“Anthro Renovations! We need to just pop in and make a few modifications!”
Wes peered through the peephole of the apartment door and saw the fish-eye image of a wolf’s face looking right back at him, with big yellow eyes and a wide grin on his muzzle. Wes felt a chill down his back seeing the anthro wolf up close like that; he knew there were getting to be more and more anthros in the town and that he really should just get used to it but…
But something about them just felt off to him, he couldn’t explain why. He knew there were anthros everywhere, working and living their lives all around, but somehow he felt like they just didn’t belong, like they were from another world or something.
A crazy feeling, he knew that, but one he just couldn’t shake. He was tempted to just quietly walk away, to try to ignore the wolf at the door, but that would be just rude. And besides…
“Helloooo? I hear you in there,” the wolf called through the door. “It’ll really just be a little bit, we aren’t going to be long at all!”
“Wes, just let him in! It’s not like we’re busy, just let them come in and do what they need to! Besides, he sounds cute!”
Over on the couch, Wes’ roommate Lee was lounging and half paying attention to a crummy documentary on Netflix while he unwound after work. The skinny twink had practically stripped out of his work clothes the moment he got home and was wearing little more than a pair of cotton pajama bottoms and an oversized t-shirt, as was his usual attire when he was at home.
“Fine, whatever… don’t bother getting dressed for company,” Wes sighed as he unlocked the door and came face-to-face with the wolf anthro, only spotting the slightly heavyset otter lurking just behind him.
“Hello, sir! We’re with Anthro Ren, my name’s Gio and this is my partner Tanner,” Gio said, really laying on the usual charm he had when dealing with humans. One of the pair of them had to be friendly, after all. “Sorry to trouble you, but the apartment owners are mandating that all their apartments need to be anthro-friendly from now on. So, we’ll be giving the apartment a few upgrades, just little things to make us fuzzy folks a little more comfortable!”
“Uhh… I-”
“Perfect, don’t you worry! We’ll just give the floor a quick treatment, fix up the bathroom and the vents, and we’ll be out of your fur!”
Flashing a tooth grin, Gio quickly hurried in with a bucket of claw-resistant floor coating and floor roller, while Tanner hung back a bit in the hall to get the remaining supplies they needed. Wes’s eyes lingered on the big otter for a few more moments that he realized, watching the man’s little ears flicking atop his head and drawing his eyes up and down Tanner’s round body to take in his smooth, handsomely coffee-brown fur.
A total dad-bod under all the fur, to be sure, but the sort of dad that hits the gym. Wes usually tried to keep his distance from anthros (at least, as far as he could remember), so seeing one up close was…
Hot.
“S-sorry, I’ll stay out of your way, sorry!” Wes yelped louder than he’d wanted and backed away, ducking into the kitchen to find some excuse to get away for a bit while Gio and Tanner worked.
“Where the hell did that come from!? I mean, sure he’s good looking but…” Wes tried to focus on something, anything besides the chunky otter currently chilling in his front hall, but every time he tried to think about something else there was a peculiar buzz in the back of his head that seemed to make him focus even more on Tanner.
Tanner, for his part, was picking up on that interest and having a hard time focusing on his work as well. And unlike Wes, he couldn’t blame that distraction on the dampeners currently in effect. Tanner was always appreciative of a slim, handsome guy, and Wes certainly fit the bill for his tastes; the guy was just a bit under average in height but with enough muscle to show under his clothes, a loose and wavy hairstyle that was clearly well taken care of, and barely a hint of body hair anywhere Tanner could see. Not quite a twink like his roommate, but not far off.
The otter paused a moment, weighing his options in his head. Finally, he quietly muttered, “Oh, fuck it. I’ll blame the wolf if this gets back to Zeke…”, then he quickly hurried to the toolbox that held the company’s precious capsules. Running a paw over the shelves, he quickly picked one from a low shelf and another from a high one. Gio (of course) saw him and knew exactly where the otter’s mind was, giving one of his patented wolf grins and a conspiratorial wink. Tanner just rolled his eyes and tossed one of the capsules over to Gio, who wasted no time in cracking it open behind Lee’s head before nonchalantly carrying on applying the floor treatment to the apartment.
