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Hehhehey, and welcome to the Hockey Hunk!

It's Friday again, and with out special week, the third chapter for the week! Woot! Nice to give the series a bit of a kick occasionally, keeps the pace up and makes sure that we're moving on, which is awesome indeed! Thank you again for taking part on the Lurker Challenge - it got us a Wednesday chapter, and what a controversial chapter it was! It was so nice to read your comments, and I'll be getting back to them soon! *smiles* But now, it's time for our Friday fun, I hope you'll enjoy the read, and I look forward to reading your comments!

Cheers!

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I don't remember more than flashes of what happened after I left Victor's apartment. I managed to get into a taxi and sat crashed on the backseat hugging myself until we finally arrived to my place at the housing complex. I paid the raccoon without much thinking, showing bills through the window and didn't even say goodbye. I just had to get in...up the goddamn non-invalid friendly stairs and into my place. I must've been such a sight...breathing hard, hobbling along leaning heavily on a crutch and with sticky, dried blood over my muzzle. It was a small miracle that the cab had picked up someone who looked like that. I was surprised they hadn't just called the police or something. Get that bloodied, mad fox off the streets before he hurts someone.

But I didn't want to hurt anyone. I'd already hurt myself enough...probably hurt Cobb...most likely hurt Victor, too.

What a pathetic sissy.

The key felt like it was stuck in the lock. I struggled with it for a few moments, taking it out, trying to get it back in, pushing it in again...still wouldn't go...my ears flattened, and my eyes and my throat burned.

Fuck this. I was practically bawling again and now it was over something as useless as not being able to get my fucking key into the goddamn lock.

"Fuck."

Finally. Now that the security lock was out, still had to do the other one...shit...I picked the second key and pushed it into the lock and turned.

"I'M NOT GAY!"

My ears tickled the back of my skull as I heard the click of the lock and the door finally opened. I shuffled my sorry ass to the side and stepped into the musky, little hall that was barely a hall, anyway, only just enough room for me and the coat rack and the door into the can. I swiveled around and pulled my tail off to the side so that I wouldn't accidentally slam the door onto it. I snapped the locks shut while listening to the pounding of my own heart in my ears.

"Tate?"

I shuddered when the wolf's soft voice caught me. I hadn't really even thought about the fact that he was at home...of course he was...he didn't want to go anywhere, not with those scars, and he'd just spend the entire Saturday either doing stuff on his computer or watching TV or exercising.

There was nowhere to hide.

"Yeah?" I grumbled while my paws fumbled with the locks.

"Hi," the wolf said.

"Hey," I replied.

I had almost turned enough to shuffle into the living room when I remembered the grime covering my muzzle. Shit! I wasn't going to let Marker see me like that, I thought, and made a quick turn and pulled the bathroom door open to give me some cover.

"Need the can," I grunted my excuse and slammed myself into the small room before he had a chance to say anything more or to see the blood caking my muzzle.

I snapped the lights on and was greeted with the sight of me on the mirror above the sink. It was enough to make me wince. The white of my chin had blood stains on it, the fur packed into clumps of slightly brownish, dry marks that looked like I'd dipped my muzzle into it. I groaned and the movement caused a painful tugging of my lips, which probably risked me further injury. I bit my teeth together and stepped closer to the sink, abandoning my crutch by the toilet seat.

I grabbed the edges of the sink and just stared at myself for a moment, willing my breathing to calm down with each quick huff. My tail twitched, and there was an awful tension in my chest, and my stomach churned...not in the dangerous way that usually warned me of trouble down there, but just...just the nerves. Seeing blood didn't do much to me, but seeing myself...I wanted to throw up into the sink right where I stood.

What a fucking pathetic piece of shit. I blinked and watched the staring fox on the mirror blink back to me, raise his brows, snort, shake his whiskers, and flick his ears. His teeth were bared, just like mine, and he too looked kind of pathetic in his saggy shirt and with blood on his muzzle.

I opened the mirror cabinet and my reflection was cut in half, briefly, as I rummaged through the shelves. This might've been just the apartment of two guys, and hence, cleaning wasn't a priority, nor grooming, so you didn't really find anything much in the way of fur and skin care products or the like there, but since we were two broken guys, what you did find were cotton swaps, sterile pads, hydrocolloid bandages, antibiotic ointments and all sorts of other shit we sometimes had to use on our goddamn stumps.

