it’s not like we can really crash at your place, you live in the dorms.”

“Yeah?  That doesn’t stop us from using your place.  You won’t even let me see it.  You’re always taking me hotels and not even staying the night!”

Eric took in a deep breath and let it out slowly before he continued.  “It’s complicated I said.  You can stay the night if you want to, it’s paid for anyway, so-“

“That’s not what I mean!”  Aubrey rose in the bed, huffing and narrowing his eyes at Eric.  “You’re gonna go in like half an hour so why don’t you just go now?”
The wolf looked away from leopard in frustration for a moment.  “Aubrey-“

“I said go home.  Call me tomorrow or whatever.”  Aubrey went limp, collapsing into the hotel bed and staring at up at the ceiling.

“Fine.”  Eric said reluctantly before standing up to get dressed.

---

Aubrey managed to spend most of the next day in bed, after thrashing about in the hotel bed for an hour before he retreated back to the dorms to hide under familiar sheets.

“So,” Sarah looked across the dorm from Trent’s bed while he was getting changing from gym shorts back to regular clothes.  “He’s just been lying there all day?”  She planted her hands in her lap and began peering forwardly at Aubrey who was hidden mostly under the blankets.  The visible exceptions were only one curved feline ear peeking out from the blankets around his head and lower half of his tail that snuck out from under the twisted covers.

“Yeah.”  The raccoon said, emerging from the bathroom and tossing his gym clothes into a hamper at the foot of his bed.  “He was there when I woke up, but I don’t think he’s gone to class and he cell kept going off until he turned it off.  So I’m pretty sure he’s alive and all.”

“I can hear you guys, you know that?”  Aubrey said from under the blankets that hid most of his body.  “And I got up for lunch, so there.”

“Ohh.”  Sarah pushed herself up off Trent’s bed and crossed the room to look down at Aubrey.  “So what’s got Snowmew so upset?  Is it the guy he’s seeing?”  She asked while pulling the blanket back to reveal Aubrey’s face.  “Er, you’re wearing something under there right?”

Rolling onto his back, Aubrey looked to Sarah with the grey and white fur on the side of his face matted against the grain from sleeping and letting her more annoying words pass by.  “Can I get your opinion on something?”

“Oh shit, girl talk.  Better run away Trent-.”  The cheetah turned over her shoulder to realize Trent had already left.  “Chicken.”  She said to herself before sitting on the corner of Aubrey’s bed.  “Anyway, what’s up Snowme-, er, what’s up Aub?”

Sighing slowly Aubrey pushed the blankets away from him and sat up in bed and revealed he was still wearing his t-shirt from last night.  “What do you think it means if your boyfriend won’t take you to his place, will only sleep with you at a hotel but won’t stay the night, doesn’t talk about his home life much, checks his phone constantly and sometimes answers calls from someone named ‘Lizzy’?”

Sarah’s eyes widened before she shook her head at Aubrey’s description of the situation.  “Oh shit Aub, you think he’s married?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Aubrey nodded to Sarah.  “Got a better theory?”

“Well, he could-“Sarah stopped and grinned a little before letting it pass.  “Right, no stupid shit.  I’d kill him if I were you.”  Given some time to think of alternative suggestions Sarah perked up with hopes of alleviating Aubrey’s stress.  “Maybe he’s got roommates or something?  That’s why you don’t bring him back here, right?

“If he had roommates he’d say something and he’s really not all ‘secret and discrete’ with our relationship so it’s not like he’d really try and hide me.  Whenever I ask why he just says ‘it’s complicated’.”

“I suppose cheating on your wife with a guy would be pretty complicated.”  Sarah scratched behind her ear nervously as she realized Aubrey wouldn’t like hearing what she just said.

“I guess I’ll have to kill him.”  Blankets slid down the leopards form as he reached for the phone that sat beside the bed.  Turning it on to be greeted with a familiar screen and saw two missed calls and four text messages from Eric that he had missed.  Last night’s abrupt end was on his mind as well it seemed.  The latest message from Eric said he wanted Aubrey to contact him so they could talk.  It worked out for Aubrey since that’s what he wanted too and he began tapping out a message for Eric to meet him in the evening.

“So,” Sarah looked on quietly while Aubrey ignored her as he typed his message.  “You’re gonna bitch him out and tell him to fuck off?  You’re not going to tell his wife or anything are you?”

“His wife is his own problem.”  Aubrey said, focusing on reading the other, older messages.  “But he’s not dragging me into it and I’m not going to be played any more.”

---

The sun had fallen on the university but the sky was still blue with orange still glowing in the western windows.  Aubrey had chosen the now mostly empty student building to meet Eric in, having opted for ‘home advantage’ if he was going to be yelling at the larger wolf.  On the main floor were empty bolted in dining tables with a row of vending machines along one row and the donut store closed and metal shutters closed.  He was alone with the exception of two students looking over their books at the far edge of the cafeteria style seating from where Aubrey sat.  The grey and white snow leopard found difficulty in focusing on anything to pass the time and even the puzzles on his phone would bore him, cause him to close the phone, only to open it again soon in hopes that the games could distract him again.

Unfamiliar with much of the campus, Eric had parked his own car outside and ventured inside the student building and looked around curiously.  The area Aubrey sat in was large and in the center of the main floor and not difficult to locate.  Rounding the corner he spotted Aubrey, still looking at his phone and hadn’t noticed him.  “Aubrey.”  He said, encroaching upon the leopard.  “I know you’re pissed but some things in life are complicated.”

Aubrey snapped his head up and began glaring at Eric, ignoring his words and ready to begin his own verbal attack.  “You’re fucking married aren’t you!?”  He shouted out with Eric still three tables away.  “You won’t take me to your place or even stay the night with me!  You’re always trying to be home before midnight and if I want to go out with you always say you need to check before calling me back an hour later and telling me yes or no!  You’re just trying to see if you can get away with your wife!?”

“Damn it Aub, not so loud!”  Eric shouted back, ironically at the same volume as Aubrey.  From the corner of his eye he saw the two other students in the building closing their books and scattering down a near by hall to escape the loud drama.

“I’ll yell as loud as I want you stupid brute!”  His fists clenched with open cell phone being twisted in one paw, Aubrey huffed loudly while his ears folded back aggressively and his tail began to sway to the sides behind him as an instinctive ‘distraction’.  “And who’s that girl ‘Lizzy’ that called you when we first met?  You send her texts when we’re out sometimes even!  She’s your wife, right?  You gotta check in with her while you’re fucking around with me even!?”

Eric brought his hand to his face, pressing it in and pulled it down slowly while Aubrey’s words echoed threw his head.  “I have kids, Aub.  She’s just the god damn babysitter and that’s why I have to check before I go out with you!”  This was no time for sitting down and pair had come to standing off with a table and chairs between them.

“Kids!?”  The revelation of Eric being married with children wasn’t something he foresaw and it mentally stumped him for a moment while he tried to recompose his anger.  “You’re married and you have kids!?  You son of a bitch-!”

“I’m not married Aubrey!”  Eric growled angrily finally and stepped towards the smaller mammal.  “Now sit the hell down and shut up for a second!”

Aubrey backed off submissively, letting Eric have his moment to explain and the growl was enough to get Aubrey to lower his tail cautiously while ears remained folded back.

