Commissioned Story: Together We Heal, Ch. 2 (Patreon)

TOGETHER WE HEAL
A Commission for LastOmega25

(A/N: This Chapter contains details of PTSD, Trauma, some bigotry, and tense situations.  Viewer discretion is advised.  All those who are serving or have served, my heart goes out to you, my battle-brothers and sisters.)

Lucy waited patiently at the steps of the restaurant for Aiden to show.  She stood stock-still and silent, observing the passersby as they walked into and out of the establishment where she and her boyfriend had agreed to meet up at.  Checking her watch, the Tiger Anthro woman noted the time and readjusted the skirts of her traditional, Chinese style dress.  The hem hung just past her muscular thighs, hiding the scars there, but not the ones on her bare arms as they remained crossed over her waist, holding her purse in one big paw.  Her fur had been brushed out and she'd attempted to make herself look as alluring as possible; it was not a skill she had great expertise with normally.

As ever, she noticed the occasional curious glance by the people who walked past her.  Their gazes always panned over her muscular, curvaceous frame, looks she was well-used to and had become normalized to, but when they looked up to her face, they all inevitably flinched and averted their eyes.  The view of her one-eyed visage, scarred so heavily on one side of her skull that little fur grew there, was not a comforting one, she knew.

She did not let them bother her.  She had spent a long time after being wounded in the military trying to get used to the view of herself in the mirror, not always an easy process.  She had even considered growing out her dark hair to hang over the injury but always decided against it.  She wore her scars proudly and without fear of judgement.  The looks sometimes hurt but she wasn't the type to allow some unsettled glances upset her anymore.

It helped when she considered that there had of recent days been one man who did not look at her like all those others did.  His staring had been different, his gazes hungry and shy but never disgusted, affronted, or repelled.  Never pitying.  He too understood the stigma of the cripple, the injured, the forgotten.  Understood them because he too had to live with them every single day.

She again checked her watch, a short, swift motion that, like everything in her life, she timed down to the second for the utmost efficiency.  She'd been called cold, even before being injured in the line of duty, by both lovers and friends, for how analytical and severe she could come across as sometimes.  But that never seemed to bother Aiden.  He talked enough for both of them on their handful of dates prior to this, respected her need for personal space but rejoiced whenever she was able to cross the distance between them for something as simple as holding his hand in her paw or touching him with her tail.

Her keen ears picked up every sound around her, the buzz of conversation, the whir and roar of traffic, the scuffling of feet on the pavement.  She heard the cooing of doves, the distant bark of a dog, and laughter from a group of young men lounging in the parking lot across the street from the Hibachi restaurant she stood in front of.  Her sensitive nose could smell a myriad of scents, all unique and varying in degrees of unpleasant to enjoyable.

But it was his sounds, his scent, that she was waiting most eagerly for.  She strained her senses to the utmost to detect the clicking of his cane and metal prosthetic, to catch the first whiff of his wonderful aftershave he used.  She could not resist a small surge of Aggression welling up inside of her chest as she inhaled deeply, imagining how pleasant it was to bury her nose in his chest during one of their few but treasured cuddle sessions on the couch of his small apartment.  The front of her red silk dress tightened slightly more over her chest, straining the fabric more than it already was, at just the memory of it.

Soon.  Soon she would overcome this block and finally cross that threshold with him.  Maybe not tonight, but soon.  Heavy emotional development did not go well on a full stomach she had learned, and she wanted to put no pressure on Aiden after how excited he had been to come here with her.  Mongol's Grill was apparently one of his favorite places to eat, constantly espousing the wonderful, customizable flavor combinations.  She'd needed no real encouragement other than that he enjoyed it so much.  The various smells she had gotten so far from inside were also admittedly wonderful.

As she opened her eye once again, letting out yet another Aiden-less air loose from her lungs, she saw that she was abruptly no longer alone.  The scents were not familiar to her as her vision returned.  Used to looking down, the Tigress turned her gaze in that direction and was not surprised to see someone looking up at her.  It was, however, not what she had been expecting.