Tanner certainly couldn’t sneak with a body like his, but he moved as quietly as he could manage over toward where Wes was pretending not to be watching him. With a tiny movement, he gave the capsule in his paws a quick twist to release its contents onto his unsuspecting target’s skin.
“What was that? You didn’t break anything, did you?” Wes asked suspiciously, turning around to look right at Tanner. Even after a mere second of exposure, Tanner could see the effects of the capsule as Wes’s dark blue eyes began to change color, a coppery-brown stain slipping in as his irises expanded to nearly fill his entire eye.
“Err, no, of course not,” Tanner replied gruffly, taking a few steps back. ‘Why did I do this… I can’t handle the looks or the questions…’, the otter thought to himself, usually preferring to let the more charismatic anthros like Gio or Hank do the talking. But what’s done is done, after all, so Tanner knew he’s have to do his best and trust the dampeners to smooth over any screw-ups he made. “Anyway, we’ve got some new fur-traps to install in your drains. For long-furred anthros, it’ll probably end up saving you hundreds a year in plumber’s fees, mister…?”
“Huh? Wes, just Wes. And I don’t really know why that matters to me…” Wes replied sheepishly, unconsciously reaching over and scratching the side of his neck. Beneath his fingers, tiny pinpoints of bright orange and white began to blossom forth, the hair follicles transforming and multiplying to ensure a thick, dense coat of fur. “Well, what I mean is… I brush pretty religiously, so it’s not so big a problem…”
“Of course, of course, I’m the same way,” Tanner said with a surprising bashful smile, relieved that the dampeners weren’t giving them a repeat of what happened with Sam. “Us dense-furred guys gotta stay on top of things, though. Too bad there’s not a good anthro pharmacy in the neighborhood, I keep having to order the good fur shampoo and soap online and it never arrives on time…”
“Oh… Umm, right…” Wes replied, a slight frown sneaking onto his face as the fur on his neck began to push further out, spreading slowly down his arms and chest and growing steadily fluffier underneath his clothes. The tip of his nose twitched slightly and darkened, becoming slightly leathery as it slowly but surely pushed forward.
Tanner saw Wes’ changes beginning to accelerate, so he knew he’d have to step things up and keep the young man distracted. The dampeners were powerful, but the more he could do to keep the target’s mind occupied the less trouble they tended to have.
“Here, let me show you the knobs we’ll be installing in all the doors,” Tanner quickly said, grabbing a box and cutting it open with his thick black claws. He removed the metallic knob and held it up to Wes, hoping that focusing on something close to his face might keep him from noticing his skull reshaping into a short muzzle. “You see, its got a ridged shape rather than smooth edges, and part of the knob is rubberized to keep claws, hooves, and paw pads from slipping. I tell you, it’s a godsend for us anthros!”
“Sure, if you say so…” Wes said, sounding a bit dazed as his ears began migrating up his head and flattening out into a pair of perfect triangles, only bare for a tiny moment before thick, white and orange fluff poofed into existence upon them, with little fuzzy tufts waving at each ear’s tip. By now, the fur on his face was beginning to fill in as well, mostly red but with a distinct white mask around his mouth and eyes and a pair of white splotches over his eyes that looked a bit like eyebrows. By now, his apprehension about being close to anthros was starting to fade and he took a few steps closer to Tanner, picking up a slight whiff of soap, sweat, and just a bit of arousal upon the otter’s sleek fur. “Umm, so what’s your friend doing again?”
“Gio? He’s coating your floor with a special resin, it resists damage from claws and hooves, and keeps bare paws from slipping. You won’t even notice its there, but you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it, trust me,” Tanner said with a boisterous chuckle, feeling like he was finally getting into the groove of this. Right on cue, the fur on Wes’ arms and legs reached his hands and feet, coming in a deep, nearly-black brown, while a set of surprisingly sharp claws poked their way out from each finger. Speaking off, Wes felt a slight cramp in each hand (no, he told himself, each paw) as the digits shorted slightly, becoming a bit stubbier than usual but without losing any dexterity.
“Those new doorknobs will really help out, with these…” Wes added, holding up each of his fluffy paws. He looked at them strangely for a moment, as if he were looking at them for the first time in his life, but just as he looked like he was about to say something, he heard a voice from the couch.
“Wes, quit hitting on the repairmen and let them work~, you slutty little raccoon!” the squirrel on the couch called over, letting out a devilish little giggle. Wes blushed and spun around, his tail slapping into Tanner on the way, and stomped his dainty paws on the newly-treated floor.
