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Eli awoke the next morning with an arm tucked beneath his and around his body, a muzzle nestled between his neck and his shoulder, a pair of legs intertwined with his own, and an incomparably pleasant warmth both surrounding him as thoroughly as the striped hyena as well as bubbling out from inside of his chest. It felt as though he hadn't slept this well in weeks - since even before their fight, he still carried the guilt of his illicit relationship with Marlin and of knowing he was keeping that from this very woman who now shifted against his back, sniffed, half-murmured something into the fur of his neck.

Well, he thought to himself, reaching up to entwine his fingers with hers against his chest, technically she was the illicit relationship. And now she's... now she's actually it.

The rest of the evening had gone by in a giddy blur. Lynn had told him a story on the way back to the parking lot; he had let her to his place; as soon as they both arrived, the two wrapped each other in their arms again; then once the front door closed behind them... there had been a certain look in her eyes and a lilt to her voice that Eli hadn't known he'd missed.

But it felt so _good_to be with her. Almost like nothing he had ever felt before. So different, and everything felt... new. With some regret the wild dog roused himself up, stretched his arms over his head, yawned, then leaned down to place a gentle kiss against Lynn's cheek. As he tried to slide out of the bed, though, her arms wrapped around his waist again.

"D'you really _have_to go to work?" the hyena rumbled, comfortable sleepiness showing in her half-lidded eyes. Even now, even just waking up, looking at him put a soft smile on her face.

"Unfortunately I do..." Eli gently lifted her paws away from his body, though raised them both to his muzzle to kiss the back of each. "Don't you, too?"

She shook her head and rolled more fully onto her back. The covers slid down a little bit, and she made no move to bring them back up. "Nah. I took the entire week off to recover from finals."

"Well, lucky you." Eli returned her smile and stood up, then promptly yawned again. "You said you've applied to a couple places here in town already?"

"Mhmm."

Eli reached for his phone on the nightstand - then jumped at a sudden gentle tug on his tail. He turned to see Lynn with her arm out towards him, the hyena struggling to hide a smile.

"And I'm planning to hit some more throughout the week," she went on, as if nothing happened. "Go shower, smelly."

"I don't smell!"

"You smell like me." This time Lynn intentionally pulled the blankets down her body. "We made sure of that."

The wild dog, grinning, leaned in close to her muzzle. "Well, that's not a bad thing..."

Lynn responded with a kiss to his nose first, followed by a playful brush of her paw across his cheek to push his head away. "Go. Go go. Don't be late 'cause of me."

So he went, and for a while his smile remained stuck to his muzzle as thoughts of the hyena - his_hyena - bounced back and forth in his head. What, exactly, had changed? Where did it all _come from? That fairly short time ago, nearly two months now, she had slid into the music shop during a summer storm and stood there by the glass door, in a short-cropped leather jacket with most of her mane somehow untouched by the rain, and Eli thought...

What did I think? I don't remember that part. I pretended not to see her, and then she came up and spoke to me, and I just... was it always there? Is that how it works? After being with Marlin for six years, I never thought... The wild dog tilted his head back to let the hot water course down his chest and drip off his body, soaking into his short fur. She took me by surprise. That's how love always happens, though, isn't it? At that his smile returned again, brighter and fuller.

There's that word. Love. This is what it's supposed to feel like, isn't it?

_ _

These thoughts buoyed him during the day, from when he walked out of the shower and leaned down to give Lynn one more kiss - which turned into a second, a third, a fourth - and then on his way out the door, to when he first arrived at the library, to when he broke for lunch, to when he glanced up at the clock and saw he had only two hours left. A look back down to his screen showed that he had gotten fairly good progress on his story, too. Suddenly he could feel the thread of the plot pulling at him, and felt the way the words wove themselves when he put his fingers to the keys.

His progress wasn't _all_smooth, but then, he hadn't expected it to be. Hardly anything came without obstructions and setbacks.

That afternoon he returned home to find Lynn sprawled out over his couch, idly watching the TV across the room. Her tall ears perked when she saw him, and then within a handful of seconds she had risen to her feet and come over to wrap him in another strong hug; Eli, laughing, returned the embrace and nuzzled against her, heart fluttering again.