Bet regular roomies didn't check each other for pressure sores, huh?

I gave a quick glimpse for the bottle of disinfectant but decided that putting it onto my muzzle was probably not a good idea. I grabbed a couple of sterile pads instead and closed the cabinet door. I frowned on my mirror image once more before I tore one of the packets open, kept the gauze square between fingertips, took a deep breath and hooked a fingertip under my lip to curl it over my teeth and finally see the damage.

It wasn't as bad as I thought, I learned to my relief, after a bit. There was a clear gash in the inside of my lip where a canine had cut it when I fell onto my face. Me pulling on my lip was enough to break the edge of the clotted blood keeping it closed, and I saw a couple of fresh drops appear, seeping out of the edges of the small, ugly wound.

"Shhhihh," I cursed, putting the gauze against my lip and applying pressure with my lip against my jawbone.

At least it didn't look bad enough to need stitches or anything. It'd be probably best to just leave it be, maybe suck on some ice or something, just not make it worse by poking it any more, like I already did. I held the gauze pad against the cut until the lip started to feel numb and then let it curl back into place. It smarted a bit, but it wasn't too bad. The gauze pad had some pale blood on it now, and I threw it quickly into the little trashcan by the sink.

I spat into the sink and was relieved to see that it didn't look bad. My muzzle did, though, and I'd have to do something about that. Gaze pads weren't gonna do that...instead I grabbed a pawful of the toilet roll, wet it with some warm water from the tap so that I could get to cleaning my sorry hide. I was leaving little crumbs of wet paper behind, but that could be dealt with later. Some water dribbled down my chin and onto my chest and left a big wet mark there. I shivered a bit, warm water or not.

How could you be so stupid, Tate?

Goddamn it. How could've I let my old feelings blind me so much that I'd never even stopped to consider that maybe there was something wrong with the theory my mind had cultivated so damn eagerly ever since I'd searched Cobb on a whim on Facebook and...

Smiling Dobermans wearing pink T-shirts and sunglasses, posing with arms over each other's shoulders, surrounded by a crowd of furs...some with ostrich feathers on their heads...

I snorted painfully. How the hell could've that photo been so misleading? I used to be able to tell them apart, they weren't identical, they weren't the kind of creepy twins who dressed in the same clothes and finished each other's sentences. Hell, I'd went to school with them for nine years, of course I'd learned to see the differences not only in their appearance but in the temperament, too. The always loud Cobb versus Victor who was loud in the company of his own friends. Cobb didn't discriminate like that, he was loud and playful with everyone. He was the one who got into trouble...Victor usually mopped up the mess afterwards...though I suppose he did have his moments, too.

The white of my muzzle was slowly starting to emerge as I contemplated my mistake. Could it even be made to sound rational in any way? I'd just went in and smooched Cobb like some kind of a sexual predator. My chest tightened with the memory of how intensely I had felt on that moment, on the couch and wanting to just be closed on those arms and he'd done just that and for a second I had felt...

...suppose I felt everything one was supposed to feel on a moment like that.

So different to almost anything I'd ever felt before. Dank beds and hurried paws and grimacing muzzles...stinking storerooms cooking with the desert heat, and unwashed fatigues around your knees while the brief exchange of mutual assistance took place. No smiles, no holding against a warm Doberman body, no softly whispered words, no promises of comfort, of warmth and...all the things it was supposed to feel.

A rumble rose from my chest and slipped between my slick lips. It fogged up a spot on the mirror. My tail smacked the floor. Thinking about it made my face and ears burn again. I shouldn't let myself sink back to the fantasy that had burned slowly in my mind, through so many nights and many silent days that it simply couldn't change the fact. I'd been busted so damn badly.

I tossed the dirty toilet paper off and bunched up some more so that I could try to dry the furs. I should've probably used a towel, but my designated towel looked so dirty that I'd probably end up just making myself look worse...and stink.

What the fuck, Cobb?

How the hell had I managed to convince myself that he was gay? He'd always been a macho bastard...that's just who he was...and now...meeting him again had only worked to cement my belief about the fact that surely he was a good old tail lifter by now. He'd fussed around and made a big number about everything ranging from forks to colored serviettes...and he'd smelled of something that definitely wasn't just a regular deodorant...no...cologne...something flowery, something...

Goddamn pansies.

I refused the let the echoing words cross over into my thoughts about Cobb. He didn't deserve any of that. He didn't deserve to be called a pansy, not even in my mind, filled with so many curses and so many confused feelings and thoughts. It just wasn't fair.