A young Human girl stood there, holding onto her father's hand and gazing, wide-eyed, up at the Anthro.  She had a lovely pink and yellow dress on, and tucked underneath one arm was a plush, if slightly faded, stuffed toy.  A white tiger.  Lucy's attention slowly fixated to its utmost upon the little Human cub.

Upon being spotted as staring, she shyly smiled and ducked her head down a little, hiding those brilliant hazel eyes underneath golden-brown bangs.  The rest of her hair was combed into a cute pair of braided tails on either side of her head.  Her father, a tall man who would have come up to Lucy's shoulder, traded a wary but respectful nod with the Anthro when she glanced up to acknowledge him.

There was a long, drawn out pause, perhaps only a few seconds but noticeable enough in the lull that Lucy could tell the man was becoming uncomfortable with her unblinking, one-eyed stare at both him and his offspring.  He finally broke eye contact with her and leaned down towards the girl, whispering in her ear.  Lucy could hear him even then.

"Sweetie, we shouldn't be staring," he told the child.

The little girl looked up at her father and then, with seeming no shame, pointed up at Lucy.  "But she's missing an eye!" she chirped in a bright voice, loud and honest.

The man balked, looking up at Lucy in sudden worry that she would take offense and immediately stood back up, tugging on the child's arm.  "Jessie, we don't say that kind of thing about other people!" he grunted softly, trying not to seem like he was attempting to flee.  Even so, without bodily moving his child, he no doubt felt trapped by the awkward situation.  With her still pulling hard on his hand to resist being moved, he finally met Lucy's single eye once more.  His face was very sheepish.  "I'm sorry ma'am..." he muttered nervously.  "Kids...you know?"

Lucy blinked once.  "It is only her stating the obvious," she growled out in a low, unaggressive tone of voice.  She looked down at Jessie again.  "I am indeed missing an eye, little one."

"How come?" the child immediately fired back with.  Her father squawked even more and seemed about to bodily lift the girl up in his arms and run away, if he hadn't also been handling a takeout box from the restaurant they all stood in front of.

"I was injured," replied Lucy succinctly, forestalling the Human male in his flustered attempt to apologize for such perceived rudeness.

"Did it hurt?"

Lucy's mind flashed back to the distant, hard to forget memory of the pain and shock of that grisly day.  The insurgents had swarmed the bunker she had been in charge of defending alongside her squad.  The refugees had needed protection and she willingly accepted the charge of being their guardian, as had her fellow soldiers.  The rigged explosives the enemy used had blasted the entrance wide, throwing debris everywhere as she crouched in cover.  With fire and bullets flying around them all, she had ordered her men to fall back as the last of the armored convoys rumbled away and to safety.  At the very second of her delayed but hurried withdrawal, the last of her squad to flee so as to cover the injured, a stray round had flashed across the room and struck her helmet, tearing through the plating that by barely an inch saved her from her skull being blown apart.  Everything from there had gone red and white.  She didn't remember fleeing, only the rage and fear and pain.

Turning her gaze back to the present, Lucy fixed her eye back onto the wide-open ones of Jessie.  Ignoring the discomfort of the girl's father, the Tigress adjusted the strap of her purse onto one arm and kneeled down in front of the Human, putting their heads closer to being nearly level, barely a paw's length from one another.  The girl was completely unafraid, big eyes, shining with innocence, never leaving her face.

Lucy smiled.  It was small, and soft, and she blinked once at the girl.  "Not too terribly much," she said gently.  "I'm used to it now."

With the fearless bravado afforded by her age, Jessie took her hand from her father's grasp and reached up to brush her little finger tips across the puckered scarring on that side of Lucy's skull.  She traced several of the lines of the furless flesh and then gently touched the tip of the Anthro's nose.  She sniffed at the little palm which made her giggle.  Taking back her hand, she abruptly lifted the toy up in front of her, displaying it proudly.

"This is Soroya!" she announced.  "She's a Tiger, just like you!"

Inspecting the plushie, Lucy sniffed at it, feeling obliged to do so.  She took in the faded colors of its white and black pelt, the frazzled tips of the plastic whiskers, the masterful stitching done to repair small damages, the way one leg hung more limply than the others from the missing stuffing.  The single, plastic eye on one side, the other replaced with a black X mark.  She smiled more.  The innocence of a child was a beautiful thing.

