ELEVEN-B: The Confrontation

	After so much deliberation on the stairs, Lukan has decided what to do about Klaus cheating on him. Lukan decided that Klaus needed to understand what he doing was wrong on all accounts, no matter how much pain he was in and no matter how unhappy he was in his current relationship. Lukan knew that the way Klaus was acting now would only lead to his destruction. Like, did he even sit down to get to know the cat or consider what he was doing? This all was happening so fast that it seemed impossible that Klaus was being rational in the slightest. Lukan simply had to make him see what wrong he was committing. Klaus can’t be allowed to do this to him! But Lukan knew very well that he wouldn’t be able to until he saw Klaus again and without that cat. When would he return? And what would he tell his mother when Lukan went back in there? Argh. Too many things to consider, too little motivation, time, or anything like that. 
	Without thinking any longer, Lukan moved himself into the hotel room, forgetting what he was initially doing in the first place.
	“Lukan!” his mother exclaimed. “You’re back! Did you find Klaus?”
	“No mom,” Lukan sighed as he sat down on the bed. “I couldn’t find him anywhere. And if I went much further, I might have gotten lost.”
	“Do you think he is lost?” she asked. 
	“Aw crap, if I had gotten lost, I could have gotten directions, and so could have Klaus,” Lukan stated. “Ergo, I could have continued looking and… well… Klaus, he’d…”
	“He’d be back by now? You really think so?” his mother asked skeptically. 
	“Do you have faith that he will come back eventually?” Lukan’s tongue and throat almost tripped over the word “faith” considering how little he felt for him at that instant. He tried his best to hide that brief slip up.
	His mother looked down and sighed, thankfully taking no notice. “He really seemed beaten up over something, didn’t he…?” she asked sadly. “I wonder what it could be. I feel like it has something more to it than that libido you mentioned.”
	Lukan sighed when he thought of the exact reason that could be. “Yeah mom, I agree. I just hope everything works out,” he said.
	She nodded. “I do too, hun. I do too.”
	
	Lukan had a foreboding dream that night. He dreamt of himself confronting Klaus and how it was wrong for him to treat him the way he did. And Klaus angrily countered with declarations of clear apathy and hatred. As if he never cared about Lukan at all… He never loved him. Never wanted to be his boyfriend. He only wanted to make him feel less alone… Lukan thought that once Klaus found out how much of a prude Lukan was, that was the last straw for him. The one thing that Klaus could not accept. As shallow as that was for Klaus, Lukan could not help but feel there was at least something he could have done to prevent this. But there was nothing. Nothing his mind would let him do to do so. It refused to give in and indulge in Klaus’s sexual fantasies. Lukan couldn’t. He shouldn’t… he WOULDN’T! But now he realizes too late that he may have had to… And now Klaus has gone and done it… the ultimate betrayal. He was not going to get away with this…

