Eulis couldn't contain her excitement. "I still can't believe you're here!" The pangolin took a bite off her burger, while grinning at the stoat sitting across the table. Akene was an online acquaintance of hers, and after years of only talking through a screen, she'd finally traveled all the way here for her vacation, to spend these next days with her friend, in the flesh.
But Akene wasn't really eating anything, just staring down awkwardly and yawning.
"Are you alright?" Eulis asked, and the stoat looked up at her.
"Yeah, sorry, it's just jet lag... It's past 2AM back home."
"Aww... But I want to do so much more for our first night, Ake! Talk with you, watch some movies. Did you even touch your food–?"
"She's clearly tired, Eu." A male tufted ground squirrel who was accompanying them, Iwan, intervened. "She should just rest tonight."
Iwan was Eulis's roommate, and had driven her to the airport for the stoat's arrival. But on their way back home, Eulis had insisted that they stopped by her favorite restaurant, an American-themed diner. Now, the pangolin was getting flustered about her friend's lack of enthusiasm.
"What?" She retorted to Akene, ignoring Iwan. "You don't like it?"
"No, it's just...! I can't really think right now, Eu. I just want to go to bed, really..."
The pangolin jumped from her seat, annoyed. "I need to use the restroom." She grumbled before stomping away. Iwan was left to deal with the stoat.
"Don't mind her, sometimes Eu can be–"
The girl interrupted him. "You said you're Iwan, right? Her squirrel roommate with the comfy tail that she keeps telling me about?"
"Y-Yes... I guess?" His fluffy red tail flicked in the air.
"She said that it can open and serve as a Manner of portable sleeping bag... Is that true?"
"Yeah... But why did she–"
She stared at the ground squirrel's long appendage now lying on the diner couch, and ran a paw over its tufted fur. "Would you...y'know...right now?"
Iwan sighed. Normally he wouldn't do this in public, but he didn't like how the pangolin was treating her guest tonight, and Akene seemed awfully tired. "Fine. Just be quick before Eu is back."
The hairs on the tail's tip were splitting in half, revealing an opening to the black insides. Eulis had described it to her as 'a tailmaw', but it looked like a dry tunnel with cushioned walls. It was inviting enough for the exhausted stoat, who jumped in headfirst without hesitation.
It was odorless and not particularly warm, but Akene could feel her own body heat getting trapped, so it would probably get even cozier when she was fully in. It also didn't move around her, no pulsing or pulling or noises, giving her even more of a feeling that it was a sleeping bag which just happened to be attached to a tufted ground squirrel's backside. Either way, the organ seemed long enough to accommodate her whole body, even when she was fully stretched out.
After shuffling the rest of the way, the entrance closed after her feet, locking out any lights or sounds from the restaurant. Akene shifted a bit, feeling how it was like a cocoon of silky pillows, holding her in place from every direction, but not too tightly. The stoat remembered when Eulis had revealed that she'd ask Iwan to sleep here every now and then, but honestly? This was even better than her real bed back in her home country. Before she drifted off to a wonderful dream, Akene decided that the next morning, she'd ask the red squirrel if he would let her spend every night of her vacation in his tail.
The whole process took less than two minutes. Eulis came back from her break, and the squirrel made no attempt to hide his bulging tail from her – better than pretending that the stoat had disappeared in a foreign country, he supposed.
"Seriously, Iwan?!" The pangolin yelled in their native tongue. "We had plans for tonight!"
"Look, she wasn't feeling up to it. Let her rest, and then tomorrow you two–"
"Let her out." She demanded, and sprung onto his tail.
He got up to dodge her, and his tail slumped from the seat onto the floor. Thankfully, the impact was cushioned by his insides, and Akene's sleep should've remained undisturbed.
"Stop it, Iwan!"
"Eu, please... You're making a scene." He looked around at the other people in the diner, customers and diner alike staring back.
"No, you are making a scene...! Hmph!" The pangolin leapt down to the floor and tried to pry open his tail. The ring gave in, but she could only see the black cushions, with no sign of the stoat. "Come on, lower that tongue!"
It wasn't a 'tongue', but more of a flap that could divide his tail into two separate but equal chambers. Shoving her face, chest and arms into the lower one, she was trying to sneak her fingers around the seams from the inside. Eulis was being quite obnoxious, so Iwan decided on how to deal with her right now.
The tip of his red tail suddenly flexed towards the ceiling, causing most of the orange-armored pangolin to slump into the bag. It also helped that he could temporarily distend his chamber further out to minimize friction, letting gravity do most of the work for him. He hugged his own tail and lifted it, giving it a few shakes to make her upside-down legs slide until she was fully contained within black cushioned walls. Eulis was putting up quite a fight – one that she knew she couldn't win –, but hopefully, Iwan reasoned, she would calm down and join her friend in slumber before long.
When he was done, and the opening of his tailmaw was completely shut once more, he carefully placed the fluffy appendage onto the ground. The large tail was laying flat due to the weight, engorged and squirming clearly, plain to see by everyone else in the diner. Some people were surprised, while others mostly ignored the whole scene, or pretended to. A warty pig wearing an apron – the restaurant's owner and chef – approached Iwan.
"Hey, Hadi." The tufted ground squirrel addressed him. "Mind if I go to your rooftop again?"
The pig stared blankly back at him. "Not at all. Should I put it all on Eu's tab?"
"Ah. No, I'll pay for mine." He handed him some cash from his pocket. "Keep the change."
Hadi grunted in acceptance and walked to their table, while Iwan headed to the staircase in the back. His tail was being dragged across the floor behind him, but other than a bit heavy, it wasn't troublesome at all, and he already knew that the individual stairs couldn't really hurt or even disturb his occupants, thanks to his organ's incredible softness.
After climbing all of the steps, he stepped outside through the unlocked metal door. There were some sounds of cars on the roads, and a few lights from the buildings and poles in the neighborhood, but Iwan didn't mind it. The squirrel's tail was almost completely still, so Eulis should have been at least half-asleep. As he'd learned from his previous incursions up here, the inside of his appendage was completely insulated and comfortable, so his occupants wouldn't hear the sounds of the night town at all.
But with his tail filled like this, it meant that it was also warm and firm enough to serve as an outdoor mattress for him. Perhaps not as cozy as an actual bed, but much better than the hard concrete under his shoes. Iwan carefully lounged with his back against the tail to look up at the night sky. Once he woke up tomorrow, he'd let the two well-rested girls out and drive them home. For now, the squirrel simply tried to make out the dim stars from the urban light-polluted sky. Whenever he slept outdoors with a friend or two in his tail, this pastime was always his favorite part.