FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Uh yeah, well if you read my journal you'll understand that unfortunately I couldn't focus on revision and ended up spending a shitload of time writing this holiday (which I kind of regret now since my exams start in about 3 weeks). Anyway, here's a new series. Hope y'all enjoy. Comments criticisms etc. would be gladly accepted

College life

Chapter 1

Leo, a silver grey wolf, was sat in a tree. He wasn't the tallest or the shortest wolf, measuring just under 6 foot. He was neither the strongest nor weakest wolf, not one to go into a rugby scrum, but strong enough for most people to know not to piss him off. He was unduly proud of a six pack which he had gained from nightly sit-ups over the past few weeks. Unfortunately for him, it was only noticeable if the light fell on it the right way. Leo was actually part wolf part lion, hence his name. He liked being a canine, it gave him a laid back outlook on life, but he would often admit that he'd like the physical perks that came with being part lion; the agility, the claws, the ability to always land on one's feet. Plus, Leo mused, big cats are just sexy.

Leo was about half way up the tree and was looking out towards the old redbrick building which was his college (Theo College) in the University of Camford. He took his phone out and took a snapshot. The surrounding foliage from the tree gave the picture an interesting frame, but a nice one nonetheless, a merging of civilisation with nature; a prospect his ex didn't seem to think was possible, and would occasionally comment that it would be better if all furs were dead. Leo smiled at the picture, it was rare that he'd get a good shot straight away and looking back he noticed little flowers in his photo which he hadn't noticed previously but which somehow managed to lighten up the whole picture. The wolf laid his head against the trunk of the tree.

"Gosh this is the life, who knew being a university student could be so... tranquil" Leo sighed a happy sigh and continued to look out from his branch in the tree. Admittedly it was still his fresher's week and he hadn't had any lectures or work so far, but for the moment it was tranquil.

Leo loved climbing trees, probably his leonine side getting the better of him, but he could never deny himself the pleasure, and as he sat in a tree, partially hidden from the world, he could temporarily forget all about his problems. All his worries would just fade away and he would sit on a branch sometimes for up to half an hour at a time just staring out at the world. His father once told him how it was good to look at things from a new perspective, and Leo found that trees were the sacred providers of this perspective.

"Hey!" A voice called out from below. Leo lazily tilted his head down to see a tiger standing at the edge of the large square of grass from which the tree grew. The wolf chuckled to himself quietly before dropping down to one of the lower branches. While holding on to two higher branches he walked out along the length of the low branch until he was about a metre away from the tiger.

"Sup?" Leo said with a grin.

"You're not allowed to walk on the grass" The tiger said with an all knowing wink. The tiger looked like he was about Leo's age, most likely in his year, and, judging by his muscles, probably worked out in the gym a fair bit.

"I know. No rules saying I can't climb trees though, and no, I didn't touch the grass in the process of getting up here." Leo said sticking his tongue out as he jumped from the branch and landed lightly on his feet next to the tiger. "The name's Leo" The wolf said extending his paw to the tiger.

"Pleased to meet ya. I'm Diego." The tiger said smiling back at Leo as he shook paw.

"I always loved the name Diego. Why do I think it's a Spanish name."

"No sé. Quizás es un nombre español pero no estoy seguro." The tiger replied in a very convincing Spanish accent.

"No estoy seguro tampoco, pero no es importante. Pero es bueno que yo conozca a alguien que habla español también, me encanta hablarlo ¿Usted estudia español?"

"Nah," Diego said, reverting back to English "I study medicine, which reminds me I got an anatomy lecture in 10 minutes over in the lecture hall and it's like a mile away."

"Wait what? You go to Theo college right?" Leo asked, to which the tiger nodded in response. "That means I have an anatomy lecture now as well. Buh, time flies when I'm in a tree. And I don't have a bike. You?"

"I got my bike just over there. You study medicine too?" Diego motioned over to a bike rack. Smile spread across Leo's face.

"Yep. You like races?" He asked the tiger who nodded vigorously with a large smile on his face. "Cool, you cycle, I'll run, let's see who gets there first." Diego hesitated for a second then turned and sprinted for the bike rack which was about two hundred metres away from him. Meanwhile Leo was already sprinting down the road. Fortunately his bag weighed next to nothing compared to his secondary school bag so he was able to run at near to his full speed. As he tore down the road to the lecture hall he wondered whether a mile might be as bit too far to keep up a high speed for the whole way, but that didn't matter, he had a race to win. He dodged a few students who were slowly ambling about the town and finally the lecture theatre came into sight. His lungs were starting to burn and his muscles were complaining at being worked to max capacity over such a distance but he was almost there. The lecture hall came into Leo's sight. Only four hundred metres to go... three hundred and fifty metres... two hundred metres... Suddenly he heard the sound of a bicycle bell as he saw Diego speeding up the road past him. The tiger was pedalling furiously but let himself relax as he passed out the wolf.

