Gray Rains Near the Barracks

- Part 1 -

	L.B. stared out from the general’s window, the raindrops making long lines down the frames. It was silent in the small cabin, save for the murmuring of a fan and the shuffling of paperwork. His small nostrils flared with the scent of food, redirecting his gaze to the kitchen. A tall, jawless jackal stood in the doorway, perking his ears and face out towards the petite jackalope who had been sadly staring out towards the barracks. The jackal’s expression was muddled and confused, as if he was trying to figure out why his medic was upset. His rust-colored eyes flickered to the window, but it didn’t yield many answers. 
	“Don’t look at me like that, Sir,” L.B. muttered, turning his face back towards the window. A concerned grunt came from the silhouette in the kitchen, which rapidly approached the jackalope. Thin, black claws rested on L.B.’s shoulder, pressing down firmly enough to cause the timid creature to look up once again. “The rain makes me sad, alright Stalzahne?” 
	The mute jackal shrugged his shoulders, understanding washing over his face, before he stooped down to nuzzle the small male’s hair affectionately. The moment was broken quickly, as it always was, and Stalzahne made his way back through the kitchen, into his office. He wasn’t lacking in love or affection. This was just the way old military dogs handled it, in order to feel like they weren’t losing a part of themselves. 
	L.B. lifted himself off the wooden seat, eyes staring at the doorway in which Stalzahne had passed through, before giving an aggravated huff. He picked up his light jacket, tossed it over his medic uniform, and exited the door. It closed behind him with a pathetic click, as the jackalope’s blue eyes adjusted to the grey sky. There were only one or two soldiers out today, but they were of course the more water-oriented species in the base. 
	His furred paws stepped down off the patio, down into the thick dirt that was becoming mud as the rain intensified. A small shiver passed down the boy’s spine, accompanied by a quick glance back at the warm cabin of his mate. Ears flat and tail drooped down, he turned to face forward once again, telling himself not to go back until he felt at least a little better about the entire situation. L.B. fantasized about what would happen when the rebellion was over, and he could finally return home with Stalzahne, with no body to care or bother with contacting them. 
	Stalzahne had made it perfectly clear that he was too old to worry about once they left, even with the awards he had gotten for his sacrifices, and even though that depressed the older jackal, it made young L.B. very happy about the prospect of their future. If no one was planning on bothering his mate, then that meant that no one would bother with finding out who Stalzahne was seeing, which meant that Stalzahne finally wouldn’t be so cautious about their relationship. The problem with that entire fantasy was the simple fact that it was still a fantasy, and nothing ever happened like that in the real world. 
	Something caught his eye as his mind raced through all the prospects, causing him to tilt his head back up from looking at the mud and rocks below his feet. It looked like some kind of fire, slightly behind the treeline that marked the beginning of the surrounding woods. His tail instinctively flashed it’s white call, and his tiny, rabbit-like nose furrowed and wiggled with adrenaline. A fire in this weather was very odd, indeed, and L.B.’s fascination with the paranormal was not helping any. 
	There were said to be creatures that were different from what the media liked to call “Earth Species”, such as Stalzahne, but most of them had been put into reservations of sorts on the outskirts of towns. L.B’s ancestors had been some of these exiles, but eventually their species was accepted as a hybrid of “Earth Species”, which improved people’s impressions of their family greatly. Though that didn’t mean that L.B. got strange looks every now and then anyway. 
	As the jackalope’s legs started running in the direction of the flame, he considered all the possibilities of what a random flame in rainy weather could be. It could just be an open, small fire that accidentally occurred. These were woods after all. But his mind continued to turn back to the creatures that lived very nearby to the base. They weren’t at all confined to those reservations, and were welcomed in most modern cities, but there was still stigma and fear attached to their culture when it concerned leaving their homes. 
	L.B. himself had seen a couple of them in documentaries, and they learned about them in his medic training, but he was from such a small town that it was nearly impossible to see one roaming the streets. Stalzahne had told him stories as they fell asleep numerous times about a couple of odd species he’d seen during various battles. And as the jackalope slid carefully down a hill towards the source of the flame, his heart leapt with what his vision took in. 
