FSE

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Bryce usually didn't do too well at parties. This one was a bit of a different story, though, since one of his good friends was hosting it, and as such he knew most of the other people here: the hyena he'd watched disappear into the back bedroom with a handful of other people, he'd had a few classes with his senior year of high school; the otter who stood off in the other room, practicing his drink mixing skills with the others; the coyote and wolf couple on the other couch who seemed mostly to keep to themselves; myriad others that walked in and out of the big house, the host himself every now and then passing by to see how everyone was doing, the host's brother who had walked by with his headphones on and muzzle in a book as if he either didn't notice what was happening or just didn't care...

But, then, there was mutt sitting across the room, in the recliner that looked a bit too big for him. Chocolate-brown fur and matching eyes, warm smile, infectious laugh. Bryce had no idea who he was, but kept an eye on him throughout the night. He seemed to get along with everyone who opted to share their time with him, and every now and then got up and disappeared into the kitchen for a short time, only to come back out wiping his paws off on his jeans.

It was actually has shirt that gave Bryce the motivation (and a reason, which really was the underlying inhibition) to go ahead and strike up a conversation with him. That mutt's ears, tall and triangular, perked up in response to his voice, and a second later those eyes affixed onto him.

"So, you like Marilyn Manson?"

It took him a moment, but then the stranger grinned, thumped his tail against the recliner, and tapped a claw against his chest. "Oh! Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I like the music, and he's a - he's a pretty cool guy, actually, if you take the time to check out what he's done, for charities and stuff..."

"You know," said a cat, just passing by on his way to the hall. That was where the bathroom was; a tigress had run into there earlier after having maybe one (or seven) too many shots, and Bryce wasn't fully sure that she'd come out yet. "My favorite thing about him is how he got a rib removed so the dude could suck his own dick-"

The mutt raised a finger towards him. "Hey, hey - that's just rumor! That's not proven!"

"You tellin' me you wouldn't do it, too?"

"Okay. I'm a dog. You think I can't already?"

"Ha! Sheeit." The cat took a sip of his drink and turned to continue on his way. "What, ya gay?"

Brown eyes followed him until he'd disappeared into the hallway... and then the mutt slumped down in his chair, whiskers and ears drooping a little. However, those perked back up once he noticed Bryce still watching him. "God. You wouldn't believe how many people ask me that."

"What? Why? You don't seem gay."

Then, another voice - which startled Bryce, as it came from right behind him. He craned his head back and saw Soren, the host of the party as well as the friend that had driven him over, leaning against the back of the couch he sat in. "That's 'cause you don't know Spencer, man." He motioned with his drink towards the mutt. "You mind?"

That mutt - Spencer - rolled his eyes and shook his head, though it was hard to miss his little half-smile as he did so. "Oh my God. You'll do it even if I say no."

"Dude, have you seen yourself? Yeah, Marilyn Manson, sure - that was cool, in 1998. Spence, no offense, but you - I mean, you like Lady Gaga-"

Bryce raised a paw. "Okay, but I like her too..." Soren didn't have to know about the other part of that, though.

"-more often than not, I see you wearing that kind of t-shirt that's a little bit tight on you, and you've got those kind-of-short shorts, and the skinny jeans, and..." He paused to sip his drink. "Fuck, dude, Jenna likes you. Last party I had, she told me herself that she wouldn't mind suckin' your dick..."

Spencer leaned forward in his recliner, elbows on his knees. "Excuse me? Jenna likes me?"

"Sure. And everyone knows hot chicks only like douchebags, rich guys, and gays. You're one of the nicest people I know, and you certainly wouldn't show up to one of my parties if you any money worth bragging about, so..."

"Huh." Even across the room, it was obvious to Bryce that this knowledge had no real effect on the mutt. His raised eyebrows, his open mouth, his perked ears... they were all a little bit forced, a little bit exaggerated. "Imagine that."

"Wouldn't be hard to if you paid literally any attention to the way she looks at you, man," Soren went on, straightening up. Bryce felt a claw tap against the middle of his head. "Also, I think your - food is done. That's what that smell is, right?"

Bryce's perked ears, however, were one hundred percent genuine. He almost fell over, he stood up so quickly. "Shit. Aah, please don't be burnt..." ...and he slid on the tile on his way into the kitchen, the rich smell of the wings he'd put in earlier floating around the room and making his stomach growl even beneath the panic. Thankfully, though, they seemed to be alright, if a little bit black on the bottom. Could be worse.

Once he'd set the tray down on the counter, he almost turned to head back into the other room... and then stopped himself. That conversation hadn't gone exactly how he'd expected. He'd wanted to continue talking to that mutt, that Spencer, and then invite him to play the abandoned video game that the last group of people had left running on the TV, and go from there. Well - at least he'd seemed to be interested in him and in talking to him... for the two sentences they'd shared before Soren came in.

Bryce didn't really have a lot of experience talking to guys. Halfway through high school, he'd thought that he was really getting a hold on his shyness - but then there was what happened his junior year, with the train wreck that Homecoming his senior year turned out to be...

"Goddamn, what smells so good?"

And of course he wasn't expecting Spencer to follow him anyway. His voice made him jump and bump the edge of the tray with his paw as he turned around to face him. "Oh! Oh, I - I put in some... some food earlier..."

The mutt came up around the counter and rested his paws on his hips, nose twitching with the scented steam curling around his muzzle. His tail swayed behind him. "Wings, huh?"

"Yeah! My favorite. We've got A, and B, some C here... a few D, if you're into that..." He looked up at Spencer, painfully aware that he was speaking quickly, that his nervousness was showing, but - the mutt seemed neither to notice nor care. "I prefer boneless, but all they had was bone-in, so. What do you like?"

