The march back to the tent was faster than the walk up, and full of tension.  Geraden strode ahead of the others, his old legs swinging like a metronome. Todd was sure that he would be running if he could.

“I’m sure she’s all right,” Adam tried to console the Rabbit, hurrying behind him. “She probably stayed in a hotel for the night. She may have seen the fire on the news and turned around to come back. That would explain why she hasn’t called.”

That made Geraden pause for a moment.  “Yes… she would have come back… but she would have called the Order before we did if she saw the fire on the news!” That got him moving again, more worried than before.  Adam sighed, hurrying after the group as they turned the corner into the hospital parking lot, the tent standing tall next to a grassy embankment.

“Geraden!”  Arvetis looked up from a group of three other Order members he’d been speaking to, sitting on his cot as Todd followed the group inside. He was smiling – the first genuine smile Todd had seen on the Wolf’s face since the day before the fire.

“She isn’t at Westriver,”  Geraden growled.

“What?” Arvetis’s smile dissolved instantly.

“Adam called. She never arrived. Get me one of the police officers.”

Arvetis nodded at one of the Order members, who hurried off.  “Geraden, I’m sure she’s fine.” Arvetis didn’t sound sure, though, and he wrung his paws together in front of himself. Geraden sat next to him on the cot. “The police will find her,” Arvetis said, putting his arms around his lover.

The police did not find her. That night, Geraden filled out the missing persons’ reports as Order members put up cloth dividers between the marked-off sleeping areas. Todd was grateful for the hint of privacy, but the hanging cloth did nothing to stop the sound of soft crying from Arvetis’s and Geraden’s room after the lights were dimmed. When sleep finally became necessary, Lisa turned to face Todd in the cot and held him – no more sleeping back-to-back. He held her and rubbed her ears as they both fell asleep.

The police continued to not find Elyssa for the next day, and the next.

***

The heavy oak doors swung open, revealing the gathering hall. The lighting seemed strange to Todd, and it took him a moment to realize why. The high windows were letting in dawn sunlight now, not incandescent light from the outer warren.

Several people immediately began to sniffle and cough, including Lisa. It was the morning of the fourth day since the fire, and the residents were finally being let in to the surviving structure. The smell of smoke was still stifling in the placid air, and the ceiling and upper walls were stained tar-brown. Nothing in here was actually burned, though – the fire had never made it past the thick stone walls.

“Get the windows open,” Adam said in a loud voice over which he seemed to have effortless mastery.  “Someone bring long mops, and we’ll start wiping down the walls and ceiling.” Todd thought that Geraden probably sounded a lot like that when he was younger. Of course, normally it would be Geraden leading this effort. The Rabbit had been a bundle of frayed nerves since he’d heard about Elyssa’s disappearance, though, and her continued absence only drove him further into anxiety and depression. As soon as the group was inside, Geraden and Arvetis disappeared into the stone corridors behind the gathering hall together. Lisa watched them go with a worried frown.

The residents set to work.  Lisa couldn’t reach the ceiling even with the longest mops, but her sharp eyes picked out stains in the dim light, and Todd stretched his long frame to clean them. Work continued mostly in silence for hours, aside from the occasional hushed comment. The atmosphere in the room was serene but not depressed; it felt good to perform this work of renewal, and the minimal damage to the inner warren reminded everyone that things could have been so much worse. If they hadn’t closed the doors in time, if Geraden hadn’t been there, if Lisa hadn’t stopped that one Rabbit from running toward the fire… Todd felt the urge to hug her. He also wanted to talk to her about a small hope he’d been kindling all morning.

“Gosh,” Todd said as they came to the end of a wall, scrubbing the top corner.  “I’m working up an appetite! Do you think they’ll schedule a feast?  You know, to celebrate us coming back in?” The line sounded rehearsed, Todd realized, and he hated himself for a moment.  It sounded rehearsed because it was.

Lisa frowned. “I don’t think so.  You know who did all the planning for those… and I don’t think Gerry and Arvy want to be reminded of that, even if Brutus takes over that work.”

Todd sighed and scrubbed the wall harder.  Shit, he should have thought of that.  “Yeah. Sorry. You know, it just seems like everyone needs to unwind a little, I thought...”

“Once Elyssa is home safe, I’m sure they’ll have a huge feast,” Lisa said.

“Yeah.” Todd folded his ears back and moved on to the next wall.

