Commissioned Story: No Words Necessary, Ch. 1 (Patreon)

NO WORDS NECESSARY
A Commission for GuardianWolfz
Part 1

The clatter of the barbell thudding down into its resting place echoed around the weight-lifting room.  It had a feeling of finality to it, somehow louder than the otherwise tumult and bustling energy that filled the area.  Cordelia Zharatova met the inquisitive eyes of her clubmates without a word before she continued removing the round weights from either end of the bar, an accumulated 400 pounds, and setting them back into their proper holsters.  It was club policy to always make sure things were put back properly.

Rising back to her full height, the towering Russian-blooded, American-born Shark Anthro stretched her rough-skinned, Amazonian frame, nearly bending backwards in half at the dorsal-finned spine while planting her big paws on the small of it to apply pressure.  With a distinct and satisfying crackle similar to packing peanuts bursting, she felt at least a dozen pops, thus relieving a great deal of pressure.  Sighing and shaking her dark hair out of her face, the Tiger Shark dusted off the palms of her workout gloves.  As she turned again to face the room at large, stretching her muscular triceps one at a time both across her shoulders and then linking them behind her back, she glanced up at the hanging banner above the roughly half a dozen girls who comprised her fellow workout enthusiasts.

A bright pink affair, the banner hung from a set of cords attached to the ceiling, bearing the punk-style letting that spelled out "Muscle Sisterhood".  Comical depictions of all of their faces lined the bottom.  She spotted hers, a leering Shark face with overly sized triangles for teeth and hair swooped off to one side over one eye, making her look rather feral and crass.  She combed a clawed, finned hand back through the dark tresses; she was glad to have grown it out more evenly since joining the club.

Suitably feeling refreshed and limbered up from her lighter than usual but still strenuous workout, Cordi plucked up a water bottle and sprayed a jet of liquid into her sharp-toothed muzzle.  Nearby, a chuckle made her glance to the side.  Jet, another Shark woman, grinned lopsidedly as she curled a dumbbell of about 250 pounds repeatedly up and down in one of her bulging arms.  She winked a gleaming eye up at the taller junior member.

"Already tapped out, Stripes?" she taunted.

Rolling her grey-blue eyes but chuckling good-naturedly, Cordi put down her water bottle on the bench where it had been resting before and worked on undoing the Velcro of her gloves before shucking them off.  They always stuck on the knuckles of her paws, making her work harder but still careful to not rip the material on her sandpaper-texture skin.  "I just have somewhere else to be," she grunted back down at Jet.

Rolling her lip up and exposing a line of her sharp fangs, the senior plopped down her dumbbell.  "Running off to your 'job'?" she teased.  Several titters and huffs of amusement came from around the room.  Cordi didn't rise to the ribbing and instead tucked her gloves into her workout bag.  "You know I have to haze you for it."

Sighing, the Tiger Shark turned back around.  Two others had ceased their workouts as well, Linnohn, a Snow Leopard Feline leaning on a barbell, and Felka the Mustelid who was hanging one-armed from the pullup bar nearby.  All of them were fixing their lazily amused expressions on her.  She tongued a spot on the inside of her cheeks petulantly at them.  "Well some of us like to strengthen our brains not just our bodies," she huffed.

The room rang with good-natured, sisterly laughter.  Jet crossed her arms and winked.  "Don't try and fool me, small-fin," she teased.  "We all know where and who you're running off to."  Cordi flushed slightly, causing her iron-grey and white skin to darken across her cheeks.  "Like you are wanting to every time we turn our backs on you."

She growled slightly out of embarrassment down at her clubmates, all of whom were as heavily built as she was, if not as tall.  A prime specimen of Shark, Cordelia, or Cordi as she liked to be called, was almost nine feet tall from her clawed feet, up her iron-hardened and muscular physique, across tone abdominals, up and over her currently sports-bra-straining chest, and to the top of her shaggy-haired head.  Such she towered over most of her fellow college Anthro students, but that had been much the same since childhood and not having filled out in weight and muscle till middle school.

