Closer

Walking home from a party is one of the most lonely things in the world. I’m horny and drunk, and even though I spend most of my time being both those things, the silence of the city tells me that I shouldn’t. It’s late at night, so most mammals are asleep or busy fucking, and that means the streets are mostly empty. It's creepy.

 

Normally I wouldn’t be so alone, but I just wasn’t feeling it today. Which is weird. Maybe I’ve caught my brother’s cold.

 

I notice my shoulders shaking, and I hug myself. Was it always so chilly out?

 

Something small and wet hits the bridge of my snout and I jump back. It’s dark. Darker than it should be for 3 in the morning. Did a bug just shit on me? Ugh. I wipe the liquid off my snout with my forearm, making to continue on my merry way when another drop hits my inner ear and I realize that it’s really, really cold.

 

By the time I look up to see that it’s raining, I’ve been pelted several times in the face. Not in the good way. That is to say, with cum.

 

I pick up my pace, walking down…Hill Street? I stop at the street sign, forward momentum almost tipping me over. Isn’t that––it is–—it actually fucking is. I remember Charlie bringing it up in the middle of the game two months ago. No one cared. At least, no one said anything if they did.

 

The rain picks up. What the fuck is this? I didn’t see shit about rain on the news. It’s getting really heavy now. For a second I’m caught between continuing my walk to the trams or walking down Hill Street, but essentially I have two options: get soaked or stay dry.

 

 

 

Running feels a lot faster when you’re boozed up. Why don’t I just drink before my jogs? I feel like I could outfuck a cheetah.

 

The building is a little ways off, but with how insanely fast I’m running it doesn’t matter. How did Charlie describe it again? “Stony, with clean edges. Straight lines rule the vast expanse of the place, and with them comes a feeling of enforced order. It’s a place where mammals go to pretend that the messiness of the world doesn’t exist.” Or something. I’m kind of english class-ing it but I’m sure that I’m close enough.

 

I get to the entrance, and it’s locked. It’s one of those places where you have to push a button that calls the person you want to visit, and then they have to unlock the door with a button on their end.

 

Sneaking in will be easy enough. I push a random button and go from there. Seems like no one’s living in this stuck up complex until I finally get a voice on my fourth try. It’s some dumb teenager, which is perfect. I pretend I’m his pizza girl and he lets me in.

 

From there it’s just a matter of catching the elevator to the highest floor, and finding the room at the end of the hall.

 

Thank god I brought my switch with me. I can only hope that the other tenants are asleep. Don’t wanna get caught performing some impromptu locksmithing on their neighbour’s door.

 

A satisfying ‘click’ and I’m in.

 

His apartment is really, really nice. There’s a giant couch on top of a faux fur rug, and the fireplace is going strong. The window goes from the ceiling to the wall, and––even through the rain is blocking everything––I can see that the view from this place is usually amazing. I should probably stay away from there, though. With the way my head’s waving around I might just fall through.

 

There’s a kitchen melded into the living room, separated by a few pillars, and an assortment of other rooms beyond that.

 

On a hunch I clap my paws, and the light gets dimmer.  The fancy prick. Speaking of, I can hear the shower running around the corner. What is he doing, still awake at 3? Maybe he couldn’t shake the habit after moving out. Or maybe he just got done fucking his girlfriend, and he’s cleaning up. I giggle to myself. Nah. Couldn’t be.

 

I assume that he’s either just started or is in the middle of his shower, and that means I have a long wait until he gets out. I strip out of my clothes, snag the blanket off the couch and snuggle up next to the fire.

 

The fire is really warm. Obviously. I can already feel myself drying. Outside I can hear the rain pitter pattering on the pavement. I giggle again, hiccuping throughout. Pitter patter. Pitter patter. What a dumb word. Who even made that?

 

 

 

When I wake up, my head feels a lot better. I’m mostly dry, too. Now I’m just cold. But it’s a good kind of cold because there’s a blanket around my shoulders and a fire at my back, and the warmth I get from those two things is almost better than sex.

 

“Hey.” Someone calls from the corner of the living room.

 

It’s Remmy. He’s sitting on a cushy love chair that I missed on the way in, and (unfortunately) has a pair of boxer shorts hugging his hips. His wool is next to dry, which means that his shower must have ended a while ago.