"She is wonderful," Lucy told Jessie.  "Soroya is a good name.  An Anthro name."

"I read about it in school!" Jessie announced, utterly pleased with herself.  "She was a big hero!"

"Yes, a great hero," agreed the Tigress.  "It is a pleasure to meet you both, Jessie and Soroya.  I am Lucy."

"It's a delight to meet you, Lucy," Jessie said, using an affected and haughty voice while lifting the stuffed tiger up to head level with her.  She even waved one of its paws before she lowered the toy and giggled.  "Are you waiting for someone?"

"I am meeting my boyfriend for a date," Lucy explained with no fear of judgement by anyone, least of all her tiny new friend.  "He is a Human, like you but gets around slowly.  Like me, he was hurt a long time ago.  I have no trouble waiting for him."

"Do you love him?!" Jessie demanded.

Lucy actually chuckled.  "I think so," she told the child, lowering her voice as if confiding a great secret to her.

"Have you told him that?"  Lucy shook her head slightly.  "You should tell him," counseled the young child.  "My Mommy and Daddy just had dinner together with me!  They just started telling each other that again.  Now I get to go home with him for the weekend!"

Looking up past the little girl, Lucy fixed her gaze on the Human man behind her, standing awkwardly and silent.  He gave her a weak smile which she returned with a single blink.  Returning her attention to the girl, the Tigress again blinked once.  "I'll make sure to work on being brave enough," she promised.

Jessie beamed.  "That's good!"  She looked back at her father then once again up at Lucy.  "I should get going now."  Lucy nodded and stood back up to her full height, towering once again over the little girl.  "Bye!" called Jessie as she again linked her hand with her dad's and they began walking off.  Lucy waved goodbye as well, still able to hear the child's rapid chattering to her beaming father as they headed for the parking lot.  "Daddy, she's just like Soroya!" she told him.

Smiling and shaking her head softly, Lucy let out a soft sigh.  Just as she returned her senses to their usual, open alertness, her nose twinged and her ear twitched.  A familiar scent and clicking of a metal cane came to her.  Her head turned sharply to the side.  Aiden was there, just coming up the street towards Mongol's Grill at a hurried, flustered pace.  Her fur stood on end a bit more as she spotted the military, button-up shirt he wore over his admittedly soft, more rotund mid-section, and the dress pants on his legs, which concealed his replacement metal leg.  If only for his gait, no one might have ever suspected the Human was missing one since his shoes both matched and he limped along as well as he could.

His eyes fell upon her standing there and they immediately lit up with such a brightness that they even rivaled Jessie's just now.  Lucy's own, singular eye sparkled a bit and she turned to face him directly even as he came closer.  She did not walk toward him, allowing him to cross the distance between them instead.  He always seemed to appreciate it when she did that.

"Hey!" he called as soon as it was socially acceptable for him to speak and not have to shout.  "I am so sorry that I'm late."

Lucy shook her head.  "You can not be late for a date that we agreed to simply meet up whenever around this approximate time frame," she told him.  He shifted in front of her, having come abreast of the Tigress and looking up at her from their foot and a half of height difference, seemingly still worried.  Her chest tightened and she stepped forward to him.  Her big paw lifted and combed down some errant strands of his adorably tousled hair.  "You look extremely nice," she told him, voice flat but honest.

He glowed at her touch and looked at her with adoring, heartfelt eyes.  She took a step back and nodded, allowing him to scan his gaze up and down her body in the dress and matching red high-heels she wore.  His face colored slightly and she smelled him become just slightly aroused at the tight ensemble.  Maybe tonight after all.

"You look absolutely beautiful," he told her once his eyes had traveled back up to meet her face again.  "I hope I didn't keep you waiting for too long."  When Lucy shook her head, he beamed more.  He gestured then grandly with his free hand up to the restaurant doors.  "Shall we then, my Tigress?" he asked, putting on a haughty accent as Jessie had.  The similarities were so sweet, the innocence of his eyes not dampened despite the hardships he must have faced.