	It was what looked to be a velociraptor of some sort, except for it was a lot rounder, and it’s scales seemed to be a lot softer. The most noticeable feature, however, was the burning flame on the end of it’s tail, and the lovely orange color that it’s scales produced. L.B. carefully approached it, sniffing with all his might to try and catch a familiar scent, but there was a tinge of what he assumed was the fire that continued to startle him off the scent. As the odd raptor turned it’s head towards the approaching noise, it’s eyes widened, unsure and paranoid. 
	L.B. stuck his hand out, waving it back and forth in both a hello and a sign of peace, which the reptile obviously understood, because he vocally expressed it. “H-hello,” he said slowly, almost in confusion as to whether or not this odd rabbit-deer looking thing could speak. The voice startled the jackalope almost into a fainting spell of excitement and unexpected surprise, but he recovered quickly enough to crouch down next to plump lizard-like creature. 
	“Oh, oh sorry. Hi there. Like an idiot, I didn’t think you spoke,” the jackalope replied, blushing underneath his fur in annoyed embarrassment at himself. When the raptor nodded his head with an understanding eye-roll, L.B. decided to continue to explain himself. “To be fair,” he began, “I haven’t exactly seen something like you before. It’s almost like you’re both feral and anthro, and I mean-- you’re on fire.” In the strangest, most feral action L.B. had ever seen from something that was literate, the reptile tilted it’s head to the side, giving out an odd combination of growls and amused purrs. 
	“I’m not on fire. I’m a charmeleon. There’s a difference,” it replied, getting up on it’s feet just under the cover of the ledge above it. “My name is Charem. And what’s yours?” it asked in an oddly reptilian voice, the head beginning to tilt once again in curiosity. The jackalope leaned upwards too, looking down at the smallish charmeleon, before sticking out his hand to shake with a big smile,” My name’s Leoni, but everyone calls me L.B, so just stick with that.” A surprised and excited giggle-purr-thing escaped the orange lizard-creature’s mouth once more as his claws wrapped around the boy’s hand, shaking it up and down in the way a child who had just learned something new does. 
	“Are you going to be okay out here in the rain with that flaming tail of yours?” L.B. asked him sincerely, concerned with the wellbeing of this new species he had the pleasure of meeting. His focus shifted up towards the trees again that tried to hold back the rain, but couldn’t prevent it from falling, no matter how many branches they stuck in it’s way. The feral voice snapped his gaze back down once more as it replied to the question. “I don’t really know. I’m not supposed to be in the rain, that’s for sure.” 
	The small jackalope wiggled his nose as he thought quickly, trying to think of what he could do for the male he’d met. A smile broke through the nose wiggling as he leaned over once again to establish eye contact, ears flicking forward eagerly. “Well, I have a place I’m staying in that base up there, and I’m sure my ma-- my uh, my general-- wouldn’t mind if you stayed long enough to dry off and eat!” This offer seemed to be music to the bipedal creature’s ears, and he had definitely thought about what would happen if he stayed out here much longer, despite his nervousness in meeting new anthros who were not alike him. 
	Furious nods implied that he indeed wanted to go with L.B., and as the thunder began to crash against the tree-tops, he bent down once again. Thin arms wrapped around Charem’s abdomen, picking him up and under the thick, double-breasted jacket to keep his tail and body out of harms way. 

- Part 2 -

	L.B. ran through the rain, which was quickly becoming a downpour with each step he took. His feet were becoming soaked with the mud, sending chills up his spine, but causing him to run a little bit faster. Jackalopes weren’t meant for this kind of weather, with their docile nature and soft fur. And L.B.’s particular lack of paw-pads on his feet wasn‘t helping. 
	The lizard-like creature, who had named himself as Charem, wasn’t struggling inside of his jacket, however. It was the same reptile had spoken to him down in the forest he was running from, and had a glowing flame on the tip of it’s thick tail. That flame, surprisingly enough, wasn’t burning L.B. or his medic jacket at all, and the jackalope made an unconscious note to ask about it later, just as the pair came under the shelter of the cabin’s patio. 
