FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 3

John looked more angry than hurt, his arms folded over his chest as he sat belted in to Jeff's car, his ears pinned back and shoulders tucked inward as he sulked. The rangy wolf had all of his meager possessions with him, stuffed into a couple of duffel bags and a file box, having been kicked out of his boyfriend's home with the screamed demand that he never return. Nonetheless, he'd been gracious enough to quietly pay for the cab back to Jeff's car, parked in the structure at his apartment near Windsor U.

By the time they'd returned to John's former home, all of his stuff had been on the front porch, unceremoniously if carefully set there for him. Now they were sitting in the car, belted in with the engine and air conditioning running, as Jeff picked at the cotton t-shirt that sat on top of his over-warm uniform.

Jeff had let the silent brooding go on about ten minutes, sympathetic, though he'd never really been involved with a bad break-up himself. Or a real relationship, the black jaguar reminded himself sourly. The fear of accidentally electrocuting someone in the middle of sex was just too real for him to risk it. When John finally let out a blustery sigh and looked out the window, the cat decided he'd break the silence.

"Okay, we're going back to my place now. You're staying there until he realizes he's being an idiot and apologizes."

John's response took a second, as the wolf scowled and released the hug of his own chest with a soft shushing of the heavy denim shirt.

"No, he was right to kick me out. I shouldn't have brought you all to the house. Let's just go, alright? We've got work to do, and no time for me to mope."

Jeff nodded, and slid his paws over the crackling vinyl of his aging vehicle's steering wheel. With a grating grumble from the engine, they were off and onto the road.

"I still can't believe Tokamak took off like that. I mean no goodbye or anything, just flew off the second Bobby kicked us out the door."

"It's normal for him. He doesn't do emotional conflict so well. It's too many shades of grey. He's more a black and white kind of guy."

"Yeah..."

The drive back to the dorms didn't take long, and passed by in the relatively silent reverie of night-time city commute in bad weather, when so many had decided to stay home. As they pulled into Jeff's spot at the looming apartment high-rise he called home, John spoke up again, his tone back to the usual calm tenor often characterized as his 'business voice.'

"Just a hunch, but I'm guessing this dream-manipulator guy is after something specific. When they were workin' me over, he seemed to be on some kinda vengeance kick. Maybe abused by a priest or something?"

"Shouldn't we come up with a name for him?"

"No. The motherfucker doesn't deserve a name. When we find him, we'll pound the shit outta him for what he did to Eve, and lock him up with all the other nutjobs. Giving him a name starts him on the road to being famous, and fuck that, frankly."

As Jeff killed the engine, John unbuckled himself with a click, and was out of his seat and pulling his bags out before the slender jag was even out his door. Moments later, the wolf was inside, climbing the stairs three at a time with the boundless energy he displayed most often when things were at their worst.

Watching him go, the black jaguar considered his friend. Though the wolf acted gruff and blunt-spoken as ever, he looked somehow vulnerable now, under the outer façade. Something about that spoke to the usually caustic cat. With a start, he realized he'd been thinking of John as something more than a person; he was a hero of the old breed, tough and larger than life. Now he could see through it, and knew the male he'd just invited into his home was a regular person under all the super-heroics and bluster.

He shook off the brief thought that John had a nice tail, ignoring the thought so fast it didn't register, and grabbed a box to begin carrying.

From his own window on the second floor, John yelled down just as Jeff was reaching the complex doors.

"Hey, had an idea! We should work with that detective to find the asshole that jumped us! Maybe he knows something we don't!"

"It doesn't match, sorry detective."

Kolter sighed under his breath, into the paw that momentarily turned the old-fashioned phone receiver away from his muzzle. Rubbing at his eyes, which felt like they were full of glue and sand, he turned the thing back to his lips to continue their conversation.

"So, just to be clear, the blood we found on the stained glass window doesn't match anybody in the database, and doesn't match any of last night's corpses."

"That's correct, detective. Sorry, but we've got nothing for you."

"That's alright. Thanks for checking."

