FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Love is not something that everyone finds easy to show, or to find. But me... I... well, I love it. :3 To show that, this series of short, single-scene stories is all about the many aspects of love.

Love Is... Being there when they need you the most.

A crash, then a cry of pain. Emma was lying on her and Martin's bed, spending a lazy Sunday morning reading when she heard her lover's howl of agony. With her heart pounding she leapt up from the bed and all but threw her book aside, darting out through the bedroom door and down the hallway as fast as her legs would carry her. The vixen took the stairs two at a time, not a single thought put to her own safety as she heard her boyfriend call out her name in a plaintive, fearful tone. She tore through the living room and into the kitchen, where Martin had been attempting to replace the fluorescent strip-light which had stopped working the night before.

There were none of the pools of blood which the female's vivid imagination had feared seeing, and yet in some ways the sight which greeted her was just as horrifying. Martin lay, crumpled and crying openly, with one of his legs still caught within the semi-collapsed structure of the stepladder he'd been using to get up to the light. That leg was bent at an angle which nature had clearly never intended for it to be set in, and though it was covered by a pair of jeans the breaking point was graphically visible. Emma screamed, rushing over to her lover and dropping to her knees beside him. She reached out, as though intended to gather him up in her arms, but drew back in fear at the last possible moment. What if by touching him she made his injury worse? What if he got a blood vessel trapped, or a clot broke off and floated up to his brain?! Suddenly every medical drama TV show the female had ever seen was spilling dark and cruel plot twists into her mind left, right and centre. It was only Martin's voice, high and trembling, which drew her back to reality.

"Emmy... be a dear, p-phone for an ambulance will you?"

He tried to smile along with his attempt at making light of the situation, but the tears streaming in hot trails down her face and the pain contorting his features took something away from the already stretched humour. It was more for his own benefit than Emma's anyway, to prove to himself that he wasn't as terrified as he felt... that he could still make jokes with the best of them. In truth though, as the vixen nodded and rose to her feet with a choked sob, leaving Martin alone with his agony once again, the collie was scared. He had never been more fearful, or aware of his own cold and fleeting mortality!

Never in his life had the male done more than graze his knees in a fall, or at the most extreme encountered some bruising from one of the few fights he'd gotten into at school. To go from that to this... to broken bones, to mind-splitting pain, he wasn't prepared. What if he was hurt more than even his current level of pain suggested, and they had to amputate?! His life would be over, and his relationship with Emma... who in their right mind would choose a guy who'd become an amputee changing a goddamn light bulb, especially when they were beautiful and kind enough to have their pick of handsome, bipedal males far less clumsy than him.

Out in the hallway, Emma was already on the phone to the operator. She had already reeled off her address twice, and was currently doing so a third time just to make sure that the ambulance came to the right house. The phone in her paw was cordless, so she could quite easily have gone to stand by her lover as she called for help, but for some reason the thought of having to call for help whilst looking at the emergency she was calling about turned the female's stomach. Time and time again she crossed the hallway, walked through the living room to the kitchen door, only to turn on her heels and go right back to the hallway in a state of near catatonic dismay at her own weakness.

"No, there wasn't any blood I could see, but his leg was trapped... all twisted and, w-what? N-no, I'm sorry. No, I didn't try to free him. Should I? No. No, I wouldn't try to... don't worry. But please, t-tell them to hurry. I can't bear to see him lying there. It looks like he's in so much pain. Make them hurry. Please!"

Soon after that, the conversation ended and the operator hung up. As swiftly as she had lost it, Emma found her nerve again. The vixen darted back through to the kitchen and set herself down by the collie just as before. She leaned in close to Martin's pained, tear stained face and kissed him gently upon the forehead. He whimpered softly, and in a moment of perfect empathy Emma whimpered too. Their eyes met, both filled by salty tears and sorrow for what the other was going through. For a fraction of a second, they kissed. No sooner had their lips met though, the collie yelped in agony as he moved slightly, trying to firm up the minimal contact between Emma's muzzle and his own.

Like she had just been shot, the vixen drew back from her aching lover with a gasp of horror. She sobbed, reaching out instinctively once again before catching herself, compounding her frustration doubly! How was she supposed to help him, if she couldn't even touch him?!

"Goddammit! D-don't worry baby, they'll be here soon. You'll be fine. I promise, y-you'll be just fine."

Martin chuckled, wincing as pain wracked his body but truly unable to help himself this time. He stretched out the arm nearest Emma, grasping her paw in his before the vixen could draw back, and squeezing as hard as he could.

"I'll be fine, Emmy. People don't die from falling off stepladders. And... hey, maybe I'll get lucky. Worst case scenario, I have to hop up the stairs at night. But if I do, you might turn out to be a closet amputee fetishist!"

The vixen didn't find this funny at all, and a few seconds after the words had left his muzzle Martin realised what a stupid thing that had been to say. Emma wasn't the biggest fan of sex jokes at the best of times, and had told Martin this several times from the earliest days of their relationship. So why now, when he was in dire need of her support and she in need of solid reassurance had he chosen to throw that knowledge aside?