 

“How long was I asleep?” I ask, shrinking deeper into my stolen blanket. God, it’s really cozy. Maybe he made it out of his wool. Would that be a weird thing for sheeps to do? Sheep? Sheeps? I end up thinking about the plural more than listening to the Remmy’s response, and when I tune back in all I hear is—

 

“–And then I find you here.”

 

I nod, doing my best to act like I’ve been hearing what he’s saying. “Well, I had no where else to go. I’m sure you understand.”

 

He grumbles unhappily, but all in all I think I’m good to crash here for however long I want. There’s a lull in the conversation, if that’s what you can call it, and I take the chance to give him a once over.

 

He’s been shearing. Quite a bit, actually. He looks a lot slimmer than what I remember. Maybe he finally copped a good pair of…scissors, or whatever they’re called. His muscles (what I can see of them) seem a bit more defined as well. Maybe he’s also been going to the gym?

 

He coughs, and I know that he knows that I’ve been checking him out. He has that look on his face. The one where he thinks I’m going to rape him but in the back of his mind it wouldn’t really be rape, because he’d actually kind of like it. Hah. Too bad for him that I don’t do the whole dominatrix thing. He’d probably be into it.

 

He coughs again, and it absolutely ruins my train of thought. “What?” I groan.

 

“Do you want some coffee or something?”

 

“Yeah, sure.” He gets up to leave, moving towards the kitchen. When he’s almost there I suddenly remember something, and I call out to him. “Hey, wait! Your heart stops if you mix caffeine and too much alcohol. Or something. Just make me some hot chocolate.”

 

Grumbling again, he asks if I want cinnamon.

 

“Do you want cinnamon?” I repeat, putting on my best Remmy Cormo impression. “Of course I do, dumbass.” I almost tell him that he knows better than that, but I’m not sure if he does anymore.

 

 

 

Soon enough he’s beside me and we’re both drinking our drinks. My head’s on his shoulder, and I nestle in tighter, both because he’s warm and because it makes him squirm in the funniest way. At first I’m surprised that he let me get so close, but then I figure that he thinks I’m drunker than I actually am. He probably thinks I’ll end up falling over and spilling cocoa everywhere if he tries to move away, and who knows? He might be right.

 

“It’s raining.” It looks like its falling in thick clumps, like there’s a giant towel in the sky and someone’s wringing water from it.

 

“Yeah.” he answers me after taking a long swig of his coffee. He opens his mouth to say something but the fire crackles extra loud, and that shuts him up good.

 

“It rained the day after you left.” I mumble.

 

“Annie–“

 

I stand up all of a sudden, and I see the naked fear in his eyes as he waits for my drink to spill. Too bad for him that it’s all in my belly now. I can visibly see his heart calm as I walk over to the coffee table and place my empty mug on top of it.

 

I’m warm enough that I let the blanket drop to the floor, and I start walking around, inspecting anything and everything I can lay my eyes on. “So what have you been up to?”

 

“Oh, this and that. Doesn’t matter. Nothing important, I guess.”

 

I hum absentmindedly.

 

“Do you want a shirt or something?”

 

I then remember that I’m naked. “No thanks.” I reply. Out of my peripherals I can see that he isn’t phased by my body in the least. Honestly, it’s kinda nice to know that he still finds it familiar.

 

I end up at a shelf near the TV, stocked with pictures of mammals I don’t know.

 

I’m about to move on, and then I see it. Way in the back, turned towards the wall like a shy kid in a class photo.

 

I pick it up, thumb sliding over the smooth wooden frame. It’s a picture of all of us, smiling like there isn’t a sheep in our midst sweating his brains out. I’m in the foreground with Remmy, Wolter and Charlie. Ozzy’s behind her, and Al’s beside him with Marty on his shoulder. Avo's beside him and even Betty is there, off to the side.

 

I remember the night well. Another one of Ozzy’s parties. Actually, that’s not true. It was special. Someone’s birthday, I don’t remember whose. Even Charlie came out to celebrate.

 

Remmy finally bought me a damn slider that night.

 

“Why do you have this?” I ask him. My voice is all wavy, and it’s scratchy in a way that isn’t normal. I sound like a terrible actress trying to sound intimidating.

 

“It’s a nice picture.” he tells me.

