coyotes in space

Cody awoke, gently at first. He didn’t remember falling asleep on a balloon, but it felt really nice to nuzzle his snout and face into, and he sighed happily. The balloon starting to pet along his back jogged his memory, and he squeezed a little tighter into the big rubber middle under him. “Mmm…”

“Sleep well there? Was s’prised y’ didn’t stir when I did,” the rubber trucker murmured, continuing a slow brushing through Cody’s fur with those soft, rubbery clawtips, from nape down to the coyote’s mid-back.

Cody wasn’t sure he’d ever felt claws so wonderful before. “Guess I did, yeah. Thank you. You didn’t need to do that,” he mumbled in return.

Brandon snorted. “Like hell y’were gonna sleep up in the front by yerself, cold or no. Besides, y’ make fer a nicer blanket than that one.”

Cody giggled at the thought, and smiled up towards Brandon, the wolf’s features visible most in the slight glossy sheen lit from what daylight filtered through the curtain. “I guess I am fluffier than it.” This was different. This was nice. He never got to wake up this cozily before. “So, uh, what’re we doing today?”

Brandon raised his arms up with a loud squirking of rubber as they brushed his sides and stretched, literally by a couple inches, before relaxing them. “Well, once y’ get off me and I get dressed, I’m gonna haul th’ trees outta the way, and we’ll find breakfast.”

Cody raised an eyebrow. “You? Do...you need help? I’m not very strong but-”

“Y’think this size is just fer show? I ain’t even inflated any bigger n’ normal right now. Don’tcha worry,” Brandon replied with a grin, huffing in, and spreading easily a few inches in all directions under Cody.

The coyote was grateful it wasn’t bright enough to see his blush. At least, he thought. “Oh, fuck,” he mumbled, shifting to ease back onto his knees on the cot, and off of Brandon’s middle.

The wolf grinned even wider and chuckled. “You’re gonna make it too easy t’ have fun with you, y’know,” he rumbled as he shifted up into a sitting position, and then hopped down to the floor of the truck, stretching his arms again overhead. “Get dressed however y’ like, but’s pretty cold. Shouldn’t be but half an hour or so t’ clear things up,” he added as he stepped into his jeans, tugging them up those tree-trunk legs easily.

Cody nodded as he watched the wolf dress, a larger set of clothes than the ones he’d worn the night before, before opening the curtain to slip into the front cab, with a little more effort than he’d needed before too. He waited as Brandon managed to get the driver door open, the sounds of snow piles clattering precipitating a curse from the wolf, and squeaked outside. He looked around the cab, then back to the cot, and smiled. “I don’t wanna inconvenience him...but I kinda wish I could sleep like that every night,” he murmured, before turning to his backpack to fish around, and grinned as he grabbed something.

Fishing his paw out revealed a black latex t-shirt that glistened with a slight chlorinated sheen. He wiggled his arms up into it to pull over his head, grumbling as he felt his fur matte under it, but he smoothed it out with a few brushing rubs as he tugged it on. He reached in again, retrieving a black plaid flannel shirt, not unlike the ones the wolf wore, and pulled it on as well, leaving it unbuttoned in front. Finally, he tugged his own jeans up, and slipped into the front cab.

The world was white. Just white. Until his eyes adjusted and he realized it was all the snow settled on the windshield. Rather than fight with the passenger door, he took the driver’s side as Brandon had, and hopped down onto the road. The snow crunched under his paws with the landing, and he looked around.

White, but in a different way. The blizzard stopped at some point, though the skies were still deeply overcast. Everything was covered in a thick layer of snow, and sometimes ice, from the glistening sparkles on some of the pines along the road. As Brandon stepped out of the woods, heading for the treefall from the night before, Cody made his way over, every footstep crunching through the frozen layers.

Brandon grasped one of the smaller trees around the bare trunk, and grunted as he hefted it up easily. At least, as easily as one would expect a big, burly 10ft-tall wolf, were he not made of rubber. And yet, heft he did. As he turned towards the woods again, his gaze passed over Cody, and he smiled, then blinked. “Y’ain’t cold?”

Cody could only marvel, too distracted by his inflatable chaperone’s size to hear at first, before shaking his head. “No, why would I be?”

“Y’just got on that! I’m freezin’ out here, s’gonna be pretty warm once I start th’ truck up, brrf,” the wolf replied, heading towards the woods again.

Cody followed. “You’re...cold? But you were pretty warm feeling overnight.” He looked down at himself, poking at his shirt. He was a little cold around there from his fur being compacted by the shirt.

“Freezin’. Heh, guess ah fergot what it’s like havin’ fur t’ keep warm,” replied the wolf, who dropped the tree down with a grunt alongside another. “F’we had time n’ I had the tools, could turn this into firewood.”

Cody blinked, poking his own shirt again, rubbing around. Even with the latex squeezing, while it itself was very cold, his fur underneath still provided an insulating layer. “Guess that’s why I made for a good blanket,” he replied, following Brandon back out to the remaining tree.

Brandon paused in thought. “...Something like that. Maybe mostly cause you cuddle like you mean it,” he said, before continuing on towards the road again.

Cody paused as he watched the wolf, tossing the thought in his head. Like he means it? The tone was a warm one, not as if he was frustrated at all. He shrugged before hurrying to catch up to the wolf.