“I was married until a few years ago.  She didn’t want kids and the first one was an accident, I convinced her to keep it and that she’d change her mind after he was born.”  Eric didn’t sit, rather planting his hands across the top of he table and glaring down at Aubrey as he explained.  “She kept feigning it but she couldn’t deal with it.   Then she got pregnant again and I had to fight like hell to keep her from doing anything until he was born but she left us a few months after that.  She left me alone with both of them and I’ve been raising them for the last four years.”

“Kids?”  Aubrey was stunned at the explanation and his head began running through every word it knew for them.  Kids, cubs, children, pups, offspring, babies, toddlers.  Aubrey himself hadn’t thought much about children.  Free from high school for less than two years he had fallen straight into university.  His life had only been school, friends, and having a good time.  This was all new, unexplored territory for him and the idea of Eric with children confused and frightened him.  “Like, little you’s?  Wolf pups running around the house and everything?”

“Freaked out?”  Eric said, frustrated but smiling as a suspicion of his own was proven right.  “I figured, and that’s why I didn’t tell you.  You’re only nineteen Aub and I thought it might scare the shit out of you if I told you.  I like you Aubrey, but I’m not going to introduce them to anyone if that person is going to run off sometime soon so I didn’t tell you!”

“Kids.”  It was all Aubrey could muster as a response while he blinked several times with a blank expression on his face.

“Good bye, Aubrey.”  Eric said, stepping back from the table and turning away.  “Call me if you stop looking like I just hit you with a rock.”

“Kids.”  Repeating the word again before Aubrey looked up to see Eric walking away.  “Shit, kids, shit, fuck, kids…”  His own mind was rolling over the idea again and again, he wanted to shout out at Eric, he wanted to still be mad but the wind had been knocked out of him by the truth and he didn’t know what to do.

Chapter 3

“He has kids but he he’s not married?  God damn, Aubby-Aub.”  Sarah and Aubrey sat across from each other a quiet corner of an engineering building.  Sarah was sitting up on a pair of tables, one stacked upside down on top of the other and sipping a fruit smoothie from a clear plastic cup.  Aubrey sat on the floor, cornered into the closed doorway of a utility room and looked up at Sarah as they talked.

Aubrey rubbed his eyes in annoyance.  He hadn’t been sleeping well since the fight with Eric and Sarah’s tendency for cute names wasn’t helping.  “Can you just call me by my real name right now?  Or just Aub?  No ‘Snowmew’, no ‘Aubby-Aub’, no, ‘Spotty Kittykins’, alright?”

Sarah’s smoothie made a loud, hollow noise as she sucked on the straw before taking the cup away to speak.  “’Kay, fine, fine.  Come on, it’s not your fault.  Who ever heard of the guy getting the kids in the divorce?  Everything pointed to him being married!”

“I still fucked up and I dunno what to do now.”

“Well, did he break up with you?”

“I dunno that either.”  Aubrey sighed and leaned his head back

“That’d be a good place to start.”

“Gee, thanks.  I couldn’t have figured that out on my own.”

Sarah paused while a cavity in the crushed ice of her drink collapsed as it melted. “Okay, so, if you haven’t quite broken up with him, you could just call him and say you’re a stupid fuck and you’re sorry?”

Aubrey quickly shook his head.  “He’s got kids, Sarah!  Fucking kids!  I think they’re in like kindergarten or something!”

“Jesus, calm down.  They’re just little wolf pups.  They can’t manage to kill you and eat you till they’re teenagers at least”

“Not funny!”

“So you don’t want to date a guy with kids then?”

Aubrey stopped with the Sarah’s question halting the gears in his mind.  He tried to think of an answer but hushed up as another student passed their claimed corner and headed towards the elevator bank.  Rubbing his eyes again, he let out a slow drone before he looked back up to Sarah.  “I dunno.”

“That’s the third ‘dunno’ you’ve said, Aub.  Sorting out the ‘kids’ thing is probably going to solve the rest of this one way or another.”

“Fuck.”  Aubrey’s opinion on addressing the issue of Eric’s kids was clear.  “I’m like nineteen years old, I shouldn’t be thinking about kids.  I have student loans, text books and where to get alcohol until I’m twenty one to deal with still!”

“Calm down.”  Sarah took another calm sip of her drink.  “Have you ever dealt with kids before?  Besides cousins and stuff?  None of your brothers have kids yet, right?”

“Well, Chris has a daughter now but I’ve he hasn’t been home from out west since he was born.”  Aubrey reached for his tail by his leg and ran his finger along the grain from one spot to another, where the black fur formed into rings at the tip.  “So, I guess not.  But I’ve never thought about it either!  I’m gay Sarah, it’s not exactly easy for me to adopt and despite looking more like my mother than my father, I’m pretty sure no guy is going to manage to knock me up.”

“Well, if you get back with Eric and like marry him, you could have kids.”

Aubrey was at a loss for words.  Sarah’s suggestion of he and Eric together as a family left him shocked and looking back to her with confused, wide eyes.

“Okay, nix that last suggestion, you’ve had enough freak-out thoughts for one twenty-four hour period already.”

“I only went out with him for like a month and half, it’s kinda early to-“

“I said nix it!”  Sarah snapped back.

“They wouldn’t even be mine.”  Aubrey said, with his voice suddenly becoming quiet and solemnly.

Sarah raised a brow while her ears rose more forwardly as Aubrey with interest.

“Well, she was probably a wolf too or some other canine at least.”  Aubrey rolled his head to the side, casting his eyes from Sarah and focusing on the postings of a cork board while he spoke.  “They’re his kids.  Wolves like him.  I’m a snow leopard, so even if, like, it got more serious, it’d never look like they were mind.  I’d never be their real parent.”

“Interspecies stuff is more common these days, Aub.”  Sarah said with a bit of a smile and thinking of herself as an example.

“Yeah but it’s not like you guys could have kids, even if you wanted to.”  Aubrey continued.  “Well, maybe if you talked to a doctor but the odds would be pretty slim anyway.”

Sarah looked upward in thought while she considered Aubrey’s point.  “Hmm.  Felidae and procyonidae, about seventy-five to eighty percent chance of miscarriage after conception, not considering other potential factors.”

Aubrey had no words and only looked to Sarah with surprise over her ability to come up with inter-species mortality statistics.

“Come on, I might talk like a ditz but I’m pre-med.”  She shook her head to Aubrey and smiled.  “You could always try to look more like a wolf, dye your fur and stuff.”

“Less stupid suggestions, please?”

“Hey, it happens.  You know that panther that sits near the front in SpecPol?  He was a lion when I was first year.  He shaves off his mane and dyes his fur black I guess”

“Eww!  I thought he just had a thin tail!”  Aubrey shuddered and shook his head.  “I don’t think I’d make a good looking wolf and there’s no way I’m dyeing my fur.”

“You’re always so protective of your spots.  You’d look good in solid gray and brown.”

“Rosettes.”  Corrected Aubrey.

“Case in point.”

“Anyway,” Aubrey was trying to diverge from the topic of his aesthetics.  “I dunno if I want kids or anything, I’m just saying that if I did, with Eric they’d never really be ‘mine’ right?  I’d just be this third wheel.”


Sarah disagreed, shaking her head at Aubrey while setting her empty smoothie cup down on the table.  “That really all depends on if you love him and if he loves you.”

“Oh Jesus, don’t bring that word up now.”

“Are you kidding me?”  Sarah sat up and leaned forward from her perch on the table, looming down at Aubrey with a scowl.  “You’ve been with him for like a month and a half and you don’t want to even think about ‘love’?”