He hung up on the CSI tech and was about to reach for his coffee again when the phone rang. Snapping it up again, he brought it to his ear, covering the far one to help him hear over all the buzzing-bee noise that was the precinct's main floor.

"Robert Kolter, go ahead."

"Hey! This is John Silverstone. Y'know, the wolf you saw get dumped earlier today."

The voice sounded a little slurred. Kolter's headache gave an intransigent throb, and he settled his forehead in his palm, eyes closed, elbow on his desk. Vaguely, he thanked the tech gods for not popularizing video phones. It meant he could still roll his eyes when potential leads called him up when tipsy. Or downright drunk. Or high off their kite.

"Thank you for calling, Mr. Silverstone."

"Yeah, sure, no problem." A brief pause was filled with a liquid burbling sound that told Kolter both that his witness was drinking beer from a glass bottle and that his phone pawset was cheap enough to pick up that bit of background noise. "Anyway I wanted to check in. See if you're getting anywhere."

"I'm afraid I can't go into too much detail, but to be honest right now we don't have much to go on. Unless you can update the statement you gave on scene, we're pretty much waiting on this guy to either get hurt and ping on the database when he hits a hospital, or for him to kill again and get sloppy."

"Well, Idunno if it's much help..." Some background noise, words Kolter couldn't catch, made Silverstone pause for what seemed to him the kind of over-dramatic moment he expected from superhero types. Too many furs liked to watch Laws and Orders, and got it into their heads they were in some kind of dramatic TV show. "But now that Jeff and I have put our heads together, we've got some other information."

"Jeff...Jeff Castillas?" Kolter flipped through the notes that festooned his desk, sending a brief landslide to one side as he located the one he was looking for. Dossier on Jeff Castillas, who had set his nerves off the moment they'd met eyes.

"Yeah, that's him. Anyway, seems t'us like this guy manipulates dreams. I'm the only one who saw him, on account of bein' immune. Check with the Department of Metahuman Affairs if you need details, I did the voluntary registry thing a few years back. Anyway, shortish guy, maybe five foot five with a youthful build. I'm guessing a cat, by the shape of his tail, even though it was covered."

Supposition, Kolter knew, was largely useless. However, anything to go on was better than nothing.

"Also, when he had his brief little back and forth with me while Steamroller was ringing my bells, I could swear I caught an accent. It was slight, but sounded...Idunno, South'n. Definitely not Illinois native."

"Hm. If I got you some recorded voices with different accents, do you think you could narrow it down?"

"Yeah, prob'ly. I've got a pretty strong memory."

"Good. I'll call you when they're ready. Tonight, Mr. Silverstone, I want you to stay home and avoid any...Questionable antics. The DA isn't planning to charge your team with anything at the moment, but you know what will happen if we catch you running around with tights on when you're part of an ongoing investigation."

"Heh...Kolter? This isn't my first time at the rodeo."

Speaking of rodeos, Jeff thought, as he sat across from the shirtless charcoal-black wolf, watching him hang up a grubby old phone with a grin on his face and a beer in his paw...Well, he couldn't think of a segue from rodeos. Only that he kept glancing at the athletic male's bared midriff and feeling a hot sort of squirming desire to blush like he hadn't felt since looking at his first skin-mags in the seventh grade.

Which was an immensely uncomfortable feeling, for someone who'd never been able to act on his lusts and crushes out of fear he'd end up frying someone to death. Made just that much more so by the fact his body was telling him another male's exposed chest was worth staring at and feeling nervous over. A tipsy male who'd just been dumped, at that.

Though his apartment was a bric-a-brac of electronic parts, textbooks, folding tables covered in the prior two items, and a few bits of modern comfort, he still had prided himself well enough on being a host to offer his guest a drink. What he hadn't planned on, and chastised himself for not realizing, was that his houseguest was just chucked out of the home of his four-year-boyfriend and told not to call or come back. John was on his third beer in five minutes, pausing now that he'd hung up with the detective to run the weeping beer bottle's condensation across his forehead.

