VG Cats: World 1-1, Part I

DISCLAIMER: VG Cats is the property of Scott "The Mangler" Ramsoomair, whose characters are used here without permission, for entertainment purposes only. This story was not written for profit, and it was not written to libel Scott Ramsoomair.

Visit Scott, Leo, and Aeris at http://www.vgcats.com

This story is intended for mature audiences.

***

Leo Leonardo was afraid.

It was a natural feeling to have, considering he was walking through Hell, but that knowledge did little to slow the frenzied beating of his heart. His emerald eyes were wide with anxious fear, every breath a trembling gasp that filled his lungs with the stench of brimstone; he'd been forced to discard his helmet hours ago, for he had been unable to figure out how to lift the protective visor. The transparent shield kept fogging up with his breathing, leaving him unable to see anything. In those intervening hours, he had made painfully slow progress; it seemed that with every step, every medikit or clip of ammunition he picked up, a demon was ready to lunge out of the darkness and sink its talons into his gray-furred hide.

To Leo, every step he took sounded like thunder from on high, the clomping of his boots cold and solid upon the black stone of the inferno. His ammo reserves were running low; he'd wasted countless rounds merely firing upon shadows, at imagined monsters that had more substance in his mind than in reality. His space marine armor and even the shotgun he held in his paws felt strangely heavy, a sensation he chalked up to battle fatigue. The screams over the radio had stopped long ago, and Leo wished he could stop too, just for a few minutes, to rest. Every muscle in his body ached, shrieking for a reprieve, but Leo couldn't give in to their demands.

Can't stop now, he thought. Not when I'm so near the end. This is the last sector, it has to be. I've already been everywhere else.

Hell had a strangely aesthetic quality to it; the place was a spot-on match for every painting Leo had ever seen, every description he'd read in Dante and Faustus. The corridor he moved down now was primarily black stone, but the bricks were unevenly spaced, granting a glimpse of flickering flame behind them. The walls were lined in some places with rusty iron bars, makeshift cages that were embedded in the stone itself, sometimes empty, sometimes filled with chunks of gore and flesh that still writhed even as Leo looked upon them. The air was foul, filled with a noxious odor that Leo could actually taste; he'd tried to filter it out by clasping a paw over his face, but to no avail. For a moment, he wished he still had his helmet.

Jesus, it smells worse than Dad's cigars. Leo's father was an ardent smoker, often making use of thick, black cigars that gave off a scent that always turned Leo's stomach; on occasion, he preferred a pipe, filling the house with smoke so thick and dark that Leo was forced to retreat outside just for the sake of breathing. The odor brought back unexpected memories of Earth, of happier days with his family, and with Her... all of which seemed very remote now, infinitely far away from this fiery tomb hidden kilometers beneath the surface of Mars.

Before Leo could have the leisure of growing homesick, his thoughts were interrupted by the rumble of collapsing bricks. He spun to the right, bringing the shotgun to bear, nearly emptying a shell upon the crumbling stone and mortar. It wasn't the first time one of the walls had opened of its own volition, but Leo was certain he'd never get used to it. Any hesitation, any pause in his reaction, could very well get him killed.

Leo cautiously peered into the new chamber. No demons in his immediate field of vision... no doors, for that matter. Just the wide, open, dimly-lit room, with the same walls of dark rock, and a sizable hole in the ground in the center of the place. It made sense; his journey through Hell had been a fairly linear one, with few alternate paths for him to take. If the gaping hole was the only way for him to go, then so be it. He gave the shotgun a pump, and strode into the exposed cavern.

He hadn't taken his third step before he fell to his knees, gasping for air. The stench from before had struck him like a physical blow, nearly knocking him over, overpowering as it was. Leo's eyes filled with tears, his chest hacking and coughing in a futile attempt to rid his lungs of the rotten fumes. He tilted his head back toward the ceiling, lifting a paw to grasp at his throat.

That's when he saw it.

The thing stood upon a body that must have weighed hundreds of tons. It was well over two times his height, closer to three, and was more machine than flesh; the right leg from the knee down was crafted of a silver metal. The body was massive, chiseled of pure muscle, the skin the color of leather; the torso was attached to the waist by a dense, thick network of red wires and shifting gears. The left arm vanished at the elbow, melting into the metallic gleam of a grafted rocket launcher. The monster's horns were longer than Leo's own arms, twisting and curling against the side of its face. When it bent over to look down upon him--upside-down, for he was kneeling beneath the monstrosity's tree-trunk legs--he got a clear view of the single shimmering eye, a swirling mass of light like one might see through a kaleidoscope. Its mouth opened in a deafening roar, one that made the very boundaries of Hell tremble in reverence.

It was into this mouth that Leo jammed the barrel of the shotgun, and pulled the trigger.

The cyber-demon's head snapped back, granting Leo the chance he needed to bolt out from underneath it. He tossed the shotgun to the ground like so much garbage; the thing had probably eaten the buckshot he had sent down its throat. The gun would have been no more effective against it than an air rifle. Sprinting along the ebon terrain, Leo reached into his backpack and pulled out his secret weapon.

