Love in a Flooded Place

It would have been a morning like any other, were it not for Rose’s splitting headache the moment she opened her eyes. Heck, even before then, in her pseudo-asleep state moments before waking up, she could tell in her dreams that something was different. She had this unnerving feeling that something was amiss, and not solely due to the aching behind her eyes. 
She placed a handpaw against her right temple and sat up in the bed, gazing on to her left over at her still-asleep best friend, Megan the Fox. Despite not being a couple, they were as close as friends could get without being one, so they both slept in the same bed. Rose had stopped taking out the futon twenty sleepovers ago. 
She remembered the first night she—Megan—suggested Rose join her in the bed rather than sleeping “on the floor” as she put it. Rose was hesitant. She definitely wanted to sleep in the same bed as her friend, but might it not send the wrong signals? Then again, they practically lived together anyway, given how often she stayed over at her place. It was her bed, after all. 
Besides, claiming they would be the ‘wrong’ signals would be inaccurate anyhow, since Rose’s internal feelings most definitely steered in that direction. She would lay in bed many-a-nights fantasizing about the day she would build up the courage to just go for it. To embrace her and hold her tight like she was hers and hers alone; nobody else’s. Sure, they had kissed a few times while in a drunken stupor, both of them pretending not to remember it happening the following morning, but Rose wished for the real thing. To go all-in and put her cards on the table, but what if her Straight gets beat by a Flush? Should she risk ruining the good thing they already got going for them by saying something stupid like “I love you”?
These thoughts haunted her mind every waking hour. Normally, she wouldn’t be such a nervous wreck about something as silly as romance. She’s always been a confident snep, but something about Megan just tears her walls down. 

She nudged at her shoulder, softly to try and not wake her up in case she was still fast asleep. 
- “Zzz...”
“Yup, she’s still in dreamland”, she whispered to herself, uncovering her dark-furred body from beneath the duvet-cover and revealing her half-naked body to the world—or at least the bedroom. She wore naught but a dark-purple bra and a matching Sloggi hipstring to cover up her sensitive parts. 
Easing her way out the bed, she traversed straight into the en suite bathroom to brush her teeth. 
“That’s strange...”, she murmured, not finding any toothpaste whatsoever. She could have sworn there were still some paste left in the tube from yesterday. She was the first one to get ready for bed, though, so perhaps Megan used it all up and didn’t say anything?
Rose shrugged it off. “No bother”, she thought. She could always just buy more come Monday. 
She sniffed at her armpits to determine whether she should shower. Whilst she certainly should, she decided to skip it for later. Even with the bathroom door closed it was far from sound-proof, and she did not want to accidentally wake up the sleeping fox. 
“Eh, I’ll do it later. Brekky time!”
It was a warm, weekend, summer morning, so Rose felt no need to dress up and traversed down the stairs in her underwear only, taking a right once at the bottom past the turn, walked through the living room and straight up the slight incline into the open-plan, lifted kitchen to prepare her morning cup of coffee. 
A delightful, warm brew of dark coffee from ground beans, a quarter-ounce of sugar, a conveniently pre-packaged couvert of cream, and one big marshmallow to sweeten the deal even further. That would surely help with her headache, too. 
“Huh? What? No, that can’t be right...”, she muttered, opening cabinet door after cabinet door, drawers and closets alike. They were all empty! Not a single glass, no cutlery, no napkins: Nothing! 
Had they been robbed? Even the coffee-maker, toaster, and waffler were all gone. The only thing they seemed to have left behind were the microwave, until she examined it further and noticed it was not only unplugged but a different model, too. Same shade as their previous—metallic gray—but a different make altogether. What on Earth was going on? 
She turned around facing the living room to check out the rest of the room, but the TV and most other furnishings seemed to be there. Only small knick-knacks were missing here and there, but strangest of all was the fact all the paintings hanging around the room had been replaced. Not with cheaper copies or anything, just straight up switched out with completely different paintings. 
She stepped down from the kitchen raise-up and heard a... splash? Yeah, it was a splash! Within seconds, she could feel her feet getting wet and, indeed, there was a thin layer of water all across the living room floor! But it was dry when she walked down earlier... 