"Uh..."

"Sorry, Jeff, if my shirtless ass embarrasses you."

"You don't wear a shirt on your ass."

Jeff got the predictable extended-finger salute for his quip, and felt the tightness in his chest ease just a little. Then tense back up again when his friend laid his head back on the couch and set the beer aside to stretch, showing off the toned muscles that slithered under his fur pelt like well-ordered serpents. The wolf had been a middleweight boxer, Jeff vaguely remembered, before becoming a professional superhero. The jaguar forced himself to look away, coughing and rubbing at his neck to conceal a confused blush.

What the fuck is my problem? I'm straight. What the fuck.

_ _

"I-is it getting hot in here," the jag asked, as he got up and headed for the thermostat. It's dust-rimed façade was a testament to how rarely the tropical cat had needed it. Nevertheless, he felt warm, and hadn't even had a drink. Flicking the thing's temperature down to 65 took a bit of doing, past the dust that had crusted there. Then he wandered into the kitchen to dig around in the fridge for the one vice he allowed himself.

From the couch, John called out, while twisting to lie flat on his back.

"Heh, pretty sure that's my line, kitty. I'm going to frame that picture in my mind of you yanking the doors open in yer chonies. Adorable when you realized you were showing the goods."

It was normal taunting between them, Jeff knew, and the wolf wasn't being a jerk. Just having fun at the jaguar's expense, which would normally rile him just enough to retaliate in kind. This time, instead, he pulled a six-pack of cheap beer from the fridge, shut it with a whap of his muscular tail, and sat down at the debris-festooned dinner table. A quick brush of his paw sent some random bits of electrical junk sliding off to one side, so he could set down the pack and dig one out.

"So tonight we...What...Sit on our asses and eat Cheat-Oh's while the dream-monster runs loose?"

"Ayup."

"How the hell do you even stomach that, man? I mean...Shit. He could be coming for us right this second."

The wolf shrugged nonchalantly.

"Good. It'll save us the trouble of hunting his ass down. Hey uh...So what actually happened? I mean...In your head?"

The stone dropped from Jeff's chest to his gut, a chilly hardness that hurt in that way only psychosomatic pain could. He swallowed once, and stared down at his bottle of Pab's Second Place, finding it far easier than looking at the half-naked wolf on his couch. Air just barely below room temperature blustered from the vent over his head, stinking for the first few seconds of mildew before the disused air filter cleared up.

He didn't realize how long he'd gone silent, unable to help himself remembering that same damn dream he had just about every night. The one that made it a necessity to keep a bit of liquor around for the really bad days, though he always pretended to teetotal around his very few friends. The one that made a rubber sheet over his mattress a requirement, though he hadn't wet the bed once since his father died.

He hadn't realized how long the silence went until a paw grabbed his shoulder, making him jump and look up, as the warm, earthy scent of a slightly sweaty wolf smacked him in the snout. No damnit, not that look...

_ _

There was nothing in the wolf's eyes but sympathy and a bit of blood-shot redness, as he pulled a chair out from under the table and sat down right next to the curled-forward jaguar, rubbing his back in a way that had the cat struggling not to lash out and slap his paw away for fear that he'd get to like it too much.

Instead of answering immediately, the jaguar took his bottle with a paw that, annoyingly, was slightly shaking, and unscrewed the cap before tilting the beer up and taking a long, punishing pull of the bitter stuff. Finally, when he knew the wolf was about to start making jokes to begin his prying tactic, the jaguar spat it out.

"I'm not near drunk enough to talk about this...I uh...Why don't we find something on Hooloo to watch, get some beer in us...Then we'll talk about it later, alright?"

It was a good deflection, and at the rate John was downing beer, he'd be passed out drunk by the time they were done with anything of any real length. The wolf nodded, gamely, and finished his most recent beer, before patting his feline friend's smooth-furred shoulder.

"Sounds good. Just no chick flicks. Hate that crap."

