"The Librarian" - Chapter 2 - 1.3 Version - Zootopia

"The Librarian" - Chapter 2 - 1.3 Version - By PseudoFox - Zootopia Fan Writing

( The current version of Chapter 1 is at: https://pastebin.com/UQcn9gXx )

[Chapter Two]

[A few minutes later...]

The sheer number of vehicles, large and small, parked outside of the restaurant got Marty worried. Getting carried by a larger mammal meant one thing when literally nobody else seemed around. It represented a whole other thing if Red did it across a crowded parking lot— especially one with ever-judging and ever-mocking young children all around. Marty vowed to say 'no' even if Red spent the next ten solid minutes insisting otherwise.

Beyond that, as well, the stoat couldn't stand waiting in those cramped little rooms for a spare booth or table to open up. He'd never set paw in Lulu's before, but he thought that it couldn't be that different than the average mid-ranged place. Their by-the-door seats always seemed agonizingly itchy. Even worse, the other individuals sitting beside him always seemed as obnoxiously loud as possible.

Those feelings dampened as a departing Buck LaCrosse gave Red's Toyota Camelry an ideal parking spot. Seeing Red fiddle with a smartphone as the fox popped out of the driver's side also helped— Marty figured that Red had likely used some application or something to set up a reservation ahead of time. The stoat winced a bit as he walked over to the dark green building's massive double-doors. Still, leaning forward in his car's seat and massaging all along his legs for the past couple minutes had genuinely made a big difference. Marty's fox companion followed only a few steps behind.

"Hold on!" Red abruptly called out. He sprinted a bit and thrust out a paw high above Marty's head. "I'm the one opening doors, pulling out chairs, paying for things, and the like this afternoon. Don't you forget it."

"Chivalry isn't dead, eh?" Marty remarked, putting on a grin.

Stepping inside, the stoat felt taken aback by the sheer number of mammals that fit in the comparatively small building. He saw couples and families alike as far as his eyes could see. While Marty figured that he and Red had technically driven out of Pack Street proper, the restaurant still featured a surprisingly diverse assortment of mammals for the general neighborhood— a pair of elderly wolves simply chatting together sitting right beside a group of teenage deer getting obsessed with their big salads, Romanesque columns stretched out between them all. Marty scratched his neck as he tried to think back. He hadn't been in a place with such a fifty/fifty predator to prey split in, most likely, years.

"Table for two, right?" a gazelle in a sharp-looking black dress asked. Her smile seemed to stretch across her entire face. "You have a reservation?"

Marty spun around. He witnessed Red exchanging words with the cute prey girl that he didn't quite make out. At any rate, the stoat found himself having his left paw clutched tightly and his whole body tugged into an empty table in what seemed like the exact center of the restaurant.

Red, as he had promised, pulled out Marty's chair. The stoat hopped into place and clutched his cloth napkin. Red slid the chair forward a bit and then promptly took his own seat.

"You have any idea what you're going to order?" Marty inquired. Without looking at the menu, which appeared even taller than he was, the stoat figured that it featured a mix of predator-preferred fare with the standard greenery that places outside of fast food usually served.

"Crunchy, golden-brown breaded fish," Red answered, the fox resting a paw upon the table, "I don't care what kind. The main thing, for me, is having a heaping helping of those sweet potato fries."

"God, that sounds nice." The stoat hadn't had good fish in quite a while.

Still, Marty picked up the menu and delicately balanced it on its edge, slowly but surely opening up the glossy pages. The array of salads that greeted him had little appeal. The following page displayed a variety of ways for cooking dark vegetables— Marty felt even less impressed. Thinking things over for a few seconds, the stoat flung up an arm and let the menu tumble back down onto the table.

"Something wrong?" Red asked.

"Nothing," Marty began, idly scratching all along his chest, "I just probably should confess something: I'm not much of a restaurant type."

"Oh?"

"It's not the atmosphere. I can take the crowds. I can take the noise." Marty awkwardly coughed. "It's that, well, I'm the kind of mammal where BugBurga is a staple food. You see?"

"Yeah," Red started to say, "the fancier you go, the more reluctant they are to put something insect-based on the menu. Lulu's serves a lot of fish cuisine but isn't willing to go that far. Honestly? I think even splitting the difference probably costs them more in the long run, and this place will probably flip to being full vegetarian eventually."

"That's a shame." Marty let out a sigh.

Red laughed. That surprised the stoat— Marty leaning both arms on the table and cocking his head to the side. Before either mammal could say anything, however, a goat in a plain grey suit and carrying a thick notepad appeared between them.