Rose even checked the downstairs restroom and, no, the faucet wasn’t leaking or any of the sort, so what gives! She could swear the water was getting deeper, too, but... How!? And if it kept increasing at this rate, it would soon reach the wall-sockets! Although, soon as that thought crossed her mind, she noticed yet another anomaly with her residence... There were no wall-sockets!
She checked the kitchen again, making sure there were no leaks coming from there, and as with the rest of the house, the socket she would have used for her morning coffee was nowhere to be found. It was as if it had never even existed. She wanted to dwell more on that in particular, but she did have more pressing matters to attend to, after all. 
Her house didn’t have a basement, so no way that the flood came from there. Could there be a burst pipe somewhere in the walls? Sure, she would be able to locate the source if that is the case, and so she set out to search each and every inch of the first floor’s walls. 
Starting with the kitchen, since that’s where she was currently, then moving on to the living room once satisfied it wasn’t the culprit. 
The living room was the same story: Nothing seemed awry—or at least, nothing seemed to be the cause of the flooding, that is. 
She spent a remaining ten-or-so minutes examining and scrutinizing every wall of the downstairs, top to bottom. Kitchen, living room, entrée, restroom, the hobby-room, and even the pantry. Nothing!
During all that time, she hadn’t even noticed until now that the water’s level reached all the way up to halfway up her legs. 
“That’s it!”, she spoke determinedly, wading her way through the living room toward the front door. If she couldn’t stop the source of the flood, she could at least open the door to let it flow out whilst she contacted a plumber to deal with this. 
She made it to the door within seconds, eager to get it open to let the water loose. However, the door’s knob refused to budge! 
“Ugh, what now!?”, she irately exclaimed. 
The door locks from the inside, yet when she twisted the lock, the door still wouldn’t open. She turned back around quickly, wanting to check on the backdoor leading into the yard, and it was the exact same story. She was half tempted to barge into the door and breach it open, but no way could she afford such damage, she thought. That’s when she looked down at her soaked feet.
“...Right, I’m an idiot”.
Deciding not to use her body like a battering ram, Rose opted instead to try the nearest window. She half expected it to be locked as well, but it wasn’t. No, rather, there were no option to open the window at all. It’s as if the handle to crank open the window had simply ceased to exist. 
Come to think of it, when she tried to look outside the window, she got this weird feeling on her mind. Like what she was seeing wasn’t even real. It was akin to her staring at a poor-rendition painting or a picture, not her actual backyard. She had to make sure and, though Megan was still asleep, Rose had had enough and decided to try and elbow the window to shatter it. 
Thud!
“Ow! Sunnova—Gyah! That fuckin’ smarts”.
She tried to remain quiet despite the pain, placing her left handpaw onto her right elbow, rubbing it and caressing it to relieve the ache. Her efforts had literally bounced back at her. The window felt more like a brick wall than thin glass. 
The pieces were all starting to fit together for her, though she wasn’t quite yet ready to make the conclusion. 

Fed up with this nonsense, the leopard went to grab the hammer from the tool-drawer in the laundry room. When she found the drawer to be empty, however, she wasn’t even surprised anymore. Of course it would be empty. 
The water had now reached up to and surpassed her knees, making traversal slow, sluggish, and tiresome. Not to mention rather noisy, too, if she desired speed. Though at this point, whether or not Megan woke up seemed trivial, so she didn’t bother to try and keep things hush anymore. 
In fact, perhaps it was about time she woke her up and notified her of the situation. 

“Megan! Megan, wake up!”, Rose shouted on her way up the stairs all the way to her bedroom. She was still sound asleep, so she upped her methods and nudged her shoulder. Even then, all she got in response were some groggy groans, so her light nudges turned to vibrant shakes that finally broke the fox’s barrier of unconsciousness. 
- “Nngh, uh... huh? Rose? What is it? Argh...”, she’d ask groggily, rubbing her temples. 
- “You’ve got to get up! There’s something weird going on, and I can’t really fathom it, but I need your help!” 
As with Rose, Megan, too, woke up with a soaring headache. 
“W-what’s wrong? Does your head hurt?” 
Despite the predicament downstairs, Rose’s concern for her friend took precedence. 
- “Mmn...”, the fox nodded, seating herself upright in the bed with her feet on the floor. 