Spencer rested his elbows on the counter and leaned over the tray, nose and whiskers still twitching as he breathed that smell. "What, me? I gotta say, man, I've never had 'em."

That brown-furred muzzle split into a big dumb grin in response to Bryce glaring at him, wondering if he'd heard correctly... and in turn, that made the dingo's frown turn into a similar smile. "Are you - are you being, like... serious right now?"

"Serious as a... ah..." The mutt snapped his fingers a few times. "God. What was it that - Laura had, earlier?"

"Who?"

"Tigress. Almost puked in the jacuzzi, had to run into the bathroom?"

"Oh, yeah. I dunno - something with Fireball."

"Yeah!" Spencer reached for one of the wings, touched it, seemed surprised by the slick stickiness of the sauce, and then sniffed at and licked his finger. A moment later, he raised his eyebrows. "Serious as Fireball."

"Fireball ain't serious. I mean, unless you're a pussy." Bryce picked out one of the wings for himself, took a bite, and shrugged while chewing. "Speaking of, you should try my mixed drinks sometime. Soren wouldn't let me do any of that today 'cause, like, oh, you're still underage, I try to have my parties be - no fun allowed, whatever. I'll be 21 in, like, three months."

"Ah, well, you and I are in the same boat, then." Spencer gingerly held the wing he'd chosen in both paws, in the forefinger and thumb in each paw. "You mind if I-?"

"Yeah, no, they're here for whoever. Go ahead."

"Cool. Anyway - yeah, I'm 19, but only 'til next month. But, yeah, that reminds me, too, that Laura... was drinking, got sicker 'n I've ever seen. And one of my buddies from high school once ate an entire rotisserie chicken, fully knowing the thing had been sitting out in the Texas sun for about eight hours..."

"I'd think that would keep it hot enough."

"That's what he said! See how well that went, though." Spencer spoke between bites of the wing, now fully eager. "Hey, this is pretty damn good."

"You bet it is. And now that you've have these, nothing else will ever compare."

"Well, what if I just come over some time and have you make more for me?"

That sentence - invitation? - seemed to hang in the air for a few seconds, something else that Bryce wasn't fully sure he'd heard correctly. Really, though, there was nothing else that that could have been; Spencer busied himself with cleaning off the bone, then reached for another one. The mutt acted as if he'd said nothing out of the ordinary, and - well, really, he didn't. Just one guy asking another to hang out.

Brown eyes flashed up at him for a moment, sparkling with - with enjoyment of the food, or of the party, or of something else. Bryce couldn't tell. Just as soon as he'd noticed, though, Spencer went right back to focusing on the wings.

Maybe Bryce could (should) ask. He leaned back against the other counter, going over the words in his mind, figuring out the right way to say it... this conversation had been going so well, too. It usually did, when both parties involved were interested in maintaining it. That much had been obvious in those brown eyes while Spencer was speaking, in the light tone of his voice, the ease of his words. He didn't have to try to say the right thing. It just... came out.

So maybe Bryce could do the same. He coughed, cleared his throat, swallowed, half-raised his paw-

"Hey, Bryce, you'd said you need to be home soon, right?" And yet again Soren startled him, head peeked in from around the corner. "Sean just came back with my car, so it's all warmed up and ready, if you are."

He looked from Spencer to Soren, and back to Spencer. The mutt had finished that other wing and started on a third, himself looking back and forth between the two of them with measured interest.

Bryce frowned. "Huh?"

"Eleven, right? It's 10:50 now, about. Takes like, what, seven minutes to get you home? You're not that far."

"Oh. Oh, yeah, I guess you're right..." Just hadn't expected the wings to take so long. And with that, the flow of the conversation shifted again, and he'd missed his chance...

Soren looked over to the other canid. "You need a ride, too, Spence?"

"Oh, yeah, sure."

Bryce's ears perked-

"I mean, maybe in an hour or two. I ain't got a curfew, so I'll just let ya know when I'm sleepy."

-and then fell. With that went his confidence; a bit awkwardly, he wished Spencer a good night, shoved his paws into his pockets, and followed Soren out the door - and then halfway there realized that he'd never gotten the mutt's number.

Maybe there'd be another time.

~ ~ ~

With his luck, though, of course he wasn't expecting "another time" to come so soon.

Later that week, Bryce woke up to a message from Soren inviting him to come and hang out with another friend, "maybe run into town, chill a bit. I hear there's a free music festival in the square, so I wanna check that out..." So he agreed, checked the time (today would be the earliest he'd woken up this week, at an easy 2:47 PM), rolled out of bed and got dressed... and had just barely finished his early-afternoon breakfast of a bowl of dry cereal when the doorbell rang.

Soren greeted him with a bright grin and a flick of the tail and, as usual, a sassy comment: "You look good today."

Bryce shot a look at him over his shoulder, turned to lock the door behind him. "I just woke up."

"Yeah. I know. I was saying - was saying that-"

"Yeah, I got it. Thanks. So, what's the plan for today?"

"Already toldja the plan." Soren jangled his keys in his paw as they approached his car, still running as it sat by the curb. Bryce could see someone through the window, but didn't recognize who until he actually climbed in. And, then, it was a familiar face grinning at him through the rearview, soon to be joined again by Soren's. "You remember Spencer, right? I think you two were both at my party Tuesday night."

It took him a moment to get over the surprise. "Oh, yeah, I was."

"Hell yeah you were," Spencer went on, and punched Soren in the shoulder. "He made the wings."

"Oh, shit, that's right, I forgot about that. 'Cause I told you you couldn't do your drinks."