“It’s complicated!”  Aubrey’s ears flattened and he jerked forward as he snapped back at Sarah.

“Isn’t that what he kept saying to you?”  Sarah fired back, with the two felines trading hostile expressions.

“Fuck you!”

---

Eric’s apartment was rather spacious for that of a single parent.  It hadn’t always been him alone and he could afford it with no alimony to pay out every month.  Three bedrooms down the hall with the one in the center acting as an office and cluttered storage space.  From the right of the door was kitchen and the left opened up into the living room and balcony beyond that.  Lizzy, the high school girl living down the hall with her family babysat in the evenings when Eric worked the night shift.  Now he was on days again, only needing her for the couple hours between the end of school and the end of work.

Eric stood in the kitchen with a sieve full of strained pasta held over a pot and a packet of powered cheese sauce, milk, and butter across the counter.  “You guys are going to beg for anything but mac and cheese with hot dogs after you grow up and move out.  You’ll be all ‘Dad!  Send me anything but mac & cheese or ramen noodles!’.”  Leaning back to see into the living room from the kitchen, his sons were playing a video game while planted on the carpet.

Matt was the oldest at six years old.  He was the one focusing on the game with controller between his furred digits and ears eagerly perked as he focused on the screen.  Skyler was younger, four years old, he lay on all fours on the carpet and was occupied by something else.  He was somewhat smaller than his brother and his right ear flopped over with the other pointing up like it should.  Both whelps featuring similar markings to their father but lighter in color.

“Okay guys, turn that thing off or pause or whatever you do in that game.”  Eric stood in the opening to the living room with two steaming bowls of near neon orange noodles topped with cut up hot dogs and handed one down to Matt.  Skyler didn’t seem to respond, staying flat against the floor and turned away with something else keeping him.  “Hey?  Sky?  Come on, buddy.”

Skyler’s hind quarters wriggled somewhat before he rose up from the floor and turned to his father.  He was holding something held in his jaws.  It was one of the video game controllers, wireless, somewhat bone shaped if stubby and he had been chewing on it as part of an anxious habit.  The pup’s eyes were wide and sad.  Lowering his head submissively, the controller fell to the carpeted floor.

“Skyler.”  Eric seemed equally saddened by the sight and witnessing his son’s expression.  “It’s okay, you can eat this instead though, okay, guy?”  Feigning a smile, he patted Skyler’s head and offered him the bowl.  “We’ll have to tell the psychologist that you’re still doing it though, but it’s okay.”

“Eww!”  Matt wretched, mouth open, half eaten food clear between his jaws and bright yellow sauce across his lips.  “Where’s the X button!?  Dad Skyler ate the X button!”

Skyler lowered his head again, this time to his brother and begin hesitating at eating his own dinner.

“Hey!  Matt!”  Eric growling quietly, just enough to garner his son’s attention and silence him.  “The other one is fine, so leave Sky alone.  You know he doesn’t mean anything by it and he doesn’t need you screeching at him.”

Eric wasn’t lazy in the kitchen and in four years alone with his boys he managed well enough in the kitchen.  The tendency to cook macaroni and cheese was from the boy’s own demands and resistance to foods that weren’t utterly simple or colorful.  Sometimes it was a feat to even get them to tolerate meat and potatoes.

Dinner was easy, eating together in the living room and the dining room table behind couch was often ignored.  With an empty bowl in front of him on the coffee table, Eric leaned back on the couch while the boys continued playing the game.  Skyler sat just watching with no second controller to play with.  Eric was looking at the messages in his phone as he had every few hours since the fight with Aubrey.  Nothing new and Eric didn’t want to be the one to make first contact again.  Aubrey was probably doing the same.

Placing his phone on the table, Eric sat up and looked down to his sons.  “Hey, guys?” He scratched behind his ear as he waited for their attention.  “What would you think if your dad had a girlfriend?”

Matt’s eyes narrowed as he focused upon Eric.  “You already had a girlfriend, that was mom and she didn’t want to stay.”  Matt had been old enough to remember his mother.  His memories of her leaving were vague but the emotions he felt at the time were still clear and painful.  Spiteful sometimes towards anyone, Eric, his mother, or Skyler.  The trauma of being abandoned by his own mother was apparent and he would probably react worse if he new the reasons why she left.

Skyler was hesitant in responding, looking away from the other wolves in the room and clearly afraid he had the ‘wrong’ answer.  “Would she be nice?”  He asked simply and innocently.


“Matt…”  Eric closed his eyes from the pain of his words and took a moment before continuing.  “I wouldn’t go out with anyone that wasn’t nice, Skyler.  And I’d make sure they were nice to you guys.  Okay?”  He wasn’t sure the best way to ask his next question but ultimately choose the direct route.  “What of your dad had a boyfriend?”

“That’s stupid!”  Quipped Matt.  “You can’t have a boyfriend and a girlfriend, that’s two!  And you can’t have a boyfriend cause you’d be a boyfriend and then who would be the girlfriend!?”

“Would he be nice?”  It was the only qualifier Skyler held.

Eric made a face at Matt’s childish and confused logic.  It was sweet, endearing and would embarrass Matt years later when Eric retold the story.  “Yeah, he’d be nice.”  Chuckling to himself at their answers and waved his hand to them.  “Okay, just wanted to know.  Go back to your game, okay guys?”

The idea of ‘who would be the girlfriend’ if he had a boyfriend left Eric smiling before he remembered what had happened a few days ago and the smile left his face.  In the moment of silence as he reflected, only the sound of the game echoed in the background before Eric was suddenly startled by the ringing of his phone.

Caller: Aub

The phone kept ringing as Eric looked at the screen’s display of who was calling.  He didn’t know if he wanted to answer or just let it go to voice mail and ignore it.  Six rings passed and he knew it would stop after the next.  The seventh ring was half complete before he pressed the ‘accept’ button.  “Aubrey.  This had better be good.  You understand me?”

“I freaked out.  I just don’t know what I want to think.”

“I don’t need you calling me just to tell me you aren’t thinking.”

“That’s not what I’m saying!”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying…  I’m asking…What…  What are their names?”

“What?”

“You’re kids, what are their names, Eric?  I want to know.”

Eric looked out to the floor of the living room, Matt glued to the TV and ignoring the call entirely.  Skyler looked up at him with curious eyes and only slightly pondering chewing on the phone.  After a pause to consider his answer he smiled a bit.  “Mathew and Skyler.  They’re six and four.  Would you like to meet them?”

“Yeah, that’d be nice.”

Chapter 4

“So Matt is the older one and Skyler is the younger one, right?”  The Snow Leopard was running through his mental notes at the last moment as he stood behind in the hallway of his apartment.  The hall had an orange tone over everything from the lighting along the walls and no sunlight to fill the space.

Eric fumbled with his keys as he unlocked first the dead bolt and then the door lock.  “Yeah, but relax Aub.  It’s not like I’m going to leave you alone with them or anything.”  Eric smiled a bit as he successful opened the locks and swung the door open.

“Promise?”

“Of course.  Matt would eat you alive.”  Eric led the way into the apartment and stood in the hall in front of the kitchen while hanging hung his coat up.  “Hey guys?”  The wolf looked around, only seeing Matt on the floor of living room and eyes glued to the same video game.  Alongside him was a first grade reading book and a note book scribbled with simple words and letters.  “Matt, where’s Sky?”  He asked only to get a passive shrug in response.

