FSE

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The time had come to make another round throughout the bar, to see if there were any new faces, or perhaps if any of the familiar ones were finally alone enough to begin a conversation with.

The circuit started how it always did. Finn grabbed his beer as he sloshed to his feet. It was certainly the movement of a drunk person, although in truth he wasn't all that drunk. He was just tall and lanky enough that his movements seemed a little awkward anyway. So any amount of alcohol, however slight, exaggerated the situation by quite a lot.

Finn frowned when a not insignificant portion of his drink sloshed onto the floor alongside him.

... okay, so maybe he was drunk after all. But that was the point of the exercise, was it not? Go to a bar, to get drunk. Although, that never really was quite the ultimate goal. Because Finn had come out to the bar tonight, alone. There just hadn't been anyone available to come with him, and he lately tried not to let stuff like that get in his way.

After all, how could he ever meet new people if he only ever went out with the people he already knew?

Take that purple owl, for instance. Finn had had eyes on him on and off throughout the night. Something about him had caught the panther's eyes. And, to be fair, it wasn't hard to say why.

One of the tricky things with avians was, you never knew if their feathers were dyed, or if they were naturally that color. Was he just naturally iridescent, or was that a trick of the dim lighting, and/or the alcohol consumed throughout the night? Not to mention a million of the other questions Finn had. He was clearly an owl, but could they really turn their heads all the way backwards, or was that just an exaggerated trope?

More important than just the color of his feathers, of course, was how the owl chose to dress. Everyone else here had the typical gay-bar-attire vibes. Which was not to say there was anything wrong with scantily clad twinks, leather, and bulges galore. The atmosphere was exquisite, really. But it wasn't where you'd expect someone dapper to show up.

The owl was wearing a mustard yellow vest, with a purple patterning which tied so well into his coat of feathers. With a long sleeve button-up shirt, along with a slick tie. He took care in his appearance. He was dressed to impress.

Versus everyone else here, who was dressed to show off fur and get laid. It was a juxtaposition Finn found simply fascinating. The person who showed up in formal attire to a gay bar was a person Finn had interest in getting to know.

It's just that the owl had an entourage of friends around him. And while it wasn't impossible to break into a friend group to get to know someone, it was a bit of an advanced move, and Finn wasn't sure he had the delicacy for that just now. Maybe he had had one drink too many after all.

So instead, Finn took a seat and idly stared off into space, but also vaguely in the owl's direction. His mind wandered off to a great many places as he started to sober up. Not all of them were polite places for one's thoughts to wander. But Finn honestly didn't have much experience with avians, and he was curious how it all worked, so to speak.

He had gotten caught up in his mind to the point that he had lost track of time. He'd lost track of the owl, too, and realized too late that he had missed his chance. The vivid, purple-feathered gentleman was in line at the bar. It was the perfect opportunity for Finn to get up and introduce himself! Only, it seemed that someone else had had the same idea Finn had.

Of course it was some Chad of a lion. No doubt he'd been on the prowl for a cute boy to take home, and a dapper purple owl was as fine a selection as any.

Alas. When most predators set their sights on their prey for the night, you'd have to gear up for a pretty big fight if you wanted to muscle into the picture. Finn was a lover, not a fighter, so he'd just as soon let the two enjoy a night together. Besides, he was happy for the owl, even though he was the one getting picked up for the night, and Finn was still sitting at a table, daydreaming about it.

On the plus side, this new vantage did give Finn a good view of the owl's rear. Whereas all the others in the bar tended towards shapely butts, with varying levels of exposure, there was something classy about a coat of feathers blocking the view. They seemed well groomed, or even sleek.

Finn found himself considering that tail for quite some time. Was it hard to care for a feathered tail? Probably no harder than it was to care for any other sort of tail. Finn wondered what that routine was like. He wanted to help with it, if he could. Just because he thought the owl was quite cute. Which, again, added to the tremendous disappointment that someone else had gotten to him first.

What ugly language that was. It did make Finn look closer on the lion who had beat him to the chase. That's when Finn noticed something was off. Predators often had playful "you are my prey now" vibes. This big cat seemed to have darker eyes than that. Maybe it was in Finn's imagination, in part because he had wanted to go home with the purple avian instead. But the predator honestly had a sort of sinister look to him, now that Finn was less transfixed on the deep purple tail of feathers before him.

Then he took in the owl's body language on the whole. Sure, maybe Finn didn't have tons of experience with avians. Didn't even have any bird friends to hang out with, really. They just weren't all that common in the spaces Finn hung out in. But it didn't take specific species awareness to know what it was like when someone was uncomfortable.

In most mammals it was easy to tell by the twitches in their tails or ears. Finn could especially read the moods of other cats pretty well, just by their body language. It was that way for most all species. Finn lamented, ever so briefly, that he was as much a stranger to birds as he was. If he had known more about them, he might have recognized the owl was uncomfortable earlier.

How long had he been trying to shirk away from the lion's touches? And how long had the lion been there, pressing his advantage? Even in a bar full of people who didn't see anything amiss at all.

So quickly things turned away from being a game of wanting to get to know the fancy owl. Sure, sex with a bird could be an interesting experience. But even just to sit and have a chat with him, and talk feather maintenance and outfit design and such, would be an enjoyable evening.

Any of those ulterior motivations went out the window. Because at its core, someone was being approached, and maybe being taken advantage of, which they were clearly uncomfortable with. And whoever this bird was, he deserved to have a nice night out.

Without realizing what he was doing, and without having a plan, Finn found himself striding to where they stood. Purple dapper birds deserved to have enjoyable evenings at gay bars.

Finn would be damned if he'd let a brainless Chad of a lion stand in the way of that.