FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

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This amazing poster-type fan art is from the pen of kensukethecat - what a nice surprise to wake up to, wow! Thank you, Ken!

Do show Ken's art some love by faving and commenting on the original:

https://www.sofurry.com/view/602950

- I think he deserves it all!

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Hehhey, muffins, and welcome to the Hockey Hunk!

Here's the promised extra Wednesday chapter as my thankyou for everyone who commented during the Lurker Challenge - things looked dim at first, but my quick nudge brought the total number of comments up to 45, which is more than enough - a few shy ones also voted, which of course is another way to show some love for a story - what means is that it's another way I get to hear from people, since if you vote 5 stars, SoFurry tells me who was so nice, and it's fun to think that 'ohhh, he's reading the story, that's cool!' - so keep the feedback coming! It's the best reward I can get from writing this story.

As always, remember that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories to enjoy as well!

See you on Friday for another regular chapter! :P

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I woke up early, and with almost a jump.

Some part of me was confused of where I was, causing me to tense and roll nervously before I collided with something warm and hissing and that finally put me back onto the map. It didn't mean any less tension. I had smacked myself onto his back, and the feeling of warm fuzzy wolf-fur against my own body was more than pleasant, sudden as it was.

I held my breath and was glad that a knee separated our bodies, for the few moments it took me to quietly and carefully roll onto my back and shuffle a few extra inches between me and the wolf still sleeping without a worry. I hadn't woken him up, I realized, without pleasure, and let out the breath I had held before, my chest sinking, my head on the pillow.

Phhhhhhhhheeeeeeefffff.

The scent of a wolf hit home quickly, and I tried not to encourage the snake in my boxers with it, which led me to breathing through my muzzle instead. My tongue felt kind of dry already. Breathing like this made it much noisier, too.

Mason just kept making that snoozing noise, kind of a hiss, as he slept on his side, paws curled up to his body, his tail nearby almost touching my outstretched leg.

I thought about checking the time from my phone but realized that the phone was in the pocket of my pants and they were thrown onto the floor where I'd put them while undressing for bed. I didn't really want to get up yet, because something told me that it was a stupid time to wake up on a Saturday, which made me rather stay in bed and listen to my own breaths and to Mason's, too, and try to relax again, maybe fall back asleep.

Once the confusion of waking up suddenly waned, my mind began to wander. I opened and closed my eyes a few times but I couldn't really see anything except the ceiling with a bare bulb hanging from it and the round shape of the smoke detector. Didn't really encouraged me to think about things that weren't popping up from my mind, or from the presence of my buddy in the bed where I was sleeping.

His bed.

Pheeeeeeeee...another deep breath out of me. Maybe thinking about Mason was better and easier than thinking about everything else that had happened yesterday.

The panicked phone call...the news...feeling like the world had ended, on the other side of the sea.

My world.

Mor was crying on the phone when she called...it was really early here, so many hours behind tim at home...

"...Tor says that Reidar's in the island..."

I tensed even now, thinking about it, thinking about that friendly family of foxes sitting at home, clutching phones, wondering if their son was had been brutally murdered. Mor and Far had gone over to be with them, while I had just sat in my own dorm and thought horrifying thoughts about someone I had known all my life being hunted down and...

I froze. I couldn't move, I couldn't eat, I couldn't stop thinking about the horror. Not ashamed to say it...I told it to Mason, after I got my legs back and managed to make it here before I collapsed completely.

Mason...hugging me and holding me and giving me a...what's that word...what the Americans call their paper towels for sneezing...I can't remember...he had some, and I blew my nose and wiped my eyes and apologized.

"It's cool, man," he told me, rubbing my back in a way that both tickled and felt electric in that guilty way that his touch ended to feel nowadays, every time he touched me so casually, and I had to think about every single move my paws would make, so that they didn't do too much.

But it wasn't cool, and we both knew it, especially since he put on the TV on my request and there was already pictures of bodies lying on the rocks on the shore of the island and panicked interviews and my Facebook was full of crazy speculation from all my friends and family back home, trying to figure out how the hell could something like this ever happen at home.