Strange. They both had waken up with intense headaches. In Rose’s case, it made sense. She had consumed some alcohol the night before and wasn’t very diligent on the hydration front. But Megan, she hadn’t consumed a drop. She wasn’t much of a drinker; preferred to keep her mind sober. Whilst the leopard could agree with the fox’s line of thinking, some nights all Rose wanted was to forget. 
Forget about the time Shannon pulled her hair in middle-school; Forget about the time she was forced to shower naked with the other girls in high-school, and forget about her previous flame that burned a scar onto her heart. She hadn’t thought of it thoroughly before, but she only now just realized maybe that’s why she always wanted to be drunk when in the presence of Megan. Too afraid to reminisce about him, so she would drown her sorrows in liquid Obliviate. Maybe then she would finally muster up the courage to just ask her out already...
- “You didn’t have anything to drink last night after I went to bed first, did you?”, she asked, doubting she would have but wanting to hear it directly from her nonetheless. 
- “No. You know I don’t drink”, the fox affirmed. 
- “Yeah, so I figured”.
- “What do you mean by that?”, she asked, tilting her head to the side - like canids do. 
- “See, I woke up with a headache, too. I obviously presumed it was because of my drinking last night, but it somehow still felt “off” somehow. Know what I mean? Like, it felt more intense than it should have been, despite my consumption of vast amounts of cognac and barely any water”.
Saying it out loud, it made Rose realize how she had been running away from her personal problems using ethanol as her method of escape. It made her feel very self-conscious, and much as her emotional side told her to curl up and cry or run away, the logical side of her brain powered through and won out in the end. 
“...Sigh, but if you didn’t consume anything before bed, it means something happened to us whilst we were sleeping. I’ve been downstairs and almost nothing is as it should be!”
- “Huh? How so?”
- “Like, it feels like my house, but everything is different. I know I sound insane, but it’s like someone drugged us while we were asleep and transported us to a near-identical copy of my home. It would explain the headaches!”. 

She truly did sound insane, but the cadence of her voice revealed no deceit. Though she sounded genuine, the fox still had a hard time with comprehending her words. 
- “W-what? Why would someone even... And how..?”, she asked befuddled, struggling to understand. “Drugged”? “Identical house”? It was too much for her still-waking mind to take in. 
- “I don’t know, but we need to get out of here now!”
- “Alright, let me just—“. 
Megan reached for her clothes on the floor, thinking she should get dressed and not get up wearing nothing but her fur-matching briefs and bra, but soon as she stretched out her arm, Rose grabbed her paw and pulled her out of the bed. 
- “There’s no time; your underwear will have to suffice!”, Rose uttered, dragging her along into the hallway and down the stairs until they were met by the ever-flooding first floor. In the time she had spent upstairs explaining the situation to Megan, the water had risen all the way up to the step just below the stairs’ kink. 
- “You didn’t mention your house was flooding!”
- “Right! Ugh, I knew I had forgotten something”, Rose facepawed. 

“That’s why I’ve been so urgent with you. I went downstairs for some coffee when I noticed the flooding, but I couldn’t find a leak anywhere. I can’t even open any of the doors, and the windows won’t shatter either. I don’t know what to do, but we have to find a way to get out of here. Whoever built this place clearly built it to be waterproof, maybe even air-tight. For all I know, this is all some sick pervert’s doing!”
Rose rambled on and on for quite some time about who she suspected, how they could have done it, etc. All trivial stuff considering their more pressing engagements, so Megan eventually put a stop to it. 
- “Rose. Rose! ROSE!!”, the vixen exclaimed, finally garnering the big, black cat’s attention. It was unusual for her to freak out like that, like, ever. There must have been something going on in her mind to cause her to react this way, and not solely the fact her—erm, this house they were currently in was slowly filling with water. She could sense there was something else going on behind those eyes of hers. 
Rose began to profusely apologize, but was cut off by the feeling of her feet getting wet once again. The water was rising, now at an alarming rate. It wasn’t a passive rise anymore, like a weed growing slowly and you only notice the difference if you have looked away for a long time. But now, they could both see with their naked eyes that the water was rising quickly, and their time was running out. 
- “We need to find a way out of here before the whole house is underwater”.
