FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The pavement beneath him looked filthy as Brennan continued to plod along it, eyes glued to the concrete. In the big city, it was extremely easy to blend in among the other furs when you wanted to hide. Despite his height and general musculature, even the young coyote was able to conceal himself amongst the other passersby and avoid being recognized, especially when he chose to walk so slowly.

Just another face amid the furs, he kept telling himself. Don't let anybody see you like this.

Minutes seemed to pass by at an excruciatingly slow rate as he moved, wanting to be at home in bed but unable to put the effort into getting there. Each step sapped his energy away like a leech on his soul. The core of his being shrank down to the size of a raisin, shriveled and lackluster, unable to even hold his head up straight.

He felt a very gentle tap on his shoulder. Looking to his left, he saw a smaller coyote walking beside him, red fur practically glowing in the late-afternoon sun. His green eyes stood out in stark contrast to their fiery surroundings, looking up at Brennan with a slightly intrigued worry. Below his muzzle lay a small mouth that molded itself into a concerned frown. Tight jeans and a concert t-shirt framed his thin body. A long, fluffy tail poked through a hole in the jeans, slowly swishing through the air behind him.

Wanting to avoid all contact with life, Brennan gave the the stranger a small smile, then returned his gaze to the pavement, focusing once again on the filth resting on top of it. Rusted pennies sat alongside the smashed bits of gum, little bits of magazine paper occasionally adding pops of color. With every burdened step, he found himself stepping on a new piece of rubbish, and he almost felt like his energy had flowed into the ground completely.

"Excuse me, can I ask what's wrong?"

Brennan looked over at the source of the smooth, whispered voice to see those same, cautious green eyes gazing up at him. The coyote looked incredibly worried, as if they had been friends for years, his footsteps matching Brennan's almost equally to keep pace.

For a moment, Brennan held the eye contact. Unstable and unsure, his own tired eyes glanced up and down the coyote's form, trying to recall whether or not he had seen this fur before. Dark red skin... Worn-down shoes... A scar along the inside of his ear. Brennan knew he would have remembered that. This coyote was completely new to him. Deep down, Brennan wanted to talk to this stranger, to rant for hours about everything that had been racing through his mind for the last few days, but he instinctively sniffled and snapped his head back down toward the ground. He had forgotten he was crying.

The voice came back a little more strongly, "Have you ever eaten at De La Calle?"

Brennan slowed his pace to a complete stop. Was this little guy actually trying to pass them off as friends? And why? Nobody in this town paid attention to anyone other than themselves unless they could gossip about it later. Then the thought crossed Brennan's mind that this might be the plan of the smaller coyote all along: to completely fake a friendship, bragging about his thoughtless act to all of his equally selfish friends.

The stranger's smooth voice stopped his train of thought. "Oh, sorry. My name is Vick. I know you don't know me, and I know it's weird, and I know I'm pushy, yada yada yada. But I saw you and I just thought to myself, you know what I would want if I were in that guy's shoes? Street tacos. And some awesome Mexican soda."

He waited for a moment, looking for some sort of acknowledgement in Brennan's eyes, but got nothing in response, so he continued, "So I figured I may as well ask if you wanted to go. If you don't want to, then... well... I can't just let you go without even trying to help. That's not fair to you."

Brennan did raise his head at that. All week, that's all he had felt. That things weren't fair. That nobody even cared if things weren't fair. Not only that, but they almost enjoyed putting Brennan down with all of the unfairness. Now, this complete stranger was putting himself down to make sure things were fair to him.

Hah. What a joke.

He turned his head, expecting to see the coyote holding in his laughter. What he got instead were those same worried eyes, the same burrowed forehead, the same little frown, and little nervous ticks through the fingers. Vick hadn't changed his stance one bit.

With this, Vick drove out the courage to speak again, "So, what do you say? Just to get your mind off of whatever's going on?"

Brennan's own teal eyes bore down upon the smaller canine with complete wonder as a hesitant silence hovered there between them. The steady stream of traffic beside them sent a rumbling through the air, ruffling the fluff on the sides of Brennan's neck. Tiny drops of humidity, or maybe sweat, lay in a thick layer around him, encapsulating him within the warm air.

More intrigued than anything, Brennan kept his gaze on the stranger. Vick. I don't get it... I really don't get it...

But a slow gurgling in his stomach focused his thoughts on the situation and he began to show the smallest hint of a smile for his coyote acquaintance. He's weird, that's for sure. But maybe I'm being too hard on him.

"S-sure," he managed to choke out.

Vick stood motionless for only a few seconds before smiling broadly. "Good. I won't make you talk too much." The two of them started walking towards the restaurant, only a few blocks away, and Vick kept his word. Throughout the stroll, Vick never once opened his mouth, never tried to force any conversation, and let Brennan keep his thoughts to himself, which he greatly appreciated.

He still couldn't figure out what he thought about Vick. Confusion dominated against twinges of admiration, fear, and the depression that had been hanging over his world for so long. The situation as a whole just seemed too unrealistic to believe. Every time he glanced over at his new acquaintance, he told himself once again that it had to be some sort of trick; nobody would ever offer to take a complete stranger to dinner just because he looked a little droopy. What a ridiculous thought.