When asked if she had just stayed around here all day, the hyena grinned and shook her head, and told Eli that she had gone about her usual routine - a morning run, a shower, breakfast, and from there went back to her brother's house to get some of her things. "I didn't wanna bother you while you were at work," she explained, "and besides, I like hearing your voice more than just reading a text - would you be okay with it if I hang out here for a couple of days?"

"Of course," Eli had said, paws around her waist. "We can call it practice."

"It smells like you here..." she had said in return, and leaned in to nuzzle along the base of his ear. "And I like that."

"I wanna smell like _you,_though."

"Oh yeah?" Lynn's paws came up to his shoulders. "I'll make you reek of me if you want."

"Oh God. Marlin used to say that. He didn't come by today, did he?"

"Nah." She frowned, paws still on his shoulders. "Were you expecting him?"

"Well, I mean, just - what we talked about at the park yesterday. He's just been showing up here." Eli shrugged; Lynn moved her paws to his face, cupping his muzzle and gently squeezing his cheeks. His tail wagged a bit at the touch. "That's another reason why it's good you wanna stay here a couple days. I want you to be there to scare the shit out of him when he does show up and we have our talk, 'cause - I'm certainly not going back over to his place to do it."

Lynn started pulling him back towards the couch. "Maybe he won't. Maybe he finally got the message and gave up, and we won't have to see his face after all. Remember what I said way back then, about how I hope I never have to meet him?"

"Mhmm?"

"That's still true. It's not that he's a bad person, it's just..." She shrugged, then sank down onto the cushion. A moment later Eli followed. "His type of personality, they don't... don't really learn. Most of the time they don't even know that what they're doing is wrong, or understand why it's bad. You know? They can't fathom that their partner might not be okay with it."

"Jeez." The wild dog rested his weight against her, then wiggled a little closer once Lynn draped her arm around him. "I'm sorry, Lynn. I really am. About, like - all of this."

"Hey. Eli. It's okay."

"Like... I knew, you know? But it wouldn't click."

"I know."

"I just..." He nuzzled against her neck. "I don't know. I feel stupid, I guess."

Lynn reached for the remote with her other paw. "Yeah, that's... that's what happens. I'm kind of at fault, too, for not... for not being as patient as I should. Like I've said a hundred times, I've been in your place. I know what it's like. But, you know what?"

Eli lifted his head... "What?"

...and received a gentle kiss to his lips. "I love you."

His tail thumped against the couch. "I love you too. God, that - feels so good to say. I feel like I might never stop."

"I hope you never do."

So much had changed, so quickly, so suddenly. Eli could remember the times in high school and college when Marlin would invite himself over on the weekends, leaving the wild dog counting the hours left to the days and then exhausted and drained by the time he left; he could remember the feeling of checking his phone to see a message from the fox, and then willfully ignoring it for a few hours; he could remember the insecurity, the frustration, the anger, the borderline fear of having to deal with him.

It hit him when he climbed into bed with Lynn that night, the hyena already waiting for him, that so-familiar sly smile on her muzzle. This was the same type of excitement and interest, the hunger and arousal when Eli settled between her legs and pushed his nose against her neck, and yet it felt so, so different. With Marlin he had always been content to just push the fox's legs apart, bob along his cock for a bit, then get up and sink right back down onto him, but with Lynn...

With Lynn their lips met and parted in long, slow kisses, which Eli trailed down along her jaw to her neck, her shoulder, her breast. With his fingers pushing in along her fur and feeling the sweet tension and firm musculature beneath, he nuzzled and licked and gently suckled, radar-dish ears perked to the hyena's little moans and gasps and rumbles. Her paw found his and guided it down, and Eli followed; he made sure he paid attention to her movements and urgings, every now and then flicking his gaze up to her muzzle to catch her eyes, half-lidded, and wait for the little nod of assent. Then his fingers, further down, followed his tongue in little circles and straight drags, in soft prods and swirls.