Three hours passed, and more beer than Jeff wanted to think about. Most of it going down the hatch into John Silverstone's famous endless gut. First, they'd argued playfully about whether to watch a movie or TV, then settled on the new Trawn film. Then, after a pause for food delivery and some highly unhealthy pizza, a quick bathroom break, and more movie, Jeff was starting to feel the beer and long day taxing on him. A quick glance to the side told him it was three a.m., and he knew somehow that the thunderstorm was well and fully past them, though he couldn't quite define the knowledge.

Then, he looked back and down, as something warm and furry landed on his thigh. John's head, in specific, eyes closed, fur a bit matted from the earlier heat and long day of rain and drama. He looked damn drunk, having gone pretty much slack, with one arm hanging off the couch as he nuzzled into the jaguar's thigh. Which brought an embarrassed hot flush to the black cat's ears, and a twitch to his paws as he struggled to decide what to do. He could push the wolf away, and maybe come off as a rude ass, or he could let him stay there and risk the wolf noticing the sudden stiffening of a certain pants-covered organ.

An organ that was doing things it oughtn't to be doing, given Jeff was straight. A fact of which he suddenly reassured himself, inwardly, just as John's muzzle open and drawled out a question. The black cat had gone tense upon being touched, and stared down at the growing hardness in his loose around-the-apartment shorts, just inches from the top of his friend's muzzle.

"Sh...Sho you've been tens's hell all day. An' I'm drunk'nuff t'not remember t'morrow. So now you're gonna tell me...What's up yer ass?"

Jeff almost shoved him away, hearing that last bit of phrasing. Maybe it was the alcohol, and maybe the long day spent in close collaboration with one of the few friends he had. Either way, the pain and pressure in his chest wasn't letting up, amplified as it was by the suddenly all-too-close situation going on in his lap. The wolf had gone more or less still, and for a second Jeff felt a surge of hope that his friend had just fallen asleep. Then, the wolf stirred again, and nuzzled into his leg.

"Well?"

"I..." the words were coming. He felt like someone else was saying them, but they were being said. As they were, his snout was assaulted with the smell of lupine musk he'd been refusing to notice, his eyes with the wetness of barely-held-back tears. A paw loosely gripped his wrist, and brought it down to the prone wolf's chest, rubbing a thumb over the pulse where paw met arm in a way that made him shiver.

"When I was a kid...I lost control and sorta...I fried my parents. My dad was hitting me, and I just...Mom tried to get him to stop...And he attacked her...And I..."

"You blew up and fought back?"

"N-no...Worse...I started laughing and the lightning just...Came. Cooked them both..."

"Hrm...So...That'sh why you're...Always kinda...Lonerish. Yer afraid t'hurt someone else."

The jaguar didn't respond. Couldn't really. He was too busy trying to choke down the acidic hotness in his chest that wanted to push its way out as embarrassingly emasculating tears of bitter frustration, clawing fear and chilly loneliness. When a paw wormed its way up to touch his cloth-clad chest, he didn't even twitch away, though. John couldn't be hurt by the electricity he was shedding even then, enough to make the TV crackle a bit at the edges. When the paw rubbed at him, tracing a gentle circle, it was comforting, eased the ache in his heart, and he gingerly touched it back with a shaking paw of his own, wondering at how it could take such a small thing to help with such terrible anxiousness.

"Kinda lonerish and..."

"And a virgin?"

The wolf nuzzled into his leg again, as he'd done innocently earlier. This time, the cool snout tip touched his burgeoning boner, nosing against it through his loose shorts. It felt good, comforting, thrilling even, shorting out the cat's brain as his tail flapped uselessly against the couch. The wolf nuzzled into it directly the second time, twisting a bit on the couch until he was resting on one arm, snouting against the aching hardness tenting out his jaguar friend's groin.