	The rain was accompanied by thunder and lightning at this point, fluffing the medic’s fur underneath the warm clothing with the electricity pulsing through the air. L.B. flicked his large ears forward, listening and looking for any sign that some soldier on the base might be watching his activities. The coast looked clear, though, and not even the marine species were out to enjoy the weather. It wouldn’t be this empty once the rain stopped, but there was no use worrying about it now. With one gruff sigh, he readjusted Charem underneath the buttoned jacket and entered his general’s cabin. 
	It smelled like fireplaces and paperwork inside of the abode, and L.B. smiled with the ever-so-familiar scent as he closed the door behind them. Unzipping the jacket, he carefully dumped out the pudgy reptile onto the clean, hardwood floor, before lifting his head to sniff out his superior. In all honesty, L.B. didn’t know how the jawless, black jackal would take the news of company inside his office, but L.B. always made it a habit to fight for things he wanted. 
	“Sir..?” the jackalope questioned loudly, ears moving back and forth to try and pick out a reply, but there wasn’t any. Shivering from the cold weather, L.B. moved forward into the living room right in front of the jackal’s office, signing to Charem to stay put. He tried again, this time cautiously using the informal call of his general’s last name. “Stalzahne..? Are you here?” The name apparently had an effect on the called man, because he came peeking out of his office almost immediately, with cursing gurgles. 
	Apparently L.B. had rudely interrupted some important documentation, as made apparent from the sighing and frustrated gestures towards a desk full of scattered papers. The flailing from Stalzahne ended with a very scolding snort out of flared nostrils, and an impatient look of “What do you want?’. Stalzahne never enjoyed being interrupted, especially since he couldn’t verbalize exactly what had been interrupted or the exact amount of annoyance he had at the interrupter. This was widely known around the military base, and especially to L.B., but the young medic had felt that he had to tell the general about this whole scenario. 
	“I know, I know…You really don’t like it when I disrupt your work, but there’s something really important!” the jackalope began, ears folded back in the proper form he had been taught. It was almost beat into everyone working on the base that if you had ears, they were to be folded backwards in submission if talking to a superior. Stalzahne had, in particular, always loved it when L.B.’s ears were folded back. His small medic looked very much akin to a sad kitten every time they conversed formally. The annoyance was quickly fading out into empty curiosity about what would be so important as to make L.B. break a rule. 
	“I went out into the rain, sir, because I was feeling a little down, and I thought a walk would help. Don’t ask me why, I just thought it would…so anyway…I was walking, and I saw this flame off in the distance, so I went towards it…,” L.B. explained, his small hands trembling as he picked mud out of his fur with his eyes facing downward. That was not normal for anyone on the base, but the jackalope was able to get away with it because of Stalzahne. The whole behavior was blamed on his specie’s nature, but in reality it came back to Stalzahne enjoying L.B.’s company too much to punish him for it. That same jackal was now noting the behavior, bitten ears tilted forward to try and pick up on where the conversation was going. Flames in the forest on a rainy day? He definitely did not like where this might lead to.  
	“Yeah, so, anyway…remember how you tell me about those weird creatures sometimes? I uh-- I found one! And I kind of brought it back here…,” L.B. concluded, looking up from his shy grooming to figure out what Stalzahne’s reaction would be. The jackal was giving a hefty sigh from his nose, as his face contorted into an angry stare, and his ears flattened harshly against his head. The small jackalope trembled slightly, off-put by what seemed like an imminent ass-kicking, before he raised up his ears in defiance. “You’re the one who was saying that you didn’t mind them, and that you’d seen them bunches of times!” L.B. argued quietly, trying not to alert the bipedal reptile in the other room that the two of them were fighting. 