	That morning, Lukan’s troubled sleep was abruptly halted by the sound of the hotel room door opening. He assumed it was his mother getting breakfast from the lobby, but then he caught a whiff of otter and traces of cat on whomever came in. That was undeniably Klaus. So he did find his way back after all. He heard the otter sit down on the bed next to him with a long sigh. Lukan’s mom was in the shower, otherwise she would have freaked the very second when the otter came in. With that in mind, Lukan realized this was probably the only chance he’ll ever get a chance to confront Klaus on what the hell he’s done. This was one of the last things Lukan wanted to do, but it had to be lest he wanted the infidelity to continue tormenting his shattered heart! 
	Lukan sat up and stretched, which seemed to have startled the otter, because he heard him jumping next to him. Lukan looked over to him, trying to keep his face as unreadable as possible. He did not want to throw the accusation right away.
	“Morning Lukan,” Klaus said in a poorly hidden shaky voice. “Sorry for running off last night…” he added.
	“Oh it’s fine,” Lukan said too coolly. “As long as you’re safe and sound, it’s fine.”
	Klaus’s small ears pressed against the head they were attached to. “Oh… so you’re still mad about that. I’m really sorry! I’ll make it up to you somehow! I promise.”
	Lukan gave a rueful sigh. “Promise? Since when were you good at keeping promises?” he felt his voice beginning to rise and his throat aching in sadness and anger. He could not hold back his fury much longer.
	“Wh-what do you mean, Lukan? Have I done something wrong?” Klaus was clearly struggling to hide his innocence in his voice. Klaus knows he did something and was clearly hoping Lukan did not know what it was. Although, Lukan very clearly does.
	“Yeah I do hope you’re much happier with that cat last night than you are with me! Because you obviously deserve it way more than me!” Lukan spat sarcastically.
	Klaus gasped as he recoiled against the bed. “H-how did you find out about him!?” he exclaimed, turning white in the face.
	“I went to find you shortly after you left and saw you making out with that cat! Don’t think you can deny it, Klaus, because my eyesight in the dark is 20/20!” Lukan snarled. Lukan was astounded at himself. Not once in his life had he ever felt this much fury towards anyone, even as a misanthropist. He was mostly afraid of others, not angry, but this time? Pure…. Unadulterated rage. 
	“Lukan, I’m sorry! I just wanted someone to love who--” Klaus was cut off.
	“Who can what? Have gangbang session with you a hundred times a fucking day!? That isn’t love! That’s lust! Learn the fucking difference!” Lukan yelled. 
	“Th-there’s more to love than cuddles and kisses, Lukan,” Klaus said quietly, voice too upset to be raised on his end anymore. 
	“And the inverse isn’t!? Klaus, there is a fine line between too much love and too much lust. I want us to walk to fine line. Or wanted, I should say, because you went and did this shit to me! Did you once ever consider me before you did this!?” Lukan’s voice was now high pitched and thoroughly unrecognizable. He never even knew that his voice could even get like that.
	“What was I supposed to do Lukan!? Just let you deprive me of what I’ve desperately needed since I discovered my sexuality!? I can’t Lukan… I can’t… the pain is too unbearable…” Klaus was sobbing now. For a brief instance Lukan felt bad for bringing the otter to tears. But oh wait. He did the same damn thing! 
	“And heartbreak isn’t unbearable either!? In a way you gave me your own pain right to me!” Lukan barked. 
	Klaus was gripping the blankets as he cried. “B-believe me Lukan… I did not want to make this choice either…” he sniffled. “But… but what could I have done!?”
	“I was seriously thinking of letting my biases aside to help you Klaus… I really was… but then I saw you with that cat and I just… lost it,” Lukan felt himself starting to calm down a little. On one paw he could understand why Klaus did it, but on the other, Klaus really did fuck up his heart in the process… 
	“B-besides you broke your promise that you would help me, Lukan,” Klaus’s nose was so stuffed it was hard to understand him anymore. 
	“I-I did not know I even promised that! That was an entire misunderstanding!?” Lukan countered incredulously. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have said yes so quickly!” 
	“Would you have said yes at all?” Klaus prompted darkly. 
	Lukan sighed heavily. “I don’t know, Klaus… Honestly I don’t. I do see myself eventually caving in and doing so like I was going to now, but I don’t know what would have happened if I understood what you meant. In a way, you cheating on me was my fault…. Everything has always been my fault after all, according to the world.” Lukan was surprised at how quickly his emotions changed. He’s heard of this. Was this the stages of grief? Possibly…
	“No Lukan. It’s never your fault. It’s mine,” Klaus stated. And he was not wrong, but Lukan still felt responsible for at least a part of it. 
	Lukan only gave a brisk nod. “Okay then,” he said.
	“So what happens now?” Klaus pondered. 
	Lukan sighed again. “Simple. You need to decide which one of us you want as a boyfriend.” 
	Klaus gasped. “What…? Oh no please don’t make me choose between you two… I don’t think I can handle that--!” Klaus was starting to cry again by the looks of things. Although Lukan can’t see why after he said he’d help Klaus as much as he could and that it was a mistake in not doing so. 
	“Klaus please… I know I fucked up by not understanding your pain… but please don’t fuck up by not understanding mine… I promise, I’ll take care of you as much as I could. I will have sex with you daily if it will help! I don’t want to… but I hate the thought of losing you even more,” Lukan pleaded.
	“I thought you wouldn’t love me anymore after I cheated on you, though…” Klaus said ruefully.
	“I thought so too until you told me why it happened. It was all a mistake. A misunderstanding. We’ve screwed each other over and I want to fix it,” Lukan said.
	“Okay Lukan… I will try… though can I ask you one question?”
	“What?”
	“Can the cat and I still be together as… fuckbuddies? We won’t have to have sex as much if we did, I just know it…’ Klaus requested nervously.
	Off the bat, Lukan had serious mixed feelings about that proposition. He hated the idea of too much sex all at once considerably, yes, but for some reason, he did not like the idea of his boyfriend going and potentially getting banged by somebody else and allowing it. Why though? It’s exactly as Klaus said. If he gets the help he needed from somebody else, he wouldn’t have to bother Lukan about it all the time. Actually it was a wonder why they never thought of this before… Still, Lukan held apprehension over this matter. But at the same time it was apprehension and hesitation to let Klaus obtain help that landed them in this mess in the first place. Was Lukan really willing to make a decision like that again? To hell he wasn’t!
	After a few moments, Lukan sighed and nodded. “Yes. I do think that at this point, that will be for the best.”
	It was instant, Klaus’s chokehold hug that Lukan loved and hated at the same time. “Oh Lukan, why are you being so nice to me after what I just did!? Thank you so much!”
	“Honestly I don’t know Klaus… but I just want this all to work out…” was all Lukan could say.