Easier said than done, but what choice did they have? Megan suggested they try to find a way out of the second story, if only because it would prevent her from getting wet just yet. It made sense, though, since Rose was unable to break through anything downstairs with no water present, she was highly unlikely to be able to do so with water in the way, even if their manpower had nearly doubled. 
They started with the windows, each one being exactly like those downstairs. Even the emergency fire exit in the guest room was defunct! The time spent examining all the windows, even trying to break some of them with a blunt tool that Megan found but to no avail, gave the water time to climb the stairs, now starting to pour onto the second-floor carpets. 
That did not deter the pair from trying further attempts, though. If anything, it only fueled the fire within them, encouraging them to try harder. Since they had determined this wasn’t actually Rose’s home, they cared little about causing damage. Rose threw a lamp, a stool, then a chair, followed by herself. She regretted that last one even before the impact, but she clearly hadn’t learned yet from her lesson downstairs. 
With the water now reaching up to above their knees, it made traversing quickly between the rooms rather difficult. Water sloshed and their fur got wetter by the second, and soon enough they couldn’t even walk anymore, forced to swim around. 
- “We ain’t getting anywhere...”, Rose uttered, rather despondently. 
- “That doesn’t mean we can give up. We just need to push forward. Eventually, we’ll catch a break, I’m sure!”
Their conversing continued for a hot minute and, before they knew it, their heads bumped into the ceiling. 
- “Huh, what? No, no, no!”, Megan exclaimed. “I don’t want to drown!”
- “We’re not going to drown, okay? We’ll find a way out! Do you trust me?” 
She looked the frightened fox deeply into her eyes. Rose had no idea whether they would make it or not, but she wanted Megan to feel some semblance of hope, at least. To comfort her; to be there for her in this time of need.
- “I trust you, Rose. I always have...”
There was so much more they would both have loved to say to each other, but the water’s ever-rising threat cut them off. 
- “Take a deep breath, Meg!”, Rose commanded before following her own advice. 
“HuuuaaAAAAGH-mmn..!”, they both breathed in and dove beneath the surface, watching up at the ceiling as the water finally managed to out-compete the last bit of air left. They were now entirely at their own lungs’ mercy.  

Rose’s eyes were quick to adjust to the water, so when she took her eyes off the ceiling and looked over at Megan, she could see her relatively clearly. The fox was pinching her nostrils shut with her left thumb and index finger, whilst Rose’s snout was all exposed, clearly displaying Rose’s adeptness at being underwater whilst Megan showed off her more novice abilities. 
Rose placed a paw on Megan’s shoulder to keep her comforted, then nodded her head and signalled for the fox to follow her. Their chances may be slim, but they still needed to try and find a way to escape. 
Rose started swimming toward the upstairs hallway, Megan following behind her with sluggish movements. The water made what little clothing they had stick firmly to their bodies, even becoming somewhat transparent, particularly their bras...
They made their way through the hallway and down the stairs, landing and floating at the base of the stairs by the house’s main entrance. Unfortunately for them, said entrance worked neither for ingress nor egress, as displayed by Rose trying once more to turn the knob to no avail. 
- “Mmblrbl..?”, Megan stared at the leopard, worry starting to form on her face. She had only been holding her breath about thirty-or-so seconds, but she could feel the urge to breathe already building up within her. 
Rose noticed the vixen’s increasing worry, the most telling sign being her cheeks inflating and becoming puffy behind her handpaw that’s still pinching her snout shut. 
- “Blrblrbl...”, a few bubbles escaped Rose’s nose. 
She looked around, desperately thinking of what to do next. How could they escape? Or, if escape was not an option, how could they survive? They would need to find some source of sustainable air, but... The entire house was flooded! 
<<Dammit! Shit, shit, shit, what the Hell’re we gonna do..?>>
The leopard leapt onward, grabbing hold of Megan’s free paw and holding onto it whilst they swam in unison through the kitchen and into the pantry/garden room where she had previously tried elbowing the window. 
<<M-maybe this door will magic(k)ally work now..?>>
She twisted the knob slowly, but her anticipation was met with yet another egress-denial.  
- “Mmmblrbl-blrubl!?”, the fox exclaimed, having just felt her first contraction. 
Rose was quick to turn around and understood too quickly what was awry with her friend. She was running out of breath! 
