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Laios yawned in his sleep and promptly found himself choking on Kabru's hair as it got sucked into his mouth, waking him instantly. He pulled back slightly, shaking his head and huffing through his nose while he attempted to remove Kabru's hair from his mouth using only his tongue. With the crisis averted, he rested his cheek against the back of Kabru's head, this time making sure that he would be able to breathe freely, and allowed his body to relax once again. Despite a lingering sleepiness that made his eyelids feel like they weighed a ton, he doubted that he would be able to fall back asleep at this rate, but that wasn't really a big deal. Cuddling with Kabru was pretty enjoyable either way – if anything, being fully awake made him able to appreciate it more.
The last thing he could remember before falling asleep was Kabru's body curled up at his side, his warm breath tickling the skin on his neck, which, seeing as Kabru was now facing away from him, suggested that one or both of them must have moved around quite a bit during the night, but evidently they never quite let go of each other. Laios' body was wrapped tightly around Kabru's like a protective cocoon, his back turned to the bedroom door, creating a physical barrier between him and whatever may have lurked in the night. His butt was pressed against the bedframe, which was the only thing preventing it from hanging off the edge of the bed. His legs were curled under the blanket, the one on top being lifted in a way that effectively pressed Laios' groin against Kabru's butt and locked his pelvis between his thighs. His outstretched arm was caught under Kabru's body, its open-palmed hand resting on top of the pillow, its wrist caught in Kabru's gentle grasp, while his other hand was clasped over Kabru's chest, with Kabru's own hand pressing it down, his fingers curled, which kind of made it seem like he was trying to use Laios' hand to give himself CPR (as far as Laios could tell his pulse was perfectly normal, so thankfully there was no reason to be concerned). All of that combined to create a pretty cute image, Laios felt – not only did they spend all night cuddling, but apparently they were holding hands the entire time, too.
Generally speaking, Laios would consider himself to be a pretty territorial creature – whenever he had anything to be territorial over, that is, which was a pretty recent development. He spent the months following his great escape from school aimlessly roaming the streets, with nothing to his name except for a couple articles of clothing and some change, and outside of his brief stint in the military, things more or less stayed this way until he reunited with Falin and the two of them were provided temporary shelter by their employers. Eventually they saved enough money to rent a room in the city – a single room that they split in two by rearranging the furniture so that they'd each have their own dedicated corner. It was pretty small, and not even remotely comfortable, obviously privacy wasn't an option despite their best efforts, but neither of them were inclined to complain about it since they were grateful to have a roof over their heads at all. He could still remember Marcille's shock when she visited them for the first time. She went on and on about how Falin shouldn't have to live this way, how awful it was for her, and other stuff like that, which was a sentiment that Laios was inclined to agree with. Indeed, it was something he often felt guilty about, especially back then. If not for the fact that she chose to tag along with him that day, Falin's life would turn out very differently; she would graduate from school like she was supposed to, get a good job and live comfortably off her salary, and she wouldn't have to worry about him at all. While she never complained about their situation or expressed regret over her choices, he couldn't help but feel like he ruined her life by dragging her down with him. Sure, he never asked Falin to go with him – if anything, he went out of his way to discourage her from doing so – but he should have known that there was no way that she would let him walk away just like that.
Evidently, Marcille thought that it was his fault, too. He couldn't really blame her for that, but it certainly didn't feel good to be on the receiving end of her disdain. Whenever Falin brought her over while he was home, Marcille wouldn't even try to hide how unhappy she was to see him, sometimes going so far as to ask why he was there – which was a little unfair, considering that he lived there too. At the same time he couldn't help but appreciate receiving a message as loud and clear as this one for once. If his presence made Marcille this uncomfortable, then he had no choice but to get out of her way. Everything else aside, he didn't want to embarrass Falin in front of someone she admired so much. And so, he asked her to let him know ahead of time when Marcille would be coming over so that he could get out of the house before they got there. It sucked being effectively kicked out of his house, but it wasn't all bad, either. Having nothing else to do with himself, he would take long walks through the city, which led to a lot of cool new discoveries that he never would have made otherwise – it was how he ended up finding many of his temporary jobs, for one. That was around the time when he started assembling a bicycle from pieces he got for cheap or found in the junkyard, too, and once it was ready (and no longer threatened to fall apart in the middle of the road), he would ride it around everywhere, sometimes even ending up outside of the boundaries of the city. Getting back home was a pain, but it was well worth it.