"Hello! I'll be your server today!" The goat reached out and straightened the rose-filled vase that sat in the center of the table. "The name's Marcus! Can I get you both started with some drinks?"

"I'll have an iced tea with lemon," Red declared.

"I'll," Marty began, but he immediately stopped. Asking for grape soda was probably futile. The higher-class place likely had none of the cheap flavored sodas that he enjoyed so much. "Oh, hell, I'll have the same."

"I assume that you both need a bit more time before ordering," Marcus went on.

"Nah," Red answered, and he picked up his menu, "I'll have the breaded cod with sweet potato fries, please."

"Great! And you?" The goat turned to the stoat.

"Same."

"Excellent!" The goat scribbled on his notepad before seizing both menus. Spinning around and heading off to another table, Marcus left the happy, bubbly fox and the more neutral feeling stoat to simply look at each other. Several seconds of silence passed.

"So, uh, why the laugh?" Marty asked.

"Oh, well," Red began, and he put on somewhat of a sheepish expression as an arm swung behind his head, "I'll have to break it to you sometime. I might as well do it now." He stuck out his lips and rolled his eyes back a bit. "Marty, I've never had bug-meat in my entire life."

"Really?" Marty stood up straight, a flash of genuine surprise in his voice.

"Yep," Red answered, "it's kind of a psychological thing for me. On the one paw, there are creatures such as crickets that aren't simply adorable but also make great pets. I can't even begin to put myself into the mindset where I'd eat them. On the other paw, there are pests: cockroaches, flies, locusts, and the rest. It kind of feels even worse in that circumstance. I can't square the circle of eating something that would preferably eat me. Killing something that wants to kill me. Sure, I'll happily squash a roach. That's like self-defense, though, and their body goes in the trash can. Eating one? It's like running a vacuum cleaner backwards."

"Huh."

"I mean, well, look at somebody like Bellwether. She's a monster. But we don't operate on the logic of 'she's evil and wants to kill us, therefore we should carve her up into little ewe fillets because fair-is-fair'." Red paused, and he shook his head. "Strange analogy, I know."

"Well, I actually like the idea of turning Bellwether into lunch, myself," Marty remarked.

"You do you," Red commented with a smile.

"So, when it comes to predators like me, you—"

"I don't judge, Marty," Red remarked with a loud chuckle, "I just happen to be somebody that eats a whole lot of fish while also taking daily multivitamins. It works for me. I'm not going to force my preferences on anybody else."

"That's a refreshing attitude."

Marcus plopped two drinks onto the table. Both mammals took huge gulps. Red let out a happy sigh. Marty, though, got lost once again in a bit of self-reflection.

"Speaking of, uh, having things forced on you," Red started to say. He paused, though, and slid both paws against the edge of the table.

"Yeah?"

"I'm not sure how to ask this," Red went on, "or if this is even an actual question in the first place. I'll just spit it out. So, Marty, I guess: it's hard out there for a little guy. Right?"

"Right," Marty repeated. He shut his eyes and brushed along the sides of his face.

"I mean it." Red took in a deep breath. "I can't imagine what it must feel like to have mammals treat you like just a piece of scenery. The background. And it's more than that. I'm talking way beyond dealing with idiots that would, like, nearly step on you. It's that sense of having most of Zootopia fundamentally built for a larger set and operating at a different level. Always getting walked over. Having mammals look down at you. Feeling belittled and condescended to on a regular basis. Right?"

The stoat brushed even more rapidly before awkwardly coughing. Eyes still shut, he lowered his voice to a murmur. "Yes, that's right."

"Marty..."

Opening his eyes, the stoat realized that the fox had stretched out his arms across the entire table. Red clearly wanted to hold paws. Marty didn't know how to respond, but his own paws migrated on their own and scraped the edges of the fox's claws.

"I don't know how, but I want to make it so that you never feel like that again," Red said in a firm, focused voice.

Marty pulled himself away and curled up upon himself a bit. Leaning against the back of his chair, he narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice even more. The fox strained to hear.

"Can we talk about something else? Please?" Marty murmured.

"Sure," Red replied, "so: are you part of a pack?"

Marty simply nodded.

"Cool," Red remarked, "it's a random-ish question, I know. But I... I've kind of always wanted to be in one. Still, I've sort of aimlessly drifted through different circles of friends over the years. A pack environment might make things worse. Or it might finally tie me down. Who knows, eh?"

"They can be very close-knit groups," Marty said, "and not only come to the rescue when mammals are in trouble but literally save members' lives."

"Yep." Red took another huge gulp of his drink. "So, is yours made up of a variety of different predators? Different backgrounds, jobs, sizes, and the rest?"