"I've told y'all before, it's my job," she repeated as she always did whenever challenged on where she was already packing up her remaining equipment and belongings.  She detached her music player from a band on her bulging arm and shoved it into her sports jacket front pocket before she pulled the coat on and struggled to zip up the zipper over her chest.  It always got stuck right underneath her girls, and gave her a rather shelf-like upper body appearance when fully closed.  "Also I won't be able to be there tomorrow for the drive.  Sorry."

"No worries," replied the club leader, a Canine woman named Indigo.  "You going to be busy I assume?"  Cordi nodded gratefully and Indigo nodded back.  "No problem, it's just the annual cleaning drive.  You already put in plenty of hours of club activity and you deserve an event off."

"Wonder what might be keeping her so busy... ," teased Jet.  "Your job, eh baby girl?  I ain't judging; gotta love where you work after all."

"Or who you work with," added Linnohn with a purring chuckle.  They all laughed again and Cordi, grumbling and gnashing her teeth in annoyance to hide the purplish tinge to her cheeks, gave them all a wave before she stomped out of the room, closing the steel door behind her.

The cold, still wintery air of the February dreariness hit her rough skin like a rubbing down with an icy cloth as she stepped out of the Physical Education building, having to duck her head beneath the door frame slightly, and then began making her long-legged way, combat boots crunching on the slurry of ice and melting snow frozen onto the pavement, up the university hill towards the distant looming shape of the barely visible library.  She spotted a platoon of Pre-Legion Training Cadets running in formation, Drill Sergeant at the head, and she made room for them.

She gave them a two-clawed salute with her fingers to her throat, a gesture that the Sergeant mirrored respectfully before she bellowed at the top of her lungs back at her panting cadets, both Human and Anthro alike, "WHERE WE GO WE FEEL NO PAIN~!" in a rhythmic cadence to match their pounding boots.

"Where we go we feel no pain~" echoed the panting troops.  One, a Human, almost stumbled and a squadmate, a burly Anthro, reached down and snagged them under an arm and hauled them back up and along with them until they got their feet under them again.  Both traded a smile then they resumed running in step with their fellows.

"TILL WE SEE THREE SUNS AGAIN~!" continued the Sergeant as she and the company rushed down the decline of the hill and around a corner out of sight.  Cordi smiled to see them go; there but for a single occupational choice would she have been as of a full semester ago.  Every Anthro was required to take either a 2 year military service, often enlisting straight into or out of college, or a 4 to 6 year term in civil services to give back to the Anthro community.

She had taken the latter, not out of a real love of such work and wanting to work with people, but more rather, the love of one very special individual.  She set her sights on the library rapidly coming closer as she set to jogging to make up for what she felt was lost time, even if she wasn't actually late.  Her long, athletic body drew multiple eyes in her sports jacket, booty shorts, boots, and wild, short hair, long finned tail waving behind her shapely posterior, but she only cared about one person looking at her.  Her heart thrilled as it always did just thinking about it.

***

Nestled in the far back corner of the library, near to the computer lab which always had its doors open wide and most often populated by the gaming community of the college, a lone, small, darkly clad person bent over his table, scribbling furiously at his course work.  Ordinarily, no one would ever take these spots, even as nicely made as the wooden double-benches were around the individual cubbies, for the noise levels.

But noise, in a very grimly amusing way, had never bothered Carter.  The young Human, barely 20 years old now as of last month, seemed to be completely undisturbed by the loud chortling, swears, and banter that drifted from the open door not twenty feet away.  Anyone else would have found it very difficult to concentrate on their homework, but he had been 'blessed' with the ability to easily tune out the world around him when he wanted to.  The gleam of his cochlear implant caught the light through his thick, shaggy brown hair, hanging in heavy curls around his ears, disturbed only by the earpiece of his implant on the right lobe, and down to his shaven cheeks.  The heavy coat he wore was made more against the bitter chill of the Febuary air outside, but he liked being warm so he kept it on over his thick white sweater and dark cargo jeans.

Muted sounds drifted to him but were widely ignored as his gentle hands scribbled down the notes from the massive open text book set in front of him.  Whenever he needed a mental breather, he would reach over to his open sketchpad and add more lines and details to the doodles he had been working on since sitting down.  The scratch of his pencil on the paper, the shift of his bodyweight, or the barest brush of the air conditioner brought minute tactile sensations to him that brought on a sense of complacency and calm.  Only ever so often would an occasional utterance or voice pierce the muted, background hum brought to his auditory attention by the device attached to his head.  For a functionally deaf person like him, these were more akin to abrupt touches, making him twitch slightly before he resumed his solitary, perpetually quiet existence.

