"Haha, gross," you laugh, and wipe it off on your shirt. He has succeeded in typing nbhgggggg, so you append that to the email for him. "Man, I really wish I could speak wolf while human. Then we could get you a service animal vest, and you could just stay furry as much as you want even in restaurants and we could chat anyway. Oh well, for now if you want bacon you gotta put those clothes back on." As you set those out for him, you regard the room thoughtfully, and bring up the park map on your phone. "You know, it's only a couple hours to the park from here. And it's still really early. What if, after breakfast and groceries, we just head straight up there? We'll still have lots of daylight left."
You leave off awkwardly pawing— patting your face to make sure you've gotten all the way human, and roll over to look at the phone again, as if it might mean anything to you. It's got significantly more colors on, now, but is still pointlessly incomprehensible. "Sure, why not," you say. "I don't have any plans around here in particular." Distracted by some pillow stuffing, you grab a handful and begin to squash and twist it with your fingers.
"Cool, just lemme pack up and check out. Can you bring me my stuff from the bathroom?" While he collects your shaver and toothbrush and stuff, you get busy re-packing. It's not too much of a task; you did your laundry yesterday morning, that's why you're in this town in the first place, so nearly everything's still nicely folded and put away. "Hey Erskin? Can you speak wolf while human? Is it something I could learn?"
"Ehhh, no, and yes," you shrug, dumping an armful of cleaning tools in the luggage. "Your method of communication is rather intrinsic to the shape of the body you're in, you know. You don't have vocal cords to talk, do you, when you're on four legs, and you're missing significant signaling bits around the ears and ass when you're on two. But once you get a bit more experience in shifting back and forth you should be able to understand what's being told to you however you are. "Have you had any trouble parsing spoken or written language when you're going about in fur? It's a fairly common hurdle for new chaps to have to clear, from what I've seen, all the structures for understanding english get left in their other brain, and all. I grew up, hmm, would you say bilingual? Whichever mode I was in, someone would be around and talking to me in the other."
You give the question some thought, and at last shake your head. "Can't recall having difficulty, no. But I've studied verbal and written languages pretty intensively as part of my training. Grew up bilingual in English and Greek, and then studied Farsi and Uzbek for my job. So I've got a lot of practice switching around. But I'm autistic, so body language is hard for me even in humans. I have to consciously learn it." You zip up your suitcase and give him a smile. "Sounds like I could consciously learn Wolf as well."
"I don't see why not, but if you expect me to switch back and forth fifteen times an hour to give you a running translation then you can fuck right off," you tell him. "See if exposure does it, why don't you. How many hours have you, hmm, spent in fur? And how much of that was spent interacting with your own sort, you know, getting the practice in? You said you'd only met a few of us." Belatedly, you realize you've been wandering about picking things up and putting them down, while naked. You meander off to the bedside and do your best to insert yourself into the clothes provided. "Fuck, is this the way this shirt is supposed to go...?"
"Think it's backwards." You check. "Yeah, that's one of those dumb shirts with the big graphic on the back, everyone screws those up half the time. Just pull your arms in and -- there you go." You consider his feet and your running shoes; possibly a big part of why he was walking funny yesterday is because those are way too big for him. "Let's make a quick stop at Target or K-mart or whatever they've got around here and pick you up some shoes and clothes that fit. I'm assuming you'll want to be human for the campground, because the alternative is being leashed, and there's a lot of areas you wouldn't be allowed in. We can wolf as much as we want out in the woods, but even in the off season I don't think we can get away with it in a drive-in camp."
You hum thoughtfully, and put your hands on his shoulders. The warmth of him's nice, and his more natural smell. "If I'm getting shoes, you're getting a collar," you say, and run a thumb over his throat. "Something bright and glittery. Clothes stores have pet sections, don't they? If we're going to be hanging about a drive-in camp, we'd better do with some proper accessories. And autumn's a good time to go around with a bandanna or collar ready to go, under a scarf, and all. Looks just a bit kinky in midsummer." You grin up at him, enjoying the effect you've just had on his pulse.
"Rather go to a pet store, get tags engraved." You swallow against the press of his thumb, remind yourself you're too hungry for morning sex. "You get to come up with my dog name. It's only fair."
"Hmm. Serve you right if I named you Puddles or Mr Woofs. I'll think about it over breakfast. Are we ready to go?"
A quick perimeter check, and you nod. "All square, let's pop smoke." You stow the bags in the truck, then look in on the rental office to fess up about the pillow and pay the pet fee. The clerk saw you jogging with 'Rusty' earlier, and says he's adorable, and wants to know where he is now. "Napping in the back of the truck," you lie. "Apparently truck time is sleepytime." Fortunately, this flies. There's a strip of big box stores on the less touristy end of the little town, up closer to the interstate, with a Perkins. You normally like to try little local cafes for breakfast when you can, but being in the same parking lot as both your other errands (a Target and a Petsmart) trumps that just now. You hate the piped-in music, but you like the huge hot meals and the way they'll leave the coffee pot on the table if you ask. Once you've got some coffee in you, you remember: "A while back you asked about how much time I've spent in fur. I've hit a dozen state parks this summer, and I've done at least a day or two in fur at each of them, just getting used to my senses and moving around, getting practice shifting, that kind of thing. I've practiced tracking scents, but I haven't hunted, not seriously. Just run after things for fun and not caught them. As for interacting with our type, I think I told you before, I've only met two guys. One, I met in fur, he tried to set me up with his wife. The other one, I met in skin, at a bar, he invited me outside to show me something and the something was a knife. I broke his wrist and slam-dunked him into a dumpster, so if I ever see him again I fully expect him to flip out on me." You chuckle. "It was a silver knife, by the way. Is that silver thing for real, or was he just superstitious or what? You'd think he'd know if it was possible to like, cut himself chopping carrots or whatever."