What was fair, anyway?

And Victor....the sporty Doberman with a string of girlfriends almost as frequent as his brother in high school...gay? Gay enough to prance around a gay pride in a pink shirt? With Cobb in tow....he'd probably made him come...I'd imagine that Cobb might not take it so easily, now that I knew that he wasn't gay after all. He'd barked out slurs just like everyone else did at school...me included, even if deep down I thought that they'd start calling me with those same names if I didn't make sure that they'd never have a reason to.

Lies....I was so tired of lies.

I looked at the mirror and decided that it was good enough for now. I washed my paws and shook them dry, thinking that I couldn't hide forever in the bathroom, even if it seemed like a good idea, in a way. Maybe I'd just sit on the can and...

...no. That would kill my back. And Marker might need the can, and then I'd have to move anyway. Might as well just go and deal with it.

I grabbed my crutch and shuffled out of the bathroom and into the room where Marker was sitting on the couch, beer in his good paw.

"Hi," he said again, watching me appear and then shuffle into the armchair next to the couch, where I liked to sit, usually.

"Hey."

"Got troubles again?" he asked.

Yeah...my excuse...

"Thought I did," I said, "false alarm."

The wolf with the crooked muzzle nodded, quickly.

"Oh..."

It wasn't far-fetched. Sometimes my re-built bowels made me make a run for it only to announce the coming of a toilet-ringing fart and nothing more. He'd heard it more than enough, much to my embarrassment. Suppose it was just something you couldn't do anything about. Just had to accept that part of lost dignity and live with it.

"It happens," I shrugged. "What're you watching?"

"Storage Wars," he pointed the TV with his half-empty bottle of beer.

"How can you watch that shit?" I grumbled, and really wanted some beer.

"There's only Lassie Come Home and Shopping network on," he said. "This sure beats it."

I made a face.

"We need cable," I said.

The wolf snuffled.

"Don't think they'll give allowance for that," he said.

"Food stamps, TV stamps...what's the difference?" I suggested. "It's a life essential."

Marker scratched his muzzle with his plastic paw and rumbled.

"Guess we could always try."

"Never mind," I grunted, my tail sweeping the carpet between my footpaws.

"You're back kinda early," he said. "Thought you were seeing your friend again?"

Oh fuck...I'd told him that I was going to see Cobb again, hadn't I? This wasn't going to be easy to explain...no way in hell I could tell him what had really happened...and all I could hope was that he wouldn't notice the state I was in now.

"He got some surprise business and I excused myself," I said, "didn't wanna bother him when he had work to do."

Marker's ears flicked.

"Really? On a Saturday? Damn, that sucks..."

"Well he is a businessman, I guess they can never get a rest," I suggested, lying a bit too easy for comfort.

"Still, damn," he said, "you were so looking forward to it..."

Way to go, Tate, acting like a schoolgirl over my...fuck...date with Cobb, ever since he called me to ask me to come over since his brother was going somewhere for the weekend...shit...I'd even spent some time combing my furs in the bathroom., pretending I was brushing my teeth extra carefully...shhhhhhhiiiit...

"Well, shit happens," I said, "I'm sure we can try to catch up later."

"Yeah, why not," he said.

I had my doubts. He probably didn't want to see me anymore. Victor surely didn't, once Cobb would tell him everything about me being secretly queer for him. They'd have a good laugh, and Victor would think about all the times I told mean things to him, and he'd say that...that...

"That goddamn fucking closet pansy..."

They'd probably have a laugh over it, and decide that I was the most pathetic thing they'd ever seen. My attempt at reconciliation with the only furs I knew living in this town besides those at school or at the support group had exploded like a roadside bomb and torn up my heart, really the only part that'd been spared the last time. There were no titanium fox hearts available yet in Walter Reed, I thought, they made titanium paws but no, hearts weren't on the list yet. I suppose they didn't plan for fox sergeants getting their hearts broken by a pair of Doberman brothers.

"Yeah, "I said, "mind if I take one of your beers? I'll buy you some more next time we go."

He gave me a look before nodding.

"Sure, if you wanna."

"Thanks, dude," I said as I was getting up.

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Thank you for reading my story!

I hope you enjoyed the read, and I look forward to your comments. Also remember that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories as well! Keep 'em coming!

See you on Monday, folks!

Cheerio!

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