FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Black and white checkered floors complimented the salmon-colored walls of gaudy, mass-reproduced 50s memorabilia, infecting the diner with a neon-lit, sterilized nostalgia. A digital jukebox tried making itself heard over the endless chatter and clattering dishes echoing from the kitchen. Jack occasionally picked out a few notes of music, but never enough to name that tune. A heavenly aroma of grilled grease and cheap seasoning filled every open space that wasn't occupied by the scents of cheap cologne and perfume coming off the hopefuls chatting all around him.

He leaned back, the old, vinyl cushioning gave slightly to his head, just enough to keep remind him that he was uncomfortable. Blake's used to be a second home during the college years, all those late-night burger runs and celebrations after exams flooded back, but he snuffed out the memories before they had a chance to make him feel bad. Blake's became more of a homeless shelter after all his friends started moving on, getting jobs, starting their lives while he dropped out. Only Allison's nagging to meet up with friends who hadn't moved away kept him coming back. The retro diner had long since worn out its welcome with him, but it was familiar territory and at least he had Al to himself without all the babbling from people he'd long since lost touch with ages ago. Jack looked up at the ceiling for refuge, James Dean stared back at him from a Rebel Without a Cause poster.

"And Clark finally got that dumb job he'd been...Jack? Jack? Hello?! Earth to Jack?"

"Mmhuh?" He leaned forward, giving Allison a dumb expression.

"You aren't even paying attention."

"Uh, yeah."

Allison tossed her long brown hair about her with a flick of her agitated hand, letting fall across her denim jacket. The one he'd bought for her birthday several years ago. He'd fixated on it, pretending not to see the dirty glare she was giving him. It bothered him that she hadn't taken it off and set it aside in that neat manner of hers. "You're a thousand miles away." She was way off. He was only about twelve miles away, at home, listening to metal with a kobold in his lap.

"Sorry, just kind of distracted I guess."

"Well, I told you to bring her."

"Who?"

"'Who'. Your new girl of course, she didn't dump you already, did she?"

Jack sat up straight. "No," he barked.

She lurched back. "Ease up, it was a joke."

Before he could apologize again a young girl stopped at their booth, hair done up like Marylin Monroe, wearing a bright red pinstripe dress with a very short skirt. She smelled like a K-mart perfume section.

"How are you folks tonight?" Her bubbly voice scraped against his soul.

"We're fine thanks." Allison chimed in before he had a chance to mouth off. The waitress set two large, icy glasses in front of them. Al's was clear, Sprite no doubt. A dark, brown carbonated mixture sat before him. He was never sure if Blake's doctored up their Coca-Cola or if they had some backdoor deal to get theirs made with real sugar, but it the closest thing to ambrosia he was ever going to get on this planet. A smile came to his lips after the first sip and felt himself loosen up, just a bit.

"Are you ready to order or do you need more time?" The waitress chirped.

"I'm ready, you ready?" Al asked.

Jack nodded and took another long sip. "The double bacon burger and season fries for me, please."

"Same," Al said. It caught him by surprise, she usually ordered one of the sandwiches. For some reason it made him a bit anxious.

"Alrighty!" The waitress bubbled and left, much to Jack's relief.

"So, what does she do?" Al asked.

"What does who do?"

"Your girlfriend, duh...you never gave me her name."

"Lys."

"Hmm?"

"Her name is Lys." Just saying it made him feel better.

Allison wrinkled up her nose. "Lys? What is that, French?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know."

His best friend laughed. "You don't even know where she's from or what she does?" The salt shaker looked so very interesting all of a sudden, he turned it about on the table, gazing deep into the exciting world of sodium chloride.

"She's into arts and crafts," he mumbled, not looking up at her.

"Arts and crafts? You're not dating some hippy chick, are you?"

The shaker hit an unseen crack in the table and fell over, spilling several grains. "No. Why does she have to be a hippy to like arts and crafts? Look, she just makes cute little things like flowers out of wire." He smiled to himself.

"You could have just told me she was a drug dealer," she quipped.

"Can't I like someone who makes things with their claws?"

"Their what?"

"Hands."

She chuckled and took a sip from her drink. "Just seems out of character for you. So, what's she like?"

Jack's face lit up. "Oh, she's great."

The brief pause grew wider as she waited for him to elaborate. "And?"

"She's a bit different." He gazed into the fallen granules of salt, wondering if it was a bad omen. "She's energetic, she's curious, and she has good taste in music."

"Ah, so she likes ancient metal and people screaming into a microphone." Allison chuckled. "She does this arts and craft thing for a job? I was hoping to meet her."