"Oh, hell," Marty began with a loud laugh, "it's totally like that and more. We even have a sheep."

"A sheep!" Red slapped his side.

"I know, right?" Marty rested his chin on a paw and grinned.

"He or she must've had a really tough time dealing with the fallout after Bellwether got busted, God," Red murmured.

"It's 'he'," Marty started to say, and his grin grew wider, "and it's a long but fascinating story that I'll tell you sometime."

"I probably shouldn't say this, but I will. My last boyfriend was a ram."

"Really?" Marty's eyes opened a bit wider.

"It was an off and on thing for several months. It's embarrassing to admit, but I think that his whole appeal to me boiled down to one thing— it was the wool that I was after. Poking and prodding that white stuff became something that I literally dreamed about. I didn't like him for him. I tried, though, as much as his shit personality got in the way. It's ironic too. Nothing about his butt, his face, his hooves, or anything about him except his wool seemed attractive to me, but I was the one that kept pushing to make the relationship into something committed and serious. The ram cared about nothing that wasn't physical."

"God, that sounds awful."

"In retrospect, it was," Red concluded with a long sigh, "but, at least, I got two sweaters out of him before we finally broke up."

"Victory, eh?" Marty couldn't help but compare and contrast with Charlie and her complicated relationship to the pack's only prey mammal.

"It forced me to be single again, which made me lonely and eventually got me in front of you at the library counter," Red said, "in front of somebody looking genuinely handsome."

That final word caused Marty to awkwardly wiggle about him place. Red silently watched. The stoat then sipped his drink and held a paw against his forehead.

"What?" Red asked. He stifled yet another laugh. "What is it about that sets you off, inside?"

"Handsome," Marty squeaked out.

"Yeah? You are."

"It's just..." The stoat trailed off as he felt this strong, almost glowing sensation ripple though him. "That."

"That?"

"What about me is handsome?" Marty asked, a pleading expression filled with doubt covering his face.

"Honestly? Everything," the fox eagerly replied, picking up his drink and shifting it around between his paws, "I can start from the top. Those ears, my God, seem like the most delectable things ever. You think what I did on that sidewalk was intimate? Hah, I could massage them for hours. Scratch and pet without restraint, and why not? I don't know if you'd ever let me, but I genuinely want to kiss them too. And given how I kiss, that'd probably end up with me slurping them outright like little ice cream cones."

Marty instinctively clutched both ears with his paws. He had little clue how to respond, but the glowing sensation flowing through his insides made him shiver. The mixture of sheer awkwardness with raw pleasure felt incredible— in, alas, a clearly not entirely good way.

"Those eyes too," Red went on, sipping the last of his iced tea, "with that nose— that whole face? Handsome as shit, dude! I just gaze into your pupils, and you seem so intense yet so vulnerable at the same time, you know? It's like coming upon this big beautiful machine in shiny bronze with gears, knobs, levers, and the rest everywhere only to find that it's just a little bit broken, and every instinct inside of you screams to fix it so that it can be utterly perfect."

"I'm broken?" Marty mouthed.

"No, that's not what I mean at all," Red responded, looking at bit horrified, "maybe it's more like: you're this bookshelf that's nearly full, and I've got this little paperback in my paws that will still fit. Feels beyond satisfying to take that thing and jam it in so that every last nook and cranny is filled, right? Have the ideal collection to show off, then?"

"This date had better go off without a hitch if you except any sort of 'jamming it in'," Marty remarked.

Red grinned. He plopped his empty glass back on the table and continued on. "Screw the metaphors, okay? The point is: you're handsome as a guy on guy terms. That's a fact. I can point to any individual thing from your ears to your fur to your paws, but the point remains."

"I... I just..." Marty shut his eyes and made a tiny groan. He had to level with the fox. The stoat slowly but surely swung his head down and placed it flat on the table— Marty staring blankly at the rose-filled vase in its center. "I'm not, though."

"Huh?"

"Why do you keep lying to me, Red?"

"It's not a lie. It's a fact. I'll even put it on my tombstone. It'll read: 'here lies Red, who thought his librarian was handsome'."

Marty groaned a bit louder. "I... I'm objectively average or below-average in terms of looks, okay? I've heard it my whole life."

"That's a terrible misuse of the word 'objectively', and you're too smart to talk like that," the fox declared, reaching out and gently petting the top of the stoat's head.

"Smart."

"Huh?"

"I'm not that smart either. Okay?"

"That's a load of shit. You ever taken an IQ test?" Red asked. The fox stretched himself over to the side in order to pop up the stoat's head a few inches. "You'd probably score in the so-called 'cognitive elite' faction or whatever the hell its called now. I seriously—"

"Red, I know that you really like me. Maybe, though it's early as shit, it's past the point where one can use the word 'love'. But that doesn't change who I am."

