Hard Rain: Chapter One
General Disclaimer: This story may contain scenes of a graphic and/or sexual nature. As such it is not suitable for view by persons under the age of eighteen. Please respect the law in your area, it's in place for your own good.
Mission Statement: This story was written and collaborated on by one or more members of TheMishMash. We are a team of like minded friends who strive to bring humor, drama, adventure, and sordid affairs to the masses. Comments and questions are always welcome and we can be contacted through our user page here on SoFurry. Please denote who you're asking for when leaving a message. Sincerely... Ghoti, Bones, and Scratch.
Hard Rain: Chapter One
Written by: Ghoti
Content: This story contains harsh language, hematophagia, and unrequited love. It is otherwise clean and devoid of adult material. No Yiff, in other words.
Personal Notes: Ghoti Says, "This is my very first foray into a better place. This story, while not terribly lengthy, introduces myself and one of my good friends who will be collaborating with me on various works in the future. It also re-introduces established characters of mine from my less-than-wholesome works of yore. Those characters who survived the cutting room floor may change a little from how you remember them, but not much. I kept them for a reason, they had personality. They earned their place in my reality. At any rate, please enjoy."
Ghoti sat brooding morosely.
Bones was at work and Scratch was in the library fighting imaginary wars and swearing at tweenagers. And to top it all off, there was nothing even remotely interesting on television.
Ghoti sighed. He didn't want to be forced to interrupt Scratch. It often resulted in misplaced anger being thrown across the room in invisible, but all too tangible, heaps. But unless he wanted to watch Judge Screechy or Fourteen and Fucked-Up, he didn't have much choice. The bat got to his feet, adjusted his armbands, and crept silently out of his room.
He stopped off in the kitchen to grab a snack, and with an apple and a glass of "sanguine" in tow, tiptoed cautiously toward the library.
He heard the big cat long before he saw him. "Fucking faggoty noob piece of trash! 'The hell out of my way!" Ghoti cringed but gamely moved forward.
He slipped through the doorway, took note of the headset encasing the bobcat's ears, and approached the back of the couch. "Library" was an honorary term for the room. While it did house a good many books and papers, as well as the bulk of his own research material, it was mostly used for gaming. Scratch was currently enthralled with one of his many simulated war games. Ghoti watched unknown from behind the big cat.
"Fuckin'MOVE, Trick!" He yelled as he sent his character careening around a confused member of his team and sprinted amiably into a hail of bullets. "Dammit!"
Ghoti stifled a giggle.
Scratch re-spawned and cautiously crept behind cover this time. He waited, then popped up from behind the broken wall. He expertly drew down on a distant enemy and squeezed off a few rounds into the back of his head. "Eat it, Noob!" He shouted triumphantly and hauled ass for a more defensive area.
Ghoti waited until the match was over (Scratch's team had won by a slim margin with the big cat carrying everybody else) before he circled around to the front of the couch and sat down.
Scratch turned to him, his mottled face set with grim resignation. "These fuckin' know nothing kids, man. I tell ya." He eyed Ghoti's drink curiously. "What'cha got there, FangFace?"
Ghoti paused. "... Merlot?" He tried.
"Yeah, right." Scratch replied, rolling his good eye comically. "Who's is it?"
"I dunno." Ghoti replied truthfully. He got the "sanguine" from a nearby medical clinic where he worked as a custodian. He paid the guard at the blood bank high dollar for it, when he could afford to. He didn't drink it all the time. Just on special occasions and when he needed a pick me up.
"You're gonna catch ghona-herpa-syphil-aids drinkin' that stuff." The lynx said matter-of-factly.
"I buy it in the bag, Doofuss." Ghoti defended. "It's been tested."
"Yuh-huh." Scratch returned his attention to the game where a new match was about to start. "You want in on this?" He asked the bat, indicating the TV.
Ghoti shook his head and knocked back the rest of his drink, then wiped the residual redness from his white fur. "Not with you. You're too competitive."
"Suit yourself." The big cat replied and settled in for another match.
Ghoti watched, alternatively rooting for his roommate and laughing at the bigger animal's heretic berating of his teammates, and munched his apple. When he finished, he got to his feet and walked to a nearby chair. The library was big, it housed not only the couch and TV Scratch was using but two armchairs and two more televisions, as well as a desk and computer in one corner and a fold away futon in another. Being the most well-to-do menagerie of animals in their tight circle of friends, the three often entertained guests for all night gaming parties, and other get-togethers. Ghoti settled in and grabbed a book he had been reading off a nearby end table.
