dog days of summer Who: Kal & Chris. What: Chris has a weird reaction to something in his closet. Where: Chris' apartment, then the third floor hallway. When: July 18.
Shockingly alone in his bed for the first time since Daniel had gotten his cast off, Chris opened his eyes to the slitted bits of sunlight peeking through his window blinds. His head hurt from yet another hangover (a point in both Daniel and Kal's respective favors, not that he would enlighten either to such a score), a hand rising to his forehead as he squinted in the shadowy darkness. Finally, he decided a shower and food would be the better way to rid himself of this feeling; he managed to get onto his ass, sliding both feet to the floor. He glanced around for his brace, but couldn't find the contraption; somehow, it had made its way somewhere else that only drunk Chris apparently knew.
Cursing his inebriated self, he reached for the cane he kept near his bed, hidden behind a nightstand. His first thought was under the bed; with the cane in hand, he slowly got to his knees and ducked his head, lifting up loose bedding that sloughed over the side of his well-worn mattress. Amid the strange odds and ends he kept hidden away there (some shoes, old clothes, CDs he hadn't listened to in years), he could not find his brace. Muttering more obscenities in Spanish under his breath, Chris climbed to his feet once more and turned his attention to the closet. How or why he had decided that was a good place for his brace was beyond him; right now, the why of it didn't matter, only that he found the damned thing for when he needed it. Of course, neither a shower nor breakfast required his brace, but he was stuck on the principle of the thing.
Swapping his cane from one hand to the other, he reached out with his right for the door knob. It zapped him with a slight feeling of electricity, and Chris snatched his hand back for a moment before shaking his head, thinking he'd imagined the whole thing. His mind was still sleep-laden; his senses were no more attuned to the current state of his apartment or actually comprehending anything going on inside of it. Frowning, he reached out and found the knob perfectly fine. He turned it, opened it. Despite the cluttered nonsense under his bed, Chris was a fairly tidy person who preferred everything to have a place and every place assigned a specific purpose. His closet was by no means full nor even close; he had a few suits that he took good care of, their matching sets of shoes neatly lined up along the floor. There was a small shelf overhead that held a few boxes of casual wear; other than that, one might say his closet was nearly empty.
So of course it was a bit of a surprise when he opened his closet door to not only find a large amount of hair suddenly filling the space, he near-screeched and stumbled back onto his ass when the hair turned around, presenting a giant, upside down face. Cuss and prayers interlaced as he scrambled backward from the sight, both cane and brace forgotten in his hasty retreat. He turned over onto all fours, this being a slightly better way to move from the room to his living room; behind him he heard mutterings of a different sort, in an old language that somehow seemed familiar. Chris didn't have long to concentrate (nor really the will) before he suddenly felt himself changing. He could easily remember the stinging, physical pain of his bullet wound; sometimes his leg acted up. He thought phantom pains were for people who had lost limbs, but apparently they worked just as well for wounds. This... this wasn't that. This was like water sliding over his skin. Or his skin sliding over his skin? One moment, he was himself, a person on all fours, crawling, trying to find an escape.
The next, there was hair everywhere. Thicker, coarser; not hair but fur. Claws sprouted from his hands, clicking on the wooden flooring of his apartment. His face pushed out, creating a muzzle; he was still wearing clothes, and instead of stretching out of them, he shrank. The next thing he knew, which really wasn't much in that instant, was that he was trying to push his way out of his shirt since it was covering his eyes. He tried to reach up, but the paw that his hand had turned into wasn't much assistance in removing the cloth. Then he was free, sitting back in pajama pants that were too large, and he had a tail that swished over the floor, and four working limbs, and and and...
All he knew was that he needed to get out of his apartment because there was something in his closet. Chris moved as quickly as his newfound paws would take him to his own door, and started skittering against it, clawing at the wood, trying to reach the knob. Even if he could, he had no thumbs, but terror removed that particular thought from his mind. Maybe someone would hear him?
