This is Chapter 23 to a commissioned novel. It is set in the Two Weeks universe, and is universe canon. The story follows Talikin, a 29 year old fox who's fed up with nearly everything, and is looking to make a serious change in his life, and his boyfriend, Matt, a German Shepard that never outgrew his selfish, childhood habits. Unexpectedly, that change comes in the form of the pair being targeted by a secret society.

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Story Text: (FA formatting is crap. Download to read it the way it was meant to be read.)
The Vacant Years: Chapter 23
“N-no! Stop it!” Matt squealed, kicking and squirming on the ground between the aisles of benches, Alex, his newly acquired husky friend kneeling over top of him and dancing expert fingers up and down the shepard’s vulnerable sides. Despite the layer of denim and fabric, his hyper sensitive ticklish spots had him squirming like a fish on a hook under the husky, desperately batting up at him as his bladder compulsively emptied what little of its contents remained into his bloated diaper, which would have sagged if it weren’t for the thick denim overalls he’d been put into that morning.
“I’ll take that as a yes!” Alex chuckled, eventually letting Matt scramble to his feet and cautiously protect his sides and belly to the general giggling of the other cubs all around him.
“No fair! You caught me by surprise!” Matt complained, face all red from all the blushing he’d been doing lately.
“You’ll learn to wrestle,” the husky said, tail wagging energetically, and backed Matt out into the main cafe platform, which had more open space for maneuvering. Despite the humiliating sneak-attack he’d been subjected to moments ago, Matt’s heart was racing and he couldn’t keep the smile on his face. Alex dropped down onto all fours, paws spread apart, clearly knowing his way around a match with another cub his size.
Matt didn’t have the skill or upper body strength to make a ghost of a match for Alex, but he also didn’t know that, and was intently waiting for an opportunity to make the black and white pup pay for tickling him silly moments ago. He did a sloppy imitation of Alex’s stance as they faced off against each other, then the shepard dashed suddenly, some canine instinct telling him to get under the husky’s guard and bowl him over, but it wasn’t to be. Matt yelped suddenly as a strong hand grabbed him by the nape of his neck, and sent him rock still in an instant. Alex had only enough time to squeak before he was similarly restrained, a large brown and white arm coming into Matt’s field of view as it gripped the husky’s nape as well, yanking them both to their feet, and almost felt like whoever it was intended to make their feet leave the ground.
“No wrestling on the platform, puppies,” came a clearly agitated voice, female as he had come to expect, and which belonged to another of the blue striped caretakers, this one a speckled mare. “Alex, you should know better,” she said, glaring at the two defused canines, both instinctively submitting to the dominant equine as they were scolded. “That’s fifteen minutes time out for the both of you, and I don’t want to see one toe out of line for the rest of the day. Do you understand?”
Alex mumbled his apologies, and Matt followed suit, the mare firmly pulling them both off the platform that the cafe had been built upon and over to one of the vertical wooden posts that supported the tumultuous activities above. She let Matt stand unencumbered as she took Alex over to one of the posts, which had a short leather strap attached to some kind of harness. The husky seemed not at all pleased by the idea of time out, and even less so at the sight of the harness, but didn’t fuss too much as the mare, who had easily a few stone in muscle on the husky, coerced him into the leather straps and tightened them. Once it was on, Matt saw it kept the wearer put, and stuck facing forward into the wooden platform.
As soon as Alex was secured, the equine caretaker turned back to Matt and began putting one of the harnesses on him, as well, basically little more than a chest belt with a crotch and shoulder straps to keep it in place. He didn’t exactly struggle, but that didn’t mean the shepard made it easy for her, either. Nevertheless, in a few minutes he was buckled up and locked in, facing forward and unable to find any comfortable way to stand facing the wall.
“Trust me,” Matt heard the husky say, in somewhat hushed tones after the mare had told them no talking and went off back up onto the platform, “This never gets more comfortable, but you get used to it.”
“You get this… often?” Matt said, stomach gurgling uncomfortably as he slumped in his harness and looked over at Alex, who nodded. “I…” the shepard continued, wriggling a bit as his stomach continued groaning and cramping, “I need to… go to the bathroom.”
Matt’s husky companion chuckled a bit, shaking his head at the shepard, “the only bathrooms around here are off limits to us cubs, Matt. You should know that by now. Just use your diaper and wait until you leave to let your caretaker know you need a change. Trust me, you’ll get kudos for putting it off.”