According to the training video, the BFG 9000 was the "pinnacle" of the UAC's weapons development program. Leo had only used it once, against a pair of those creatures the UAC's lab boys had code-named "Hell Knights". Two blasts from the BFG--one for each of the demons--had been sufficient to reduce them both to cinders. He was confident it would do the same to the goliath bearing down upon him now.

Leo turned about and continued to backpedal, leveling the surprisingly light energy weapon at the demon. It was pursuing him with unexpected speed for something of its size, taking long, quick strides in his direction. Leo sneered at the titan, clutching at the trigger within the glove-like weapon. "Go to Hell!" he shouted. He didn't realize the irony of the statement until it had already passed his lips.

The BFG trembled upon Leo's arm, a high-pitched whine that made his pointed ears splay back escaping the gizmo. The charge indicator upon the gun began to blink, reading 1... 2... when it reached 4, Leo released the trigger. A sphere of bright green light bigger than his head shot from the front of the machine, slamming flush into the demon's chest, concealing it within a haze of emerald smoke.

Leo made the mistake of ceasing his sprint, a smirk upon his furred lips. If he had kept on running, the rocket probably would have missed him.

The missile caught Leo low upon his torso, impacting against his abdomen. In that respect, he was lucky; his armor absorbed the brunt of the blast, ripping the heavy-duty kevlar to shreds while leaving him relatively unharmed. The shock of the blow sent him rolling backward, head-over-tail, but at least he was alive; a few inches higher, and the rocket would have seared his face off.

Leo straightened his posture, rising into a kneel and gasping for air. "Fuck!" he growled, clasping his free paw against the singed fur of his stomach. He gazed wide-eyed at the dissipating cloud of smoke with an expression of disbelief; the demon was still standing. Not only that, but it hadn't even been fazed by the energy burst--it continued to clomp toward him, every smash of its hooves causing the ground beneath him to tremble.

He staggered to his feet, breaking into another run, although he couldn't keep the same pace as before. The rocket had knocked the wind out of him, made it difficult to breathe, his hurried steps threatening to trip over one another. In addition, Leo had limited space to maneuver; a fairly large "donut" of rock surrounding the hole in the floor was stable and safe to walk upon, but between the outer edges of the donut and the walls of the chamber was a yawning abyss like the moat around a castle, a dark pit that Leo couldn't see the bottom of. He had to run in circles around the pit in the room's center, trying to keep ahead of the demon's lumbering tread.

Leo had tried to fire the BFG a second time, but the weapon had not responded; he swore under his breath, realizing that the last shot had drained the power cell. He opened a panel on the gadget's side, letting the clear, cube-shaped container clatter uselessly to the ground before replacing it with a fresh, green-glowing one from his backpack. When he turned to face the demon again, it was directly across the chasm in the center of the room, giving both Leo and the monster a clear shot. Before the beast could aim the box on its arm, Leo fired off another full charge from the BFG. This time, the verdant globe of energy caught the monster clean in the face, engulfing its head in a flash of bright light.

Leo stopped running. He hadn't forgotten the lesson from before, but he just couldn't keep it up; his chest and belly were burned, his lungs screamed with every painful gasp of filthy air, and his knees threatened to buckle. The thing had to be dead, he'd hit it with the equivalent of eight individual rounds from the BFG, each one carrying a charge powerful enough to incinerate anything within fifteen meters. Lucifer himself couldn't have survived that kind of punishment.

And yet, the hellspawn had somehow managed.

"No fucking way," Leo whispered respectfully. The green vapors lifted to reveal the cyborg standing as tall as ever. Leo hadn't even managed to knock it down, let alone kill it. As before, the demon seemed unharmed by Leo's attack; anything else living would have melted into a greasy smear on the spot. The creature stood stock-still, and for a moment, Leo thought that perhaps he had managed to stun it with the last shot. Before he had time to reach into his backpack for a fresh power cell, however, the demon's head snapped to attention, its single eye locking upon Leo. It bellowed a defiant roar in his direction, and lifted the gleam of its rocket launcher.

Son of a bitch wasn't stunned at all, Leo thought. It was waiting for the smoke to clear so it could draw a bead on me.

Again, Leo was lucky. When the demon fired another rocket in his direction, he was able to stagger backward, partially out of range. Instead of striking him in the chest, the missile exploded at his feet, knocking him back as forcefully as if the monster had simply slugged him in the stomach.

Unfortunately, the impact of the rocket was enough to catapult Leo through the air, beyond the safety of the donut of rock, and over the edge of the black pit beneath. Leo screamed as he plummeted into the abyss, vainly flailing all of his limbs, until his mind knew nothing but oblivion.

***

"FUCK YOU, YOU CHEAP BASTARD!" Leo screamed.

The monitor of his computer seemed indifferent to the abuse; the screen faded to a red background with the metallic Doom 3 logo hovering at the top. The options "restart", "load", and "quit" appeared in fiery letters. Behind him, Leo could hear a soft, purring chuckle. "What's the matter, 'marine'? Not going to cry, are you?"

Leo looked over his shoulder with a scowl. Aeris sat upon the edge of his bed, twin fangs protruding over her lower lip as she grinned. The length of her tail, as pink as the rest of her, swished to and fro behind her, making a soft sound as it struck upon the fabric of Leo's sheets.

