FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

So yeah here's the next chapter. Hope y'all enjoy it as much as I did writing it :) any comments criticisms favs watches etc. would be appreciated. Happy reading. Arigato ^_^

College life: chapter 2

Leo's alarm woke him early the next morning, throughout the summer he had forgotten to change it from 6.30 am so he sat there in his bed, he wasn't sure whether to get up and see if Diego was awake yet or if it was best to wait for the tiger to wake up first. In the end, Leo decided to head back to sleep until 7.30. When he got up he checked the kitchen on his floor, and seeing that no one was present, decided to head down to the one on Diego's floor. His ears pricked up as he came in and saw the sleepy tiger; he was humming an Abba song. It took Leo a few moments to work out what it was.

"Take a chance on me?" He suggested to the sleepy tiger who beamed a broad smile at the wolf.

"Indeed. Morning stranger." The tiger said tipping his head in a greeting towards the wolf. Leo went over to see what was on the tiger's breakfast menu. It seemed that he was cooking himself a typical English breakfast. There was toast, fried eggs, sausages and bacon. Yay! No baked beans Leo thought to himself. As a wolf, his olfactory organs were highly specialised so any smell he didn't like was grossly hyperbolised to nauseating levels. Baked beans were one of those things that Leo hated the smell of and he would generally avoid sitting next to anyone who was eating them; he'd never eat them himself. They were one of the few things that he would not eat. The only other things that sprang to mind were pak choi; some strange Thai vegetable, and aubergines and associated dishes; such as moussaka. Apart from that Leo could quite literally 'wolf down' anything that was set down in front of him.

"Mmmmm now that I've seen what's for breakfast that increases the number of delicious things in the room to two." The wolf said with a wink to Diego.

"Are you always this flirty in the morning?" Diego asked, briefly turning around to look at the wolf and to flash him a smile before turning back to the frying pan.

"Just till I get coffee so my brain can once more become responsive to norepinephrine and serotonin and henceforth allow me to keep my flirty inhibitions in check."

"Really? Serotonin and norephineprine? Dude, please don't talk to me about neurotransmitters before I've had breakfast."

"Sorry, it was a line I remember from the big bang theory."

"Huh" The tiger said searching through his memory as he dished up his breakfast. "Which episode was that?"

"I'll give you a hint. IT'S A WAVE!!!!" Leo cried out enthusiastically imitating the character Sheldon from the series.

"Ah yes, I remember now" The tiger chuckled to himself. "I love the big bang theory. You realise you're a nerd when you're the only one in a room laughing at the jokes." Leo nodded while drinking his coffee; he couldn't deny that it was true.

The two went through breakfast quickly. Diego let Leo have a slice of his toast and one of his rashers. Leo refused but Diego argued that any good medic would know that food is essential to start the metabolism and that caffeine alone doesn't quite 'cut the mustard'.

"Say, we have a while until we have to get to our pharmacology lecture. Can you show me how you get into that tree of yours?" The tiger asked.

"Sure" Leo replied, "Follow me, or do you need to get anything from your room."

"Nah my satchel is here" Diego said picking up his satchel with his notepad and textbooks from the counter. Leo's picked his up by the doorway as they left the kitchen (but not before they had washed up their dirty plates and cutlery of course ^_^'').

Leo went up to the top floor where there was a door leading out to a balcony. It was unlocked like it usually was. Next to the balcony was a ledge, which made its way around the remainder of the building until it reached the end of the building. At this point the building was attached to the walls that surrounded the grounds of the college. Leo hopped down onto the wall and Diego was right behind him. Normally Leo would just scale a wall like free runners but this wall was 20 feet tall; more than his height combined with Diego's, so he had to use this roundabout way to get up to it. Diego himself was just over six foot two inches, so there wasn't that much of a height difference between the two. They ran along the wall like Ezio from Assassin's creed two (or Altair if you're more of a fan of the original Assassin's creed) until they reached a point near the tree.

"And now you jump and hope for the best" Leo replied with a care free look on his face before turning and jumping, managing to land with his foot paws on a large sturdy branch, and his hand paws on two slightly smaller branches. He turned around to see Diego take his jump, but for a tiger jumping wasn't his strong suit, he missed the branches that the wolf had managed to grab and would have fell to his possible demise had Leo not grabbed his wrist and pulled him up to a nearby bough next to him . Diego was in a temporary state of shock and Leo looked at him with a mixture of fear, concern and uncertainty.

"Sorry Leo, I'm a bit of a clutz sometimes."

