Hearing the noise downstairs, Lex ignored his every instinct and went to go check.
He reached below the bed and withdrew the baseball bat that was kept there, but this was more a factor of his girlfriend's city habits than it was his own sense of safety. In the deep country you would never have a weapon in the bedroom because you would never venture out to see what was causing the thuds and crashes you heard in the night. If something moving downstairs woke you from sleep, upstairs you would stay, behind the heavy and bolted door on the landing, until morning came and, hopefully, whatever was down there had vacated.
And if it hadn't? You took your phone, climbed down the nearest tree from your window, and hoped the journey between yourself and proper cell coverage went by faster than the creature could move, assuming you were seen.
But Brie had been firm: closer to civilization that approach simply would not do. It was more likely to be a burglar than a bear here, and they were far less amenable to stopping at the first locked door. The idea that the threats would come to you, that they were actively seeking rather than disinterested scavengers had been to Lex a good argument for staying in the woods, but he was here now, and so was whatever was happening downstairs.
Slipping out into the hall, Lex took the stairs slowly, with gradual steps that avoided the creaking planks midway down. He held the bat behind him, kept his back to the wall, so that he could be afforded the best possible view of the living room and kitchen as he went. From here, lingering just a few steps from the ground floor, the strange sounds continued, cabinets in the kitchen squeaking open and then slapping shut again, the noise rushed but in no way furtive. Before taking the final step onto the landing, Lex gripped the bat in both hands, firm now in his belief that there was something there that needed to be hit.
There was a crinkle of plastic, a soft crunch. Someone giggled, and Lex stepped forward into the gloomy half-light of the kitchen.
'Oh, come on, are you serious?' He flipped on the light, and stared. Perched on the counter, the intruder stiffened, froze in place, but if there was any need to actually use the baseball bat on her, Lex's capacity to do so had flitted away the moment he got a good look at her.
A woman, largely naked, sat on his counter, eating his chips.
Her ears, fluffy and dark atop her head, flattened against her hair. Her tail, banded and furry, lowered. Large brown eyes stared at Lex in wide, solemn shock, set into a pair of dark markings that ringed them and a fair segment of her face. She wore a tattered pair of denim shorts, unbuttoned and unzipped, and a thin shirt that had been carelessly and unevenly pulled up, revealing a heavy bust.
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry!' She squeaked, but Lex was already beginning to relax: he was familiar with raccoons, after all.
'Y-your door was unlocked, ah, I could smell the stuff inside, and I was so hungry...' The animal girl had not moved an inch, her eyes shining with tears and never, not even for a moment, leaving the bat hanging by Lex's side. Her gaze flicked, just for a second, behind him, a hunted look in them that he had never seen on a human's face. Thoughtlessly, he turned to follow her eyeline; the front door, still a little ways ajar, with him and his bat blocking the only path to it.
When Lex turned back, the raccoon had moved from the counter, now on her feet but not moving to cover the distance between them. Her back was pressed to the marble rim, and Lex got the feeling that if she could, the creature would simply phase right through the wall and run away.
'Do you always just wander in if you find an unlocked door?' Relaxing his grip, Lex let the bat lean itself against the wall, forgotten. A raccoon was no threat, even a big one, so long as you didn't corner it. This one visibly relaxed the moment he was no longer holding a weapon... but not entirely.
'I could smell food inside,' she replied, as though that were enough. For her it probably was: beastkin of many stripes did not have much use for private property, particularly not when the alternative was not getting enough to live on. The door had been open; with the windows all along the street barred and the trash cans locked down, where else was a raccoon supposed to go for food?
Lex sighed, and set himself to walking a course through the kitchen that brought him closer to the woman, offering her as wide a berth as she needed in the process. The fridge cracked open under his touch, and he reached out wide to get there, keeping his distance even as he showed he was no threat here. The raccoon girl shied away nevertheless, and this close Lex saw for the first time the way her ribs protruded through her skin, the narrowness of her forearms.
Yeah, as he had suspected...