“Y-you mean sit in it all afternoon…?” Matt said, practically gaping at the absurdity of what was being suggested. He hated being messy, it was by far the worst part of this whole cub thing, and that was certainly saying something.
“Mhm, I think Telia would be happy to know you would rather play than come and ask for a change. It gives caretakers some kind of inner satisfaction to learn that their charges are acting childish even when they’re not around,” Alex explained, sitting back in his harness casually, and humming to himself, but Matt couldn’t help but start thinking the sentence over… something wasn’t right about what he had said, or how he had said it, the shepard just couldn’t put his finger on it…
“Wait, wait. Hold on a second, how the hell did you know which of these… caretakers was mine?!” Matt said, realizing it suddenly, then quieted down at Alex’s insistence.
“Crap,” the husky said, blushing, “eh, whatever. It’s a bit early, but I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me what?” Matt said, growing deeply frustrated by how much information was being withheld from him… apparently even by the other cubs.
“Some of us… older initiates get special privileges,” Alex explained, chuckling a bit, “but it’s also our job to help out the littler ones, like you. Show you the ropes, make sure you don’t do anything silly, that sort of thing.”
“Okay,” Matt continued, loosing some of his trust for the other initiates, “and how did you know Telia was mine?”
“We have to keep up to date on all the new kids,” Alex said, shrugging, “Their names, what they look like, who their caretaker was, that sort of stuff. Don’t worry, I can’t look at your file or anything like that. Only your caretaker has access to that sort of thing.”
“My… file? Matt said, growing more and more curious with every passing minute, “What kind of thing’s in there?”
“Heh,” the husky said with a chuckle, rolling his eyes, “a better question would be what isn’t in there. Mine had puppy photos from when I was three. I didn’t even know they existed anymore. I know it may seem cliche… but assume that your caretaker knows more about you and your life than you do yourself.”
“That’s… insane,” Matt said, not exactly denying the fact, only exhausted at the very thought that such a compilation of data had been made around him. It was deeply discomforting, like something out of science fiction or a spy novel. Nothing that could happen in the real world, or at least not here… not to him…
“It’s scary,” Alex agreed, but smiled after a brief moment, “but I wouldn’t be concerned about it. These people do more good every day than most people do in a lifetime. I know we’re conditioned to be afraid of organizations, especially when they try to force their will on us, but the caretakers… they’re different.”
“Mhm?” Matt said, skeptically, copying the husky’s pose and finding it far more comfortable than standing upright, “Making the world a better place, one messy diaper at a time.” He rolled his eyes, inwardly expecting that the husky had been instructed to do exactly what he was doing now.
“Speaking of which,” Alex said with a chuckle, “Didn’t you need to go?”
“Yeah…” Matt grumbled, wriggling a bit in his harness. It had only been maybe ten minutes since they’d been harnessed and left for a time out, but the shepard’s stomach was already starting to cramp. He had never trained himself to have to wait more than a few minutes, and whatever these caretakers were putting in his food wasn’t making keeping his diaper clean any easier. Eventually, the knowledge that he’d never be allowed to use a bathroom like an adult weighing heavily on his mind, Matt groaned, squatted a bit, and relaxed. His bowels moved of their own accord, and he quickly found his diaper filled with a heavy, sagging mass of warm, mushy mess.
“Messy puppy,” the husky teased, watching Matt droop in his harness, the crotch strap of which kept his diaper firmly squished against his butt. It wasn’t pleasant at all, but he could… he’d have to put up with it.
“Alright, you two,” came the equine caretaker’s voice again, and both the shepard and the husky stood at sudden attention, “your fifteen minutes is up, just don’t let me catch you two causing trouble again, alright?”
“Alright,” Matt and Alex said in unison, and were promptly freed from their respective harnesses to move about as they pleased once again, and, embarrassedly, the shepard briefly considered going to Telia to beg for a change. His messy diaper wasn’t getting any more comfortable, but the husky shook his head at him, guessing the other canine’s train of thought, then smiled and took him by the paw.
