Chapter Text
Chapter One
Somewhere… in a metropolis not that different from one today… in the future many years from now…
A delightful collection of celebrated restaurants made up a hilarious claim-to-fame for any planet or moon according to humans and other sapient as well as sentient creatures alike. And yet the little bluish-green rock of 'Sudarsky V', commonly known either as just 'Five' or 'Number Five', managed to pull that off. Neither the shimmering golden gas giant that it swung around nor the numerous mines pulling expensive minerals out of its ancient soils struck anyone as that unusual, although the less-traveled individuals of the galaxy usually praised the former's beauty. The ‘K0-11’ system’s bloody history paralleled its distance from Citadel-controlled space, but it had become one of the quieter Traverse territories over the past few decades, in direct contrast to the waves of chaos earlier on.
A curiously small cafe that stood right at the entrance hall to the moon's central university advertised the best drinks this side of Orion's Belt, with all manner of spices flowing into both hot coffees and chilled teas. It possessed a psychological warmth that felt both deliberate and practiced as well as instinctive. Human visitors often remarked that the space offered comfort just about immediately. Brownish-red brick walls held in the scents of caramel and peppermint splendidly while low bursts of orchestral music, which only certain species tended to actively notice, came out of tall speakers covered with little pots of pretty ferns.
One late afternoon, the sky had grown gray with the threat of rain increasing every other minute. Inside the cafe, however, the natural light still bathed a set of wooden tables alongside a collection of soft upholstery. Couples both friendly and romantic relaxed as the shadows from the clouds flashed on and off upon certain flavors' displays, with it looking like the gods and goddesses of the sky casting their disapproval for this or that spicy drink.
At the second table from the largest window, the glass had become slightly fogged from the warmth inside meeting the chill outside. A human being by the name of Bryan Brenner sat with his broad shoulders hunched and his hands clasped upon the sides of a croissant as if he had to try and keep it from escaping off of his plate. He appeared big in a way that made most furniture seem like a polite suggestion.
The tall, working-class man possessed dark circles under his eyes like metaphorical bruises slowly turning literal that he’d earned from too many sleepless nights. He had draped his massive coat over the back of his fancy wooden chair, but he still looked weighed down. Something older and heavier than a mere piece of fabric had clamped down upon his body years ago.
Across from him sat a fellow by the name of Alex Musculus. The small-framed, gray-furred connoisseur of spiced coffees as well as teas appeared instinctively alert, with potential stillness requiring quite a bit of deliberate effort. The mousy visitor to the cafe had rolled his tailored shirt back at the sleeves, and his posture carried a certain gentle self-possession amidst his sense of urgency.
He leaned his forward slightly and curled his tail neatly around the back leg of the chair. At the same time, one paw rested against his mug of hot tea. Another pointed at his human companion.
"Do you ever think about us?" Alex asked, his voice sounding essentially gentle but with a hidden edge.
“Think?” Bryan needed a few seconds to process the question.
“I’m talking about what we are, like, not just as a matter of you and I being such a big part of each other’s lives,” Alex continued, with him trying to be clear-cut yet constantly falling into hazy reflection, “and also not just as a furfolk-on-human sort of curiosity that makes this or that guy raise his eyebrows from time to time. I want to dig down. Like… drill deep. You’ve told me a lot about how you get stuck all by yourself fixing these electric cables, with no chatty tailies or grunting human bosses in sight. You remember, right?”
“Yeah.” Bryan coughed, paused, and then coughed once again. “I do.”
"I mean... when you're alone. When you're stuck thinking because you can’t do much else. Do you fixate on ideas and concepts in a way that you don’t plan: obsessing a little bit about us… as… us? You told me that you did that for hours, like when your job gets extra irritating, last month. Right? Have you been doing that again?"
Bryan blinked at the window. He then turned toward his own hot tea as if the answer might float there. He exhaled through his nose before opening his mouth wide.
