It takes a long time for you to gain any sort of advantage, and just as you finally flip him over, you feel an unpleasantly gross and familiar panting against your ear. Something unpleasantly musky prods your hindquarters. "Gotcha," huffs the german shepherd, smugly. "YOU WRETCHED, MINDLESS SCUMBAG, I AM GOING TO BITE YOUR STONES OFF," you roar. You and Bel chase him across the yard, bowling him over and over every time he tries to put up a fuss, then fetch him up just before his owner— who's been playing on his phone— and savage him viciously around the neck and shoulders. You mostly get in Bel's way when he aims for the soft parts, but only mostly. "DISCIPLINE YOUR FUCKING CHILD OR DON'T BRING HIM OUT IN PUBLIC," you yell at the human, as he grabs up his whimpering, disgusting bully of a dog. Alex seems to be coming towards you at a fast clip. You sit down and bring your front paws together. "Good, your dad deal with that walking venereal disease. And his dog," you sniff contemptuously to Bel. "There's conflict de-escalation and then there's a completely necessary and justifiable amount of ass-kicking."
The humpy dog's owner starts yelling at Dad, and your hackles rise. Ordinarily you'd just glare coolly at anyone who tried to get into a pissing contest with him, knowing they were about to experience a magnitude 8.9 ego quake, but in wolf form you're too honest. You find yourself between Dad and the jerk with your teeth bared before you know what's happening. "If you can't control your animals --!" the jerk is saying. "Sirius!" Dad says sharply. "Rusty! AttenSHUN!" You compose yourself in show-dog form without even thinking, and so does Erskin. "Heel!" You place yourself at his right side, and Erskin at his left. "Sit! Stay!" And the two of you sit like library lions while he takes a confident step into the jerk's personal space and gives him a warm, paternal smile. "My boys have excellent control. They also have too much self-respect to let your dog smear his little red rocket all over their backsides. Perhaps he's learned his lesson?" He cocks an eyebrow at the dog, which is squirming and whining to get down, but not very hard, too aware of the glares of two angry wolves and one Air Force colonel to really want to be on his own. The jerk sputters. "If I find one scratch on him, I expect you to pay the vet bill!" "Of course," Dad says smoothly, "but you won't. The boys were simply teaching him about limits and consequences. I'm sure you can take it from here." He turns toward the gate. "Rusty, Sirius, form up!" You march proudly behind him all the way to the car.
"Good man to have with you in a fight," you remark to Bel, hopping up into the backseat. "I can see where you get it from."
"He is, isn't he?" you say proudly. "And thanks!" Dad gestures you into the backseat as well. "If you're going to be in that shape, you'd better ride back there, it's safer if there's a crash. Home now, I think. Bel, would you cook tonight?" You tap out a morse OK and lick his cheek, because it's hard to ruffle his hair in a dad-son role-reversal gesture when you don't have hands. "This isn't as weird as I feel it ought to be," he muses as he slips the car smoothly into traffic.
"You get used to anything," you say, putting your jaw on Bel's hip. "Or so I'm told." The back seat is much more comfortable with extra padding. Especially padding that curls up around you and washes your ears. A fellow could certainly get used to this.
The ride home is extraordinarily pleasant with Erskin to cuddle up to. Instinct tells you it's imperative to wash the strange dogs' smells off him, and you just go with it. The slow thump of his tail shows he approves of your agenda. It seems like far too soon when Dad shuts off the engine. "I'll bring your clothes to your room so you can change," he offers as he lets you out. You want to tell him not to unload the camping gear, you'll do that yourself, but that's a bit long for morse, and a bit steep for his one day's schooling in Wolf. So you just headbutt his hip affectionately and race upstairs as soon as he opens the house door. Your plan is to quickly shift and get into new clothes, so by the time he's brought your clothes from before up, you'll be ready to take over the car-unloading. It doesn't quite happen that way. You push for skin, and something resists, like you're trying to shift in a rubber bag. You try again, and get farther, but a sharp ache in your jaw startles you and you snap back again. "Erskin?" you call worriedly. "Why am I having trouble shifting? It's still a week til the full moon, isn't it?"
You trot into the room. "Huh! What, did you only feel the pull on the actual day of, before? Never heard of anyone like that, even you regularly human chaps should be getting weighed down around now. Just put some elbow grease in and don't expect it to feel all sunshine and rainbows. Never has for me." You realize this sounds callous, and rub your nose on his jaw. "You're tough, it'll be fine."