"Nah, it's a hobby. She's just busy."

"Busy with what?"

He couldn't look at the salt anymore without making it any more obvious that he was hiding something. Jack changed tactics and looked right at her. "Just stuff."

Al wrinkled up her nose. "Stuff? So, she really is a drug dealer."

"She's a kobold." The waitress appeared from nowhere with their food, making enough noise to drown out his voice. Divine providence or dumb luck he'd never know for sure just which it was that'd interfered that night.

"I'm sorry, what'd you say?" Allison asked.

Jack shook his head. "I said God has a twisted sense of humor."

Al shot him a sideways glance and started doctoring up her food. He'd resolved to not have a good time, but the food smelt too good to stay sullen and it really had been an age since he'd eaten at Blake's. The next few moments passed in relative silence as he lost himself in the flavor of fatty, bad-for-you bacon, crisp lettuce, and over-seasoned beef. He'd like to have just stayed that way for an hour or so, basking in that unfettered moment of good food.

"You really like her, don't you?"

"What makes you think that?" he asked, mouth still half full.

Allison rolled her eyes. "You light up like a Christmas tree at the mere hint of talking about her even when you're acting like a mopey child."

"I'm not a mopey child!"

"Oh, come on Jack. You're an easy book to read, you come in big print and I've had years of practice." She dipped some of her fries while the comment hung on the air. "I really want to meet this mystery girl."

Jack tried to think of something clever to say, but that familiar hunger welled up inside and his hands went for his pocket. Haptic memory deceived him and for a moment his fingers touched the comforting firmness of a hardpack of Camels, all waiting to be chain smoked, and then the blister pack of gum crinkled under his touch. He took the nasty things out with a groan and scowled at it before popping a piece into his mouth.

"Now I have to meet this girl," Allison said with genuine amazement.

"Huh?" Jack winced as he chewed.

"She's got you on the gum?"

He grimaced the affirmative.

She shook her head, a slight smile on her face. "I never thought I'd see the day the infamous Jack Walker would give up his cigarettes. Not even the devil himself could get you to quit."

Well maybe if the devil was about three feet tall and covered in scales.

"How long have you been away from the smokes?"

"Like, a week and change, feels like forever though."

"When's the wedding?"

"Yeah, yeah. Someone already made that joke."

"Well, if she got you to quit smoking you might as well start picking out curtains, and you've only known her for how long?"

"About two weeks."

She tossed her head back and laughed like she'd won a bet. "Oh yeah, she's got you bad." It felt rather irritating, not that she was wrong, but the thought of it just soured everything. Al looked so happy, as if she were the one getting married. He'd already tried to tell her about Lys in a moment of weakness, but the fates saw fit that he should suffer. Jack spat his gum out onto a napkin, whatever he'd gotten out of it would have to do since his mood was turning black and his food was getting cold.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He focused on chewing his fries, pretending not to hear.

"You're such an enigma Jack, I say I'm happy for you and you look like someone just died." Her voice took on a sharp tone, sending off alarm bells in Jack's head. Once she got going it would roll downhill and crush him.

"It's complicated," he said.

"Why? Actually, you know what? Forget it."

"Al--"

"I'm tired of your sulky, avoidant bullshit."

"Al, wait, there's something--"

She pushed herself out of the booth and stood up. "I knew this was a bad idea." Jack expected her to turn around and walk out of his life, but she held out her hand instead. "I thought Blake's would be nice to catch up, but it feels more like a tomb. Let's go."

He stared at her with a mouth full of half-chewed fries. "Huh?"

"I'm not going to stay here and let you be mopey. Let's go do something."

Jack swallowed hard, still trying to wrap his head around this. "Go do what?"

"I don't care what, anything but stay here." She checked to make sure she hadn't left anything behind. Jack was slow getting out of the booth, partially from confusion and partially to finish off his drink. Here he'd expected the end of his relationship with his best friend. He'd planned it, almost prophesied it, ready to face the world alone as punishment for his forbidden romance as some great, tragic lover in a sappy novel. Leave it up to Allison to ruin such finely laid plans, her insistence on fighting for their friendship heaped the fiery coals on his head. "You coming or not?"

"Uhh, yeah. Should probably pay for the food though, right?" He brushed himself off. "And get a doggy bag."

Allison nodded. "Excuse me, waitress?" she called across the diner, uncaring if anyone looked.

After a few minutes the little pile of saccharine in the tight dress bounded over. "Something wrong?"

"Yeah, my friend got bit by a zombie and I'm trying to keep him from turning into one of the undead. Can I get the check, please?"