The stripey feline was still going fast as he reached the lecture hall. His bike screeched to a halt just next to the door as he winked at Leo who was less than half a minute behind him.

"wow, you're pretty fast" The tiger said, quite out of breath. He hooked up his bike to a nearby bike rack and walked over to Leo who had his paws behind his head and was desperately trying to repay his oxygen debt.

"You're... not too bad yourself" Leo replied as he continued to breathe heavily. Diego chuckled to himself.

"Come on, we're going to be late, don't want to make a bad first impression." The two furs went inside, there were already 50 other students in the room. The bell had not yet rang but all eyes on the room where on Leo and Diego. It was one of those really awkward silences when nobody knew what to say or move. Thankfully the lecturer, Dr. Graybridge, a middle aged brown raccoon, broke the silence.

"Nice to see the two of you cared to join us. I guess it must be Leo and Diego, the last two on my list." The two guys blushed and quickly moved to sit down, unfortunately the only two spaces left were at the front. As the lecture started and picked up speed Diego and Leo found that it was more interesting than they expected. Leo, despite trying to read ahead of the subject, had got bored a few pages into the textbook and couldn't motivate himself to keep reading it. Diego was expecting everyone else to know everything already and for it to be like a big test, but was surprised when the lecturer started from scratch, and actually made the information interesting.

Their first lecture was on equine anatomy. The teacher liked to make everything relevant. For example, he talked about the maxillary sinuses, something which Leo had read about but got bored about relatively quickly. But when describing the relation between the location of the maxillary sinuses, the teeth and a particular nerve which Leo had forgotten the name of, and how if a particular tooth problem arose, it could affect the sinus and in turn the associated nerve which, if damaged, could result in a loss of feeling in the lips, which could spell death for unevolved equines, Leo actually found that things could be interesting when put into context. Medics would have to treat both the evolved and unevolved species so it was necessary to learn about the wide range of possible problems which could affect both evolved and unevolved species.

An hour later Diego and Leo were leaving the lecture hall. They had 2 hours before their first pathology lecture.

"So what's there to do at university between lectures?" Leo asked, he was quite happy by himself, but felt it would be rude to leave Diego just to sit in a tree.

"Y'know I never really thought about it. I guess we'll have lots of work from next week, but for the moment I don't have a clue. I like to spend time in the gym usually, but I do like singing and dancing; something that most people find a bit strange given my physique." Diego said, giving a mock flex of his muscles, eliciting a suppressed laugh from the wolf.

"Hmm, well we have time, let's try each other's hobbies. It'll be good to get to know each other, plus it should be interesting to try something new." The tiger smiled back at Leo. He did want to get to know the wolf some more.

"So which should we try first, your hobby or mine?" Diego asked.

"I'll go with yours. I rarely find time to go to a gym." Diego grinned in response and got on his bike, nodding his head to indicate for Leo to follow him. Diego decided to keep to a more moderate pace this time. Leo jogged along side the tiger happily to the sports building which had all kinds of facilities including a swimming pool and squash courts and, of course, a gym.

When they arrived, Diego got changed in the changing room. Leo waited outside, he had no gym clothes, and was happy to work out shirtless if allowed. 2 minutes later the tiger came out of the changing room with a tight grey t-shirt and dark blue shorts. Leo looked Diego up and down, gave an approving nod and walked into the gym. There were a few other furs in the gym. The bigger species including a bear and a bull were on the weights machines, whereas the smaller lither species tended to be on the running machines and cross trainers, at the moment a horse was running on a machine and another wolf was running on the machine next to him.

Diego went over to an overhead bar and started doing chin-ups. As he lowered himself up and down Leo stared as the tiger's muscles bulged and sweat started rolling down his forehead and soaked his fur. At 20 chin-ups the tiger dropped down and grinned at Leo.

"Beat that," Diego said, smiling but slightly out of breath.

"With pleasure" Leo replied grinning to the tiger. His mind wasn't so confident. He couldn't help but notice a light tingling and he desperately hoped nothing would show. Fortunately for Leo, the stirring feeling quickly disappeared. As well as that, chin-ups were one of his strengths. He got to 20 chin-ups and decided to leave it as a draw, knowing that had he gone first he would have stopped at 20 chin-ups himself, despite the fact that he knew he could do some more. Diego nodded with a smirk on his muzzle.