“Oh, shut up, as if I’m the one they should be worried about! And I’m a red panda, not a raccoon, you tree-rat!” Wes hissed, a pair of whiskers shooting out from each side of his face and immediately beginning to twitch angrily. He stomped over to the couch and sat down, pushing Lee to the side and pretending to watch TV, though of course he was still just watching as Gio and Tanner continued to work. His nose twitched, picking up at least three distinct men’s pheromones hanging in the air, letting him know that him, Lee, and either Gio or Tanner were starting to get a little turned on. And by the little bit of movement he’d seen in the husky otter’s trousers, he had a good feeling which of them it was.
Things soon settled down, letting Tanner and Gio finish their work in relative peace, and before long they’d finished all the work they’d been assigned. Wes quickly hopped up to his paws and padded over to the two workmen, immediatley noticing a difference in how well his paws gripped the floor without slipping.
“Thanks a lot, guys, it already feels a lot more…”
“Accommodating? That’s what we do, Wes,” Tanner chuckled confidently, extending a big otter paw and practically engulfing the red panda’s littler paw. He held the handshake just a little longer than was usual, then he bashfully released Wes’ paw and cleared his throat. “Umm… I was thinking… Look, I mentioned that I had a fur shampoo I like, and…”
“And? And maybe you want to swap fur-care tips?” Wes asked with a slight smirk on his white-masked muzzle. “That’s a pretty weird way to ask for a guy’s number, you know.”
“...So it is. How about I just give you mine, instead?” Tanner laughed, pulling out his phone and quickly exchanging information with the shorter anthro, who was blushing so deep that it could be seen even though his thick and fluffy fur. “Well, now that that’s taken care of, I think we’ve got some other rooms to get to… talk to you later?”
“Definitely. Thanks a ton… Tanner, was it?” Wes said gratefully, hoping he wasn’t being too forward. But you know what, if his roommate could hook up with the stag that delivered the pizza last night, why couldn’t he make a pass at the hunky older otter that fixed up his apartment?
After the two workers had cleaned up and left for the day, Wes practically skipped back to the couch and fell down onto Lee, landing on the squirrel’s massive tail with a fwoomph.
“So, how did things go with that wolf? You were practically drooling over him before he even stepped in the door!” Wes laughed, while Lee just groaned and lay his ears flat against his head.
“Totally struck out… I figured he was a total himbo, but I guess he’s seeing a horse… A horse, can you believe it? No way can I compete with that!” Lee pouted and held up his paws as far apart as possible. “Geez, that wolf was a big guy, but how could he even fit… You know, forget it. How about you just try to talk that otter into a threesome instead?”
“Mmm… Nope! You had your chance!”
While Gio and Tanner moved on for the day, Lee and Wes just laughed and continued their friendly mocking of one another, not even the wiser that a pair of humans had lived in their apartment only an hour earlier…
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A floor below, Hank and Sam had just finished up with Lawrences’s apartment and were giving him the last-minute run-down of the modifications.
“Hoof-resistant floors, a top-quality fur dryer to keep the mane dry and sleek, and new knobs to give your hooves a good grip. The rest of the team’s working on the halls and lobby, so those’ll be up to spec before too long,” Hank finished as he looked the newly-minted donkey up and down with a slight smirk on his face. “Lovely suit, by the way. It really, well, suits you.”
Lawrence let out a snort and a quiet braying laugh, his ears flicking back and his tail whipping against the back of his thick legs. “Yes, it’s a benefit of having a real job,” the ass replied assholeishly. “So, are we done here?”
“Oh, we’re definitely done… Nice seeing you again, Larry,” Sam chuckled as him and Hank headed out together. “He always was an ass…”
Hank just grinned and pulled out his phone to see where their next job for the day was, but his mood soured when he saw a notification has popped up. Unauthorized capsule withdrawal from…
“Damn it, Gio…” Hank sighed before he saw the selected species. “No, not him… Those’re more Tan’s tastes. But still, damn it Gio for convincing him to do it.”
Hoping he didn’t regret it, Hank tapped his claw against the notification, making it from ‘unauthorized’ to ‘authorized’ and already trying to come up with a good excuse for the boss at the end of the day...