"Doesn't matter, we each have our own individual strengths, for example you're breakfast this morning was lovely; if I've cooked food expect to be either in hospital by the next day, or too busy vomiting in your toilet to get there." This elicited a cheerful smile from the tiger.

"Nice view from up here." Diego remarked as he looked out over the college and the students.

"Indeed it is" Leo said with a grin as he noticeable stared at the tiger.

"Gosh, I thought you were only a flirt until you got your coffee." The tiger laughed as Leo scratched the back of his head and gave a cheeky but somewhat innocent smile to the tiger. The two sat in the tree for some time, not talking, just admiring the view and watching as life continued on below them, oblivious to their presence. "This spot is beautiful Leo, how do you find something quite like this?"

"I always had a thing for trees; I guess it puts both of our big cat sides at rest." Diego turned as he heard the tell tale sound of the click of a camera phone. Leo was sitting there already examining the new picture. "Did you ever think of going into modelling?" Leo asked admiring the photo.

"Not really; it's not my kind of thing." Diego replied as he grabbed the phone from Leo's paw. He was slightly taken aback by the picture. It was him alright; nothing special about that, but Leo had set it to greyscale and small rays of light permeated the surrounding foliage casting pretty lights all over the tiger's face and eyes. The leaves and branches behind set up an overall beautiful background for the picture. "Leo, how do you take pictures like this? It's beautiful."

Leo smiled. He never thought of himself as a good photographer. He liked taking photographs that involved nature, but was rarely able to take picture of other furs unless it was in situations such as the one he found himself now. His mum used to compliment him on his nature photography, but he always took her comments with a pinch of salt; after all, it was a mum's responsibility to compliment her cub. Leo hadn't studied photography as a subject and never really showed off his photos to anyone else. However, Leo new that Diego's comment was true and from the tiger's heart and that made Leo happy to hear. Diego meanwhile was looking through all of Leo's photos on his phone, some he found were good, others were great, others of inanimate objects or other furs tended to not be so good, but on the whole, the tiger was genuinely impressed by Leo's skills.

"What grade did you get in GCSE photography" The tiger asked curious to see what other people thought of the standard of Leo's work.

"I never studied photography. It's something I regret sometimes, but maybe I like it so much because I didn't study it. Oh shit we're gonna be late again." Leo exclaimed looking at his watch. "Follow my lead but don't get on the same branch as me at any time while we're going down." Leo quickly drooped down from branch to branch and finally walked out along the same branch as the previous day to hop past the grass and on to the nearby pavement. Diego deftly followed him and soon both of them were running for the pharmacology block; it was near enough for it not to be worth Diego's time to get his bike.

They burst in the door of the pharmacology lab just as the lecture was supposed to start, 9AM on the dot, but found that nobody was there. They wondered if they were early and so decided to sit down and get out their things. They discussed what the thought was going on when Leo suddenly facepawed and pointed at the board. The words "pharmacology lecture in lecture hall at 9.10" were written there in block capitals in plain sight. The two of them groaned, packed their things and ran back out.

"Fuck, our bikes are back at the apartment block." Leo moaned. Diego shrugged his shoulders and pointed in the general direction of the lecture hall which was almost a mile and half away. According to their watches, they had 7 minutes to get there.

"Race you" Diego said as he started to run down the pathway. Leo was hot on his heels. The wolf soon caught up to the tiger and decided to maintain the tiger's pace; it would be no use wearing himself out too early. The two of them rushed down the path weaving and dodging between groups of tourists and other students, but for all their speed, and energy, a mile and a half in seven minutes was not attainable and they walked in to the lecture hall out of breath.

"Now, as many of you know, some poppy seeds are a source of- ah very nice of the latecomers to arrive, take your seats quickly- poppy seeds, as I was saying, contain opiates."

Leo and Diego found two seats next to each other in the centre of lecture hall and both started taking notes on the effects of various drugs and chemicals and their general effect on heart rate. For the moment it was just a brief overview like the previous lectures. Finally, the lecturer, an aging brown bear who was showing signs of alopecia in areas, was coming to the end of his lecture. Just before he ended he turned to the class.

"Now I want you all to pair off. And do a short research assignment of between say 500 and 1000 words. No biggie really. Now I want this to be of a chemical or drug of your choice and its effect on a particular muscle or group of muscles, preferably including the mechanisms of its effect on said muscles and where the drug arises from or where the idea for it came from. Now do any of you want to lay claim to anything in particular so that you can show that you didn't cheat off someone else?" Leo's paw shot up immediately. "Ah yes, one of the late comers, and what will you and I'm presuming your tiger friend be researching?"