She stared at Allison with a look devoid of upper brain function and blinked a few times. "Hmm?" she asked, the smile never leaving her face.

Al groaned silently. "Just get us the check."

"Sure." She wandered off towards the front.

"You never said where we were going," Jack said.

Al turned and looked at him with a big smile. "It's a surprise."

"I hate surprises."

"I know!" She mimicked the waitress's obnoxious tone.

***

Unseen hands gripped at Jack's shoes, threatening to tear the withering soles right out from under him. He banged his knee into something as he stumbled forward, trying to dodge around any other sinister traps laid down. Allison walked ahead of him, stopping suddenly as she pointed. "Here."

He crab-walked over, trying not to spill his drink as pulled out the seat next to hers. The stale smell of popcorn and a dozen other unidentified, but familiar odors assailed his senses. The theater looked half-empty, either this movie had run its course or it wasn't popular to begin with. Going from Blake's to the show had been something of a blur. "Why are we here?" he asked.

"Because we haven't done anything together since you became a shut-in." She reached for some popcorn, they'd gone halfsies on concessions, but for what they'd spent they could have had dinner downtown at one of the fancy restaurants with the funny names. "How long has it been since we went to the theater?"

"Years." The lights dimmed making him tense up for a moment with excitement, it really had been too long since he'd gone to the show. The scents and the scene awoke a bit of nostalgia in him, at least for a moment.

"Judging by the trailers I don't think we missed much by not going," he said. He sighed as the promos for countless superhero movies flew by, after a while they all started to look the same. "So, what is this thing we're going to watch?"

"You'll see."

"You're not telling me so I know I'm going to hate it."

She said nothing else, but gave him a slight smirk. At this point he figured they were here more for the sake of being out and about and less about taking in (awful) cinema. It did feel pretty nice to get away from the apartment and even though he wanted nothing more than for Lys to be by his side it almost came with a relief to be away from her, to have a chance to hang out with someone who wasn't directly in the fire.

After one last nagging message to silence phones the main feature began. A big orchestral boom herald in some ratty looking battlefield in what appeared to be America twenty minutes into the future, but since he hadn't been paying attention when they bought the tickets, he had no clue what he was in for. Disinterest mounted as things unfolded, people running, people flopping over from bullets in the head, some kind of story about secret technology and shadowy governments plotting to take over the world. He swore he heard someone snoring in the back.

Al glanced over. "I can hear you yawning."

"Must be your imagination. Why did you want to see this again?"

"It looked the most interesting out of what was available."

"Oh, so you admit you just picked something at random?"

"Shh!"

Jack's eyes glazed over as wooden actors spouted dull lines with the occasional fourth wall smashing lecture. His eyelids grew heavy and he began to understand why the person in the back had nodded off.

"This thing is really bad," he mumbled.

Al chuckled. "It is, isn't it? For what we paid we better see it to the end though."

It went on and on for a good half-hour. The curtain of his eyes threatened to close on this awful show and then something happened that almost made him bolt straight up. The heroes had made it to some kind of hideout with an assortment of guns and gizmos scattered about. A weaselly faced man in greasy overalls appeared to shake the hands of the protagonists, leaving oil on all of them. All of that wouldn't have meant anything, but in the next scene a kobold wearing a similar outfit appeared and walked up to the greasy overall guy.

"Jack? Jack? What's gotten into you?" Allison asked. He felt something swat his shoulder.

Once the initial shock faded, he noted the kobold for what it was, really bad CGI. The lead actor, a brawny meathead of a man, strode over and shoved the greasy guy in overalls. "What the hell is that?" He pointed at the kobold.

"S'my girl," the greasy man replied, cowering away.

Now Jack was hooked, he watched as Meathead scowled at Greasy Man. "Sick bastard, if we didn't need your help, I'd..."

"No! Tezzy love Eddie!" the CGI lizard said in horribly broken English at about five octaves too high. Whoever they got to voice this character knew nothing of how kobolds really sounded. He watched the computer-generated monstrosity grab Greasy Man's leg. The effect looked so off he could almost see the green screen.

"Couldn't they have hired a real kobold to act the part?" Jack asked bitterly. From that point on the film had his (mostly) undivided interest, but only when the couple were on the screen. Occasionally he looked over at Al to gauge her reaction, reading her facial expressions as well as anyone could in a dark theater without staring right at them.

"What are you looking at?" Allison finally caught him at it.

"Uhh, did you eat all the popcorn?"

"No, you did about ten minutes ago. Are you okay?"