Jeff stared, mesmerized, as the wolf's broad pink tongue swiped from his muzzle, slavering a hot, wet circle around the cat's pointed tip where it was tenting the cloth. He had to suck in a breath, purely involuntary, as his eyes looked on in perplexed paralysis. Here he was, a straight cat, unable to move because of the pleasure burning out from his crotch, as his lupine friend drunkenly nosed and rubbed his snout and cheeks against his concealed cathood, drawing radiating fuzzy warmth from his balls strong enough to make the cat give a softly-panted grunt.

Air blew across him with a tingling chill, as the wolf blew out an exhalation and pulled his right paw down from the cat's chest, sliding it up under his shirt, trailing it over the sensitive skin there before grasping at his pant's hem. John looked up, long lupine ears folded back like he needed aerodynamics. Though his eyes were deep and dark with lust, his lips perked up with amusement as he slavered out with that teasing, pleasure-electrified tongue again, getting a shudder from the cat he held hostage.

"Just relax, kitty. Let me take care of you."

"J-john," he whispered, stammering, frightened and unbelievably horny all at once, "I'm st-traight..."

The wolf's silky tongue lapped again, and he closed his lips down over the still-covered tip of Jeff's straining, leaking maleness, slurping like he was drawing the juice from the world's most delicious fruit as the cat squirmed helplessly on the couch. He pulled off just enough to fit his paw under the pants hem, stretching the elastic out and down until springy flesh bounced free, bopping the canine on the nose as he snickered and slavered his tongue up the barbs beneath it's leaking tip, making it's pleasure-addled owner wiggle like the barbs were toggles on a joystick. The slender, rock-hard cock was as black as the rest of the jaguar, but for a small pink spot just beneath its crown. A spot John tickled purposefully before blowing cool breath across it to watch the goose flesh rise as he spoke.

"Was that a no?"

Jeff didn't answer, too busy shivering with sensitivity, lust, a wide-eyed storm of emotion, staring down at John, as the wolf laid his tongue against the weeping prick's underside, and met his disbelieving, horny gaze with the Wolf In Black's trademark victorious smirk.

Another slurp of his tongue, twirling and reaching as if trying to wrap entirely around the whole juicy, tapering prick, kept Jeff from marshalling the will to stop this. Any other fur, he'd have pushed them away when they first touched him, long before they got his straining cock out of his pants. Long before those pants could be tugged down enough to put pressure on his tail, then open up at the back as the loose old snap gave out.

"Three more seconds, kitty, then I really get started."

The cat didn't even register he was lifting his hips for John until the pants were down around his ankles with a soft shushing of cloth, and the wolf had slid worm-like off the couch to kneel on top of them, effectively trapping his quivering footpaws. The wolf's grin was full of mischief, gazing up at the cat around his throbbing, spit-shined, slightly bouncing pole. Behind him, flapping like a flag in the wind, his slightly curled grey tail kept up a tempo entirely different from the motions of his tongue.

"Three...Two...One," the wolf counted down, slowly, punctuating each murmured number with a drooling lick that took him from rumpled, musky sheath to dripping salty tip. When he would have hit zero, the wolf instead slid his tongue up to the tip again, swirled over the tapered top, opened his maw, and in a single motion had the jaguar engulfed down to his balls. Which were rather suddenly registering a paw gripping them, fondling them, rolling them about in their downy black holster, sending a concerto of tingling tactile sensation into the jag's straining, muzzy brain.

When he lowered his paw to grasp John's pointed ear, he'd started doing so with the intent to pull him off. By the time his paw got there though, all he could think of was how good the hot, wet maw on his cock felt, like he imagined putting his straining, aching shaft into a barely-warm pie would feel. Only this was hotter still, soggier than he'd imagined but in a very good way, and contained a delicious, merciless muscle that swabbed up his cock in motions that twisted with the head that bobbed back up and down again in some rhythm that had his nerves on fire and begging for more. John's free paw was around his base, too, holding him in place, which Jeff figured blearily was a good thing, when his hips tried to reflexively thrust against the first orifice he'd ever penetrated.

