FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"You want your usual, Wally?"

"It is a fine night for bourbon." The raccoon muttered. He watched the doberman in the leather thong pour the hazel alcohol into a small glass, then slide it across the counter to him. He stared at the little ice cube floating in it. "I know how you feel, pal." He muttered to it, before having a sip.

Smoke wafted through the old place. All the seats were creaky. Everything smelt of leather. Guys kept trying to hide the fact they were fucking in the booths out to the side, as though they had reason to regret it.

The door opened behind Wally and the raccoon's nose twitched.

The figure of a tall badger stepped slowly into the bar and sat down on a stool as far away from Wally as possible.

"Evenin' Harry. Usual?" The doberman asked.

"It is a fine night for..." The badger stopped. He looked slowly over at Wally, then sighed. "Whatever he's having."

Wally drooped on the stool, staring at that ice cube again. Noticing how it'd cracked into two small pieces which kept trying to drift apart. And couldn't.

The doberman placed the glass in front of Harry and poured out the bourbon.

"I wish I hated you." Wally said offhand.

"I wish I hated you too." Harry swirled his glass and sipped. "We could skip to the screaming match if you want?"

The raccoon grumbled. "Too tired for that bullshit."

"How's your new man?" The badger asked.

"What new man?" Wally replied, head still down on the counter, making no attempt to meet the gaze.

The badger's gaze dropped to the grimy wooden floor. "Yeah, me too."

"Mine liked superhero movies and played in a bar band." Wally mumbled, taking another swig. "Then I broke his heart and he walked out. He's taking better dick now."

Harry looked back to his own drink. "Mine turned out to be a fascist. He stole money from me before I could kick him out. I had to skip dinner a few days back just to make rent."

"Dumpster that motherfucker." Wally growled. "I oughta set fire to his house and total his car."

The badger took another sip. "I thought you hated me?"

"Wish I could."

The badger put his glass down hard on the mat. "Every time I try and love someone they fuckin' hurt me." Harry growled. "It's like every gay man around here sees me as a punching bag. After a while you start to think it's gotta be a you thing. That I'm the fuckin' problem."

The raccoon looked at his glass again. The two separated ice cubes had melted into a small puddle at the bottom. "I want you to be my problem." Wally admitted. "I keep hurting people, I keep saying the wrong things, keep fuckin' up people's dreams. I'm a dumb, arrogant loudmouth who can't hold his tongue. And the people I love keep running away. Everyone I touch, I hurt." He snarled, before turning and finally locking eyes with Harry. "'Cept you."

The raccoon turned back to his glass. The doberman offered to refill it and Wally agreed. "God, I gotta stop drinking or I'll start crying." He grunted as the liquid filled the glass.

"You can cry if you want." Harry whispered.

"Nah, every time I start crying you thrust slower. When what I really want is you to grab me by the throat and make it hurt." Wally grumbled, swigging from the glass. "Somethin' about the way you use me like a flesh light, then walk out on me in the morning and never say goodbye makes me feel like a man. I get what I want, you got what you want, I never have look at you and see the pain in your damn eyes."The raccoon stopped to keep from tearing up, but the tears came anyway. "Why can't I hate you? I felt so guilty using you. I don't want you to love me, I just want you to hurt me. And then I had to fucking fall in love with you, didn't I?"

Harry downed his glass and rumbled. "I can't just leave in the morning. No matter how much you tell me you want it, when you lie there sobbing, I can't just leave. Even though I know it's what you want." He tapped his fingers on the desk. "And the fighting only feels good when we're horny. When we need it. But when it's just over dinner, over the TV, over the stereo... we're just two broken men with a love that can't mend."

The smoke seemed to retreat out of the air into other corners of the bar. It didn't want to be in the room with these two either. The doberman seemed unphased, however: experience did that to a man.

"I meant it when I said I didn't wanna drink no more booze tonight." Wally said at last, flagging down the barman again. "I don't like making mistakes drunk. Can almost justify them."