 

“Oh.” I nod, like he just told me what time it is. There’s an ugly pause, and then I feel my insides burn. It starts at my gut and spreads up to my neck. My mouth is beyond my control. “Tell me, what the fuck kind of an answer is that?”

 

He flinches at first–but at this point it’s so early in the morning that his wooly little balls aren’t shy of the world, so he stands up. “Anneke,” he says, like I’m a puppy having a tantrum. “You’re drunk and I think you should sleep it off in the guest room.”

 

He starts walking towards me but I dash away, gripping the picture in my hand. “No.”

 

“Annie–“

 

“Tell me why you have this.”

 

“I told you–“

 

“No you didn’t. Tell me why you have this picture RIGHT the FUCK now.”

 

He keeps walking, and I mirror his steps, going backwards into the hall.

 

“What do you want from me?”

 

I stop, and I can feel everything. I feel my heart thrashing around in my chest. I feel my mane standing completely straight. I feel how crazy my eyes are. Remmy stops too. We’re like someone just pressed the pause button on a video, except we’re breathing pretty heavy. I also can’t stand still. My body totters around like a top about to stop spinning.

 

Do you remember in Hairy Potter, when the paintings and the pictures would move? A few of them even talked, or had sounds to go with them. That’s what I feel like when I look at that picture. I can smell the freshly cooked food in the back, and I can feel Wolter and Remmy’s arms over my shoulders. I can hear us giggling softly, trying not to laugh, because Avo roasted Marty just a few seconds before Ritt told us to say cheese. And for that single moment in time, I can see that everyone is happy.

 

I grip the picture tighter. The glass whines softly in my paw. “You don’t get this. You don’t get to look back at us like we’re some fond memory after you leave without saying a word. Weren’t we closer than that? Weren’t WE closer than that?”

 

The rain pours on, heavy as ever. An audience clapping for our shitty little TV drama. Remmy just stands there, unmoving. He’s waiting for an answer to his question, so I give him what he wants.

 

“I want an apology.” I declare. “I want you to tell me you’re sorry for leaving us. Leaving me.” I stumble in place, but I catch myself before I can fall. I run a paw through my headfur. The corners of my vision are black but it’s nothing I haven’t been through before. I try and blink it away.

 

Something in Remmy’s face shifts, and suddenly he’s on full alert mode. “Annie, get away from the window.”

 

I scoff. “Eat my ass.”

 

He starts running towards me, and I back up hurriedly––tripping over myself and spiralling towards the glass.

 

Something shatters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wake up and it’s 4 in the morning. The tacky alarm clock on the nightstand blinks the time, over and over.

 

“You’re awake.” I hear Remmy’s voice whisper from the end of the bed. Has he just been sitting there, watching me sleep the whole time? “You passed out.”

 

I don’t look at him. He doesn’t deserve that.

 

He sighs. I can hear him rub his eyes. “I’m sorry.” he says. “When you think of something as a stepping stone for so long, it’s scary when you realize that’s where you actually belong. I...I didn’t say anything because I was scared that if I talked to any of you, I would stay. Even though I should have.”

 

It’s a stupid reason and I hate that it makes me understand.

 

I’m quiet for the next minute, and he thinks that means I can’t forgive him. He sighs again, and gets up to leave.

 

“The picture.”

 

He stops.

 

“I broke it.” I state. I’m guessing. When he nods his head, I laugh a little. “I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s okay.” he smiles, and turns to leave again.

 

“You should come with me tomorrow. Get another one. Marty and Charlie have two.”

 

Shocked, Remmy nods his head. I smile at him and pat the space beside me.

 

He blushes. “Oh. Uh, I really don’t think we should rush into things...”

 

I frown. “No, stupid. Cuddle with me.”

 

My voice must make it clear that I won’t be taking no for an answer, because he flops into bed and holds me like he used to.

 

 

The next day we set out for Pack Street. Remmy still doesn’t have a car, but he has an umbrella and that’s more than what I have. It’s still dark and rainy, but I don’t mind too much. All the daywalkers are out and about, and the fact that they’re awake and living keeps me peppy.

 

I casually wrap a tail around the sheep beside me, and even though I’m in the rain, I can’t help but feel warmer than I ever have.

 

 

 

(For Thematic Thursday: Rainy Day)

(Pack Street characters are Weaver's)

(this is set in an AU, obviously)