He was used to being alone, not just out of his shy disposition but also out of a feeling that it was easier to adapt to being different when he didn't have to deal with others.  There weren't many that would overlook the implant on his head and not look at him after with a mixture of pity, slightly degrading interest, but otherwise nonchalant dismissal.  Only one person didn't look at him like that, save for his parents.  Only one ever treated him like he was just like everyone else.  He glanced at his watch, noting the time and flushing a bit.  She was supposed to be here soon, and he truthfully was just killing time until she arrived.

Speak of the devil, although speak was more of a colloquialism for him since he didn't talk save for using sign language, he felt a sudden buzz against his leg where he kept his phone.  He retrieved it with a blink and opened the screen to see that she had texted.  A simple waving hand emoticon.  He knew what that meant and turned around, heart racing just a little more than it had been, to see the giantess standing nearby.

His heart thudded up into his throat as he looked up to see Cordelia looming over him.  She looked like some kind of muscle-bound Olympic goddess in her workout shorts and sports jacket.  She towered over him by a good three feet in height, head taller than some of the bookshelves.  Her perpetually toothy grin was wide and eager to see him and her brilliant, storm-grey blue eyes gleamed.  She waved one big paw before she pulled out her much larger phone.

Sorry I'm late.

He shook his head up at her, giving her an admonishing grin before he pulled up the messaging app they used to chat rather than text messages, and sent her back a reply.  You are never late.  I've never seen you be late for anything in my life.  Not in three years.

Cordi huffed down at him, finger pads whirring across the flat of her screen.  Well I wasn't early, she chided.  In Anthro that means late.  How much farther ahead of me have you gotten?  At his nod, she shuffled her oversized way into the bench across the tiny-seeming table between them and leaned over.  Even from here, he could smell the salty scent of her sweat and natural body odor.  It was by no means an unpleasant one and he tried not to make it clear he was able to smell it at any given point.

For all her size, Cordi was a bit of a shy girl around him.  He had no idea how she was around others, although he did know she was in a weight-lifting club.  She always had been that way since they had met in high school.  He had been incredibly surprised and immediately wary of such a larger girl when she had been assigned as his personal school assistant to aid him in graduating at the same time as his fellow students.  It became apparent early on however that she was a gentle giant, always trying to find ways to make him feel more comfortable around her.  Even the Wave sign had been a learning process, since, due to the fact he could hear when even her no doubt ponderous tread drew closer, he had been scared heavily a number of times when she used to 'sneak' up on him and touch his shoulder, head, or implant with a clawtip.

She'd always felt so bad about it, so that was when they had settled on the texting option instead.  It wasn't that he also didn't know what her voice sounded like, albeit he knew that the cochlear implant wouldn't be 100% accurate, but they had quickly settled on that texting to speak was just easier for the both of them.  They otherwise could always fall back onto using Sign-language, or he would read her lips.  They were rather attractive, scarred and rough-looking as they were, hiding her row upon row of shark teeth, so it was a win win for him.

With her now leaning in toward him, almost having to look at things upside down over his shoulder from the cramped position she was crammed into in the seats, he showed her how far he had gotten on the latest assignment, comparing the notes in the textbook to the ones she had taken for him during the previous lecture.  Together, they worked on clarifying the spoken parts with bits of text as well as her elaborating on what the more complicated passages she had written short hand for his sake.  It was an easy ritual for them both.

Eventually they finished that project and, despite that it wasn't due for at least two weeks, set to idly working on the next.  He glanced up to see that sometime during the study session, thinking he had seen her glancing at his sketchpad but when he looked, she was focused hard on her own books.  Sometime since arriving, she had reached up and undid the zipper of her jacket slightly, airing out her sweaty collarbone, and thus exposing the vast view of her grey and white skinned cleavage, practically shoving them across the table at him as she stayed crammed into the bench across the small table from him.  He watched a bead of sweat drip down between the valley of her pair of buoyant bosom, his face heating up a bit before he hid it in his hair.