With Marlin he mostly thought about himself, knowing that one way or another the fox would manage to get off as well. That had always been Eli climbing up into Marlin's lap and riding him until the fat knot pushing against his tailhole squeezed a load out of him, or lying on his back on the bed with his legs spread and raised for the vulpine to go at his own pace. It felt good enough to Eli that he could finish from that and a swiftly-moving paw, always his own. Sometimes there was a tongue under his tail beforehand, too, and he would wrap his legs around Marlin's head and pull himself into it, but even there he focused on the feeling more than anything.

Here, tonight, he lifted his muzzle away from the hyena's muzzle and licked his lips one more time, then came forward to press his lips to hers again. She met him fully and eagerly, a paw coming up to hold his head to hers for a moment. Then they broke apart, and Eli, blushing, tried to find his voice to ask what he wanted. He managed a few words, sighed, looked away...

"Can I, um... I want to..."

...and Lynn's paw moved to his chin to focus him back on her. "We can go slow," she said, just as she had before. Her gentle demeanor, the glimmer in her eyes, the warm weight of her voice wrapping around the wild dog and squeezing him there just as she did with her legs around his... "If you don't like it, we can stop. Okay?"

Eli paused for a moment. Marlin had said something to that effect a few times - "do you want to do this? We don't have to" - but then stopped near the end of high school, and never bothered with it again. Truth be told, Eli hadn't minded it most of the time, but there were still those few instances. He nodded, gave her a shy smile, and shifted his position. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. So I... just..."

After a moment of him reaching down to adjust his angle, Lynn shifted beneath him and reached down as well. Her paw came to his again, her fingers wrapped around his shaft, she gave a soft squeeze and stroke... and then she was guiding him again, bringing him forward with that paw while her legs squeezed around his waist.

"Go slow," she breathed. Slick, soft heat... "Make sure you're okay with it."

"Yeah, I..." ...but a shiver slid up his back, turning his words to mush in his mouth. Marlin had had Eli top maybe twice in their relationship, but those times had been too fast and hard for the wild dog to enjoy too much, and he had never asked the fox to do it again. Those times had never really felt good for him, and at the same time it had seemed as though Marlin were forcing himself through it. Here, though, now, as he pushed forward and sank slowly deeper... he swallowed, throat suddenly dry, and opened his eyes enough to look back down at Lynn. On her muzzle he saw the same tense pleasure, the shivering anticipation and desire that he knew vibrated in his own hips. Noticing his gaze, she breathed a soft laugh and nodded.

And that gave him confidence. Eli returned her smile and leaned down to kiss her yet again, letting his hips slide slowly forward as he did so. It felt damn good, better than he had expected after his previous experiences, yet it was Lynn's quiet urging and shared enjoyment that gave him the energy to continue forward. That was what felt truly new and different to him, this desire to please _her_as well as himself, if not to put her first. Not out of obligation or expectation, either, but because he wanted to.

That was the part that was new. Shivering, panting already, Eli pressed his hips against Lynn's and straightened up, paws pressing into the bed near her shoulders. "Is that..." He swallowed, shivered again, and let out a sweet sigh. "Is that okay?"

The hyena pulled herself further up onto the pillow, then reached up to run a paw through her mane. "Yeah," she said, paws wandering up the wild dog's sides. From there she pulled his body more firmly against her, short claws pressing against his skin through his fur without scraping. "That's good. Remember, Eli, we can... we can stop whenever."

Nose to nose, lips to lips. They each let out their own shuddering sigh when they pulled back, and both laughed quietly. Eli nuzzled her nose again. "I don't think I want to stop."

Lynn's smile sharpened into a grin. She tweaked her hips a little bit, just the same way that Eli used to do to Marlin whenever the fox tied him - and just like then it brought the same reaction, in a gasp followed by a breathy moan, with a buck of the hips.

"Good."

~ ~ ~

Marlin sat back in his car, quietly fuming. All throughout the weekend he had tried to get into contact with Eli, texting and calling him to finally get an explanation for his sudden disappearance as well as the rent he owed. The fox even went by where he knew Eli lived, figuring that if he were busy he'd still be at home playing one of his games or something, but found no response there either - even though the wild dog's car sat out in his driveway.