The dark-furred cat looked around desperately, thinking maybe there would be something in here that could help them out. Preferably an oxygen tank, of course, but she didn’t even keep those around in her real house. No doubt this replica wouldn’t have any either. 
- “Mmmb!!”
That said, maybe they could find something to breathe around here regardless. Upside-down buckets, plastic bottles, anything would do, really. 
So whilst Megan was forced to focus solely on not exhaling and holding her breath tightly, Rose started rummaging through cupboard cabinets and drawers that she had previously passed on when her focus were more that of “find hard tool”. 
- “Mmn, mmnb..! Mmb! Bloarblrbl-mmnbg!!”, the fox struggled, eyes straining and ears folded backwards into airplane wings. She needed to breathe, preferably now!
Rose could hear Megan’s audible struggles while she searched. 
- “Mmblorfblbltfbl!”, Rose cursed into the wet abyss, not finding a single source of breathable air. Running out of options, Rose saw only one solution, temporary and risky as it may be...
She swam up to the fox and held onto her shoulders, comforting her. 
- “Mmmnnggg!!”
<<Rose, please! I-I can’t hold it anymore! I’m gonna drown!>>
Within seconds, Rose’s lips met that of the vixen’s. Rose replaced Megan’s fingers with her own, pinching the fox’s nose for her, making it easier for her to share her breath with her. 
- “Huuuhhh, mmmn~”
Megan could feel her tensed-up muscles relaxing as she hungrily breathed in her friend’s charitable gift of precious air. She could even feel one of—nay—both of Rose’s handpaws on her cheeks, as if to pull her deeply into what was no longer just an essential act, but an act of lust and passion: A kiss!
Wait, was Rose really kissing her? They were both in danger of drowning, yet Rose is seizing the opportunity to cop a feel? It’s not like she minded it, she just... Never thought Rose would be so into her the same way she was into Rose...
 “Mmn-mmnblrbl... Mmnb~”, the pair moaned in each other’s embrace, no longer concerned with their inevitable fate lest they escape, but instead caught up in the most passionate moment they had felt for one another yet. 
Foregoing their predicament, Megan wrapped her fuzzy arms around Rose, reciprocating the feelings shown unto her, and with that confidence-booster, Rose even took it a step further. 
She pulled Megan closer, close enough to where their chests collided and rubbed against each other. Feeling the fox’s brad-up breasts pressed against her own was a sensation the snow leopard had longed after for years, and the friction created was indescribably arousing. 
- “Mmnb, mmmn~”, she moaned deep into the fox’s maw. 
Megan’s eyes shot open after such a bold move by the leopard.
<<OhmyGod, her breasts! Rose’s breasts are touching mine!>>
Again, she didn’t mind it in the slightest. In fact, this was something that she, too, had longed for ever since Caden, her wolf ex-boyfriend introduced them all them years ago. 
- “Mmn... Mmmnmmn~”, the fox responded, essentially giving Rose the ‘all clear’ to continue her doing, and sure enough she wasted no time. Megan could feel Rose’s handpaws behind her flawlessly unbuckling her bra and taking it off, basically stripping her naked. Rose was even bold enough to put one of her filthy paws(~) on Megan’s breast, toying and playing with it with the deepest of affection. 
Megan sucked in some more of Rose’s air—the closest she could get to ‘taking a breath’—then broke off the kiss, leaving Rose confused for a second, but with a wink and a smile from the vixen, her confusion was soon thereafter met with understanding as Megan slowly made her way down the leopard’s body. 
Starting with her breasts, Megan fondled them through the purple fabric, moving on down her torso to her stomach, and then, when reaching her destination, Megan gracefully pulled down Rose’s matching-in-shade ladies’ underwear, and watched as they fell to the ground below them. 
<<There, favour returned~>>, she smiled, though her scheming wasn’t quite done with just yet. 
She looked up and her eyes met Rose’s. The leopard smiled and nodded back, daring the fox to proceed with her cunning plan. 
And so, she did. The fox firmly placed both her handpaws onto Rose’s butt-cheeks, feeling just how soft they truly were. <<They’re even softer than mine!>>, she laughed to herself. 
With the paws in place, she pushed Rose’s crotch toward her and snuck her snout up to her folds, rubbing her nose against it at first before daring to upgrade her service to tongue.  

