FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Resolutions (part 10)

October: Tricks and Treats

By Al Song

October 31st, 2015

The past few weeks before Halloween had been kind of tough. Arvin was avoiding talking to me and he looked forlorn whenever he was near me. Usually Nathan seemed uncomfortable when the buck and the kangaroo were in the apartment with us.

When I asked Geo why Arvin was avoiding me he said that we needed a roommate meeting. Arvin said that he felt 'betrayed' that I didn't tell him that I was with Nathan.

I told Arvin that it was Nathan's own decision if he wants to be out. I said that we should know that outing people who don't want to be outed is wrong. He got quiet after that.

He also said that he felt like we weren't spending much time together like we used to before last August. It was true though. Ever since Nathan and I got together we were avoiding other people since we didn't want our relationship to be detected.

During Halloween Nathan and I chatted with each other in Geo's car and my roommates were having another discussion in the front seat together. The highway lights looked like pixels on an old arcade game and the city lights moved away from us like a cluster of constellations rapidly shifting in space.

Nathan and I held paws in the car as we rode northward into Snow County. We drove through smaller cities and towns threaded by highways. Being in the suburbs brought back memories of high school and living with my parents. High school had a good amount of unhappy events but ever since August I was able to turn around and laugh at those memories mockingly since I had a loving boyfriend, a group of friends who cared about me, and wonderful parents and no one could make me feel like I didn't have anyone again.

There was a point in the car ride where neither Nathan nor I were talking and I was blissfully leaning against him. Arvin and Geo were still talking but I knew that including myself in their conversation would be an awkward thing to do. I was afraid that if I had said something then their conversation would die down or it would just be Geo and me talking and that would make me feel like I'd be interrupting the two of them.

I wished things could go back to how they used to be but then I wouldn't be boyfriends with Nathan and I'd be on some friend-zone treadmill.

It was even more awkward a few weeks ago after our roommate meeting. The four of us tried to watch a movie together and Geo and I tried to make quips about the films but Arvin and Nathan just stayed quiet. We tried it again with an old console game which didn't work either since none of us were really feeling like playing it.

Geo thought that planning a group costume would be something that Arvin would love and he would know of some sort of Halloween party that would be happening, and it turned out to be true. Arvin adored the idea and he did know a place that was holding a party. Geo had to ask Arvin for Nathan and me if we could come along, and I heard Arvin give a, "Sure, why not?" as an answer as if the awkwardness were no longer there. We picked a time to have a meeting to discuss what we would dress as, and this meeting was made so that we would have to talk to each other.

We arrived at a cookie cutter, modern mansion in the middle of nowhere and we could already see rainbow lights erupting from the windows as if they were dispersive prisms.

There were cars haphazardly parked in clusters near the large residence so we decided to park away from everyone just so we wouldn't be blocked in by other drivers when we wanted to leave.

When I got out of the car Geo popped the trunk open. Inside the trunk lay four large playing cards and a few props. I handed a card to Geo and then a hard hat with a crown on it and a shovel. He was the king of spades. He also had on a pair of distressed jeans and a tank top with a safety vest on top of it.

I gave Nathan a card along with a cane which had a diamond on top of it and a top hat with a crown on it. He was dressed to the nines with a black and gray three piece suit that used to belong to Geo's dad. Both his necktie matched his pocket square which were also a silvery gray that matched the gray vest. The card was the king of diamonds.

I handed a long glow stick the size of a florescent light tube to Arvin and his card. He was dressed in a fishnet vest and a pair of black jean shorts. He had glow stick bracelets on his wrists and ankles. He wore neon green shoes that matched the pacifier around his neck and a pair of shutter shades. His crown was glow in the dark. He was the king of clubs.

I pulled out my own card and wore it before I brought out the other props. I grabbed a red bow and then my crown which had laurels surrounding it. I wore pretty much a toga with angel wings. I also had on a pair of sandals. I pretty much was cupid and my card was the king of hearts.

We spent time wearing the cardboard slabs on our backs for practice. They went down to our lower backs so they wouldn't restrain our tails and they went up just past our ears. The cards had straps on their fronts so they went around our shoulders like backpack straps and one of the straps went around our abdomens. Arvin spent a good amount of time working on the costume design and he hand painted the backs along with the suits on the front. The nice part was that the belt strap had a buckle so we could take off the cards with ease.