"It's for real, unfortunately," you say. "Ninety-nine percent of magic is superstitious nonsense, but the remaining one percent will leave you extremely dead. That aside, it's difficult to recover from getting a knife made of any metal shoved in your heart, so, good job avoiding that, I suppose. Is that decaf?" You gesture at the coffee pot. "That had better be decaf or you're going to have a hell of a headache if you want to run around this afternoon."
You blink at your half-empty cup. "Son of a bitch," you sigh. "Gonna have to break my caffeine addiction. Excuse me, ma'am?" You flag down the waitress and apologetically swap the coffee for cran-apple juice. "If you tell me juice is a n0-no I will probably pour this in your lap, just so you know," you warn. If you can't have caffeine, by God you are going to have fructose. "Okay, so tell me about that one percent."
"Sugar's fine, we're still significantly more sturdy and omnivorous than a regular canid. But so, er... well, magic, that is to say, no one really knows, you see, but nearly everyone would rather cut their nose off and boil it than just come right out and say so. So which percent is, is, hmm, is the real deal, has been subject to debate for—" you wave a hand vaguely, "— well, probably forever. "There's a few species that have a better handle on it than humans, but of them, hmm, ravens lie to you for fun, whales lie to you because, er, the whole whaling thing, that's an understandably sore subject with them. Mermaids aren't really a thing, selkies are straight-up bastards, cats don't know shit and won't admit it, and between you and me I don't think sloths are actually native to this planet. Also, if any sort of little glittery chap shows up and says they've got a quest for you, bite them." Breakfast is delivered. "Ooh, bacon," you say, delighted, and dig in.
Laughing, you dig into your own. You're just starting to glimpse what a big, complicated new world you've been thrown into, and it's daunting, but also kind of exciting. Just because your brain is full of horrible shit and dealing with that is exhausting, doesn't mean you're done with facing challenges for the rest of your life. You're still the same kind of person who decided to enroll in spec ops training in the first place, after all. "I'm not even really familliar with the legends," you say when you've taken the edge off your hunger. "Obviously we can change whenever we want. Full moon did force me to change the first time; that's why I got the medical discharge. Apparently somebody in the military knows we exist, but doesn't want to deal with us or out us. Silver can kill us. So can a bear, as discovered by your impetuous friend." You grimace. "And so can bullets, but Christ it takes a lot of shooting. A ka-bar apparently just tickles."
"Hence silver bullets," you point out, surfacing from your pile of eggs and fried meats. "Silver makes sure the wound sticks, in a sense. I've known a few real monsters who got their eyeteeth capped. Clever bastards. " You gesture at the more vividly striped half of your face. "And, mm, right, about contracting the condition— it's not sexually communicable, though it's hereditary to an extent. Goes through the mother's line. The general thought is it's passed on specifically through blood transfer. There's rituals and all... the third reich tried to figure it out, scientifically, you know, in the world war, but it didn't really get anywhere because they were up to their eyebrows in all this other sort of eldrich nonsense, and general historical consensus is that someone got through to an elder god under the impression that it would be interested in killing only one sort of person and that was, er, pretty much that. My dad has a longer version of the story, he loves it, tells it every Christmas." You smile at the memories. "Of course, according to him he was a strapping twenty five year old officer during the entire war and punched Adolph in the face, which he'll also let you know every Christmas. Don't be anywhere near England in December."
"I am making mental notes to be sure to be in England by December. Lord Aspera, you said?" You pantomime writing it on the receipt. "Not that I'd trade my dad for anything," you say more soberly, "but I kind of envy you having family that knows all about it. I still haven't decided whether to tell my dad. I know he'd accept me, but I'm concerned he'd try to get involved, which could be not only annoying for me but dangerous for him -- he's got the kind of security clearance where he should not be having secrets in his home life."
"Mmhm. No, right, I can see how that sort of thing would be awkward. Well, you've got time to figure it out, certainly." You scratch your nose. "I don't know how the American military works, really, but they do seem keen on kicking their own fellows out for silly conditions. The Russian army's got a whole service, mm, force? Branch? Unit? Of our type. Headquartered in Chernobyl. Big friendly family, I'm actually aiming to visit again by next spring." You gnaw thoughtfully on your fork. "Hmm, the America and Russia governments really don't get on though, do they? Don't suppose it'd do your dad any favors to give him a call from the, what, the soviet enlistment agency, or whatever."
You chuckle dryly. "Yeah, no. Plus, I'm done with war. Really, really done with war." You give your omelet some attention. "Chernobyl? So I take it we don't get cancer, then."