Bryce rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "Oh my God, again with the drinks."

"I'm just tellin' ya, man, you can do that in your own house, but not in mine. We're safe in my house."

Spencer shot a glare his way. "I heard Laura had to be taken to the emergency room! You call that safe?"

Soren held up a paw for a moment, and then shifted the car out of park a moment later. "I should clarify. I mean safe legally. Ain't no law against being an idiot."

"Isn't it illegal to have free alcohol at a party where minors are attending?"

Then, he coughed into his fist. "Okay! So, Spencer - we gotta run by your house, right?"

"Yeah." The mutt turned around to face Bryce. "Gotta get my wallet. I can be a bit of a forgetful dog."

"Hey, man, it's alright, I just-" I'm just happy to see you again, his mind told him, but his mouth refused to say it. That would be a bit weird, wouldn't it? "I just... I just woke up, so."

That grin turned into a sleek smile. "Did you remember to grab your phone?" -and then back into a grin when Bryce patted at his pockets to be sure.

Soren kept the radio on the local classic rock station for the duration of the ride, at one point turning the volume up a bit and jamming along while his two passengers actually maintained a conversation of their own. Bryce found himself smiling and laughing at Spencer's little jokes and some of the things he said, and if he ever lost the thread and fell quiet, then the mutt seemed perfectly happy (and eager; that was the important part) to pick things back up again.

From the party ("shit, did Laura really have to go to the ER?"; "oh, yeah, she was passed out in the bathtub, that cat that went by during out Manson conversation noticed her after he took a piss, tried to wake her up for like fifteen minutes before he noticed how fast her heart was beating"), back to their music tastes, to the music currently playing ("fuck you," Soren said, "Chicago only got good after they dumped the whole jazzy thing they had on their first album"), to their plans for the night... and then to video games, which held both of them enough that they hadn't noticed they'd arrived until Soren turned the car off.

Bryce hadn't been paying attention to the route they took or where, really, this was, but the ride hadn't been that long. But, of course... it's not like Spencer would bother coming to a smallish party like that if he lived out of town, would he?

"You guys wanna come in?" Spencer asked, reaching to undo his seatbelt. "I mean, first thing, I've gotta look for my wallet. The finding comes afterwards. Might be a while."

Soren was the one to answer first, and of course Bryce wasn't about to say no. "Sure. Hey, is your brother home?"

"Maybe? I don't know, but you're welcome to look. You coming too, Bryce?"

Spencer led the other two up the sidewalk and briefly struggled with the door ("sorry, I always forget which way to turn the key"), but eventually managed it and let them in. At first, Bryce took his time to just look around and take everything in: cool, dark with most of the window blinds drawn shut, a scent vaguely reminiscent of cinnamon and cloves hovering around on the air, but it wasn't that kind of artificial chemical type that he'd expect from an air freshener.

Spencer's footsteps tp-tp-tp'd on hardwood floor in the hallway, with Soren's soon to follow. Looked like he'd been here a few times before, given the comfort with which he strolled around the place, while Bryce still kept to himself, held his arms around his chest, continued to look around himself to make sure he wouldn't bump into a shelf or a chair or knock a picture off the wall.

Further down the hall, that sweet and spicy cinnamon scent started to meld into something more relatable, something - not quite familiar, but getting there. Only when Spencer opened the door to what looked to be his room did it make sense and sharpen in Bryce's mind, mainly due to the wave of that new scent that hit his muzzle and tickled at his nose and whiskers.

That was the scent of a male, to put it simply. That kind of dry but deep musk, floating around in the air, clinging to the sheets of the bed and the pile of clothes in the corner, that same scent that buzzed in Bryce's head and honestly distracted him from most other things... until, of course, his eyes focused on just what else was in this room.

So that was why their video game conversation had held Spencer so thoroughly. All along the walls and on the shelves, posters of various franchises, little figurines, spin-off book series, other kinds of merch. The mutt's PC sat in one corner of the room, monitor showing a screensaver for the same game they'd been talking about when they arrived, and a couple of consoles rested beneath the TV pushed up against the other wall, a short stack of game cases right next to them.

"Wow." Bryce knelt down to thumb through the games. "You've got quite the collection here, man."

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I told you! I - ow-" The mutt knocked a book off a shelf above his bed, and just barely managed to catch it in the crook of his elbow. "-meant it when I said I'm serious about that stuff. All I've gotten for my birthday since I was, like, fourteen. Not counting that time my cousin got me a bike when I was seventeen. Congrats on passing your driving test, the card said - but, get this, on the other side, and to think it only took you seven tries!"

Bryce ran his fingers over the raised text on the front of one of the game cases, a special steel box as opposed to the usual colored plastic. He hadn't actually seen one of these in person. "Good God. Seven?"

"Mhmm. To be fair, though, only four of those were directly my fault. The other three were just stupid shit." Some rustling, another bump and clatter, another whispered ow. He didn't seem to be having much luck looking for his wallet.

So the dingo looked back down at this game in his paws. Just like before, his shyness held him back a little bit, but - hell, this was something he'd once jealously ogled in pictures posted online. "Hey, Spencer?"

"'Sup?"

"Is this - really the Legendary Edition of Acceleron 2?"

The mutt's tail started wagging even before he'd turned around, and then, he hopped down off his bed so he could face his guest. Ears perked, grin wide and bright, shoulders relaxed but firm... this was something he took pride in. "Hell yeah it is! You know of it?"

"Know of it? Man - I was in summer camp when it was announced so I missed the preorder date, and by the time I'd saved the money from my allowance to get it, it'd sold out. It's supposed to have, like... some extra levels, extra characters, extra equipment. That true?"