Without meaning to, she stepped forward again.  Her paws lifted and grazed his freshly shaven cheeks and turned his head up, gentle as she could, before she too leaned down.  His breath caught in surprise as her furry lips brushed his, her tall frame having to bend down quite a bit to do so but she did not mind.  The kiss was like all the others they had shared before now, gentle, soft, and uninvasive, but making all the difference in the world for her to be willing to be so intimate with anyone again.  It had been a long time since she'd felt this way about anyone.  She would be better at showing it this time.  Better at being brave.

As she stepped back from the kiss, paws still cupping his face between them, she opened her eye again and noticed the incredibly please, flushed face of her boyfriend.  Aiden remained standing there, head turned up, eyes closed, and grinning goofily even long seconds after the kiss had ended.  Her claw tips tickled his skin and he finally opened his eyes to beam up at her dreamily.

"W-wow..." he muttered.

She arched her unscarred eyebrow down at him.  "I have kissed you before, Aiden," she observed.  "And yet each time I repeat the gesture, you act as if the sun has fallen from the heavens to warm you from inside."

He blushed.  "That's...a pretty accurate description, and rather poetic," he mumbled.  He lifted a hand to brush her paw, still leaning most of his weight on his cane.  His feet even looked slightly unsteady.

Her one eye blinked down at him.  "Good, because it is how I feel as well," she admitted.  She curled her paw around his hand, enveloping the soft skin within her furry pads and then, as one, they slowly clicked their way up the walkway to the restaurant's doors.  The bell above them jingled as they were opened wide and a store-wide greeting in a foreign language echoed all around them.

Lucy looked around and even from her first look of Mongol's Grill, she was more than suitably impressed.  It was a large, open-roomed place, the walls colored a deep red and stylized in ancient Oriental decorations.  Tapestries, paintings, and even period-appropriate weapons hung everywhere, complimenting the dark wooden tables with their flowing scripts and letters.  She couldn't read many of them but they looked authentic enough to be passable replicas.  Two long aisles dominated the majority of the room's back half, buffet-style tables filled with gleaming silver platters of various ingredients.  But it was the grill up front that was its most stand out feature.

Manned by three, burly men with beards, braided hair, and white bandannas tied around their foreheads, the grill was a flat topped stone, similar to a Hibachi restaurant, but much larger.  The cooks circled it, wielding long stained, wooden poles and paddles that they used to stir the various piles of noodles, meats, vegetables, and pools of sauce that sizzled upon the steaming surface.  Occasionally, one of the men would grab a bowl or bottle of some kind of sauce and douse the food in front of him mightily, eliciting a heavy gush of flame.  Once the entire pile was cooked, they would, in a single deft motion, grab a bowl one-handed and slide the pile of browned foodstuffs into it before handing it off to the eagerly waiting customers on the other side of the counter.

Lucy glanced down at Aiden with an approving grin to answer his hopeful smile and they immediately walked forward again to check in with the lovely receptionist woman.  She was polite and direct, taking their name down and then guiding them to a table before returning to the front again.  As they arrived, another waitress hurried over to take their drink orders.  Lucy elected for some kind of strawberry-lemonade mixed with booze, which Aiden said was really good, while he stuck with soda.

"I enjoy a good drink, but I'm a lightweight," he explained cheekily up at her.  She shrugged and once the waitress left, they walked as one to the end of the twin tables of ingredients.  She was instructed to take a bowl of her choosing, from three varying sizes, and after that to simple shuffle down the line and add in all the things she wanted to eat.  She wasn't sure what all to try so she mainly stuck to meats and some vegetables she knew paired well with this style of cooking: broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms but sparingly.  After that came the sauces and she used a nearby guide for how much to use per the size of the bowl she had selected.  Then she and Aiden, her helping to carry his bowl, approached the grill.

Together, they watched the pair of chefs flash-fry their meal using due applications of yet more sauce, spices, and even a bit of hot pepper seasoning.  She liked spicy food and so did Aiden.  Once the steaming bowls had been returned to them, they walked back to their table where they sat down and immediately dug in.  From the first bite, Lucy's tail began to wave happily, although she also had to soothe her burning tongue with a sip of her drink, which also had her incredibly pleased.