That paw left his balls for only a moment, to reach for Jeff's forgotten left paw. Guided by the wolf's steady grip, he took grasp on both tall canine ears, as the other male slurped off his tip with a soggy pop and grinned up at him. With Jeff's cock nestled into the fur of his cheek, velvety tongue taking breaks from speech to slurp and trace at well-defined and pulsating veins, the wolf spoke his last for a while.

"Don't direct me. Just hold on. Tug when yer 'bout to blow."

The jaguar nodded his head almost spasmodically, finding himself desperate to know how this would go. Like a kid reading his first comic, he wanted to see the climax and finish, and the jaguar gripped onto those soft-furred ears gently as John engulfed him again, sending a jolt of ecstatic pleasure boiling up from his nuts. Jeff's head lolled back again, and a softly uttered groan of some strange sensation halfway between relief and agonized tension rolled up through his body from the groin to his lips.

Those fingers on his balls seemed to know them so intimately, rolling them, massaging them in just such a way to make them boil with pleasure without letting them empty themselves. The tongue and muzzle on his desperate, needy, leaking length titillated and teased, stroked and slurped, told him that his cock was the most delicious thing John had ever tasted, and made him feel such a sense of strange comfort in intimacy. Intimacy, that which had for decades now been one of his greatest fears. His fingers had gone tense on the wolf's ears, and Jeff felt the fur between his paw pads, slightly rough like unspun silk.

When a pinned-back ear picked up the sound of cloth shuffling, Jeff came out of the plateau-bliss just enough to register that his hips were being gently dragged forward on the couch seat by the paw that had been clasped around his rolled-down sheath. A paw that had at some point pulled the crumpled-up pants off his ankles and tossed them away. John came up then, taking a couple of breaths that made the jaguar writhe with sensitivity, paw on his balls never letting up as he licked, and spoke.

"You're gettin' close, huh kitty?"

Another lick showed the jaguar just how familiar John was with feline cocks, as the wide, smooth canine tongue played his barbs like the keys of a piano, making that cat wriggle and suck in little gasping breaths of overwhelmed pleasure. He couldn't answer, the tightness in his chest was moving downward, changing shape, becoming warmer and softer and far more unfamiliar.

"Yeah...You're gettin' real close...Mm...Spread your knees out for me, kitty."

He did, not sparing a second thought until he realized just how exposed his body was. With just a shirt and socks on now, the cat's slender rump hung out over the couch's edge. His knees spread, balls pulled up tight with readiness and swollen in anticipation, the hidden pink under his tail was shown off like a concealed treasure. Somehow, with all the beer and blowjob, he couldn't bring himself to care.

When a blunt claw-tipped finger scraped across the musky, puckered flesh, though, he cared altogether too much. A jolt went through him, the sudden realization that another male was toying with his asshole, tracing it and prodding it, and it felt good scattered across his mind as stars started passing in front of his eyes. The muzzle on his cock was in industrial suction mode at that moment, at the instant the blunt clawtip traced something that made his tight little pucker spasm. The spasm shot through him like a blast of current, hitting his crotch in a way that made him squeak out like a small child.

The first burst of cum blew from his overwrought balls before he could even manage a word of warning, or the asked-for tug. By then it was too late, and the black jaguar just clamped his eyes shut, shaking and humping helplessly against his wolf friend's more than accepting muzzle. He felt like his balls were exploding up with ecstasy, a helpless tide of molten pleasure-fire that was splattering haphazardly from his surging cock, straight down a throat that hummed with pleasure and swallowed like he was taking in a gourmet meal of the finest quality.

A fingertip had done this, he realized, but only because he'd wanted it. He'd wanted so badly, for so long, to share this intimate moment with another. Any other. Anyone who could handle his problems and his powers, and still be more interested than afraid. And here he was, a wolf with a devil-may-care attitude, gulping down cat cum as fast as the feline could blast it out.

When the waves of pleasure had reached his toes, his eyelids, and his fingertips, leaving them buzzing and tingling with a strange pleasant numbness, the cat's ass finally settled back onto the couch. Panting, sweating, Jeff could barely focus his eyes after the intensity of what had just happened. He felt faint, limp as a noodle in everything but his cock, which just then was sending out little jolts again, as the wolf who'd torn away all of his hard-won self control in a brief and tawdry drunken debauch cleaned him off, sucking and licking away the remaining spunk that dribbled and drooled from his still-pulsing prick.