Skyler heard the rival and came wondering from the bathroom, shyly peeking at the new arrival of a different species.

“I didn’t hear a flush.”  Eric said while looking to Skyler.

Skyler looked back to the bathroom and back to his father before slipping back to flush the toilet.

“Aww.”  Aubrey giggled gleefully while looking upon the children.  “Their eyes are open already.”

Eric shot Aubrey a look in disbelief that his words could be serious.  “They’re six and four Aubrey, their eyes opened years ago.”

“Oh.  Right.  Oops.”

“Okay, here we go.”  Eric took in a breath, if only looking for an extra moment to hold this ‘unveiling’ off.  “Guys, this is Aubrey.  He’s the person I told you about.”

Matt’s only response was looking away from the screen with the offering of a disdainful sneer before returning the screen.  Skyler on the other hand was peeking back at Aubrey from around the corner of the hall that led to the bedrooms.  “He has mommy hair.”

Matt shot a look to Skyler and turned about, letting the controller fall from his hands to the carpet.  “Boy’s can’t be mommies, stupid!  He just need’s a hair cut!”
Skyler stepped back from Matt, even with over ten feet already betweenAubrey looked confused and unsure what to say.  Eric twitched slightly from the immediate stress.  The wolf shook his head, taking Aubrey’s back pack from him before sighing and moving off to the bedroom with the bag.  “Good.  I was hoping this would be weird and awkward from the get go.”

Aubrey looked between the two children and figured Skyler was the least threatening of the pair.  He encroached slowly upon Skyler, who was still looking back curiously and cautiously.  “It’s not ‘mommy hair’, it’s just all long and stuff.”  Aubrey crouched down near the child.

Skyler tilted his head for a moment at Aubrey before running out from around the corner and wrapping his small arms around the snow leopard in a latching hug.

Aubrey felt awkward with the boy clinging onto him and looked toward the hall for Eric.  “E-Eric.  He’s like… Hugging me, what do I do?”

“Hug back.  He’s four, Aubrey.  Geez.  You can pick him up or something, even.”

“Uh, okay.”  Aubrey still felt awkward, as if him hugging a child was inappropriate and he shouldn’t be letting it happen.  One hand under each of Skyler’s arms and he lifted him up to eye level.

“No one’s going to think you’re a pedophile just because you hugged a kid and-"  Eric came from the bedroom and looked at Aubrey who was holding Skyler at a distance from him.  “He’s not a bomb, Aubrey.  Just lift him up, put one arm under his butt and hold him at your side.  He’ll do the rest.”

“I dunno this stuff.”  Aubrey said in a pleading tone while shifting Skyler in his arms.  The boy was held by one arm while he reached around Aubrey’s neck with his arms.  “Heh.”  At eye level with the whelp, Aubrey looked at him while he looked back silently.  “I guess you’re the quiet one, huh?”

Skyler didn’t really understand what Aubrey meant by ‘the quiet one’ as he had little understanding of social archetypes at his age.  Instead the young wolf tilted his head while eyeing Aubrey curiously before he reached out with his paws and started feeling Aubrey’s muzzle and realizing the snow leopard was something entirely different from a wolf while not all that different at the same time.  Skyler eventually leaned back, taking a hold of Aubrey’s long blond hair between his digits and holding it out to his father as a proud example.  Aubrey on the other hand only twisted his head painfully as the pup tugged at his roots.  “See?  It is mommy hair!  It’s long and it smells like Jell-O!”

“Strawberries and pomegranates, actually.”

“What’s a palmgrenade?”  Skyler asked while letting Aubrey’s hair free from his clutches.

“It’s round and, it’s in shampoo and you eat, and, I dunno.”

Eric let out a laugh while shaking his head and passing the pair towards the living room.  “Pre-school or university, neither of you know your fruits beyond a canned fruit salad.”  Sitting down on the couch behind Matt, Eric looked to the screen and noticed he wasn’t paying attention to anyone else in the apartment.  “Hey Matt, you just going to sit there playing your game?”

Matt turned around to see his father while offering a passing glance to Aubrey and Skyler who seemed to getting along already.  “He’s a stupid cat.”  Matt said simply, referring to Aubrey.

“Matt!”

“He’s not a wolf or a dog or a fox or anything, Dad!  He has spots and stuff.”

Aubrey was afraid to interfere as Matt denounced him to Eric, but the remark about his markings earned a whispered response.  “Rosettes.”

“You should go out with Lizzy dad!”  Matt said leaning and expressing legitimate concern for Eric’s choice in a partner.  “She’s a fox and you and her get along and Skyler likes her too!”

“Lizzy smells like bananas but she has a boy haircut.”  Skyler politely informed Aubrey, while the two sat witnessing the discussion as only an audience.

Eric was unsure which way to lean, with Matt insulting Aubrey and suggesting he date the babysitter that was still in high school.  “Lizzy’s fifteen, Matt.”  He said as he shook his head to Aubrey.  His eyes desperately tried to express that he would never go out with a high school girl.

“Is that too old, Dad?”

Quickly letting out a sharp and uneasy breath, Eric shook his head and didn’t know where to start with Matt.  “Matt, I like Aubrey and it doesn’t matter if he’s a leopard or a wolf or anything else.”

“Hey, guys?”  Aubrey finally spoke up after standing in silence with Skyler in his arms and would do his best to save Eric from the discussion.  “Are you hungry?  We were going to order pizza and we can order it now.”

“I want meat!”  Matt’s attention had quickly jumped tracks to the topic of food than anything else.

“Can we have strawberries and palmgrenades, Aubrey?”  Skyler asked.

Eric looked relived and leaned back on the couch for a moment to relax.  “I guess one pepperoni and one Hawaiian then.”

---

“Your boys are kinda cute, you know?”  Aubrey and Eric stood around the master bedroom of the apartment.  Aubrey had already undressed and pulled an oversized t-shirt over his head that featured his school’s name.  “They scare the hell out of me, but they’re cute.”

“I’m pretty sure Matt can smell that you’re scared.  He’s pretty standoffish but he’ll get used to you if you keep coming over.”  Eric was shirtless and rummaging through his drawers for an older shirt of his own.

“Is that an invitation?”  Smiled Aubrey while looking over Eric’s exposed body and smiling sheepishly.

“Well,” Eric looked up with a ratty t-shirt that read ‘police’ across the front and looked back to Aubrey.  “If you want to, you can.  You have school and still live in res, I figure you can’t come over a lot and it takes you an hour to get back to school from here by bus.”

“Hmm.”  Aubrey considered the offer but would put off the decision as this was only his first time visiting Eric’s real life.  This was already the first time he would ever spend the night with Eric and actually sleep next to him.  It was a step missed somewhere after they had begun to take hotel rooms to have intimate times together already.  “So what’s wrong with Skyler?”

“Huh?  Oh, shit, right.  I’m sorry Aub.  Your phone still works right?  Sometimes he gets anxious and chews on stuff.”

“Yeah, it’s only got a few marks on it, but, wait, why does he get anxious?”

Eric was now dressed in the old shirt and boxer shorts and sat down on the bed while looking to Aubrey.  His eyes were somewhat saddened.  “He’s depressed, or that’s what the doctor says.  He gets anxious sometimes when he feels sad and starts chewing on things out of habit.”

“He’s in therapy?  He’s four years old.”

“That was pretty much my reaction when the pediatrician referred him to a psyche.”

“Jesus.”

