FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Howdy everyone. I am so sorry this chapter took me so long to upload, but prefecthood and exams as well as a weekend filled to the brim with spanish homework had kept me more occupied than I would have liked. As a result, this hasn't been particularly well proofread (since my friend who normally proofreads my work is offline today) and I'd like to upload it as soon as possible. Anyway, comments and criticisms (especially pointing out any of my fuck ups) would be much appreciated. Now this chapter also has a little game with anyone who wants to play it. The game is spot the abba references, since I've slipped words from some of their songs into it. Some of them are subtle, some not so subtle. Anyway, good luck and I hope you all enjoy the chapter ^_^

p.s. this chapter features some brief exchanges in spanish or french. If you cbad to copy and paste them into google translator or some other online translator then I have provided a chronological translation in the comments section

p.s.s I have just edited this chapter so you may want to re-read the section from after the fight so that chapter 6 isn't too confusing

College life 5

Diego left the hospital the next day, Leo had come around in the morning and again after his first lecture to take the tiger back to his apartment.

"Leo I'm fine. I don't need to sleep anymore. Besides I really want to go to a lecture I haven't gone to one in ages. You are an excellent teacher, but I want to feel like I'm at least benefiting for the enormous debt that I am allowing to pile up on my shoulders."

Leo sighed, the tiger was right in a way, besides, it would do him good to talk with the rest of the group and Leo knew Diego still wanted to thank TJ for the lecture notes.

"Alright, you should have some lunch first though, hospital food is crap and you haven't been eating much these past few days."

"I already come bearing snacks" Diego said with a grin as he pulled out to Galaxy cookie crumbles from his pocket.

"Wow, if those are the ones I bought you then I am impressed with your willpower. I would've eaten them all by last night."

"I won't pretend that I wasn't tempted, but I got a strange text from my folks which made me temporarily forget about the chocolate until I fell asleep. It was an apology, not saying what for or anything.

"Wrong number possibly?"

"Yeah, that's what I thought" Diego replied, nodding his head in agreement. "Anyway, what lecture do we have coming up?"

"Anatomy. I hear Graybridge was impressed by your essay. Oh shit."

"What?"

"Diego I'm so sorry, I completely forgot to tell you we have a test tomorrow in anatomy on everything we've covered so far."

"Well we haven't done too much so far. Knowing me and knowing you I'm sure I'll do ok if we just go over the notes now. We have plenty of time. I take it you've revised your socks off."

"Nope I never revise for these kinds of tests. I do the work beforehand and the lecture is usually a consolidation of my knowledge. Although in the case of anatomy, I didn't do prior study, but explaining everything to you was like revision anyway." Leo replied with a smile as he gave Diego a quick peck on the cheek. They hadn't reached the apartments and were next to a patch of grass that they were actually allowed on. So the two furs lay down and got out their notes.

"How do you so well in your exams, I heard about your exploits, like taking up an extra subject and all that."

"Oh I revise for that sort of thing. Its biology and languages that I don't revise for. They just sort of come naturally to me." The two held paws as they went through their notes testing each other with various random questions.

A male wildcat was passing by and caught site of the two males holding paws.

"Pédés" he remarked with a smirk. Leo's sensitive canine ears picked up the single word and he stood up suddenly, startling Diego.

"Je parle le français presque couramment monsieur mais je ne suis pas sur que je vous ai entendu. Voulez vous le répéter ?"

"J'ai dit 'pédés'," The wildcat said with a light growl, getting up in Leo's face.

"Avez-vous un problème avec ça?" Leo replied, standing up to his full height and staring the wildcat in the face with his teeth bared. Diego got up as well now, not sure what the two were saying, but he obviously wasn't going to let the new feline cause any problems. The wildcat took one look at the muscled tiger and backed off.

"Non, je suis désolé messieurs, il faut que je m'en aille, au revoir." The wildcat turned and left in a hurry down the path, not looking back to see if the wolf and the tiger were following him.

"What was that all about?" Diego asked, having pretty much forgotten all the French he'd been taught.

"Just some French prick who presumed he could get away with calling us faggots in a language he thought we wouldn't understand." Leo replied with a final growl. How're you feeling in general?"

"I hope I'm ready and I'm feeling much better, still feels a little weird and moving about isn't quite as easy, but I think that's just the stitches, I'll be back to normal soon enough."