I shut the trunk and Geo locked the doors with a double beep from the keypad in his paw.

We headed into the mini mansion, with a crush of others in creative costumes funneling themselves into the front entrance.

"Welcome to paradise, guys!" Arvin shouted gleefully as he turned around and spread his arms out while walking backwards.

I was glad that the front entrance to the house was a double door so it would be easier for the four of us lugging life-sized playing cards on our backs to get through, but then again there were others in larger costumes too. One rabbit was dressed as Jerry the Giant and was walking on stilts. His strides were graceful so maybe he had a lot more experience on stilts than we did with wearing cards on our backs. Another person was dressed in a lot of heavy looking armor.

The three other kings and I finally made it into the mansion in a single-file line. I was glad no one pushed me or else we would have fallen like a line of dominoes.

The interior of the mansion looked like a dance club. I thought the décor would consist of a garish nod to royalty with gold and jewels smeared across the walls but it was very modern. The furniture was either white or silver, which made great screens for the colored lights swirling and shaking around us. It seemed like I was walking into a kaleidoscope with all the bodies undulating and pulsating against the rainbow light show.

Above a makeshift stage was a sign that read 'Tricks or Treat!" The stage itself had four shirtless muscular men with trays of various desserts and candy on a table in front of them. On the stage were an arctic fox, a white wolf, a reindeer, and a badger. There were also a lot of guys and a few women dancing around the stage trying to get their attention as they gawked at the shirtless tricks.

I looked at my own stomach and grimaced, and then Nathan said, "Hey, let's dance!"

We made our way over to an area without any furniture and a large group of dancing bodies. It was cumbersome to try to dance well while I had the card on my back but I was able to do a couple moves I remembered from what Geo and Arvin taught me. Nathan danced wildly and he didn't match the beat at times but it didn't seem like he cared nor did it seem like it mattered to anyone else. He was having fun and it rubbed off on me despite having a limited range of motion.

I didn't go to parties like this very often but I was enjoying myself in the sea of lights and retro techno music, I mean I could have made a better playlist while blind folded and throwing darts at notecards with song from my music collection on them, but that's just my own opinion on the matter.

After a while I got thirsty and the wolf and I walked to the kitchen which was on the other side of the house and it was far quieter, which meant a lot of people shouting and talking above to each other.

I grabbed a can of soda just in case the punch bowls had been tampered with. I didn't want to wake up with a chunk of my fur cut off or be trampled under others who had their motor functions compromised.

"Hey, Wes!"

My heart sank as I heard the voice. I turned around to see a red fox dressed as a pirate. He wore a crimson bandana on his head along with an open white shirt and a plastic cutlass.

"I see you've lost weight," Tyler aka Ty aka my ex said. His own stomach was now flat whereas before when our slightly overweight body types matched. I've lost weight with the help of Nathan but at this point I was still in the slightly overweight range of different boy figures. It definitely bothered me to see the fox as sleek as a magazine, but his content was still as trashy as ever.

I just grimaced back at him and made a noise that sounded like, "Mhm."

"I'm on a diet and a workout plan. I know that you speak a lot of languages but I still don't know if you're familiar with those two words," he said snidely as he poked my stomach with the sword.

I then tried to take the sash across my abdomen and cover more of my stomach with it.

"Hey!" Nathan snarled. "Is this guy harassing you?" he asked as he gave a stern look at Tyler.

"Yeah, this is my ex," I said not trying to sound stressed out.

"Who's this chump? Your bodyguard?" he asked.

"He's my, uh, friend," I said trying not to give out unwanted information.

"I'm his boyfriend," Nathan said as I felt warmth in my chest. "I suggest you leave him alone."

"I've got a boyfriend now, too. I just met him," my ex said as he dragged a fennec fox in a fire fighter uniform a few feet over to us. "He thinks I'm hot and he likes me and he's fun to be around." The fennec then just blinked and took a sip from his red cup.

"Oh, hello, Tyler," Geo said hesitantly to the red fox. He shot me a worried look.