Somewhat cold and detached, Emma looked away from the collie and extracted her paw from his. With a rather empty tone she commented that the ambulance should have been there by now, and kept both her gaze and her hand free from the collie even after the fact. It wasn't that she was angry at him... the vixen didn't have a bone that wholly petty in her entire body, but the mere thought of her lover being forced into living the rest of his life with only one leg was enough to drive her mad with grief. She wouldn't stop loving him, of course not! But it was for her lover's own quality of life that the female was fearful. Would Martin never be able to take a walk with her again? At least, not without a crutch, a wheelchair or some sort of prosthetic to accompany them? Would he never be able to run, to jump, or to even play footsie under the table?

Yes, all these things relied on that worst case scenario which Martin had spoken of coming to pass, but it was one that now the female's frantically worried mind had no option to consider. The fact she had thought of it herself had been one thing, but to know that Martin was thinking the same thing, even in jest... it made that remote possibility seem somehow far more real. Besides, it was either to worry or to look at the collie; to look at Martin and see in her mind's eyes what for now was thankfully cast in dark, ominous shadows.

Given their somewhat strained states of mind, it was probably a very good thing that the couple's salvation arrived at that moment. A sharp, urgent knock at the door was followed by a cry of inquiry, drawing Emma free from those nervous, disembodied nightmares of her lover's future. She turned with a look of the utmost relief back to Martin, smiled with true reassurance, and darted up and off towards the door.

Twenty seconds later a pair of paramedics had joined the couple in their kitchen, bringing a stiff stretcher and large medical pack along with them. They examined the stepladder, and swiftly concluded that it was safe to remove Martin's leg from it. It would however hurt like hell, and so they offered Martin the option of a shot of painkiller first.

"Emmy... w-what do you think?"

Clutching the male's paw between her own once again, no encouragement needed this time, the vixen shook her head. This was Martin's decision to make. She knew how much he hated the idea of drugs that dulled the senses, to the point where he'd deliberately made the choice never to get drunk, but she also knew that he knew this much pain wasn't anything that willpower alone could handle. Emma wasn't going to force him into it, but nor could she guide him against taking the painkillers. If it was her, she'd be begging them to take the pain away. It was hard enough for her just to see a fur she loved in such distress!

"I think... y-you shouldn't try to be a hero. If it hurts that badly, and its only gonna get worse, you shouldn't put yourself through too much just to make a point. You've already been so brave. I know you'll be making the right decision for you, no matter what you choose."

Martin whimpered, closing his eyes as more tears ran down his cheeks.

"Thank you."

He murmured softly, so only she could hear, and then spoke up more loudly to the paramedics.

"Please, j-just something to take the edge off. It hurts. It hurts so fucking much..."

The lead paramedic, clearly well trained in the art of judging the pain thresholds of her patients, already had a syringe out of her case. She promptly drew a moderate dose of the painkiller into it and stooped low on the other side of the collie, across from Emma, to administer the dose.

"You'll feel a small pinch, then things will start to feel better. Of course, it won't numb you up completely, but it'll take the edge off."

Martin turned his head towards the paramedic for a moment, seeing a green scaled gecko smiling sympathetically down at him, and nodded in understanding. He swiftly turned his eyes back to Emma, and smiled as best he could in a show of entirely false but still admirable strength.

"Hold my paw, Emmy. Don't let go until they've got my leg f-free. Please... promise me you'll stay with me."

The vixen looked briefly up at the lizard, who nodded compassionately, then gazed back down into her boyfriend's reddened, tear filled eyes.

"I'll be here. I'll be here Marty, don't you worry. I'll ride in the ambulance with you, and I won't go home until I know you're a hundred percent okay. Okay?"

Whimpering slightly as the needle pushed its way into his arm, Martin nodded. Just a handful of seconds later he began to feel the effects of the pain medication. The pain of the broken leg was still there, but... not as close as it had been. Oddly though, it seemed that he could feel Emma squeezing his paw just as tightly and firmly as ever. She remained close at hand, living up to her word even as the rest of the world drifted away into a vague corner of reality.

"Okay Martin..."

Another voice, that of the paramedic.

"...we're going to pull the ladder away now."

The collie groaned, but Emma's paw was right there to squeeze his fears away. Martin looked up at the weeping, anxious face of his lover and squeezed back. He wanted her to stop them, to stop the paramedics and the pain in his leg, and to stop the world! If it could just be him and her, the two of them turning through infinity, alone forever without pain or sorrow, that would have been perfection. But Emma, amazing as she was, could not do that, and Martin knew that. Instead he simply took what comfort he could from the feeling of his paw in hers, and waited for the pain that was sure to follow.

"Be strong, baby. I love you."

The vixen's words echoed in his mind, and Martin closed his eyes with the image of her face set in a strong, caring smile dancing before their blank lids.

Seconds later, pain like the male had never known lanced through his body. But even as he howled and screamed in tortured anguish, Martin knew it was okay. Everything was perfect, even in as much pain as he was in, because Emma was with him.

By Jeeves