But somehow this is actually happening... I must be insane...

After several more minutes they arrived at the small, diner-sized eatery. Brennan had been here several times before. In fact, the last time he had gone out to eat was at this same restaurant several weeks earlier. The heat rising from behind the register brought with it a tantalizing aroma of grease and grilled meats. Both of the servers and even one of the cooks knew him by name, a sign of their hospitality and stance on customer satisfaction. And the tables were covered in plastered concert posters, all announcing a different musical act in Spanish. This was the only place to go for Mexican cooking.

Within what seemed like less than a minute, the pair had been seated in the back booth, received their sodas, and put in their orders for food. That was another thing this place had always been great about: speed. Every time Brennan had been here in the past, it had taken less than ten minutes from walking in the door until the waiter handed him his food.

Vick sat without a sound and studied the posters on the table, a small, meek smile still on the corners of his lips. Brennan looked down and sighed silently. He knew he wanted to talk, and he knew Vick would want to listen. And if there were a time to talk about what were on his mind, it would be now...

"Vick, I got fired today."

The power in his own voice surprised him. Vick, however, calmly raised his head and looked at him, the smile now vanished from his face.

"You mean, fired fired?"

Brennan gave himself another sigh and nodded his head. "Yeah, fired fired."

Another silence lingered over them as Vick closed his eyes for a moment. Deep breaths escaped from his lungs as he took in the stress of the situation. He gave Brennan a moment to cope with his thoughts before reopening his eyes. "What happened?"

"It was my fault..." Brennan said surprisingly quickly. "I sent a shipment to the wrong address, thousands of dollars worth of equipment to someone's house rather than our sister company. When I finally realized my mistake, I told my boss, and of course he was not happy. He told me that if we ended up losing all of that stuff, it wasn't going to be the only thing not coming back. We waited for about a week and, well, we finally had to accept that we had lost it all..." He felt his voice beginning to crack slightly. "That's the worst part, it's my fault and I... I know it's my fault... This was my dream job, you know? I was really happy. And I don't even have anybody else to blame for it... Why am I even telling you this..."

He felt his eyes start to give in to tears but wiped them away and instead tried to focus on the smells of food. A nice smokiness was filling the air and blended perfectly with the ever-present greasiness. Each hiss of the grill sent a little pang of hunger up through his stomach and made his senses work a little bit harder until he could almost taste his meal. Saliva began to build up in his mouth with anticipation, making his stomach work even harder until his entire being was surrounded with the thought of this food.

He suddenly jerked himself out of his trance, remembering that Vick was still there. When he looked up, Vick was still sitting silently and staring at him, apparently waiting for this signal to speak.

"Not to sound weird, but I don't know your name yet."

Brennan closed his eyes and looked down at his lap, paws tentatively folded over his legs. "Brennan... I'm Brennan."

"Well, Brennan, it's nice to meet you." Both canines looked at each other and smiled slightly before Vick dropped his and continued, "And it's not your fault."

"But-"

"No," he interrupted, "It's not your fault. When an accident happens, you can't blame anyone. Sometimes it goes unnoticed, sometimes it hurts somebody, and sometimes it ends in disaster. Like it did for you. But you had good intentions, so you can't say it's your fault."

Brennan let this sink into his head a moment, then went on, "But it was still so stupid... Even if I had the best intentions in the world, what I did wasn't a good thing at all. I cost my company thousands..."

"You aren't perfect. If you expect yourself to never mess up, well, you'll be disappointed every single day of your life." Vick seemed to want to talk more, but he stopped himself before going too far, knowing that Brennan wasn't ready for anything else yet.

Thankfully, the food arrived and brought a solid reason for the silence. Brennan thanked the waiter and quickly took his first bite, the smoothness of the taco meat coating his throat with oil. A quiet groan croaked its way from his throat as he felt his stomach thanking him. He closed his eyes and breathed out as he swallowed, "It's as good as ever."

Vick gave a small chuckle across the table as he took his first bite, glad to hear the silence broken. The two sat quietly as they let the food calm their minds.

Near the front, a tigress burst out into laughter as her male partner continued his story in a hushed tone, his entire face in a bright smile. Their empty plates rattled slightly as she kicked the floor with each bout of laughter, trying desperately to hold it in, and failing. After a few moments of guffawing, she finally began to slow down, but the male leaned in even closer and whispered something to her, causing a whole new uproar of laughter. A waiter looked over at them from the register and smiled, clearly enjoying the good vibes in the restaurant.

The food itself certainly helped bring the mood up as well. Brennan had tried making these tacos at home, but they never came out with the right proportions. Each taco had only a few ingredients: onions, garlic, cumin, tortillas, and, of course, the marinated meat, but De La Calle was the only place around that knew exactly how to put it all together. As he started on his final taco, Brennan couldn't help but appreciate, yet again, the perfection of this place.