"Oh f-f..."

"Shh," the wolf whispered, licking at now-aching balls, with the cat's softening cock resting across the bridge of his matted-down muzzle. "Just relax. You did great, Jeff. Taste fuckin' awesome, too..."

"H-heh...I do?"

"Yeah." Then one of his balls was in the lupine's muzzle, being suckled in such a way that the cat's back stiffened and his tail thwapped meatily against the couch cushion until the wolf let his delicate orb pop free. "Need more fruit in your diet, though. Little bit bitter."

There was the sardonic humor again. If anything, it made Jeff feel a bit more at ease, amid the tide of rising uneasiness. He'd just blown the biggest load of his life down another male's throat, while having his rectum teased on his own couch. In the background, Modern Marvellous had come on seemingly of its own accord, detailing the San Francisco Bay Bridge's engineering in computerized cross-section with the volume muted. The juxtaposition of normalcy on such an utter departure from his normal life made him feel giddy.

"D...Do we have to uh...I m-mean..."

"Spit it out, kitty. I'm the one who swallows tonight."

Jeff felt like he was about to blush to death, as he was suddenly unable to meet the wolf's smiling eyes. He was squirming inside with indecision, uncertain if his so-called straight masculinity was gone, now that he knew how good this could feel. And what use was a sexuality he couldn't even indulge in? He swallowed with a dry muzzle, and tilted his head just enough that his eyes could meet John's for a scant second before darting away in mortified embarrassment.

"Do we... I mean...Do we get romantic now? Uh...I d-don't know how this shit works..."

"Pff, fuck no. Romance is for sissies," the wolf opined, in a tone of amused sarcasm. "C'mere," the wolf commanded. Then, not waiting a moment, a powerful paw grabbed Jeff by the ruff of black fur sticking out of his wrinkled, frazzled t-shirt, and pulled the startled jag to an upright sit just in time for a beer-and-sperm scented mouth to contact his short black muzzle. The kiss was hot, sloppy, and tasted like cum smelled, as the wolf straddled his lap, getting a last dribble of escaping fluid soaked into the butt of his pants. Jeff couldn't help putting his paws on the wolf's hard-muscled ass, found himself sucking on a long, seeking tongue, as his heart thudded away an excited, frightened, victorious and terrified tempo.

He could trust John, above anyone else, he knew. This would be okay. He promised himself that. Promised the mostly-abated tension in his chest that. Most of him believed it. The rest of him wanted to.

Though the furs around him working the soup kitchen's service counter that night would never have known it, Father Dover had never been a man of strong faith in the Church. The smiling, happy, insightful, loving priest had spent a thirty year career extolling the virtues of God to Catholics in masses filled with passion and a spirit of service. Which barely scratched the surface of his many years spent elbows-deep in helping others through heir troubles. Yet he had done so not for faith in the Holy See, but for faith in the goodness that dwelled in the heart of decent furs everywhere.

It was goodness he saw all around him, in the smiling, helpful, if tired and overworked faces of the soup kitchen workers. Most were young adults from his own parish, volunteers he'd helped drum up on request of the aging kitchen administrator. He saw the goodness, also, in the scraggly, homeless, oftentimes-addicted souls who came through the line, served food by the smiling youths come here to help them have hope.

Finally, though, after another long stormy night of helping the young understand the value of charity, their shift was ending. Tired, aging bones creaked as the graying fox eased himself around the counter and into the break room, untying his food-splattered apron with its thousand colors of stains using paws that seemed to be getting more arthritic every year.

As the boys finished up their work, he began to move with a tired but happy gait, placing serving tools from a tray into a sink for washing. It wasn't his job to do, but Father Dover had never shirked from any helping task available to him.