His phone rumbled then and he glanced at it out of habit.  She had waved at him again.  He glanced up at her but her nose was buried in her own phone.  He shrugged and waved back.  Silly, yes, but these little games seemed to make Cordi feel like she wasn't some huge Anthro and him a deaf little Human.  After everything she had done to try and make him feel like he fit in with everyone else when he knew he never truly would, it was the least he could do.  Besides, it was fun for him too.  It was like they were boyfriend and girlfriend sometimes how she teased and played around with him, and while he had no confidence that it was anywhere near real on her end, it was a wonderful imagining on his part.

I need a snack, she told him after his message had finished sending.  She glanced down over her phone at his face and grinned, arching an eyebrow meaningfully in an incentive for him to come with.  He shrugged and nodded, closing his book.  Both of them set their packs in their chairs to make sure the seats were clearly marked as being used, and together they strolled out of the main library down the otherwise vacant hall to a secondary one with two vending machines.

Cordi leaned on one, easily towering over it with her 2 and a half meter height as he fed the money into the slot and punched in the code on the screen.  His phone buzzed in his pocket again and he eyed her oddly to see yet another hand wave.  Why wasn't she just talking?  He could hear her fine enough when it was just them.  What's up? he messaged back.

She met his eyes then quickly glanced away.  Her tail waved behind her, seemingly agitated about something.  She tapped out a one-pawed message while the other raked her claws through her hair, swooping it out of her face.  He liked her with her new haircut, but she had always seemed so attached to her usual punk-style half-shaven head look a year ago.  What had changed, he wondered?

Can I talk to you about something? she asked.  Not school related.  He gave her a thumb's up in reply and watched the snack he had ordered slowly wind its way towards the doors before an automatic shelf snagged it and deposited it into the openable slot near where he had punched in the code.  His phone buzzed.  What are you doing tomorrow?

Nothing, it's the weekend, he replied.  I might read a book or draw.  I know you have that meeting of yours.

Nah, I canceled.  He looked up at her in surprise but she didn't meet his gaze.  Her tail was lashing a bit more forcefully and her ear tips had folded down against her hair.  The girls understood.

I thought you loved the club, he wondered at her questioningly, forgetting his snack for now.  You've never messed an event as far as I'm aware.

I do love it, she assured him.  But...I wanted to...  She seemed horribly conflicted about something before she just hung her head.  Look I just wanna say what's on my mind, okay?  He nodded and she pointedly put her phone in her jacket pocket.  She turned to face him directly, shoulders set as she cast a tremendous shadow down across him.  Her mouth opened and quivered, lips shaking across her teeth before she swallowed hard and, speaking clearly more for the mouth read than out loud, "I like you."

The world ground to a screeching halt for Carter.  He stared at her incredulously for several long seconds as he tried to possibly comprehend the meaning of what she had said.  He mulled it about in his mind, considering any and all possible definitions.  He wasn't dense nor dumb.  But there was no possible way what she said meant what it was supposed to.

He signed back up at her, trying to play it off as something innocent even as his heart raced and hammered in his chest.  I like you too.  You're my best friend.

She frowned down at him, shaking her head.  She resorted to signing too so that every word could not be taken for anything less than the exact gestures she used.  Not friend.  I like you, Carter.  Her face was horribly scrunched up, lips curling back over her teeth in a grimace of discomfort but she remained stoic.

His stomach clenched and he swallowed hard.  The feeling of being shoved into a box suddenly surrounded him as she loomed above him, so large and intimidating...and beautiful.  He looked down from her, refusing to meet her eyes.  He shook his head.  She didn't want him, even as good of friends as they were.  This had to be some kind of delusion.  Somehow he had read the signs wrong.

His phone buzzed.  Eyes feeling hot, he plucked it out.  I like you.  Is this easier?

He shook his head again but this time at her, not just at the disbelief of the situation.  I don't understand, he told her.  I have nothing to offer you.  Before him, something big and heavy leaned down towards him, intensifying the claustrophobic feeling building inside of him.

Another waving hand emoticon.  An upwards arrow.  He dared to tear his eyes away from the screen to see Cordelia kneeling in front of him, their heads almost level now.  She put a paw on his hands, covering the screen of his phone.  Her storm-grey blue eyes bored down into his, fixing him in place.  Her other paw lifted, gentle as a breeze, to touch the side of his head, gently cupping the cochlear implant and indeed half of his skull in that rough, warm palm.  Her smile was nervous and unsure, something he would never understand.  She was always so confident it felt like, except around him.  He had always wondered why.

