Chapter 1: The Offer on the Messy Dorm Bed
Ridley lay sprawled across Finn's futon like a deflated balloon animal, one leg dangling off the edge, his yellow fur catching the blue glow of the laptop screen. His tail flicked in slow, lazy arcs. Three empty energy drink cans stood in a row on his chest like little soldiers, and the fourth was balanced perilously on the horn of a textbook about statistics neither of them had opened since September.
"You've been staring at your phone for forty minutes," Ridley said.
"I'm not staring. I'm existing."
"You're moping. It's sad, honestly. You're making the room sad. The pizza's getting sadder."
Finn, a fox with the particular hunched posture of a guy who had just watched Jessy's story for the sixth time, flipped him off without looking up. "She went to the gym with Derek. Derek. Who even is Derek. He has a truck."
"Truck guys always have trucks," Ridley agreed solemnly. "It's their defining feature."
"I just don't get it. I'm fun. I'm tall-ish. I have good teeth."
"You have great teeth." Ridley rolled onto his side, and one of the cans clattered to the floor. "Okay, hear me out. Radical proposal. Groundbreaking. Life-changing."
Finn's ears rotated toward him with cautious suspicion. In their four semesters of shared squalor, every sentence Ridley had ever opened with 'hear me out' had ended in either a fine, a fire alarm, or both.
"Dude, you're frustrated," Ridley said, propping his head on one hand, grinning with that lazy, crooked smirk that had gotten him out of as much trouble as it had gotten him into. "Why not just fuck me instead of moping about Jessy?"
There was a pause of exactly two seconds. Then Finn laughed, a short bark, and turned back to his phone. "Good one. Delete that from history, my mom checks my laptop."
"I'm not joking."
"You're always joking. It's your whole thing. You're the joke guy."
"I'm the joke guy who happens to be extremely good with his hands and has, by all accounts, an ass that has ended friendships." Ridley sat up, tail swishing. "Think about it. No roofies, no DMs, no Derek and his truck. Just your roommate, on this futon, offering. Free. Unlimited. Tonight only."
Finn stared at him. The laugh had drained out of his face and been replaced by something more complicated, the expression of a fox whose brain was doing math he hadn't agreed to. "You're actually serious."
"Dead serious. Holes are holes, man. That's physics. That's nature. You'd be basically straight for doing it. Arguably gayer to keep suffering."
"That is not how any of that works."
"You're right, you'd be gayer. Double gay. Triple if you enjoy it." Ridley patted the futon beside him. "Which, no pressure, but historically everyone enjoys it."
"Historically. Historically who?" Finn set the phone down. That was a mistake and he knew it the moment the phone left his hand, because it left him with nothing to look at except Ridley, sprawled and grinning, yellow fur against the rumpled sheets, tail curling lazily around his own hip.
"Doesn't matter. Do you want to keep watching Derek's truck stories or do you want to get your dick wet?"
Finn opened his mouth. Closed it. His ears had gone flat, then forward, then flat again, like two little flags trying to decide which way the wind blew. The heat in his gut, which had been coiled there since the gym story anyway, picked this exact moment to make an executive decision without consulting him.
"This never leaves the room," he said.
"There's a room?"
They collided somewhere in the middle of the futon. Ridley kissed the way he did everything, cocky and lazy, grabbing a fistful of Finn's shirt and hauling him down, tongue sliding past his teeth before Finn had finished figuring out where his own hands went. Finn had kissed maybe nine people in his life and all of them had let him lead; Ridley took the wheel immediately, teeth catching Finn's lower lip, a small huff of laughter breathed directly into his mouth.
"You taste like energy drink," Ridley muttered against him.
"You taste like a guy who's about to regret this."
"Nope." Ridley pulled back just far enough to yank his own shirt off over his head, fur mussed, grin undamaged. "Regret is for people with functioning brains. C'mon, pants off, this offer expires."