That same light, boyish scent that lingered in the room wafted over him once more, this time as Spencer knelt down next to him to gently take the case from his paws. Bryce couldn't resist leaning in a little bit, getting a little stronger of a whiff of it, tasting it for what it was...

"Oh, yeah. All of that and more. Also - summer camp, allowance? How old did you say you were?"

"Twenty. This game came out six years ago, man."

"Oh my God." Spencer put a paw to his forehead, mouthing the years. "Shit, you're right. That was six years ago. I'm kind of surprised you haven't gotten your own yet, if you want one that much."

"Nobody's selling!"

"Well, why the hell not? It's been over half a decade."

"Have you ever considered selling yours?"

The mutt looked down at the steel case, turning it slightly back and forth so that the light caught on those raised letters. "Well. No. Can't say I've ever thought about it, actually. It's just too damn cool. I grew up on the first one, y'know? And I hear 3 is gonna be announced soon..."

"Sometime this winter, yeah. Who knows when the release date will be, though..." And then, something else he couldn't resist: "You wanna play some? I mean - God knows I do. You probably know, too."

"I can tell. I thought about offering, just to pass some time, but..." Spencer looked over his shoulder towards the bedroom door, half-open into the dark hallway. "Soren already had plans. Maybe we should check with him..."

And good thing they did, too. When Soren came back unsuccessful in his search for Bryce's brother, he did agree, but with quite a bit of reluctance and reservation evident beneath his voice. Being a singleplayer game, they each had to take turns and did the usual thing of switching whenever someone died... and with Bryce and Spencer each having already had considerable experience in this game, their turns tended to last a lot longer than Soren's.

It was the three of them sitting in a row on the floor, with Soren on one end, Bryce on the other, and Spencer between them - and it was due to that distance (as well as his own focus on this mutt, who he also caught looking back at him a few times) that he didn't notice the depth of Soren's... impatience. Eight minutes for Bryce, ten for Spencer, and then about eighteen seconds for Soren...

"Hey, guys," he said after his fourth or fifth turn, and set the controller down on the floor in front of him. Both of the canids looked up at him after he stood up. "I'll be right back, alright? I've gotta go - check something, I need to see if I... turned the car off..."

"Yeah, no problem." Bryce picked the controller back up and resumed the game, and then a moment later noticed that Spencer had moved over to fill in the gap left between them. "We'll be here, okay?"

"Yeah." The wood floor in the hall creaked beneath his weight once he'd left, and then there was the jangling of his keys, the sound of the door opening and closing... and Bryce settled his attention back on the game, Spencer close beside him urging him on. With Soren gone they could actually turn the difficulty up to one they were both comfortable with, and soon found themselves leaning against one another, at times trying to snatch the controller from each other and laughing.

At one point Spencer got up to go to the bathroom, and came back just as he was zipping his fly back up - which gave Bryce a good second and a half of seeing his underwear, loose boxers, green with what looked like little white stars speckled all over.

"Hey," he said, redoing the button. "Want me to go get us some snacks or something from the kitchen? I dunno how long Soren's gonna be gone. I went to check, and his car's not here anymore."

Bryce squinted at the screen a bit more. He remembered this level from his own copy of the game back home, but the textures looked different, and he could swear that this entire section was new. But, then again, lucky Spencer over here had the legendary edition. "Huh. That's a little bit odd for checking if he'd locked it, don't you think?"

"Yep." Spencer's smile widened a bit. "Anyway, snacks. I'll be right back."

So Soren had left them. Not that either of them cared, of course; that smile of his had told him everything, had told him that Spencer would be just as content to stay here and play video games wit him as Bryce himself was. The dingo put the game on pause and just sat there for a moment, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back on his elbow... Spencer sure gave off a lot of body heat, for the short amount of time that he'd leaned against him. Bryce could still feel some of that warmth tingling along his shoulder and upper arm.

Only then did he realize that he should probably tell his parents where he was, so he dug his phone out of his pocket, kind of raised his eyebrows at seeing that he had no missed messages or anything, and sent them a quick text. Then, while looking through his emails, Spencer came back with a bag of cookies under one arm, a two-liter of cherry soda in that paw, a bag of pretzels in the other, and a small bag of some kind of chocolate snack clamped between his teeth.

"Jeez." Bryce watched him try to lower himself down to his knees, and from there drop the pretzels and chocolate, then set the soda down, and the cookies. "When you said snacks..."

"Hey, man." He raised his paw in defense, and then clamped it down on the bottle to try to open it. "I like myself some snacks. We gonna run this whole game tonight?"

"God. Are we? I mean, it's not that long..."

Once more, that grin returned. "You've never played the legendary edition."

Eventually they both got tired of sitting slumped over on the floor, and moved up to the bed across the room. Bryce propped up his pillows for them to lean back against, and facing this way, their legs hung off the edge; they kept the snacks off to one side and soda to the other, which meant that Bryce had to reach across Spencer whenever he wanted a drink (and they did so right out of the bottle, after a quick "do you care?" "oh, nah, do you?"), and that Spencer had to lean across Bryce...

...and every time he did, Bryce leaned in a little bit, felt that same body heat emanating off of the mutt, picked up his scent on the air... thing was, it had changed a little bit. Not, like, the whole-body change between when a girl wore perfume and when she didn't, which he'd gotten more than his fair share of that one time his mom urged him to go to prom, but rather... some inner trait of it had changed. There was still the dry spiciness that said to his mind, bright and clear, this is Spencer, but underneath that-

He only realized what it was when the mutt picked up the now-empty bag of chocolate snacks, and then, disappointed, tossed it to the side and settled back into place beside him. That was the scent of interest, of some kind of enjoyment, some kind of eagerness. The more he watched Spencer, the more obvious it came to be: in the way he looked at him, his laugh, how he now rested his weight against Bryce's shoulder instead of just back against the pillows, how their fingers brushed together for the slightest of moments each time they passed the controller between them.

