Apollo Teasing Al Alkali pulled on his purple shirt and ran a comb through his hair. The gnoll wanted to look presentable for the evening out. He’d even shined the latch on his red collar, hanging flush against his neck. Apollo dressed impeccably every time the two of them went out on the city together; at least, he did when Apollo wasn’t so large that his spacesuit worked better. He needed to match the dapper raccoon’s style this time. If they were going to a fancy bar to get drunk, better bring the A-game style. ‘Ding’ Speak of the devil. The gnoll threw on a spritz of cologne and ran to the front door, skidding to stop over the hard wood floor. He threw the door open to see an 8-foot-tall raccoon hunching down to peek beneath the top of the door frame. He readjusted the brown ivy cap on his head and smiled. “Evenin’, love. Ready for drinks at the pub?” he rumbled in a deep baritone. The gnoll nearly went weak in the knees just seeing his beefy chest stretch out the blue dress shirt and grey vest. It was only thanks to those piercing, red, glowing eyes that Al was able to focus on anything other than his biceps. “Yeah!” he said, voice nearly cracking. Alkali coughed before trying again. “Yeah, let’s go. I like the hat Apollo. New addition?” The raccoon rumbled as he stepped through the doorway, shaking the living room slightly with each step. “Finally found a hat that fit my head. Just so happens to look good too.” Apollo’s tail swished over the top of the wooden floor, kicking air through the apartment in gusts that rushed around Alkali’s ankles. He set a hand on the gnoll’s shoulder and knocked him slightly off balance. Al was no pushover as far as bulk goes in his gnoll form. But Apollo’s arms rivaled small trees for thickness. Alkali gulped as his face flushed. “Well, you look good in anything you’re wearing. But the hat is a nice change.” “Flatterer.” “Only when it’s true.” Apollo picked up Alkali in a crushing bear hug. It squeezed the gnoll’s ribs and made his back pop slightly. The gnoll’s vision saw stars for a brief moment but he loved it just the same. That was one thing constant with each time Apollo visited. One way or another, Al always ended up seeing stars. “You’re here early though. What gives?” Al asked, once he was back on solid ground and able to catch his breath. Apollo shrugged. “Just looking to test something out. Figured out how to hack your collar last night. Took a few minutes; that little Earth technology is so cute, I got distracted and took longer than usual.” The gnoll froze in place, his tail mid-wag. “What do you mean you hacked my collar?” His collar was equipped with some pretty high-grade technology to help control his species, height, body type… it was a long story. It also definitely wasn’t meant to be hacked and played with on a whim. “I can do this now,” Apollo said. Alkali felt a jolt at the base of his neck beneath the leather strap, and shook his head. Before the gnoll could even fuss or complain, he looked up to see an even larger raccoon looming. Horror dawned over him. It wasn’t that Apollo grew this time. Apollo shrank him a few feet smaller, close to 5 feet tall. Alkali now stood at eye level with the middle of Apollo’s chest. “So, you can just… do that whenever now? I was assured this collar absolutely couldn’t be hacked.” The raccoon chuckled and shook his head. Alkali clearly didn’t get the joke. “No offense love but I do come from genius genetic stock. Big brains.” “Big everything,” Alkali responded, pulling at the collar uncomfortably. “An’ since I have those big brains, I got a little creative with your collar. Like changing your DNA to transfer all your size to me whenever we’re in contact,” Apollo said with a wicked grin. He walked forward and picked up Al with a single arm to kiss deeply. It was an odd sensation to feel his mass sucked away like this. Feeling a set of lips literally stretch larger over your muzzle as you make out. He was pushed tight against the raccoon’s body, smothered with an increasingly beefy arm. Al’s face turned bright red and he closed his eyes to lose himself in the sensations when- ‘Click’ Al’s eyes opened again to see a red leash attached at his neck. And in Apollo’s free hand was the other end. He met Apollo’s red eyes for a moment and gulped. No words were exchanged. In one fluid movement, Apollo placed the gnoll on the ground and pushed the gnoll under his sole. “Hold on. We’re going on a date.” The world shifted rapidly after that as the soft toes obscured those bright red eyes from view and he felt the leash go taut. “A-APOLLO, wait!” Alkali cried. He’d been taken by surprise so there was no time to ask questions. It didn’t seem like Apollo would listen anyway. The finely dressed