Finn's hands were shaking slightly, which he hated, as he shoved his jeans down. His cock was already hard, thick and flushed dark at the tip, and he watched Ridley's eyes drop to it with open, appraising interest that made his ears burn.
"See, look at that," Ridley said warmly, like Finn had brought a casserole to a potluck. "That's a nice cock. That deserves better than a sad wank over a cat in gym shorts."
"Are you going to talk the entire time?"
"Yes. Get used to it."
Ridley shed his sweatpants and boxers in one practiced motion and turned around on all fours on the futon, tail lifting out of the way with the ease of someone who had absolutely done this before. He reached back and spread himself, and Finn made a sound that was not entirely a word.
"Condoms are in my top drawer," Ridley said, glancing back over his shoulder. "Yes, I have condoms. No, I will not be explaining the supply. Lube's there too. Don't make that face, it's not lube from anything weird, it's actual lube, I bought it, there was a whole transaction."
Finn found the drawer. His hands were steadier now, urgency replacing nerves. He slicked himself up while Ridley reached back and worked two fingers into his own ass, unhurried, breathing out slow through his nose, hole twitching dark and slick around his fingers.
"Okay," Ridley said. "Whenever you're ready, stud. No wrong way to do it. Well, one way. Don't do that way."
Finn pressed the head of his cock against him. Ridley was warm and yielding and Finn sank in slow, jaw slack, one hand gripping Ridley's hip hard enough to part the fur. The heat clamped around him inch by inch and Finn's breath came out in a shaky groan that made Ridley laugh low in his chest.
"There it is," Ridley purred. "That's the sound of a man who's stopped moping."
"Shut up." Finn bottomed out and stopped, buried to the base, forehead dropping against the back of Ridley's shoulder. "Oh, fuck. Fuck. Okay. Okay, you were right."
"Say the whole sentence."
"You're not. Saying it."
"Close enough." Ridley rocked his hips back, taking him deeper, and Finn groaned again into his fur and started to move.
The futon creaked with every thrust, cheap frame clanking against the wall in a rhythm that was going to be a conversation with the neighbors later. Finn fucked him in long, dragging strokes at first, then rougher, faster, losing the shape of his own restraint, hands roaming up Ridley's spine, through the fur between his shoulders. Ridley braced on the wall and pushed back to meet him, moaning loud and shameless, tail lashing against Finn's stomach.
"Harder," he gasped. "C'mon, Finn, you've got all that frustration, use it, fuck it into me."
Finn obliged with a strangled noise, hips snapping, the slap of skin on skin loud in the cramped room. Somewhere in the tangle of limbs their mouths found each other again, clumsy over Ridley's shoulder, kissing wet and sloppy while Finn drove into him, Ridley grinning against his lips between gasps.
"You're good at this," Finn panted. "That's so annoying."
"Told you. Expert in some fields." Ridley's own cock hung hard and leaking between his legs, jouncing with every thrust, and Finn, on pure instinct, reached around and wrapped a fist around it. Ridley yelped, then laughed, then moaned. "Ohh, look at you. Learning. That's a straight move, right there, totally straight."
"Shut up and come on my hand."
"Bossy. I love it."
Finn jerked him in time with his thrusts, thumb smearing slick over the head, and it didn't take long. Ridley's whole body went tight around him, his moan breaking off into a high, cracked whine, and then he was coming hard over Finn's fingers and the futon below, ass clenching in waves that wrung a broken shout out of Finn. Finn slammed in deep and held there, buried to the hilt, cock pulsing as he emptied himself into the condom with Ridley's name, embarrassingly, half garbled into his fur.
They stayed like that for a while, breathing. The futon had migrated a foot toward the wall. One of the energy drink cans rolled off the desk and hit the floor.
"So," Finn said finally, voice wrecked, "that was."
"Yeah."
"Okay. Cool. Yeah."
Ridley turned his head just enough to smirk at him over his shoulder, sweat-damp fur sticking up, absolutely insufferable even post-orgasm. "So. When's Derek's next gym story?"