They shared sparse conversation but that was just their way.  Aiden was usually very shy, even now, and Lucy was not much of a conversationalist.  Even so, she kept up a continuous contact with his leg by keeping her tail locked around it.  It was something she had grown so accustomed to that she didn't even realize she was doing it half of the time now, a very large step for someone who valued her personal space even when spending nights in together at either of their places of residence.  She had begun to crave his proximity to hers and while things had not moved beyond those simple touches, she felt confident that she could one day allow those final walls to fall.

Eventually, however, she was forced to answer the call of nature.  Unwinding her tail from his leg, she stood and nodded down at him.  He got the gist of where she was heading and nodding, smiling.  She stalked away from the table, stance upright, calm, and poised as ever, but allowed herself just the slightest more prominent sway of her hips for his enjoyment.  She got a few stares, but it was his that she cared about alone.  The only one she wanted to look at her.  The rest of the world could stay at arm's reach but not him.  She wanted him much, much closer.

***

Aiden sighed wistfully as he watched Lucy gracefully wind her way across the common room of Mongol's Grill towards the bathrooms in the back.  A lot of other customers stared at her as she passed them, she was the only Anthro her size in the establishment after all.  Then, as ever, he felt those very same eyes glance back the way she had come, to the table she had been sitting at, and the doughy, unimpressive man who shared her company.  Those same eyes, so eager to stare at what they appreciated about her figure, hardened or grew confused to see what he looked like.

It wasn't just that he was Human.  Ever since the Cohabitation Act, Human-Anthro pairings had become a popular sight in recent years.  Male-female, male-male, female-female, even some of the non-binary community; the walls keeping the species apart had come tumbling down.  Sure, the sizes were often off but far too many on both sides had readily agreed to look past that, even finding lifelong dreams and hidden fantasies realized in crossing those trenches and believing in a world without hate, discrimination, or racism.  The world was truly a different place than it had been only a decade or so ago.

No, it wasn't his species.  It was him.  And it was something even now he was struggling to overcome or not react badly to.  Of course they would see a woman like Lucy and expect her to have a similarly endowed, attractive, or impressive partner.  He didn't ever once stop thinking that when he looked at himself in the mirror at night or in the morning, struck dumb by the fact that his long-time crush and fellow recovering veteran had just as much a thing for him as he did her.  She openly praised him, in her own way, perhaps not the most physical of romantic exchanges thus far but he respected that about her.  It was enough just to share her company; the thrill of her kisses alone set his heart to fluttering every time.

But that didn't change how several men looked at him condemningly.  He looked down from them, at the concealed weight of his prosthetic leg, the cane leaning up against the chair right beside him.  His hands tightened on the chopsticks in his hand and he could all but hear the words they muttered to one another.

'Fatass.'

'Amputee.'

'Charity case?'

'She could do better.'

Then one actual muttering came from a table not far from theirs.  "Pity bang, do you think?" asked a young male voice, followed by snickers.  "Wish she'd pity me like that."  Aiden's ears sharpened, keying in on the conversation even as his blood ran a bit cold.  He tried to block them out, focusing on chewing on a mouthful of noodles and beef cooked in teriyaki and lemon.  "I've always wondered if the stripes go all the way around..."

"Give it up dude," counseled his friend although he didn't sound like he really believed what he was saying.  "She could maul your ass in a heartbeat.  Tigers like her are more trouble than they're worth."

"She could maul me anytime..." droned the first.  "Anything must be better for her than who she's here with.  Probably his sponsor or something."

"Dude, come on," chimed a third.  "I spotted dog tags on him.  He's probably a vet."

"So what?  Any loser can go hawk a set of tags from a pawn shop or make their own.  Besides, I served too."

"Yeah, and didn't they kick your ass out?" chuckled the second.  "For something stupid, I bet."

"Starting up a 'gang' in basic training, they called it,' he scoffed.  "Pussies couldn't handle a real badass just because I was asserting dominance and real command material.  The military's a joke anyway nowadays.  Bunch of limp-dick college kids riding the system and cripples looking for handouts just because they got run over by their own ATV."

