Jake shrugged, already overcome with the sense of retraction that came whenever they were not aroused. A small part of him felt the rising horror, the semi-lucid nightmare of his liminal state enclosing around him. He let out one last faux breath, as he fell back into it.
Nathan opened up the screen door and entered into a kitchen bubbling with activity, his two little sisters drawing on the table, his Dad chatting to his brother Travis.
“Nathan?” The tween squeaked with a laugh. “What happened to you?”
His dad laughed, downing his coffee while mumbling snark, while his sisters just stared on. All in all, the sheer mildness of the reaction stunned him.
“Me and, uh, Jake, well, we met up to do…”
If he talked about fucking in front of his parents it didn’t matter how open-minded they were, they would kick his ass into orbit.
“...Some stuff. We were fooling around, when we found…”
Did the chronivac exist to them? Did they know about it? The implication was these things are legally gray after all, would he need a euphemism?
“...A thing, and we used it to, uh…”
Did magic exist? The documentaries implied furries were like a mix between a disease and a sexuality, if so, how did they exist?
“...Do things.”
Jake stood there, dead silent.
“Got yourself fucked up huh?” His dad laughed, Travis joining him, as Nathan’s world withdrew away from him. “Wait till your mom sees this. Denise! Your boy finally has something to tell you, BEYOND that he is gay.”
His mother emerged from the living room, aunty in tow, the two looking him up and down with smiles on their faces. They exchanged a snarky look, sipping their coffee too.
“Didn’t I tell you this was gonna happen?”
“You did,” His mom sighed, thrusting her magazine into Nathan’s Dad’s gut. “And I told you not to tease him.” She put a hand on she chest, eyes fixed on his. “Gay too?” He scrunched his face. “Bi?” He nodded, stroking the back of his neck.
She pulled Nathan in, giving him a hug so warm it melted away his fear, nerves, and self loathing. His Mom, Denise, had a way of doing that.
“So you guys kinda knew huh?” Nathan said, tail thumping against the counter as it began wagging.
“No, but we knew that if stuff like this was gonna happen you would need our support, and - as your parents - were always going to give it to you.”
The hug broke, his mom and aunty barely a muzzle away, smiling into his face. The tender moment lingered past his dad’s grumbling, the old man snarking about ‘supporting himself though a job’ and the usual gripes about five kids. His mother and aunt were saying something too, something reassuring, but it was lost to an omnipresent buzzing as the adrenaline rolled on over him, fear draining into swelling relief.
A moment later, reality returned and the embrace broke, as a sharp tug pulled at his tail.
Nathan twirled around, finding the littlest sister, Lydia, inspecting his tail. She was a little ball of chaos and destruction, softened by wide eyes and two puff balls framing her face, her curiosity never ending.
“Can you feel that?” She asked, yanking the tail again.
“Yes.” Nathan said, whipping the tail from her hands.
Jake nearly outed himself as he stifled a laugh. He had vivid memories of little Lydia yanking his hair when he was sixteen, after he grew it out, and asking the same. She knew full well that he could feel it, she just wanted to be a pain.
“Well, if I was going to have a tail I would make sure I couldn’t feel anything in it, because it's gonna get caught on things.” She added, returning back to her homework with crossed arms. “Especially at the parade later.”
“You are coming aren’t you?” His aunt snapped. “I mean you gotta, right?”
Stunned, Nathan scanned the room, trying to figure out why it was so important. Instead they just stared on, faces half smiling in anticipation.
His mind knew something about it, something new he couldn’t quite place. It was easter-related, that much he could work out in context, as their city had a miniature festival for kids in his world too, but there was something else in there he knew he was missing. He knew that he knew it, but didn’t know it nor did he know why he knew it, just that it was there, in his mind, a specific caveat this world had his brain was trying to grasp.
He looked around again, the moment pause now stretching into the seconds, until a force within him brought his eyes down, onto the counter, his eyes catching a newspaper. While he didn’t know how he knew it, looking at an image of the festival connected the tissue in his brain to the concept, the rest flowing out at last.
In this world animal costumes were significantly less common due to the presence of mutts, as you could just hire a better-looking mutt. As a result, parades often had a mutty undercurrent to it, and the easter festival was the city’s little mutt outlet.