“Come on! Let’s go climb trees or something,” the husky said, grinning widely and started dashing off towards the canopy on the other side of the park with a reluctant German shepard in tow. Matt had just barely mastered walking in a few inches of padded undergarments, but running was a different beast altogether. He managed not to fall and plant his muzzle in the grass… but just barely, and must have given cause for laughter to all the other cubs who were probably watching them from the raised platform of the cafeteria. When, panting, Alex finally allowed them to slow to a fast walk, Matt cast a look backwards from where they came. The mare caretaker was gone, but now Matt could see the whole cafe, the whole building in fact, and realized that, on the other side was a fenced in area, more than likely a private club for all the caretakers while they were off duty, or their charges off playing. “Sorry, mush butt,” Alex said, grinning and slumping down against a tree, the sound of other kids playing around deeper in the foliage within earshot, but dampened somewhat to his ears, “It’s generally a bad idea to hang around that place after a time-out. She had her eye on us, and next time we’d be stuck in time-out for twice as long.”
“Yeah… heh, fifteen minutes was long enough,” Matt agreed, blushing and scratching the back of his head. Just the memory of the mess in his diaper squishing against that crotch strap was enough to make him squirm… he did not want to be stuck there for half an hour. The shepard eventually walked over to a shady tree and sat down facing Alex, who smiled back at him, and zoned out for a good five minutes, coming out of it only after the husky addressed him.
“I’m sensing you’re having a hard time adjusting to being a puppy again, Matt,” Alex said, his new friend perking up, a bit taken aback by the question.
“Well, yeah… what would you expect?” Matt replied, sighing, “One day I’m a totally independent… well, kinda independent adult… then I go to bed one night and poof. I wake up in a crib and diapers, and with a caretaker that expects me to just go along with it and be her puppy… like I wouldn’t resist at all.”
“They knew you would resist,” Alex replied, crossing his legs casually, “we all do. Everyone fights the treatment at first. It’s like you said, one day you’re strong and independent, the next day you’re a puppy again… totally reliant on someone else to take care of you. But…” he paused for a moment, smiling a bit, “that’s one of the strange pleasures of being a kid again. Everything is out of your hands, even the simplest acts that used to be so routine. You know… when I first got taken, it was two months before my caretaker let me pick out my own clothes to go to New Haven… I was so uncertain of myself that she wound up having to dress me anyway.”
“So what’s the moral of the story?” Matt asked, tucking away the term New Haven, he’d ask Telia what it was later.
“You’re made of putty, pup,” Alex said with a smile, “nothing about you lasts forever. Nobody is incapable of change… of improvement.”
“Yeah, Telia kinda explained that to me the other day,” Matt said with a nervous chuckle, “are you sure this isn’t some kind of weird cult…? It seems pretty secretive for a self-help group.”
“Well, to become a caretaker you have to leave any political or religious ideology behind you,” Alex explained, “Our ideology is one of pluralism and tolerance, something above and beyond petty squabbles about who should be in charge, or what a fair tax rate is.”
“Ooh, that doesn’t sound culty at all,” Matt teased, “I’m not the first person you’ve given that speech to, am I?”
“You’re like the twentieth,” the husky explained, crawling over to the shepard and startling the other canine as he flopped down into his lap, “I’ve been a puppy for a long time, Matt. Much longer than most initiates…”
“Really?” the shepard said, after recovering from having another adult in their mid twenties lay down across his legs and curl up, “How long…?”
“I was around when Telia went to New Haven for the first time,” Alex said, grinning a bit at some private joke, “she bit a kid, and wound up muzzled for the rest of the day. Good times.”
Matt couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at the idea of Telia muzzled, probably fuming in anger. Probably would have been his reaction, too. The shepard’s paw felt… fur? It took him a few moments to figure out why, but when he looked down he saw that he’d unconsciously began scratching the grinning husky’s belly, which was exposed between his short T-shirt and shorts. Blushing, he immediately pulled his hand away, only to hear the other canine chuckle.
“Hey, don’t stop, that felt good,” Alex said, giggling and wiggling a bit in Matt’s lap. A bit embarrassed and incredulous, the shepard did, indeed, continue the scratchings, and watched the husky go limp in his lap, humming in satisfaction.
“You are a total puppy,” Matt teased with a chuckle, switching to the husky’s sides and gently tickling.
“H-hey! Says the one in the messy diaper,” Alex retorted. Matt had almost forgotten about that fine little point, and went pink in shame at the reminder. But the husky had given him free reign over his ticklish spots. A very poor lapse of judgment, if Matt did say so himself.