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M SFW wholesome SFW cute basketball sports UNDERAGE BUT NOT IN A BAD WAY

Description: A safe for work story about a family of anthros in Australia. Tol loves basketball and is on a journey of self discovery. Very cute piece of work.

Tags: Third person, safe for work, Anthro, furry, cute, sports, Australia

“It’s like basketball… but in the water.” Ptolemy said matter of factly to the group. They were all standing at what obviously could only be considered the foot of the pool. In the water stood a little floating basketball hoop. It was just a pillar of sticks and branches fashioned upward and connected, loosely resembling a makeshift hoop. The wood made it float, and it also saved on money. Most importantly, the family was in the middle of nowhere, far enough to make such a purchase a massive inconvenience. A soft malleable ball was clutched in Tol’s hand.

“So, this is admitting you can’t beat me in basketball without admitting you can’t beat me at basketball, hu?” Blaze chuckled.

Tol just looked at Blaze before his attention drifted to the others, “And because I literally made the game, I get to pick who is on my team first. Klyde?”

Klyde, the koala, stood looking off into the pool, his eyes glancing at the way the sun bounced off the soft imperfections in the ordinarily smooth water.

The mulgara inched closer to Klyde, smiling that special smile that was only reserved for Klyde and Andy, “Klyde, do you want to be on my team?”

Klyde shrugged his shoulders expressively, a whole body affair as was typical for him. His attention still rapt with the motions of the water, completely ignoring the others around him, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Kids got good taste.” Blaze said laughing, “You think just because you have Klyde, I am going to take it easy on you?”

“I just like victory hugs.” Tol blew some air from his mouth, fluffing up his disheveled hair a little. It looked cool, exactly what he was aiming for. Little didn’t look cool on him.

Blaze laughed a little, “Pretty sure you’d get a hug from him even if you lost.” He shrugged, nearing Kylde, his massive paw planting against the koala’s head and ruffling the fur, “Right, big man?”

The Koala didn’t offer a smile but he did reach up to gently embrace the hand, then arm, of Blaze into a a clutching sideways hug.

“See. Klyde is a snuggle Koala.” Blaze glanced around at the options. “Andy and Syril, I suppose.” Blaze picked the dynamic duo. Their height alone made them valuable, but what they didn’t have in skill, they made up with in exceptional team playing. Mostly to themselves, but still, the harmony and consistency of it always served Blaze well.

“Hey, that isn’t fair. Why do you get two picks?”

“They won’t play against each other,” Klyde informed, his voice monotonous, usually was when he was really drifting off to someplace else. He said all this without looking away from the pool. It was more a levy than anything. A few intricate pieces of wood staked into the ground acted like straws to fill water out into the animal-made enclosure.

“Not true. But there is something to be said about a conflict of interest,” Syril said, using turns of phrases that he polished from his excessive literary consumption.

“I guess I will have music for my victory,” Tol turned around, “What do you say about that Henry?” Tol was left blinking. He looked around. Everybody did.

The group looked at each other before all eyes turned to the entrance of the underground burrow where they lived. It was a network of tunnels with a few centralized areas of common-use – dining room, living room, and the like.

They hadn’t noticed it because they were all goofing off, but with the silence, they could hear the ethereal, yet amateurish sounds of a wind instrument from the general direction of the burrow.

“Every boy for themselves except Andy and Syril?”

They all made their way into the water. Tol fought to block Blaze. The twins, who weren’t twins at all, patrolled the basket, and odd Koala out wandered in a few minutes after the fact.

Life in the secluded desert was good. And fun.

Because it was just them and nobody else.

There were some issues with the dessert, mostly because of that key word secluded – and the boys were about to find out real fast what exactly what all entailed.

In Australia, in the remoteness of all points nowhere, there is a little limitation on supplies. They made due with what they had. Trips to the city, or any local establishment, were usually conducted by their fathers’, leaving them all alone. They got along quite well though, usually entertaining themselves with this or that or that other thing. Of course, because the family had such a close unity and predilection to all things involving a ball – soccer, basketball, rugby, somethings even volleyball, it meant that the primary supply the kids were most invested in were balls.

When they beat up, destroyed, lost, or otherwise mishandled balls, the fathers’ would put it into their normal supply run.

This all worked out well for the majority of their lives until today.

The wooden floating basketball hoop was a great idea, genius, especially because it was specifically made to encourage the children to learn how to swim and thus give their father, a biologically inclined swimmer, to feel proud of their children.