"Digitalis and its effect on the heart" Leo said in a matter of fact tone. The lecturer nodded in approval. One or two other groups had a drug in mind, one of them chose acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that the lecturer had already spoke of. Leo didn't hear what the other group said as Diego leant in next to his ear.

"What the hell is digitalis?" he whispered.

"It's a type of non-competitive enzyme inhibitor.. It is isolated from the foxglove plant. It can slows down a person's heart rate, and I'm not sure about this either, but I think when it's taken in sufficiently high quantities it can stop a person's heart. Just like how my heart skipped a beat when I first laid eyes on you." Diego giggled at the last part of the wolf's explanation.

"You're such a nerd. But at the same time you're so sweet... like a supersaturated sucrose solution."

"I'm sorry, who's the nerd?" Leo asked with a smile on his face as he poked the tiger in the stomach. He suddenly noticed that everyone was getting up and they both quickly packed their things away.

The two of them had another pathology lecture and then it was lunchtime. They decided to explore the town to see what it had to offer in the way of culinary delights. The pair of them stopped at the same moment just outside an oriental all you can eat buffet. The two nodded in unison and then moved to walk inside shoulder to shoulder before they burst out laughing at the stupid gesture.

"You like oriental food?" Diego asked Leo, almost too happy that the wolf had similar gastronomic tastes to him.

"Of course! Best food there is. Although Mexican and Indian food are up there as well." Leo grinned. His ex was such a fussy eater; he could go round a whole town and only find one restaurant that his ex would be 'willing' to eat in. He was glad that Diego at least had similar tastes. The two went in and sat themselves down at a table. The waitress, a female Chinese panda, came over and took their drinks orders then showed them over to where the buffet was. There was so much on offer, a mix of predominantly Chinese and Japanese food, although there was some Thai and Malaysian food as well. Leo piled his plate high with various starters including prawn toast, dumplings, teriyaki chicken strips, chicken satay and some spring rolls. Diego, like a typical cat, settled for a plate piled high with various types of sushi and a little dish of soy sauce and... Oh my gosh he's gone and got wasabi with it as well. God that tiger has good tastes Leo thought to himself.

Diego spotted the spring rolls on Leo's plate and gave the cutest wide eyed kitten face he could muster as he asked for a spring roll. Leo's heart melted at the sight of it and happily handed the tiger three of his spring rolls. The smile that the tiger gave him was worth far more than 3 spring rolls. It was that type of smile that warmed your heart and that people should have been paying fortunes to see, but the tiger was giving him this smile like it meant nothing in the world.

"You're so amazing" Leo sighed. Diego shook his head in disagreement.

"Nah, you're the amazing one. I'm just some average Joe." Diego got his chopsticks and swirled the wasabi into the soy sauce. Then he dipped his sushi into it and put a small slice of ginger on top of it.

This time Leo gave him his best puppy dog look with a mock whimper as he switched between looking at Diego's face and the sushi. Diego finally caught on and plopped the sushi into the wolf's muzzle. Leo's eyes closed as he sampled the sushi. Diego could tell Leo wasn't a philistine when it came to sushi, and he was glad he could finally share his love of sushi with someone. The tiger remembered when he'd given the exact same piece of tuna with wasabi soy sauce and ginger to one of his friends before. His friends look at had quickly turned from one of curiosity to one of pain and he had quickly spat the sushi onto the nearest empty plate much to Diego's amusement.

"Mmmmm, what is it, red tuna?" Leo asked.

"Whoa, yeah it is. You like sushi huh?"

"God yeah! Sushi rocks; especially with soy sauce, wasabi and ginger." The wolf stated appreciatively. Diego nodded his agreement and went back to his sushi. After about twenty minutes worth of starters the two guys finally decided to go up for their main course. Leo went for a mixture of chicken dishes; there was some sweet and sour chicken, some crispy chicken, some chicken in blackbean sauce. All on a bed of egg fried rice.

"Wow either you have no taste or you have too much?" Diego joked coming up alongside him to get some chicken katsu curry "I like to keep my flavours separate to appreciate each one"

"I just like to eat" The wolf declared "Provided it tastes good I'll eat it.

"Philistine" Diego said poking his tongue out at Leo who merely laughed and went back to their table. They both went up for seconds and thirds but skipped desert, there was rarely anything good in the way of pudding at these all you could eat places. Leo had to admit, Diego's eating capacity impressed him. Few people that he knew could eat anywhere near as much as him, but Diego was keeping up chopstick to chopstick.