Laios wasn't particularly surprised when Falin informed him that Marcille asked her to move in with her. He figured that it was bound to happen sooner or later – Marcille made her intentions pretty clear from the beginning, after all; it was only a matter of time. What did surprise him, however, was Falin's visible nervousness when she told him about it, as if she expected him to not take the news well. On the contrary, he was really, sincerely happy for her. He always figured that the two of them rooming together was only a temporary arrangement while the two of them figured things out. He had to be prepared for the possibility that, sooner or later, Falin would find somebody she would want to live with (he had no such hopes for himself, of course, but he was already used to being alone, so he would be fine either way), in which case he would have no right to force her to stay with him. Out of all the people it could have been, he was relieved that it was Marcille that Falin would be moving in with. Marcille was trustworthy and reliable, a very respectable person, and while she didn't seem to like him very much, it was obvious how much she cared about Falin, which ultimately was the only thing that mattered. Strangely enough, their relations improved significantly after Falin moved out – perhaps because now he wasn't getting in the way.
At the same time that Falin moved in with Marcille, Shuro agreed to let Laios be his roommate while he finished his degree, which was awfully kind of him, and very much appreciated. Laios always admired Shuro, and he was certainly excited to share a living space with someone as cool as him – all the conversations they would have, all the meals they would share, all the opportunities they would have to hang out...! Well, nothing came of that in the end, but the thought was still nice. What he was looking forward to more than anything, though, was having his very own room, one that he would not have to share with anybody. It had been a while since he had a room that would be truly his. There was the dorm back at school, he supposed, but that didn't really feel like it counted. At the end of the day, it was never really his own bedroom. He wasn't even allowed to customise it or anything. This would be the first time he had his own bedroom since he left his family home all these years ago, which was a little strange to think about.
And so, Laios moved in with Shuro. He brought all of his stuff from the old room, books, toys, clothes and various other trinkets, as well as the computer he'd been tinkering with and his trusty bicycle, over to the new apartment, and got to carefully arranging his new living space, making sure that everything had its own dedicated spot. Aside from giving Laios a basic rundown of what he should and shouldn't do when they first discussed the prospect of him moving in, for the most part, Shuro wasn't particularly involved in the process, only occasionally checking in to make sure that Laios didn't make a hole in the wall or start a fire, despite Laios repeatedly prompting him to come in and keep him company while he worked. Perhaps this should have been a sign of things to come, but Laios chose not to think about it too much – he had more important things on his mind, anyhow. He worked tirelessly until everything was exactly as he imagined it, and, his chest swelling with pride, promptly passed out on his new bed and slept for twelve hours straight.
Finally, Laios had a place that was really, truly his own! It was only supposed to be temporary, sure, but he wouldn't have to worry about that until much, much later, so he didn't. He spent the first few days barely leaving his newfound lair, enjoying being surrounded by all his favourite stuff, safe and comfy and free to do whatever he wanted. There was, however, a tiny part of him that felt compelled to invite somebody over so that he could show off all of his stuff. Ever since he was a kid, it had always been a dream of his to be able to invite his friends to hang out in his bedroom and play games and watch movies together. For obvious reasons, that never really panned out, so a dream it would remain, just like his fantasies of becoming a werewolf (though he'd sooner give up on the former than the latter). The problem was that there wasn't a single person around that he could invite over (other than Falin, obviously, which didn't really count). Growing up, he didn't have any friends. Obviously. Hell, there were hardly any people that tolerated his presence at all, and even that was mostly down to their ability to ignore him. They wouldn't be happy if he approached them, he could bet (not that he had any reason or desire to, of course – he didn't know them, after all). Experience taught him that other kids would take any opportunity to destroy his stuff, and there wasn't really anything he could do to stop it. Knowing that, there was no way in hell that he would willingly let them into his room where he kept all the stuff that was most dear to him.
Slowly but surely, Laios managed to convince himself that he didn't need friends because he was better off alone, anyway. He buried his desire for connection at the bottom of his heart, along with all the other things that would forever be out of his reach and therefore were better left unacknowledged. His loneliness had become a protective cocoon that he withdrew further and further into as he grew older, safe and familiar – and terrible. While the people around him formed all kinds of relationships with each other, he remained painfully alone, and however hard he tried to convince himself that it was entirely by choice, he knew that it wasn't. There was something wrong with him, there must have been. Even Falin managed to find somebody she wanted to spend time with, but he still hadn't. After all these years, there still wasn't anybody he was close enough with to want to hang out with them outside of work, let alone bringing them to his house.