The issue with this hoop wasn’t that it didn’t do its job, in fact, the brothers all had a hoot and a holler with it (except a certain musically inclined musician), but rather that it did its job exceptionally well, especially in the wood department. Wood meant splinters.

Splinters on a constant object repeatedly entering into the death tunnel of all things subtly pointed worked out as well as anyone could imagine.

The ball didn’t have as much heft to it, even with the water soaking it. After some time, the ball was as heavy as a brick. After more time? The ball was completely ruined, pin-cushioned like it was used as a dodge ball against a porcupine.

Sports fanatics like these boys, however, had a reserve of balls. They were pretty rough of them, almost constantly in use for whatever mundane activity known to man. It was not unusual for Tol to dribble a basketball inside the burrow, it was not usual for Blaze to practice tricks like launching it in the air, and kicking it as far as he could only to encourage Andy to get it. Nobody ever called it fetch, but nobody needed to put a label on what they all knew it was.

Their fathers specifically went on this little supply run, which would take a few days (Shopping, marketing, bartering, trading) for more balls. They were running low. Lower than low. They were down to exactly one.

Now they had one with splinters, airless, and completely useless.

Which actually meant they have zero balls. None. Between them.

They had a nice little graveyard of other balls fenced off and located on top of the burrow. They’d seen better days. They’d been worn out, used, abused, and completely useless, but the brothers decided to keep them around. Some people likes scrapbooking, others liked to collect rocks, but they liked to collect balls and the memories associated with them.

It was not uncommon for some of the kids to meander to the top side and scout of balls and to relive the memories. This was acutely true for Andy. When Andy arrived, he was as isolated and anxious, if not more so, than any of the other brothers. Wouldn’t leave his room, barely took food. Months of therapy with his new fathers, mostly showing trust, care, sympathy, compassion, but most importantly, what a home looked like and feel. But the real breakthrough was when Tol and Blaze brought him to the graveyard and spoke about the many loving memories that they’d shared with the central glue being love and sports, and love for sports.

This newest ball would be the most important in the graveyard.

Because never at any point in time had they been without sports. Never. The parents would be gone for several more days still.

The realization washed over the brothers as Tol held the dead deflated body of the ball, just looking at it dumbly. Nobody could have foreseen the effects of not really having sports for such an extended amount of time.

Tol, somewhere in there, did though. It was an emotion that he couldn’t quite put into words, or to fully understand. But he instinctively knew that this ball’s loss was unlike any ball previously. It was profound in a way that the profoundness couldn’t really be appreciated until a person was in the thick of it.

So, in Tol fashion, he laughed it off, tossed the ball out of the makeshift pond and said with teeth flashing, “So, I won, right?”

--

They would be alone for the weekend perhaps a hair more, a normal happenstance when their fathers decided to go into town. Now, they didn’t quite know exactly what their parents did in town or the cities, though they’d, when managed, came with on the rare occasion, they knew from what Andy told them when he asked them when he was doing his bout in his room for one straight month, afraid to greet the world – only intense counseling and a caring hand brought him from his cloistered hermit life both physically and mentally.

The story never shifted when the parents were pressed too. As the story goes, and they did confirm individually to the kids when they made the journey, that most of it was travel. They were in the middle of nowhere, to begin with, the travel was harsh, harsher for one father over the other given the desert wasn’t exactly what one might call a natural environment for a Water Rat. It was the first name of the species that gave clue to the vulnerability of the sun and lack of water.

This meant frequent stops and sometimes deviations, effectively hopping waterhole to waterhole. They had a map and everything, but the desert doesn’t like water too much and so sometimes the map would be out of date, or rather, out of season. Much of the time was consumed by that, but they also loaded up on supplies, and even paid special visits to the orphanage to see if there was someone they could help.

They couldn’t adopt all the time, but what they could do was provide a friendly face to those in need. The standards for who they did adopt, as they had gathered amongst themselves, were those that really, really needed it. Those that just wouldn’t be taken.

Syril had put it this way, “They picked according to the least market-valued child.” One might consider this an attack on their character, and early on when the kids were acclimating to a proper, loving, caring household, it was thought as such, but as they wised up and grew to know, understand, and accept love, it was meant as a boon to the parents for taking those that truly needed them and showing them that they were more then what they thought they were. It was a glowing endorsement of their father's kindness. Even when the children teetered on the ledge of puberty, their would sooner than later recognize that their fathers only had their best interest in mind.

