Commissioned Story: Together We Heal, Ch. 1 (Patreon)

TOGETHER WE HEAL
A Commission for LastOmega25
Part 1

"All right, very good work everyone!" stated Therapist Ling as the class all panted from exertion, strain, and varying states of fatigue.  The limber Simian uncurled herself from the complicated yoga pose she had been resting in while guiding the dozen or so various species of Anthro and Humans present.  "You're all making great progress.  Let's meet back up next week."

As was tradition, the entire group wobbled to their feet and bowed their heads to the Gibbon woman.  She bowed back and then they all began to file slowly out of the room.  Groans, sighs, and weary chuckles came from them all.

Aiden Reed waved cheerfully at the pair of younger adults who had been sitting next to him during the latest session.  They waved back, beaming down at the Human before they returned to chatting about going out for coffee.  He watched them go, still smiling, but feeling the rockhard weight of slight jealousy burning away in his portly stomach as they laughed and joked back and forth, the big Canine Male holding the door for the other Human as she clicked his way through on her crutches.  Still, it was hard not to feel proud of David and Mariah.  They'd started off in very bad places and come a long way.

Maybe if they had a chance to finding happiness and companionship after going through so much, he did too?

As ever, his brown eyes spanned over the room of padded matts toward the only other person who took as long as he did.  He spotted her there, sitting with her back to the corner of the room, sipping on her water, one eye distant and glazed beneath her heavy bangs.  The White Tiger Anthro wore a rough, grey, belly-length hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants, like she always did, and while on anyone else they might have seemed plain, it would have been hard to ever classify Lucy as such.  The baggy fabric clung to her curvy frame well, an equal mixture of power and plushness.

The muted color scheme only exemplified her white and black-striped fur, as well as the dull gleam of her one remaining blue eye.  The other side of her face was heavily scarred, leading one's gaze up to the missing half of a furless ear.  As ever, she seemed to be a world far away from this one.  Even so, she remained as aware of her surroundings as any Anthro seemed to be.  Her eye flickered toward him and he immediately looked away, concerning himself with pretending to be adjusting his personal effects and slinging the knapsack over his shoulder and securing it with a buckle.

Everyone here was often in similar situations, as this was a recovering group for military Veterans.  Aiden himself was missing his leg below the knee, replaced by a metal prosthetic.  Hunger gnawed away at his stomach now and he rubbed at it beneath the old Army t-shirt.  Checking the time on his watch, straps worn and fraying, he noted that the doughnut place down the street would be open by now.  His mouth watered below the slight layer of stubble on his cheeks at the thought of glazed sweetness and hot, steaming coffee to wash it down.

Absent-mindedly, he reached for his reinforced cane which lay nearby.  Distracted by the thought of indulging his admittedly unhealthy eating habits, his thick fingers bumped the cane and disturbed it, knocking it down and sending it clattering across the ground.  The sound reverberated around the training room the class used.

Wincing at the noise, Aiden sighed and started to lean over, slowly and carefully from his seat, to try and reach for it.  His fingers were only a few inches away when suddenly a big paw entered his field of vision.  He blinked in surprise as it hefted his cane up easily and held it out for him.  He tracked up that long steel pole and padded grips, along the burly, scarred paw holding it, across the grey of the sweatshirt, and up to meet Lucy's implacable, one-eyed stare.

It was quiet between them for a second.  He looked back down, trying not to notice the still impressive shelf of her chest beneath the concealing fabric of her top, to his cane that she was holding out for him.  He reached out and took it, wrapping his fingers around the metal curve and gradually taking the tool's weight back.  As it transferred from her to him, her paw loosened and let go.  He was fascinated to see that her paw pads were a combination of black and pink.

So cute, came the unbidden thought to his mind.  He tried to dismiss it and instead looked back up at her with a big, goofy smile.  "Thanks!"   He waved it one-handed cheekily.  "Butter-fingers is not a good trait for a cripple."

Lucy did not smile.  She didn't even blink.  Her one eye gleamed down at him for several long, uncomfortable seconds before her lips parted.  "You stare at me," she growled, Irish accent mixing with her obvious Chinese one.  It was the most fascinating combination he had ever heard.  "I would like to know why."