"Hey backstabber, what's it like choosing a boring fatty over your friend?"

"Shut your muzzle!" Nathan shouted at the fox.

"Calling people names isn't nice," the other fox said as he splashed punch on my ex.

"This is a rental!" he shouted at the fennec.

"Let's get out of here," the kangaroo said to us. "We don't need jerks like him in our life. I'll get Arvin."

Nathan and I headed out of the mansion together. I awkwardly hugged him due to our card backpacks when we got out of the mansion and into the night.

Nathan kissed me and I smiled up at him.

"Nathan?"

"Yeah?" he asked and tilted his head.

"I love you."

"I love you too," he said as we kissed again. It was a kiss as deep and as long as our first one.

We stood there together in the glow of the mansion with our paws laced together. I leaned against him and he tried holding me then we took off our cards so we could hug each other properly.

I looked up at him. "So, do you love this too?" I asked as I placed a paw on my belly. "I've lost some weight this year but there's still some left over that's been tough to shed. You're the one with washboard abs and big pecs and huge biceps, and you like a guy like me." I frowned and look down at my sandals.

"Hey," he said softly. "I think you're the cutest and the sexiest otter in the world. One of your new year's resolutions was to become healthier not to become a personal trainer or a bodybuilder. I find you attractive. The six-pack and pecs are for me and I don't want to make other people feel bad or guilty for the way that they look. I think you're perfectly sexy and wonderful."

I hugged him again and I felt tears start to form in my eyes.

"I wish others wouldn't hurt you or make you feel like you have to be so hard on yourself," he said as he rubbed my back and nuzzled me.

"You're the best at making me feel better," I said. "I love you so much."

"I love you too."

We started kissing again and after a while I heard Geo say, "Hey guys I think we're ready."

Arvin looked a little sour at the fact that we had to leave but he didn't say anything about it.

"Wait! Hey! Buck!"

We turned to see one of the muscled tricks yelling at us.

"Yes?" Arvin said as he was taken aback by the white wolf as he stood only a few inches from the deer.

"I'm glad I finally found you," he said. "I saw you in the crowd and I wanted to ask if you'd like to dance and maybe do a bit more?" he asked with a smirk.

"No thanks and I already have a boyfriend," Arvin said and tried to turn but the trick grabbed his arm.

"That hasn't stopped me before," the white wolf said.

"Hey!" Arvin exclaimed.

"Let go of him!" I yelled. I didn't actually know what I could do to physically stop him.

"Shut it pipsqueak," the dancer said angrily at me.

Geo grabbed the trick's arm and tried to remove it from Arvin's but the wolf tried to punch the kangaroo with his free arm. Geo managed to dodge it as he leaned back and hopped backwards.

Nathan was able to grab the other wolf's paw and peel it off of Arvin. He then was able to get the go-go dancer to the ground and in an arm lock.

"Don't you dare ever touch my friends again or try to hit them or talk to my boyfriend like that again," Nathan shouted at the go-go dancer.

"Ow," the other wolf said.

"Do you understand me?" Nathan said even louder.

"Ow, okay I'm sorry. I'm sorry," the white wolf yelped in response.

Nathan let him go and he ran back to the mansion with his tail between his legs.

We walked to the car in silence and put the cards back in the trunk along with the other props.

"Are you okay, Arvin?" I asked the buck.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said a little sullenly. "Thank you guys so much for being there for me especially you Nathan for protecting me!"

"No problem. It's what I do for anyone in danger especially if they're one of my friends," he said as we all went in for a group hug.

We drove back southward towards Seattle and stopped by a twenty-four hour diner and had some pie a la mode. Nathan won me a plushie wedge of cheese from the claw machine. It was nice though we were all talking to each other and teasing one another again and I felt the awkwardness between us melt away. It sucked that an unfortunate event had to be the thing that brought us closer together again, but I'm glad that the situation didn't get worse and that Nathan knew self-defense.

We were a solid group of friends again, and anyone could see that cohesion since we were four grown men wearing Halloween costumes in a suburban diner. The server said that to him we won for the most creative and best costume but we weren't the weirdest customers that night or even that month.

To be continued...