Without realizing it, Aiden had stood up and turned to look back at the men.  His hand grabbed his cane and he angrily began clicking his way toward them.  His teeth were set in a fierce line and his heart pounding to hear such vileness.  His approach did not go unnoticed and one of the men, a tall dark-skinned man, nodded at his companion.  "Well now you've gone and done it, you asshole," he muttered.  The third man then.

The first speaker turned and glared dispassionately up at Aiden just as he reached them.  His eyes were glazed, cheeks flushed from drink, and he gave him one cursory look up and down before he just grinned.  "Sup, gimpy?" he asked.

He let the insult roll off his shoulders as he instead pointed with his cane's handle right at the younger man's face.  "Stand up," he demanded, voice harsh and low.  "Stand up, right the hell now, and take it back."

"Excuse me?" the boy scoffed.  He looked at the chipped grip of the cane pointing him right in the nose and then rolled his eyes.  "Whatever.  Shove off."  He turned back around, ignoring Aiden.  So he poked him in the back of the head.  At that he whirled back around, looking abruptly furious.  "You did not just poke me..." he growled.

"Stand up," repeated Aiden.  "And take it back."  The man gave him a scoffing look that said 'Or what,' so he retorted without needing to hear the stupid macho threat, firing back with his own.  "Or this cripple is going to give you  a hand-out you desperately need, in the form of an ass-kicking."

The restaurant had gone quiet.  All eyes had fallen on the table of assembled men as the man looked up at Aiden as if he had gone insane.  "You...wanna run that by me again?" he asked, voice cold and dangerous.  He stood, half a head taller than Aiden but he didn't care.  "You're gonna kick my ass?"

"I'll beat your teeth in if you say one more word about my Army, or my girlfriend," Aiden snarled.  "Insult me all you like, mock me for losing a leg to a fucking insurgent's IED when it flipped my unit's truck and left me pinned for two damn hours, but you will not talk about my brothers in arms that died for you to sit there and spout off that bullshit about the army being too 'soft' for a trouble-maker and bully like you.  And you definitely are not going to talk about my girlfriend like she's a piece of meat."

"I figure I'll talk however I want," the man snapped back down at him.  He swiped at the cane and batted it out from in front of his face, as Aiden had left it raised.  He flicked it back up to point at his nose yet again.  "Get that cane out of my face, cripple," he snarled.  His hand strayed to his waist, to a noticeable bulge in one pocket.  Aiden recognized its shape: a collapsible combat knife, military issue.  The handle was unmistakable as the man's big hand half-drew it threateningly.

At that exact moment, a flash of the grill abruptly made Aiden's attention waver at the gout of fire that nearly reached the ceiling.  His eyes flicked toward it, the light and sound of flame, the knife, the cold grip of the steel weapon in his hand... he wasn't in a hibachi diner anymore.  The confines of the flipped truck greeted him as the insurgent finished tearing the door open up above him.  The man's face was concealed behind a mask but his eyes gleamed in a predatory light as he reached to his waist and drew his knife, starting to climb down toward the trapped Staff-Sergeant as he lay there, leg crushed beneath the crumpled dashboard and body half-pinned by the silent, crumpled body of Yemoine.

He fumbled desperately for his own weapon, so far out of reach by the space of an inch.  The hulking man above him continued his slow climb down toward the pinned and wounded soldier.  He heard others of the man's kind outside the flipped truck.  His breath began to tighten and his heart raced faster and faster.  His grip on the first thing he had at hand tightened and he swung the scrap piece of metal as hard as he could at his attacker just as the knife drew back.

Aiden's arm jerked to a stop all of a sudden.  He blinked as murmurs and stifled shrieks sounded around him.  He wasn't in the ATV.  Yemoine's body wasn't laying half across him.  He wavered on his one remaining leg, cane lifted up to swing defensively at the young man who had been drawing his knife.  He looked up at his hand as it had been seemingly frozen in mid-swing.

A large, powerful hand had locked around his wrist, immobilizing it.  The large, dark-skinned man had grappled him, keeping him from swinging.  He met the man's stern but actually understanding gaze in confusion.  He trembled and wavered, the other man actually now having to half hold him up as his balance was none-too steady anymore.  "Put it down, dude," he heard the man say warningly.  But he wasn't talking to Aiden.