"Oh. I pretty much stayed human all the time except for when I like... set aside a time for wolf shenanigans? If I wasn't with you I probably wouldn't have changed until I got up north. So. I guess maybe I shouldn't change now unless I know I won't want to change back for a while. But I need to help unload the shopping, and pack it up and load it in my truck..." You give a short whine of frustration. You don't want to be human if he's not. This is probably a result of the time of month, but it doesn't feel any less real for all that.
You don't know why he's so distressed, but you do your best to lean against him reassuringly, and nuzzle the short, fine hair of his jaw. "Hey, hey, I'm here, don't be scared. It'll be alright. You can do it. I'll be here."
"Okay." You take a breath. "Okay, yeah. I agreed to cook, didn't I?" You gather yourself again, visualize yourself bipedal and standing at the stove, remember the shape of yourself, and push. When you hit resistance you double down and shoulder through it, and it eases off quite quickly, and then you're through. "That looked slightly awful," your dad says as he hands you your pants. "Gets harder as the full moon gets closer," you grumble. You wipe sweaty hair out of your eyes, yank your pants on, and hug Erskin fiercely. "Thanks, bro," you mutter. Then you mentally dust yourself off and face forward. It couldn't all be romps in the park. You'll cook something extra nice to make up for it.
You clatter downstairs after Bel, wagging congratulations, then scoot under the table to keep him company without getting stepped on. "Is there anything to chew?" You ask, eying the chair legs.
"Uh... frisbees? Looks like Dad's requesting pork chops --" the package is out on the stove -- "so there'll be bones after. He's unloading without me, damn it, I'll be right back." Out in the driveway, you lift the tent box out of Dad's hands. "No," you say firmly. "You go relax." "I'm not that decrepit yet." "Oh my god, just let me help, it's my shopping anyway." "Except for this --" he extracts a shoebox from the packages -- "and this." The hat. He claps it on his head. "You look like a creepo, Sir Terry," you say, and stick out your tongue. He laughs like he won something, but he goes inside and lets you do the fetching and carrying. You can unpack it all later; for now you just pile it against the entry wall. Even though it hasn't been that long since lunch, your stomach is groaning. It's time to get dinner on.
You look up from blissfully gnawing at the hard, splintery wood of a chair leg to meet Bel's eyes. "Oh," you say, realizing. "Oh, no. Oh no." There's.... it might... no, not even smart humans could fix this. You fucked it all up just that badly. You are the worst guest. You tuck your tail and banish yourself from the kitchen in a guilty, horrified slink. Once outside you hide under a bush.
You manage to stifle your laughter until he's out of earshot, but then you laugh loud enough to bring Dad to investigate. He gives you a questioning look; you point to the chair leg. "His face!" you manage. "His poor guilty face!" "Should I tell him I'm thinking of replacing those anyway?" "Are you?" "Well, I am now." You have to hang onto the counter to keep from laughing yourself onto the floor. Half an hour later, you call out the back door: "Come home, chairbiter, all is forgiven! And there's pork chops!"
No. You are going to starve to death under this bush and fertilize Mr Kadros's garden. Only then will you have made amends.
When there's no response, your stomach clenches. He wouldn't have really left, would he? You go out into the yard. "Erskin? They're going to get cold!"
You shuffle more closely against the trunk of the bush, and bury your face under your tail. You do not deserve porkchops, cold or otherwise. You do not even deserve friends. You are the worst.
Your ears catch a rustle of leaves, and you track it to find him hiding in the shrubbery. Every strand of fur radiates misery. Oh no, he's taking this really seriously. You sit down on the cold grass and put your hand on his shoulder. "Hey. It's not that big a deal. We can swing by Ikea or wherever tomorrow and pick him up a replacement. Apologize in person, he'll forgive you, you know how chill he is."
"I don't want to apologize, I want to die," you explain, scooting into his lap like an overgrown kitten. After some ear-ruffling you find yourself bundled back into the kitchen anyway, and stand there awkwardly on the tiles. Your nose and tail are tucked close to your paws in shame. "Sorry," you mumble to Mr Kadros. You can't quite bring yourself to look at the table, certain you'll see only a ruined pile of splinters and slobber.
"I accept your apology," Dad says with solemn gentleness, and pets Erskin's head. "Please, join us for dinner before it gets cold." You kneel down and hug him. "It's not that bad, we might not even have to replace the chair, I bet we could fill the tooth marks with wood putty and paint over it. Good as new."
