There are plenty of furs who wish to be blown up into a ripe juicy blueberry. But then what? Actions have consequences, after all. This is a story about consequences.

Word Count: 2,285

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The Deflation Dairies - Part I: A Friend In Need

May 31, 2022:

When I opened the front door to Rory's apartment, I was expecting to see broken glass and a ransacked living room or maybe a note made from magazine clippings telling me where and when to leave the money if I ever wanted to see my friend ever again.

What I didn't expect to see was a nearly nine-foot wide, purple and blue, blob-like spheroid with that damn jackal's face sticking out from the side giving me a sheepish grin between two apple-sized cheeks.

Let me back things up a bit.

Rory and I are best friends. We're also exes. I won't go into that too much, but I'll give the broad outline here: We were young, just out of high school, and the only other two gay furs in our small rural town. It was a relationship of convenience, if anything. But what else was a cheetah like me supposed to do? There weren’t apps to cruise at the time, so it’s not like I could try my luck elsewhere. Besides, that jackal was pretty damn cute. And I had a thing for shorter furs. While I’m only taller than Rory by a few inches, standing next to him always made me feel better about my own average stature. And while my then-boyfriend was pretty skinny, he was thick where it mattered. And where it mattered was his butt. Let’s just say he knew how to fill out his jeans. And his briefs. And his jock straps. I also admired the way he took care of himself. Always so well-groomed, the jackal’s brown and white fur was also so fluffy and soft. Half the joy of cuddling him was to feel that fur against my body.

After dating for about nine months, Rory moved a couple of cities over. So we mutually broke things off. But then I ended up following him not long after I got a decent job offer at the office in the same city. We thought about rekindling things when both settled down but agreed that we would be better friends than lovers.

Oh well. Plenty of fish in the barrel now we weren't in a town of just 900 furs, most of whom were retirees. Still, I'd miss that butt.

We text every day. It might be something as simple as greeting each other in the morning or wishing a good night's sleep or sending weird and funny memes. Then about three days ago, I got nothing from him. That's fine. Rory might just be busy. Maybe he's buying a new phone (again). He's not forced to text me every day. It was usual for him, but not that out of character.

Day 2 rolled around with nothing from him. That evening, I texted that jackal to see what he was up to. Nothing.

I texted him again the following afternoon during my lunch break. I told him that I hadn't heard from him in a while and that I'd stop by his place to do a welfare check after I got work unless he responded. I checked my phone regularly that afternoon expecting to see a text back from him apologizing for the radio silence. Again, nothing.

Now I stood in Rory’s living room where a bluish blob lay bashfully grinning at me. A sickly sweet smell of fruit assaulted my nose. Where was that coming from?

"H-hey, Ethan…" Rory said. At least, I think it was Rory. Aside from the oversized cheeks, discolored fur, and ring of thick flesh locking his neck in place, the abomination in the living room looked like him.

"Jesus, Rory…is that you? What the hell happened?" I asked as I carefully approached the mass. As I got nearer, that fruity smell started to overpower me. I wanted to cover my nose with a paw, but it felt rude to do so.

"Uh…allergy? Had…allergy?" he huffed. His left ear flattened against his head. That was his tell whenever the jackal wasn't being entirely truthful with me. His voice, typically higher pitched, had dropped a few octaves. Rory's speech sounded labored, almost as if he was being slightly choked by the tire of girth which was his neck.

"Allergy? What kind of allergy…does this?" I approached my best friend. Light peaked through slim slots in his blinds and shined off blue fur. As I got closer, I saw brilliant purple streaks highlighting the jackal's fur when light hit it just right. It was really quite beautiful. I stretched a paw outward to feel my friend's…side? With an almost spherical body, he had nothing but sides. Even his paws and feet were lost in his corpulence. Four dents in his form hinted at where they might be hiding. The jackal's eyes widened as my paw got closer. I pressed, and Rory took in a sharp gasp. I immediately retracted my paw. "Did I hurt you? Are you okay?"

"F-fine…" he hissed before letting out a sputtering sigh.

I placed my hand back on Rory's inflated flank, this time ignoring his yelping. Even with all of his smooth fur, I felt tight, overtaxed skin underneath. I pushed my paw in slightly, maybe only a quarter inch. Rory gasped again. Hearing ominous groans and creaking from inside the bloated jackal, I pulled my paw back once more.

I now leaned in towards my friend's deformed body. My left ear hovered over the skin of what was (I assume) formerly Rory's right hip. With my nose a mere inch from his body, the stench of fruit was unbearable. Inside him, I heard quiet gurgling and the occasional groan. If I concentrated closely, I could hear his heart beating diligently and regularly as if nothing was the matter. That was good, at least.

I took a step back, taking in Rory as a whole. "Seriously…what have you done to yourself?" I wondered out loud. This time the jackal flattened both ears against this head. He was embarrassed. His fluffy tail wagged excitedly, gently thumping against his engorged form. Perhaps Rory was excited to finally be rescued.

I walked around his body. Rory's eyes followed me as best they could. I was partially astounded and partially horrified at what I was looking at. Just days ago I met Rory for drinks and everything was normal: Still barely standing 5'6" with a twinkish frame and boyish good looks. Now? Now he was freakishly round, his paws and feet having disappeared within his own mass leaving craters were plumped digits wiggled desperately. Only his head and tail escaped total envelopment, and the former was still nearly bloated beyond recognition. Rolled on his side, the poor thing was as wide as I am tall…and just as wide.