He looked over at the young man still holding the knife, half out of his pocket, seemingly fine that Aiden had almost taken a swing at him.  He still looked irate though.  "Fuck off, dude," he snapped at his friend.  "This gimp couldn't have hit me at all.  I'll kick his ass with no trouble."

"Put it down," repeated the larger man.  Aiden's arm trembled in his grasp and he nodded down at him.  "I got you," he promised.  "Just forget about Isaiah here, my jackass friend, he's a douche."  Then he winked.  "Tiny dick syndrome, you know?."  Aiden blinked in shock, heart still hammering way too fast for him to calm down.  The large man's eyes then flicked back and up behind Aiden and went wide.  "Oh crap," he whispered.

A heavy, hot presence, smelling of iron and hate emerged behind Aiden then, a smell that was more of a weight in the air than actual scent.  Even Isaiah, the man holding the knife blinked and took a cautious step back.  Immediately, the dark-skinned man released Aiden, far too quickly, and all his weight fell onto his false leg, nearly sending him toppling.  Strong arms caught him as easily as they might have a child and set him back up, helping him lean on her.

Then someone tall, powerful, and clad in a beautiful red, Chinese-style dress stepped halfway in front of him, half-blocking his view of the asshole.  Lucy towered over the Human, unmoving, barely even seeming to breathe.  She didn't even growl but her stance was deadly still.  Her tail was flat and straight and her shoulders and hips performed the smallest of wiggles from what Aiden could see of them.  The way a tiger in the wild did right before it sprang with murderous intent.

Isaiah took another step back from the Anthro's one-eyed gaze.  Then his shoulders tightened and he glanced around at the room full of onlookers who were all silently watching the exchange.  He obviously knew that no one here was going to, or would even be able to, stop this Tigress if she lunged at him.  She had weight, size, speed, and strength all in spades more than probably two of him put together.  Even so, his machoness, bolstered by drink, provoked him into trying to regain some of his pride.

"What you want?" he demanded of her.  "You wanna take a swing at me too, like your little pity case here?   Go ahead, I have witnesses."

"Do you?" she asked.  The voice she used was so quiet and soft that everyone present took an instant step back.  Even Aiden couldn't help a twinge of cold dread surge through him at her nearly silent question.  "Are you aware, Human, what the deadliest part of a Tiger in the wilds is?"  He stared at her nonplused.  Aiden saw one of her paws lift, now standing almost directly between him and Isaiah who was quickly rethinking every choice that had brought him here.

"Their paws can swing so fast and strong that they fracture a bear's skull in one blow.  An adult tiger weighs at their heaviest upwards of 300 kg, or 600 pounds.  An Anthro of my Breed weighs roughly close to that if not more.  I am underweight compared to some.  Not enough meat in my diet."  The look she must have given him made Isaiah's face pale.  "You will apologize to my boyfriend."

"Or...or what?" he asked in a squeak.

"Or I will file a police charge upon you for attempted assault with a deadly weapon," she retorted in perfect coolness.  "The knife you are carrying is a variant of the standard issue KA-BAR collapsible folding blade.  Drawing it as a civilian violates the conceal and carry permitting allowed within city restrictions, as its blade length exceeds the legal limit except in life-or-death defensive situations or emergencies.  And as a side note, it would not have been nearly enough to save you should you have drawn it on my boyfriend."  Her shoulders tightened beneath the dress and she wiggled again in place.  "What will it be?"

Isaiah took one look at Lucy's scarred face before he balked.  He turned and hurried out of the restaurant.  Everyone stared at him as he fled, then turned as one to look at her.  Aiden watched her turn around to look down at him.  The look on her face no doubt had changed from the one she had been previously wearing and she looked into his eyes with the softest, most gentle expression he'd ever seen anyone have when looking at him.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

Aiden looked down and away from her.  He wordlessly sagged against her and felt her arms wrap around his shoulders.  He shivered, hiding his face against her dress front even as the whispers and murmurs cropped up around them all.  Her paw stroked the back of his head silently.

"Can we go...?" he asked her quietly, voice shuddering.