At that moment Diego's phone started to beep incessantly signalling another text. He looked down at it and frowned.

"Is it from your parents?"

"Yeah my dad specifically this time. He says although my mum is sorry he needs a bit more 'convincing'. He says he'll be here shortly" Leo was totally confused as to what was going on right now. He'd hoped that everything could be simpler now that Diego's treatment had started but suddenly family members had been thrown into the mix and were making it frothier than coke and mentos.

"What's going on?"

"I can't say for sure, but Leo-" Diego said sternly putting his paws firmly on the wold's shoulders, "No matter what happens do NOT get involved. This is one thing that I have to do by myself." The tiger knew full well what it meant if his father was coming up to see him. His father was a stickler for tradition, owing in part to the reason he was so homophobic, so even if he didn't particulary want to see his genetic offspring again, it was still his duty to make sure his son undertook his coming of age ceremony, a tradition that had been passed down through the males of his family for generations.

Leo grimaced, he knew Diego could handle himself in any situation, but being told to stay out of his affairs made him feel somewhat isolated. He said he'd protect the tiger; that he wouldn't let anyone take the piss out of him or hurt him like they had in the past. The stripey orange feline noticed the change in Leo's demeanour and gave him a quick kiss on the muzzle.

"I'll be fine. Trust me." Leo still wasn't happy but smiled at the tiger nonetheless.

Diego's father and mother did arrive soon enough. Diego hadn't been expecting his mother, but the female tiger embraced him when she saw him.

"I'm so sorry Diego. I'm so sorry for all the hurt I've caused you." She whispered in his ear as she tried to keep her tears back.

"I don't mean to be rude at all but why the sudden change?" Diego asked. He genuinely was curious. Only 12 hours ago it seemed like she'd hated him.

"After your friend talked to me on the phone I was taken aback. Noone had spoken to me like that in a long time. I mean who was he to claim I was a bad parent? At least that's what I thought. But I started thinking. I'd always thought of myself as a good mother so I looked through your baby photos." Diego cringed at the thought of that. "You were so happy back then. You were the most amazing baby, and you were an amazing child, and you had the most beautiful smile; a smile that could light up a room. But all that had changed. There were a few photos from after you came out and you either looked incredibly unhappy or you weren't in the picture at all. You were only 17 and you'd lost your smile and I was one of the reasons for that. I hadn't even realised it. I'm so sorry and I love you, I do."

"I won't say I forgive you just yet, and I'm sorry, but after the last year I need a bit of time before I can properly forgive you, I know it's a horrible thing for a son to say, but I can only hope you understand me." Diego's mother nodded and wiped a tear from her eye. She didn't deserve to be forgiven and she knew it, but at least Diego was willing to take a step towards forgiving her.

Leo was there too. He couldn't help but feel somewhat awkward after what he'd said to Diego's mother but when she had finished with Diego she came up to Leo. Leo didn't know quite what to do, or what the tigress was going to do for that matter. Right now her brow was furrowed and she was pacing quickly and deliberately towards him. But how did she know it was him?

"I'm guessing you're the guy who called me a bitch on the phone then?!" Leo nodded shyly, not quite sure how to respond to the question now that she was there in person.

"Phew, cos that would have been much more embarrassing if you weren't" She held out a paw to Leo, "You were right about me. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry if we got off on the wrong paw, my name's Michelle and that's my husband, Fernando"

"Nice to put a name to the voice," Leo said as he shook her paw politely "My name's Leo. Is your husband Spanish?"

"Yes why?"

"Just makes sense as to why Diego's got a Spanish name, and as to why he speaks fluent Spanish"

"Yeah it does" A gruff voice called out. They all turned to see Diego's father scowling at his son. "And now that all the pleasantries have been exchanged can we get round to the purpose of our little visit?"

"Sure, lets just go somewhere where we won't get in the way of other people and where we won't get any funny looks."

Diego lead his parents and Leo outside the main aprt of the city to the grassy plain to the side of the river bank where he and Leo had spent their time looking at the stars.

"Vale. Estás listo padre?" Diego said turning to his father deciding to revert to his father's mother tongue while speaking to him this time.

