Josh & Jake

It was a normal Saturday afternoon in the city of Malibu, Los Angeles and the hot sun hung high in the sky. The palm trees along the beach swayed lightly in the soft breeze and the clear blue sky had no clouds whatsoever in sight.
Joshua Francis, a strong, healthy fox and the drummer of the world famous power metal band “Fire on the Horizon”, have got a quite large and luxurious house right beside the beach and is living there with his boyfriend Jacob Mann, who is also, not too surprising, a fox.
They were both sitting on the couch watching TV, relaxing after a whole Friday night of drinking and dancing.
“Jake? Are you mad or something?” Joshua asked while turning his head towards his lover.
Jacob just leered at Joshua and said with a somewhat tired voice:
“I don’t think mad is the right word…”
“How about furious then?”
“That’s not it either, Josh…”
“Hey man, you can’t let those lesbians at the bar last night get to your head”, Josh said and just turned his eyes back to the TV.
“No, I know… it’s just that… I feel so insulted.”
“Well, if they bothered you so much I’ll give them some of my thoughts if we meet them again” Josh added with a smirk on his face, now turning his entire head back towards the TV.
It was quiet between the two foxes for a while.
“Can we just forget this ever happened? I don’t feel too comfortable talking about this”, Jake said.
“Yeah, well I mean, are you sure?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, okay. If you say so.”
Jake slowly sunk into the couch with a deep sigh.
“Hey, I gotta get a beer, Josh suddenly said, you want one?”
“Yeah…” Jake mumbled.
While Josh went into the kitchen Jake reached for the remote control and zapped from channel to channel. He stopped at the Panda-channel when he realized that his favourite talk show was on. This made his mood rise a little bit, but he was still kind of depressed.
“Ah, the Xander Phillips Show is on”, Josh said behind the couch, returning from the kitchen, “that’s your favourite show right?”
“Mhm…” Jake mumbled.
“Here ya go.”
“Mhm…”
It was once again silent in the room exept for the TV. Another sigh could be heard from Jake. The silence was abruptly interrupted by Josh when he threw his fist straight into the table in front of them.
“Okay, that’s it! I can’t stand your attitude anymore. You’re really treading on my nerves right now”, Josh angrily exclaimed and quickly rose up from the couch.
Jake was not prepared for Josh’s sudden outburst and twitched strongly.
“What?” Jake calmly asked.
Joshua sighed.
“Forget it, I’m going to take a nap upstairs now. You can just stay down here and… drown in your own silly anguish if you want.”
“Silly..?”
Josh had already started walking up the stairs. Jake sat alone in the couch silently, trying to wrap his brain around the recent events. Josh had never really shouted at him like that before and Jake could feel his emotions flowing over like water running over the brink of a glass. Tears slowly started to emerge from his eyes and he sobbed a couple of times before hiding his face in his paws, crying.

When the sun had gone down behind the horizon a few hours later, Joshua finally woke up. He ogled on the clock-radio and realized that the time was 01:24 pm.
“Oh shit…” he mumbled while caressing his face with the right paw.
He looked beside of him on the other side of the bed. Jacob wasn’t there. Josh got out of the bed, put on his dressing gown and slippers and went down the stairs to the living-room. Jake was still sitting on the couch. The only source of light was the white flickering from the TV-screen.
“Jake, Honey?”
Jacob didn’t answer.
“Isn’t it time to go to bed?” Joshua asked with a friendly voice.
“I’m not tired.” Jake answered.
“Aw, come on. You’ve gotta be tired. It’s half past one for God’s sake.”
Jake once again only leered at Josh.
“Josh? Do you really love me?” Jacob asked.
Joshua opened his mouth in chock.
“What kind of question is that? Of course I love you!”
“Just wanted to check…”
Before Joshua could add anything else Jake slowly rose from the couch and went up the stairs without saying a word. Joshua sighed and started to shake his head before turning the TV off. He then followed his boyfriend to their bedroom. Jacob and Joshua were lying in the bed with their backs turned towards each other the rest of the night.