"Yeah," he said, putting some force into his tone, "I just… I kind of get the feeling that I'd deal with too much from too many people without you. Like I'd be blinded by all the pain the bosses' boss— that turian hating my guts no matter what I do for the company— and the other guys on the line both just blast me with. Like you're the galaxy's darkest sunglasses."
He paused, being proud of the metaphor while needing to drink a bit. As if on cue, the music in the background grew even quieter. Neither of them noticed at first.
"Shielding me from... the stuff. Yeah."
Alex stared blankly at Bryan. His tail twitched momentarily. And then his thoughts raced.
‘Not a hand? Not a heart? Not a whole person? Not a partner at all? Not even a pet with only the slightest shred of being sapient or sentient?’ He sensed his eyes growing dry. ‘Sunglasses! That’s what scampers just like me can wind up being! Something cool, detachable, and used only when the world gets too harsh? Then, it gets tossed into a drawer, never thought about again for ages and ages?’
He didn't say any of that aloud. He smiled— doing so, of course, politely. And then his paw slid toward the briefcase on the floor. His body moved quietly. It even happened automatically.
He still had something that he could hold, since he hadn't been offered anything else. He finally managed to blink as well. That helped too.
Bryan had propped his briefcase against a table leg when they sat down— that old, worn thing made of some almost-leather material smelling like a combination of sharp metal, dusty wood, and the back closet of a tiny bookstore. It radiated personality as if it had been made of raw plutonium. The man had mentioned offhand that he’d come straight from helping someone fix a washing machine and hadn't meant to bring it, mouthing something about how habits control his life.
And yet Alex had noticed. He had picked that fact up immediately. The handle, slightly flattened in one spot where Bryan's thumb always needed to go, even possessed its own particular smell. And the small, half-loose seam along the side by the handle looked as if it had gotten rubbed raw over years to the point that the very texture changed. So much of the fabric had this slack to it, with a strange softness that made it feel almost like fine clothing instead of something associated with a tough-as-nails job. This emotional map seemed far too much like a little one’s toy to make much sense.
Alex’s paw found its way to the top flap during a moment in which both he and Bryan sipped a little bit. He hadn't even looked at the briefcase. He just rested the flat of his palm there, like checking the warmth of a radiator possibly on the fritz. His tail, which almost never misbehaved in public, began curling around one of the brass buckles like it desperately needed to hook into something stable.
“I swear that I can’t believe peppermint is real. And not just some marketing thing. Wow,” Bryan murmured, with him trying to fill the uncertain silence.
Alex’s tail kept shifting about. It wasn't erotic. It wasn't innocent either. It was about being comfortable.
It had a lot of meaning no matter how conscious or subconscious it was. And it was a lament about being absent, too. That old briefcase offered a taste of what Alex hadn't gotten to have in terms of Bryan himself yet. Of course, the large creature worried quite a lot about the risks of physical affection given how he literally towered over Alex, and furfolk in the vein of the mousy fellow clearly took that seriously.
He wouldn’t like his arms getting accidentally snapped like a twig, say, if one of their hugs turned into an intense snuggle for the first time. Yet that obviously, at least to Alex, didn’t imply that barely anything should be tried between them past a certain point. All of life meant taking risks.
“We can get two more mugs’ worth,” Alex began, with him fighting the urge to let anxiety swell up inside of him, “since there’s that deal and all… and then we can talk more about… us?”
Just like he had expected given the big hulk’s attitude, Alex didn’t get an answer. The lack of surprise didn’t really make the hurting any weaker. It still mattered.
Then came the music.
‘Oh, God, is it really that music? That? Of all the songs in the galaxy?’ Alex’s thoughts raced once again. The cafe's speakers had dipped low, almost imperceptibly to most, but they chose that moment to launch into a long draw of melodramatic strings and powerful brass— the slow, lilting, slightly dissonant, and sleek sounds stood out. Something in that harmony snagged Alex just like a splinter caught under his fur. He had to deal with these emotions no matter what. He knew the song all too well.