"You shut up," Leo growled, narrowing his eyes at his smirking counterpart. "The son of a bitch is unbeatable. You saw me, I hit him dead-on with two full BFG charges. Nothing in the game could live through that."

"Yeah yeah, sure sure. They wouldn't make the game unbeatable, dork," Aeris purred, rising from where she sat. The female feline stretched her arms above her head, opening her maw wide and curling her fingers into her furred palms. She smiled down upon Leo with eyes of azure, motioning to his bed with a thumb. "Take five, soldier. My turn."

Leo grumbled irritably, but offered no resistance. He stood from the spot he had occupied for the last hour, wincing while he rubbed his sore backside with a paw. He yawned in turn, cupping a paw to his mouth to stifle the sound, before staggering over to lie upon his welcoming bedsheets. The Doom-a-thon had progressed in this fashion for almost six hours, level by level; when one cat would die, the other would take a crack at the game. However, the latest effort had left Leo exhausted; his heart was still pounding from the encounter with the cyber-demon, his breathing quicker than he would prefer it to be. After the monster made short work of Aeris, he didn't think he'd go for another round in the padded computer chair.

"Hey. Before you get comfortable, could you turn on the light or something? No wonder you get fragged so often, playing with it so damn dark in here."

Leo offered another grumble, but it did nothing to wipe the smirk from Aeris's lips. He strode across the floor, reaching out to flick at the toggle of the wall-mounted light. The fluorescent bulb flickered and buzzed in protest for a few moments--typical of university dorm lighting--before emitting letting out a soft hum, and emitting a bright white glow.

"Do you think you could get the fan too?"

Leo growled. "What am I, your butler?" He was in the process of reaching for the knob of the black fan that stood just beneath the light when he gave a start; the fan was already on, turned to its highest setting. Leo himself had switched it on earlier in the evening to keep the computer cool. As the hours passed, he had tuned out the sound as background noise while focusing upon the game. "It's already going. Are you warm or something?"

"A little. Aren't you?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Not really." It was late in August, and the evenings were quite warm at this time of the year, but he figured it was mostly a female thing; when he was home, his mother would complain about the temperature year-round, how it was always too hot, or too cold. Leo himself never noticed much of a difference. He returned to the bed with a sigh, clasping his paws together behind his head. It felt good to let his eyes look at something other than his monitor; they roamed across his room, taking in the sight of his accomodations.

There wasn't anything inherently wrong with the University of Toronto's dorms. They were small, with plain white walls, poorly insulated, sparsely decorated, and fit with a thin layer of carpet that was an ugly maroon color... pretty average, as far as college housing went. Of course, Leo had managed to spruce things up a little; a compact microwave oven joined the tall fan under the wall light, sitting atop an aged dresser. A small television set that picked up 29 channels (there had been 70 the year before, but the school switched to the cheapest possible cable plan in an effort to save money) sat upon one of the narrow walk-in closets. There were two closets in the room... two of all the major pieces of furniture, in fact, since it had been designed to accommodate two people. But Leo didn't have a roommate, and not due to deserving any special treatment from the school; the past candidates for the position had all complained that he stayed up into the late hours of the morning playing video games. The university was reluctant to discipline him, since he hadn't technically violated any rules, so the administration opted to simply let him have the room to himself. A fairly large Alien Vs. Predator poster was held to one wall by masking tape--the university didn't allow any other kind of adhesive, claiming they all left residue on the walls that the tenants could be charged with removing. There was even a black refrigerator, albeit a small one, sitting just behind the wheeled office chair in which Aeris now sat. However, despite its furnishings, the room was far from tidy; empty pizza boxes were stacked in one corner, and discarded soda cans littered the area around the bed, relics from Leo's late-night gaming binges.

Aeris. Leo smiled at the sight of her. She too had been a regular fixture in his room, although she lived in one of the other dorms. UofT had several divisions of campus housing, but the "best" rooms were in the Towers; South for the men, North for the women. Towers rooms were generally reserved for upper-classmen, but Leo had been lucky enough to be placed in one via lottery. Aeris's placement in the North Tower was for more dignified reasons; she was a scholarship student, and received a measure of preferential treatment from the higher-ups. She visited him often, sometimes to study with him, sometimes to fight with him, mostly just to waste time with him. His parents had purchased him a new computer when he started college, and Aeris shamelessly enjoyed exploiting the bleeding edge technology to play her favorite games.

Leo's emerald eyes ran over her familiar features. She was a soft, warm pink from the edges of her ears to the tip of her tail, save for the black t-shirt and denim shorts she wore. The tops of white socks were visible at her ankles, running into well-worn black sneakers. Her hair had no particular style or braid to it, flowing freely down her shoulders, the triangular tips of her ears poking out from within the mass of pink. Her eyes were dark blue, like the sky on a clear day. Leo purred; she was an attractive young woman, despite the fire of her temper, and her low opinion of him.