When a soft thunk from one of the disused storage rooms echoed down the hallway, Dover lifted his aging head, and peered off down the darkened tunnel. There was no fear in him, for he knew he'd lived a good and decent life. Without undue pride, he was at peace with whatever could happen.

Reasoning it was likely one of the poor lost souls who patronized the soup kitchen, probably rummaging for things to sell, the aging fox began the slow amble that would take his arthritic bones to the storage refrigerator. What he would do when he arrived was entirely up to whoever was within.

When he knocked on the storage room's hollow metal door, he spoke in a gentle tone.

"Pardon me for interrupting, but is someone in there?"

Dead quiet was the only answer, but Father Dover was far too old and experienced to fall for so simple a trick as silence. Shaking his head softly, hoping whoever he found inside hadn't hurt themselves, he twisted the door knob until it snicked, then held it shut while talking.

"I'm going to come in. I promise you aren't in trouble, but if you're taking anything from inside here, I will have to ask you to leave."

Dover had always been a big male, just over six foot two, but age had withered him. So, he wasn't terribly surprised when a gentle push against the door failed to open it. What did surprise him a bit was the sudden hoarse, hissed voice that echoed from inside. It sounded vicious, forced between clenched teeth, and as if it were in terrible pain.

"Go...Away..."

Immediately, Dover knew he had a situation on his paws. Whoever was inside was either injured or high, and likely needed help. When he turned away from the door, intending to go for help, he only confirmed his suspicions. Along the disused corridor, little dark smears that would easily have been missed by the casual eye showed that whoever was in there had been bleeding, inching along the hallway during the busiest part of the kitchen's work shift. The door this interloper had obviously entered through was ajar, ever so slightly, letting a tiny shaft of street-lamp light in.

"Are you injured? I'm going to go get help, but you have to promise me not to fight when we come in. We just want to help."

Silence rested heavy for a moment, like a funerary shroud. Dover worried, with his paw still on the door knob, that whoever was inside was passing out, drifting back and forth on the edge of consciousness as the chilly room and blood loss combined together to leech at an injured life force.

Then, with a thundering report that made Dover's stomach jolt with sickened recognition, the unmistakable sound of a firearm went off.

Unable to wait any longer, and unwilling to waste time hunting down the boys who should have already been back there when someone lay hurt, Father Dover set his twinging shoulder against the door and shoved with all his weight. With a groaning grinding noise, the box that had been holding it shut slid on the chill floor, and a burst of cold, copper-scented air hit his snout like a brick.

There, crouched in the center of the room over a twitching, jolting body, was a young male wrapped in ragged blood-stained midnight blue. His clothes looked shredded, as did the flesh and fur that showed through it, broken glass still poking out in places. Sucking in a breath of sympathy at the sight of such obvious pain, Dover strode into the room just before he noticed what the young male was crouched over.

There, with a gun in his mouth, and his brains splattered across the floor in a gory halo, was Father Singer, one of Dover's colleagues from across town. His once-white fur was stained pink, slashed to the flesh and deeper still, with broken glass laying all about him as if the young male knelt over his spasming corpse had hugged him and rolled them both together through some vidrious place in Hell.

Dover very nearly froze. Even for all his instinct to kindness, the scene was horrific. A priest, slain, perhaps by his own paw, with a young male crouched over him torn to ribbons and glaring toward the invading priest with blood-shot eyes that seemed somehow too large, and almost glowing from the gloom. It was like some scene from a nightmare, something from a movie about a descent into the inferno.

Nevertheless, the saw the youth was bleeding. He could worry about the dead later. Reaching up, he tore one of the sleeves off his shirt, and advanced quickly, holding up one paw to show peaceful intent.

"Let me help you bandage yourself. You're bleeding like a sieve."

The baleful, devilish stare that met him back flickered for just the slightest moment. A look of fear, Dover thought, or maybe confusion, had pierced through that vicious haze in the creature's eyes. Then with terrible speed and insensitivity to a torn and battered body, the youth straightened, and lunged for the aching, startled old fox.