Which someone did, luckily enough. Kal was coming home from a brief job looking sun-kissed and with curls in his dark hair from the salty water of the ocean. He was happy as a clam, having boated on the ocean and dove into the salty water for an impromptu swim. It was times like this that he loved his job.
But the barking from Chris’s apartment drew his attention away from his internal thoughts of sunshine and dreams of islands being made. He paused outside the door, going through his mind and listing the various points of conversation he had with Chris recently. Getting a dog couldn’t have been a part of it.
Obnoxiously free of a hangover that Chris surely had, he knocked on the door, wondering if after their drunken revelry yesterday Chris had stolen a dog. “Hey, Chris? You in there?” He called against the door.
Chris opened his mouth -- rather, his jaws -- but instead of words, a high-pitched yelp emerged. He was so surprised, he sat back for a moment, onto his hind quarters. Then he tried to speak again, only this time more barking sounded. Chris forced the volume down, almost grumbling to himself as best he could.
What the fuck is happening?? He pawed at the door again, waiting for Kal to finally open it so he could get some badly needed help.
Kal stepped back, his brow furrowing for a moment before he turned away and went across the hall to his own apartment. Slipping in, he dropped his gear off and grabbed the spare key Chris had given him some time before. Returning to his friend’s door, he slipped the key in and unlocked it. “I swear to god if you’re screwing Daniel I’m going to throw a shoe at the both of you,” he said loudly in case Chris was fucking his boyfriend. Maybe it’d give them fair warning. Although he still didn’t understand why Chris would have a dog in his apartment.
Pushing the door open he lowered a hand, attempting to prevent the dog from running out past his legs. “Hey there, what the hell are you doing in here?” He asked the animal.
Because I live here, idiot. Unfortunately, the same sentiment did not come out of Chris' muzzle; he barked again, dancing up on all four feet as he all but jumped on Kal, trying to express what had happened even when he didn't fully comprehend it himself.
Chris jumped back, barking again, then reached out with a paw to nudge at Kal's leg.
“Okay, okay,” Kal replied, not really knowing what the dog wanted but closing Chris’s door all the same. He moved through the apartment, looking for Chris, and found it empty. The bed a mess, the closet door open, Chris’s clothes on the floor and the dog at his feet, Kal pulled out his phone can dialed Chris’s number.
“Let’s figure out what the fuck is going on here, okay?” He told the dog but became still when he heard Chris’s phone ringing from his bedroom. Hanging up, Kal lowered his hand and looked down at the dog. “Well I guess that’s not getting me answers.”
No, because I'm right HERE, Chris tried to imply through jumping up and on Kal, making a poor attempt to push the mountain of a man out of his room. Chris put himself between the closet and his friend, barking, trying to get Kal to understand that they needed to leave and that it was time to go.
“Jesus, calm yourself.” Kal responded, moving forward rather than away from the bedroom. He looked around for something, anything. Food bowl, water, something to indicate Chris decided to adopt an animal, but instead found Chris’s cane on the floor by the closet door. He felt a very curious feeling seeing that, a sharp twist in his stomach as he squatted to pick it up, holding it gently in his hands and looking it over. Chris, for all the hatred he had for his damaged leg, took care of his belongings and in particular that of his cane. He wouldn’t just leave it laying in the middle of the room and the fact that it was made Kal uncertain.
Chris surged forward, taking the butt of the cane in his mouth, and began to bodily drag Kal from the closet door. He could just see, in his mind's eye, the door bursting open, and the thing inside of it lurching out to grab up Kal. His friend might have been a large man, but he was nowhere near the size of the thing in the closet. It's mouth alone seemed like it might be large enough to swallow Kal whole, and Chris would do what needed to be done, even if that came to acting the part of what he'd become. A growl emanated from his throat, his claws digging into the relatively soft wood of the paneled flooring.