raccoon pulled Al’s leash tight, his toes brushing against the gnoll’s muzzle. The flesh-to-flesh contact began leeching the very mass from Al’s cells, causing the gnoll to rapidly diminish against the space raccoon’s sole. His whole torso was covered by just one of Apollo’s paws, and that realization made the gnoll whine. There wasn’t much he could see past the toes anymore as the warm paws went from car sized to building sized. “You better speak up, love. Getting harder to hear you past the toes,” Apollo teased. His toes wiggled giving Al brief glimpses of the raccoon’s head cracking the ceiling, and the grinning white teeth of the sweetheart raccoon. “Mmmph. So… are we still going out for drinks?” Alkali asked, trying to keep his voice level so he didn’t betray his arousal. If he knew Apollo, this would just be the beginning. “Sure, drinks sound good. You’re staying away from my lips though; don’t wanna risk swallowing you, speck,” the titanic raccoon rumbled. Suddenly the leash went slack around Alkali’s neck; he tumbled backward but found himself trapped under a single of Apollo’s toes. Specifically, his smallest one. Alkali pulled at his leash, drawing it close as he clung to the black skin of his ‘captor’. Maybe he could use it to rope something in for safety. “No, I don’t think I’d like to be swallowed either. You’re gonna lose me at this rate,” the gnoll said, but his wagging tail betrayed he wasn’t all that bothered by either idea. Being that close to raccoon lips large enough to smother skyscrapers didn’t sound all that bad. “Nah. I’d never lose you, yer too cute. I’ll shrink you down and claim you instead. Caught on a single cell of my toe.” Alkali whimpered as the wall of flesh under Apollo’s toe expanded wider, faster, going from house sized to stadium sized. It was fast approaching the point where he’d be invisible to the naked eye. A millimeter of gnoll wouldn’t be found by anyone, especially not beneath Apollo’s feet. His tail wagged when he felt the shrinking pick up speed again, dwindling down until Apollo’s toe was a landscape of warm, soft, black flesh. Maybe he could use the leash to catch a bacterium or something he could sit on without fear of getting knocked around like a speck of dust. The date was off to a great start already. “Time to head to the bar. Let me know if you need to be moved somewhere safer,” the raccoon rumbled. Al felt the wind rush through his fur, tossing him back and forth like a mote of dust. He never moved far enough to be tossed free of Apollo though; that ship had long since sailed. Al knew he wouldn’t be going anywhere as the walls of Apollo’s toeprint started to rise on either side of Al’s head. The soft thumping beneath his feet… Apollo’s heartbeat he realized, was only rising in intensity as more and more of the gnoll’s dwindling size was greedily siphoned away toward the towering raccoon. “Is there anywhere safe for me at this size?” Alkali huffed, his face hot with embarrassment. “Nope,” Apollo rumbled. “That’s what I thought. I’d rather stay on you then, it’s a much nicer view.” The landscape chuckled, an action that sent Alkali flying nearly up and out of his toeprint prison. “Not like I’m letting you go anyway, love.” Alkali squirmed in place, tail wagging madly. “I sure hope not. Wouldn’t miss out on time with you for anything.” “Of course not, germ. We still have a date, and then all night to cuddle.” WHOOMP. The world came tumbling, crashing apart all at once. Pavement pushed against Apollo’s toe and smothered Alkali with a soft horizon of raccoon paw. He wasn’t pushed into the concrete thankfully; the Grand Canyon sized walls of his date’s toeprint provided plenty of height to avoid that fate. But it didn’t protect him from being compressed by millions of tons of hunky raccoon. Alkali wheezed, held in place against a raccoon toe he’d never hope to escape. And even more, he was still shrinking. “H-How far away is the bar anyway?” the gnoll asked. There was an expectant pause. “Wait,” Alkali continued. “Was that just ONE step?” Apollo chuckled. “Just one. We’re outside your house now.” “Mmmph. Oh boy.” “Yup. The bar is on the other side of town. Yer gonna be so small by the time we get there, germ.” Alkali didn’t respond; just made a choked noise halfway between a whimper and a yelp. He could imagine the grinning, city sized face far above with perfect clarity. It was a face he’d become very familiar with lately. Just about as familiar as his current surroundings had become. There was a time that seeing fur follicles the size of skyscrapers or cells the size of minivans would have been foreign. Apollo seemed to have a talent for teasing the gnoll in that direction though. “Not much size left down there for