	Stalzahne gave a vicious glare, followed up by an odd combination of gurgling fluid and growls. With a swift turn, the jackal marched back to his office, shuffling papers this way and that, before picking up and returning with his note cards. There was an awkward silence, as there always is when arguing with a mute, while Stalzahne hurriedly scribbled his answer to L.B.’s point. The pen wiggled this way and that in unrestrained aggression, before the card that was being battered was thrown towards the medic, who caught it with trained expertise. The jackal got back to writing his second point as L.B. began to read what was on the first card. 
	“It’s not that I don’t like him,” the card began,” It’s that I’m the only one on this base that likes him. I could give less of a shit if he was here, but I’m responsible for the troop’s stationed here, and I’m telling you right now that none of them want anything to do with those things.” L.B. looked up from the card with a severe pout on his face, watching as the general finished up his second card and continued onto his third, planning on giving the whole argument to the youngster as a whole. While the jackal’s scarred hand scribbled words onto the lines, L.B. looked off towards the small entranceway where he’d left the charmeleon (which is what the creature had told him was his species). 
	Stalzahne finished quickly, well-versed in writing things faster than most people could, and handed his medic the entire stack of cards he had written in retort to L.B.’s actions. Quietly and submissively, L.B. picked up the second note card and began reading the continuation of the last one. “You joined this army knowing that most of the troops here would be older veterans of war. You knew that coming into this. So, you should definitely know that most of us here have certain ideas associated with their kind. Old dogs don‘t really learn new tricks.” The last phrase called the jackalope to tilt his head upwards, staring at Stalzahne in embarrassment. The entire card had made him feel pathetic and child-ish, and the large jackal obviously knew this, because as L.B. turned his eyes towards him, he gave another scolding grunt through his nose, before motioning for him to continue.
	The blue-eyed mixture of species let his eyes drift back down as he shuffled to the third card, focusing his attention to read the barely legible words. “Many of the furs here accompanied me into battles where the other side had utilized particularly outraged creatures. We’ve seen the powers some of those things have. You haven’t. And some of our friends died because of them. Most of us have killed at least one of them. No wonder we have some stigma.”  L.B. whined softly to himself, looking back up at his commander with a new look of amazed disbelief. Not many reporters had mentioned any creatures in the previous war, and if they did it was to render the creature’s position as neutral. No one had ever told him or written that they were potentially dangerous, or that they had even fought at all. Most of the news documented horrible acts of war against things like Charem, and blamed soldiers such as Stalzahne for massacring whole villages at a time. 
	But Stalzahne wasn’t the type of person to lie about anything, especially things that happened during wartime. The officer was nodding his head at L.B., a look of understanding displayed on his face, and made a motion with his arms to illustrate explosions and what looked like fire-breathing, before pointing with his finger to the fourth card that lay in L.B.’s hand. “I don’t blame them. It was war, and that stuff happens. But some of the men on this base do. So you better get him the fuck out of here.” When the jackalope looked back up from his reading, the officer was pointing towards the other room’s door, ears folded back. 
	“Sir! He’s not going to stay here forever, I just wanted to get him out of the rain! He’s got a flame on his tail and everything,” L.B. protested, flailing his arms with the note-cards in hand, before he continued on with his convincing,” He’ll be out of here as soon as the rain is over. I’ll sneak him out the back under my jacket, the same way I got him here!” Stalzahne listened to him, watching the small boy’s face carefully, before shrugging his shoulders in defeat and exasperation. Slowly, he got out another note-card and wrote a response, pushing it into the medic’s chest until L.B. grabbed it. 
	“Fine, but if you get caught it’s entirely on you. I won’t protect you this time,” the note read, along with Stalzahne’s face. The petite jackalope’s face lit up with a smile, as he clapped his hands together and leaned forward to hug the officer. Stalzahne blinked slowly, arms out straight while the hug was given, before arching down to push L.B. off affectionately. But he stopped moving just as he made the motion, and as the L.B. looked up towards Stalzahne’s face, he realized why. Charem had finally lost his patience, and had come curiously wandering into the new room, but was now stopped and staring at the couple. Deep growls were being emitted from the jawless throat of his superior, and the thick, black fur that puffed out of Stalzahne’s military jacket was sticking out in aggression. 