"And who you are is handsome and smart. Period."

The stoat's head slipped out of the fox's light grip. Marty's face landed flat down— his eyes, mouth, and nose rubbing against the tablecloth. Red, for his part, simply froze in silence for several seconds.

"Marty," the fox finally began, "I... I take it that you almost never get these kinds of compliments."

"I almost never get compliments. At all. Period," Marty mumbled into the tablecloth.

"That sure as shit is going to change now that I'm in your life," Red declared, "and when you meet my friends, well, it's going to seem like it never was any other way."

"Here's another pair of ice teas!" Marcus popped up beside the table and slapped down two more drinks. He paused, though, when he heard the stoat let out a soft panting sound. "Sir? Are you okay?"

"Yes," Marty said, picking himself up and sitting down flatly.

"He is," Red added.

"Your food is already done! I'm positive that it'll be here in a matter of seconds!" Marcus declared before spinning around and speeding off.

"Red, seriously," Marty began, reaching for his drink, "that's enough about me, for now. Let's talk about you."

"Sure!"

"You mentioned before that you've lived in Pack Street for half a decade?"

"Where'd you live before then? Where are you originally from?"

"I'm a Zootopia native. Both my parents were as well. I grew up in a few different places around the middle of the metropolis— each of them being white-collar in that stereotypically generic sense, with big grey apartment buildings sitting next to little baseball fields and tinier playgrounds."

"Were you always, uh," Marty fumbled as he tried to come up with the right words, "different than other mammals? I mean, well, did you always know that you weren't straight?"

"I was always weird as hell, seriously," Red answered with a couple of chuckles, "but it never quite added up to the stereotypical picture of the young mammal who practically leaps out of the closet. What kind of a kit was I? I got obsessed with baseball. Had a Joe DiMeowgio poster on the wall and everything. Macho, right? But I also loved disco music and had this hardcore passion for glitter. I'd literally sprinkle it on everything— backpacks, shoes, televisions, walls, windows, and anything else that it'd stick to."

"Sounds messy."

"It dovetailed perfectly for how much I enjoyed wearing dresses. Oh, they felt like the greatest thing in the world in terms of comfort and flexibility. The fabric always seemed as if it was kissing my fur. I begged by parents to be able to wear a glitter-soaked silver piece to my Saturday games instead of my itchy, ugly uniform. They never let me. At the same time as that, I shared my teammates love for talking about girls. Especially kissing girls. I can't imagine how my mom, in particular, processed the sight of me, in a dress, sticking bright pink heart stickers on the refrigerator while I talked on the phone about cornering the vixen next door and making her lock lips with me."

"Mixed signals to say the least." Marty took a long gulp from his drink before rubbing his face with his paws. "I butted heads with my parents a lot myself while growing up. Different reasons, but... they always seemed kind of confused by me too."

"My parents, well," Red began, and he narrowed his eyes before massaging his neck, "they were strict on a lot of things. Painfully strict. In terms of understanding gender identity and sexual orientation, well, they were a product of their time. While I could explore a bit when I was pretty young, my mom eventually put her paw down and forced me into this narrow box in terms of clothing, music, video games, et cetera that didn't challenge her sense of traditional morality. My dad went along with it, and my teenage years had a lot of the 'this is a good, Bible-believing household that will not tolerate' speeches screamed in my direction."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"At the same time, though, they never laid a paw on me.  I never got locked into any rooms. No belts ever came off. And all the times that I got shit from classmates for being a fox resulted in my parents flying in like supermammals before shrieking out 'if my son ever gets treated like this again, then you will rue the day that you were born' style defenses." Red smiled widely at the memory. "Hell, I never seriously lacked for anything either in terms of, say, health care or even the standard middle-class niceties. I had my own television. Sure, they'd get steaming if they caught me watching anything overly sexual, but horrific, gratuitous violence was always a-ok. Funny how that works."

A large bull in a snappy suit walked up to the table with two wide plates. He delicately set them down in front of Marty and Red before giving a kind of salute. The sitting mammals gave their thanks. The bull immediately marched off towards the far corner of the restaurant.

"Red," Marty began, the stoat clutching a big batch of sweet potato fries, "you don't have to go on about it if you don't want to."