Maybe it was his fault for having such high standards. On the one hand, he would immediately latch on to anybody who was remotely nice to him, but on the other, his previous bad experiences left him suspicious of people's intentions towards him, which made him reluctant to let anybody in without making sure that they could be trusted. What if he invited someone over only to get knocked out and robbed by them? Shuro would be really unhappy with him if that happened. Or, what if they told him that his interests were lame as hell? That would totally break his heart! He didn't want to let anybody he didn't fully trust into his house, which narrowed things down to basically zero. Theoretically, he should be able to hang out with Shuro pretty easily, considering that he quite literally lived right next door to him, and he did trust him more than almost anybody else, but Shuro always rejected his invitations to spend time in his room, and he didn't really let Laios into his room, either, so that was a bust. With no other options left, Laios was just about ready to give up and resign himself to a life of eternal loneliness by the time he met Kabru.
In every way, Kabru was the perfect friend for him. Not only did he approach him of his own volition and strike up a conversation, relieving Laios of the burden of figuring out what to say (and whether he should say anything at all), but he was really nice about it, too. While he seemed a little put off at first, which Laios had grown to expect, it wasn't enough to discourage him from talking to him again and again. He even went out of his way to invite him out for drinks and stuff, and wasn't embarrassed to be seen with him in public at all, which was kind of unexpected for a popular guy like him. If it were anybody else, Laios would have expected it all to be a part of some big prank meant to convince him that he'd made a friend only to pull the rug out from under him, but Kabru wasn't the kind of guy to do that. He really was just that friendly and nice, more than anybody else he'd ever met. Encouraged by Kabru's genuine interest, Laios impulsively invited him over so that he could show him his fursuit. He wasn't really expecting him to say yes, so it came as a surprise when Kabru accepted his invitation right away. It was pretty exciting, but a little scary, too, since Laios had never gotten this far before. There was a voice in the back of his head constantly telling him that there was no way that Kabru was actually going to want to be his friend if he got to know him better, that he was definitely going to mess it up one way or another so he should just give up ahead of time. Thankfully, he'd gotten pretty good at ignoring those kinds of thoughts.
And, well, here they were now, doing better than anybody could have expected. Honestly, it was a little scary just how well things had gone between the two of them, way better than Laios would have ever dared to imagine. Kabru was exactly the kind of friend he dreamed of having as a child, a friend that he assumed would remain imaginary, just like his fursona. There was no way that anybody would go out of their way to associate with him, and he wasn't sure that he would really want them to, knowing that it would put them at risk of being ostracised by the others. In hindsight, it was possible that he ended up pushing people away without realising it just because he didn't want to be a burden to them, but there was no real way to tell if that was the case. Nobody ever told him that they wanted to be friends with him before, not until Kabru came around and persistently pushed past all of his reservations to get close to him. Learning that such a person actually existed, not just somewhere out there in the world but right there beside him, and that he was actually willing to be his friend no matter what, was, well, pretty shocking, though not in a bad way, obviously. Laios found himself wishing that he and Kabru could have met sooner. He definitely could have used a friend like him in his most vulnerable years. Obviously, Kabru was a fair bit younger than him, so they never would have been classmates, but it still would have helped to have him around anyway. More than anything, though, he was grateful to have found him at all.
Obviously, their relationship evolved quite a bit since then – rather than simply friends, they were now boyfriends, partners, lovers, mates for life, whatever one wanted to call it, which was amazing in its own way, but he never felt like the two things were mutually exclusive, or that one was less important than the other, anyway. He would always think of Kabru as the first real friend he'd ever made, and that was just as precious and incredible as getting to be his lover. As far as he was concerned, it didn't really matter what their relationship was called, so long as they were together. If Kabru suddenly changed his mind about wanting to be his boyfriend, it would probably hurt a little, but as long as they could remain friends, he could probably live with it. Ultimately, Kabru was the person he decided to share his life with, no matter what, for as long as Kabru wanted to stay by his side, which, amazingly it kind of seemed like he would happily do forever. Ah, well, perhaps he shouldn't get ahead of himself. It was too early to tell how long things would last and where they would end up. All he knew for sure was that he would never find another person like Kabru, and he would do anything to keep him around for as long as possible.