"Claro que sí, vamos chico." Leo hadn't worked out what they'd been talking about when Diego's father launched himself at Diego with his claws fatally flailing out in front of him. Diego jumped backwards keeping himself out of reach of his father's claws. This was the coming of age ceremony for males in his family. A male could only be accepted as a man if he could beat his father in an all out fight.

Leo looked on in horror as his partner dodged his father's claws and tried to get in a few swipes of his own. He was about to move when he felt a paw on his shoulder.

"It's best not to get involved dear," Michelle said as she watched the fight, her pose was apathetic but her eyes told another story as she saw the only two males that she loved trying to hurt each other. Leo nodded in response. He understood now what Diego meant when he had told him not to get involved, Diego had known it would be hard, but this was something that he needed to do alone.

As the older tiger's claw swiped desperately close to Diego's jugular vein, Diego stumbled back and dropped onto one knee from exhaustion. Any honourable opponent would've let their adversary rest, but this wasn't a battle of honour, this was a no holds barred fight until one of them either fell unconscious or died, although the latter option was not what either of them wanted to happen.

"Que pasa chiquitita?" Diego's father said as he jumped in the air and brought his claws down towards Diego's head. Fernando couldn't see Diego grin to himself as the younger tiger suddenly extended one of his legs blocking his father's with his two forepaws as he swung his other leg around and cleared his father's legs from under him. Fernando dropped to the floor landing painfully on his back. He could feel himself getting tunnel vision as pain soared through his body. As his vision cleared he saw Diego turning and walking away. Ya no has ganado cabrón. He got to his feet and as his son turned around punched him in the gut with all the force he had left.

Diego reeled back and fell to his knees with his paw clenching his gut. He roared out painfully as he looked down at his shirt and saw a red stain spreading out across his shirt.

"My stitches ruptured..."

Its funny how 3 words can influence someone. Leo had always felt a desire to protect his mate but this feeling was something altogether more powerful. The desire to protect and save were the only two things going through his mind as he rushed towards his tiger."

"¡Déjanos solos!" Leo's father shouted out as he moved to hit Leo.

"¡Vete a tomar por culo tu hijo de puta!" Leo roared as he sent his fist flying into Fernando's temple. "Come on Diego, we're getting you out of here and I don't give a shit what you say, you're going to a doctor right now." He ripped off a section of his shirt and tied it tightly around the wound trying to at least staunch the bleeding to some degree. Before the tiger could disagree Leo had already hoisted him into a piggback position and was rushing him to their hospital, which fortunately for them, was just under a kilometre away.

10 minutes later Leo burst into the A&E department in the hospital and less than a minute later a doctor was stitching up Diego's wound. It had only been a few hours but Diego was back in the hospital. Fernando stumbled in 15 minutes later and soon found Diego.

"Why the fuck did you fight me if you had stitches in you?" Fernando growled.

"Because it wouldn't matter in your eyes, you'd think I was a coward if I back out cos of a few stitches."

"You know that isn't..." Fernando stopped himself. Diego was right; he wouldn't have forgiven the younger tiger if he had backed out and probably would have held it against him for the rest of his life. He sighed and held out his paw to Diego in a handshake gesture. Diego shook the outstreched paw and gave a feint smile. "Diego, hoy eres un hombre y mi hijo, y lo siento que te he causado tanto dolor. No quiero tu perdón, no lo merezco."

"Gracias padre" It was a simple response since Diego didn't really know what he was supposed to say at that moment. An potentially awkward silence was broken by Fernando.

"¿Pues, ya habeis follado?"

"No we haven't" Leo said, a bit too ferevently. "Uh, I mean, queremos esperar hasta que hagamos eso." Diego nodded in agreement.

"Vale, pues, utilizad un condón caundo lo hagais" Fernando said blushing slightly. A complexion that was quickly being matched by that of his son.

"Ok, that's enough father, thank you very much, you can go now." Diego replied quickly, trying to pretend he hadn't heard what his father had just said. Fernando and Michelle burst out laughing and bid their farewell to the young couple before quickly heading back to the train station to make their way home.

The next day came all to quickly as the pair realised they still hadn't done much revision for their test. The two were sat in the kitchen on Diego's floor, going over some last minute notes. The tiger looked at his watch and groaned.

"We have to get going now" He said simply.

"Alright, you ready for this?"