	The two had remained completely professional in front of every single soul that visited or lived at the base, and not one person had suspected that any kind of romantic relationship was shared between L.B. and Stalzahne. This was partly because they worked very hard to appear just as they did six months ago, before they had known about each other’s feelings, and partly because they were both what some people would call ‘socially-inept’. Not to mention that an old, stressed jackal that was missing a jaw, an eye, and parts of his ears wasn’t exactly on anyone’s list for a potential mate. But L.B. could see that this whole image that everyone on the base had of them was now threatened for Stalzahne, because there was now one person in the world who knew exactly what was going on, and it happened to be a little fire-reptile named Charem. There was one thing that the jackalope warned every newcomer and ally on the base about, and that was that the old war-hero known as Stalzahne did not take any kind of threat lightly. 
	Slowly and firmly, the rabid jackal pried L.B.’s arms off of his waist, back fur bristling up in anger. As the thunder clapped very coincidentally outside, Stalzahne made a couple, very deliberate steps forward, with a look that L.B. recognized distinctly as the look that meant he was on a mission to kill. Before he could think, the jackalope was reaching out and grabbing his commander by the arm, desperately trying to prevent any fighting that was bound to occur. “Sir. Sir. Sir! Stalzahne! Hey, come on, lemme talk to him, come on. Please don’t hurt him, please…please, please…just let me talk to him. He’s not going to tell anyone,” he begged, as his fingers almost lost their grip over the infinitely more powerful male. L.B. could tell that it took Stalzahne a wave of self-restraint to allow himself to be pulled back and stopped, which was L.B.’s sign to move fast before the wave was broken. 
	He scuttled over to Charem, who was watching them both with his body rigid in fear and confusion. Quickly getting onto the raptor-like being’s level, L.B. began explaining the situation to Charem, apologizing in between sentences while keeping a watchful eye on Stalzahne. He told him about the secrecy of their relationship, and what would happen if someone on the base was to get word that the commander and his medic were sleeping together. Stalzahne would lose all the respect and medals that had taken so long to gain, the both of them would probably be attacked in some way or another, and they would both be kicked out immediately. Charem understood, nodding his head before tilting it to gaze at the black, jawless fur. 
	“I get it, mister…I’m not going to tell anyone about you two. I’m just going to forget I saw anything, and move on after the rain is over,” the reptile said, trying his best at reassuring Stalzahne and making it clear that his words were completely sincere. A suspicious expression overcame Stalzahne, who took a step forward before catching himself and moving back to his original position. He grunted for the attention of L.B., who stood and turned back towards him, head lowered in the way a child does when he realizes he has severely messed up this time. Stalzahne gave him a couple of gurgles, pointing between the two of them, before flattening his ears and going back to his office. This time, however, he left the door open and repositioned himself to see L.B. and, more importantly, Charem. 
	L.B. pouted heavily, before sitting down cross-legged in front of the charmeleon, giving a quiet shudder in an effort to diffuse the tension built up inside of him. Charem gave a comforting growl, before flopping down in a sitting position, tail slowly sliding back and forth on the wooden floor. “What did he say, anyway? That last part with all the…gurgling...and pointing,” he asked L.B., head tilted to a degree in his confusion. The jackalope chuckled a bit, still amazed that no one besides him could read the general. It was a skill that had only been brought on by his quick mind and lots of mistakes, but he could now read Stalzahne like a book. 
	“Oh, well…he said that if you told anybody, he would kill you, and that if you got caught on your way out and told someone, he would kill both of us. Or something like that,” L.B. explained,” I can’t exactly read what he’s thinking in his head.” Another loud burst of thunder vibrated the walls, causing both of them to shiver in fright and surprise. The jackalope chuckled a little when it was over, watching the grey clouds of the day fading into darker clouds of the night. “Well,” he laughed,” It looks like it’s going to be awhile. We’re going to have a long night ahead of us.”