"I really don't mind," the fox answered while neatly slicing his breaded fish into tiny squares, "since it's something that I've had to come to terms with from all sides. My parents were real mammals with real problems. Flawed. My dad? He possessed this quick temper that could shoot from zero to enraged in seconds, and he got into the booze more than a little too much as well. Yet he was one-hundred percent aware of those two things and had almost no sense of self-denial. They ate at him. He always sincerely apologized, always replaced anything that he broke, and always vowed to do something nice for us later, which he actually did. I think he viewed the anger thing and the drinking thing as diseases— they were parts of himself that he couldn't remove but had to carefully treat on a daily basis, like diabetes or something."

"Oh, God, this tastes so heavenly," Marty moaned, the stoat almost inhaling another clump of fries. He stopped, seeing the look of passionate reflection on the fox's eyes, and tapped a paw upon the table while resuming eye contact. "Seriously, though, that seems really rough. I can directly relate in a bunch of ways."

"My mom, though," Red continued, "it's like: me being born basically killed her marketing career— something that she'd spent her entire life investing herself in, even getting a master's degree in the subject. She apparently also suffered from a bunch of relatively minor yet painful medical problems that she most kept to herself. Religion sort of filled the gap in her life that otherwise seemed to be hurting, I guess? My dad needed faith for similar reasons. And it probably genuinely helped them— especially since their brand of it took the normally empty rhetoric about building places for the homeless, pushing to let in refugees, stocking soup kitchens, and the like seriously. I sure as shit could've done without the constant homophobia, though."

"Always felt pretty distant from anything spiritual, myself," Marty remarked. He sliced off a corner of his breaded fish and chomped it down. "The right book, though? Or the right film? The right album, even? I get really moved." He thought back as he strained to keep the big fork from slipping out of his paws. "I remember you asking me to rattle through my favorite releases of all time, and Marten Gaye's 'What's Going On' nearly topped the list. And that album's dripping with spirituality. It's even got a track explicitly called 'God Is Love'."

"Oh, hey, I'm sorry," Red said in between bites, "that I didn't ask for utensils sized properly for small mammals. I can wave down Marcus right now."

"I've already halfway cleared my plate," Marty commented while shaking his head, "it's fine."

"Like you were saying, yeah," Red said, "spirituality is a complicated thing that I've kept on wrestling with as an adult. A lot of questions and a lot of wandering... but I guess the act of questioning is supposed to be a good thing in and of itself, right?"

"Why not?" Marty asked with a shrug.

"Let me end my ramblings," Red concluded, the fox taking in the last meaty square left on his plate, "with this: the long and short of it is that I only really came out of the closet when I was in my early twenties. Even heading off to college didn't break me out of the mental cage that I had fallen into, not at first, and it took a very special deer asking me out to make the difference."

"Seriously, Red," Marty began, "I'm sorry to hear all of that."

"Don't be. It's past. Past is past."

"My own background is, well," Marty cringed as he flashed back to several painful moments as a teenager, the stoat twitching even more as his mind went back further, "not very complicated. It's actually pretty plain. Simple. Boring... honestly."

"You've lived on Pack Street for a while?"

"A really long time," Marty replied, and he started to really regret opening up that particular window of conversation, "and... I mean... my parents..." He rubbed little circles upon his neck, the stoat feeling consious of the bruises from Saturday's near-choking once more. "Those lower-class mammals lived a lower-class existence in a lower-class place that only allowed them to dream lower-class dreams. Their neighbors usually never planned to start families— young mammals simply happened to get pregnant, and sometimes that meant sudden marriages. Sometimes it didn't. Those couples that did form had basic lives. Compressed lives. I wish that I could tell you that my parents were something special, but, looking back, they seem nothing more than another pair of predators from Pack Street."

"Sounds terrible."

"Pack Street isn't exactly the Ritz now, but it's a far cry from what the neighborhood was a couple decades go. Sure, you see rows of broken windows right now. A lot of buildings need to get torn down. Yet young mammals can step down the sidewalk without fear. Every other late night is a party with outdoor cookouts and live music, for crying out loud." Marty pounded the table, a tinge of anger swelling up inside of him. "It kills me when idiots call it a 'bad neighborhood'. They need to get shoved into a Tardis and taken back to see how everything used to me. They need to see mothers afraid to let their little ones outside at all while dealers with coats full of cocaine-filled baggies jump from rooftop to rooftop above alleys literally reeking of shit."

"Marty..."

The fox and stoat simply looked at each other in total silence. Several awkward seconds passed. Marty let out a loud cough.

"You don't have to follow my speech with your own speech," Red said, waving a paw in the air, "I understand."

"It's okay."

"Yep."

"So, uh," Marty fumbled as he once again had to hunt for the right words, "you mentioned liking girls? But you're gay? Or are those different feelings gone?"