	Upon leaving the shower, Lukan’s mother instantly shouted at Klaus for leaving the hotel at night, unattended and in an unfamiliar town of all things. She also demanded to know why she heard raised voices while she was showering. Lukan shut her up rather quickly when he told her that he had already given Klaus a piece of his mind for running off the way he did. Two tongue lashings was quite enough for the troubled otter. But there were more pressing matters that needed to be addressed. Though the entire time, Lukan could not take his mind off of what he just saw the previous night. He wanted nothing more than the entire situation to be resolved without any problems. Though if he knew anything about his life… that was simply never going to happen. But he was going on a tangent again. That was to be addressed that night.Right now…
	“So how are we going to figure out something regarding where to live?” Lukan prompted.
	“Good question,” Lukan’s mother responded. “With that endless cycle in mind, there isn’t much we can do.”
	“Couldn’t we use a random address in town or something to get a job or two or three?” Klaus asked.
	The mother coon shook her head. “That is very illegal. We’ll have somewhere to live after that alright, but we definitely do not want to go there.”
	“Fair enough,” Klaus said.
	“But this is complete BS!” Lukan exclaimed. “How is anyone supposed to live with conditions like that that can never be met because of this stupid cycle!?”
	“We can ask that all we want. And you can blame the government for that.” his mother replied.
	“Tch,” Lukan scoffed. “That figures.”
	“So what do we do?!” Klaus echoed the question again.

	Unfortunately nobody had a clear answer of what to do. They ended up looking around town first to acquaint themselves with what would hopefully become their new home. What was immediately apparent was that most of the businesses were on or close to the two highways that connected the city to elsewhere in the state. Easy to find and close together. Extremely convenient, that. What was unusual with the town was that there were a lot of restaurants, but not much variety. Three McDonalds in a small town like this? Was that REALLY necessary? There were also a lot of foreign restaurants darted about. Plenty of Korean and Japanese. As well as the usual Mexican stuff that you see everywhere. Ironically though, there was only one Chinese restaurant to be found. Lukan’s mom in particular found that very disappointing. 
	As they explored the town, they asked around on how to break the loop they were currently sitting in. Many suggested that they use the address of a place that wasn’t occupied and would even consider looking at to live in order to gain a job. Or vice versa; use a job that they’d apply for to look for a place to live. Doing something like that was deemed too tricky and had to be precise to pull off by the mother coon and she decided to do that only as a last resort. Everybody else responded with the always annoying and inconvenient “I don’t know” for their answers.