--

The day went by like so many others but there was something different. Tol was feeling… he didn’t know what, empty. Blaze made dinner with Klyde, Andy joined in too because he just wanted to help and learn, and they all ate together around the table, trading experiences with each other about their day, frequently talking about the pool incident where their last ball met its untimely demise at the cruel hand of a splinter. Because the game never did finish, they discussed a rematch picking up where they left off. Naturally, Andy chimed in that it would be unfair because the circumstances would be ‘irrevocably different’ so it was settled that, after much discussion, which Henry was a part of even though he wasn’t a part of the game in question, that they would just call it a draw under the terms of force majeure, yet another word they had to inquire about its meaning from the lexicon that was Andy.

Secretly, Tol thought Henry just wanted a rematch because he was losing. That thought was only secret for all of the two seconds it took Tol to think the thought and say it out loud.

Blaze said he had Tol right where he wanted him. Even when the points showed Tol winning, he wasn’t actually winning, according to Blaze and co.

Klyde distributed hugs after the game though, so it was a win-win throughout.

The burrow wasn’t different per se. Everybody acted the part, but for Tol, it was significantly different. The worst part was he didn’t know why. Virtually everything was the same: Activities, dinner together, conversation, the normal ebb and flow between them all. Yet something was off.

It bothered Tol because he couldn’t put his finger on it. And he tried. Hard. That entire night before drifting to sleep with the aid of music. Henry was off in his room teaching himself the guitar, brushing himself up for their practice tomorrow.

--

After breakfast, Tol followed Henry to his room. In it, there were various musical instruments… it would be considered clutter if they hadn’t been arranged to fit in the place allotted.

They even had a piano, but that was not in his room… no amount of organization was going to fit that in the room. More a hole in the wall than anything else, but it was still, well, it was home.

Tol always found it amusing that his teacher, Henry, was still teaching himself the guitar. He wasn’t sure if Henry liked the guitar or if he picked it up to follow suit behind Tol’s interest in the instrument. Either way, it was a time for only them though Henry had designs to start a family band.

That particular concept led them both to nominate Blaze for Drums. They’d yet to decide what Klyde would do. Even though Tol and Henry got their guitars at the same time, a Yamaha FG-75 for Tol, a Fender Squier Stratocaster for Henry. Both second hand and on their last legs, Henry was quickly more proficient because of his aptitude for music, and thus even though Henry was teaching himself, he was also teaching Tol. A fact made clear between the both of them – Tol taught hoops, Henry taught music.

Even this activity was tainted by something deep in Tol’s soul. He didn’t understand it but Henry was quick to latch onto it. He could hear it in the music, even commenting on it.

When pressed, Tol offered a smile and pushed the comment away and went to more neutral territory.

Was something wrong with him?

In the back of his mind, he had been thinking about when the parents would be home as well as when the season for the Basketball league would start. He had been thinking about these subjects with much more seriousness lately.

“You aren’t feeling the music though, Tol…” Henry lamented for yet another time, at least the fourth.

Tol hadn’t realized he was off kilter until he began to get frustrated at his inability. He was hitting the cords exactly when needed. Virtually everything they were doing was the same, had been the same for about a week now, but the music just felt off. Different. Despite Tol’s denial, it was becoming apparent that it was off.

Something was off.

He was off.

His guitar was placed against the dresser and Tol let out a sigh, his paw running through his hair. Henry switched to tuning his own little musical instrument but it was clear the jam session was on pause and wouldn’t be starting back any time soon, definitely not today.

“I don’t know, Henry. I just don’t… I feel weird is all. Just..” Tol rolled his fingers around, physically sifting through a narrow lexicon that had more slang and basketball terminology than it did emotions, especially the ethereal elusive ones that are hard to express.

“Syril.” Henry said, eyes glued to the cords as he plucked them individually, just sensing what he could sense.

It was no secret that while Syril was amazing with his words, very apt to being persuasive and, at times, charming. What Tol had in boyish jock attitude, Syril had in spades in the field of being a good person. All the boys sought after Syril to vent, or when they needed someone to just listen to them. Syril was surprisingly effective at wheedling out truths hidden even from the originator.

Blaze was first to realize Syril’s gift and had gifted him a poster of Lucy behind her therapy table, her feet kicked up, and the trademark 5 cents for a therapy session decorating her little pop up stand. Syril rolled his eyes but it didn’t stop him from hanging it up on his ceiling so he could look at it when he went to bed. It was the first real gift he ever got… And he treasured it more than life itself.

Henry put down his guitar adjacent to Tol’s, sifted through his pocket and produced an American nickel and shot it like a basketball to Tol. He caught it with a chuckle, “You think?”

“If you want to play with me, yes. I don’t want my ears to suffer any more than they already have. Just… Just awful.”