"Bisexual." The fox let out a idle laugh. "Ladies are beautiful. I'm never going to deny that. I'm never going to avoid finding them attractive. At the same time, though, with one single exception I've only dated guys. More than the fact that I've never done much physically with girls, besides, is that... like... I'm fine with just the word 'gay'. It's simple. It's easy."

"I see." Marty found himself embarrassingly letting out a sigh of relief. "It's just... uh... bisexual isn't as hard to understand."

"Huh?"

"Dating a guy is something that's a real stretch for me, in a lot of ways," Marty commented, his cheeks blushing as he struggled to put his feelings to words, "but that pales in comparison to having to understand not wanting to be with a girl. Getting my head around that is like... I don't know. It's as if I saw a mammal with a third arm growing straight out of his forehead."

"I hate to make things even more complicated," Red began, the fox sipping down the last of his drink, "just because I'm into ladies doesn't mean that I think I'll ever date one again. That's a major reason why I'm so comfortable with just, like, passing as simply 'gay'."

"Why?" Marty asked as he finished off his own glass.

"Oh, well, the true answer to that would take all night," Red admitted, a tinge of regret flashing across his face, "and would involve a lot of pure ranting about gender roles— so angrily and so wildly getting into social politics that I'd literally toss the table."

"I guess that it could be a hard question," Marty murmured, "but there's got to be a straight answer."

Red grinned from cheek to cheek, though the fox quickly returned to his previous, more neutral expression.

"Pardon the pun."

"The summary version?" Anxiety seemed to drip off of the fox's face as he nervously massaged his paws against his neck. "You and I both know: as a guy, gender roles are suffocating. They literally consume mammals' lives and rot their dreams from the inside. Guys want to cry. They want to listen to bubbly pop music. They want to wear pink. They want to clip their fur into intricate styles and blast it with exotic scents. They want to work as nurses. It all goes on and on. Yet guys who do such things wind up triggering an immediate and sometimes violent response from traditional society— they wind up as barbecued as a cricket that accidentally hopped atop an electric sense."

"That's a... very bleak and fatalistic way to put things."

"Is it, though? Really?" the fox asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't want to, like, invalidate the sort of things that you've experienced," Marty said, "being openly gay and all. I simply am saying that you're taking a shades of grey thing and calling it solid black."

"When the alternative literally is freedom, and letting mammals live how they need to live... that solid white... even a light grey can look pretty damn black by comparison. Any mistreatment to anybody anywhere is too much."

"Look, I see where you're coming from."

"Ladies, though? For them," Red continued, his arms stretching out as a seething tone came over his voice, "gender roles are like a mental sort of cancer. They literally drive countless individuals to suicide. Girls get told that they must set up a permanent psychological wall between themselves and any potential partner.  They are dainty objects to get protected at all costs from the cruelties of the real world— any individual seeking to reach them must slowly crawl forth with sanitary gloves on and proceed with the utmost delicacy, any wrong move liable to crack those fragile creatures to pieces."

"Red..."

"Partners have to leap over emotional barrier after emotional barrier because of the supposedly fragile nature of the female ego. Ladies aren't allowed to be their partner's best friend— sharing in his or her own passionate interests at an even level. They're not even allowed to enjoy physical intimacy for its own sake. It's all so excruciating that even just talking about it feels like death. Death."

"That's a... well," Marty started to say, and he felt genuinely taken aback by Red's vehemence, "extremely dark picture that you've painted."

"Am I really wrong, though? If you've got any female friends, neighbors, roommates, or whatever, get them a little inebriated and then ask their genuine opinion on somebody claiming: 'as a lady, Zootopian culture treats me fairly'."

Marty pictured doing that to Anneke, Avo, and Charlie, all in that order. He immediately visualized the three mammals rolling on the floor laughing hard enough that tears ran down their cheeks. The stoat still wanted to press the point, however.

"Still, we're talking about dating. Relationships. The fact that sexism is really Goddamn horrible, which I totally agree it is, doesn't seem to be some kind of inherent barrier to acting straight."

"Look..."

"Not that you need to act straight, of course."

"I won't pretend as if it makes perfect sense. Honestly, I'm flashing back to your question as to why I don't eat bug-meat. It's ultimately my life and my own messed-up personality." Red let out a loud sigh. "If I could put it in a nutshell: so, well, as long as traditional society is that screwed up about guys dating girls, then I'm not dating girls."