He looked back up at the screen. "Fine," he said flatly. The movie really was a steaming pile of toss, including the forbidden love subplot, but this was the closest he'd ever come to anyone else touching on the subject, even if it was some hack writer typing away in some dingy apartment in Hollywood. The two forbidden lovers appeared again, this time with Greasy behind bars and Tezzy the CGI-bold trying to break him out. Meathead and the other heroes kept making rude comments under their breath and just when it looked like Tezzy would save the day, a guard showed up and she ran off like a coward.

"What is this shit?!" Jack shouted out loud. "That wouldn't happen!" Now all eyes were on him. He sunk back into the seat, wishing he could melt into the floor.

Allison shoved him. "The hell is wrong with you?"

"This movie is what's wrong. Kobolds are loyal to their mates; this is all inaccurate."

"Maybe we should just go."

"I want to watch the rest of this," he snapped, gripping the arms of the seat.

Twenty minutes later the heroes freed themselves and Tezzy showed up again, asking for forgiveness for being useless. Greasy Man scolded her, but then the two kissed much to the disgust of the heroes and most of the people in the theater.

"What bull." Jack felt his pulse quickening, having lived such things he knew far better how it should be. Her tail should be whipping about in excitement, her eyes glistening and dilating. Even the kiss was off, the sensation of rough, scaly lips on soft flesh followed by the slight lick of a tongue, that's how it was supposed to be. He had half of a mind to protest and maybe offer his services as a consultant.

While he was still daydreaming about how to get Lys into pictures and how to right all these terrible wrongs. The two lovers appeared again, this time with the villain, an old, spindly man in a suit with some bad looking cybernetic props. "Then we are agreed?" the old man hissed.

Greasy Man nodded. "W'go free, yeah?" he asked while glancing down at the kobold who wasn't there. Before the villain could lie the heroes busted in, catching them up in the most predictable betrayal ever displayed on cinema.

"This is atrocious," Jack said.

The old man left the treacherous mechanic and his kobold lover twisting in the wind while guards drew their weapons and fired on the protagonists. Mooks died and nobody scored a single shot on the good guys. Greasy Man took one in the leg, sending him tumbling over behind the villain's desk, giving Meathead a chance to come over and say some clever one-liner to the weaselly little man lying in a pool of his own blood. Before he could pull the trigger the kobold bit him on the leg like a rabid dog. Greasy Man pulled a gun from his sleeve and fired, nicking Meathead in the shoulder. Meathead kicked the kobold several times, bloodying her up beyond recognition and then he fired, blowing her head to pieces.

"Screw this." Jack was already up and hallway down the aisle before Allison had noticed he'd left. Jack took a seat in the lobby and watched as the crowds of movie goers started pouring out of the theaters. He sat there shaking his head when Allison caught up to him.

"Are you fiending or something?"

"No. I just couldn't take anymore of that horrible movie. Next time I'll pick what we go see." Not that he anticipated a next time with the way he acted.

More people spilled out in a wave of humanity and Al took a seat next to him just to avoid being carried off by the crowd. "When did you become such a movie snob?"

"Not a snob, it was just too horrible to watch anymore."

"First you wanted to watch it and then you bolted. You're acting weirder than usual and it's starting to scare me."

"What did you think of that side romance with the kobold and that pasty nerd?"

"Is that what this is about?" She looked confused.

"Sort of," he said reluctantly. "What did you think of it, it seemed kind of cute." He knew full well it wasn't cute in the slightest.

She twirled her hair around. "More creepy than cute."

"Why creepy?"

The flow of people ebbed, in a few more minutes it would be safe to head for the exit. "I don't know, can you see people wanting to go out with one of those little lizards?" she asked.

The deepest, heaviest sigh Jack had ever sighed disbursed itself from his lungs and out of his mouth, like a bit of his soul had gone with it. "I...I think so. People are weird, it's probably already happened, you know?"

She wrinkled up her nose. "Ugh, maybe. You know, I really have anything against them as a whole. I just wish they'd kind of clean up their act and get civilized."

"Maybe if people would let them get civilized," he snapped.

"What's stopping them from going to those government shelters and work programs?"

"Have you seen those places and the kind of crap they want them doing? How can they get a leg up if we chop them off at the knee and call it charity?" He shook his head.

Allison hesitated, by this point the theater was mostly empty. "Well, it's not like they're human and they haven't helped their case by acting like criminals. Pfft, I remember when some of them broke into my dad's garage and stole his tools. When did you become such a kobold philanthropist anyway?"

"I didn't. I just...think it isn't very fair. You really don't think they're cute?"

Al rolled her eyes and stood up. "I never said they weren't cute, but I think a human pairing up with one is creepy. Why are you acting so strange?"