me to take anymore. Let’s take a break, so you can get accustomed to it.” Al felt another spark at the back of his neck, and the world jolted to a halt. Exhaling a sigh of relief, the gnoll took a seat stop the single toe cell on Apollo’s smallest toe and looked around to take stock. Every direction he looked, a plane of black stretched in all directions. And if he looked up Al was treated to the sight of a ground that rushed at breakneck speed overhead, crashing into the space raccoon’s paw every few seconds. Hurricane force wind buffeted the world up there. Al decided it was much safer to stay right here, in his date’s toeprint. At least there he wasn’t going to fly free. But… no one knew he was down here. Apollo could keep him, far past the point of being visible. As if reading Al’s mind, the colossal bass of his voice vibrated a single word through every pore on the kangaroo’s diminutive body. “Mine,” Apollo quaked. This time, Al whimpered from behind hands that hid a bright red face. “It might take me a while to get used to the view of a raccoon filling all parts of my vision,” Alkali admitted sheepishly. “I’ll wait to shrink you even smaller then. Just say when you’re ready to be germ sized,” Apollo teased. Alkali backed up uncertainly, nervously biting his lip. “Germ sized..?” he repeated. “Small enough to get lost if I’m not focusing my attention on you. Small enough that it’ll take you years to reach the next toe over on my foot.” “…you’re a monster, Apollo.” “You’re still here. Not like you could leave anyway.” Alkali felt every instant of that night in the bar. Each step, each toe clench, each throb of the titanic raccoon’s heartbeat, shook the roo to his core. He’d never be able to get off Apollo’s toe. By now, the size difference was vast enough for gravity to take control. You don’t just jump off the surface of something big enough to be a planet. And he knew Apollo was messing with him on purpose too. Because each time a toe clench got a squeaking response from the gnoll, Apollo would rumble with an approving growl. Even in spite of their absurd difference in size, the raccoon was in complete control, and knew exactly where his little passenger was. How he was able to dote and flirt with a raccoon large enough to be a cosmic body was beyond his understanding. But he sure wasn’t going to complain. And then with a burst of movement, Apollo pressed his foot down to the wooden floor of the bar. Alkali was trapped by tons of raccoon yet again. Just how long had he been down there anyway? Hours? How much drinking could a raccoon Apollo’s size stomach anyway? Alkali gulped as he realized what this meant. If the bar portion of the date was done... that meant it was time to go home. And to bed. The gnoll squirmed at the mere thought. “Uhm. Apollo?” the little hyena squeaked. “Do I get to come back up there for the evening?” “Why?” Apollo asked. “Do you want to be normal sized again?” He stopped walking, and pulled his foot up away from the ground. The space raccoon turned his sole over to inspect it, as if to pull a pebble free. Alkali could see those red eyes, glowing far away in the distance, miles away comparatively. And yet they were clearly focused directly on him. Or at least, on the square millimeter of his toe that housed the gnoll’s whole world. Alkali was frozen in place, unable to answer. And Apollo grinned deviously, his eyes shining a bright red. “…no. I like your paws. A lot.” “ ‘Course you do. And you like my toe a lot. A single cell on it. Singular.” “Thanks for the night out, Apollo,” Alkali swooned, smooching the surface below him. He’d never make it up to the raccoon’s lips, so this was the best he could do. Apollo’s smile turned sweeter as he licked a finger over his tongue and swiped it across the surface of his toe to pluck his invisible passenger up. If Alkali thought his ride was rough before, it was only because he hadn’t experienced flying a distance nearly wide enough to be the diameter of Earth. Every inch of hair on the gnoll’s tiny body was frizzed out, as if he’d been assaulted with the world’s largest blow dryer. And then Apollo smooched him. The space raccoon brought his finger up to his muzzle and, without a word, planted a kiss on his finger with a thoroughly flustered gnoll germ. It’s an indescribable sensation to be kissed by a set of soft lips that could easily smother an entire city. Their earlier kiss didn’t leave him breathless, panting, and collapsed on the surface of a new cell. This time he was trapped on Apollo’s lips though. “Wow,” Al said between gasps for breath. Apollo laughed longer this time, a belly laugh that blew air across Alkali at speeds high enough to break the sound barrier. “Told you I’m a good kisser.”