Monday Marlin had to take on an extra shift at work, and as a result was too tired to stop by again... since it seemed that at some point during the day the wild dog had actually _blocked_his number, judging by the way his calls didn't even send him to voicemail anymore. So Tuesday Marlin slept in, got to work late, got out early, and promptly headed over to the wild dog's house to try again.

It worked this time. He sank a little further into the driver's seat, one arm resting against the door with his head in his paw. They were still watching him, he knew: out of the corner of his eye he could see the curtains by the door sway gently, and their shadowed figures there. Marlin had rang the doorbell, expecting it to go for some ten minutes like it did last time, but instead heard the lock right as he reached in to hit the button again.

And there he was, just standing there, not opening the door all the way but certainly there. Eli had eyed him as though he were totally unsurprised, and also unimpressed. Not glad to see him in the slightest. Marlin had given his best smile and tried to wedge his foot into the door to come in for a hug, but somehow the wild dog managed to keep it right there. The _tone_to his voice, though...

"What?"

Just one word. That was all he had gotten. Immediately that had ignited a sharp frustration in the fox's chest, and before he could stop himself he was shouting: "What the fuck do you think you're doing? Ignoring me like that? Eli - I've been trying to get rent from you for the past week since you just up and fuckin' disappeared."

_ _

Of course Eli's explanation was that he had already paid his part of this month's rent. That was how he had said it, too - "my part". Marlin made sure to point out that the month changed the previous Friday, _before_Eli had apparently moved out; to that the wild dog said he wasn't going to pay a month's rent for the two days he was there.

"Well," Marlin had tried to explain, "you should." Eli just shrugged to that - that still_frustrated him - and said, simply, _"I didn't sign a contract." As if that absolved him of all financial responsibility. It had taken so much effort not to force the door open then, but Marlin had just taken in a slow breath, crossed his arms in front of his chest, and tried not to break his phone by squeezing it too hard. Even now sitting in his car he realized he was getting close to that, and deliberately placed it down in the seat beside him.

"Look," he'd said, trying for the gentler route that seemed to work better with Eli, "can we talk? Can I come in? I want to apologize."

"That's a first."

_ _

"Will you let me fucking talk? I miss you, and I want you back-" "So you can make me pay rent."_Always interrupting. That was the worst part today. Eli had really tested Marlin's patience. _"Why are you being such an asshole?" the fox asked, not for the first time. That was one of his biggest complains about the wild dog, and something he had tried to talk to him about before: he didn't recognize when he was being rude, and as such, never apologized or tried to change. Throughout their relationship Marlin had waited and waited for it, but the conversation never came. Then, though, the wild dog just went back to the last thing he had said before leaving - "Didn't I ask you the same thing about the past six years?"

Right as the fox was about to reply, though, a new voice, one he didn't recognize, came from further in the house: "Eli, are you coming back? I was getting into the movie." A female's voice, a bit low in pitch, strong yet soft. For some reason it made Marlin's hackles bristle. He tried to get in there, tried to get his response to the wild dog out, but Eli just leaned back into the house and called back to her, "yeah, gimme a minute," then leaned back out and looked the fox up and down again.

Then it came again - "What?"

He couldn't believe it. Hardly a week out of his apartment and already she had moved in with him? Marlin could still feel the bubbling rage from that realization burning in his belly. Not quite jealousy or disappointment, but more a mixture of the two. All of these years he had tried being a good boyfriend, and then at the first sign of trouble Eli had slipped away without a word, refused to pay rent, and blocked him, and now this?

Whatever had had been about to say died in his throat. Marlin had tried peering past his shoulder there, and definitely noted the way Eli moved to block his sight. "That's not..."

"It is," the wild dog had replied, as if knowing what he would say. "Lynn, could you come here for a minute?"

Needless to say, she wasn't what Marlin had expected. He hadn't really put any thought into Eli's little... illicit fling, anyway: he was supposed to be his boyfriend and yet there he was playing around with a female, but Marlin had tried to ignore it, remembering how offended and upset the wild dog had gotten the last time he had been called out on something like that.