We sat there on the couch, his arms around me for hours, it felt, while the story grew darker and darker as the day progressed here into the late afternoon and the night began to darken on the other side of the world. Pictures of that almost white wolf...something ghostly and unnatural about the way he looked on the picture they said had been uploaded all around the internet along with some fucked up conspiracy manifesto. The newspapers back at home were already running quotes, and interviews of survivors.

My phone remained quiet until late in the evening before Mor called again.

"He ran to the sea with some other furs and they swam until a small boat picked them up. He's in the hospital with hypothermia but he'll be fine, Håkan."

I cried again, happily this time, and told Mason all about it again, all about my neighbor and friend Reidar, the cute fox who studied economics at the University of Oslo and wanted to make a real difference in his world. How he was interested in politics on a practical level and took part in the youth rallies like the one on that island...how we could get into conversations about how to make the world a better place, even if I wasn't that involved. Didn't mean I couldn't talk about it. How we'd talk...and argue playfully, and wrestle a bit, even if I was stronger than he was.

I imaged the fox, wet and exhausted, being pulled out of the sea like an oversized fish, and it made me smile, just a little. Reidar loved swimming. He was all endurance rather than sprinting power. I was sure that's how he had managed to survive the sea, just kept on swimming despite the burn in his muscles and the fear...the fear...

I couldn't even imagine it. If I felt this scared, thousands of kilometers away and in the presence of a friend, how scared could they have been, once the shots started to come. I wasn't sure I could ever play any game with guns anymore, at least not for a while, thinking about that sound. And Reidar had been so good at Call of Duty...how many times we'd spent in front of his computer, playing those games even when we definitely weren't old enough to really do it...

"Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffff..."

Mason did that noise again, something almost like a snore but not quite there.

I really embarrassed myself in front of him, I thought while closing my eyes tight and trying to drift away. At least the other kind of embarrassment in my boxers was hiding itself now. Guess thinking about crying did that, and not accidentally humping Mason, too.

He was so sweet, though. I'm sure many guys would've felt even more awkward, trying to comfort a crying friend. Maybe I was more emotional than the average young man, or showed it more than most, but he didn't complain. He just held me so close that it felt almost painfully good, even when I ached and felt terrified that my old...something...could have been wiped away from the face of this Earth by someone so sick and meaningless. Maybe that good feeling had something to do with the fact that Mason wasn't unlike Reidar...he was sweet, friendly, opinionated, outgoing...they even liked the same kind of music, of the heavy variety that made you want to shake your head up and down and do demonic hand gestures.

Hmm. Guess you could say that...thinking about this, quietly there in bed, guess they were my....type, as far as...friends go, the kind of friends you'd hope to be...a bit more, too, given the chance...and a fair share of luck, too, just like with all good things in this world.

"Phhhrrehmhmm..."

Now he was rumbling in his sleep. I smiled a little, despite my own tiredness, and my own thoughts that sailed a hazardous course between dangerous, depressing and outright happy. Maybe the wolf fit all those classes, in his own way. He'd definitely made me feel all those things, during the time we'd known.

Meeting him had been such a godsend. I didn't exactly have trouble making friends, but making such a good one so quickly had been great. Funny how I'd been here since the autumn and we'd only really started to hang out during the spring term. But then again, we'd only met during the Scandinavian languages class, which he was taking because he had this funny dream of working somewhere in Sweden or Norway or Denmark, maybe. I'd only taken the Swedish course because I wanted to refresh my old memories and get some easy study credits into my schedule, and why not, since it was still close enough to remind you a bit of home.

Pairing up with the hoodie wolf had been such a great thing, too. We started talking soon and going to the cafeteria together for lunch with our friends...me with the bunch of Norwegian and Swedish girls who had also gotten exchange spots here, and some of Mason's friends, too...and Shark from my dorm, the guy who'd told me about the student hockey team and gotten me in almost on my first week here. Talk about another strike of good luck for a gaupe looking to make friends and have fun in a new town. Becoming friends with a nice skrubb was a good extra, because we had a lot to talk about, and just...hanging out.

I'm so glad that he's either oblivious, or really open-minded to the fact that interest might have something more to it, too. There's no way I'd do anything to jeopardize everything...well except I already did by going out with Jessica, whom Mason was interested in enough to punch me in the face once he saw me with her...eeeh...but I suppose that was different. Jessica had decided that we were immature assholes and now neither of us was going to go out with Jessica, which...damn, which wasn't so bad for me. Meant more Mason for me, even if all I'd get was a playful...bro-nuzzle every now and then, and a hug. He didn't mind hugs. He seemed to linger on them a little, too, when they happened, and I wasn't going to stop him from.