As it usually went with playing a game like this, Bryce just suddenly came to be aware that, hey, the sun wasn't up anymore, as the only light that came in through the window beside the bed was the sickly yellow-orange of a nearby streetlight. Didn't feel like they'd spent that long playing already, but... again, he had only managed to roll out of bed around three PM today, and Acceleron had always had a tendency to suck him in - especially now with the goddamn legendary edition of the second.

"Hey Spencer?"

The mutt glanced over at him, in the middle of repeatedly mashing one of the buttons. "Yo."

"You ever had a girlfriend?"

A pause in that mashing... followed by a little explosion from the TV speakers, Spencer refocusing his gaze on the screen, and then a muttered "ah, dammit". Then, he rested the controller on his legs. "Well. Yeah, I guess. Long-ass time ago."

"How long is a 'long-ass time'?"

"I was in, like, second grade, man. Don't worry."

Don't worry.

"And, really, we were just good friends, you know? Again, fucking second grade. I hardly knew what long division was, much less love. It was kind of a... kind of a trending thing, I guess. That's what everyone else was talking about - oh, I girlfriend; oh, I got a boyfriend; oh, I have seven girlfriends and I hate all of them-"

"Okay, that one's pretty on-point."

"Right? That's actually something one of my second-grade classmates said. It's stuck with me ever since, and... heh. Funny stuff. But, yeah, there... there wasn't much there." A moment of silence, before he looked over at the dingo beside him. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, well, I mean, I was just..." Bryce reached over to fiddle with the now also-empty cookie bag, just to give his paws something to do. The crumbs stuck to his fingerpads, the little chocolate bits smeared across his skin, a piece of the label clung to his claw.

"Have you ever had one?"

The slow, easy music of the Acceleron 2 pause screen was the only noise in the room, other than the quiet humming of the air conditioning and the occasional sound of a car passing by outside. Bryce swallowed, pulled in a breath, held it for a moment, and let it back out. "Once or twice. Same story as you, though... it was only 'kind of', I guess. You know?"

"Yep. I know."

"There was one, back when I was... y'know, when it felt right. And then I realized it wasn't, and I had a hell of a time letting her down. And then my mom really wanted me to go to prom at least once during my high school career, and pushed me to ask out this girl she liked..."

"A girl she liked?"

"Yep. She'd met her once at a PTA meeting when we were in elementary school, and hadn't seen her since. You can get that that girl wasn't the same as she remembered. So there was that, and..." Bryce shrugged. "Didn't turn out great, of course. Wasn't, like - oh, traumatic high school experience, no. Nothing happened. Just turned out to be nothing worth recalling."

"I know the feeling." The mutt placed the controller to the side, brought his legs up in front of him, and leaned back against the pillows. "So, I'm gonna ask you something, and you can't blame me for it 'cause you started it. Okay?"

"Huh? Oh, well..." When he looked over, all he saw in those brown eyes was genuine interest and curiosity... and he was reminded of that scent he'd picked up earlier. He'd been a little reluctant to admit it, but every time he caught that scent on the air, it made his whiskers twitch and his heart speed up just a little bit - as well as made his pants tighten, just in the slightest. "Alright. I guess. What's up?"

This time, it was Spencer who brought in and then let out a slow breath. "Y'ever had sex?"

Wow. Just come right out and say it, huh? Bryce could feel his face flush, and next thing he knew, he'd broken eye contact and was looking at all of the figurines and special merchandise decorating the shelves of the mutt's room. "Uh. Well... um..."

"Ah. You're hesitating! So I won't know if what you're saying is true or not."

"You think I'd lie to you?"

All of a sudden, that face became serious. Spencer shook his head. "No. I don't."

"How about you? Will you tell me yours first?"

"Oh, that's not fair!"

"I'm just nervous, okay?"

"Won't it make you upset if I say I have, and I'm younger 'n you?"

"That's something a seventeen-year-old would get upset about. I'm twenty. Gimme a break if I'm a little nervous." Bryce crossed his arms in front of his chest and watched the mutt's face.

However, what he saw there still took him by surprise: first Spencer showed some amusement, and then disappointment, and then something like worry, regret. Brown eyes met his, and then looked away.

"Okay. Well. There was this, um... this wolf once, and we... got kind of close. It was at a party, not one of Soren's, but another friend of ours, and we got... well, you know how it goes. Everyone had left, it was just the two of us there on the couch while our friend was running some other people home... we got into the whole..." Spencer reached up and rubbed behind one of his ears. They were neither standing stock upright nor drooped down, instead just kind of... staying there, where they were. "The whole nuzzling, grinding, rubbing, kissing. Whatever."

Doesn't sound too bad so far, Bryce thought about saying, but there was something in the tone of his voice that stopped him. He also couldn't help but feel like Spencer was avoiding using pronouns.

"I think - well. One of us was drunk, and it definitely wasn't me. You know how you can really smell it on someone's breath? Yeah - so I had that going in my face, and paws up on my neck, on my chest, down towards my pants... I was turned on, of course. Hard not to be when you've got someone who looks like that all on you. So I got - so I started grinding and humping and whatever, but next thing I knew, h... this wolf just kind of looked at me, with - with disgust, and got off me, and... and said... well. Put it simply, he called me gross. 'Cause-"

"Whoa. What the fuck? Why? I mean - you're not a bad looking guy, Spencer. Hell no." At first, it didn't even click that Spencer had said he.