***

There was no feast, but dinner that evening was a communal affair. The small kitchen had been burned along with the rest of the outer warren, so the residents took what they could from the dry and canned goods in the large kitchen. Nobody trusted the fresh food – some of it had clearly been smoke-damaged.

Todd was glad to see Arvetis and Geraden come back into the gathering hall holding little bowls of their own and join the rest of the diners. They had been gone for the entire day, vanished into the bowels of the warren, and Todd wondered what they had occupied themselves with all day. They both looked haggard and exhausted, but they sat on a cushion near Todd and Lisa.

As Todd silently ate his canned mini-weenies in mustard sauce, he realized that nobody in the gathering hall was leaving. There were individual quarters available deeper in the warren, smaller than the ones in the new building had been, but perfectly serviceable. As evening stretched into night, though, everyone reclined on the cushions and couches in the gathering hall, alone or with friends or lovers.  Lisa laid her head on Todd’s chest, and he shifted his weight, sitting up a little bit on their cushion.  She slid over, lifting herself to sit across Todd’s lap, her bottom crinkling as she settled.  She leaned up and pressed her nose softly under his chin.

“Mmm.  Going to sleep in here?” Todd asked.

“Seems to be the thing to do tonight,” Lisa said, turning to face him and nuzzling his chest.

“We don’t have pajamas.” Todd was wearing a diaper and tee-shirt, which he could easily sleep in, but Lisa was wearing a white blouse from the warren’s extra clothing stocks. She reached down and began lifting it up, pulling it off over her head. “Oh!” Todd looked around the dimly-lit gathering hall.

“Relax,” Lisa whispered. “Everyone here has seen me naked, and most of them have seen you naked, too.” She slipped her blouse off, now wearing just the thick diaper she had changed into before dinner.  She turned on her side to face Todd, putting a paw on his chest and pushing him back to lie down on the cushion. Todd’s tension began to dissolve.  “Besides...” Lisa said, glancing over at Geraden and Arvetis. “We’re hardly the main attraction.”

The Rabbit and Wolf were lying under a soft blanket, with Arvetis in Geraden’s lap, judging by the position of their bodies under the cloth. Geraden’s arm moved slowly and rhythmically, both of his paws under the blanket. Todd could almost convince himself that the Rabbit was just giving Arvetis a belly rub, if not for the Wolf’s expression – eyes closed but face tense, his mouth half-open and lower jaw twitching.

“Oh.  My.” Todd looked away, blushing.

Lisa smirked.  “Looks like fun.”  She picked up a blanket and pulled it over both of them.

“Um… Lisa?”

The Mouse grinned and disappeared under the blanket, her large ears making a little tent around Todd’s lap.  He blinked and looked around the crowded room nervously, then gasped as he felt the warmth of her breath down the front of his diaper.  She popped the upper tapes and pulled the front down a few inches, exposing his erection.

“Lisa, people will smell,” he whispered. His nose twitched – even he could smell his own arousal.  It wasn’t just his own, though, he realized. He looked to the side and saw Brutus and Adam embracing, both nude and visibly excited. Beyond them, the dim light picked out the silhouettes of other Sentients in each others’ arms, on top of each other, and between each others’ legs. For a moment, Todd felt like he should be horrified by this situation, or at least embarrassed. It felt safe and right, though – he trusted these people, and the warren somehow needed this.  The stones themselves needed it.

He gasped and closed his eyes as he felt the warmth of Lisa’s mouth around his erection, making a face just like Arvetis’s. He put his paws behind her ears and rubbed them at the base, right where he knew she loved it, and was rewarded with the vibration of a low squeak around his cock.  He thrust in for a moment, then pulled out and let her run her tongue under his tip.

“God, you’re good at that,” he panted.  His nose told him that she was pleasuring herself as she licked him. The smell made him want to see her body, but the cushion was too awkward to allow them both under the blanket at the same time. He opened his eyes and saw that Adam was underneath Brutus now, the Marten’s face pressed into a pillow as the muscular Rabbit curled his body against his back, running a paw down Adam’s long torso. Todd felt no shame in watching; it was beautiful.

A moment later, Lisa’s head popped out from under the sheets, her paw quickly replacing her muzzle between Todd’s thighs.  She followed his gaze and smiled.  “That looks like fun, too,” she said, and Todd heard the pop of her diaper’s tapes under the sheet.  She kicked the sheets to the side, exposing both of them as she set the open diaper on the floor next to the cushion.  Todd’s cheeks burned as she openly stroked him, but his embarrassment was tempered by desire.  He looked down at her lithe body, naked and lit yellow-orange by the gas light.