Now kissing him...well that'd only happened on a dare. A game of spin the bottle had ended up just like you'd expect it to...the girls making everyone's pants tighten with their show of muzzle action. Of course the girls wanted their own bit of fun, too, and they ganged up on us boys to do what we'd done to them before, naughty as we were.

Mason was game when the bottle pointed at me, and the girls decided that it'd be hot to see us kissing. It'd been kinda awkward, crouching like that and...well....boy kissing was probably not an active either of us was particularly experienced in. I was blushing like mad afterwards...and hard...and the girls wanted more, by pairing me again with Shark. They told the pit bull to use tongue...and he did, big and slippery and wet and leaving me with almost a permanent boner for the rest of the night, even if I didn't really have any particular thoughts about the pit bull, my hockey buddy. Not that he was bad-looking or anything like that, just...guess I was more into...into someone else's character.

Mason talked me into the musical, too. I had never done anything like that back home, but he'd just smack me with the words that he was auditioning for Doctor Faye's summertime musical for some easy credit, and he asked if I wanted to come, too. Would I ever pass on a chance to hang out with him some more? Of course not, I'd even embarrass myself a bit with bad dancing and singing if I had to. It sounded like fun in a way.

It turned out to be so much more, too...that suspiciously pervy Doctor Faye insisting that I was perfect for a role, if I agreed to do it shirtless. Damn...guess he liked gaupe as much as anyone else...and he didn't seem to be beyond casting based on looks, only. I was so surprised that Mason got the main role, too, and man, I didn't stop laughing for days and poking fun at my poor friend after Doctor Faye made us watch the movie and some kind of a YouTube video of a modern performance of Cabaret, to show us what we were aiming for...and especially Mason, who was gonna have to wear suspenders and makeup and generally act like a total pervert for the sake of the script.

Whatever Doctor Faye, wants, of course. I didn't mind the fact that the role included some hanky-panky between me and Mason and also with Aiden...he was a bit silly, but why not? It was only a bit of fun...makebelieve and all that. Maybe Aiden liked it a bit more than I did, too. Megan was cool, too, and Robert...not bad, either...and getting to do all kinds of funny strutting and a bit of dancing...I'd kinda even figured out that dancing could be fun. I'd even got a few compliments for it, and a kinda dirty look from Aiden...hah...he was so obvious.

"Phhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

Oh Mason, if only you'd be obvious...but you kinda weren't. You probably don't feel quite the same as I do...but I'm not even sure what I feel...it doesn't make life simple all the time, but mostly it makes me feel happy. You're such a good friend, and you accept me...all of me, even if there's still some things I haven't fully shared yet...because I don't want this to change...this...being comfortable enough to let me in your bed when I need to be close to someone...

At least he was sleeping deep enough that I could dare to touch his ear, while he was dozing there. It flicked between my fingertips and tickled my pads, and the sudden touch caused his tail to move, too, and tickle my leg, under the covers on the narrow bed. My right shoulder was already halfway out of the bed, and if I'd moved any further to the side I'd probably fallen out of the bed. That's how close we were.

What a good, confusing place to be in, I thought, as I tried to make my breaths calm down and let the good thoughts take me away into a further sleep.

I was almost there when the bed suddenly creaked, and my eyes popped open. I looked off to the side and saw that Mason was moving, felt it too, and the blankets shuffled while he moved over and got out of the bed, making the springs rattle under me.

"Mason?" I said.

His tail swished quickly. He turned to face the bed.

"Dude?"

"You awake?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, "need to take a leak."

"Okay," I said. "Is it early?"

"Dunno," he said. "Feels like it, hah."

"Yeah," I purred.

"You okay?" he said.

"Jo," I said, smiling in the darkness, "thanks, Mason."

"No prob," he said while he went for the bathroom, scratching his butt.

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Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed the read, and I'll see you on Friday with a new chapter" Don't forget to comment, and do remember that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories to enjoy as well!

Cheerio!