Leo frowned; he didn't know why Aeris thought so poorly of him. They had grown up together, gone to school together, spent virtually their entire lives together... and still, she treated him like he was some mixed-breed alley cat. He was a dork, sure, and he could freely admit to that; he barely managed to pass his classes given all the time he spent watching television and playing games, but sometimes he thought that Aeris fared only marginally better, despite her superior grades. Her full name was Aeris Bradford Cole, so whenever she broke the high score in an arcade game, she could enter her initials as "A.B.C." It always amused her to no end, but Leo found it irritating, for the most part.

His fingers absently stroked over the blue bell about his neck, coaxing a soft ring from within the bauble. It had been a gift from her, several years ago, but he wasn't sure if she still remembered. It wasn't the first time he'd found himself thinking about her like this; he'd noticed how pretty she was long ago, when he was still a teenager driven by raging hormones. The hormones were still raging, that was true, but even back then, he'd seldom thought of her in those terms. Aeris was his best friend--she always had been--and to think of her as a potential lover always made Leo feel guilty, and in all honesty, rather nervous. It's not that he didn't like her--he did--and it's not that there weren't other attractive women on campus--there were--but it was only his second year in college, and he hadn't grown close to very many people. The past year with Aeris had been a pleasant one; away from home and his parents, he found he enjoyed her company more than he had before. But even so, he wasn't sure if he could think of his childhood friend as something... well... more than just a friend.

He sighed, gently rubbing a paw across his face. Aeris is right, Leo. When you can think of your life in terms of a plot point from Final Fantasy VII, then you really are a dork.

He shook the uncomfortable thoughts from his head, and looked past Aeris's shoulder to the game that played out upon the screen. Though he would not have admitted it to her, he would very much have liked to know what she was thinking about.

***

Leo is such a dork, Aeris thought.

She just didn't understand it. For someone who spent as much time playing video games as Leo did, she thought he would have paid more attention to their actual content. It was stated in Doom 3 no less than half a dozen times that the Soul Cube was the ultimate weapon against the invading demon horde, and yet, it had never occured to Leo that it just might be the weapon of choice against the end boss. Whereas the colossal demon had killed Leo fairly quickly, Aeris was able to make sport of it, skirting out of range of its rockets, killing the smaller monsters that Leo hadn't lived long enough to see spawn, and hurling the energized Soul Cube against the main demon to siphon its life force into her own.

Thinking about Leo's straightfoward tactics brought a smile to her lips. His style of playing any game was very direct--she wasn't sure he even knew how to strafe--and in most cases, that was enough... but for games that required actual strategy, or elements of stealth, he was hopelessly lost. His logic was admirable: "Why," he had once said to her, matter-of-factly, "should I bother with with disabling the engine on an enemy tank... when it would be so much more entertaining and infinitely more satisfying just to blow it up, instead?" The same theory came into play against the cyber-demon; Leo was convinced that if he threw enough ammunition at it, it would eventually succumb to his immense firepower. In a way, Aeris found it endearing--at least she knew she could count on Leo when it came to being consistent.

She purred under her breath. The game looked fantastic on Leo's computer. The state-of-the-art hardware allowed for a flawless framerate and high-quality graphics; the aging machine she owned would have had to settle for playing at low resolution, at best. Sometimes--albeit not often--she envied Leo. His parents loved him a great deal--they must have, otherwise they wouldn't be paying all of his tution and housing fees--and no matter how mediocre his grades were, they never seemed displeased with him. It made her regret her own situation; her own parents were controlling, and never seemed to see things on her terms. She was lucky to have studied so hard in high school, since her parents probably wouldn't shell out the cash to pay for the university if her scholarships didn't cover everything. When she told them she was going into graphic design, they nearly went through the roof--gave her the whole "starving artist" lecture, and told her how she'd never be able to make a living just by drawing and painting. She was satisfied, however, by the looks on their faces when she asked them if they'd rather she went into computers like "that Leonardo kid".

Aeris felt a pang of guilt. That wasn't really being fair to Leo. Her parents thought he was an utter loser, and that any career path he'd choose simply had to be a waste of time. He loved to play video games... and, to be perfectly honest, that was the only thing he really loved to do that had the slighest chance of making him any money. He could have looked for a testing position somewhere, but those positions were usually temporary, and wouldn't be able to afford him any job security. When he told her he'd decided to go into programming--"To help create the kinds of games I love to play", as he'd bragged to her--she had her doubts, but he'd held his own in his classes so far. If he'd chosen a different major, something with a lighter workload than Computer Science, his grades just might have been better than they were.

A tinkling chime made her ears perk. She glanced back at Leo to see him fiddling with the bell around his neck, gazing at it with a look of fascination, as though it were some precious treasure. She had given it to him when they were both sixteen, as a farewell present, when she thought her family would be moving to Vancouver. That hadn't happened, of course, but Leo still kept the bell. It was odd... she could remember seeing him wearing it before, but she'd never really noticed it until now. Seeing Leo touch the little trinket made her smile.