Kal followed the dog, his brow furrowed but willing to comply as the mongrel pulled at the cane and dragged Kal away from the bedroom. “Okay, do you not want me in there? Or do you have to piss because I don’t see a leash for you and Chris is going to kill me if I let some dog piss on his floor.” He looked around and spotted a newspaper, letting go of the end of the cane and moving for it. But despite his conversation with the dog, or possibly because he thought the dog was just a dog and certainly not his friend, he allowed the worry he felt to be visible on his face. “I don’t know where the fuck he could’ve gone. He’s left everything.” Kal looked at the dog as he gathered the newspaper to throw down on the floor. “And he left you here? I hope it’s nothing bad…”
Are you shitting me right now, Kahale Weber?? Chris-the-dog darted forward, snatching at the paper that Kal was attempting to put down. No, he did not need to take a piss, he wanted Kal out of his apartment! He continued to pull Kal in the direction of the door, hoping that the man would eventually put two and two together. To drive his point home even more, he dropped the somewhat-shredded newspaper and pranced toward the door, whining. It felt absolutely demoralizing to have to whine and make various dog-related noises to get Kal's attention, but these were the tools he was left with. How was this even happening?? His thoughts briefly drifted in the direction of his dream with the coyote, but that did little to help him now. For the moment, he moved out from the doorway and toward the middle of the living room, whining with his ears pressed to his head.
Kal looked between the dog to the door and the crumbled paper on the floor. “Alright then, let’s go.” He had no idea what he was going to do with this animal, no idea how to get ahold of Chris either, but headed for the door none the less and opened it, holding it wide for the dog. “I guess we could go to my apartment? Or are you going to destroy newspapers there too?”
He crossed the hall and opened his apartment door, pushing it open wide and looking at the dog with a frown. “Maybe I should call Daniel…”
NO! Chris thought at the same time as he tried to enunciate the word, which only came out as a loud bark. He'd followed Kal out of his apartment (waiting anxiously to make sure his friend closed the entrance to his abode) and toward 305. He huffed in Kal's direction, as though extremely put upon, and then pranced his way into the open door.
Kal's apartment was vividly different to Chris' much more sensitive nose. Items smelled of their origins, along with Kal's already robust scent. He darted around the space for a moment, overwhelmed just by this simple exploration.
Kal lingered by the doorway with his arms crossed as he watched the dog move about. He kicked his gear toward the wall and picked up his wet clothes from his jump into the ocean and tossed them into the dirty clothes hamper before retreating to the kitchen.
“I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with you,” he said to the dog as he pulled out a large bowl and filled it with water. “I should shower off, I have dried salt water all over me, and then I’ll call Daniel and see if he’s heard from Chris at all. Otherwise, I guess we’ll wait til he gets home.” Kal turned away from the kitchen and sat the bowl filled with water on the ground, giving the dog a shrug. “You know… in case you need water.”
Even in canine form, Chris still managed to roll his eyes, after having watched Kal put together the water dish. Though he was till annoyed, he had to be grateful that Kal was taking the prospect of having to care for him in this form seriously.
For all Kal’s adventures, he had very little experience with pet ownership. He wanted a dog desperately when he was a child but kuku could never afford it. So he had always been left with a childlike basis of knowledge for dog care. Treats, newspapers for indoor peeing, a leash for walking, and they needed water. Simple enough.
Chris shook his head, padding forward to snuff at the bowl; at the mention of the bathroom, he darted off in that direction, intent on checking to make sure it was clear and free of giant, man-eating monsters before Kal did. His nails scrabbled on hardwood, bushy tail swishing around the door frame. At first glance, the bathroom seemed perfectly fine; he sniffed around into the tub and shower combo, and the sink, finding nothing but obnoxious bleach and cleaner scents that overpowered him. One citrus scent was so strong that he pawed at his muzzle, then sneezed; somehow, this set off a chain reaction that had him suddenly sitting stark naked on the cold tiled floor of Kal's bathroom.
Eyes wide, he paused for a moment, completely unsure if he was just having a really bad trip or if all of this was actually real. He quickly grabbed a towel and then called out before Kal came bursting into the room.
"Kal? Like...don't freak out, OK?"
