I stare up at Luke’s house as the car pulled into the drive. My mind has been heavy with thoughts since I got out of the shower. The therapeutic properties of hot water don’t last long. Now I’m all worried about school, and the television thing. I’m really scared to go up in front of lots of people. I’ll have to face it though. And school. I don’t think I’ll even be able to walk through the halls. All of the furs will look at me, and call me a fag because they know I was raped brutally. It’s going to be awful.
The car door opens on my side which snaps me out of my thoughts.
“We’re here.” Dad stands there with my backpack in one paw, and my duffle bag in the other. I’m staying over the whole weekend, then going to school with Luke on Monday. Hopefully that’ll be better... I step out of the car and dad leads the way to the front door of the house. It’s cold outside, being winter and all. He knocks. We can hear a faint voice telling us to come in. Dad leads the way, myself following closely behind. Before the door can be shut we can hear Luke’s heavy foot fall coming down the stairs. As the door swings closed we can see him. He hurries up to us, but slows to a stop, maybe ten feet away.
“Why hello, Luke.” Dad drops my stuff on the floor of the kitchen, off to the side. “If you don’t mind, I need a quick word with your mother.” He leaves the kitchen through the hallway where Luke came from, bypassing the stairs and making a right at the end to the living room where the noise of a vacuum ceases.
Luke waves his paw a little in the air at me. “Hey.” I nod in his direction. I don’t know why, but I feel uncomfortable right now...
“Want to go to my room? Maybe play a video game?”
I shrug. “Sure.” My voice sounds weak, and dry. It doesn’t have any confidence in it. Luke motions for me to follow him as he turns and start walking to his room. I follow, a little bit behind. When we reach his room we both walk in, and he closes the door behind me. His room looks different than before. It’s messy. The bed looks like a family of bears slept on it. The floor is cluttered with clothes and papers. Usually he keeps his room fairly well picked up. He might have a pile of dirty clothes on the floor in a corner that his mom picks up. It’s not like him. But then again, we’re both different people now. At least it seems that way...
Luke goes up to his TV. A new flat screen 32 inch flat screen. Janet probably got it for him as a coming home present. Because every parent knows that material objects makes everything better. The screen boots up like a computer before displaying the startup screen of his PS2. The familiar balls of light chase each other across the screen as Luke selects a game to play. He chooses a racing game.
While the game goes through its start up screens, Luke drags out a bean bag and one of those rocking gaming chairs. Five minutes later we’re racing split screen. It’s a tag team race where we help each other to get first place. The vacuuming resumes downstairs as the front door squeaks open, then slams shut. We play in silence for the next few hours, the only sounds being those from the TV, and Janet downstairs. Once we get bored we go down the stairs to the living room and watch a movie. We sit on opposite ends of the couch. Janet comes in as the movie starts playing with two bowls of popcorn. She sets one between us, and takes the other for herself on the armchair.
The film was a fairly good one about ships. “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.” It was going pretty smoothly. Until this one little boy, the only small child on the boat, has his arm amputated. Crudely too. No pain medication, not even a shot of whiskey. I could feel the ghost of my leg throb in pain during the scene. All I could do to help ease the weird feeling was to rub the stump I had left. It wasn’t long after that when the bowl of popcorn got moved and Luke slid closer to me. He gave me a hug. A shock of something raced through my body that made me pull away, shaking. I was momentarily scared with irrational fear. The ‘sacrifice’ played over in my head within but a few seconds. The searing pain, the fear, the want to die there and then. It became real once more in that moment where Luke hugged me.
This is where I black out, unable to handle all the emotion flowing through me again. As I start coming back into consciousness, I notice Luke’s fur being pressed against the side of my face. Or is the side of my face pressed up against Luke’s fur? I begin to stir. Luke’s arms wrap around me. I’m laying on top of Luke, belly down with my head against Luke’s chest. Luke sits up against the arm of the couch, facing the television where the movie is almost over. Luke’s mom seems to have left. Probably making supper in the kitchen judging by the sound of pots and pans clashing together.
“Sleep well?” Luke looks at me. I look back. The fear I felt earlier is gone. My consciousness being able to take control of my actions. I nod my head slowly.
“What happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“I... I blacked out when you touched me...”
“Did you?” He shrugs. “You did act a little weird at first, but then you hugged me, and kissed me, and told me you loved me.” I turn a deep shade of red. The swirl of darkness that usually comes with getting up too quick takes over me for a moment, but I fight it. Why do I feel so... weird?
“Then you tried getting into my pants...” Luke blushes with me this time. “I didn’t let you. It didn’t feel right... Especially with mom sitting right near us...”