"Yeah, but..." The mutt shrugged. Now his ears drooped. "Ah, whatever. I shouldn't'a brought it up. Every time I mention that time, it gets me down a little bit."

"Why would someone say something like that to you?"

"'Cause I'm... um..." Another flash of brown eyes, held for a couple of seconds before he looked away again. Ears drooped, whiskers drooped... "Uncut. You know?"

That probably didn't bring the same reaction out of Bryce that he'd expected. The dingo could see on his face that he'd thought he would respond with similar distaste and disgust, but - instead, that ignited a little fire in the middle of Bryce's chest, or rather added more fuel to the flame for Spencer that already burned there. He fiddled with his paws in his lap, trying not to show his... interest and excitement too much. This was a matter close to his heart as well.

"Really?"

Spencer scoffed. "No, I just made that up because - because it's like I haven't already gotten bullied enough already. I just needed something else to be self-conscious about." He rolled his eyes. "Yes. Really."

Then, before he could stop himself: "Can I see?"

It was easy to tell the exact moment those words registered in the mutt's mind. Those drooped ears and whiskers suddenly shot upright, he jumped a little bit, his brown-furred cheeks started to show a hint of rose along the skin beneath. He squinted at Bryce. "I... excuse me?"

"I wanna see." The dingo swallowed, and sat up straighter. Just thinking about it, about seeing what this guy had between his legs... it wasn't particularly often that he met someone else in the same boat as himself, and honestly, there was something about that rarity that made it all the more appealing.

It had been a long time since he'd last dug his tongue beneath a guy's foreskin, and hearing about it from Spencer gave him the confidence that he'd been looking for this whole time. "Would you be okay if I...?"

"I-I mean, I..." That blush spread to the mutt's ears and nose, too, especially as Bryce took him lightly by the shoulders and pushed him down to the bed. Now his scent bore the same spice of interest as earlier, as well as something deeper and heavier. There was surprise, sure, there was a bit of confusion (which was even more evident on his face), and then - beneath all of that, the characteristic tang of arousal.

Scent was intoxicating. Bryce had hardly known this mutt for a couple of days, and already he wanted to taste that scent at its source, to figure out all of its little nuances... so he touched his nose to the side of Spencer's muzzle, traced along his jawline, moved down along the lines of muscle in his neck, over the hem and pattern of his shirt, towards the waistband of his pants... and there he picked up a different scent, a different musk, one that caught his attention even more.

Even if Spencer hadn't told him, at this point he would have been able to tell. It added something else to that musk, something that tickled and teased at his nostrils and whiskers while he worked at the fly of his pants. Those went easily, with the mutt lifting up to allow Bryce to tug them down his legs, and then left those green boxers as the only thing remaining. So he licked his lips, swallowed, looked up at Spencer... and then touched his nose to the bulge of warm flesh beneath the fabric and followed the outline of his shaft.

At least it was obvious that he wasn't the only one interested. The slightest of little twitches and throbs against the side of his nose, stronger as he nuzzled more firmly along the side of that shaft... and Spencer was actually the one who hooked his thumb beneath the waistband of his boxers and tugged them down, down past the slight bushiness of his pubic fur, the base of his cock, his sack, the rest of his shaft, with just enough of that supple skin to cover the head, rolling slowly back as he stiffened up.

Bryce tasted that scent for a moment longer, skin of his nose touched against the skin of Spencer's cock. Deep, heady aroma, not at all unpleasant, strong without being overbearing - the same sort of which he'd get if he were to bury his nose in that pubic fur. However, that wouldn't have elicited quite the same strength of hunger in him as this one did, that led him to tilt that half-hard cock up in his fingers, close his lips on the rim of that skin, and slide his tongue up against the warm flesh of his head beneath.

And that first touch of tongue to skin sent a sweet shiver through the mutt's body, echoed and repeated as Bryce continued and dug his tongue in deeper, as he swirled it beneath the gradually-tightening skin. Hardly a thing he loved more than rolling that skin back and forth, back and forth over his tongue by his paw along the shaft, feeling the warm and naturally-slick rim of it touch and tighten and then roll back, again and again... Bryce brought himself up a little bit further, Spencer's now fully-hard cock twitching between his lips, so he could begin a slow rhythm on him.

The mutt leaned his head back and breathed a low sigh, letting out a mix of tense nervousness, heady arousal, and sweet enjoyment. As he went on, Bryce could feel the former of these continue to drain out of his body and give way to the same desire and urgency that he himself felt, most noticeably in the little twitches along his tongue and the occasional hump upward into his muzzle.

Bryce kept his paw in place against his lips, every now and then stroking the mutt against his rhythm so he could again feel his foreskin slide back and then forward again on the surface of his tongue and roof of his mouth. He swallowed down the mixed slickness of his own saliva and Spencer's musk and pre, slightly tangy, sticking to the back of his throat.

It was also a bit odd to admit, but this wouldn't be the first time something like this had crossed his mind. The night after the party, after he'd finished berating himself for not being more forward with this cute mutt, Bryce slumped into bed, tugged the blankets up to his neck, fell asleep within about forty minutes... and then found himself in a lovely dream where he was in this exact same position, nose first pressed up against Spencer's sack and then along the side of his cock, back then a mystery to the dingo.

That didn't mean that he didn't dream he was uncut, too, though. And he was happy to see that he'd turned out to be right.