The sound of quick moving feet preceded Kal’s appearance in the bathroom doorway where he halted, eyes wide and hands at his side. “How did you--what--why are you fucking naked in my bathroom?” He moved his hands, presenting his naked friend, then spun on his heel in disbelief and clearly looked for the dog. His hands raised to his head, not willing to accept that the dog was his friend and his friend was the dog, then dropped his hands. “What the fuck is going on?”
Chris held the towel clasped around his midsection, shrugging, clearly just as lost and confused as Kal. He was seated firmly on the floor, unable to move without his brace or cane.
"Can you, like, get me...some pants...or a shirt or something... so we don't have to have this conversation with me being butt naked in your bathroom? And, like, do you have a walking stick I could borrow?"
“Like I haven’t seen it before,” Kal replied with a roll of his eyes as he turned back into his room and grabbed the nearest gym shorts with a pull tie and t-shirt he had, throwing both at Chris before leaving the room entirely to retrieve a long stick he used for local hikes. Yelling from the other room, he began, “Now tell me what the fuck was that. You were that dog, weren’t you? You were a fucking dog.” Returning to the bedroom door, he leaned the walking stick against the doorway.
"A coyote," Chris found himself quickly correcting Kal as he caught the clothing and dropped the towel, pulling the gym shorts over each leg quickly. He pulled himself up using the toilet, carefully balancing on his good leg, moving forward to the doorway and the walking stick perched against it. He took a moment to center himself and moved out into the apartment proper. His limp was loud and apparent, but in that moment, Chris could not have cared less.
"And yeah, I guess..." He stopped, staring out at the furniture. He could no longer smell each individual item that they were made of, nor the areas where Kal stashed his pot. But he could remember, and that was odd enough. He turned on the ball of one foot, glancing back at Kal.
"Why the hell do you have so much pot stashed in here? Is it just a continuous, contact high? Because, seriously, dude, if anyone needed a case study for effects of cannabis on the brain, you'd be a prime subject. I need a drink -- what've you got?" Without waiting for Kal to answer, he beelined for the kitchen as quickly as his disabled self could.
Kal followed Chris looking a little dazed as his friend moved about with ease like this was normal. “It’s…. Different kinds,” Kal said slowly as he trailed after Chris to the kitchen. “Stonehedge, sweet tooth...some others. I keep them separate.”
He looked around the apartment again, uncertain of what to do, until his eyes landed on the floor and he smirked slightly. “You know, I still have your water bowl out if you’d like a drink…”
"You're hilarious," Chris replied, his head buried in the fridge, leaning against the door a little too hard. It was easier to focus on something tangible, something normal, than it was to acknowledge the fact that he'd just transformed. He came out of the ice box with a bottle in hand, and, having closed the fridge door, started going through other drawers for a bottle cap opener.
"Can we just..." He stopped, closing a drawer and setting the bottle on the counter, glancing at Kal over his shoulder, "Let's just. Pretend none of that just happened, OK? Or like. It's a hypothetical. Because if I start thinking about what just happened, I think I'm going to have a heart attack."
“Okay so, hypothetically if your best friend was walking down the hallway and heard a dog barking in his best friend’s apartment and you know he doesn’t have a dog. But then the dog ends up being his best friend, hypothetically how should the best friend even react to all of this because I have no fucking clue.” Kal moved toward one of the various bookshelves and pulled free a clay pot he brought home from a trip to Africa. Reaching in, he withdrew a blunt and pulled free a lighter that was sitting on the kitchen island. “You want one? Because I fucking need it.”
"Yes." Chris had turned back to the kitchen drawers and finally found a bottle opener. Once the beer was freed, he wolfed down half of it, joining Kal at the island, leaning on it. He glanced down at his clothes, which hung overly large on his small frame; a hand rose, tugging at his collar, exposing more pink, human skin.
"I can't... I don't even know where to start with this. I just..." He closed his eyes, the hand at his throat rising to pinch the bridge of his nose. Then he took another long drink, finishing the beer and heading for another. Just as he opened the fridge, he looked at Kal. "Have you...has anything weird been happening this week, you know, beside this? Like... have you seen anything in your apartment?"