She allowed her eyes to briefly run over the rest of his body. Leo wasn't bad-looking--he was actually quite handsome, for a tomcat--with fur the color of ashes. There was usually a smile upon his furred lips, which made the pensive expression it now held seem unusual. His eyes, half-lidded, were a rich green that reminded her of the needles of the pine trees on campus. He often dressed in baggy clothing that hung loose upon his limbs, but due to the season, he wore a simple white t-shirt and a ragged-looking pair of blue jean shorts. They left his arms and legs exposed, lean muscle visible beneath his clouded pelt; the gray of his limbs dissolved into mitten-like white fur upon his hands and feet. He was in surprisingly good shape for someone who spent so much time in front of a computer or television set, probably due to the amount of walking he had to do every day just to get to class.

Looking at him, Aeris felt rather flushed, and realized anew how uncomfortably stuffy his room felt. She knew the fan was on, and could feel the breeze it created, but she certainly didn't feel any cooler. At first, she'd thought Leo wasn't bothered by the heat because he was wearing such light clothing, but she wasn't garbed much differently. She squirmed in her chair, returning her attention to the game, hoping it would take her mind off the temperature.

Aeris couldn't help but smirk; when she threw the Soul Cube again, it tore through the cyber-demon's left leg, beginning the game's ending cutscene. She leaned back in the seat with a look of triumph, turning about to face Leo with her arms folded across her chest. "Game over, marine," she gleefully purred, sticking her tongue out at him. "I win."

***

Leo growled in irritation. His skill at video games was one of the few real skills he had, and one he took great pride in. To be humbled in the gaming arena stung, especially when Aeris was involved; he had lasted all of sixty seconds against the demon, while she had annihilated it in less than five minutes. "You always win," he complained, the tip of his tail flicking where it lie upon his bed. It wasn't the defeat itself that bothered him so much as the fact that Aeris--being, well, Aeris--would never stop rubbing it in.

Indeed, she could barely restrain her gloating; she giggled and purred with evident satisfaction, leaning back in the seat to afford Leo a clear view of the monitor. "What's the matter, Leo?" she murmured in a condescending tone. "Don't you want to see the end of the game?"

"Ahh, shuddap," he retorted, rolling onto his side with his back to the pink cat. "I'll see it when I beat it for myself."

Aeris relished the small victory; she always seemed to enjoy one-upping him. "Aww, did I hurt the poor kitty's feelings?" she teased.

Leo turned his head, looking upon her out of the corner of one eye. "Hmph," he snorted. "I'll have you know that my list of gaming conquests is quite extensive, and not to be tarnished simply because you made it to the end of a game before I did."

"Is that a fact?" Aeris mused. She leaned forward where she sat, eyes narrowed. "And what, o mighty conqueror, have you accomplished in your acclaimed career, hmm?"

The gray cat shifted his position, rolling about to face Aeris once more, propping his chin up upon an open palm. "You're looking at the man who unlocked the secret golden kart in Mario Kart: Double Dash. The man who got the high score on the Star Trek pinball machine at the downtown arcade. The man who beat Jaws for the NES!"

Aeris rolled her eyes. "Oh, you must be sooo proud." She grinned, rolling the wheeled chair in his direction, speaking in a low tone. "You know what I've done, Leo?"

Leo arched an eyebrow at her. "What?"

She looked left, then right, as if to ensure that no one else in the empty room was listening. Then she leaned forward and whispered, her breath warm upon Leo's face. "I've beaten Doom 3."

She might as well have punched him in the stomach; Leo's ears splayed back atop his head, his jaw slacking, though he did not speak. He merely growled at her and rolled back over, aggressively working himself into the fabric of his bedsheets. Aeris chuckled, reaching out to gently scratch the disgruntled cat between the ears, and rose to her feet with a yawn. She looked out the window of his room, but nothing was visible; night had fallen, and the world outside had gone dark. Her eyes widened, and fell upon the digital clock on the shelf above Leo's computer: 12:43. "Fuck!" she hissed.

Leo glanced at her. "What now?"

"It's after midnight," she whined. She had completely lost track of time while playing the game. "You know the rules, Leo. The Towers lock up after midnight. If I want to get back to my room, I'll have to buzz the security guard... and you know that guy really creeps me out."

Leo grimaced. The university's night watchman was an old basset hound who looked like McGruff the Crime Dog, if he had fallen on hard times; he didn't walk so much as shamble, spoke in a mumbling voice that was difficult to comprehend, and wheezed with every breath. Leo didn't have anything against him, but Aeris was right--you just got a weird kind of vibe from the guy, as if he might suddenly bite your head off, or--worse--drop dead right in front of you. Nevertheless, if you wanted access to either of the towers after 12:00 at night, he was the only one who could unlock the doors to the lobby for you. Leo pondered the situation for a moment, and shrugged his shoulders. "Why don't you just stay here for tonight?"

Leo could have sworn Aeris began to pale; the pink hue almost seemed to drain from her furred cheeks. "W-what?" she stammered.

Leo shrugged again. "You know the rules as well as I do. It's Friday night. Visitors of the opposite sex can stay in a tenant's room from 10 a.m. Friday to midnight Sunday." He tilted his head, looking at her with a curious expression. "Why do you look so spooked? We've had sleepovers before."

Aeris's color changed again; rather than turn pale, she began to blush, the hue of her cheeks darkening to a light crimson. "Not since we were kittens, Leo. Sleeping together when we were kids is one thing, but it carries different connotations now that we're adults."

