FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Part 32 - Distances

(Nathan)

At times, it felt as if the twelve hour trip back to Polcia would never end. A slow, rocky ferry and an uncomfortably long flight sat separated by a two hour layover in Bolstrovo; something that did little to ease Nathan's deep, depressive malaise.

He spent most of this gap killing time about the harbour, scouring every hall and pathway open to him on an otherwise aimless exploration. Eventually, Nathan found himself scaling up what seemed to be a half-hidden stairwell, emerging into an observation deck on the building's upper floor. The room stood largely empty, though no signs present suggested it lied off-limits. Curiosity overwhelming him, he strolled over towards the wall of glass on his left, finding it overlooking the main passenger terminal on the Bolstrovan side of the complex. "Oh, wow."

Dozens of giant-sized locals moved through the huge hall, many of them heading from the arrival area and towards the main entrance that the similarly-scaled outside world lied beyond. At the same time, numerous walkways served to carry 'Polcian-sized' individuals both overground and underground, allowing them to travel about in much the same way as their taller compatriots.

This all appeared impressive in itself, but it would be the level of integration between the people themselves that truly set Nathan's jaw dropping. One particular large-scale bear padded deliberately to follow the route of an overground walkway, its extensive steel frame acting to protect those inside. Upon closer inspection, Nathan soon realised that he in fact did this in order to travel alongside his smaller counterpart.

'It's like they know each other,' he mused to himself.

As they went, the two bears looked to be sharing a casual conversation, as if their size difference was nothing out of the ordinary.

'It's like they're friends.'

Stunned, Nathan widened his gaze, soon realising this to be far from an isolated incident. In fact, a decent number of smaller locals forewent the walkways altogether; riding around within the paws and pockets of their larger friends as if it were the norm.

"This is incredible," he muttered, pressing both his paws and nose against the window. "Why can't Velika be this way? ...Why can't me and Alex have this?"

Those two questions stayed with him for the rest of his journey home, right up until he carried what little had survived of his belongings through the door of his cramped, empty apartment just before midnight.

With both mental and physical exhaustion weighing heavily upon his shoulders, Nathan chose simply to drop his bag of clothes to the floor and pad straight off into his bedroom. He stripped off in record time, settling down upon his small, cold, and most crushingly, wolfless bed. He'd manage to drift out of the waking world a short time later, though only into an unsettled, unrefreshing night's sleep.

"Where are you, Alex?" Nathan muttered, heart sinking as he checked his computer in vain for any sign of his wolf. Alexei had been showing as offline for the entirety of that Sunday so far, much to his disappointment. "Must be out, I guess. Still..."

With nothing else left to fill his final evening before the much dreaded return to work, he resorted to giving 'Against All Odds' a quick play in single player mode. As he'd expected, Nathan couldn't even hope to succeed without Alexei's help; the task of defeating the game's enemies all but impossible alone.

"Fuck off," he snapped, standing up from his computer chair in disgust as he caught an excerpt of the game over message he'd so frequently seen:

'...The concept of freedom shall become no more than a footnote in the annals of history...'

"I'll win my freedom... you bastard game."

Barely a second after Nathan had dropped into his couch did the house videophone beep into life. "Now what?" he groaned, quickly following with, "TV, on. Phone, answer."

The television set flashed into life, showing Shaun sitting upon his own sofa at the other end of the call.

"Hey, Nate. Welcome back to civilisation."

He rolled his eyes and slumped down in his seat. "Hi."

"Glad you made it back in one piece," the squirrel replied, apparently missing his friend's annoyance. "How'd it go over there?"

It didn't take long for Nathan to bring him up to speed on the positives of his time in Velika, though he couldn't avoid mentioning he'd also endured 'a couple of problems' there. Even so, he made sure to exclude specifics of the more serious issues; the abduction and attack on Alexei's shop understandably being those that played on his mind the most. Whatever happened from here on in, the last thing Nathan wanted to hear were those four small, jaw-grinding words: I told you so.

"I'm sorry to hear that..." Shaun shifted, his big, red tail flicking behind him. "But..."

"But what?" he growled, filling the silence that greeted him by adding, "Go on, gimme the whole spiel. Tell me how you saw this all coming and that I was an idiot to think otherwise. It goes damn so well with coming home to a cold, lonely apartment, and the prospect of going back to fucking work tomorrow."

"Damn, I-I'm sorry, Nate." Shaun rubbed at his arm, visibly taken aback by the response he'd earned. "But... I guess it's really not safe for us over there."