All things considered, he definitely didn't regret putting his trust in Kabru as quickly as he did. There was still a lot of stuff he didn't know about him, sure, but the same was true in reverse, too. Laios hadn't gone out of his way to tell Kabru about his past, and he wasn't expecting anything else in return, even though there was some stuff he was admittedly pretty curious about. He had yet to hear the story of how Kabru ended up coming all the way here from India (...it was India, right? Come to think of it, he never specified the country, just that it was somewhere close to the Himalayas... It was kind of cool that they were both Highlanders, actually, though obviously their mountains were pretty far apart), for one, but that kind of stuff could wait until he was ready to talk about it. In the past two months since they first met (...had it really only been two months? Not even, because they met in March and it was still April. It sure felt way longer than that.), he'd gotten to know Kabru pretty well. He learned about his habits and preferences, the kind of food he liked and what he wore to bed, and, perhaps most importantly, he managed to confirm that he really was exactly the kind of person he seemed to be, gentle and kind and beautiful, fun to hang around with and talk to about anything and everything at all, and wholly trustworthy. Laios never had to worry about what he would do when he was left alone in his bedroom for a moment, because there was no way that Kabru would touch anything without his permission or go snooping through his stuff. Even if he did, it wouldn't be a big deal, since Laios didn't have anything left to hide from him.
Kabru's presence in his life, in his room, in his bed, felt like the most natural thing in the world, as if he was supposed to be there all along. Kabru himself said something along the lines of sleeping better on the nights he spent with Laios. Maybe there was something to it, after all. Maybe they really could keep this up forever. Wouldn't it be nice if they actually got to spend the rest of their lives together in their little love nest, taking care of each other and looking after their young, if they had any? Laios really liked the idea of that. He could totally see it working out, too. It was a little funny that for most of his life, being tied to one person forever was one of the worst things he could imagine. As it turned out, finding someone he could willingly tie himself to made all the difference. If one day it became possible to marry Kabru, he definitely wouldn't mind going through with it.
Laios cracked one eye open. He couldn't really see much of Kabru's face from this angle, but he didn't want to move his head for fear of waking him up, so as a compromise he stared intently at his ear, admiring its shape. He never found human ears particularly interesting, but he had to admit that Kabru's ears were pretty cute, very round and symmetrical, with the veins clearly visible in the light. Honestly, that went for the rest of Kabru's body as well. The parts that he would find unremarkable on any other person were made interesting by virtue of being a part of him, and the features he found attractive to begin with would become breathtakingly beautiful and irresistibly arousing. Kabru's body hair, for one, was so dense and fluffy that he couldn't help running his hands through it every chance he got. His nipples were really cute, too. Even his feet were pretty charming in their own way. There was also his butt, not too big but really firm and shapely, teasing Laios with the promise that he would one day be able to bury his nose in it.
As if on cue, Kabru's butt rubbed against his groin in an up-down-up motion, as if trying to scratch an itch. Feeling his face warm up, Laios instinctively bit the inside of his cheek, stifling a moan, as he glanced over at Kabru to check if he was awake. He didn't seem to be, but that didn't necessarily mean he wasn't. Kabru was really good at pretending to be asleep – he'd probably be good at playing dead, too, which could save his life someday, but he only ever chose to use this power to tease Laios about the things he did when he thought that Kabru couldn't see him. Just in case, Laios remained still, holding his breath, counting up in his head. By the time he got to twenty-two, Kabru's butt ground against his groin once again. It was definitely on purpose, then. Laios released the breath he'd been holding and experimentally rubbed himself up against Kabru's butt. He could have sworn that Kabru let out a huff, as if trying to stifle laughter, before grinding on him again, harder this time, as if he was actually trying to push Laios off the bed.
With a delighted snort, Laios buried his face in Kabru's hair, letting it tickle his cheeks, his mouth, and his nostrils, which in turn drew a soft gasp out of Kabru – Laios didn't have to see his face to know that he was smiling. Letting his eyelids close again, he continued to grind against Kabru in a slow, lazy rhythm, fully aware that it was exactly what he wanted. For Kabru had taken over all of his territories, his room and his bed, his body and mind, and certainly his libido, and Laios was more than happy to give them up, knowing that they would be in good hands.