It was also where families got to show off their mutts, and show off how mutt-positive they were. Realizing this, Nathan sighed with a smile.
“Only if,” he said, waving a clawed finger, “you don’t introduce me as YOUR mutt.”
The room rippled with laughter, any vestigial tension burning off with the return of the familial warmth, the crowd returning to what they were doing before his arrival. And, just like that, Without ceremony or debate, Nathan’s new appearance became just another eccentricity of his family.
Nathan spent the next hour isolated in the living room with his mother and his aunt, substantially to answer their questions but in reality he could have just been a TV show, as they used him more as a point of discussion. It was nice, the two of them essentially trying hard to perform their acceptance, though occasionally expressing doing poorly as they started listing off their mutt friends and their predictions as to who would become a mutt next. He rolled his eyes, explained that it wasn’t cool to start guessing, but when they mentioned that he was probably going to be the only fur in the family even he jumped in.
“Uncle Ray is definitely a closeted furry.” He explained, laughing over his own mug of coffee. Uncle Ray was much younger than his two sisters, and only seven years older than Nathan’s older brother Dan.
“Not a chance,” his aunt said with a dismissive wave. “If this came from anyone it's from your father’s side of the family.”
“Not how it works,” Travis interrupted, popping into the conversation, “Teacher told me that it happens in the womb, something about hormones?”
“That’s LGBT stuff,” his mom responded, “DBI stuff is different. While we know the mechanism for transformative medicines, the thing that makes people, like your brother, want to transform is more complicated personality based stuff. Speaking of, where did Jake get the medicines?”
Nathan recoiled.
“Uh, found them I think?”
“No chance. I deal with maltransformed DBIs all the time so I know he gave you both the good stuff, especially as it only took one day.” His mother’s tone changed, her poise projecting her earned confidence on the matter. His aunt and his brother shared a look, as a grin emerged on his face. “So either you spent two hundred dollars on a transformation thats gonna wear off in a couple of hours, and you decided to spend those hours here, or you spent more money that you make in a year making it at least semi-permanent.”
Forced, once again, to think on the fly, Nathan dove backl into his brain, finding an answer that felt right, without knowing why.
“Jake had an azoth.” It had the desired effect, his aunt and mothers gaze narrowing. “Jake inherited it, and so he decided to use some of it on us.”
“How much did you use?”
Again, diving back, he found another answer.
“Ten percent.”
“Ten!” The sisters sang in unison.
“That boy’s parents are about to kill him.” His Mom added. “Ho boy, if he were here, even I would kill him on his parents behalf. Are they chewing him out? That why you came home early?” Nathan shook his head. “Well I am gonna send them a message. What’s his moms name again?”
“Tracy,” Nathan responded. “Tracy Scott. She kept her name.” He said, again not knowing why he knew that.
“I bet she did,” His aunt said, “I bet she did.”
After that the conversation descended, centered on good-natured ribbing on Jake. Nathan hoped he was asleep regardless, though part of that was just to relish more in the moment. Satisfied with his answer, Nathan’s appearance descended into just another curious novelty, and another thing he could discuss with his mother.
At one point the kindly old white lady from next door appeared with her Christmas treats, joining the mix and telling them what it used to be like. It started well until she started telling them about a mutt she used to date, back in sixty-seven, and how “you would have forgotten he started off as a black man.” After that point, an exhausted Nathan left the conversation.
There was only twenty minutes left, so Nathan used it to freshen up, loaning his older brothers nicer shirt and wetting his face. After that, he decided it was time to relieve himself, and maybe talk to Jake, but to his surprise, Jake was out of it, fully withdrawn into the sheath, motionless. He knew he was sleeping, had seen him like this before, and yet he still couldn’t get used to it. Jake only breathed when he sighed, and that was very occasional.
Lying on his bed for a moment Nathan realized that he was, at some point, going to have to tell at least Jake’s parents where he was, and that was sure to flow back to his parents. A furry was one thing, a dick cat another, and a dick cat that was a former friend…
He tried not to think about it, to cross that bridge when they arrived at it. For now he just basked in the afterglow of the experience, his heart soaring. His family accepted him, while it could have gone better he could coast on that high for days on end. That said, he was going to the parade soon, and things could get nothing if not more awkward going forward.