"That's not true!" Nathan cried defiantly, even with what he'd been subjected to by Yuri and his gang casting a permanent shadow in his mind. "I... I--"

"Look, I know Alex is nice, but come on, y'just told me about those Polcian haters you bumped into on the bus and stuff. I--"

"I didn't tell you about all the other friendly Velikans I met though, did I? There was Erik, Alex's apprentice... Yana... There was Milan, the guide from the museum--"

"Oh, really? A guide from the museum, too!?" Shaun chided. "He sounds like someone you spent a whole load of time with. A regular family friend to Alex, no doubt."

"Hey, fuck off," Nathan barked. "Why you gotta put a downer on everything?"

"I'm just kidding around--"

"Anyway, what about outside of Velika? I never mentioned Bolstrovo... It's different there."

"Bolstrovo?"

"It's like... people of all sizes can live together as if it's no big deal, y'know? They work at the harbour together, socialise together, travel together... If Velika was like that..."

"Wait." Shaun cut in as Nathan began to drift off into fantasy, imagining what it'd be like to live with Alexei in his homeland, minus the seemingly unavoidable problems that would come with it. "You're gonna judge an entire country on a few hours being cooped up at a harbour there? I bet it's not so... utopic outside those walls."

"Utopic? Wow, big word there."

"Push off," Shaun scoffed.

"Anyway, why shouldn't I judge Bolstrovo? You see fit to judge Velika without even having set foot there," Nathan proposed, annoyance growing into anger. "Y'know, being a sizeist works both ways. You bang on about giants all hating us and the rest of it, but you've never even met one. You've never bothered to find out the full history of what happened... Fucking hypocrite."

Shaun didn't have an answer to that, slouching back as he pulled errant strands of long, auburn fur from in front of his face. "Gods, Nate... That's a bit much!"

Nathan sighed heavily at his friend's expression of hurt. He wondered just how much of his anger came about from the squirrel's words, and how much had been fuelled by his pining for Alexei. "Look... I'm sorry. I'm gonna go. I'm just not up for a conversation right now. We can resume this... debate when I'm less inclined to lose my temper."

"Fine..." Shaun's face lightened a shade. "I'll call you up when hell freezes over, then."

"Later," he muttered back, shortly before giving the command to end the call.

For the next ten minutes, Nathan simply lied sprawled out on the couch, still unknowing of what to do with the final few hours of his three week break from work. In the end, he determined the task of setting out his clothes for the morning mundane enough to waste a moment or two.

Just as Nathan flexed to push himself up from his seat, the phone chimed back into life. "Again, really!?" He slumped down to find his parents' home number flash up on the television screen, instantly casting his mind back to the last conversation he'd had with them while in bed with Alexei. That night, Nathan's father ominously promised him that he'd not heard the last about lying over his trip to Velika.

"I guess this is him keeping that promise... Phone, answer."

A familiar image flashed up on-screen; the cozy, rustic living area of his family home reminding him of the countless occasions his parents had called to check up on him. For the first time in a long while however, Nathan didn't feel the usual annoyance at seeing them sitting there upon their worn leather couch. In fact, the sight actually proved pleasing.

His father cleared his throat loudly, making him aware to the fact that he'd yet to respond. "Welcome home," the older husky rumbled, his own annoyance lingering from their last conversation in both his voice and his piercing, wolf-like yellow eyes.

"Hope you had a safe trip back," Nathan's mother added with far less hostility, smile stretching to the brown-furred cheeks bordering her slight, white muzzle.

"Hi, Mum, Dad. Thanks, it's good to hear from you." His mother beamed wider, while his father appeared to almost recoil. "You okay, Dad?"

"...Yes."

"Sure?"

"It's just... I don't remember the last time you've said that to us."

"I guess... I've realised during my trip away that I've been a little unfair to you guys these last few months."

'A near-death experience and the threat of never seeing them again'll do that to someone.'

Nathan shoved his thoughts aside just in time to hear his mother's contented reply.

"Oh, well... It's good to hear from you, too!"

The young husky's happiness persisted, even after his father threatened to divert the conversation to areas more sensitive than their relationship. "Your trip's the reason we're calling, actually."

Nathan's ears flicked back. "I suspected it was."

"Just... I'm trying to understand, so help me out here."

"Okay--"

"What in the name of the gods were you doing in Velika!?"

"I thought that much was obvious, Dad." Nathan's temper bubbled briefly, though not enough to threaten his mood. "I was visiting my wol--friend."

"Nathan," his mother stated, shaking her head. "While it's nice that you have friends you can go and visit... we just don't understand why you couldn't use the computer to make friends with someone here in Polcia."