"What's the topic?" Scratch asked with a note of distracted indifference.
"Psychology of the Developing Mind." Ghoti replied, glancing at the cover.
"And the verdict?" Scratch kept his unwavering attention on the screen.
"Me and you are incurably insane and Bones may be an anomaly in being normal." Ghoti paused. "Or you may be an obsessive perfectionist, Bones may be clinically depressed, and I may by sycophantically masochistic." He paused once more for effect. "Or..."
"I get the picture." Scratch had led his team to victory once again and backed out to the main menu. He glanced over to the bat. "We're all a buncha' nut bars."
"Precisely."
"We already knew that, why read it?"
Ghoti shrugged. "What else is there to do?"
Scratch shrugged back. "Write?"
"Write what? This?" He said indicating the whole lot of nothing they were doing. "How entertaining..." Ghoti replied sarcastically.
"The Empire?" Scratch tried.
Ghoti looked at the one eyed cat suspiciously. "You got any money?"
Scratch grinned. "You do."
"That's not what I asked."
"I got a little." Scratch admitted.
Ghoti thought for a moment. "The Empire it is then." He got to his feet and started toward his bedroom. "Get ready, I'ma grab my coat."
"Meet ya out front." The bobcat called and made for his own room.
Five minutes later, Ghoti was locking the front door. "Shame there's no mall in this dried up burg." He muttered.
"True that." Scratch replied. The big cat was standing on the front walk with his paws in his pockets, his whiskers trailing in the cool breeze. "But Hatcher gets new shit in The Empire every other day."
Ghoti joined his friend and the began to walk the mile or so to the catch all emporium that was The Empire. The three of them lived in the town annex, but rarely saw any reason to drive anywhere, a short mile's walk would bring them to the pitiful collection of shops on Main Street. Besides, Bones owned their only vehicle. Ghoti carpooled and Scratch drew disability for his eye.
"So whaddaya reckon?" The big cat asked. "Poke around The Empire, maybe find something snazzy to bring back home. And then what?"
There was a loose stand of trees separating their place in the annex from the town proper and the two were working their way down the road that cut through the swath as Ghoti answered. "Tacos. No question." A new thought struck him. "What time it is?"
Scratch focused his good eye on his watch. "Round about noon."
Ghoti was nodding his head. "If we time it right we can swing by the shop and pick up Bone Daddy when he goes to lunch."
"We'd make better time if you'd fly us." Scratch was smiling.
"Get off it." The bat replied, unconsciously adjusting his armbands beneath his jacket. "It's like 40 degrees out here. Plus, you know damn good and well I can't carry your heavy ass."
"We'll go back, climb the roof, and jump. You can glide us a mile can't you?"
"I couldn't glide you ten feet. And I'm NOT taking my shirt off in this frigid shit."
"Those wings are wasted on you." Scratch said. "I don't think I've ever seen you fly."
"And I've never seen you drink milk, KittyKitty." Ghoti quipped. "That makes us even."
"Scaredy Bat." Scratch teased.
"I'm not afraid to fly." Ghoti replied harshly. "I just prefer not to."
"Sure." Scratch said, then let the subject drop. He personally thought a closer truth was that Ghoti didn't know how to fly. But the bat never talked about it unless pressed and he only got defensive then. He'd always been an odd sort. He only drank juice, water, or "sanguine", which neither Bones nor Scratch himself were fooled enough to think was anything less than blood and blood only. Ghoti never called it blood though. As a joke/experiment, Scratch had once slipped a caffeine pill into the bat's juice. He had spent the next few hours waiting for a reaction that never came. Ghoti also shunned medication of all kinds. When he got sick, which wasn't often, he usually retired to his room closet where he slept it off, hanging by his hind claws from a rod set on the ceiling. He owned a bed, but seldom slept in it.
"Give ya a penny for your two cents worth." The bat in question spoke up, dragging Scratch from his thoughts.
"Just thinking. You figure out anything 'bout that dude you saw outside the house the other morning?" Scratch was referring to a story Ghoti had told him a few days previous.
"Nuh-uh." He replied. "All I know is, I woke up early, sun was still down, and I look outside while I'm getting some bl-." He faltered and Scratch gave him the benefit of ignoring what he had almost said. "Something to drink from the kitchen," Ghoti continued. "And I see this huge shadow out past the front walk."
They were approaching the first intersection off their road and the subsequent end of the tree line as Scratch asked, "And you couldn't tell what it was?"