I wondered what made him so…big. Clearly, it wasn’t fat. Fat doesn’t come on that fast even if Rory chained to a milkshake machine for the past three days. And fat doesn’t make you look…like Rory looked. And his fur, what happened there? The sublime chocolatey brown and off-white fur was now varying shades of blue. Did Rory go crazy with fur dye or something? Even so, he would have sp-

"...Up?" mewed Rory. I stepped back from my theorizing; my friend wanted to be put upright. Though I had no idea how long he had been like this, I imagine being stuck sideways wasn't comfortable after a while. Blood, and whatever was engorging his body, has probably been rushing to his head for a while now.

It took well over an hour to get that boy upright. Yanking the cushions off his couch, I built up a small wall beside him in hopes to keep Rory from tipping over as I rolled him upward. I took hold of his body on either side of where his head stuck out from his form and tried tilting him toward the ceiling. It was rough. The moment I started pressing on Rory he started whimpering. I asked if this was hurting him, but the jackal didn’t give me much of an informative answer. I knew I needed to be more forceful if Rory wanted to be set upright. After all, the poor beast probably weighed as much as a small car. Rather than simply rolling him upwards, I knelt down and wedged my back into his side. Pushing off with my legs, I was able to make progress and move my massive friend. The jackal squealed as slowly but surely shifted him ninety degrees. Rory’s body sloshed violently as he was moved. The jackal moaned as he shifted inch by inch. Finally fully upright, I slipped out from beneath Rory. Liquid inside him sloshed about as Rory settled in place. I wiped sweat from my brow before fetching blankets and more pillows from his bedroom. Building what was essentially a nest around him, I made sure that Rory wasn’t going to topple over anytime soon.

“B-better?” I asked, still trembling from exertion. I was far from out of shape. In fact, I regularly went on seven mile runs each week. But my cheetah butt wasn’t ready to push a boulder-sized Rory around.

The jackal nodded as best as he could. “Y-yes! Much!” he said, still struggling to speak through absurdly plump cheeks.

“So, you gonna tell me about…all this?” I asked, gesturing my paw up and down my friend’s swollen self.

“Urp…Umm…Long story?” Another sheepish grin.

“I got time.”

“Urm…Later? So…tired…”

I rolled my eyes. Considering how long it took just to mutter a few words, I figured this conversation could wait until later otherwise I’d be hearing his explanation well into next week. “Wait here. We need to take care of some things.”

From his bedroom I found Rory’s tablet and phone. “Passcode?” I asked, holding up the latter.

“Umm…Why?” Rory’s gut gurgled loudly.

“Because you probably have people worried about you. And besides, I imagine your boss is wondering where you’re at.”

“O-Oh…67820.” Once again, ominous creaking came from deep within him.

I punched in the numbers. “Cool. That worked. Good thing I convinced you not to use FaceLock, huh? I don’t think you at this point…”

It was Rory’s turn to roll his eyes.

A couple of his friends texted. I responded back to them trying to sound like Rory as best I could, meaning I made plenty of spelling errors. I told them that I/Rory was going to be away for some time taking care of a sick aunt. Most of them texted back right away wishing him good luck in helping the sick aunt that I just made up. Rory didn’t have an aunt or much in the way of family, for that matter. But the alibi worked.

Next, I sent an email to the manager of Le Chic, the makeup store Rory worked for. Once again doing my best to minic Rory’s patented misuse of the English language, I hammered out an email saying that he was needed back home to take care of his dying mother. Again, there was no such mother as, again, Rory didn’t have much in the way of family. Having sent that email, I logged into the HR website that Le Chic used. After some arguing with Rory, I was able to get his credentials for WorkSpace. The jackal had just under sixty days of paid vacation time saved up.

“Damn. Think Le Chic is hiring? I might just apply for the benefits alone,” I joked as I submitted a request to use up all Rory’s PTO: Three days to cover his absence and 57 days out from today.

The ballooned-up jackal whimpered. “My…vacation…” he sighed.

“Umm…yeah. This is your vacation, buddy.”

It was my turn now. Unfortunately, I didn't have as much paid time off as my friend. I sent an overly apologetic email to my boss saying that I was needed across the country to take care of my dying father. Like Rory, I didn’t have much in the way of family. But I just needed an excuse to get me out of work for the rest of the week. I submitted my four-day time off request. I assumed that I would still need to be helping Rory out of his…situation into next week. I would figure things out then.

It was nearly 11pm when everything was settled. Rory was struggling to stay away as I typed up my email to my office. Dark blue eyelids slowly started falling over his hazel eyes. As much as I wanted to interrogate that idiot right then and there to find out what I needed to do to get him back to his old twinkish self, I knew that I would get nothing from a sleepy jackal.

He was softly snoozing when I finished my email. I nudged his shoulder. The jackal’s form jostled gently as Rory awoke. “Y-yeah…Ethan?”

“Look. I’m going home to grab some clothes. I’ll be back at around midnight and crash on your bed since…well, you’re not using it. But tomorrow, get ready for some work. I’m getting to the bottom of this so you better have some answers for me, okay?”

“O-okay…” Rory said meekly. Grabbing my keys, I was about to leave when I heard Rory mew again. “Umm…TV?”

I sighed. He was probably bored having been facedown in a carpet for three days. I turned on the television in Rory’s living room and set it to some 80’s action movie, something called Knives Of Justice IX, and tilted the screen towards Rory so he could see better. “Th-thanks!”

“No problem,” I muttered as I quietly shut Rory’s apartment door behind me. “God dammit, man. What did you get me…us…into?”