"Exactly," his father gruffed. "Someone normal, less dangerous."

Nathan stifled a growl, unsure of which of those to take issue with first. "He's not dangerous. I've known him for years."

"He's Velikan."

"And?"

"...You know what some of them're like."

His fur prickled, the happiness at speaking with his parents beginning to drain. "Yeah, I know how some are... but I also know how others are, too. He's not dangerous in the slightest."

"How do you _know_he isn't?"

"I dunno, how about three weeks spent living with him? You two even spoke to Alex, upon your insistence, and you had what sounded like a nice, civilised conversation together. Want s'more evidence? I've got a shedload waiting in reserve if you'd like it."

"Don't get funny with me!" Nathan's father roared, giving way for his mother to interject.

"Nathan... Polcians and Velikans... There's a reason there's an ocean between us; we're just not meant to be together."

Those calm words contained a double meaning that his parents couldn't have know. Still, the torsion of his muscles heightened as he sought to prove them wrong on both counts. "I think otherwise."

His father huffed loudly, wearily rubbing his eyes with a thumb and index finger. His mother meanwhile placed a paw upon her husband's knee, clearly trying to calm him. "Please, you need to stop with this teenage defiance, Nathan. You have to realise that..."

Nathan toned him out, fighting against the lump forming in his throat. He had no desire to hear the rest of what his father had to say, at least, he didn't until he heard him rumble, "I want you to give me one good reason why we should trust this Velikan as much as you do."

Nathan grumbled beneath his breath, outraged by the demands placed upon him.

'Why should I convince them? What's it to do with them?'

To his surprise, he'd need to turn elsewhere for the answer to his own internal questioning. Reflecting on that night in Velika, Nathan recalled what his wolf had said to him after the call from his parents.

'Honesty can help to make things easy for you.'

He didn't know just how true that'd be in this situation, but compared with bottling up his feelings, suppressing them and letting them tear him up inside, it certainly won out.

"Well?" his father barked. "Are you going to let us know why we should trust this Velikan? The one that'd see you sneak off without telling us, so that we worry sick when we do finally find out the truth!?"

Nathan inhaled deeply, feeling himself welling up to the point that he couldn't be sure he'd be able to get his words out, even if he wanted to.

"Are you okay?" his mother asked.

"Yeah..." With a weak, wavering voice, Nathan finally gave his father an answer. "Because I love him, Dad."

Both parents sat speechless upon their brown leather couch, neither of them appearing to know how to respond to their son. For a brief moment, Nathan wondered if the feed might have frozen.

"There, I said it," he rumbled, losing patience with the wait for an answer. "Now you know."

Almost a full minute passed, in which time neither of Nathan's parents could muster more than a confused mutter between them. Eventually, his mother would break through the awkward silence to give that initial reaction.

"Don't be silly... I spoke to him, and yes, he... seems a nice boy..." Nathan's ears rose to those words, but dipped as she added, "But you can't love him."

He looked to his father, watching him sit there in muted disbelief as he rubbed circles at his temple. "I can... and I do." The memory of the distance that now stood between him and Alexei returned, forcing Nathan to turn away as it tugged viciously at his emotions. "W-What's more... he loves me, too. He told me as much. We're... He asked me out."

Another icy silence overtook both living rooms as the conversation died completely, leaving Nathan to read his parents' faces in the hopes of gauging their mood. To his surprise, he couldn't find raging anger in his father's yellow eyes, nor could he find the panic he'd come to expect upon his mother's thin muzzle. He could see them searching desperately for the words to react to his revelation, but they just couldn't seem to do it. In the end, Nathan decided to put them out of their misery.

"Listen... I've got to go," he muttered dejectedly, his ears flat and muzzle dipped straight down to his lap. "I've work in the morning and I need to get ready. Inquisition aside... it really was good to speak to you."

"Nathan, wai--" His father could barely draw breath before Nathan ended the call, commanding the apartment videophone to go into Silent mode shortly after.

"Why did I tell them all that?" he whimpered to himself, curling up alone upon the sofa. "Was that really such a good idea?"

The sprawling city stood outside his fourteenth floor window, dots of light slowly massing beneath a scarlet sunset like a growing swarm of fireflies. Nathan choked a laugh, thinking over the absurdity of being isolated in a city of ten million. Ridiculous a concept or not, its cold, hard reality stung wickedly in this instant. His eyes watered and throat closed, each one of the three thousand miles between him and Alexei jabbing at his heart like a cruel collection of needles. "By the gods, Alex, it's barely been a day... I miss you so much."