"It had to have been a dude. Only girls who are that tall are hares, and I couldn't see any ears."
"Speaking of ears," Scratch began.
Ghoti cut him off. "Couldn't hear anything either. I eased the window open and everything. This guy was spooky quiet."
Scratch fell silent. Another odd trait of his chiropteran companion was his ability to hear almost anything from almost anywhere, so long as he concentrated on it. His own ears would rival any hare's if they were half as tall as they were wide. He claimed to be able to hear Bones start up his car at the shop before he came home if the winds were favorable. For anybody to be as close to him as the front yard of the house and him not hear them was a scary thought. "What kind of animal do you think he was?"
Ghoti was shaking his head. "I dunno, they don't make 'em much bigger than you on the carnivore side. And if he ain't a hare then he ain't an herbivore. Big fox maybe. I just dunno." The bat brightened. "I'm beginning to think I dreamed it anyway. I have funny dreams sometimes."
"Don't we all." Scratch mused and the two turned down a new street, better than halfway to their destination. He drew his coat around himself as another gust of chilled air buffeted them. Casting his eye to the sky, he asked Ghoti, "You think it's gonna rain?"
Ghoti shrugged. "I do sounds and stuff. The barometer is a mystery to me." He shifted his own eyes to the heavens. "It won't kill us to get wet at any rate."
Scratch gave the bat a baleful look.
"Hydrophobic Sissy." The bat teased.
"I don't have rabies." Scratch said.
"Fine." Ghoti amended. "Aquaphobic Sissy."
"I'm not afraid of water. I just don't like getting wet." Scratch huffed and crossed his arms.
"Sure." Ghoti said echoing their earlier rapport regarding his flying.
"You know I lost my eye in a water related accident."
Ghoti scoffed. "NOBODY knows how you lost your eye. You change the story every other day. Besides, I doubt water gave you that wicked scar."
Scratch traced a claw over his face. Starting at his forehead and ending just above his nose, was a long scar where his fur didn't grow in anymore. Although his patch hid the damage to his left eye, the scar remained visible. He actually still had the eye, he just couldn't see out of it. As for what happened, it was his secret.
"I bet Em or Cee one or the other scratched your eye out when y'all were kittens." Ghoti said with a smile.
"Ha." Scratch laughed dismissively. "They may outnumber me, but they could never hold me down." They were talking about Scratch's older twin sisters Melissa and Clarissa. They no longer talked to their estranged younger sibling that much. Just on holidays and birthdays, but they had always been closer to each other than their brother anyway. "Being freaky don't make them any stronger."
"They're not THAT freaky." Ghoti defended. He had met the twins some years back and had enjoyed being around them. They had a good sense of humor. They also spoke to each other in their own language. Ghoti had concentrated all his efforts on trying to hear the words in all the apparent nonsense, but had drawn a blank. "They never taught you how to talk like them, did they?"
Scratch grimaced in distaste. "Why would I want to? Freaky girls..."
They fell silent as they rounded the last curve that emptied out onto Main Street. Businesses dotted one side of the road and a large park occupied the other. They were headed for a large building three doors down from the Pico Taquito and one up from the shop where Bones worked. The Empire had once been a small warehouse used for storing agricultural supplies. When Hatcher had moved to town, he had bought it and transformed it into something classier than a flea market but falling way short of a supermarket. Pawn shop on steroids came close to describing it.
Scratch paused outside the butcher shop where Bones worked and glanced through the window.
"Can you see 'im?" Ghoti asked.
Scratch shook his head. "Must be in the back. We'll go in and get him." He glanced at his watch again. "We still got better than a half hour to kill." Bones didn't get his lunch until one. The bat and the bobcat continued to The Empire.
The bell overhead jingled as they walked inside the building. Hatcher, the aging possum who ran the place, stood hunched over the counter reading the paper. Ghoti called to him, "Billy! What's doin'?"
Hatcher looked up from his reading. "My name's not Billy, you winged demon. You'd think with ears like that you'd have heard me the first hundred times." He gave the bat a look of mingled hatred and resignation. He couldn't stand the bat's carefree attitude or overly friendly demeanor. Plus, he insisted on calling him Billy for some odd reason. But he spent a fair amount of coin in his shop. "Now either buy something or leave me in peace."
"Love you too, Billy!" Ghoti called, and turned to Scratch. "That old coot gets me every time."
"Oh, he's gonna get you one day. And I ain't gonna help you fight him off." Scratch replied. "Let's split up, lemme know if you find any new games or anything."