Caught, red-handed.  His face flushed and he tried to play it off.  "Well uhh..." he mumbled.  For once his go-to mannerism to deflect everything with humor, to mask his insecurities, pain, and fears with comedy failed and he looked down from her.  "Sorry.  I didn't mean to bother you."

She still did not move from standing over him.  All Anthros were naturally bigger and heavier than Humans, even a chubbier specimen like he was.  It wasn't that he was obese, in fact he had once been in considerably better shape.  Ever since getting injured and discharged, however, he had lost the motivation to keep up with his usual work-out regimen and took to overeating.  What had once been trim and athletic was now doughy and soft.  It made his wish to find a steady girlfriend all the more difficult, as it also tanked his self-confidence quite considerably.  Even so, Lucy was a Tiger, one of the largest Pred species around, and so naturally loomed over him with almost half again his width to her impressively broad shouldered stance.

He fixed his attention on her open-toed running shoes, a common apparel choice for Anthros.  He missed running, a lot.  In his hayday, he might have still had the confidence to answer her more directly, even risk asking her out.  Being rejected wouldn't have hurt quite so much back then, but now he knew he defeated himself more even before he got up the nerve to ask.  What girl was going to go for a guy like him anyway?

Her footpaw tapped, getting his attention.  He looked back up at her severe, striped countenance.  "You have not yet answered my question," she told him curtly.  "You decided it bothered me.  I did not say this.  I asked why."

Blushing, Aiden rubbed at the back of his thick head of hair.  "Well...it's because...I've really thought you were cute and all ever since I joined this class.  Even with how distant and quiet you seemed, I knew that you were probably just in the same boat as me."  He thumbed a thick finger into the chain around his neck and lifted it.  His service tags glinted there as they hung in the air for her to see.  "I just...didn't think you'd actually want to be bothered by me talking to you.  So I guess I just decided staring like a creeper was better."  He attempted a weak grin.

She did not return it but something shifted behind her eye.  She glanced down at his still lifted dog-tags and back up to his face.  Wow, was she beautiful, even as cold as she was.  She sniffed once then, big muzzle blowing hot air across his face.  Her ears twitched in unison and her short, dark, cropped hair shifted in the light breeze made by the air conditioning.  What would she look like with long hair, he wondered?

"You decide things for many people," she growled down at him.  "Place yourself as outsider to them.  It does not help you."

He shrugged and nodded, looking away again.  His stomach rumbled and he wanted nothing more to drown his embarrassment at being called out like this in some sugary, unhealthy breakfast.  "Yeah..." he agreed.  He shifted, dropping his dog tags and struggled up to his mismatched feet.  Lucy stepped back to give him room and maintain her personal space, which he knew was important to her kind.  "Sorry again."  He turned to go, leaning heavily on his cane.

He heard her huff and then she strode past him to the doors.  Great job, idiot, he told himself.  Then he blinked as she gripped the doorhandle and held it open for him, despite that there was obviously a handicapped button nearby that he often pressed.  Her face had not changed from its stoic, emotionless mask of stone but it was obvious that she was waiting for him.  He tried to hurry up, cane and leg clicking on the floor.
"Thanks," he told her.  She huffed again, ears twitching.  They exited the building, her always striding forward to hold open the doors for him and him always thanking her each time.  At last they were outside.  He looked down the street in the direction of the doughnut shop before he met her eye once more.  "See you next week," he tried to chuckle, mentally kicking himself more and more.  He should have just kept his eyes to himself.

She didn't respond so he just turned and started stumping his way away.  He was just beginning to grumble when he felt her keeping in stride alongside him only a dozen steps or so away.  Her long legs ate up the ground with such power and grace.  He glanced up at her, a difference in their heights of at least a full head or so.  She wasn't looking at him.

"Going my way?" he asked, just to break the silence.  She huffed again.  He shrugged.  Any time at all with her was at least nice for his sake.  "You...wouldn't be hungry would you?"

She glanced down at him and then, to his shock, nodded.  "I am.  You eat at McRory's every time after therapy lets out.  I have not tried them."

"Well, they're pretty good!" he glowed, overjoyed for the conversation.  This was the most he had ever spoken to the Tiger.  "They make the absolute best pastries on this side of town, and their coffee is excellent."  A shy surge rushed through him and he hesitated before asking, "Would...you like to go with me?"