"How many glasses?" The barman asked.

"Two, I need him sober too." The raccoon grunted.

Harry moved to object, knowing what that "need" involved, then faltered. He took the offered glass of alcohol-free red wine and sat with it for a while.

"I want it again." Wally admitted finally.

"No you don't." Harry lied.

"I do." The raccoon insisted. "I wish I didn't but I do."

The badger closed his eyes tight. "You know how it ends. It always ends the same way."

Wally stared at the wall. "It ends with your with your paw squeezing my throat, shoving me against walls while you fuck my asshole raw and tell me everything's my fault." The raccoon started to smile, raising his head. "I remember the time I begged and begged for you to hit me. And then finally you swung your paw and smacked me so hard around the muzzle that I just came my fucking brains right out. Never came so goddamn hard in my life." Wally's ravelry stopped short, his head drooped low and he sighed. "Only to look into your eyes and see you crying." Wally stole a glance at Harry, then back to his drink. "Who knew "I love you" was such a good safeword."

"Fuck you, you wretched little asshole!" Harry bellowed. "I never wanted this! Never wanted to feel so fuckin' hurt that I'd get off on taking it out on some wreck of a man like you! I hate that I feel better when I'm squeezing your throat! I feel like a fucking monster when I hurt you because it feels so good to be in control for once and I don't wanna become the kinda monster that keeps coming for me!" The badger had got to his feet, gesticulating wildly at Wally.

The raccoon met his gaze. Eyes wet, a twisted, dripping smile on his face and a heavy stain of pre growing on his trousers.

Harry's diatribe ground to a halt when the effect it had, both on Wally and himself, dawned on him. He snatched the wine bottle and sat back on his stool, then poured another glass for himself. "You keep asking me to hurt you. Sometimes I even try. For me, For you. And I really do think you are a Grade-A son of a bitch." Harry brought the glass to his lips and drank. As the wine drained from it, anger drained from him, until both badger and glass were empty. "But I can't do it. I can't truly hurt you. I love you too much to mean it."

"And then the morning comes and... we're just two broken men again." Wally whispered, "Arguing over a grocery list. Arguing over where to go for lunch. Arguing over just... the dumbest, most pathetic shit in the world." He snorted. "We argued over a packet of mints one time, remember that? 'Cause I couldn't decide if I wanted peppermint of spearmint and you said-"

"They're only a dollar each, let's get a packet of each." Harry interrupted.

"And we turned that into a fight. Over mints." Wally laughed as an emotion of last resort. "I started out with two bucks, a boyfriend and a bed to share and within 10 minutes I had two bucks, nobody to love and a bus ticket back home."

Harry stared at his glass."I'm so tired, Wally." The badger said "I want us to both find guys we love and then we'd never have to sit in this bar or hatefuck our problems away. I wanna get kicked out of your wedding for fucking my man in the back aisle. I wanna find you in the supermarket and brag about how good my man is in bed and how I don't need you anymore. And I want you to stare me in the eye and say "Good fucking riddance you asshole. My man's twice the man you are." Cause then this'd stop fucking happening."

"Every time I have sex with someone, I only notice that it ain't you." Wally uttered completely deadpan.

Harry put his head in his paws. "Now you really are just lying to me to rile me up."

Wally gestured for the bartender. "You want some peanuts?"

"No. I wanna quit your ass."

"Then do. You can't choke me while I'm eating peanuts."

"Sure I c-" Harry started, before letting the rest of the words lay unspoken. Regardless of whether Wally was just winding him up or not, the stiffness in his trousers refused to be ignored. "The longer I sit here, the more easily I can justify just tugging you off of that stool, pinning you to the ground, ruining you and spitting on you. But I know it won't do me no good." Harry asked softly; "When you're sat there, crying your eyes out with an achey asshole after I've stormed out... how does that feel?"