"Ah-..." Spencer breathed, now lifting up more rhythmically each time Bryce came down on him. The dingo brought his other paw up to feel and rub his sack, warm and full, which he also had full intention of draining tonight. Definitely wouldn't mind doing that across his tongue, his lips, his muzzle... and feeling the repeated twitches and throbs, feeling the excitement with which the mutt thrust between his lips, it probably wouldn't be too long, either.

There was something about that, about mixed nervousness and excitement that made things like this seem like they went so much faster. After focusing there for a moment, Bryce lifted himself up to all fours and moved his paw down from Spencer's sack to undo his own pants, very tight with his own eagerness. At least he hardly ever had to worry about his pre soaking through his underwear; his own foreskin usually kept that in check, though it meant that he could slide his thumb beneath the skin and easily drag it around, like he'd squeezed a fat drop of warm lube right against his head. And in a way, kind of, he had.

Right as he braced his tongue against the underside of Spencer's head, along the firm line of skin right there, taut with his foreskin tugged back, Bryce felt a paw settle against his shoulder, squeeze, push him back - and so he obeyed, hungry tongue hanging out of his mouth and Spencer's aroma and taste lingering in his throat and on his lip. The mutt squirmed underneath him in the imminence of his peak, but held himself off. Just like a dog... his hips continued to work, thrusting up and down into the warm air where Bryce's muzzle had been just a couple of seconds ago.

"Wait - wait," the mutt panted, struggling a bit to pull himself up to his knees and half-turn around. Bryce watched as he wriggled the rest of the way out of his pants and underwear and then tugged his shirt off, giving the dingo a good look at the curve and line of his back, fur short and sleek and still that same sweet chocolate-brown... and then he lowered himself to all fours, tail raised. "I want to - want to feel... ah-"

Maybe this wasn't what he'd intended for Bryce to do to him, but he certainly didn't seem to mind. One paw at the base of that tail to keep it hiked into the air, lips pursed against his revealed tailhole, tongue still working and swirling there just as it had done underneath his foreskin. The dingo worked his chin in place as he focused on Spencer's tailhole, tongue running all along the ridged, tense rim, teasing at the center just a little bit, pressing in against the tight clenching... and Spencer gasped and panted, pushing his rump back against the muzzle beneath his tail.

Almost hard to believe that this was the same bright, happy mutt that he'd first seen across the room at Soren's party earlier in this week, with him now moaning, grinding back against Bryce's muzzle, clenching around and against his tongue, warm sack against his chin and musk heavy on his lips. Bryce spread that rump with his other paw, thumb placed in close to the rim of his tailhole to stretch it open just slightly, just enough for him to wriggle his tongue further into the warm, slick flesh.

"God..." Spencer managed, still grinding his rear back. Bryce brought his tongue back into his muzzle, swallowed, licked his lips, and then lapped up along the puckered flesh. "I never thought..."

But he never finished his sentence. Once more his voice failed him, instead turning to a light huff of breath once he felt the weight of the dingo bearing down on top of him, and the tip of his cock against his thoroughly-slickened tailhole. Bryce made sure to spit into his paw and rub that over his length, too, since while he knew from experience that a good tonguing would probably be enough, he wanted to be certain. He wanted to be sure he could make this mutt squirm and grind and moan and pant beneath him.

Again, though, that shouldn't be too hard, seeing how Spencer pressed back against him as soon as he'd taken his paw away again. Bryce squeezed his arms around the mutt's lower body and pushed up into him, slowly, carefully at first; the hardest part always came from the first entry, with that tight tailhole tugging and squeezing along the rim of his foreskin, pulling it (sometimes uncomfortably) far back... and as he'd expected, Spencer pulled in a breath and squeezed around him, entire body tensing up as the dingo sank deeper into him.

Bryce gritted his teeth, starting to feel that familiar tug along the rim of his foreskin... but he pushed past it, slowly and carefully, until he felt the pressure of his hips flat against Spencer's rump. Such intense, moist heat all around him, squeezing on him from base to tip, clenching and releasing with each little movement from him... Bryce leaned in a little closer and nuzzled at Spencer's neck.

"You ready?"

The mutt had to take a moment to catch his breath. "Y-yeah. Yeah, I want to..."

So then he started to tug back out, just as slowly as he'd first pressed into him - and felt pressure slide along him in the other direction, rolling his slick skin forward over his head, tugging it a little bit further until just his head remained past that still-tight pucker. Slowly he worked back and forth, sliding in until his hips bumped against Spencer's rear again, and then pulling back out until any further would cause him to slip out with the slightest clench.

After a while, the controller thumped to the floor off to the side of the bed, the mattress itself lurching steadily forward and back with the rhythm of Bryce's hips. Spencer had lowered himself down closer to the bed, arms out on either side of him braced against the blankets, weight of the dingo on top of him pressing him down further... it didn't take long before he'd given into it enough so that he was essentially on his belly on the bed, every thrust into him causing him to grind against the mattress. Bryce could only imagine how that felt, having someone pound up beneath his tail, while the resulting movement in him tugged his foreskin back and forth, back and forth between the blankets and his own belly. The mutt certainly enjoyed it, judging by his panting and moaning, his clenching, how he pushed his rear back against Bryce every time he thrust into him, now causing a steady smack-smack-smack that underlined each of their breathing.

The tightness, the heat, the slickness, the raw pleasure... Bryce hadn't been expecting it since he was so focused on his partner beneath him, but before he knew it or could stop himself, he realized that he'd passed the point where all of his energy and urgency built up in his lower abdomen and drove him to pound into Spencer faster and harder, again and again, until - with a low, rumbling growl in his throat that turned into a shuddering sigh, he felt himself unload spurt after spurt deep under the mutt's tail. Somewhere along the way, his other paw had made its way up the mutt's thigh and hip and wrapped about halfway along his tail, squeezing tight on the fur and flesh to keep that rump pressed as much against him as he could.