"As read as I can be given the circumstances."

Leo nodded in response and smiled.

"Well let's go. Good luck my love."

A paper was set at separate desks in the classroom for the test; the lecturer had opted for the classroom in lieu of the lecture hall for this particular session. Diego and Leo only just got in before the bell went.

"Ah good to see you Mr. Sabre, we're sitting a test this session, if you want to come to the front I can give you some other work."

"Oh I want to do the test sir." Diego replied with an innocent smile. Dr. Graybridge was slightly taken aback but handed a test paper to the tiger regardless.

"Don't worry if you find it too hard, after all, you've missed almost half the lectures so far."

Diego nodded and looked at the test paper. Leo had already started and was making his way through the paper at a leisurely pace. Diego realised that although the wolf wrote slowly he barely paused for thought on each question. Diego looked at his own paper; the questions didn't seem too hard. He quickly made his way through the questions occasionally looking up at the clock to check on his progress. As he looked up at one stage he noticed some of the other furs in the room frowning at their papers. They had a look that he'd seen many times before in exams and which he'd simply come to call "the blank". He shook his head and smiled to himself, he knew it was the look that people got when they didn't have any clue as to how to answer a question, but realising that, he didn't look forward to the upcoming questions. Little did he know, the majority of them were struggling on a question he'd already finished. He finished the paper with a few minutes left to spare and checked through the paper, looking for the difficult question the others had struggled on. He frowned and guessed it meant he'd completely cocked up one of the questions. Diego looked up at Leo. The wolf was... drawing? Was he really that confident about the paper?! The tiger suppressed a chuckle. If its Leo's drawing then the picture won't be getting him any extra brownie points.

Eventually the bell went to signal the end of the session. There was a sigh from the majority of the students, since a lot of them still had a few questions remaining. Diego handed in his test to the raccoon.

"How did you find it?" Dr. Graybridge asked taking the paper from the tiger's paw.

"Umm, not too bad, better than expected." Diego replied before quickly turning to go find TJ before he left. The Rottweiler wasn't looking pleased. "You ok?" Diego asked. The Rottweiler smiled and pulled him into a gentle hug.

"I did shit" he said with a light hearted laugh, "But it's good to see you, how you keeping? I heard you had surgery, how was it?"

"Aww sorry about that TJ, but yeah I'm good, I feel so much better after the surgery, although I gotta say, I'm so glad I got out of the hospital, daytime tv is so fucking boring." The two of them laughed and TJ clapped Diego on the back.

"Yeah I'm with you on that one. Anyway, it's great to see you again. I hope everything goes ok." The Rottweiler turned and jogged after his group of friends who had already left.

The rest of the weekend was uneventful for the two males; Diego was happy to be feeling better and was glad to be back in the lectures and Leo was happy enough just seeing his tiger with a smile on his face.

Tuesday came quickly. The two got their anatomy papers back in their morning's lecture. Diego chuckled when he saw the raccoon shake his head as he gave him his paper back.

"Third best in the class and you weren't present; is it even worth me being here?"

"Yeah, if you didn't teach Leo I wouldn't have learnt any of it."

Turned out Leo had come top in the class and TJ having done 'shit' was only two marks behind the wolf. Diego was smiling as he left the lecture hall. He and Leo made their way to the hospital for Diego's first dose of chemotherapy. Diego had no idea that he wouldn't be smiling for long.

The two made their way into the hospital and were told to wait for the nurse to arrive. After a few minutes, a cheetah appeared and called out Diego's name. He and Leo went into a room with the nurse. She got out a bigger than normal needle with the chemo-therapeutic drug in it. Diego's eyes widened at the sight.

"Ah, it's a needle, didn't realise that before."

"Yeah sorry about that, now this will hurt a lot, and I'm sorry, I'll try be as gentle as I can" The nurse said giving the tiger an understanding smile. Diego didn't hate needles, but that didn't make him a fan of them. He cringed and tried his best not to tense up as the nurse gently inserted the needle into his vein. "Alright, easy bit over, this will sting. You ready?" Diego nodded. The nurse administered the chemo as Diego gritted his teeth in pain. GAH fuck that burns. Argh my veins feel like they're on fire. "Ok all done." The nurse said as she removed the needle. Diego nodded, teeth still grit together.