Kal had his blunt pressed between his lips and the lighter up and ready to light, but he paused and seemed to almost grow smaller. He was never one to pull away from Chris but there was something there that left him unsettled. “I was drunk and I opened the closet door in my bedroom and I swore I saw a giant hairy head thing there. I just… immediately slammed the door shut and left. Because I was drunk,” he murmured out of the corner of his mouth before lighting his blunt fully and taking a deep inhale. He turned away and retreated to the clay pot where he withdrew another ready to be smoked blunt. “That’s been it though. I figured I was seeing things because I was drunk. I haven’t seen shit in my closet since.”
Cracking open another cap, Chris let the small, circular piece of metal fall to the kitchen island as he took up by Kal again. His head bobbed slightly.
"That's what I saw," he said, gasping a bit as he lifted the bottle to his lips and drank down another half. He could not get drunk enough quickly enough. "There was this thing, in the closet. It was huge. Just... mouth and eyes and hair. Fucking huge. I fell backward..." And then he'd changed, but it was difficult to put that portion of the scenario into words. Another sip and then he put the bottle down, holding out his hand to Kal for the blunt.
“You saw the thing, fell backward, then you turned into a coyote?” Kal asked as he offered the first lit blunt to Chris before lighting the second for himself. “Like a fucking werewolf? Did it hurt? Did you know what the fuck was going on?”
Holding himself back from rolling his eyes, Chris took a long drag, clouding his mouth and throat with smoke and simultaneously choking himself. He coughed, leaning against the island as his free hand pounded his chest.
"No," he finally wheezed out, holding the blunt down and away from himself as he felt the effects of the cannabis and the alcohol whirl through his system, calming him enough to talk more specifics. "I... yeah, I guess it was kinda like a werewolf. Except...faster. And it didn't hurt, at least, not that I can remember. I was getting up, trying to find my brace, and then all of that just happened. Next thing I knew, I was a coyote, and I was trying to get someone's attention so I didn't stay locked up in my apartment without... I dunno...thumbs." He held up both hands, wiggling said digits, before bringing the blunt back to his lips.
Kal flicked at the blunt into a plate, ashes raining down on the painted print, then picked it up and motioned for Chris to follow him to the living room. Taking the less comfortable chair and leaving his friend to the couch to recline his leg, Kal dropped the plate onto the coffee table and leaned onto his knees; Chris followed not far behind, setting down his half-empty beer and carefully handling the blunt until he could drop into his own seat. “So you remember everything. Turning into the coyote and being in the apartment.” He took a hit and looked out the window for a second then laughed. “God you were a little dick. I was trying to make sure you didn’t piss on your floor and you ripped up the damn newspaper.”
"I just fucking told you I saw something in the fucking closet!" Smoke from the blunt wafted upwards, shaking a little as Chris thrust himself forward with the force of his statement. "I was trying to get you out and I couldn't exactly talk."
He leaned back in the chair and took another hit, this time more carefully breathing out the smoke. "Besides, I wasn't going to piss in my apartment. I would've used the fucking toilet. I'm housebroken, OK?" He blinked, realization settling over his face. "I can't believe we're having this conversation right now."
Kal shook his head, a laugh escaping his mouth. “I can’t either,” he said with a sigh as he leaned back into the seat. “Like… it happened. You felt it happen and I saw it. I led your furry ass into my apartment. Your pointy little teeth tried to drag my ass out of your bedroom. It happened.” He pushed a hand through his hair and blinked. “It’s just hard to believe it. Also, by the way, I didn’t know you wanted me to get out. Well, once you pranced out of the apartment and straight into mine it became obvious. You make a cute animal, Chris. Kuku would be beside herself with even more love for you.”
