[story by NB]

"What are you drawing?", a low, rough voice from behind snaps Felicity out of her 'zone' as her body tenses up her right hand gripping the pencil so tightly it could break. She feels blood rushing to her face as she frantically tries to cover the sketch pad in front of her, "N-nothing!", she replies in a loud tone. Salem leans over the table with a crooked smile and inquisitive look on his face, the only sound being the jingle of the large bell around his neck. "Seriously, were you drawing what I think you were?", he says looking down at the small pup as she nearly clings to the paper, "I said it was nothing!", her voice cracking a little bit as she takes a swing at him, hitting his hip with a pathetic punch. He weakly utters, "Ow!", as the hit lands and fakes being knocked back by the force before chuckling at the situation. Felicity's face turns a redder as her expression switches from one of embarrassment to one of anger as she grabs her art supplies and runs upstairs, a few unseen tears running down her face. Salem sulks a bit rubbing the back of his head with a frown as he looks in the direction Felicity ran, 'Aw man, just had to open my mouth.', he thinks to himself as he moves over to the stairs.

In the attic Felicity sits and stares at the drawing she made as a few of her tears hit the page. She quickly dabs the wet spots with her shirt then glares at the page and throws it in frustration while shouting, "Jerk!" before falling to her mattress with a huff. She lays there quiet, aside from her hard breathing, as angry tears mat the brown fur of her face. After a few minutes a soft tapping comes from the hatch that leads out of the attic, "Felicity?", Salem's voice is muffled slightly by the insulation between the floors, "Look sweety, I didn't mean to make fun of your art. I know you work hard on it." He sets the broom aside and looks up at the square bit of ceiling that makes the trapdoor Felicity having taken the time to tuck the pull string away so no one could come in without asking her first. "Felicity, please open the door. Don't shut me out.", he says his voice wavering a little. After what seems like minutes the door drops just enough for the string to fall back to its natural position before closing back making the black feline grin with a bit of satisfaction. He pulls the string until the collapsing stairs fold out beside him then slowly ascends letting the door slap shut once his weight is off of it. Felicity is sitting on the mattress she calls her bed clutching the pillow to her chest no longer angry but clearly upset about what happened.

The older feline slowly walks over and crouches down, leaning back on an old beanbag, "Really, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make fun. It's just... I didn't even know you knew about that sort of thing.", he says while scratching just behind his right ear. The brown pup lowers her head a bit and speaks in a low voice, "I only did it cause someone wanted me to.", she quickly hid her face missing Salem's confused expression. "Wanted you to? I don't understand.", he asks Felicity's face quickly rising from the pillow and coming close to his own, "Someone paid me okay?! You told me I needed to be more confident about my art and show it to people, but kids at school just made fun of my drawings. But then this guy in my english class told me about this website called KinkBunny where people can post their art for free and people can fav it or comment on it and if you're good enough someone might pay you to draw stuff for them.", her words spill out a mile a minute without breath or pause as she continues, "I've been posting for a couple of months and this guy, I guess it's a guy, started telling me my character was cute I didn't wanna tell him it was really me and he started asking me to draw pictures with his character and he gave me a hundred dollars for like three and I liked making money off my drawings and after awhile he started asking for stuff like this and I didn't wanna tell him 'no' and.. and.. and.", she begins to cry and falls forward gasping between her weak wails. Salem looks at the sketch pad seeing exactly what she drew and feels an ache in the center of his chest, 'I just want to deck this guy, but how can I be in the right on this? He probably doesn't even know what he's done.', he thinks to himself while stroking the back of Felicity's head. He finally sets the pad down and holds the pup tight, "Shhh shh, it's okay. It's not your fault, come on stop crying.", he wipes her eyes as she looks up at him, "Now I'm not going to say it was right to accept his money to draw stuff like this, especially if it made you feel uncomfortable, but its kind of good someone likes your art enough to pay you to draw more..eh...", he groans and scratches his head, "Look I'm not sure how to handle this, but at the very least you should tell this guy you can't finish the picture and refund his money. Hell say you're not taking these kinds of commissions anymore. Just, I want you to be happy with what you do and share it with people cause you deserve more credit than just I can give you."

Felicity sniffles a few times and wipes her face with her shirt tail, flashing her scar, before covering it with the now snot coated fabric, "O-okay.", she replies in a low tone. Salem pats her on the head and kisses her forehead, "That's my girl. You don't have to come down until you feel like it, but I want to see you smiling again before I leave okay?", he says with a warm smile as she softly nods. The feline gets up and walks toward the trapdoor letting it down and descending to the floor below. Felicity sits in silence for a moment then picks up the pad and looks at the drawing blushing a bit, "But I already spent the money..."

The End