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"Stop lying."

"I'm over him. I think."

"Still lies, dude! Am I even worth lying to? Like I'm what, a social half a step above some stranger on the street, and you're lying this hard."

"I have to be over him, though. Everyone says I should be. Everyone says it's time to be done with all this bullshit, so," sip, "I'm over him."

"A valiant attempt at the truth." He smiled and patted my shoulder with a broad paw. Rafa. We'd been talking for almost an hour at the bar. A cougar I'd known way back in college. A friend, though we'd never gotten too close - he was a couple years younger than I was and we mostly knew one another through a small choir we had overlapped in for a few years.

Rafa was one of those naturally gregarious types, willing to press boundaries in the name of bringing out all that swirling negativity we all keep underneath the surface; the drill that pounds down into the bedrock to release the pressure and is fully capable of handling the blowback. He stood at a solid 6'3" and had apparently spent the last six years toning himself. He wore a tight, bright green shirt that yanked his chest into stark relief with every turn and roll of his shoulders, a magnificent visual distraction whenever what consciousness was left in my mind wanted to retreat from the indomitable truths he was sucking from my veins.

I smiled in appreciation. It had taken a long time, but I no longer hated this sort of treatment. I balked at it, whined, put up walls, but I let it happen; I let him dig, and treasured the effort. "So, fine. I'm not over him. I don't know when I will be. Possibly never, although... that's sort of a sickening thing to say, right?" He shrugged through a gulp of his whiskey sour. I had an old fashioned cupped in both paws. Whiskey was the name of the night. "And you? I'm not usually one to judge appearances, but back in college I wouldn't've thought you were, y'know." I waved a limp-wristed paw at his attire. "Flamboyantly homosexual. Not that I mind the display. Any luck finding more permanent admirers?"

He laughed - loud, huge, throbbing out into the bar, and I loved it. "Fuck! Man, no, and HAH I saw your eyebrow, so shut up with your face hole and your judgments, 'cuz I know what that says. Some hard-bodied dude unable to catch a steady hand usually means there're too many red flags to ignore, right?"

I couldn't help but giggle at myself and my obvious, silent assertions. My ear tips went red and I shrugged sheepishly. "Come on, dude, you know most kids of any age don't get that; we have to make our assumptions here and there."

"The red flags are that I get hella nervous. Ain't that adorable?" He grinned, but this time it was more reserved. Instead of merriment twinkling its way from gaze to gaze, there was a flickering of his eyesight as he raised the glass to his lips again. "Fucking adorable. And you know all these dudes... you know, I thought it would be different dating dudes? I don't want to be called adorable, man. I... fuck, I like dicks. I didn't wrap my head around it for a long time, but I do, and so when suddenly the chance steps up for me to get with a dude and we get to the part of the night when the dicks come out, I like... I treasure it. And I sit there and stare, and worship etceteras," Here, he flicked his wrist in the air dramatically, "and suddenly some five-foot-eight no offense but to me most of you folk are pretty dang short so some five-foot-eight or shorter fairy is telling me 'oh-my-gawd that's so cute' and I'm like, fuck." His glass hit the bar fractionally louder than I could tell he intended. "I'm not fuckin' cute, and if I am, I don't need you to say it. This is hard for me, to be... to be queer, y'know? I'm not... there, yet." Without knowing it, he had lifted his shoulder between the two of us. It was felt. It was a barrier, and we both looked gently at it until he consciously relaxed it and looked at me, then sighed, realizing how much he'd said. "You're 'there,' aren't you? After that guy?"

"Without stomping on your tail, yeah, man. I know exactly what it means to go limp from one or two words."

You're so... bright. And now that word was anathema to me. Forever.

I meandered around the next few words. "But I also have found out where... all those palisades and façades and moats and curtains are, or at least a lot of them, and... I can ease my way past a lot of it, to sort of... let myself enjoy the moment, now and then. And hell, you think you get 'cute' and 'sweetie' a lot - try being a civet." I did a proper chortle over the rim of my glass, I did. It made the ice in the glass snicker on the cherry within it, which I impulsively snagged in my teeth and gulped down before realizing Rafa was watching me and smirking.

His voice was the Gobi. "I can't fathom why."

"Point! And honestly I've found myself enjoying the more classically gay interactions more and more. But. Yeah, I mean, at this point, I'm used to quelling that sort of uncomfortableness you're feeling. 'Dudes don't say "cute." Men don't call one another "handsome." Why can't we just like one another and have great sex and go on awesome dates?' I get it. And for me, it's almost entirely gone. I... love being called handsome. I love telling another man he looks good. I still get something of a thrill from that first touch, like, 'Oh, this is... this is defiance. This is owning who I am.'"

"I'm jealous of that," he said. His light caramel fur danced a little in the low light as he shifted in his seat. "I think that's awesome. I don't... Did you ever feel bad, for liking dudes? 'cuz back in college, and like just now about your ex, you talked about it so smoothly, like it was the most natural thing in the world. I... I want that, but even this, like." He gestured at the back of his neck. Through my inebriated haze, I actually hadn't noticed, but his nape was up, no matter how well his facial expression seemed to convey his sense of ease.

"In college, I was still pretty well practiced in, well, lying," I lilted, referring back to earlier in the conversation. "Now, well. Um." I let out a slow, measured breath through my nose, and ran with the words pummeling my tongue. "Loving Sorin felt like ho-ome." I had thought I could let the entire sentence out without choking, but the last vowel crashed into my larynx and had to limp its way out. I shoved a crutch under it and soothed my body from within with a determined roll of my shoulders. "I want that for every queer guy. I want that for every person. Loving the person you love should feel like home. Not like having to knock on a back window every time you want them."

I thought about another drink. I knew another drink was wrong. It would leave me stumbling home, sad, too scared to invite Rafa to come with me. I think he saw and heard that I tapped my fingers too hard against the wood of the bar while I stared at the ice cube sliding its way around my glass. "Drinks are cheaper at home," he ventured softly, questing carefully for my mental state. Brave as he was, the person he'd just asked for advice and mentorship was somber and staring at an empty glass of whiskey. It was a hard position to be in. A microcosm of a smirk tugged at my lip as I caught onto the dynamic I'd unwittingly created, and in an instant, he read it. He grinned a huge grin suddenly, in a flash fire of jubilance, raw chaos a courageous and chivalrous thaw against the conversational chill, and slapped my shoulder. "I said come on home with me, Ax. We'll get good and proper drunk and blow bubbles in our woes."

"There we go," I muttered at him with a roll of my eyes and a playful baring of teeth. We paid for our drinks and made a show of stumbling out of the bar together just for the sheer silly joy of it, our intentions obvious to every onlooker, and goddammit but we were a handsome pair. Him in his neon green shirt and cargo shorts and me in my cobalt button-up from work and pink tie and slacks, we were a colorful, gay couple-for-the-night, and it felt pretty fuckin' good.