"You know, I've never met anyone who could eat as much as me at an all you can eat place" Leo thought out loud.

"I was thinking the same thing. Most of my friends would settle with one plate of starters and one main course meal, but you could eat for England."

"Ireland" The wolf corrected him with a smile.

"No shit, you're from the emerald isle? Why didn't you tell me? I always had a thing for Irish guys" Diego said with a wink.

"I guess I never thought to mention it. My accent confuses most people cos it isn't strong enough to be recognised as Irish but at the same time it's not from any recognisable part of England. Some people even think I'm from America" Leo gave a mock shudder.

"You don't like Americans?"

"Nah most of the American people I know personally are really nice. But there is a minority of idiots and bigots which give the majority a bad name. The worst cases of homophobic assaults and negative reactions from family members have been from America; but then again I guess it's the same in every country. But for me some of the best things that come out of America are its TV comedies, such as Scrubs, Friends or... oh what's that other one called?" Leo replied scratching his muzzle in a vain attempt to look smart while trying to remember the name of a programme which was right on the tip of his tongue.

"How I met you're mother?" The tiger suggested. Leo nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, I like Scrubs and how I met your mother, but I've seen Friends too many times, and the new series of scrubs wasn't that great. Oh and obviously there's the big bang theory."

"The big bang theory" The wolf replied nodding in both agreement and appreciation for the programme. "Diego, where did you come from?" Diego blushed but the smiled a wicked grin.

"Well when a man-"

"Yes, yes we all know that bit." He said chuckling to himself.

"Nah I don't know, I could ask the same to you." Leo knew the tiger was right and checked his watch.

"Oh we've got. Oh. Probably shouldn't have eaten lunch."

"Oh I completely forgot," Diego said face pawing, "We've got a-"

"Dissection" The two said at the same time, both with a cringe on their face.

"Ah well. Might as well head up to class." Leo said, signalling for the waitress to bring the bill.

"Do we have dissection after lunch ever Friday?!" Diego asked thinking of how he'd be feeling soon.

"I think so..."

"That's just cruel"

The two paid their part of the bill and then walked to class. Neither was willing to run with the amount of food digesting in their alimentary canals. They got to the dissection on time, surprisingly. The smell of the operating theatre was something that Leo had never enjoyed and his canine senses made it worse. During the first operation he had seen on work experience the smell had got to him. He didn't mind the sight of blood so much, but the overpowering smell of antiseptic scrub mixed with the stench of blood and necrotic tissue on a particularly hot day had forced him to leave the operating theatre. That had happened for the first operation he'd seen. Since then he'd seen lots of operations during his respective work experience placements, but he'd never had food in his stomach beforehand. Diego didn't mind it so much, he didn't mind the sight of blood and he didn't mind the smell of the operating theatre itself. But the smell of dead cow wasn't helping to keep his food down. As the medic was performing the dissection two of the girls had to leave the operating theatre to get some fresh air, and one of the guys had to rush to the toilet to empty his stomach contents, nevertheless, during the display of intestines, stomach and various other organs, Diego and Leo managed to keep their food down. After the dissection the two of them were finished with lectures for the day.

"You wanna go start on that pharmacology assignment?" Leo asked.

"Lead on Macduff" The tiger replied in a mock thespian tone.

"Cool, do you have a laptop?"

"Yep, you want me to go get it."

"Yeah I'll get mine as well, and then we'll head to the library." The two went back to their respective rooms, got to their laptops and went to the library. Leo found a book on enzyme inhibitors which turned out to have almost a whole chapter on digitalis. Diego on the other hand was checking up on Wikipedia to get a rough idea of how digitalis worked. He would always claim that science based articles on Wikipedia were usually written by professionals or else they were taken from sections of relevant textbooks. After 5 minutes Diego looked up with a confused look on his face.

"Leo what's your surname?"

"Agito. Yours?"

"Sabre"

"Cool. Why do you ask?" The wolf asked. Diego typed something onto the laptop then looked up and gave Leo another puzzled look.