“Yeah, well, you suck too.”

Henry smiled, really in the zone, confident rivaling that of Tol’s own when it came to basketball, “Lies.”

It was. Even a bad day for Henry still produced music unlike anything else. Even when he hadn’t played the instrument, the building blocks of emotion were behind it, always, making the worst music just that much sweeter.

“Fine.” Tol grabbed his guitar, deposited it in his room, and walked toward the further end of the burrow where Syril was, flipping the nickel ever so often. Turning the corner, he found Klyde hiding facing the end of the corner of the hall.

“Whacha doin’, Klyde?” Tol said with a boyish carefree smile, all teeth, all thoughts disappearing. Kylde could bring a smile to anyone's face, and all without trying.

“Hide and seek.”

“But you aren’t counting…”

“I am hiding.”

“You aren’t hiding though.” Tol laughed a little, a nice laugh, not one that could ever be mistaken for anything other than what it was. Nobody laughed at Klyde, what monster would do that? Kylde was perpetually a bundle of joy, everybody laughed with Klyde, even if he himself didn’t actually laugh.

“I’m not?” Klyde slowly unborrowed himself from the corner. He was still facing the wall, but he was still looking at it.

Tol couldn’t see it, but he knew that Kylde was blinking quizzically. It was one of his many hallmarks and trademarks.

“Tell you want… You really want to hide where he will never find you?”

A pause. It stretched, “Then I won’t see Blaze again…”

“Fair enough. Try in a closet or under the bed. Make the game a little better.”

Klyde turned around, not looking at Tol, almost never did he look at someone, not really. He was more attuned to the surroundings and opted to see people out of the corner of his eyes, “Who’s bed?”

“Try Blaze’s. He will love that.”

Kylde nodded slowly and hugged Tol. It felt nice, soothing whatever was ailing him deep in his soul and Tol retorted with his own hug. Hugs for Kylde were more akin to snuggling, often using his entire body, cheek and face and all to really drive home the hug.

Tol watched Kylde slowly make his way down the hall, despite trying to avoid Blaze, he wasn’t quite on the look out for his potential finder. Kylde would never, ever be a ninja even if he tried. And heaven help the boys, they had tried at Ninja’s versus Pirates before. Kylde had to subtly be shifted to a Pirate. A unanimous decision.

Tol finally ended his journey to the room of his brother, younger, but that didn’t mean he was smaller, not by a long shot. He knocked on the door after a few moments of consideration, relenting and deferring to Henry’s judgement, and honestly, Tol wouldn’t mind having someone to hear him out and perhaps put his thoughts into a word or term that could be easily accessible to him. He wanted to know what it was he felt – and more importantly, why he felt them.

Someone walked to the door but much like Tol, the person was considering his own actions.

“I’m not opening it.” Tol her Syril call from inside the room. It was rather far from the door, which meant the person standing behind the door was obviously Andy. If it wasn’t Andy, Tol would shave his fur.

A longer pause until eventually the door was opened. A little face peeked from between the cracks. Sure enough, it was Andy. The tension from Andy seemed to disappear near immediately, obvious in his face, and morphed into a smile, “Hi.”

“Hi.” Tol said simply.

“It’s Tol.”

“Tell him we ain’t trading. Blaze isn’t going to take Kylde over us.”

Tol smirked but waited for the scardy pup to repeat it.

“We ain’t---”

“Can you let me in?”

Andy looked behind him. Tol pushed the door gently open. Not forceful, nor was it being held closed with any semblance of force either.

“Studying?” Tol looked at both of them.

“Light reading. To what do I owe this unexpected visit?” Syril said swiveling in his chair to give Tol, who was still standing outside the fully opened door.

Tol held up a nickel.

“Supply and Demand. Tomorrow I am meeting the market needs and will be raising my prices.” A nickel, a genuine American nickel was a lot of money. Syril noticed the look and laughed, “Maybe then I could get some peace and quiet.” It was, like often times, good natured and not meant to hurt or cut. The boys knew they were related. They had disagreements, sure, they were young and that was what kids did, but there was never any malice intent behind it.

Everybody knew that the Nickel thing was just for fun. But for it being just fun, Syril had collected quite the Piggy Bank.

“Andy… we got that test tomorrow. I expect great things from ya, kiddo!” Andy took the hint, slowly collected his things.

No matter how many times Tol had been in Syril's room, alone, for this express purpose of therapy which they really just called Asking Questions, he felt a profound weight on his heart, and suddenly felt very, very anxious. He wanted to be here and now that he was here, alone, with Andy closing the door behind him leaving them alone, he felt that he would rather be anywhere but here.

