Furry High (furry 'coming of age' story) R18+

9

3 days later

"I think you're getting a bit of beard fur," Roy said out of the blue.

We had been sitting in the backyard for about an hour now. The weeds had been plucked, the grass had been mown, and now we were undergoing the final stage of 'backyard maintenance': pool-chairs to be warmed, and homemade lemonade to be drunk.
The men of the house, me and Roy, were quite the dirty boys at the moment. And what was our reward for digging with our paws like rabid-dogs the entire morning?
Being forced to sit and watch Jake play in the pool, while mum chatted with an old friend of hers over the phone inside.

"Nah." I shrugged. "All the duh-dust I kicked up earlier is probably just muh-, m-making it stick up."

Roy cocked his head. And as I looked back at him, it was another one of those fine instances where he would have been handsome, if it weren't for that single thing about him. This time, it was the dumb straw hat mum had bought him in their honeymoon to Thailand (mums a real sucker for buddha-culture and all that jazz).
"I don't think that's it. I think all that is actual fur." He chuckled. "Well look at you! All grown up."

I laughed with him, rubbing the grey fur around my muzzle to check if he was right. It wasn't too long, surely...

Roy shot me a grin at my stubborn attempts to prove him wrong.
"See what I mean?" He said with a cocky grin - being right wasn't a common occurrence for a washed-up dog like Roy, so he was really savouring the moment.

Jake emerged out of the pool directly in front of us, laughing like mad.
"I DID IT!!" He yelled out, thrusting a fist of wet fur up in triumph.

"What?" Me and Roy pretty much said in unison.

Jake dove back down into the pool, gone for a second, before he reemerged with a white rock and threw it at my feet.
"The heist!" He was saying between sucks of air. "I did everything in one breath!"

Roy stared blankly at the rock in confusion. I could only smile: the 'Heist' was a little pool game that I had played with Jake when we were a lot younger doing swimming classes together. While mum was working between jobs to support our small family of three, she dropped us off at cheap public-pool classes to keep us occupied.
After a year of shear, fucking boredom in piss-filled water; we invented a little game to keep ourselves occupied. The name was the 'Heist', and the game was simple: swim underwater, back and forth from either side of the pool, and once you'd done that lung-busting task, then you'd try to swim down to the bottom, unscrew the pool filter, and take out a small rock that we'd put inside it. That rock meant more to us than cash or candy could ever cover; that rock was the symbol of pure achievement. A token to prove which sibling was more powerful in the pool-arts.

And now that rock sat lifelessly between my feet, slowly dripping down onto the hot brick-tiles.

I took my gaze back and forth between the rock and my brother's stupid grinning face.
"Doesn't count," I said, acting bored.

His entire world flaked away from his as I said those two words. His smile now a frown, his up-pointing golden ears now down and droopy in distress.
"...what..."

"Doesn't cuh-count," I repeated bluntly. Fuck, it's hard not to smile... "You didn't bring it b-back up with you on the first breath."

He could only stare, mouth hanging open - he had some sharp little suckers in there, as any good wolf should. See, whilst guys like me get called out as drug abusers, having sharp fangs is the harmless stereotype wolves get.