"It's not the 1950s anymore. You and I are out here openly dating as different species of the same gender— there's no 'holy enforcers for the prevention of vice squad' or whatever that's coming to put us in jail because of what we're doing." Marty loathed keeping an argument going about social politics— especially on a romantic date, no less— but he felt like he had to do something to push Red out of the fox's sudden burst of melancholy. "Hell, you can go to Timber right now and find prey ladies who couldn't give any less of a shit about tradition and society— to the point that they're openly calling for male predators to simulate hunting them and pretending to eat them alive."

"I understand what you're saying," Red remarked, "but I... I simply go back to the countless LGBT support group meetings that I've been in. Especially the ones with transgender mammals. It's tough hearing individual after individual talk about suicide. Stories about verbal attacks and outright physical assaults get traded, and I've got my fair share in terms of those two, though I sure would rather go there. And it always boils down to those Goddamn categories and those Goddamn lines."

"Then, to hell with the categories and lines," Marty said, the stoat getting somewhat animated, "ask out some predator girl with fur dyed bright pink and a sweater reading 'smash capitalism' or something. She'll feel literally the exact same way."

"Charlotte."

"Huh?"

"It's an incredibly personal thing as much as it's a social politics thing, honestly," Red said, the fox appearing more in pain than the stoat had ever seen before, "because I've genuinely considered asking out several ladies, in the past few years especially. I'll admit it. I'm scarred by... like... well, my one and only relationship with a member of an opposite sex didn't exactly help decontaminate my mind from all of this socially traditional shit."

"Ah, I see."

"Literally the worst experience in my life, and it lasted half a year," Red muttered, tapping his paw against his empty glass, "to the point where, if we're using the contamination analogy, it served as my own Chernobyl."

"You don't have to talk about it." Marty anxiously scratched his neck and glanced down at the floor. "I'm... Red, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pressed you. It's your life. You shouldn't have to defend your Goddamn preferences to anybody."

"No, seriously," Red began, and he sucked in a deep breath, "you shared your heart. I shared mine."

"Red..."

"The long and short of it about Charlotte is," Red remarked, the fox chewing on the leftover ice cubes to let some of his emotion out, "I loved her, and she loved me back. Yet neither of us really understood what love meant. We were just too damn young. And everything came to a close with me standing in a doorway beside a living room with a vixen crying waterfall tears as her stubborn bastard of a father literally foamed at the mouth— the old fox screaming about her eternal damnation for wearing pants."

"Pants," Marty repeated.

"Pants. One of the many supposed signs that she was secretly a lesbian and I only served as her cover."

"What did you do?" the stoat asked, feeling a surge of morbid curiosity.

"I puked." Red shut his eyes and crunched the last of the ice cubes. "Chunky brown stuff all along the back of her shirt." He stood up straight in his chair. "I then ran out of the house, got into my little hatchback, started it up, drove out of the cul-de-sac, and never saw Charlotte again."

"Last straw, huh?"

"I wasn't a good boyfriend. It's not just that I never stood up for her. I never stood up for myself either, but that's not the point. The core thing is this: we were always paralyzed. We simply went through the motions during every date. We acted out stereotypical traits that we'd gotten told about in the media and elsewhere when we were in public. In private, though, we mostly experienced a lot of staring coupled with a lot of silence. Some crying."

"Red..."

"Even when we were completely alone at my parents' house, I almost never had the courage to even ask to make any physical moves. All that religious programming screamed at us both. 'She's a dainty treasure'! 'Don't push anything'! 'Don't defile yourself'! 'Sin'! We kissed sometimes. We fondled each other sometimes. It always ended these feelings of inky blackness. Shit," Red went on, his claws coming out as he scraped up and down his glass, "we could never square the circle. We'd read stuff about scripture and find half of it viewing ladies literally as property— the same as a jacket or a toaster oven or whatever. Some set them up as inferior complements— alternate models of the male type with more baggage. The rest put them on the top of a mountain that could essentially never get climbed."

"You don't have to say any more, Red."

"Her parents made mine look like atheists. They fit more or less every stereotype. Religious iconography filled their house. Worship music always floated through the air. Her father wore tight sweaters and big frowns. He also insisted on being called 'sir' and thought it perfectly fine to hit both her and his wife as long as it didn't actually leave a mark. I could go on, but I mean it: every stereotype. I could've said something. I could've done something. I didn't. He had God on his side. God. All I had was myself—"

A soft crinkling noise sounded off. Both Marty and Red rapidly blinked. The fox glanced downward, and he took in how his frantically scraping claws had broken the glass in two. A tiny trail of blood oozed out from the corner of Red's paw.

"Please, let me get that," Marty declared. The stoat scurried across the table and clutched a napkin. The fox slowly placing the glass back down on the table, Marty wrapped the napkin tightly around Red's paw. The stoat then opened up his mouth and rested his lips upon the little cut.