Leo looked amused; he eased himself up into a recline, bracing his back against the headboard of his bed, clasping his paws together upon his belly. "Aeris Cole," he chided, "It's me you're talking to. It's Leo. You don't honestly think I'd try anything, do you?"

Aeris gave a snort. "I know exactly who I'm talking to, that's why I wouldn't put it past you." She regretted the words as soon as they passed her lips; Leo looked crestfallen, like a puppy that had been scolded. She continued in a softer tone. "But you're right, Leo... you may be a geek, but you're not a lecher. That's more than I can say for some guys I know. Thank you." She shifted upon her paws, trying to avoid looking directly at him, turning her eyes to the whirring fan, and the darkened window. "Where do you want me to sleep?"

Leo swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat upright. "You can use my bed. I'll use the spare." He gestured to the bed on the other side of the room; it was only a bed in the academic sense, a bare mattress upon a metal frame. The university made students provide their own sheets and pillows, and since Leo lacked a roommate, the other bed had gone unfurnished.

Aeris frowned. "But it's your bed. I don't want to impose."

Leo chuckled. "Yeah, it's my bed, just like you're my guest. I wouldn't be much of a friend if I stuck you with the crappy bed. Just let me get my comforter, I'll be all right." Leo's bed was covered by a thick, downy, green comforter in addition to the standard sheets; he made use of it in the winter months. During the early months of school, when the weather was still hot, it served no purpose. In fact, more often than not, he simply slept on top of his sheets rather than beneath them, having no need for the extra warmth. He grasped the edge of the comforter in his paws, bundled the cushy fabric in his arms, and spread it out along the surface of the spare bed. He sprawled upon the mattress in what looked like the least dignified manner possible, limbs askew, half clinging to the bed, half dangling off its edge--a true cat.

Aeris smiled, the flush of her skin grown more pronounced. "Thanks, Leo," she repeated. "Are you going to bed now? I don't mind if you stay up, I don't have any weekend classes I need to rest up for."

Leo shook his head. "No thanks," he murmured. "I think both you and the demons have kicked my ass enough for one night." He lifted his head to smirk at her. "You?"

Aeris shook her head in turn. "Nuh-uh. I think I might be coming down with something, I don't wanna be up any later than I already am."

Leo nodded. "Have it your way. Just shut down the system before you go to sleep."

Aeris sat back down in the swiveling chair and closed out of the game. Leo's desktop wallpaper was a giant-sized advertisement for the new Mega Man X: Command Mission game; it was one of several titles he'd been looking forward to purchasing--although Aeris could never figure out how he could afford to, for she didn't think his parents would give him a video game allowance--but it wouldn't be out in stores for another month. She pressed the small circular button on the front of the computer tower and watched as the system shut itself off with a beep.

She looked to where Leo lie upon the second-rate bed. He faced the wall, resting his head upon one forearm, for he had no pillow of his own. The length of his tail dangled over the edge of the mattress, swaying to and fro like the pendulum of a clock. Aeris purred, watching the tick-tock of his tail, and murmured, "Do you always sleep in your clothes, Leo?"

He did not turn to face her. His voice was half-muffled by the comforter when he spoke. "Not usually. Just when I'm up too late and don't feel like changing out." She saw his ears perk against his arm. "Why?"

She continued to purr, whispering in a tone that carried a hint of jest, along with something else Leo could not readily identify. "Sooo... why don't you change out of them tonight?"

That was enough to garner a surprised look from the gray cat; his verdant eyes met with her own, body half-twisting upon the mattress to face her. "I don't usually sleep in anything, Aeris. You do know that, right?"

The pink cat shrugged. "It's nothing I haven't seen before, Leo." She smirked rather devilishly, baring her gleaming fangs to the fluorescent light. "Whassamatter? Is the kitty shy?" She already knew that Leo was anything but shy. At last year's big campus Halloween party, they had gone together; she had dressed as a ninja--because ninjas are cool--while Leo had dressed in a white sheet with two eye-holes in it. At the time, she had attributed his poor costume simply to his being an idiot, but in the middle of the party, he took the sheet off to reveal that it was the only thing he was wearing, and streaked out of the residence hall in front of God and everyone: his classmates, his professors, even the caterers. Aeris had considered hanging herself with her ninja scarf to escape the embarrassment.

But she, along with everyone else, had still looked at Leo when he stripped down to nothing. She had seen him bare. Tonight, the warmth in her body filled her with the desire to see it again.

The suggestion of shyness was not one Leo's pride would allow him to stand for; with an indigant snort, he sat at the bed's edge and rose to his feet. He grasped the lower edge of his shirt and pulled it up over his head, shrugging the fabric off his arms. While his fur was predominantly gray, his face, chin, and the underside of his neck were a snowy white, the same as the shirt itself. Once it was removed and dropped to the floor, Aeris could see that the pearl-hued fur spread over his chest and stomach. He began to unbutton his shorts before his eyes rose to meet hers; with a huff of breath, he turned around to face away from her. She chuckled; Leo had that much modesty, at least. She heard the growl of the zipper as it was undone, and watched with attentive eyes while Leo's paws tugged the denim down his thighs. She purred, perhaps without knowing it--Leo was in better shape than she thought. Athletic musculature rippled beneath his ashen coat when he moved, letting the garment fall to his ankles before kicking it aside as though it were trash.