"If anyone is strange it's the people who wrote the script."

Allison looked out of the glass doors, towards the setting sun. "Oh, you're acting strange all right. Why does this goofy love scene have you so worked up?"

Just tell her.

"Well maybe I don't think it's so farfetched, maybe I think it's sweet. Or it would be if the movie had been any good."

She shrugged. "Whatever. You want to go to Quarter Hour or do you want to sit here and discuss kobold human romances?"

Jack almost grinned and then thought better of it. "The barcade? What for?"

She walked over to him, grabbed him by the shoulders and proceeded to shake him. "Who are you and what have you done with my best friend? What do you think we're going to do? Grab a few drinks and pretend we're teenagers again." Al grabbed hold of his jacket and proceeded to drag him towards the exit.

***

"Speed up!" a voice informed Jack eased the Vic Viper around the streams of enemies, desperately trying to hasten the craft before the main stage started. His movements were stiff and his reflexes granny-like. It didn't help that he'd had a few beers and being the lightweight he was they'd gone right to his head. The stupid, idiotic scenes in that stupid, idiotic movie kept bugging him. He wanted to pester Al about it, but he'd already pressed his luck. The music in the game changed, heralding the first stage and an odd, cozy feel of nostalgia came with the mountain ranges floating in space the way they so often did in arcade games. Granted, he wasn't even born when this game came out, but something about standing there, looking down at the screen made him feel like part of a nicer past.

A tap on the shoulder broke his concentration, causing him to crash right into the side of a rock. "Are you winning?" Allison asked.

"I was." He had to raise his voice over the noise of tipsy gamers and loud music. The place was really just a long hallway with a row of machines and a bar on the other side. It emptied out into a larger room in the back where more machines waited. The blinding light over the bar kept him from ordering anything else but bottled beer.

"They have Street Fighter in the back and I want to kick your ass," Al said.

"Girls don't play fighting games," he quipped, never mind he'd tutored Lys the other day and Al had spent hundreds of hours trashing him back when they lived together during college.

"Hurry up before someone takes it, come on." Jack followed after her, dodging elbows and out swung arms, moving towards the back. The machine was an original Champion Edition, in near perfect condition with scuffs painted over and marques replaced. A machine any fighting game fan would love to call their own. He felt the quarter slip from his finger and into the slot, the game chimed. He took hold of the joystick and went over the roster. It'd been strange eons since he played Street Fighter 2.

"Do you really think it's so weird that a kobold and a human might get together?"

"Holy...You're still on about this?!"

He selected Guile. His moves were easy to remember. "They're not animals, they're intelligent beings with wants and feelings."

"Look at you being philosophical." Al picked Sagat and the beating commenced. His air game was way off, every time he jumped, he ate an uppercut.

"Perfect!" the game said, rubbing his defeat in.

Al smirked. "If I were you, I'd focus more on the game and less on dating alligators." He grit his teeth behind a smile.

The second round began and he turtled down, tossing sonic boom after sonic boom. "Are you insinuating that kobolds are alligators? She's a person for God's sake." Al took a chance and leapt over his shot, he saw an opportunity and moved forward only to get baited into another uppercut.

"Who is?"

Jack gripped the joystick tighter. "Nobody." His flash kick failed to connect and he came down into a tiger shot, resulting in his second loss. He dipped into his pockets as the timer counted down. Al handed him another quarter.

"You should have got some change."

The next match began. Jack started getting his groove back, laying in a few basic combos and then just straight up fierce punching Al when she didn't expect it, making her lose the first round. "Ha!" He congratulated himself with a raised hand and a quick turn about the room, nobody else cared.

"Always such a gracious winner. Anyhow, I don't see why you're so worked up, it was a shitty movie, we shouldn't have gone, now shut up." The second round began and both contenders looked evenly matched. So even that the timer ran down, giving Al the victory.

"It's not about the movie, it's about--"

"Oh my God! Jack, stop it! What the hell is with you?"

The third round began, Sagat stood there looking stoned. Guile rushed over to deliver some punishment but then he stopped in his tracks, leaving the timer to tick down. Allison turned slowly, looking Jack dead in the eyes in a way he'd never seen before. She shook her head slightly "No," she whispered.

He swallowed hard. "No what?" he managed to ask without his voice cracking.

"Is there something going on I should know about?"

"About what?"

"You tell me Jack. You're the one who's going off about a stupid move. You're the one who can't stop talking about human/kobold relationships. You're the one who's done a total one eighty with this mystery girl you don't seem to want to tell me about." He looked at her, a blank expression on his face and absolutely nothing in his head but static.

"Final Round!" the game announced.