A burst of warm air rushed in from the door, surrounding Brennan and his last, half-eaten taco with dense humidity as a pair of young male cats entered the restaurant. They quickly sat down near the front, chatting away about something Brennan could not quite make out. He started to bring his focus back to the meal when a glint from a wedding band on one of their fingers stopped him. His eye instinctively flicked to the other feline to see if there was a wedding band on his paw as well. There was. Before he could even wonder about their wives, the two felines leaned across the table and gave each other a quick kiss.

Brennan felt his heart flutter slightly as he went back to work on the taco. Only a month earlier had gay marriage been legalized in the city, so he still got excited whenever he got to see its results. Of course, not everyone was openly accepting, but public relationships like this gave Brennan hope.

He scraped off the bottom of his plate with a fork, polishing off his meal with a full stomach. He looked up at Vick who, somehow, had already finished all of his tacos as well and had gone back to studying the posters on the table. He really hasn't said all that much... I'm sure he's just trying to give me space. But I really hope he doesn't think I'm ignoring him...

"Hey, Vick?"

Vick brought his gaze up from the table and met Brennan's with the same calm expression. "Yes?"

"Why were you so intent on making sure I was okay?"

Vick's face froze, and Brennan saw just a hint of something he hadn't seen in those eyes yet: sadness. Immediately he regretted saying anything.

"I'm sorry, you don't have to answer..."

"It's okay, really. It's just a bit of a long story." He looked up at Brennan, expecting the conversation to end there. Instead, he saw the larger coyote gazing back at him softly, a solemn look on his muzzle. He took this as his sign to continue.

"Well, about six months ago, I ended a relationship with this really sweet guy named Jake. He was a beautiful feline with an incredibly sweet personality, but I just wasn't in love with him. Which sounds terrible, I know, but I couldn't bear to keep it going anymore knowing it would only hurt him more in the long run. So at the end of a movie night, right as the credits were rolling, I broke up with him. Talk about feeling guilty..."

At this, he looked up at Brennan and gave a slight smile before speaking again, "He started to cry. Not just a tear or two, but the kind where your breathing stops almost completely because you're shaking so badly. And, more than anything, I wanted to leave. I knew how he felt was all my fault and it really, really hurt to stay there. But instead of leaving, I held him. For almost an hour I sat with him, his head on my chest, waiting for him to calm down and trying to make sure he knew I would still be there. And he believed me. And for several weeks afterward, I was, and everything was fine.

"Then, one night, I got a really terrifying message from him. 'Thanks for being there for me. You've helped me more than you know, but you won't have to worry about me anymore.' I knew he had a history of depression, but I never thought, you know..."

Brennan's stomach threatened to reject all of the food he had just eaten. Such a simple question had turned into a barrage of emotion, and he wasn't sure he could handle it all. But he kept listening all the same.

"By the time I got there, the police had already been notified, and I saw him standing on top of the Harding building complex. Everyone was crowded around that spot, intent on trying to get him to come down. Furs screaming, police sirens blaring, it was like something out of a movie. He didn't move for a minute or two, and it hit me that he never intended to jump from that side. No. Not in front of all of those people; that wasn't him. So I took four of the nearest cops and asked them to follow me to the other side of the building, which they did after I explained what I thought was going on. We grabbed the awnings off of all of the nearby businesses and laid them on top of each other as quickly as possible, about 18 in all, attempting to try and catch his fall... Sure enough, we did. 15 of them broke, but the last three managed to stop him only a few inches above the concrete."

When he paused, Brennan noticed for the first time that Vick hadn't cried during this whole story. His voice wavered occasionally and it never rose above a mumble, but it also never cracked. Brennan looked even closer to try and see if the coyote was shaking, but all he saw were dry eyes focused down into his own lap. Once they finally rose and Vick's gaze met Brennan's, he actually gave a short, low rumble of a laugh.

"Sorry, heh, I definitely didn't mean to go that far. Anyway, he cut off contact, but he's fine. Turns out one of my friends, well, they used to be my friend, sent him a bunch of really mean messages from my phone when I wasn't looking. So believe me, I felt like it was my fault for quite a long time before coming to terms with it. I tried. And that's the best I could do. All of that's to say that I refuse to let anything like that happen again."

Vick calmly hailed the waiter once he had finished, calling out, "La cuenta, por FA: " His demeanor hadn't changed one bit since they sat down. Always calm. Always honest. Attentive beyond belief. What tiny notion of sadness Brennan had first noticed disappeared only seconds after it came. Not even his ears changed their position, like he could have told the story without even thinking about it.

"Vick... That's not going to happen with me. I promise."

The red coyote turned his attention back to Brennan and smiled broadly. "Well of course not! Pecs like yours come around, what, maybe twice in a lifetime? Can't let those go to waste!" Brennan allowed himself a little smile.

"There it is!" Vick proclaimed proudly. "If I had known all it would take to get you to smile was telling you my life's story I would have started with that!"

The waiter brought them their check, and Vick immediately took it up to the counter alone, coming back to leave the change on the table. As soon as Brennan opened up his mouth to protest, Vick stopped him and said, with a wink, "Too late for that now!" They gave a hearty thanks to the cooks as they moved through the restaurant and pushed the door open, walking into the evening air, a little more quickly than before.