“C’mon, stud.”  She laid back and pulled him on top of her.

Later, when they had finished, and their breathing had calmed down from the frantic panting of the moment before, Todd felt his modesty beginning to return. They had gone on longer than most of the rest of the room, and he was sure they’d attracted some observers, though they were being polite about it.  He reached down and gently pulled the sheets back over himself and Lisa, the Mouse curled against his chest with her nose pressed into his fur.

“This is really nice, Todd.  I love you.”

“I love you too.”  Todd closed his eyes.  This was nice, he thought. It wasn’t everything he needed – not quite everything. But it was an important piece.  He felt Lisa’s breathing slow against his chest fur as she drifted off to sleep.

***

The heavy door of the large kitchen swung open, letting in a crack of light. It was dim, reflected gas lantern-light coming down the corridor, but in the inky-dark kitchen, it was enough to show a silhouetted profile sneaking in. Tall.  Lanky.  Ferret.

The kitchen was clearly empty, but the Ferret hunched over as it made its furtive move into the room, ears pricked and nose wiggling to detect any observers. Finding the way clear, it slunk further in.  It knew where it was going – it had seen its target before.  Just earlier that day, in fact. It approached the wine barrel in the corner of the room, holding something up in its paw, glinting and shiny.

Just before it got to the barrel, the figure stubbed its paw on a pallet of cans. It went down hard, dropping the glass it was carrying, which shattered on the stone floor.  “Fuck!” Todd bit back a hiss.

He sat on the kitchen floor, small ears folded back, and nursed his foot, rubbing it with his paws as he waited for someone to burst into the kitchen and demand to know what he was doing.  Lisa, at least, could track him through the warren by smell alone, he knew.  Especially since he’d gotten into the habit of wetting his diaper.  She had been fast asleep when he’d stood up and headed for the kitchen, but the sound of breaking glass could carry far down stone corridors.

As the throbbing in his foot subsided, though, nobody came. He got back up onto his paws and knees, looking at the shattered glass in the dim light, then up at the wine barrel.  Giving the broken glass a wide berth, he crawled over to the barrel.  He ran his paws along it until he found the tap, tilting the whole thing and lowering his head.  He turned the tap, and sea-dark wine ran into his open muzzle.

Todd drank directly from the barrel for several seconds, dribbles running down his light-furred face and onto his white shirt, then sat back up on his knees, panting and closing his eyes.  He let out a relieved sigh, sitting back on his haunches and waiting for the soothing buzz.  The night with Lisa had been incredible, but it hadn’t been all that he needed. This was what he needed.  He licked his lips, smelling the sharp alcohol, anticipating the calm on his raw nerves, like a salve.

It didn’t come.

“What the fuck?” he muttered.  That had been at least two glasses’ worth, and he didn’t feel anything. Usually, the buzz came instantly – it was the grinding drunken turmoil that took time to set in.  He leaned down and put his muzzle back under the tap, turning the handle again.  There was no mistaking the alcoholic smell on the wine he swallowed, but even after three more large mouthfuls, he felt nothing.  He kept guzzling. That was when the gas lantern in the kitchen flicked on.

Todd stood, spurting wine, and hit his head on the canned goods shelf.  The tap was still open, dribbling wine in a puddle around his feet.  He winced, then looked with wide eyes toward the door.  Raakhi stood in the doorway, wearing a white sleeping gown. The Tiger was one of the few Sentients here who was taller than Todd, and she was at least twice as wide. She looked from the Ferret to the cask, then rushed toward him.

“Raakhi!” Was all Todd had time to say before the Tiger was upon him. Her body collided with his, but only with a fraction of its potential force. That was enough to send him back against the shelves, but she stopped there, bending over and turning off the valve.

“That is my wine you’re wasting,” she snarled.

“I was.. I just… There was a…” Todd realized that he was waiting for the Tiger to interrupt him, and she was not obliging. She simply stood in front of him, uncomfortably close, looking down at him with cupped-forward ears.

“Yes? There was a what, Todd?” Contempt dripped from her voice as she said his name.

“I...” Todd folded his little round ears.  “I wanted wine.”