“Matt scares me sometimes too, Aub.  He’s angry a lot and I think he blames me for his mother leaving.  He was two when Mel left, so he still remembers that his mom just packed up and went away one day.”  Eric turned his head to Aubrey for a moment and then continued on.  “I also had no idea Skyler didn’t like pineapples, so at least we learned something tonight.”

Aubrey laughed a little with his mind still mostly on Eric’s children.  “And now he’ll be convinced that pineapples are pomegranates for years.”

Eric laughed quietly with Aubrey.  “When I finally get the call from a teacher that Sky doesn’t know what a pineapple is, I’ll be sure to blame you, babe.”  Looking over Aubrey’s form as he stood in the bedroom, covered onto in a t-shirt that went to his hips, Eric pointed out to him and shook his head.  “You have to put on underwear too if you’re staying over here.”

“What?”  Aubrey looked confused a bit insulted.  “Why?  It’s not like this is res and you’ve seen me wearing a lot less before.”

“When you live with kids long enough, you’ll realize why you have to be wearing something at night.”

“Eh?”  He didn’t quiet get it but complied anyway, opening his back pack with clean clothing and looking for underwear.  “Hey, Eric.”

“Yeah?”

“What would you do if one of your kids was gay?”

“Ah shit.”  Throwing himself back into the bed, Eric put his hand to his face and stared at the ceiling in thought.  He had enough issues with his children and was happy that ‘boys and girls’ was still years away.  “I guess, huh.”  Aubrey was now more covered with underwear pulled up under his t-shirt and looked on to Eric curiously while approaching the bed.  “I guess I’d explain to them that there are two kinds of guys in the world.  The kind that are good to their boyfriends or the kind that just used other boys to get something out of them, and if they were the latter type, I’d beat the hell out of them.”

Aubrey made an impressed noise while climbing onto the bed with Eric.  “Good answer.”

---

“He’s still crying!  Why is he always crying!?”  It was the same apartment Eric lived in but from another time.  The furniture arranged differently, the decorations more simple and that of young newly wed couple.

“He’s just hungry Mel, stop yelling.”  Standing between the kitchen and the living room, Eric and his ex-wife Melanie faced off while she went off on the stresses of children again.  Eric held the infant Skyler in his hands, barely able to open his eyes and clutching a bottle in his mitts.  It was late at night and Skyler’s cries had awoken the apartment.  Behind them, unnoticed, Mathew, only a toddler, spied out from his room and watching his family argue.

“I can’t take this Eric!  You managed to get me pregnant and you made me keep them!  You do something about his screaming!”  She was lighter in tone than Eric, an arctic wolf rather than a grey wolf like Eric.  The children had managed to take on most of the coloring traits of their father however.

“Fuck Mel, he’s just a baby!  He can’t help it.  He’s quiet now anyway.”

“I’m done with this Eric.  Alright?  I want out.  I don’t want these kids and if you want them, I don’t want you!”

Eric became utterly silent at the hostile ultimatum and looked on to Melanie while Skyler suckled the bottle peacefully in contrast to everyone else.  “Fine.  But you have to give them up legally if you want to go.  I get full custody and you can’t say fuck one about it if you change your mind.”

“Fine, I don’t care!  You can have them if you want them so bad!”

Everything was different again, quiet, Eric was lying in bed and the argument with Melanie had only been a dream.  A throw back to the real argument where a part of his family declared it would leave and not return.  The bedroom was black and silent as he stared upward into nothing.  The only sound to interrupt the silence came from Aubrey who was purring loudly for his size every time he exhaled and leaving silence when he inhaled.  He couldn’t see Aubrey in the darkness but the snow leopard was laying on his side and nuzzled into him with his head on Eric’s out stretched arm.  Turning his head to Aubrey, Eric placed his lips on the cats head between the grey and black fur of his forehead and the golden bangs that hung over his face.  “You purr way to loud, babe.”  He said to the sleeping feline.

Chapter 5

“Dude, you have to tell me when you’re staying at his place.  I want to know when you’re not going to be in the dorm for the night.”  Trent, Sarah and Aubrey sat along steel mesh benches that ran along the second floor of the school’s academic building.  The hallway was a mezzanine that over looked an open social area with vending machines and seating on the first floor.  Aubrey was on the floor across from Trent and Sarah and leaning against the railings with a view of the students below from the corner of his eye.

“What?”  Aubrey was clearly confused by Trent’s demand.

“If I have the room all to myself, I can bring Sarah in.”

Aubrey leaned his head back into vertical metal bars of the railing and groaned.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t know we had to sync up our sex schedules.”

“Don’t say things like that!  You’re making it sound weird.”

Sarah, sitting next to her raccoon, giggled at the exchange and shook her head.  “Don’t tell him anything, Snowmew.  I like having a bed to myself.”

Aubrey grinned back at Sarah while he shifted his weight and pulled his tail around to lay it around his crossed legs.  “Sure you’re not up to other stuff in the Dyke-Dorms?”

“You have a girlfriend I don’t know about?”

“Don’t call them that.  I was supposed to be in a co-ed dorm but I got bumped after someone screwed something up.  And they aren’t all lesbians; they’re mostly girls from protective families who don’t want to live with boys.”  Sticking her tongue out at Trent, the cheetah smirked before continuing with Aubrey.  “Speaking of living with boys, how’s been staying with the wolf cubs?”

“Weird.”  Aubrey was making an awkward face.  “It’s not something I really thought about before and having kids around when you’re with your boyfriend can get kind of awkward.”

“Don’t like it?”

“It’s that I don’t like it, it’s that I have to keep my guard up.  No sexual innuendo, sometimes they wake up in the middle of the night for some reason and Eric swats me whenever I say ‘fuck’ or something.”

“Like this?”  Raising her paw, white fur on the palms and golden fur on the back with spots starting at her wrist, she gave Trent a playful but noticeable swat to the back of the head.

“Hey!  Fuck!”

“Don’t say fuck!”  She swatted him again.

“Fuck.  What!?”

“You’re not learning!”  A third time she hit him.

“Alright!  Alright!”

“Yeah,” Aubrey blinked.  “But not as hard.”

“Oh, I’m thinking I’m not hitting him hard enough, Snowmew.”  Grinning wickedly, Sarah bore her teeth at Trent.

“I said I give!”

Aubrey turned away from the mock domestic violence for a moment with something catching his eye from the floor below.  “Blue.”

“Blue?”  Sarah asked and abandoned Trent as a subject of interest.

“Holy shit, he’s blue.  I know that guy, he’s, uhm, damn.  I knew him in first year I think.”  Aubrey motioned his head to below while pointing out.  Amongst the crowd, drawing obvious glances from students him was a hare that was bright blue.  He once had been nearly pure white but today he was demonstrating quite unnatural colors.

“What?  Blue?  Where?”  Sarah came to the railing and leaned over while gawking at those below.  “That’s Nick!  Nick’s blue!”  She started waving and shouting out.  “Nick!  Nick!  You’re blue!  BLUE!”

“You know him?”  Aubrey had become pressed uncomfortable against the railing with Sarah stretching over him to jeer over the side.

“I went out with him for like a month after frosh!”  Sarah exclaimed.  It was a remark that only brought an uncomfortable look from Trent.  “That’s a lot of Manic Panic!  How much did that cost!?”  She referred to the dye job that some people undertook for the sake of personal aesthetics.  Almost exclusively people were natural tones and taking on solid pure colors that they didn’t naturally have or adding decorative markings stood out.  While some people dyed their hair various colors, it wasn’t unheard of for some to color their entire bodies.  The down side was, most species shed their complete coats in six to twelve months and maintenance of the dyed fur becomes problematic.