"Ha, hiding some muscle there are ya?" He clapped Leo on the back then put some weight on the bar and lay down on the bench. "Care to spot me?" Leo shuffled closer.

"I don't often use weights. I've never spotted anyone before. What do I have to do?"

"Well if you see I'm struggling just grab the bar and pull it up from me. Well you don't need to take the weight of the whole thing, but if you can take the weight of a few kilos then I can put it back into its place. Get it?" Leo nodded and stood ready to help the tiger. The tiger started to sets of 10 reps.

"How much do you weigh? And how much does this thing weigh?" Leo asked, trying to gain a sense of the tiger's strength.

"Well I weigh 90 kilos, and this thing is about 120." The tiger said between puffs of air. Leo nodded and noticed Diego starting to pant and struggle. Leo moved to take the weight. Diego shook his head. "Not yet. I do one more set usually." Leo decided not to argue but halfway through the final rep Diego's strength suddenly gave up and the weight dropped. He closed his eyes weighting to feel the weight crush his chest or his waist but then he heard the weight being put back in its place and looked up to see Leo giving him an 'I told you so look' that was somehow mixed with concern.

"Thanks" Diego grunted as he sat up. He looked around, slightly light headed. He shook his head and looked up at Leo. "I don't know what happened there. Thanks for helping out." He beamed a smile at the wolf who smiled in return.

"Imma just go do some sit-ups" The wolf replied.

"Alrighty. I'll go on the pec deck for a while." The two went off to do their respective exercises and finally came back together on the rowing machines.

"Race you" Diego said as he set both machines to a 1500 metre limit and set the same resistance for them." Leo nodded and started to 'row', both of them started off quickly, but Diego won comfortably. Leo didn't mind, he would argue that Diego works out so he wasn't too upset.

After an hour of working out they left and Diego got changed. Leo had decided to go train shirtless. But he used Diego's deodorant to freshen up.

"So now what?" Diego asked.

"We're gonna play chess" The wolf declared. Diego cringed.

"I don't know how to play." He admitted.

"That's fine, I've taught lots of people before, most of them were nowhere near as smart as you. You should pick it up really quickly. Seriously, don't worry."

Diego was still nervous but he quickly picked up the moves. They were sat in one of the rooms in the library with a chessboard between them.

"So the rook goes vertical and horizontal. The bishop moves diagonally along its own colour and the knights hop in little L-shapes. The queen can move in any direction as far as he wants. The king can move any direction for one space. The pawns may move forward one space and may take diagonally and can become any other piece when they reach the end of the board right?" Diego was trying to remember everything that Leo had told him. Leo nodded in surprise; few people he knew would pick up the names and movement patterns so quickly.

"Cool so you ready to play?"

"Um, yeah but I don't quite get this whole issue of checkmate. You have to put your opponent into a position where they are in check and can't do anything to get out of it? I mean how on earth does that work?"

"You'll see" Leo said with a sly wink and a grin. He performed a scholar's mate on Diego in 4 moves to illustrate how exactly one could perform a checkmate. Diego nodded slowly, taking a good look at the situation to understand how exactly this 'checkmate' thing worked. Diego was reluctant to try again after being shamefully thrashed. Nevertheless he plucked up the courage with a little coaxing from the wolf. Leo held off on the scholar's mate and decided to play fairly. Diego played surprisingly well, he lost but it was closer than expected for someone who was just starting. Leo caught himself staring at the tiger and wondering the two most dangerous words in the English language: "What if..."

They managed to fit in two more games before they had to head to their pathology class. Luckily they weren't the last in and when the last person finally arrived they avoided the awkward silence by signalling the latecomer, a shy chocolate brown retriever, to sit beside them.

Pathology was admittedly quite sickening. The teacher decided to give an introduction on various parasites including a brief overview of various worms, ticks and leaches. Leo and Diego were glad they'd decided to skip snacks, as many of the other students were trying their best to keep their food down during the lecture.

Afterwards the two parted ways. Leo claimed he had to go study in his room to get ahead for his next few lectures for the day after. He claimed that he liked to have a brief understanding of a subject before he was lectured on it. Meanwhile Diego claimed that he wanted to go to the gym to work out a bit more. The two waved and walked in opposite directions down the street. When Leo thought he was out of sight he turned down a separate road and doubled back up on himself, eventually finding himself at a large pub. He was pleased to see a rainbow banner and various pink and rainbow coloured ribbons flags and t-shirts strewn around the inside. It was the LGBT meeting for the university. There were people here from all the separate colleges. It was a grand meeting. Leo was surprised by his reaction, but he was glad to see lots of girls. In all of his time as being an openly gay wolf, he'd never met a lesbian. He was surprised that he was looking forward to meeting lesbians, as well as hopefully a nice guy or two. He looked about around the pub and saw various species amongst the males, there were other canines like himself, some boisterous wolves, one or two bears were standing around as well talking happily. Then Leo's heart stopped as he saw a muscular tiger sitting in a corner on the other side of the room.