"Thanks. Seriously."

Marty slowly nodded. The two of them gazed at each other in silence for a solid minute. When the stoat eventually slipped the tip of Red's paw out of his mouth, Marcus popped on by the table.

"Oh," the goat began, "I'm sorry that we didn't get your empty plates before. And I'll be sure to pick up some extra drinks, but I'm curious if—" Marcus finally noticed the broken glass. "Wow! I totally apologize about that!"

"Don't, please," Red sheepishly remarked, "it's simply a matter of me not knowing my own strength."

"You can keep that napkin, sir, and I will get you both a fresh set of glasses immediately! Stronger ones, hopefully!"

"Actually," Marty interjected, "I think we're ready for the check."

"No problem!" Marcus scurried away.

"Marty," Red began, the fox sulking a bit, "I probably ruined this date. Didn't I?"

"Why do you say that?" Marty asked, the stoat trying to put on an affectionate, caring tone.

"You try to be nice, but I rant away. And then I get so mad for no good reason that I literally break something," Red muttered.

"Red, come on, I'm still here. I'm not recoiling in terror at the big bad fox. I haven't dashed out the restaurant with my tail between my legs. Relax."

The fox simply nodded.

"What do you want to do when the check comes?" Marty asked.

"We could see a movie? Hang out at the park? I wouldn't mind taking you shopping either."

"I notice that you didn't include 'head on back to my apartment together' in that little list."

"Well," the fox blushed profusely as he scratched all along his neck, "even if I assume that this date is genuinely going well so far—"

"And that's true." Marty chuckled at the fox's embarrassment as the stoat rested his head upon both paws.

"Putting up that proposition feels as though I'm missing a step."

"Also true."

"Shopping it is, then?"

Marty shrugged. "That's actually somewhat vague, Red. We talking clothing depot? Bookstore? Electronics place?"

"We're both guys, and we're apparently in a good mood. So, I'll be blunt: which one is most likely to cause the 'come back to my apartment' question to get a nice answer?"

"Bookstore it is!"

"What a non-surprise," Red remarked, the fox comically rolling his eyes.

"Thank you both very much!" Marcus appeared with a small black folder between his hooves. The fox immediately picked it up and reached for his pockets. The goat smiled, bowed his head a bit, and scurried away once again.

"How much was my order?" Marty asked.

"I'm paying for it all. I insist." The fox lifted a few bills from his wallet.

The stoat hopped upwards and tugged down the fox's arm. "Hold on," Marty declared.

"Huh?"

"No, I insist," Marty began, the stoat narrowing his eyes and swishing a paw in the air, "I'm totally broke right now. I admit it. When I get paid, however, I'm going to give you every last buck back for the cost of my order."

"Marty, it's really not—"

"I don't know shit about gay relationships," the stoat interjected, "but I know a lot about psychological distance and feeling separated. I can tell that I'm the 'girl' here."

The fox threw his head back and laughed. "If you say so, Marty."

"I sure as shit aren't going to sit on the top of any mountain, setting myself up as a dainty object that you've got to jump over obstacle after obstacle to obtain," Marty declared. He braced his legs apart and pointed at the center of his chest. "I'm the 'girl', but I'm the best damn 'girl' that you could possibly have. There's not a single gender role that I won't break."

"Thanks, I suppose."

The fox's cheerful smile had returned. That little victory— melting the melancholy out of Red's senses— caused Marty to feel a surge of raw, positive emotion all throughout his body. It seemed intoxicating.

"God," the stoat whispered to himself, "I think I'm actually falling for this guy."

"Huh?"

"Nothing!" Marty clasped his paws together. "Let's head out."

Red marked down a little note on the small black folder and slid his money into place. It didn't take long for the two mammals to venture out of the restaurant and back to Red's car. After they both buckled into place, however, the fox hesitated with the key in the ignition.

"What is it?" Marty asked, his head rubbing against his seat belt.

"It's just, well," the fox shook his head before letting out a pair of chuckles, "I get the feeling that— 'best damn girl' or no— I'm going to end up buying you a glossy, expensive tome that you won't offer to pay me back for."

"That's totally different." Marty smacked his arms against his sides. "First, it'll be for the library. Not me. Second, our professional, literary relationship is totally different than our dating one. There, I'm the handsome, smart librarian and you're the patron that comes in— cap in paw— begging for my advice and approval. Don't be mad. You agreed to the rules when you signed up for that little plastic card."

Red snickered as he turned the key. The vehicle sputtered to life. In just a matter of seconds, the two mammals had made their way onto a major road and begun to the trip to central Zootopia.

[End of Chapter Two]