"Yes.  It is a good first date."

He stopped short, eyes wide, and blinking several times.  Lucy kept on walking for several strides before she noticed that he was not walking with her anymore.  She looked back at him, face still inscrutable.  His mouth had fallen open a bit and she arched a withering eyebrow down at him.  "I'm...sorry, what?" he asked, dumbstruck.

She growled, turning to face him fully.  "Dating tradition labels sharing a cup of coffee, tea, or getting a meal together as being an acceptable and socially popular method for the progenitor of a potential relationship."  She crossed her arms.  "You object to this?"

He shook his head swiftly.  "N-no absolutely not, no objections at all!" he squawked.  Her tail waved behind her, relaxed and easy despite that her stony expression had not changed at all.  "I'm just...surprised."  His stomach clenched and he looked warily down at his big belly and missing leg.  "I'd never in my wildest dreams have ever hoped that someone like you would..."

"You again make assumptions for others based on your own personal distaste of your appearance," she interrupted him.  "You called me cute.  I understand that in Human language this professes an attraction and desire for intimate companionship, unless you are using the colloquialism to simply pander to me, describing me as childish or your subservient.  Is this so?"

Aiden's eyes widened further and he again shook his head so fast that his ears felt like they were flapping.  "N-no, never!" he stammered.  "I'd never want to insult you!"

"So it was the former definition," she stated bluntly.  He nodded, blushing.  "Would you have still described me as such if our roles were reversed, you as the larger and me as the smaller?"

He blinked at Lucy.  "That's...fair.  And yes, I would."  He blushed more and ducked his head.  "I'll...take the date...if it's still available."

She huffed.  "It is."  He glanced up at her to see she had rotated perfectly on the heel of one paw and faced down the street towards his favorite breakfast shop again.  It was just barely starting to come into sight.  "We continue walking then."  She glanced at him once more over her shoulder.  "Do you require me to slow down, or would you prefer to lag behind?  I am aware the view from there is quite pleasant."  Her tail waved again, sticking out from a loop of cloth at the hem of her sweatpants.

His face heated even more and he actually let out a chuckle.  A real one.  It felt weird to genuinely laugh again...even as nervous as he was now.  "I'll do my best to catch up," he promised.  She let out a chuffing breath and continued walking.  He shyly noticed, as ever, that she was correct: she had a very nice rearview.  Her hips swayed as she walked despite how stiffly she did so.  Mind still reeling, he hurried along, leg and cane clicking along on the paved road.

They reached McRory's in the next few minutes.  Seamus, the owner, a portly man with a massive beard and smile, waved a wrapped-hand at him, since he was such a regular, and nodded back at a table.  He and Lucy took a seat and soon after a giggling teenage waitress had taken their orders, leaving them alone.  There weren't many other customers at this hour; they virtually had the alcove they sat in all to themselves with no one else around.

Aiden looked up across the polished table towards the Tiger currently reading one of the wall hangings.  He could scarcely believe he was here with her, on a date of all things.  He felt like he was dreaming.  Again, she noticed immediately that he was staring and she glanced back down at him.  He blushed and looked away once more, not wanting to be thought rude.

She growled then, making the floor and table rumble.  He nervously glanced back up and saw she was still locking that predator gaze upon him.  He tried a grin but she didn't return it.  Did she ever smile?

Their server returned with their coffee and doughnuts and they had been quietly munching on them for several long, uncomfortable minutes now.  "You are uncomfortable with me," she noted then.

He blinked.  "I could never be uncomfortable with you," he told her bluntly.

"Then why do you not wish to look at me?  You have never had issues doing so in the last few weeks during class.  Do Humans not make much eye contact during their dates?  I was led to believe the opposite was so."

"No, no, we do!" he told her quickly.  "I'm just...still kind of shocked that you..."  His voice died away and  he sighed.  Then a thought occurred to him.  "How...did you know I come here all the time?" he asked.