"Thank you."

"I think your doctor wants to talk with you, I'll be back in a minute." The nurse left in search of Diego's doctor, leaving the two lovers alone.

"Leo, it burns so much" Diego said. Leo could already tell the tiger was in pain, he always looked at people's eyes as an indicator of their emotion, and Diego's just radiated pain. Leo moved closer to his tiger and cuddled him. "I didn't think it would be this bad," Diego whispered in Leo's ear.

"I'm sorry Diego. I'm here for you." He kissed the tiger, desperately hoping that it would somehow decrease his lover's pain. As they parted Diego noticed his doctor at the doorway. The leopard sighed.

"Ok well we got the results of the biopsy, I'm afraid the tumour was malignant, the pathologists say that based on its size, metastasis is likely to have occurred. In other words, they think its spread. This makes the prognosis slightly worse I'm afraid. We hope the chemotherapy should target any of the small secondary tumours but at the moment we can't be sure, we'll need to do a scan in a few weeks to check for any new tumours that may have survived chemotherapy. "

Diego sat in silence, not sure what to say or think.

"Thank you..." the tiger replied after a lengthy delay.

"Diego I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it, I'll be fine" Diego looked away from the doctor and into Leo's eyes before he burst into tears and cried onto the wolf's shoulder. Leo knew he had to be strong, for them both. He fought back his tears and held Diego close to him, stroking the tiger's fur and doing his best to comfort him. Leo waved off the doctor in as polite a manner as possible, not that he wanted to get rid of the doctor, but he knew this wasn't a scenario that any doctor wanted to be part of. 10 minutes of stroking, rocking and gentle soothing quelled the flood of Diego's tears and after a brief kiss the two decided to go find the doctor; he wasn't too far away, pretty much just outside the room.

"So when does Diego need to come in for chemo?" Leo asked, trying to remain factual and unemotional.

"Tuesdays and Saturdays" The doctor replied.

"At least I can still have Chinese on Fridays" Diego added with a weak laugh. "Anything else we need to know?"

"I presume you know possible side effects of chemotherapy, but I need to explain it anyway because symptoms can vary from drug to drug" Diego nodded for the doctor to go on. "Well, as I mentioned, we'll be giving you a course of 5-flouracil for the moment, if after we do the scan and you still have visible metastases we will be adding leucovorin, oxaliplatin and bevacizumab to the course. Anyway, some symtoms may include a decreased level of blood cells, which may result in fatigue, skin rashes, inflamed digestive tract, and may cause some small degree of hairloss, although some people have been known to lose significant amounts. You could suffer all or even maybe none of those, but I'm sorry Diego, this won't be an easy experience."

Diego nodded in response, he knew it wasn't going to be easy. There was no such thing as an easy cancer. He knew that in the background it would always be lingering, probably festering away in some corner of his body till the day he died. But why did it have to happen when he was so young? He had all his life ahead of him, and no the cancer had come along, for all he knew he could be dead before he finished his course. The doctor, bade them a sad, albeit temporary, farewell. The two made their way back to Diego's apartment and sat on his bed

"How are you holding up?" Leo asked.

"It still hurts but I'll be ok for the moment." Diego said with a weak smile.

Leo blew on the tiger's nose who sneezed in response. Leo smiled and blew on the tiger's nose once more. Diego started to laugh "Stop it." He said with a giggle as Leo pinned him down and blew lightly on his nose and face.

"No, laughter is the best cure for anything" Diego tried to blow Leo's nose in turn but the wolf kept avoiding the short jets of air.

"Come back here!" Diego laughed as he wrestled Leo onto the bed and rolled about so he was on top of the wolf, blowing on the canine's face relentlessly. After a short while they both burst into fits of laughter and lay on the bed together.

"I love you Diego"

"I love you to Leo" The two shared a short kiss. They preferred these short sweet moments to excessively passionate moments. Not that they didn't like the passion, but the preferred the romantic aspect to their relationship.

"Hey, you once said you liked to sing, I've never heard you sing yet." Leo remarked from out of the blue. Diego started to blush:

"I'm not really good at singing solo to other people."