“Oh, boy. Take the bed. I should have charged you more.”

“Highway robbery. You know, if you charged something different than a Nickel ---”

Syril waved his hand dismissively, “Where’s the fun in that? So…” Syril turned to address Tol, steepling his fingers, glaring from behind them like a James Bond Villain, perfectly condescending, “What can I do to help you?”

Tol plopped right on the bed with so much dead weight the straw pillow sheathed in a case bounced to the furthest side of the bed, “I don’t know, not really. I, I don’t… I feel really weird lately, is all.” He sighed.

“Weird, you say? When did this start?”

“I don’t know. Recently?”

“Week, few days… a day?”

“Something like that.”

“So you know exactly when and you just don’t want to tell me, okay. Would it be around the time the last ball we owned went to the Graveyard? Warmer?”

Tol ran his hand through his fur uncomfortably, “Yes, around that time.”

“And why do you think that makes you feel this way?”

There was a complete and utter silence as Tol thought about the question. Tol hadn’t yet tried to put his feelings into words, it was something far beyond mere casual conversation but there was something so inviting about Syril, who could sell firewood in the desert.

“It just feels weird not to be playing ball.”

“Want me to let you in on a secret?”

Tol smirked despite himself and waited patiently for the secret.

“The only two people who push for family game night is you and Blaze. Out of the two of you, most of the time it is you pushing for games and competitions. Honestly, I love playing with you all, it's… it's nice to be included. It feels welcoming… I don’t think that any of us would have been able to be who we are without it. Remember the first thing you said when Andy came out of his room?”

Tol laughed a little to himself and pushed his hands forward like he was passing a ball to someone, “ ‘You know how to play basketball, Andy?’ ”

They both laughed now, dispensing the heaviness of the situation, “He dodged the ball.” Syril chuckled, “But you got him out there. We all met each other and bonded, a love for sports, basketball. It… it felt like family. Family we never had until now.”

There was silence then.

“I can’t remember a single time I haven’t been playing basketball, or any type of sport that didn’t involve a ball, you know?” Tol said.

“Neither can I. You brought us together, as a family, closer than… Who knows if we would even be a family without it.” Syril said lowly.

“So, I feel this way because I am not playing basketball? I just need a ball? Well, I could have told you that.” Tol commented but it wasn’t meant in any type of rude way, he was just adding a little bit of levity to the situation at hand.

“I study books. So does Andy. Henry makes noisy racket with anything that can make a sound. Blaze does big brother stuff that isn’t exclusively sports. Klyde… well, who knows what he does… But it is always fun to see what he will do next. You? You play sports, all day, every day. You don’t just love sports, you need sports. Without sports, well, look at you…”

Tol laughed, “I don’t need sports. Honestly, sports needs me.”

“Sports is like language to you. Without it, you have the linguistical capacity as Klyde. It is more than that though. You use it to bond with people on your own terms, something familiar.”

“If that is the case, why do I need it with my family? We’ve already bonded and I’ve already proven I am the best and you know it.” The mock challenge laid down, usually this line of talk involved some kind of competition which they would gleefully participate in.

“See? You need it. You need it because your worried without it you won’t be apart of the family. You need it to reinforce that you love us, and that we love you. I, for one, don’t need any type of game to show that. Nobody does, except you.”

There was a moment of self-reflection by the both of them and Tol couldn’t help but smile distantly and unconsciously even if he tried to resist it passionately. Nobody liked to talk about truth of love and family, especially not outright without thinly veiled methods but Syril noticed that Tol needed to hear this in no uncertain terms and words, no brokering for misunderstanding.

“You think?” Tol asked gently.

“You use basketball as your security blanket, I’ve always thought that. I am just telling you what I think.”

Tol chewed it over and eventually left, the boys had waddled into a topic best left less explored after the revelation was revealed.

Tol waved his hand and opened Syril’s door only to see Klyde out side of it, readying to knock. Judging by where his knocking hand was, he’d surveyed the door for awhile now and settled on an awkwardly high point to make the right knocking sound.

“Klyde?”

“Can you get lost playing hide and seek? I’m scared.” Klyde went and wrapped himself around Tol in a gigantic bearhug.

Tol, in earnest, hugged right on back, “Your such a snuggle bear. Let’s see if we can find you together, alright?” Tol said smiling, thankful that while he had spent his time looking to accept others, he had not felt accepted himself, not by anyone, nor society. But that was over now, he had a family.