“It’s Kool-aid!”  Nick shouted back up to Sarah.  He seemed annoyed but many people were looking at him and it was to be expected.

“Guys!”  Sarah dove backwards and hung from the railing still.  “What flavor is blue?”

“Raspberry?”  Trent said, despite being unsure.

“Yeah!”  Sarah perked up and thrust herself forward again to holler down.  “RASPBERRY BOUNCY BUNBUN EARS!”  The only response Sarah garnered was the hare’s middle figure held up to her while walking out of view under the mezzanine.  Darting back from the rail, she turned to both males who had watched her with morbid curiosity at her excitement.  “Come on!  Let’s go find him!”  Turning away from them, Sarah saw no need to wait for their company.

Standing up, Aubrey watched the cheetah run off in excitement and he blinked several times.  “I’m glad she’s not my girlfriend.”

“I’m glad I’m not blue.” Said Trent.

“If you were, she might try to find out if you taste like raspberries.”

Smiling to himself, Trent shook his head Aubrey.  “Having fun back in the real world, rather than playing house with the wolves?”  He asked quickly before moving to pursue Sarah before she did something embarrassing.

The words stunned Aubrey and he only managed to repeat them.  “Playing house?”  At only nineteen years old, he was more adept to dorm life in the school despite its costs and didn’t really know what to think of staying with Eric.  It had only been a few times and he wasn’t living with Eric, just visiting.  Eric had a family and Aubrey felt like an awkward visitor when he came over.  It was a strange feeling, similar to when he returned to his parents’ home since moving out.

---

With night cast over the city, a pair of police cars sat in the parking lot of an all night convenience store.  Inside was Eric and another officer, this one a mouse.  Both men were laden in dark blue uniforms, body armor, weapons and other equipment.  Eric stood by the self service coffee display, filling up a large cup before turning his head to see the other officer.

“Eric?  I thought you were back on days.”  The nameplate on the front of his vest read ‘Morrison, Michael’.  He offered a friendly nod to the clerk behind the counter before getting behind Eric to fetch his own coffee.

“I am.  Double shift.  Tim begged me to take his shift so he could do some thing his wife was dragging him to.”  He handed off the cup he just filled to Michael and started another.

“Nothing wrong with picking up extra hours.”

“Extra hours, minus five dollars an hour and ten dollars after nine to keep the babysitter there all night.”  The wolf raised his waxed paper cup of coffee in a toast at the cost of keeping his children safe.

“I’m sure the babysitter’s happy.”

“She loves me.  Her parents hate me.”

“Speaking of which, I hear you have some chick now.  You brought her to the station a couples times when you were getting off shift.  A leopard?”  The mouse began nodding his head and grinning suggestively.  “All those spots down the back?  Those are pretty hot on girls.”

Sipping at the hot coffee, Eric slipped past Michael to pay at the counter.  “Boyfriend, actually.  He’s just short and stuff.”

“Wait,” Tail wisping behind him, Michael quickly came up behind and placed his hand on Eric’s shoulder to turn him around.  “Are you kidding me?  You have an ex-wife and kids, man.”

“Don’t start that macho shit with, Mike.  It’s just-”

Eric’s words were quickly cut off as the radios clipped to their vests began to squawk out a notice.  “Available units in the vicinity of Patterson and Rosemont respond, ten-eighty one at two three six six unit three Patterson, possible robbery in progress.”

Setting the coffee on the counter by the clerk, he raised his hands apologetically to the clerk who realized the coffee would stay and not be paid for.  “Sorry.”  Reaching for his radio he depressed the talk button on the handset.  “Dispatch, Charlie Two Five, responding.  Five minutes out.”

Michael followed close behind Eric towards the door as the two rushed to their cars.  “Dispatch, Charlie One Eight, responding.  Five minutes out.”

The location of the robbery alarm was a strip mall that looked poorly maintained.  Cracks and potholes in the parking lot and the light post over one entrance was completely burnt out.  The gap of darkness offered Eric the chance to pull in unnoticed with his lights off.  Michael’s car pulled around to secure the rear but they were the only officers responding to the call.  Along the front of the strip mall, all the shops had their all night lighting on with one exception, a video game store with an interior shrouded in darkness.  Any light from the parking lot reflecting off the window panes.  Eric pressed himself against the wall outside the store and looking across the entrance with his hand gun drawn.  The window of the door had been broken in, the thief likely just reached through the steel bars behind the glass and opened the lock.  Eric wondered why the store didn’t feature a protective shutter.

Running around the corner with his weapon drawn as well, Michael came up behind Eric and planted himself along the wall.  “Back door’s still locked.”

Turning back to glance at Michael with a brow raised, Eric then faced forward again.  “What if he runs out the back?”

“I parked my car an inch from door.  It’s not going to open more than a crack if he tries. Or would you rather go in the front alone?”

“We need to hire more guys.”  Breathing slowly and focusing on the door he let out a short sigh.  “Door window’s broken and someone’s moving around inside.  Seen a few flashes, he’s got a flashlight probably.”

“Ready?”  Michael pulled his flashlight from his belt and held it in his left hand under the gun with his thumb over the switch.  He was trying to conceal their presence until making themselves known and didn’t want the light to give them away too soon.

Eric glanced down to his weapon and flashlight for a moment and then nodded before moving slowly up to the door.  “This is the police!  Drop any weapons and come out of the building slowly!”  He waited for a response, no words were heard but the flashlight inside the building reflected off the windows for a moment, followed by something being dropped and ending in a quiet thud.  Motioning to Michael, Eric raised his paw with flashlight between his thumb and forefinger, silently counting down from three with his fingers.

Moving in, Michael hauled the door open and Eric entered first with his weapon draw and aiming towards the racked rows of video games and accessories.  In the darkness the flashlights reflecting off the walls and shelves offered the only lighting.  Michael was the first to catch the form of a person in the store but it darted off.  “He’s going left side!”  Michael shouted.  In the motion, the burglar dropped his own light and it fell to the ground casting a white circle onto the wall that was distracting to the eye.

Eric caught the burglar in his flashlight as he moved to the left side of the store and saw a familiar form in his hands before he dodged right.  “Gun!”


“Drop your weapon!”  Michael barked out as he moved to intercept their prey.

Finally caught in both flashlights and freezing in a position between a pair of displays stood the form of a person.  The ears suggesting feline but neither officers could determine species without the lights on.  He looked up slowly with the weapon in one hand and a fist full of dark grey game cases with colored labels across them.  With both hands full he started to move, only meaning to raise his hands to surrender but the motion seemed threatening with the handgun.

“Don’t move!”  Eric was one movement short of firing before the burglar could raise his own weapon.  The cat stood silently, chest heaving and clearly terrified from being held at gun point.  His eyes shot to Michael for just a flash, ensuring he also had a clear shot in the event that they had to defend themselves.  “Crouch down slowly!  Put your weapon on the floor and step back!”  The cat didn’t even nod but complied with their orders.

Laying face down on the floor with his hands held behind his head, Michael kept his weapon on the cat until Eric found the light switches and brought the store to full brightness.  “You have the right to remain silent.”  Eric reholstered his handgun while he read the cat his rights.  “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

“Jesus kid, how old are you?  Fifteen?”  Michael finally looked over their burglar as he placed the handcuffs behind his back and helped him sit up.  “You know all the cases are empty, right?  They keep the discs and stuff locked in the back room.”  Standing the kid up, he carefully picked up the gun and looked at it closely.