He didn't like it.  He wanted her to be strong, proud, confident, to get everything she ever wanted out of life.  She was his assistant as a job, assigned by his teacher to work with him in high school so he wouldn't fall behind.  She had even transferred to the same college he had gone to.  It was just for the job, and they had become friends after all.  But she had her own interests, her own club and friends.  She wouldn't get anywhere with someone like him hanging around, dragging her down.  She deserved so much better than a little disabled boyfriend clinging to her like he so desperately wanted to right then.  He wanted more than anything to walk forwards into her arms as they folded in around him, crushing him ever so gently against her.  She smelled...so nice.

Her muzzle brushed the side of his head, nuzzling into his hair but careful of his implant.  Her arms surrounded him, warm, strong, and rough to the touch, grating on the fabric of his clothes but...  His hands remained where they were, still holding limply onto his phone.  She leaned back from him, letting their eyes meet again.  She smiled, gentle and small, then retrieved her own phone and tapped out a rapid but lengthy message to him.

He looked down as his device buzzed in his hands, eyes already sweeping across the wall of text.  I know you don't always feel like you belong.  I know you struggle with a lot of self confidence issues because of everything.  You've never had a girlfriend before today because you always told yourself they'd be better off without you.  That you won't and couldn't ever contribute anything to them.  But I'm nowhere near as happy as when I'm here with you.  I don't need anything from you to know I like you.  I want to be here, Carter.  I like you, so much that I want to be strong enough that you'll never need anyone else but me to feel safe around, to feel loved by.  It's taken me three years to muster up the courage to say this to you, like I wanted to from the first day we met when I volunteered to be your assistant back in high school.  All I want for myself is to try and make you see how I see you.  One date.  That's all I need.  One.

He looked up, teary-eyed from his screen, vision blurry, to see her holding up one solitary, clawed finger.  She had been following along as he read, waiting.  He looked past that grey-skinned paw to her still softly smiling face.  His mouth opened and he took a deep breath in.  He blindly sent her a message on the phone, hands trembling.

She glanced down at the two words he had managed to type out.  She looked back at him and repeated them, mouthing each one deliberately.  "Tomorrow.  Noon," she confirmed.  "The mall."  She beamed, light flashing off her rows of sharp teeth.  She sent him a message back before standing up and holding out her paw for him to take, looking equally as shy as he was about this big first step.  He took it even as he read her latest IM.  Girlfriend?

His fingers tapped out an instant reply as her paw enveloped his other fingers completely.  Boyfriend.

***

The next day, Carter sat on the mall bench.  He nervously adjusted his tight sweater underneath his coat, wishing he had dressed nicer.  It was supposed to have been warmer out today but another chilling breeze had come to the area, meaning the button up dress shirt he wanted to wear had to be put aside in lieu of warmer clothing options.  He still wore nicer pants than usual, idly doodling on his sketchpad as he waited for Cordi to arrive.  She had messaged him a bit ago apologizing for being late, even if it was still thirty minutes early.

He smiled shyly as he continued to draw on the same sketch from yesterday, that of a faceless female anime-style character with short, wildish hair but with two pins set into the side, holding that part of her hair down and accenting her features with the colorful flowers adorning them.  He'd always loved short, messy hair like that.  His phone buzzed and he glanced down to see the usual hand waving emoticon.

Carter looked up and stared at the sight before him.  Gone was Cordi's usual athletic attire he had always seen her in.  She wore a tight red, long-sleeved sweater that clung to her muscular frame like it had been painted onto her, slit on the elbows and back obviously for her fins, and faux-fur trimmed pants that cut off at the knees to fit the also fuzzy boots she wore over her feet.  Her tail waved behind her as she held a thick leather, winter jacket folded in her hands over her lap as she gazed down at him.

His eyes tracked up her busty, powerful frame at last to her sparkling eyes, and then to her hair.  Wild.  Shaggy.  Pinned on one side by two clips.  He had always loved hair like that...

She smiled.  He smiled back.  No words were necessary.