I sigh and close my eyes. Luke’s familiar scent somehow makes me feel safe. As safe as I can feel in the arms of a wolf. It’s not long after I start getting comfortable that Janet calls us for dinner. I sit up off of Luke and stretch. I grab my cane and follow Luke out to the kitchen. In the kitchen Janet scoops out spaghetti onto three plates at the table.
“Wash up first boys.” She points to the sink. We do so, standing side by side and sharing the stream of water. Then we seat ourselves at the table. Normally when we have spaghetti I’ll go all out and eat ‘till I’m sick. But my appetite hasn’t really been the same since I’ve gotten back. I only eat half of what Janet put on my plate. I eat slowly enough so me and Luke end up finishing at about the same time. Be a little sooner than Luke. Janet tells us to not worry about the plates, and to just go off and have fun. I mumble my thanks under my breath then follow Luke back to his bedroom.
In Luke’s bedroom, I speak. “Your mom never usually lets us go like that without taking care of our plates...”
Luke lets out a sigh. “She does now. She doesn’t make me do very many chores now. Ever since I got back...”
I fall silent after that. I sit on Luke’s bed and look out the window. It’s snowing. Thick fluffy flakes of snow dropping from the sky and swirling through the air. There’s just enough wind to make it really cold out there. The type of cold that you can feel by just staring into it. Almost as if it was creeping up on you, waiting for the chance to get you with its icy bite. It’s such a raw beauty from nature itself. The wind makes the snow come alive, while the cold is its aura. Just looming over and around the wind and snow. Here, I find myself involuntarily shivering. Not because of the room temperature, but because of the concept of the cold outside being alive.
I’m not sure when, but sometime in my thinking Luke had sat next to me. His arm snakes over my shoulders as I shiver.
“Cold?”
“No... Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Nature.”
“What about nature?”
I pause before saying, “Nature is so raw... So powerful. It’s so beautiful... Why would anyone want to destroy something so beautiful?”
As I stare out the window into the wild wind, Luke stares at me. Almost as if reading me. It scares me to be read like that, but... from him I’m not so scared. His paw brushes my headfur behind my ear.
“Power.” He says to me.
“Greed.” I say back. I look at him. His eyes almost penetrate mine, as if looking into my soul. His muzzle is so close to mine... I lean in and kiss him. He kisses back. Like paper falling on a smoldering pile of coals, something sparked up. Something so familiar, and so missed. One of my paws finds its way to his chest, while the other one supports me on the bed between us. His paw covers mine on the bed, while his other paw rests on my cheek. In that short instant everything I’ve worried about melts away. The wolves that raped me, my leg, school. Everything leaves my mind except the taste of Luke’s lips and the feel of his tongue moving in harmony with mine.
Luke breaks the kiss after a while. A line of drool stretches across our lips. My eyes stay half lidded, still looking into Luke’s eyes.
“Tony?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you still love me?”
“I- ...I always have. I just... I lost sight of that while I was in captivity.” I look away, somehow ashamed of myself.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t want me anymore... After what I did to you.” My mind flashes back to the night that Luke hit me. I can see clearly the look of anger his eyes held in the memory.
“That... that was the worst part of everything that happened to me.” Luke’s ears go down in sadness. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be closer for it.”
“But how? I hit you...”
“Three things. First, do you still love me?”
“Of course I do. I-” I clamp my paw around his muzzle to silence him.
“And number two, you’re sorry about it?”
He nods his head giving a muffled, “Mhm.” I let go of his muzzle.
“I’m sorry, Tony. That was the worst mistake of my life. I’d never do anything to hurt you. Not in my right state of mind.”
I hug Luke, resting my chin on his shoulder with my head leaning against his. He hugs back. I can feel a little wetness coming from his cheek. That’s number three. Soon my tears join his in a mutual understanding of love and remorse. We stay there, hugging for a while, until we both feel well enough. We pull apart and Luke looks at me. I smile. He smiles back.
“Wanna watch a movie and cuddle?” Luke suggests to me. I smile and nod my head. As he gets up to put a movie in, I start getting comfortable. First I take my prosthetic off, then I strip down to my underwear. I’m still not fully used to my leg being so light, but it’s easy enough to crawl under the covers of Luke’s bed with it. Soon enough Luke has the movie rolling and joins me. I cuddle up to his side while he lays on his back and puts an arm around me. We lay together watching SWAT. His body radiates that familiar heat I’ve been missing. Before I know it I fall into a deep sleep, feeling completely safe. For now.