The biggest tree was wider than the coyote was tall. Brandon studied it for a moment, then grumbled. “Gonna freeze my ass off even more fer a minute, but s’alright,” he mumbled, and as the coyote approached, he turned, slipping off his shirt with a shiver and handing it to Cody. “Least it ain’t windy. Hold these?” he added, the jeans promptly joining the shirt.

Cody stood there in confusion, until the wolf took a deep breath, and the coyote widened his eyes as he watched that balloon of a middle surge outward, not centimeters, but over a meter, nearly two in width. The entire wolf’s torso joined it in the process, and as he bit his own thumb and ‘blew’, so too did the wolf’s height and breadth surge out with an array of rubbery squeaks and groans that sent the coyote’s ears pinning back to hide how red they were. “Holy shit,” he whispered.

Brandon turned to look down to Cody, and grinned. “Guess all th’ cold n’ trouble’s worth it t’ show off to y’, cutie,” he rumbled, as he repeated the gesture, a further powerful inhale heard rushing with those bellowing groans of his rubber hide as that waist ballooned in width, two, three, nearly four meters, before he blew on his thumb again to send his size burgeoning outward, rising in just as much height in a rapid rise.

Cody couldn’t suppress the soft whine at the sight. “Fuck fuck fuck, this can’t be real, this is too fucking hot to be real,” he whispered to himself, but the smell of the wolf’s warm rubber, more intense than before, reassured him of the reality. “Outgrow the fucking truck,” he added, even more quietly.

As if the wolf heard him anyway, or just to show off even more, Brandon’s inhale almost roared as the wolf drew in a breath that sent his entire middle billowing wildly, 6 meters, 8 meters, 10, before he blew again with enough force to blow his own cheeks up as his frame ballooned in size wildly, like a balloon attached to too powerful a pump, nearly.

Cody’s legs shook as he looked up at the rubber wolf towering over him. The rubber trucker’d blown himself up til the truck was only as big as one of the wolf’s enormous legs. He pinched himself again. It seemed impossible.

Brandon grinned back down, and squeaked heavily with movement as he settled down into a sitting position before the coyote, offering a paw that the coyote found himself stepping into, before being hoisted up to the wolf’s chest. “How’s that?”

Cody tried not to keep cursing in response to everything, almost dazed with the rush of movement and the incredible sight before him. And as he leaned into Brandon’s chest, he gasped. “Holy fucking shit...that’s fucking incredible, that’s what that is. You...you feel almost softer than you did last night.”

Brandon’s laugh nearly deafened the coyote, as he grinned, and brought his snout in, carefully touching his rubber nose to the coyote’s, dimpling his own inward around it slightly. “Toldja y’weren’t gonna pop me with them claws. Still wouldn’t like this. Biggest I’ve been’d be a little too hard to play with yuh.”

“N-no no, this...is intensely hot. Sorry I just...I’m having a little...trouble processing it.” Cody replied, breathlessly.

“Heh, s’alright. It’s pretty damn cold this big, too much cold air,” Brandon rumbled, as he lowered his paw back to the ground, for the coyote to hop off. Turning, the wolf grabbed the tree as if it were just any other big stick, and tossed it to the side, where it crashed loudly into the undergrowth before it came to a stop.

Cody merely watched, and approached slowly, as the wolf dusted his paws and started to exhale, a torrent of air pouring out, disturbing some misty swirls in the cold as he shrank back down in size, surprisingly fast, though he looked a touch...underinflated, for a moment, as he reached near his normal size. Cody held out the wolf’s clothes.

Brandon gratefully accepted them, pulling his jeans on first, and then the shirt, shivering. “Guess the cold’s affectin’ my hide a bit. Might be better t’ wait til it’s a lot warmer before I go for bigger again,” he laughed, striding back towards the truck.

“I...yeah, whatever is best, I’m just…” Cody breathed, before Brandon patted him on the back, drawing him up against the wolf’s side.

“Hehe, s’alright, I...may’ve reacted about th’ same when I first started t’ explore it,” the wolf chuckled, before helping Cody up into the truck on the driver’s side, and followed him up, quickly bringing the engine to life with a chug, and then a roar.

Cody settled into his own seat again, watching the wipers start to plow the snow off the windshield. “Yeah.”

As the windshield finished clearing, the wolf worked the gearbox again, easing the truck back onto the road, as clumps of accumulated snow fell and splashed on the hood of the truck, splattering into bursts of white. “Y’alright?” Brandon asked.

Cody simply nodded, looking down at his own shirt, and touching it again, feeling the cold rubber slowly warm. What’s it like? Being like that? “Yeah, I’m...just a little overwhelmed. In a good way. Really good, just…”

The wolf chuckled, and slipped his free paw under the coyote’s overshirt, to rest on the back of the rubber shirt. Cody swore he could feel it better than against his bare fur. “Sorry ‘bout that, guess I got a lil’ carried away,” Brandon rumbled.

“You’re fine. I was encouraging it anyway,” Cody chuckled, looking up to the wolf. “Anyway. Is it a longer stretch today cause of the stop?”

Brandon nodded as the truck barreled down the road, the heavy, studded tires finding their tread with every inch. “Yeah, an hour or so. Plan is to stop at a truck stop in Burla that has plenty of stuff. Get breakfast, stock up, shower up, n’ hit the road.”

The coyote perked his ears up halfway through. “...Breakfast?”