"You're not on Facebook"

"Yeah, I really can't be bothered with it. I know I'd become addicted if I started using it, and as any good medic should know, prevention is often better than a cure. Why are you on Facebook anyway? Get back to work" Leo said with a wink. Diego gave an overdramatic sigh, winked back and headed back to Wikipedia. Together they compiled a great deal of information. It turned out that they had too much and needed to cut the project down. Leo loved go into too much detail. He liked to know exactly how something worked down on molecular level. He had long since lost the ability to keep things simple. Fortunately, Diego like to keep things as simple as possible, which was handy since they would've grossly exceeded their word limit if it wasn't for his excellent summarising skills. Besides, if necessary, Leo had the in-depth knowledge to mind if they needed to present it. Regardless the wolf had kept the detailed copy and emailed it to Diego so they'd still have the in-depth knowledge if they needed to refer to it at a later date.

"Hey Diego, you wanna go to formal dinner with me tonight?"

"Oh yeah I forgot Friday was one of the formal evenings. Um, sure, do I need to get my gown?"

"Yeah, it seems so weird the idea of everyone wearing gowns and being served by butlers. I remember we had a semi formal dinner on the medical taster course. I felt so out of place when they came round with posh little bowls of soup. I dunno, it feels weird to me"

"Tell me about it. Either way, 3-course meal with you for a fiver, who'd turn it down? Even if it does feel like I'm in Hogwarts." The two laughed together before heading up to their rooms to retrieve their respective black gowns, which, if for nothing else, were fun to round around with when the wind was blowing.

They sat in their gowns as tomato and basil soup was placed in front of them. And candles were lit on all of the tables. Tapestries with the college crest hung on the walls. It really did feel like Hogwarts. All the heads of the college were sitting up at the end of the hall on their own separate table, but the mood was light hearted. Leo found himself staring at Diego again. The tiger looked so cute with his pupils dilated in the candlelight. Leo remembered how one of his teachers had taught him about the phenomenon and how it made people more likely to fall in love because dilated pupils always made people look sweeter. Leo put his paw on Diego's.

"Diego, I really like you. I know this is rushed and that we've only been together for 2 days but" Leo dropped his voice to a whisper "Would you be my boyfriend Diego Sabre?" Diego's face lit up in the candlelight and a smile spread its way across his muzzle. He put his other paw on Leo's and held it there.

"It would be my pleasure Leo Agito." A sheepish grin spread across his muzzle. The two held paws while eating their soup but eventually had to let go when their main course came and they needed to eat with a knife and fork. Little did they know several pairs of eyes were fixed on the two males, and the owners of said eyes were all smiling at the sweet sight.

After the two were finished, they decided to go for a walk down the river bank at the edge of the city. They walked paw in paw alongside the slowly flowing river; both of them were silent just enjoying it. There was a full moon that night and the moonbeams reflected on the water's surface bathing the tiger and the wolf in silver radiance. Leo looked over at the tiger and sighed:

"You're so beautiful y'know that." He kissed the tiger lightly on the muzzle. Diego smiled and kissed him back on the muzzle. The two looked into each other's eyes and kissed each other lightly on the lips. They looked into each other's eyes once more and then kissed each other deeply. Leo pulled them up the river bank and into a path of long grass where he pulled Diego down with him. The two made out for a few minutes tongues eagerly exploring one another's muzzles and as quickly as it had started they broke away, snuggled up together and looked up at the stars.

"Wow, the stars are so pretty tonight" Diego sighed as he hugged the wolf close to him.

"So are you" Leo said as he snuggled up closer to his tiger. The two sat there looking up into the sky. They could hear the crickets in the nearby fields chirping away. Everything felt so perfect. Leo couldn't believe how good life was. Diego was smiling to himself. He was happy. He was really happy. He no longer had to be afraid of being gay. He was studying a subject he enjoyed and he had a wonderful boyfriend. Life for the couple was great.

Eventually the two made their way back to their apartments. They shared a parting kiss on Diego's floor and then both went to their respective rooms. Leo sat in his room for a while and discovered an app for learning Japanese which kept him amused for the next few hours. He smiled to himself as he eventually moved over to his bed and drifted off to sleep.

Diego once more took out his diary and wrote his good fortunes in it. He couldn't help but wonder what the wolf saw in him. He worried that maybe it was just a quick fling and that the wolf would soon lose interest in him. But for the moment, he was happy and he had a wonderful boyfriend. He didn't even look at the knife this time, but rather, he decided to draw a little chibi sketch of a tiger and a wolf snuggling together with huge smiles on their faces. Diego smiled to himself. He walked over to his bed gradually stripping down to his boxers as he crossed the small room. As he lay in bed he couldn't get comfortable. Eventually he had an idea. He got the spare pillow from the end of his bed and held it in his stripy muscled arms. Soon enough the big cat was snoring away and nibbling lightly at the pillow, which for the moment, would have to be a make shift substitute for his wolf.