The background music twisted the air around him— with it, as well, his mind twisted right back. ‘Memes. Meme music. Oh, damn it.’ The video tied to those sounds had remained famous throughout the whole star system over many months. To him and many others, it didn’t seem truly funny at first. It quickly flashed into being too funny to stop reposting.
Alex’s mind ran through the whole meme once again. A wide hallway existed in some polished transit station. Light gleamed off metal panels. Travelers moved in soft motion blur— nobody drew any attention to themselves except for this one woman. She strode into the scene like an immense starship getting gleefully ready to launch.
That voluminous and commanding figure appeared to be the greatest soprano in the history of modern opera. A human woman in a layered crimson coat with velvet trim, she had her curls arranged like a concert hall had gotten tucked inside her scalp. She looked ahead. She felt unbothered.
Attached to her chest, being half-zipped behind her coat’s layers below the neck like a swanky piece of fashion, was her mousy companion. She carried him right there as if his weight meant nothing. He was right there within her own powerful presence yet seemingly had no mass himself.
Alex journaled about that little fellow a lot. He knew exactly how little sense it made. A meme from three to six months ago, or whenever it really was, had become a defining moment in his adult life at the level that his feelings could suddenly possess his pencil-gripping paw against his will.
The video spoke to so many furfolk about so much. ‘He had to get called… a handsome one. White-furred. Small. Mute-eyed. Limp but composed. Not sitting. Not clinging. Just... there. Folded into her presence like newly-gifted embroidery.’ Alex kept searching for additional words a lot. ‘And so happy.’
The clip ended as the woman approached the security gate to a massive building. A bored transit worker asked something inaudible. She tilted her head with raw bluster and arrogance.
"I obviously only need one ticket!"
She announced all that with confidence. The video’s caption then repeated it all. The latter sealed the deal. Sarcastic ‘Helvetica Bold’ had a lot of power, anyways. The joke had gone viral, naturally. Single moments in picture form flooded the internet alongside mutated pieces of the entire clip. Most humans loved it. Any group of those labeled as ‘scampers’ or ‘tailies’, or both, almost entirely loved it. It was a classic punchline. It was a good punchline.
Alex had seen it too many times.
And, every time, it hit the same place in his gut: a sharp, hot pulse of shame cut with something dangerously close to longing. He had guilt without either doing or saying anything to justify that guilt. He simply wondered if maybe he kept lying to himself. It probably was just plain, old-fashioned longing, and during certain moments throughout his date with Bryan he totally knew it.
“No reason not to drink as much as we want,” Bryan muttered. The man’s limp introversion seemed to Alex almost like a thick layer of fog above Bryan’s big shoulders. “Yeah.”
“Yeah.” Alex had repeated the word without really thinking.
Finding himself waiting alone as Bryan got up to get another mug, Alex’s mind returned to the exact words from his journals. ‘What would it even be like to be held that completely? In public? To accept the unambiguous loss of control? To not even exist, really? To only be a part of somebody else? To be… that… safe?’ He kept asking himself questions. He kept being unable to answer them. ‘Be that happy?’
‘And would I hate myself for it from time to time? Or maybe all the time?’
Alex’s paw still explored across the briefcase’s warm edges. His tail, still looped around the side buckle, shifted a bit. It then tightened a little.
“I’m getting another mug too,” he announced to nobody in particular. He then let go, slowly, like lowering a piece of something being cooked into a salty brew. “Yeah.”
Alex stood right behind Bryan. The man started saying something to his mousy companion. Even though the music had changed a bit, Alex still did nothing but glance around. Bryan apparently felt satisfied to a degree. Alex blinked.
Bryan was still talking. The words had long stopped registering. Alex was still simply standing in line. He was behind Bryan. The man’s body loomed in front of him, yet that fact didn’t register at all. The empty air between them might as well have swollen to a light-year in distance.
“Only need one ticket,” Alex mouthed, with no sound coming out.
End of Chapter One