"Who said solo?" Leo said. He took out his laptop and loaded up an MP3 file. Diego's ears twitched as he tried to work out what the song was. Leo started to click his fingers and tap his paws in time, wagging his tail with the beat. Diego knew the song but the name was eluding him. Leo put an imaginary microphone to his mouth and pointed to Diego with one finger.

"You're so hot teasing me. So you're blue, but I can't take a chance on a chick like you" Diego giggled as Leo continued to sing along with the song until he yelped out as Leo suddenly pulled him off the bed.

"So I can dance with you honey, if you think it's funny, does your mother know that you're out" The two sung together as they danced some type of Latin American dance in the small spaces of the apartment. When they music finally finished the two burst out laughing and fell on the bed together. Leo started to whistle the start of another tune and was surprised when Diego joined in.

"You know I can't smile without you, I can't smile without you...." The two continued to sing Barry Mannilow's song as they held each other and rocked gently on the bed. As they finished they nuzzled and cuddled together.

"You're such fun" Leo said with a smile as he licked the underside of Diego's muzzle.

"Nah you're the real life and soul of this party."

"Dude, there's only two of us here; you could hardly call it a party." He nibbled lightly at Diego's neck causing the tiger to growl happily.

"Oi, hornwolf, what are you up to?"

"Nothin'" The wolf said with a mischievous grin as he brushed his tail against the tiger.

"Come on now," Diego said sternly poking the wolf on the nose.

"Ok sorry hun. Hey that TJ of yours is pretty smart."

"Yeah I know, and he said he did shit in that test as well. He writes as well, he sometimes shows me the stuff he writes, its actually really good, I reckon he should try publish his work, but that's anoher story. Have we got any more tests that you forgot to tell me about?"

"Nah, not that I can think of, we'll have some at Christmas time though." Leo stared at the tiger's eyes and frowned. Every time he looked into the tiger's eyes he could tell just how much the tiger loved him. It was strong, warm and safe. It told him that they would be happy together. But knowing what he knew, knowing that the cancer may cut that time short, it almost broke the wolf's heart.

"What's up Leo?" Diego asked as he took the wolf's paw in his.

"I don't want you to die..." Leo whispered, his voice barely reaching an audible sound. The lupine could feel the tremors starting to wrack his body but he promised himself he wouldn't cry, he had to be strong, he wasn't the one who had cancer, he had no right.

"I understand, Leo, I don't exactly want to die either, but who knows if that's what life has planned for me. All I know is that we can at least enjoy whatever time we have together right?" Diego put his hands on Leo's arms and looked him in the eyes. He was granted a weak smile in response, things would be alright for the moment.

They rest of the day passed slowly and the two lovers didn't get up to much. But they enjoyed the time together, now that their second week at university had finished they knew the work would come piling in. So far it had all been relaxed and easy, and was just a build up to the real work. Diego and Leo both new that they wouldn't have much more time together from then on, so they had to enjoy what they could. The next day they were set an essay from the physiology lecturer and another from the pharmacology lecturer. Both needed to be 3000 words long and handed in or emailed in by Sunday. It wasn't an entirely difficult task, but it took a great deal of time for the two. They were working on their essays together in the library Diego started with the pharmacology lecture and Leo with the physiology.

"Hey hun" Leo said looking up from a book he was reading.

"Mmmmm?"

"Race you. First one to send off their first essay wins. That way we can have another race tomorrow."

"What do I get if I win?"

"I'll treat you to Chinese and get you 3 chocolate bars of your choice for afters. Oh and that does NOT include any king-sized bars; especially toblerones." Leo scowled all of a sudden.

"What's with the face?" Diego asked while rubbing Leo's paw.

"I remember my maths teacher in primary school once said that if anyone got the final question completely right on this particular test paper she would get them a chocolate bar of their choice. I was one of the only two in the top maths set to get it right. My mate Josh asked for a mars bar I think; pretty boring if you ask me. I asked for a king sized toblerone. Josh got his mars bar, and I got one of those fun sized toblerones. I was so gutted. I was scarred for life and I was only 10"

"Oh you poor thing," Diego said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "Serves you right for being greedy in the first place. Oh and if you win and get your essays in on time I will get you 2 king-sized toblerones." Leo's eyes widened at the tiger's pledge. His tail started wagging happily and he thrust out his paw to the tiger.

"Deal?"