	The three new citizens to Salamanda returned with annoyance dominating their emotions. While they had gotten a good look at town, they were spitting fire at the fact that the day had to be wasted on it. If only they had gotten more useful information indeed, but Lukan knew better than for it to be that easily done. The next day, Lukan’s mother considered asking officials and authorities around town what they’d do if they were put in a situation like that. And as stupid as the fiasco was, Lukan could not help but think there was an easier solution to the problem than was being led on.
	“Welp. There is nothing we can do for the rest of the day,” Lukan’s mother said in annoyance. We’re probably going to have to pay for more days here if we want more time to find out what to do.”
	“Which means we really do not have much time to lose at all,” Klaus affirmed. 
	“Absolutely none,” Lukan’s mother emphasized. “So tomorrow, I will go to the lobby and pay for more time. And then we’ll go to town hall or something.”
	Lukan and Klaus nodded as the mother coon got up to go into the bathroom. Klaus looked over to Lukan.
	“Tell your mother I’ve gone out. Not to run away again, but to get something from the gas station down the street. I’m going to meet the new fuckbuddy and let him know what’s the cinch with what’s going on.”
	Lukan nodded. “Okay Klaus, but don’t you think I could go with you?” 
	“I’ll be blunt with you, my “hopefully-still-boyfriend”, if I go over there and he says yes, he might want to do so with me real soon. You might not want to be around for that,” Klaus replied. 
	Lukan gave a short nod. “I-I see,” he said in an uneven voice. He definitely did not want to see Klaus banged by another guy. Although it would be an opportunity to get a good look at his boyfriend’s body again… Though in a bad situation though! So no.
	“Alright, see you soon, love,” Klaus said as he opened and closed the door behind him.
	
	Two hours have passed since Klaus had left the hotel. Lukan had told his mother that Klaus had gone out to get something from the gas station down the street, but two hours? Since when did Klaus need to be out for two hours for something as simple as the fake explanation or the real one? Klaus had said that the guy may want to fuck with him some more that night, but even then… the amount of time that passed was too much for any of their comfort zones. Both Lukan and his mother began to grow increasingly more worried as the seconds ticked. It seemed as though they were running a repeat of the previous night. After a while, Lukan’s mother had gotten fed up with waiting and stood up.
	“He’s taking so goddamn long to get back!” she exclaimed. “We may as well go look for him ourselves!”
	It was just then that the key clicked and the door swung open. The orange otter swung himself inside and shut the door quickly, seemingly out of breath. Lukan had the nagging suspicion that the otter was not out of breath just because he was running…
	“There you are!” his mother exclaimed. “Next time you go out I won’t even be surprised that your face will end up on “Missing” posters everywhere!”
	“Lukan!” he gasped. “Please, come out here with me, I need to tell you something right now!” he opened the door again and held it open, quickly beckoning the younger raccoon outside. Worried as hell, Lukan followed him out. The second the door shut, Lukan faced him.
	“What the hell, Klaus?” he demanded.
	“Nathias demanded that I stay boyfriends with him and stay the hell away from you or else,” he said in a high pitched voice. 
	Lukan’s eyes went wider than the sun. “Did you just say ‘Nathias’!? Is his last name ‘Love’?!” he demanded. 
	Klaus nodded rapidly.
	Lukan felt the world washing away from under his paws. “Son… of the Loveless. Klaus that cat is the one from my childhood. The one that tried to kill me in Bright. Your other boyfriend is my enemy!”