He looked over his shoulder at her, the length of his tail swishing across his exposed backside. "Satisfied?" he murmured.

Aeris smiled impishly. "Mmmhmm." She watched Leo lie down again, the pale hue of his fur contrasting starkly with the dark olive of the comforter. He continued to look over his shoulder, a sort of accusation in his eyes, as if to say, "And you think I'm a pervert." But she made no apologies; as he looked upon her, she rose from the chair, reaching for the fabric of her own shirt to begin coaxing it off her body. She had already exposed her stomach to Leo's widened eyes before she realized he was still watching her.

She spun about to hide her front from him his view, hissing defensively. "It's too damn hot in here Leo, and unlike you, I am shy." Her cheeks had darkened a touch more, the scarlet hue pleasantly accenting her face. "So close your eyes, for God's sake, and give a girl some privacy."

Leo's own face grew slightly flushed, and he was quick to obey, turning his gaze to the wall and squeezing his eyes shut. He could hear Aeris undress, hear the rustle of fabric upon her fur, hear the teeth of the zipper of her shorts as she pulled it downward. Although his eyes were closed, he could still see her in his mind, envisioning the coat of pink that gave way to white upon her chest and belly, just as his own fur did. There came the soft padding of her paws upon the carpet, and the murmur of her voice from across the room. "Do you mind if I leave the fan on?"

"No. Are you sure you don't have a fever or something? If you're getting sick, you might wanna turn it off."

"Yeah, I'm sure. I think just need some sleep."

"Okay. Good night, Aeris."

"G'night Leo."

He heard the click of the light switch and saw darkness fall upon his eyelids. He heard the squeak of the mattress springs as she crawled upon his bed, heard the rustle of the sheets while she pulled them over her body. Only when he was certain that she was no longer exposed did he dare to roll over and face her. His feline eyes could clearly discern her even in the night of the room, how she pressed her cheek into the pillow and gripped its softness with her paws. He smiled, knowing that she could not see him do it. "Aeris?"

Her own eyes opened, glimmering like sapphires in the darkness. "Yeah, Leo?"

"Sweet dreams."

"You too."

***

He kissed her. It felt good to know the press of a woman's lips against his own again. He hadn't been with a girl in far too long; always too busy with class, or screaming in frustration at a new game to actually find a date.

Her fur was soft beneath his fingers, warm and plush like velvet. He thought his coat was a poor match for hers, dull gray against the warm pink, but she didn't seem to mind; she kissed him in return, a soft purr issuing forth from her throat, the sandpapery texture of her feline tongue lashing and striking upon his lips. He sank the fingers of one paw into her hair, his talons whispering through the sea of pink, gently brushing across the tips of her ears.

He drew away from the kiss with a sigh, rubbing his palm against her cheek. "I wish you were real," he whispered.

"How do you know I'm not?" she purred.

"Because the real her would never let me kiss her."

"Have you ever asked her?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I'm afraid of what she'd say, what she'd do. She's my best friend. I don't want to ruin that."

"Why do you say that?"

"Sex ruins the friendship." He had learned that from Seinfeld.

"You love her, don't you?"

"I care about her, yeah. I... don't know what I'd do without her. But I don't know if I love her."

She smiled at him. "What do you think she would do if you told her what you just told me?"

"Her? She'd probably call me an idiot. Or punch me in the face." He paused. "Maybe both."

"Mmm. How do you know she doesn't feel the same way you do?"

"I don't. If she did, I don't think she'd be so mean to me."

The pink cat giggled. "Maybe she's mean to you because she likes you."

He sighed again. "I wish. Somehow I don't think so."

"Poor kitty. Don't give up on her. She's worth it, isn't she?"

"Yeah, she is."

"When you wake up, you should tell her so. I bet she'd like to hear it."

"Okay."

He kissed her again, letting the contact linger, gently raking his claws down her back, his fingers cleaving faint paths through her fur. She broke the contact to smile at him and rested her head upon his chest, softly mewing like a kitten. He closed his eyes and listened to the sound, letting it fill his thoughts while he drifted off to sleep.

***

Leo had thought the mewing was merely a part of the dream, but when he awoke, he could still hear it. It took his eyes a moment to focus in the darkness, but he could clearly see the features of his room cast in the emerald light. His triangular ears flicked and swiveled atop his head; yes, mewing... faint, but definitely not a dream. He turned his gaze toward the source of the sound, toward Aeris, but he could not see her face. She was looking away from him, toward the opposite wall.

"Aeris?" he whispered. No reply. Only the mewing, quiet, constant, urgent. "Aeris!" he repeated, this time more harshly. And again, she said nothing, merely tossing and turning beneath the sheets of her bed.

Leo threw back the fabric of his comforter and crept out of bed, his steps soft and stealthy upon the carpet. He stood at Aeris's side, looking down upon her trembling, writhing shape; she rolled onto her back, revealing her eyes to be tightly shut. She was certainly the cause of the mewing; her lips parted while she slept, the whimpering sound drifting from within.