“F-fourteen.”  He was terrified, ears lain back and his tail puffed out as an unconscious reaction to the police storming the store.  His markings were mixed, with chocolate browns along the back of his neck and arms while white ran along his front.  A mixed breed of cat.  A Siamese and domestic short hair.

“Idiot.”  Eric remarked to himself while coming around from the store’s counter toward the cat.  “And where the hell did you get that thing, anyway?  Going to try to shoot someone over some games?”

“It’s a god damn toy.”  Michael said with the gun in his hands and looking it over.  It was too light and entirely made of plastic.  Realistic looking, detailed and the right color.  “It’s one of those B.B. guns that use compressed air.  Of all the stupid shit-”

Growling loudly, Eric picked the boy up, threw him against the back wall and held him there.  “What the fuck is wrong with you!?”

“God damn it Eric!”

“We could have fucking killed you!”  The cat’s feet were off the ground as Eric clutched into his shirt, muzzle to muzzle and pressed him into the back room door.  “You think it’s smart to take some god damn toy and fuck around with the cops!  If you had moved your arm up one more fucking inch you’d be bleeding on the floor and waiting for the fucking ambulance!”

“I just wanted the games!”  The cat was starting to cry and the wolf was scaring the hell out of him.  “I thought someone might come in to steal them from me after or something!  I’m sorry!”

“Eric, put him the hell down!” Still growling, Eric turned to Michael with his teeth showing and his tail raised high.  Despite being a mouse, he was just as big as Eric and Michael pointed to the door while staring him down.  “Just take five minutes Eric.  We’re going to be dealing with him all night and we don’t need him telling his mother that you beat the shit out of him.”

---

“No, it wasn’t just species purity.”  Aubrey sat behind a small pile of textbooks, notebooks and his laptop computer with a group of other students.  They all sat at a table in a classroom that they had hijacked for a study group.  Energy drinks, cola and vending machine snacks lay piled in the center of the table while they reviewed their notes.  “During the second world war, he detested traditionally prey species that he saw as weaker inferior and that was the primary motivation behind the holocaust.”

“That’s retarded, people are on an entirely evolutionary tree now, what happens in the wild between actual animals is entirely different!”  Protested another student.

Aubrey shook his head.  “You don’t have to tell me, he was crazy, we all know that, but his crazy reasons are still going to be on the test.  Not to mention that-” Aubrey was cut off by his phone going off.  “H-hang on.  I gotta take this.”  Aubrey handed off a notebook to another student first.  After moving to a corner of the classroom, he opened the phone to silence its ringing.  “Eric?”  Quickly checking the caller ID screen again.  “It’s late, what is it?”

“I need a favor.”

“It’s almost midnight Eric, what’s wrong?”  Aubrey looked up to the desk where his study was group and called out to them.  “Hey!  Stay out of that folder on my computer!  You can see my notes, not my photos, damn it!”

“I need you to take care of the kids tonight.  Can you take a cab to my place?  Liz’s parents won’t let her stay much past midnight.  I told them I’d send someone else over.”

“I have a study group right now and I have a big test tomorrow.  What’s wrong with you Eric?  Are you alright?  Wait, why can’t you get home?”

“Something happened at work and now I have to do all the paperwork for it.  I can’t get home any time soon.  I’ll drive you back to school in the morning, I promise.  Aubrey, I can’t find anyone else at this time of night and you like the kids, right?”

Standing in silence with the phone to his ear, Aubrey glanced over the table where he had been the one with the best notes and knew the material better than anyone.  It was the others who needed help, he was only reviewing and memorizing.  “Okay, yeah.  I don’t have keys though.”

“Just buzz the door and Liz will let you in, then let her go home before her parents accuse me of kidnapping.”

“Are you okay, Eric?”

“Just a bad day.  I don’t know when I’ll get home, so don’t wait up babe.”

---

It was past three when Eric got home and he creeped quietly into the apartment.  Tired, frustrated and depressed by the day’s events, he just sighed as he saw no one about in the living room or kitchen.  Creaking the children’s room open he noticed the beds were empty as well.  Thinking for a moment and then looking down the hall, Eric opened his bedroom door to see inside.  The lamp on the night stand was still on but everyone was asleep.  Aubrey lay sprawled across the middle of the bed with both the wolf cubs.  Skyler, the affectionate one was lain across Aubrey, hind quarters on the bed but his arms and head lying across Aubrey’s chest.  Mathew on the other hand was curled into a ball and sleeping at the bottom corner of the bed.  Aubrey was still fully clothed while the children were in pajamas.  Smiling at sight, the wolf pulled his socks off and climbed onto the bed, careful of Mathew and finally laying next to Aubrey.

Aubrey felt the bed shifting and moving as Eric crawled onto it and it was enough to wake him up.  Opening his eyes, the snow leopard turned his head to see Eric nuzzling at him.  “They wouldn’t go to bed.  Sky wanted to sleep with me and then the other one just appeared when I wasn’t looking.”

“Matt’s sneaky like that.”  Relaxing his body as he lay next to his partner, he placed his arm over the leopard with his hand resting on his hip.  “I love you.”

While half asleep, Eric was able to jump start Aubrey’s mind with his words and he stuttered.  “W-what?  Wait, wait, well, okay.”

“And tomorrow you have to tell me why you’ve been so afraid of me saying that or you saying it.”

“Are you okay?”

“Whatever you do, don’t become a cop after you graduate.  It sucks.”

“I-” Aubrey went silent and stared up to the ceiling while he thought of what to say.  “I love you too.”

“Good boy.”

Chapter 6

“Say pomegranate.”  Aubrey sat across from Skyler at the dining room table in Eric’s apartment.  The scent of food still lingered in the air from dinner.  Winter had set and they were celebrating thanksgiving.  A store bought roast chicken and sides were scattered across the table and the bird had been picked clean.  Matthew sat at the other end of the table, still gnawing on drum stick and avoiding his peas.  Skyler had finished his dinner and now Aubrey was trying to fix the vocabulary mistake he had implanted into the wolf cub.

“Palmgrenade.”

Aubrey shook his head.  “No.  Palm-A-Gran-It.”

“Pammagranait.”

He sighed and shook his head.  “Skyler, no, it’s.  Wait.  Skyler, say ‘Pineapple’”

“Pineapple!”

Ears perking up, Aubrey lifted his head triumphantly and glanced over Eric.  “Okay, hun, from now just call ‘Palmgrenades’, ‘Pineapples’, okay?”

“Well that was easier than I expected.”  Eric came from the kitchen to collect the dishes off the table and stopped to look at Mathew, whose plate still held green vegetables.  “Come on Matt, you’re brother finished them.”

“Sky’s a suck up, Dad!”  He crossed his arms and huffed while looking down at the plate.

“Matt!  Don’t insult your brother!  You have to sit there until they’re gone, understand?”

Aubrey watched silently as Eric disciplined his son and didn’t want any involvement.  He felt detached from Eric’s family still, like an outsider who could watch but not directly interfere.  “Hmm?”  The snow leopard turned his head to his pocket where he felt his phone going off.  “Ah, hang on.”  Leaving the table he moved into the living room to answer his cell phone.  “Hello?  Oh… …Mom…?  …Happy Thanksgiving to you too…”

Tilting his head slightly, Eric looked on as Aubrey paced in the living room with his mother on the phone.  He’d never met Aubrey’s parents but knew that they were at least accepting of him.