That was a different kind of hot pleasure, the kind that he could feel draining his energy out of him... and after he'd finished, hips still working to squeeze out the last of his load. Spencer still worked and pushed against him, taking over the rhythm that the dingo had left off in with all of his ability to go on now emptied about six and a half inches beneath the mutt's tail - and Spencer just used that to his advantage, moving faster with the added slickness of his load, lifting his rump up against the male still hilted beneath his tail, pressing and squeezing and smacking against him until he could feel the warm, slick stickiness of his own cum rolling down the back of the mutt's sack, wiping against him every time he pushed back.

Bryce actually wasn't sure if Spencer pawed himself off to finish, or if he'd gotten there just by fucking himself on the dingo's gradually-softening cock and grinding against the blankets beneath him; he was too busy catching his breath and making sure he didn't fall over to look. Within a few more seconds, though, he felt the mutt beneath him similarly tense up, gasp, moan, shudder, and then jerk forward and buck back against him, bringing him as deep under his tail as he could while he squeezed tightly around him, in rhythm with each of his own spurts across the bed.

Both panting, they eventually found the energy to untwine themselves from one another, and flopped down onto the bed without bothering to clean up or pull the blankets up over themselves. Despite having slept nearly to three in the afternoon, what had just happened between them left Bryce drained in more ways than one, and before long he found himself drifting off with this warm mutt pushed back against his chest, smelling wonderfully of himself, his musk, pleasure, and - satisfaction and enjoyment.

Another part of it was probably how it was a lot later than it felt like. His phone had also fallen to the floor amid the action, along with most of what remained of the snacks, but... last time he'd checked, the time was around 11:40, and that was before they'd paused the game to talk about... whatever it was their conversation had turned into.

Whatever. That wasn't important. Bryce nuzzled up against Spencer's neck, licked his lips, let out a small sigh of sweet pleasure... and then felt his tail thump against the mattress once the mutt nuzzled back against him.

~ ~ ~

"So. Uh. About that..."

The next morning came with bright sun piercing through the window blinds, and a house as quiet as it had been when they'd fallen asleep. Neither had thought to turn the console off, so just like at Soren's party, it remained on the same pause screen with the backlight dimmed and the music silenced; the first thing Spencer had done after waking up and rolling out of bed was hit the off button with his toe. Bryce watched him as he got dressed, remembering the feeling of that sleek uncut cock on his tongue and between his lips, and - half-considered tugging the mutt back into bed for another go.

But it was the expression on his face that stopped him. Spencer sat back down on the bed, keeping himself at the edge near Bryce's feet. The dingo had sat up, wiped at his eyes, stretched his arms over his head, yawned... and just waited.

Spencer swallowed. "I think... I think that we should..."

"I thought you said you weren't gay."

He couldn't help but grin and laugh in response to the glare that the mutt shot his way. Spencer's tail swayed behind him, and the corner of his mouth showed a hint of irresistible amusement.

All of that shyness and nervousness he'd felt before... all it had taken was a night together, and all of that fell away. Bryce tried to lean forward and rest his paw on Spencer's thigh, but the mutt was too far away, so he just thumped back against the wall behind him instead. "Last night? I don't want that to be some kind of one-night stand."

That either precisely was, or was not what Spencer had planned to say. Yet again, his ears and whiskers shot up, and a slight blush warmed his cheeks. "You..."

"I was hoping it wasn't obvious that I was interested in you. Well, I mean... I was hoping that you could tell, at least, but that nobody else could. I had some idea about you."

"I had some idea, too." That tail wagged some more. "I'm glad you feel... the way that you do. About last night. That was - ah-"

"...a lot of fun," Bryce finished. Spencer nodded. And, then, what he said surprised the dingo:

"You know, I always heard that... first times... are supposed to hurt, a little bit. Or - not supposed to, but they usually do. But that was... that was..." He reached back, and rubbed the base of his tail. "Well, I'm sore now, I mean."

"Yeah. Um..." Bryce reached up and rubbed at an itchy spot behind his ear. What time was it? The sun outside the window said about midday, but his body clock felt more like either early morning or late evening, with the distant headache and the grogginess. Exactly how he felt when he'd gotten out of bed yesterday; common symptoms of oversleeping. He just could never get himself to wake up earlier.

And in that moment when he looked up at Spencer again and saw his smiling face and glimmering eyes, a hundred things rippled through his mind. What is this? I've never felt like this for anyone before. I've known you for, like, three days, and already looking at you makes my chest warm and my heartbeat pick up... I love your scent already, I wanna bury my nose in it so it stays with me, I want to hold your paw and kiss your forehead, and your nose, and your cheek, and your lips...

"Do you wanna-" He coughed. "Do you wanna, I dunno... go somewhere?"

That only widened the mutt's grin. "I'll drive if you treat."

"Sounds good. I was gonna treat anyway..." Then, he moved to stand up out of bed - but then quickly felt Spencer's paws squeeze on his wrists and help him up. The first tug brought him to his feet, but perhaps a little too quickly, as next thing he knew, he was falling forward... with Spencer right there to stop him, paws suddenly on his shoulders and - and lips against his as he settled him back.

"We have the house to ourselves today," he said after releasing him, warm breath washing out across Bryce's lips. "If you'd like, we could come back here afterwards, and..."

"I already said, sounds good." Bryce bumped his nose to Spencer's. "Mister I don't know why everyone thinks I'm gay."

Spencer's laugh, then, magnified this sweet warmth in his chest, and he couldn't help but smile.