"Yes," was all she said.  They seperated and Lucy turned to give the man's other two companions a sharp nod.  "I would distance myself from people like him," she told them.  "Being involved with such men only brings shame upon you."

The two men averted their eyes and nodded wordlessly.

With that, Aiden and Lucy shambled to the front where they paid for their meal and left Mongol's Grill.  The weight of everyone's eyes burned holes into the back of his head and he shivered more against her.  She helped him walk but said nothing other than to hail them a cab to take them both somewhere to be alone.  They rode the entire way back to her apartment, a place he had only been a time or two before, in silence.

When they arrived, she let them inside, locked the door, and left to go change out of her dress as she explained it was rather tight and uncomfortable when not in a social setting.  He remained on the couch where she left him, clenching his cane in a tight grip.  She returned in short order, now wearing simpler clothes that nonetheless clung to her powerful frame wonderfully.  He couldn't let himself appreciate her curves in them, instead sagging against her gratefully even as her big arms again wrapped around him in one of their tightest hugs.

It took a while for the words to come to either of them.  They just sat there in the dark on her couch, holding each other as shivers, tears, and finally soft sighs of taking one another's scent washed through both of them.  He eventually told her of how he had lost his leg.  She explained how she had lost an eye.  They found out they had shared a duty station once, unknowing of one another's existence.  As of right then, however, they were all one another needed.  He didn't let the foul words of his personal doubts and Isaiah's vileness affect him, so long as he could hold onto Lucy and forget about everything else but her soft, jasmine-like scent.

When at last they had gotten through their painful pasts, he finally spoke up to the only painful note he had left.  "I'm sorry I ruined our date..." he muttered into her chest as they lay there on the couch, him on top of her.  There could not exist a more comfortable bed in the world than her belly fur.  The mounds of her breasts, uncontained by a bra, provided him with gloriously soft pillows that conformed to and supported his head easily for how firm they were.

Lucy growled softly, less a sound and more a vibration that shook him from head to toe.  He had undone his button up shirt and just his undershirt and pants pressed against her rumpled workout clothes.  "You ruined nothing," she told him.  "I vastly enjoy an evening just the two of us rather than a packed outting surrounded by peope."

He glanced up at her single eye.  "Why didn't you just say so?" he asked.

"Because you kept talking about that grill and I wanted to try it," she replied matter-of-factly.

"Doubt we can go back there," he muttered, snuggling deeper into her fur with only a slight tint of personal joy and satisfaction to be the only one allowed to be here with her.

"I doubt they will mind if we give it some time then return," she comforted him with, patting his back too with a big paw then proceeded to massage his tight muscles.  "You are a good man."

"Half a man..." he muttered, unable to stop himself.

"Half again any man I've ever met," she growled, much louder than before.  He looked up at her and she quickly cupped his face in her paws.  "Braver, kinder, gentler, and more handsome than any I've ever had the privilege to know, and I have known many great men."  He looked away sheepishly, not wholly able to believe her.  "And I've loved none of them but you."  That got his attention and he stared down at Lucy's eye in shock.

"L-l-l..." he stammered.

She blinked.  Just once.  Her muzzle lifted up and pressed itself against his forehead.  Her rough tongue licked the skin there, soft and warm pressure soaking right into his flesh.  "A little girl told me to be brave, to tell my boyfriend how I felt.  I am seeking to live up to his example, to move on from my pain and enjoy being with the man who made me feel beautiful again.  I do not need the world, my Aiden.  All I need is you."

"Lucy..." he breathed, eyes suddenly hot and tight.  His vision of her blurred and her arms lowered from his cheeks to wrap around him once more.  He collapsed into her and shuddered even as she shivered up against him too.  "I love you too..."

They kissed, long, slow, gentle, and sweet.  His eyes eventually grew heavy and she wrapped them up in a blanket.  Her soft whisper was a lullaby to him as he drifted away in his girlfriend's powerful arms.

"Day by day, hour by hour, we overcome our pains that alone we could not.  Together, we are something stronger than we ever were.  So long as I have you, I do not care if I have only one eye, as you should not for your leg.  No matter the past, how painful or terrifying, we have each other, my Aiden.  Together we heal."

"Together," he hummed before sleep finally took him.