'Still hungry?' He asked, leaning into the fridge, his face disappearing below the rim of the door. 'Because I'll give you a pro tip: the good stuff's down here in the crisper. You'll never be satisfied with just chips.'
The lower drawer opened with a plastic squeak, revealing a surfeit of greens within, a gleaming trove of fresh vegetables the likes of which the raccoon girl had evidently never seen before. Pulling a selection of them out into the light, Lex showed off a plastic bag bulging with green beans to the wide-eyed woman.
'Want me to cook for you? I guess I could use a midnight snack too,' he shrugged, dropping his haul onto the counter, where the raccoon's eyes followed it close. The next step involved getting a little closer, something Lex accomplished with a slow shuffle to one side, hoping to look as non-threatening as possible. She twitched, but did not go any further. Her gaze remained fixed on the food, the rest of her expression locked on the knowledge that he had not chased her out yet.
Since she had not scurried away, Lex unhooked a frying pan hanging on the wall, turned on the gas stove, and let it heat. Looking at the animal girl sidelong from the corner of his eye, he started prepping vegetables beneath her still hungry gaze.
'Do you have a name?' He asked, piecing out beans. 'I know that's not a sure thing among you guys. What should I call you?'
There was a pause, the wild creature on his counter tearing her eyes away from the food long enough to search him, eventually finding in him an answer that prompted her to reply: 'Apricot.'
'Apricot?'
'I was born in an orchard.' She shrugged. 'I have a sister called Peach. Your name?'
'Alexander, but you can call me Lex. Thanks for not breaking anything, by the way.' He flashed her a smile. 'Particularly the windows.'
'Too loud,' Apricot shook her head. 'Getting caught isn't something I like. You're helping me... Lex?'
'You didn't mean any harm, obviously, and I hate to see a person starve when they don't have to,' he replied. 'Let's just say I'm happy you're not a bear, right? A raccoon, I can feed. A bear, I'm less likely to have what they want, you know, not on my body.'
'We aren't friends of the bears either. They come by, we stay away,' Apricot said with unexpected solemnity. Her nose worked constantly now, taking rapid, sharp breaths to scent the vegetables Lex added to the pan. As she leaned in, the blush on his cheeks became all the more apparent.
'Well, now that we're friends, do you think you could... like, pull your top down?' He asked, keeping his eyes on his cooking. 'I'm not trying to be the clothes cop here or anything, it's just very distracting.'
'Oh.'
Without hurrying, Apricot rolled the teal fabric of her shirt down over her generous bust. Her shorts remained open, the deep shadows cast by her body the only thing covering the suggestive things within, but one could not have everything. City beastkin tended to understand the utility of clothing, but it was a warm night and that utility was rather lowered. As though nothing had happened, Apricot rocked back and forth on the counter, watching the cooking going on before her as though it were something of a magic trick.
'Thanks. I know it's not a thing for you guys, really, but it is for us,' Lex smiled.
'You're a nice human,' Apricot cut in before he could say more, the words rushed, tense. Her tail twitched. 'I don't meet many of those. Most of them try to chase me off with a broom, and you haven't, so... um, I'll do my best. But I don't talk to many humans, really. Can I eat?'
'Not until it's done, trust me,' Lex said, blinking, after a pause. 'You can take a seat at the table, you know. I'll bring you a plate when I'm finished.'
The raccoon tilted her head to one side, her fluffy ears twitching, before she headed on over. She approached the simple wooden table slowly, perhaps convinced that something should leap out from the underside to get her. When she pulled a chair out from under it, Apricot did so with one foot, hesitantly toeing it out into the open, her nose twitching. But her head swiveled back to the cooking, the scent of butter and salt, the real smells on the table right now; swallowing, she sat down.
Her tail, bushy and banded, poked out through the spokes of the back rest.
'I didn't always used to live in the city,' Lex said, giving the contents of the pan a theatrical flip, watching the raccoon girl's eyes follow it. 'There were other raccoons out where I used to be, they weren't no thing. Pretty nice, actually, if you're nice to them in return. We used to feed them, too, in return for a little foraging help around the forest. Good times.'