"Deal" The big cat replied as he shook the canine's paw. They both mock glowered at each other before looking down at their books and quickly trying to sift through them for the necessary information. Leo finished before Diego. He knew the tiger wasn't finished but knew he wasn't far behind. Leo read through his essay once more to make sure he wasn't missing any details. Happy that he hadn't skimped over anything he set up the email but didn't send it just yet. Rather he decided to start on his next essay, fortunately the relevant textbook was already open next to him since he had originally expect to do both essays in one sitting. He surreptitiously moved it closer to him and put his other textbook in his place, granted he didn't have the library books to his disposal but the textbook should give him enough information for the time being. Diego was too busy typing to notice Leo switch his textbooks around. 10 minutes later Diego hit the enter key on his laptop and sent his essay off to his lecturer.

"Ha! Beat you to it." The tiger said loudly and standing up quickly before realising he was in a library and sat down again quickly. Leo finally hit the send button on his email and sighed to himself.

"Damnit I knew I shouldn't have slowed down just at the end. I think I was ahead of you but assumed you still had a lot to go." The truth was, Leo wasn't particularly in the mood for king-sized toblerone today, plus he wanted to have Chinese anyway, and he looked forward to seeing the tiger's happy expression when he gave him his chocolate. So in this case he didn't mind letting Diego win; besides, he already had the edge for tomorrow's essay, a fact which brought an evil grin to his face.

It was already late in the evening; they'd been in the library for almost 3 hours solid so dinner was a welcome break. They went to the same all you can eat oriental buffet as the time before. Leo knew it wasn't solely Chinese but he usually referred to any oriental all you can eat buffet as Chinese, but Diego knew what he meant anyway; he loved the buffet. In fact, they both loved their little city of Camford; it had so many different restaurants of all different nationalities, Oriental, Indian, Spanish, Italian even some French restaurants, although neither of the two guys were fond of the French "cuisine". Plus it was predominantly a student town, so they saw their friends wherever they went. Almost all of their mates supported them as a couple, which made life in Camford that little but more happy and tranquil

Diego was starting to pile sushi onto his plate when Leo poked him in the arm with is chopsticks.

"Go for something different this time and I'll do the same. Let's see what delicacies we discover."

Diego got some strange looking stuff which was called vegetable tempura. The little sign in front had a little flag of Japan on it, like all the other dishes, to show the country of origin. No harm giving it a try I guess the tiger thought to himself as he put some onto his plate. His eyes alighted on some strange green vegetable as well. Hmmm pak choi? Well who knows. He scooped some of it onto his plate. Then he decided to get himself some chicken dumplings, he hadn't really tried dumplings before, having never really liked the look of them, but this was a chance to try something new. Leo on the other hand got a big bowl of tom yum soup. Diego stared at him as he sat down with the bowl.

"So I go get some new weird stuff and you go for soup?" The tiger jibed while wiggling his raised eyebrow. Leo almost spat his soup out at the sight and had to quickly swallow it before it went all over Diego, he quickly regretted that decision.

"Water!!!" Leo quickly downed his glass of water and sighed happily. He caught the eye of a waiter and pointed at his glass. The waiter nodded and walked off to get him some more water. "Its tom yum soup I'll have you know, besides, I never have soup at oriental restaurants, I thought it would be good to try it for once. And this tastes really good. It's hot spicy and..." He froze halfway through his praise of the soup and stared at the tiger's plate. "Is that pak choi?"

"Wow, yeah it is, you want some?" The tiger said picking up some on his chopsticks and holding it towards Leo's mouth.

"Get that stuff away from me." The wolf said pushing himself away from the table and away from the green mass at the end of Diego's chopsticks. The tiger gave him a puzzled look. "There are two foods that I know of which I will not touch; baked beans and that stuff."

Diego chuckled to himself:

"I'm so with you on the baked beans." He put the pak choi in his mouth chewed it and swallowed it. "This stuff ain't so bad though. Are you suuuure you don't want some?" The tiger asked with a bat of his eyelids as he held some pak choi out to Leo.

"No, I'm- Argh!" Leo dodged as Diego's chopsticks darted towards his mouth. "Diego, come on, we're mature medical students."

"Ok ok" The tiger said with a mischievous grin. "Would you like some tempura?"