"Like it's all my fault and I deserve it." Wally replied, utterly wistfully. "Whenever I look at myself in the mirror, I see an asshole. Some guy who's too loud, too arrogant, too full of himself. He was too mean as a kid, too ignorant as a young man and too bitter as an old bastard. I see an asshole who never got his just deserts. An asshole who never truly felt what that misery he was inflicting was like. People were hurt around me, they kept telling me it wasn't my fault, but I know it is. I know that it is because when they walk away, they're always happier for it. And I just want someone to hit me and blame me and let me heal."

"But we don't heal." Harry protested.

"For a night we do." The raccoon whispered. "But then... we're back to where we started. Even if we could just accept that we love each other, the morning comes and we're yelling at each other again."

"I dream all the time." The badger said, having another sip of the wine. "Dream of that healthy home, that happy relationship. Being able to talk, to live how we want. And I'm always with you in that dream. That's how I know it's a dream. I'd wanna settle down, you'd wanna travel around. I'd want to go on holiday, you'd want to buy a new car." Harry's ramble drew him to his feet again. "But then every other man I meet keeps trying to hit me, hurt me, lie to me and steal from me. Even when we fight, you're still the only man I've fucked who's treated me right and that's why it's so fucking hard to hurt you. You're the only son of a bitch who doesn't deserve it. The only lie you've told me is that you deserve any of the pain you beg for." The badger sat back down roughly on the stool. "Why can we only agree on how to fuck?"

"Because that's our curse." Wally grunted. "Hatefucking each other is what we're about. If anything I wish I could just accept that. Accept that love lasts for one night and the worse you treat me, the more in love with you I am. Then every other day of the week, just have an affair."

"It's not even that I don't think we couldn't find guys who'd be down for that. It's just that I don't think I could have an affair." Harry muttered.

"Who'd you be cheatin' on, me or them?" Wally asked.

"You." Harry grunted. "No chance in hell I could love someone more than you."

Wally rumbled and finished his glass. "Why can't I disagree?"

"Cause it's true."

"Yep. That'd be it." Wally sighed. He poured another glass of wine, then threw a peanut at Harry.

"Ow! Why the fuck are you like this?!" The badger snapped, slamming his fist on the table.

The raccoon gesticulated aimlessly. "Because I'm the kind of guy who flicks peanuts at the man he loves and you're the kind of guy who hates it when the man he loves flicks peanuts at him. Trouble is, life keeps handing me peanuts and keeps sitting you in flicking range."

"Can't you just eat them? Why do you feel compelled to annoy me?" Harry demanded.

"Because life's a bitch. We were born to fight and fuck and that's just the way it is." Wally snarled. "I hate how we fight and I hate how every time I walk away from you, I can't stop dreaming of you. But nobody can fuck me or hurt me like you can. So the heartbreak is worth it because I know every fuck hurts more than the last and I'm addicted to it."

"I hate how you have to make it all about you! It's always your house I have to walk home from in the rain. It's always your heart that gets broken when we try and do it properly. What about me?!" Harry bellowed. "Fine! You want it?!" Harry had scrambled to his feet, about ready to clothesline Wally to the floor and-

"Please." Wally whispered, staring, pleadingly into the badger's eyes. The pair all but nose-to-nose. "Hurt me." The raccoon pleaded.

Harry stood motionless.

"No." The badger muttered, deflating. Tears began to pour down his cheeks. "Because you don't make it all about you. It's just easier for me if I imagine that you do."

Wally pressed his head to his sleeve so Harry didn't have to see him cry a second time. "This always ends the same fucking way."

"Last orders folks." The doberman said to the pair.

"Last orders? God have we been going that long?" Harry grunted.

"Yeah. Time flies when you fuck up your life." Wally said firmly. "Get me another alcohol free anything."

"Same for me."

Two more glasses.

Two more drinks.

Wally set down his empty glass at last. The barman took his and Harry's and started locking up the bar.

The badger didn't look over at the raccoon. He sighed. Loudly. Then he uttered "Wanna fuck?"

Wally sighed too and stood up. "Yeah, I guess."