“…I told you I was doing other stuff for thanksgiving...  …I’m at a friend's…”

A wolfs muzzle found itself resting an Aubrey’s shoulder with lips just away from the phone.  “He’s at his boyfriend’s house.”

“Eh!?”  Aubrey twisted around and covered the phone with his hand.  “Eric!”

“What?”  Grinning back at Aubrey, Eric held up his hands playfully.  “You said your parents wouldn’t care.”

“She can still embarrass me!”  Finally he put the phone back to his ear.  “What?  Yeah… …Yeah…  …Cause then you’d just ask me humiliating things…  …Fine…  …Wolf… …He’s a cop… …Yes a real cop!  Why does everyone ask me that when I tell them what he does!?  …Why are you asking so many questions…?  Ah… Eh?”  The phone was pulled from Aubrey’s hand by Eric, leaving Aubrey trying to reach for it back.

“Hello Mrs. Ramsden.”  Eric pushed Aubrey back playfully with his left arm whilst holding the phone in his right.  “Yes Ma’am…  …Eric Mitchell…  …I think he gets embarrassed easily…  …Oh really?...  …Was he always grouchy as a kid?”

“Eric!”  Aubrey’s ears were laid back and he struggled to reach out for the phone.  The fact that Eric had eight inches of height on him didn’t improve matters.  “Give it back!  Now!”

“No Ma’am.  He’s hopping up and down right now.  I think he’s afraid you’re going to tell me embarrassing things… …Yes, I’d love to hear them!  Start from kindergarten and go on from there….”

“ERIC!”  The leopard growled and made a more serious attempt for the phone, finally retaking it after Eric relented.  “Mom?  …No… …Don’t ask thinks like that… …Mom!...  …Yes, he’s good looking…”

Eric moved out of the living room and sat down at the table between his children.  “For a black and white leopard, he can turn pretty red, huh guys?”  Skyler nodded, blindly agreeing with his father while Mathew just looked confused and picked at his peas.

“…Yeah… I can come home for Christmas…  …Everyone…?  …Chris!?...”  Aubrey’s demeanor changed suddenly and his body seemed to sink a little.  “…No, it’s okay…  …I said it’s okay…  …You don’t have to tell him to stay…  …Mom!...  …It’s okay, damn it!  Alright!?...  …Okay…  …I have to go… …Yes, I’m fine…  …Yeah… …Bye…”  Pressing the red end button on the phone, Aubrey looked over to Eric with hears ears lain flat and tail hanging low submissively.  “Chris is coming home for Christmas.”

Glancing between his children, Eric shook his head, not knowing who ‘Chris’ was and simply looked back confused.  “Who?”

---

Aubrey sat on his knees in the center of Eric’s bed.  He looked anxious and tugged the end of his tail.  Holding his tail in his lap, he nervously twisted the fur between his fingers.

“Okay.”  Eric leaned back against the door, closing it until it latched.  “The kids are in bed.  What are you so freaked out about now?  Who’s Chris?”

“You’re gonna to think it’s weird.”

“Why?”

“Cause it’s weird!”

“Okay.  Relax.”  The wolf sat down at the edge of the bed and looked to the leopard with concern.  “Just say it.”

Aubrey managed to pull a pinch of hair out of his tail and rubbed his fingers together to disperse it.  Taking in a breath, he blurted out the words as quickly as he could and winced afterwards to await Eric’s reaction.  “When I was fifteen I started sleeping with my brother, Chris.”

“What?”  Eric didn’t quite get it or maybe he didn’t want to get it at first but eventually he did realize what he meant.  “Oh, Jesus Christ Aub, did he hurt you?”

“It wasn’t like that!”  Aubrey hissed out his words.  “Why does everyone have to think I’m the victim cause I’m the youngest and the smallest!?”

“Okay, okay.”  Eric held his hands out in an effort to calm Aubrey and hush him to avoid waking the children.  “Then what was it like?”

Aubrey clearly hated having to explain and feared what Eric would think of him afterwards.  He continued tugging at the fur of his tail and pulling out groups of three or four hairs at a time.  “Okay, he was five years older and lived on his own by then.  We just kind of got into doing things but he didn’t force me to do anything!  I-I kinda of initiated it even.”

“Aub,” Eric attempted to say something but was cut off.

“Let me finish!”  He took another slow breath and Aubrey continued.  “When I was sixteen we got caught and it all went to hell.  But nothing happened to me.  My parents just put me into therapy until I was eighteen, everything landed on Chris.  I’m always the baby in the family to my Mom and Dad, so they thought I was just protecting him when I said he didn’t make me do anything.  Dad and Chris got into a fight after and they beat the crap out of each other.  By the end of the month, Chris moved out west and hasn’t come home since.”

Eric took the story in slowly and just shook his head.  “Aub, you were only fifteen, you weren’t old enough to make decisions like-”

“Bullshit!”  Aubrey snapped at Eric.  “How old were you when you lost your virginity?”  Eric only looked back in silence with no change in his expression and not wanting to touch that subject.  “I was old enough to make my own damn mistakes, Eric.  That’s what it was.  It was a mistake.”  Releasing his tail, he leaned closer to Eric after brushing some of the fur from his jeans.  “Me and Chris both fucked up.  It was something we shouldn’t have done but it was a mistake we both made equally.  It’s not fair that Chris took all heat for it.”

“Okay.”  Eric nodded slowly as he pretended to understand while thinking up something else to say.  “So, do you still-”

“No!”  Aubrey was laying his ears again.  He didn’t like the assumptions made about his actions and the years of therapy and being told he was the victim left him quick to get frustrated over the topic.  “It was something I shouldn’t have done and it would have been a disaster and unhealthy either way.  I know that.”

“Alright.  So what are you going to do?”

Biting his lip, Aubrey looked to Eric with wide eyes.  “I don’t know.”  He rubbed his face as he began to tear up.  “Do you think he hates me?  And what if a big fight breaks out?  I can’t even hug him, cause what will my parents think if they just see that?”  He wiggled his toes before erupting into tears and diving face first into Eric’s chest.

“It’s alright, babe.”  Eric wrapped his arms around Aubrey and pulled him in close while rubbing his muzzle into his blond hair.  “If he hated you, he wouldn’t have taken all the blame and left to take it with him.  If your parents invited him to come down, maybe they’ve forgiven him?”

Rubbing his face against Eric’s chest and moving up until his chin rest on his shoulder, Aubrey sniffled.  He rubbed his eyes but the tears had already seeped into the fur of his face.  “I dunno.  We’ve never talked about it for years.  We just pretend it never happened.”

“Well, maybe you should just keep pretending and let Christmas go on without any problems?”  Eric didn’t know what to suggest and was grabbing at straws in hopes of calming his boyfriend.

Nuzzling his nose into Eric’s neck but still sniffing, Aubrey moved until he was Eric’s lap.  “Will you come with me?”

Eric’s head jerked and he took a second to come to words.  “To your parents?  For Christmas?”  With a nod from Aubrey, he sighed and thought about it.  “Yeah, I guess.  It’s a month away, right?  The Ramsden Family Christmas?”

“Don’t make it sound so corny.”

Ashes wrote:I can only write so fast!  But of course there's more!

It takes time however to write a true, western style, awkward family Christmas that we all know and love!