- “Mmmbllooorblrbl-oourbllrbl!!”, moaned the bottomless snep into the water as she played with her breasts, the loss of air enough to her losing some buoyancy and actually sinking down some. Not that any of them noticed it much, because Megan, too, spent lots of air trying her best to please her friend’s pussy. 
- “Blrblrbllb-mmblorblrblrbl!~”, she’d blow onto it, kissing and licking it with burning passion whilst she also snuck her left paw down her own panties to finger herself, and it wasn’t long before the both of them climaxed. Rose’s juices sullying the water’s around her waist, as well as Megan’s lustful face, whilst the fox merely sullied her own undies. They shared a moment of  euphoric silence together, with Megan staring at Rose’s clit whilst Rose rejoiced in the bliss that was ejaculation. 
Soon, the post-orgasm clarity hit them hard, though, and they finally felt just how down bad their lungs were to catch a breath. 
“Mmmng-blrblmng!?”, they both blurted out in unison. 
Rose covered her mouth, whilst Megan pinched her snout, bulging out her cheeks. Each looked in differing directions in a desperate search for air!
- “Blrblrlb-blrblurblrbl!”, Rose’s nose erupted, further depleting her already-drained lungs. She looked up at her own exhale, watching the silvery bubbles from her nose-burst slither their way up to the ceiling and gathering in a myriad of tiny upside-down puddles of stale, exhaled breath. A sign of what was to come. 
She took her sights off the ceiling and back down to the equally-drowning fox before her. Rose might have felt close to drowning herself, but she could tell by Megan’s struggles that she was even closer to a perilous end. 
Her cheeks were bulging in and then out, her fingers clenched shut her nostrils like her life depended on it—which it did, to be fair. Her eyes were shut and straining intensely, and Megan’s body thrashed around in the water. Toes curling, tail twisting, chest and stomach heaving with each aching contraction. 
- “Mmnng! Nnnggg! MMnnblorooorblrb-BLOORBLRBLRBLL!!”
Before Rose could even react, Megan’s willpower had failed! Her maw burst open and her cheeks deflated, exhaling every last bit of breath she had within her! She gritted her teeth and gripped at her throat to try and dam up the flood, but water kept breaching through. 
“Gurglrlg! Mmnnggrlg-gykg!”
Megan’s body twitched with each horrifyingly painful ‘breath’ she took, her chest convulsing, causing her bare breasts to bounce. 
<<Megan, no! No, don’t drown!>>
But her pleas went unheard, for now the fox’s eyes shot open as she swallowed down her first gulp. The first of many to come. 
- “Gurgl! Glurglrgl! Glug, gurgll! Mmmnblrglrgl-gykhrgl!”
Seeing her best friend in such a situation truly broke Rose’s heart, and with that, her own will to keep fighting. If Megan was going to drown, she would make sure she didn’t drown alone. 
- “Noooblrblrbl-bloorblrbl! Bbrlooorbll!!”, Rose emptied her lungs in solidarity, awaiting the inevitable force that would surely come and force her to take a liquid breath of her own. 
<<Just take me already, like you’ve taken Megan!>>
The leopard’s survival instincts were stronger than even she knew, because as much as she tried to force down a gulp of water, her throat wouldn’t allow it. It clammed itself shut and she was now basically asphyxiating rather than drowning. 
- “Gllrgl! Grgkk! Hurgkl-blrlbll! Hurgllkglrgl—grlgl.... rgllgmmn...”
The end result would, naturally, be the same, though. After several agonizing moments of struggle and sheer panic, her movements became more sluggish, slower, and her eyes felt heavy. As with the fox, she felt herself sinking down to the floor, her mind darkening with the last thing on her mind being the sight of her drowned friend...

“GAAAASP!!”, Rose’s eyes shot awake, breathing heavily and panicky, clutching her aching chest. Her heart was racing as she looked around. She was back in her room, back on her bed! With Megan beside her, resting peacefully; snoring heavily. 
How could this be? Was it all a very bad, very nightmarish dream? But it felt so real! Surely it must have been real, but then again...how would she still be alive if it was..? Rose noticed, however, upon closer inspection, that Megan was sleeping without her bra on, and an all-too familiar tingling feeling between her legs urged her to lift the duvet cover to check and, sure enough, Rose was missing her panties... 

The End