The door opened a bit further then, but not to let him into the house. Marlin had actually taken a step back when he first saw her, and regretted that now: she stood over a full foot above him, dwarfing even Eli, and looked - not terrifying, but the fox still wanted to keep his distance, and made sure to keep his eyes on Eli instead of her. The striped hyena smiled down at Marlin and nodded her head, then said "Hey." Just that. Nothing more.

Eli explained that this was, in fact, his girlfriend, Melinda or something - and he introduced him to her as_"my ex, Marlin."_ Without even consulting him first, Eli had apparently just decided their relationship had ended. That was what hurt the most, really: thinking about it, the fox banged a fist against the side of his steering wheel, then huffed angrily and threw the car into drive.

"Wait," he had said, trying to appeal to the wild dog, "Eli, we need to talk about-"

But the hyena interrupted him. Of course she did. "Look, fox, a relationship is two ways, right? A partnership. Eli doesn't want to be with you. He explicitly told you that, if I recall correctly. If you really loved him," as if she would know, "you'd respect that wish and keep your distance."

It had been _so_hard not to yell at her, to tell her that he had come over to speak to Eli and not her. She wouldn't let him get a word in, though: he tried to explain herself three times during her little tirade, but instead of letting him talk, she just kept on going, a little louder each time.

When he did have the time to speak, all he got out was a "Well..."_before Eli held up a paw. _"I'm sure you noticed I blocked you, Marlin," the wild dog said, as if that fact hadn't been obvious. "When I'm ready to talk I'll message you. Okay?"

Rage turned to disappointment, then, and frustration to... something else. Something that really, honestly hurt. Marlin came up to the stop sign at the end of the street a little bit hard, with the jerk forward reigniting all of the vile feelings stirring in his chest; he blinked hard, and reached up to wipe at his eyes.

"But you can't, just..."

_ _

"Just what?"

_ _

"Leave me like this."_That part had actually been hard to say. It looked like it had had its effect, at least: Eli's ears lowered afterwards and his whiskers drooped, and for a moment he seemed to be at a loss for words. For a moment there Marlin felt the soft glimmers of hope again; he had always thought Eli was going to be _his. Forever. He had planned his life around it, had framed all of his future fantasies and scenarios around having the wild dog alongside him... but then that hyena rested her paw on Eli's shoulder, and Eli looked up at her, and in his eyes Marlin saw the look that he wanted for himself. The look, the tenderness, the love that he used to get.

When was the last time Eli had looked at him like that? In that moment, the tears that had started gathering at the corners of his eyes were absolutely, one hundred percent real."How am I gonna pay rent?" he had wondered aloud, grabbing at anything to try to get the wild dog's attention back. "I got written up at work again for missing so many days, and my savings account is still empty after our trip last summer..."

And then that asshole_just shrugged, not even taking a moment to think about it. _"It'll work out." Marlin could feel the bonds sever once the wild dog took a step paw, his paw intertwining with the hyena's beside him. "One way or another. Bye, Marlin. Don't come back."

That was it. He hadn't gotten the chance to say what he wanted to, and then heard everything he _didn't_want to. At the next turn the fox didn't even bother trying for the stop sign, blazing right through - and vaguely hearing a horn honk behind him.

It was over. That was it. Six years, from first kiss to first handjob to first boyfriend in high school, to renting a place and living together. Maybe not happily all the time - it was rocky on both sides, of course - but together. For six years Marlin thought he had found his final, had thought that he'd discovered the endgame for him.

And then, in hardly a week, it crumbled and fell between his fingers and beyond his grasp. Just like that. All because of - what? Because Eli found out he was bi, supposedly, and fell in love with a female? Because Marlin apparently wouldn't listen to his problems, when Eli never even bothered bringing them up to talk about them? Because...

He didn't know. That was the worst part. Marlin didn't know why it had suddenly ended. But it was gone, now, and he was left on his own, without an explanation or understanding.

Just like that.