“But you were not given wine.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” The Tiger stared down at him for a long time, the stripes on her face accentuating the distaste with which she regarded him.  Todd tried not to squirm, but his tail twisted behind him and his face burned.

“It’s good that you’ve learned to say that about the things that matter,” Raakhi said eventually, stepping back and wetting a cloth in the sink.  “But it stops working eventually. Clean yourself.”  She tossed the wet cloth at Todd.

Todd’s tail plastered itself against his diaper, curling between his legs. He felt like a child caught in flagrant disobedience. “I’m not drunk...” he mumbled as he wiped at his face.  He knew from experience that wine stains weren’t going to come out of his light muzzle without a shower, though.  “I must not have drunk enough.”

“You were spared intoxication as a mercy,” Raakhi said, leaning against a wall and regarding Todd.

“What? What does that mean?”

“It means that, when you abuse something, you lose it. Sometimes that is to save you, sometimes it is to save the thing you are abusing.”

“What, are you saying I can’t get drunk?” Todd said, looking incredulous.  “That’s impossible.”

“You could easily go to the liquor store, buy a fifth of Canadian Mist, and get drunk. But my wine will have no effect on you, now or ever again.”

Todd wanted to argue, to insist that was impossible too. But of course, he knew it was true – the evidence was in front of him. He’d had almost a bottle’s worth of the rich wine, and he didn’t feel a thing. For a moment, he remembered his first feast night here, and the pleasant ease the wine had brought him after that difficult day. The fierce shame he was feeling blossomed into regret.

“I’m not an alcoholic,” Todd recited.

“These last few days have been difficult for you, though. Yes? Before the fire, you were here for… what, four days? Three? And there were two feast nights during that time. You drank at both of them. You never went more than one day without it.  And now, a few days without drink, look at what you are doing.”

“I just needed to unwind.”

“Un… fucking believable.”  Lisa’s voice came from the kitchen entrance.

Todd snapped his head around, staring, mentally taking inventory of the scene. The puddle of wine, the stains on his face and shirt.  The broken glass.  “Lisa!”

“How many times,” Lisa said, her voice quavering with tears, “am I going to have to walk away from you? You know it hurts every time, right?”

“Lisa, I’m not drunk!” Todd moved toward the door, but she had already turned, pacing out through the dining hall. He started after her, but a heavy Tiger paw on his shoulder stopped him, Raakhi’s claws extended just enough that Todd could feel pinpricks through his shirt and fur.

“Stay here. Clean yourself. Wait for me; I will talk to her.”  She pushed him back into the kitchen and closed the door.

Todd waited. He sat in the corner, staring wide-eyed at the cask of wine like he wanted to punch it. He wanted to cry, but he couldn’t. He felt himself begin to pick at the sleeve of his shirt with his small, sharp claws, then to tear at it, ripping little strips of cloth off and letting them fall to the floor. After ten minutes, he wanted to get up and leave the kitchen, regardless of what the Tiger said, find Lisa, and make everything right again. But most of him knew that he would only make things worse.

Finally, after twenty minutes or so, the door opened again, and Raakhi stepped back inside.  Todd stood up quickly, suddenly embarrassed by his torn shirtsleeve.

“She says that she will keep the ring on,” Raakhi said immediately.  Todd felt like a dangling rope suddenly cut from its beam; his knees gave out for a moment, and the Tiger put a stabilizing paw on his shoulder.  “She will keep it on until the end of the month, as agreed, and then she will take it off. Whether there is another ring to replace it depends entirely on you, she says.”

Todd closed his eyes and nodded.  “I’ll do whatever I have to.”

“She says that she will not sleep in the same bed as you until that time.” Raakhi had to put another paw on the wobbling Ferret.  “But she will be with you during the day, and she will support you if you need it and if you ask for it. She must love you very much, Ferret.”

“I’ll do whatever I have to,” Todd repeated, his voice squeaking. Raakhi led him by the shoulder back into the Gathering Hall.  He looked around hopefully, but Lisa was not there.

“She is in a private room,” Raakhi said.  Geraden and Arvetis were both awake, sitting up on their sofa and staring at him.  He turned his face away from them and laid down on his cushion, pulling the blanket over him.  “Thank you, Raakhi.  I think I need to sleep, now.”  The tiger nodded and walked away.

Todd did not sleep for a long time that night, though. He laid awake, facing the stone wall and staring at it, slowly tearing at the edge of the blanket with his claws.