"Ooh yeah, let's see if this place does decent tempura. You want some tom yum soup?" The tiger nodded and they exchanged morsels. Leo grinned to himself, the tempura was good. Diego sat there in silence for a moment before his eyes widened in shock.

"Drink!" Diego looked about desperately for his glass and quickly downed it. "It's so hot, but sooo gooood." He purred lightly as the soup's spicy after taste washed over him. The waiter, a slim green dragon, put down a glass of water in front of Leo. Seeing the tiger's empty glass, and noticing the tom yum soup, he laughed to himself.

"I will get the two of you a jug of water" He said as he turned and left, returning a few minutes later with the pitcher of water. They thanked him quickly and he bowed and left to serve another group.

"Ok, on to new main courses" Leo said as he got up with his plate and made his way over to the relative area. He looked about not quite sure what to get, he got some steamed rice (since there were some things that one simply couldn't change about a main course) then he decided to get seafood curry on one side of his plate and beef in oyster sauce on the other side. Meanwhile Diego decided to try some pad Thai noodles.

Once again the two exchanged food. Leo had tried pad Thai noodles before, and although he wouldn't go out of the way to get them himself, he wouldn't deny that they tasted nice. Diego on the other hand enjoyed the beef in oyster sauce but absolutely loved the seafood curry.

"God I love anything fishy." The tiger said as he savoured the prawn on his mouth.

"Well I'll swap with you, I like the fish, but I'm not a fan of the sauce."

"Fair enough" The tiger said with a smile as they swapped plates, "but did you really have to have two separate sauces on the same plate again?"

"Stimulates the pallet my darling" Leo said as he stuck his tongue out at his lover. After that they decided to go back to their normal choices as they went up for seconds and thirds.

It was dark by the time the two had finished. They were the last two in the restaurant and the waiters were waiting for them to leave so they could lock up, regardless, they were glad to see the two guys enjoying themselves so much. It was obvious they loved the food, and the wolf had been generous enough to leave them a reasonably large tip. As it turned out, the local Sainsburys, where Leo would usually shop, was closed so they went into the 24 hour Tesco express. It was a reasonably big store, but since it was so late, there were hardly any other people in it apart from the people at the till.

"Shit, it's so fucking eerie in here at night" Diego remarked, looking up and down each aisle. Leo chuckled to himself; the tiger looked like he was expecting a rapist or something to jump out at any moment.

"Nah, I like it. No queues whatsoever. I'm not a queuing person." They finally got to the confectionary section. Diego chose one galaxy cookie crumble, a galaxy ripple and a Fry's chocolate bar. "What is it with you and your awesome taste in chocolate?" Leo commented with a smile as they paid for the chocolate.

"I dunno" The tiger said with an innocent smile on his face. Leo loved that smile; it always made the tiger look so happy and carefree.

The two decided to go for a walk in the park, despite it being late October they didn't really feel the cold and the full moon lit u the path for them. They were lucky though, back in London they wouldn't dare to be out in a park at this time, but up in Camford it felt so safe, like nothing bad could ever happen. Their sentiment was justified in a way, Camford, despite being a well known university town, had some of the lowest crime rates in England. The two decided to sit on a park bench; they snuggled there and looked up at the sky together. They both had some strange admiration for the cosmos, all its little stars and planets and the potential life which it may contain, however low the chances.

"Just imagine, somewhere in the universe, there may be another couple like us looking up at the stars and wondering whether there is life on other planets besides their own."

"It would be undeniably ironic" Diego admitted, he pulled on Leo and put a piece of his Galaxy bar into the wolf's maw. Leo chewed it slowly and yawned.

"Wow, what time is it?" Leo asked through his yawn.

"Uhhh, half past twelve"

"Shit we should head back, it'll be one o'clock by the time we get to sleep and we have a dissection at eight o'clock on the dot tomorrow."

"Today" Diego corrected him.

"Oh yeah" Leo replied grinning sheepishly.

The two kissed and made their way back to the apartments. They shared a lengthy kiss on Diego's floor before parting for their respective rooms.

Leo tried to pray again but found that he was too tired to focus and as he lay in bed trying to recite the 'our father' he drifted off to sleep. Diego was tired as well when he got into his room and, being too lazy to turn on his light, made his way through the dark to his bed, where he stripped down to his boxers, got in under the covers, and quickly fell asleep.