This time, she was  the one who looked away.  Her ears twitched and actually folded down some.  Her tail shocked him then by winding slowly around one of his heels, making him start.  The fur was so soft...  "I have watched you many times during and after our therapy sessions," she said then, voice quieter now.  "When I first noticed that you stared at me, increasingly so, I was at first worried you were a threat.  You quickly proved this to be false, and I could smell your arousal toward me rather easily."  His face burned.  "After that, I began to sometimes follow you at a distance after class.  You always came here.  I wanted to approach you but shied away at the last moment, increasingly so to my ever-mounting irritation.  I even would stay after with you, attempting to muster up the confidence to converse with you even once.  I simply never had the nerve to do so."

His jaw dropped open.  She wouldn't meet his eyes at all now but her tail hadn't uncurled from around his ankle.  Her fur was beginning to bunch up, making her look fluffier.  He remembered that this was a sign of discomfort and embarrassment for Anthros.  "S-so...you..." he asked, voice hushed.

She looked back at him at last, fixing him with that single-eye.  "When you dropped your cane, it became the one and only chance I had to attempt a physical connection.  I took a chance.  I am overjoyed that it succeeded."  Then her eye closed.  He at first assumed that she was blinking but it remained closed.  Her face softened slowly and only slightly.  Her tail tightened around his leg.  Then he realized...

Real tigers, not just Anthros, only closed their eyes in their environment when they felt safe and happy.  It was the equivalent of their smile.  And she was smiling.  At him.  In her own way.  His eyes misted slightly and he warily reached out toward her paws which remained crossed and poised with utmost dignity upon the table.  She started at first as his fingers brushed her fur but then she was enveloping them with her own, trapping his hand between her rough paw pads.  Her eye opened again and she met his shocked, teary-eyed gaze with her ever-stoic, silent one.

"But..." came a soft voice.  He quickly realized with his utmost inner hatred that it was his own.  "Why me?"

Her eye softened but also hardened at the same time.  Perhaps a better word was that it became firmer, her gaze fixing upon him with her utmost attention.  She leaned toward him over the table, her metal chair creaking only slightly beneath her impressive weight of muscle and fur.  "You question many things," she growled.
He tore his eyes away before he started to cry from discomfort and awkwardness.  "Sorry..." he muttered.

"You apologize often," she observed.  "For many things that you are not at fault for."  Her paw released his hand and he made to take it back.  Her iron-hard grip locked around his wrist, keeping him place before her other paw reached out and brushed his chin, turning him to face her again.  Her eye was so bright, so blue.  He felt trapped within it.

"S-sorry..." he muttered again, softer this time, unable to stop himself from repeating it.

"Do not be," she told him, voice also quieter now.  "I am where I want to be, and with who I want to be with."

"Why me?" he asked again, needing to know what stroke of bizarre fate had finally given him a chance at even momentary happiness.  If this all ended up being some cruel joke, then at least, for a moment, he felt the light and hope of his past once again.

The woman of his dreams stroked his stubbly cheek with a thumb claw.  "Because you are cute," she stated simply.  "Because I like you.  You are the first to look at me beyond my scars, to make me feel like a woman again.  Even dressed as ignobly and unattractively as I am and have been since I was discharged, you looked at me with ardor.  Made me feel...as I once did before."

He shyly reached up with his other hand and cupped her big paw against his face.  "You...would look beautiful in anything...and you do.  You always do."

Lucy's eye sparkled with something he had never seen before.  She said nothing and she finally let go of his hand.  They returned to their previous positions.  Her tail had wound, serpent-like, around his calf and they sipped at their coffee and munched on their breakfast of glazed, sugary goodness in gentle silence.  Their server returned a moment later.

"You both good for more?" she asked brightly.

Lucy met his eyes, wordlessly holding out her cup.  "Much more," she growled, eye never leaving his face.  "I am just getting started."

His face heated at the hungry look in her gaze, something he'd never personally been exposed to.  He smelled it then, a light, tangy musk in the air that emanated from her.  Aggression.  Anthro Aggression.  Their species made their emotions clearly felt by visual, oratory, and scent-based means.  His eyes wandered the stripes across her cheeks and down her thick throat to the hem of her sweatshirt.  She growled a bit more, ears twitching.  Her tail tightened just a bit more.

"Me too..." he whispered.  He dared to hope, beyond hope, that this was not just a dream.  That this was the start of something new and wonderful, beyond his wildest imaginings.  He had a girlfriend now...

This story and pair of characters belongs to OmegaPrime25.