"Going to the gym were you?" Leo asked Diego with a sly smile. Diego was shocked and blushed.

"Are you...?" Diego started tentatively.

"Yes, I'm gay. You?"

"Uh, yeah" The tiger said scratching the back of his head. He was obviously shy about it, but Leo couldn't help but think it made the big tiger look even cuter. He chuckled to himself.

"No need to be shy about it." Leo said smiling. Diego looked away. He stared out the window and Leo knew he had probably stirred memories which should've been left where they were.

"I used to be bullied about it in school. That's why I started to work out. The bigger kids would be the one who'd bother me. I wasn't even stereotypical or anything and it's not like I flirted or acted gay in any way. I told my best friend but you know, it spreads, and it spread to the wrong people. Eventually the headmaster caught some guys taking the piss out of me and trying to trip me up in the corridor. Other teachers had seen stuff but I'd asked them not to act on it, but when the headmaster saw, he called my parents and news quickly spread to them. My only fortune was that I realised late in school. It was an all boys school but surprisingly I was the only guy who was 'like that' that had come out in the past 3 years. And you know what Neanderthals are like when they're not used to something. My parents as well weren't too taken on the idea of me being gay. But I only had to spend another year with them. And now I'm here... thank god. And thank god its medicine that I'm studying. Longer course means I'm longer away from my folks. Who knows, maybe they'll miss me so much that they'll forgive me by the time I get back."

Leo sat and listened to Diego's words. Sometimes he felt so bad. He didn't have problems being openly gay at school or with his family. Admittedly, his gran wasn't pleased by the idea, she being a traditional Irish catholic. He was still annoyed that his mum had told her behind his back.

"But what about your mum, surely she loves you regardless."

"Yeah but she loves my father as well. She hates being caught in the middle, but in the end I told her to side with him. I wasn't about to jeopardise my parent's relationship over my sexual preferences. Eventually it didn't matter in the end, he brought her round to his way of thinking and things, well, they weren't great, they weren't even remotely good. " The tiger sighed and was taken aback when he felt the wolf's paw on his.

"Hey", Leo started, "I'll be here for you. I won't let anyone hurt you or take the piss out of you. I know you're strong and can probably hold your own but I'll always be here no matter what."

The tiger nodded.

"Thanks Leo. You're a good wolf. Are you sure you're not part feline?" He enquired with a smile.

"Actually my mum is a lioness. I get my climbing skills and my lion-like laziness from her." He said, eliciting a laugh from the tiger.

"Cool cool. Anyway, you wanna see what else is going on in this place?" Diego said looking about.

"I don't mind. It's up to you m'dear." A sound of a glass being tapped brought all their attention towards the speaker, a seemingly hyperactive flamer fox.

"It's good to see everyone here." He proclaimed, turning around in a flamboyant manner to see everyone in the pub. "I see lots of species here, wolves, bears, even a handsome tiger sitting in the corner over there" Diego blushed, when all eyes in the room fell on him and the crowd laughed. "Now now don't everyone stare at... what's yer name?"

"Diego." The tiger said shyly.

"What?" The speaker called out cheekily.

"Diego!" The tiger called out with a smile on his face.

"Everyone give it up for Diego!" The speaker called out and there was a light hearted cheer from the crowd. "Now who else do we have here. I see some lesbians in the crowd as well and who's this?" He pointed to a female leopard who was holding hands with a lioness.

"I'm Clare! And this is my girlfriend..."

"Sheila!" The lioness shouted out, finishing her mate's sentence.

"Give it up for Claire and Sheila!" The fox called out. There was another cheer from the crowd. The speaker, who turned out to be a medic himself, managed to go round the whole crowd so that everyone shouted out their name at least once. There was a quiz at the end to see who could remember the names of as many other people who were present. Some of the older members shared some of their more embarrassing stories with the group including one couple who had been making out in a public toilet when they heard another couple getting slightly more intimate in the neighbouring cubicle.

Leo and Diego left with a smile on their muzzles.

"So I'll see you for pharmacology tomorrow?" Leo said with a smile.

"Of course" Diego replied before planting a kiss on Leo's muzzle. The wolf's muzzle hung open and then a stupid grin covered his muzzle and left him blushing.