Leo reached for the switch of the desk lamp by his computer; the old bulb fared little better than the dorm's own lights, flickering rapidly before growing stable, casting a dim light upon Aeris's contorted face. Leo bent down where he stood, grasping her by the shoulders to give her body a gentle shake. "Aeris!" he hissed. "Snap out of it!" Her eyes flashed open in an instant, gleaming a brilliant blue in the dark; Leo very nearly leaped out of his skin, drawing away from her prone form with a sharp gasp.

"Leo!" Her voice was not wrathful, as he expected it to be... rather, she sounded deeply relieved, for reasons he did not understand. She bolted upright in the bed and threw her arms her arms around his neck, hugging her body close against his own. "Leo, Leo, oh, thank God!" she whispered, voice breaking. The pink feline was trembling and crying, and seemed unable to stop doing either.

Leo's first instinct was to wince--Aeris usually lifted her paw to strike him, not embrace him--but when she so desperately held him, whimpering and sobbing into his fur, he reciprocated the touch, slipping his arms about her torso and pressing his paws into her back. "Shhh," he purred, gingerly rubbing his face against the top of her head. "It's okay, it's okay," he whispered. "You were just having a nightmare, it's over now."

Aeris drew back slightly and violently shook her head, pressing both her paws against his chest. "No, no! I wasn't having a nightmare, I wasn't sleeping, I... I was... oh, Leo... Leo, please God, Leo, help me, please!" Her words were hurried and breathless, a panicked whisper, as if she were afraid her lips might be sealed at any moment, rendering her unable to utter them.

Leo didn't know what to make of it; Aeris was, paws-down, the toughest woman he knew. He'd seen her deck guys more than twice her size for smarting off to her, and she'd dropped him flat too, on more than one occasion. To see her in this state, shivering and pleading and so obviously scared frightened him as well. "What is it?" he whispered, kneeling at the bedside and pressing a paw against her cheek. "What's the matter? Why--"

She was hot. Physically hot. He could feel it through her fur, feel it rising from her flesh and into his fingertips, the cool breeze from the still-running fan notwithstanding. Aeris was burning up. "You have a fever," he murmured. "You're delerious. I'm going to call 9-1-1."

He had barely stood up and hadn't taken his first step before Aeris sunk her claws into his arms and roughly pulled him back down to his knees. The pain drew a soft mrowl from Leo's lips, but she was too busy swearing at him to notice. "No, Leo! I don't have a fever, goddammit, I'm not sick! I... I'm..." She lowered her head and bit down hard into her lower lip.

And then Leo caught her scent.

It was an appealing aroma, not unlike that of a rose in the spring. It touched something inside him, something instinctual, coaxed a purr from within his chest, a sound he was too concerned with Aeris to hide. It was potent as well, an odor that seemed to permeate her fur. His eyes widened in the dark, and he finished the statement for her. "You're in heat," he whispered.

Aeris nodded, crystalline tears streaming down her furred cheeks. It was hardly the first time--she wasn't a kitten anymore, and she'd been with males before--but she'd rather suffer its onset at any other time, any other place, with anyone else... so long as it didn't happen in the company of Leo. Please, God, anyone but her friend, her Leo. That was her real nightmare, and it was coming true right in front of him.

"Where are your pills?" he whispered. The university distributed free medication to suppress estrus in females, both for the sake of planned parenthood, and for the sake of academics; estrus in cats could last between two to three weeks, making it impossible for the women on campus to focus on their studies without some kind of aid.

Aeris gave her head another furious shake. "I, I forgot them, they're in my room. It was a stupid mistake, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" The poor cat was squirming where she sat, panting with each breath, anxiously wringing the fabric of the sheet that covered her within her paws.

"It's all right," Leo purred consolingly, resting his paws atop her own. "I'll go get them and bring them back for you. Would that be okay?"

"No!" she cried, clutching him all the more tightly, squeezing her eyes shut. "They... they won't let you in the Tower, not without a female escort. And... and even if they did, you'd have to call the guard to open the door, and... and... oh Leo, don't leave me here alone, please don't!"

"Okay, okay, I won't, I won't leave you," came his hurried whisper, lest she break down into a fresh round of sobs. But it did little to improve her condition; assuming he could get estrus medication, it would take an hour or two to take effect, but if he did nothing, then she'd be like this all night. But what else could he do? "Can't you... uh... sate it, or something?"

Aeris's expression was one of shock. She gently pushed back upon Leo's chest, holding him at arm's length, sky-blue eyes as wide as marbles. "It... it doesn't work that way, Leo. My body isn't a fucking ATM slot you can just stick something in to satisfy!" Her last words were more growled than spoken, but given her condition, it was understandable. She trembled hard within his grasp, averting her gaze from his, and whispered. "I... I need a male... or I need my pills..."

And we've established that we're all out of pills, Leo thought. He bit down upon his own lip, inhaling through his nostrils, and let the breath out in a long, soft sigh. Okay. If that's the way it has to be. I just hope you don't hate me in the morning. Without a word, he leaned in close to her, tenderly swabbing the rasp of his tongue across her forehead, and over the soft fur of her cheek.