"And you're not telling her a damn thing," Chris shot back, looking at Kal with a mix of anger and pleading. "Just... Can we please keep this between us for the moment? Until I... figure out what to even say about it. Fuck... It could've... Maybe it was a one time thing." Something in the back of his mind tsked at him, shaking its head. He thought again about the dream with the coyote, and how it told him that it was disappointed in him. All the dreams he'd shared with others where there had been a coyote as a stand in for him, while Kal had been Maui, Daniel Ares, and so many countless others that had come and gone from the building. The thoughts played out over his face, passing through confusion to disbelief to fear to something that couldn't exactly be named.
"This is some fucked up shit," he finally muttered, turning to grab his beer bottle and drain the rest of it. He pointed its empty carcass in his friend's direction, his brows raised in mock threat. "Seriously, Kal, do not tell her. Or anyone. I just... I want to get a handle on this, first, OK?"
“Braddah,” Kal said with a sigh of smoke easing out from his nostrils and mouth. He shook his head and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “You need to calm the fuck down. You think I’m going to ring up kuku and just be like, oh hey, Chris turned into a dog today, how’s the garden? I mean with her mind going, we could always use her as a sounding board if we ever considered telling someone but fuck… I haven’t spoken to anyone outside of this apartment about the weird shit that goes on here. But…”
He drifted off, taking another drag and turning his gaze towards the window and the ocean beyond. His face grew serious, as did his tone when he spoke again in a more quiet voice. “What if it isn’t a one time thing? What if it happens to you again? What do I do?”
Chris rolled his eyes, but latched onto the other questions. He honestly had no idea; instead, he wanted to deeply believe that there wouldn't be a second transformation.
"I guess..." The thumb of the hand holding the blunt scratched along one eyebrow, his eyes closing as though that would more easily facilitate thought. "I guess just... get some dog bowls. Something nice, OK? I'm talking stainless steel." His mischievous glance at Kal belied the true anxiety he felt at all of the events that had transpired. It was too much to plan out what might happen again. He secretly wondered if he might be able to get answers, but another voice in the back of his mind told him no. He brought the blunt back to his lips, inhaling.
“Only the best dog bowls for you. And those treats with the real bacon, not fake,” Kal replied with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes; Chris rolled his, but kept quiet in spite of Kal's teasing remark. Kal's expression was gone quick enough and replaced with a frown. “So you saw the thing in the closet and you changed into a coyote. And...that creature in our dreams, the coyote...he was always walking around and talking like a man. You weren't like that, obviously, but did you feel like the dream coyote was...I don't know, with you?”
His eyes still on the blunt before him, Chris frowned.
"Do we really need to talk about this?" He said, after a beat. He dragged his gaze up from the smoking piece of paper in his hand, meeting Kal's own. "It happened. As it's been very well established, shit is very weird around here. Not sure...dwelling on it is the right path to take." Kal's questions, however, weren't off the mark. But the creeping sensation Chris felt all over his skin pushed him to drive Kal away from the topic, hoping for something a little more lighthearted, not to mention less invasive in other areas. He drew nails in quick succession over his arms, looking like he was trying to get rid of his own flesh before finally forcing himself to settle into his chair.
"Seriously, though, amigo, just how much pot do you have stored in here?" He tried to goad Kal away from the topic of his transformation by offering a different thread of conversation.
“At least three kinds, maybe more,” Kal replied, looking about the room. “I’m sure you sniffed them all out, huh?” He smiled but seemed tired, the events of the morning taking it all out of him. “I know how you work, Chris. You want to back away from all that just happened and pretend it didn’t. But it did.”
He leaned forward, not taking his sight off Chris. “We’ll move on to other topics, no problem. But later on, not today or tomorrow, but later on we should try and figure out what’s going on. That creature in the closet didn’t make me turn into anything, but it seems it did to you. Who knows if I’ll turn into something later, or Daniel, or the other tenants here. We just… need to figure out a plan of how to deal with it if it does happen. Here or god forbid out in the city. Just… just consider it as a future topic.
”Now, if you smelled so much of the pot, you’re welcome to go dig out the next flavor you’d like to try. This is a two, maybe three blunt kind of morning.”
"That is very much a topic I'd rather switch to," Chris replied, glossing over Kal's other points, however salient they were. Instead, he sat up, repositioning his legs.