"Ten-Forty, I'm out." Ghoti said, and struck off on his own. The Empire was a fairly big place. How Hatcher kept an eye on it was anybodies guess. He kept only one full time employee, who seemed to change with the seasons, and near as Ghoti could tell, there were no security cameras anywhere. He wove his way between stacks of second hand clothes and dime store knick knacks looking for books ,movies, or games.
It was as he was thumbing his way through a bin full of generic glossy wall photos, looking for something to brighten up his room, that his sensitive ears picked up an unusual, but interesting, sound. It had an organic quality, but it didn't sound living. Ghoti was puzzled. He thought maybe he had heard it before, but he couldn't recall where. He started easing his way through the store, head cocked to one side and then the other, trying to pinpoint the sound. It almost sounded like dice being shaken in a closed paw... Almost. And it had an undertone like somebody moving two coins against each other between their fingers.
Ghoti came around a table overflowing with children's toys, and saw the maker of the sound leaning over a glass counter. It was a rabbit girl, maybe a little younger than him, with dark brown fur. She had her ears tied back behind her with a knotted bandana and was wearing a pair of dark colored denim jeans and a track jacket. She was currently leaned over a paper document and seemed to be deep in concentration. She continued to make the odd sound somehow and Ghoti was about to chance talking to her so he could figure out what it was when she turned toward him. She had a look of frustrated anger on her face and the sound stopped cold when she spoke. "What do you think you're looking at, WingDing?"
Ghoti's voice failed him. Although the girl appeared to be angry enough to lay a hurt on somebody, he could see a natural beauty beneath her troubled features. She frowned at him. "You bat's usually have tongue for miles. Can't even give me a reason you were starin' at me?" She asked.
"I uh..." Ghoti managed. His heart was trying to climb up into his throat.
"I bet you are." She dismissed him with a wave of her paw. "Get outta here, NightWing. I gotta figure out this application."
Ghoti continued to stare. She was a little taller than him. He liked tall girls. And she had attitude. He liked attitude.
She turned on him again. Ghoti recoiled from her icy glare. The bunny smiled at him and Ghoti felt a cold wind rush past his face. The brown rabbit walked forward and stopped just in front of him. "Listen here, little DarkStalker. I didn't come here to have some flying albino rat drool over me. So you either beat feet or I'm gonna use your wings to make paper dolls with. You get me?"
Ghoti got her just fine. He somehow managed to pull his eyes away from her and scampered back to a safer distance. He watched from behind a display case as the brown furred girl returned to the document on the counter and once more began to fill in the blanks on the apparent application. He was about to go find Scratch when the strange noise that had drew him to the girl began again. He concentrated his hearing toward her and finally understood.
She was grinding her teeth.
Ghoti resumed his hunt for his feline friend. After some time spent navigating the perilous aisles of The Empire, he found the big cat rummaging through a pile of used video games. "Dude, you'll never guess-" He began.
"Me first." Scratch said and turned to present something to the bat. "I found it over by the toys. Check him out." He was holding a stuffed animal.
Ghoti gave the bobcat an incredulous look. "I didn't think you were the snuggle bunny type." He said, looking at the plushy. It was a terrycloth rabbit. Blue in color, it was otherwise unimpressive.
"I'm not. But you are." Scratch said. "There was just something about him, sitting there looking all lonely. Almost like he didn't belong here or something. I thought you could take him home, put him with your sock monkeys."
Ghoti had a collection of sock monkeys, a childhood toy that had always brought him comfort as a kit, he had continued to buy them when he found them although he had slowly outgrew his need to cuddle them. When he took them off the shelf these days, it was often for a less childish purpose. "I dunno. It's not like you to want to have anything to do with something cuddly. You don't even own any action figures."
Scratch looked at the bunny then back to the bat. "It's no skin off my back either way, I just thought you might like him is all."
Ghoti realized his friend was trying to be nice. Scratch's personality was usually set to "Default Abrasive", whenever he tried to be nice it often took his friends by surprise. "Well, let me see him then." Ghoti said and held out his paw.
Scratch transferred the plush then went back to scrounging through the games.
Ghoti examined the little blue bunny. It's fur was soft to the touch and although it looked worn, it was still in good shape. It was clean, devoid of stains, and had no tears in it's seams. He had to admit, it was a cute little thing. "You're right." He said. "I think I will take him home."
"Told ya." Scratch said. "Now what was it you found?"
Ghoti had almost forgotten about the real bunny he had met. "Oh Dude, you gotta see it to believe it. Come with me."