"Ok then see you tomorrow" Leo managed to get the words out after a bit of stammering and the tiger giggled at the sight.

"Alright sweet dreams Leo"

"Sweet dreams Diego"

The two suddenly burst into laughter after their sweet little moment when they realised their rooms were pretty much next to each others, or at least in their case, there was only a difference of a single floor. The two guys chatted away as they walked back to their apartments. It turned out they had a similar taste in music; a taste which both of them would admit was shamefully stereotypical. Among their favourite artists were bands such as Abba, and artists such as Lady Gaga and Gwen Stefani. Granted they both had other likes, Leo enjoyed some rock such as Muse or Coldplay, and enjoyed listening to music from random Japanese anime. Diego liked some classical music including J.S. Bach's harpsichord and piano pieces. As it turned out they both liked the final fantasy series of games and both were suckers for the game music that was predominantly composed by Nobuo Uematsu.

When they got to Diego's floor Leo planted a kiss on the tiger's muzzle. This time it was Diego's time to struggle to formulate his words. They parted happily; both of them were already looking forward to the next day.

Leo entered his apartment, pounced onto the bed and hugged his pillow tightly. He sighed happily to himself. Diego seemed so perfect, he was handsome, strong, willing to try new things and always up for a race; something which very few of Leo's friends were willing to try with him. And he was gay! It all seemed too perfect. He couldn't help but wonder what Diego thought of him. Probably thinks I'm some nerdy wolf who likes to climb trees Leo mused. He could only hope he'd made as good an impression on Diego as the tiger had made on him. From his bed he was just about able to reach his wheelie swivel chair. He got up into it and pushed himself away from the desk, gliding all the way to his desk on the other side of the room. He quickly got onto his laptop and was soon on Skype telling all his school friends about the lovely tiger he'd met and asked how their respective universities were. Everything was good, it was times like this that Leo felt guilty; he seemed to have it all when others had none. He had brains, a reasonably good body and a good life. At times like this his mind would stray to those gay men and women who were persecuted because of their sexuality, sometimes even by members of Leo's own religion. Leo was a Christian, a Catholic to be precise, but he would always advocate gay rights if he was with random Christians he didn't know well. He'd even spoken out about gay rights at a prayer meeting that he'd had the torture of being brought to by his grandmother. He hated few things but religious persecution of gays was something he'd never been able to tolerate. In fact it was one of the reasons that he'd drifted away from his faith. The wolf hadn't even prayed in a long time or gone to church for that matter. Overall, he'd admit that he didn't follow typical Christian traditions but rather decided to live a good life. But for now he was happy, he was in a good uni, in a nice college, with a tree and a lovely tiger one floor below him. What could be better?

Diego entered his apartment before Leo had even got to the top of the flight of stairs. He was smiling, surprisingly. The tiger was happy for the first time in what felt like months and it was all thanks to a certain wolf. The second the tiger had seen Leo in the tree, he instantly felt drawn to him. He didn't think the wolf would be gay, and it was that sense of disappointment that had led to him sitting in the corner of the bar in the LGBT meeting, at least until Leo had appeared. His heart had jumped for joy when he saw Leo walk into the pub, but he couldn't be sure whether it was mere coincidence, but hearing the wolf admit it made him feel nice and warm inside. Diego went over to his desk and removed his diary from the top drawer. He wrote about the whole day's events, describing in intricate detail all of his moments with Leo; especially how the wolf had taught him to play chess, and how he had been there to save him in the gym when his strength faltered.

As he finished his diary entry he looked into his drawer. There, tucked up against the side lay a flick knife. It was beautiful in its own way. Its handle looked like it was handcrafted oak and had gold flecks around the edges. It looked like it could have been something passed down for generations between the males of the family. The spring mechanism wasn't working all that well anymore and the user practically had to pull the knife out of its place with their claws. The only difference in this situation was that Diego's relationship with his dad wasn't the type that involved the passing on of any type of antique, or any other type of bonding for that matter. Diego had bought this knife for himself and the reason was clear when he flicked though his previous diary entries, most of which had some dried blood spilled over the final few words. Diego stared at the knife, in the drawer. But decided to leave it where it was. He was happy for once and didn't need to hurt himself. He put the diary back in his drawer on top of the knife and moved halfway across the floor in his room before pouncing onto the bed and wrestling gently with his pillow. He lay there and chuffed happily, as tigers do. He was happy, and putting his pillow back in its original position, he lay his head down on it and quickly fell asleep, looking forward to what the next day might bring- looking forward to seeing Leo again.