Ghoti led them back to the glass case he had hid behind earlier, but the girl rabbit was gone. "Shit." He swore under his breath. "She must be giving her application back to Hatcher." He broke for the front of the store.
"Who?" Scratch called after him as he followed the bat.
"You'll see, maybe." Ghoti said. They found their way back to the cash register and Ghoti halted suddenly. Scratch bumped into his back.
"What's the big d-" The big cat began.
"Shh!" Ghoti hushed him. "She'll hear you, just play it cool." He then walked to the counter where Scratch saw a rabbit girl about his age handing a piece of paper to Hatcher.
"Thanks to you, Miss." The old possum said and the girl turned to leave.
As she turned around, she nearly bumped into Ghoti who had crept close to her. "You again?" She said, and Scratch felt a moment's alarm at her tone. She sounded like she might deck the bat.
"I'm sorry about before." Ghoti blurted. "I just get a little tongue-tied around pretty girls." Scratch had heard his friend attempt to "lay the smooth" on other occasions. Sometimes it worked. But he wasn't betting on the bat this time.
"And I get a little sick around big-eared freaks." The girl quipped and Hatcher laughed heartily.
Ghoti continued as though he hadn't been insulted. "My name's Ghoti. And this is my friend Scratch." He said, indicating the lynx.
The stern looking bunny gave him a look and laughed despite herself. "What kind of name is Fish for a bat?"
"It's a family name. It's spelled different tho'." Ghoti said.
"Whatever..." The bunny girl said and turned her attention to Scratch. The big cat took a step backwards. He wasn't abnormally frightened of girls, but he got a "high-brow bitch" feel from this one. And he didn't care for it.
The girl however fell silent as she looked him over. Ghoti's brow furrowed. He'd seen girls look at Scratch that way before. They saw his quiet, almost bashful demeanor as mysterious. The eye patch and the scar didn't hurt his chances any either. The bat's unease softened a bit when the girl dismissed the both of them and turned to go.
Ghoti watched her leave. "She nailed you but good, Batsy." Hatcher chuckled from behind the counter.
"Who is she, Billy?" Ghoti asked in a bemused voice.
Hatcher was still riding high on the girl's insult towards the boy to care much about being called Billy again. "New girl in town. Wants to be my new helper."
"Does she know you ate the old ones?" Scratch asked from his new position by the counter.
"Ha-Ha, Freckles." Hatcher retorted. "It's not my fault the tenderfoots around here can't handle a little hard work."
"What's her name?" Ghoti asked. He had watched the girl until she had walked out of sight, and now shifted his attention back to the possum.
Hatcher squinted his eyes at the bat. "What's it to ya?"
"Oh c'mon, Billy." Ghoti faux pleaded. "You know you're my favorite saber-toothed rat."
"And you're my least favorite gilded hemorrhoid." Hatcher replied. He did glance at the application the girl had filled out though. "Says here, her name is Sable. Sable Thomas."
"Sable." Ghoti mused, testing the name on his tongue.
Scratch gave Hatcher a "What are ya gonna do?" look and shrugged his broad shoulders.
"You gonna pay for yer dolly, Diablo?" Hatcher asked with a grin.
"Oh, yeah." Ghoti said distractedly and handed the near forgotten plushy to the elderly proprietor.
Hatcher shook his head as he rung up the purchase. "You'll have to keep a hold on him the rest of the day, ScarFace." He said to Scratch. "He's liable to float away if you aren't careful."
Scratch laughed. "He'll be fine as paint soon as we get some tacos in him."
Ghoti shook his head as if to clear it. "That's right. Tacos. What do I owe ya, Billy?"
"Five hundred and forty pennies." The old man said.
Ghoti paid him and tucked the stuffed bunny inside his jacket. "Thanks, Billy!" He called over his shoulder as he headed for the door.
"And stay out!" Hatcher called after, smiling in spite of himself.
"What's your deal with that girl?" Scratch asked the bat once they were outside. "She looked like she has a permanent attitude problem."
"I know." Ghoti said wistfully. "Wasn't she great?"
Scratch just shook his head and thrust his paws into his coat pockets. It was getting colder. As they walked the short length of sidewalk to Butcher Pete's where they could pick up Bones for lunch, a large raindrop fell from the sky, striking Ghoti on one of his oversized ears.
"We better haul ass if you don't wanna get all wet and pissy, Big Guy." The bat said, and the two hustled to the shop.
Ending Time Stamp: Wednesday, January 12, 2011, 12:57 pm