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Matt feels absolutely fucking awful. It’s like a growth spurt happening on fast-forward, the aches he associated with growing pains when he was still pubescent suddenly flooding his body like electricity. He can feel himself heating up, ears ringing, like he’s on fire, before both the temperature and the pangs peter out into a dull background artifact.
It’s like he was in a haze, because it’s only after all the arbitrary physical ailments settle and he hears Jay frantically call his name on repeat, like a mantra, that a fog lifts over Matt's vision and he realizes that he’s totally got Jay pinned on their dirty floor with newly fur-covered arms. Neither of them really did end up getting a chance to properly clean thanks to that book, now that he thinks about it.
“Holy shit,” Matt breathes out. “What the fuck?”
“...Matt,” Jay says his name like it’s a question, which is probably fair enough since Matt apparently went feral on him not two seconds ago. “Um,” he starts, fear still swimming in his gaze, “are you… you, now?”
Matt stands, freeing Jay—who takes his time getting up, keeping a wary eye on Matt—and starts examining his transformed body. Claws on hands. Weird, pointy ears closer to the top of his head than the side. Stupidly sharp teeth all the way across the inside of his mouth. He’s even got a bit of a snout going on. That, and a tail. There's fur absolutely everywhere, too. Everywhere.
“Christ, man, this is so effed,” he finally says after completing his self-diagnostic. “Am I a fuckin’ werewolf?”
“Uh,” Jay, no longer quite as worried about Matt going crazy and attacking him now that he’s managed to be normal—in the loosest sense of the word—for a relatively extended period of time, turns to examine the book that's been left sitting on the piano. “I mean—f█k, I guess?”
“Oh my God,” Matt groans. “Y’know, this really—... it’s really just so evident of a wolf bias in the media, right? Like, why’s it always gotta be a wolf?” As his thoughts build on top of each other, he lets out a breathy laugh. “You know what’d be badass? A fox. A werefox. Now that would be… that'd really be something.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Well, I dunno if you noticed, Bird, but this whole night’s been kinda pop-culture fueled, like with that Freaky Friday shit, so—”
“No, Matt, we—we need to figure out a way to turn you back!” Jay’s flipping through the book pretty frantically now, but all the remaining pages are coming up blank.
Matt peers over Jay’s shoulder—he’s taller than Jay now, which is kinda fun—and tries to let out a low whistle before realizing the new shape of his face makes that a pretty difficult task. “Looks like that might’ve been the last one, man. Who only fills in half a book?”
Jay startles at Matt’s presence, before turning and setting the book aside. “How are you not more…” he gestures vaguely with his hands. “Why do you seem so okay with this? You’re a f█king werewolf!”
“Woah, Bird, am I sensing some hostility? You’re not getting racist on me now, are you?” Matt needles, putting on a judgmental air by crossing his arms and cocking his head in Jay’s direction. “What’s wrong with being a werewolf?”
“Wha—werewolves aren’t, like, a race, don’t be weird—”
“So werewolves are all weird now, I get it—”
“You’ve been a werewolf for, like, two minutes, shut up!”
“Would you say a—a transgender woman fresh out of the closet wouldn’t be allowed to speak on transphobia?”
“Now you’re making it a—? Nevermind! Just! What are we supposed to do now!?”
Matt pauses at that, tries pushing his tongue to the inside of his cheek and cuts it on one of his canines instead, then asks: “Do about what?”
Jay waves his hands at Matt. “This! All this! You’re just stuck like this now?”
Matt moves to the curtains, pulls them back, and looks to the sky. “Not—uh, necessarily,” he says. “Y’know, some werewolf rules say it’s only on a full moon, so. Maybe it’s like that.”
Jay follows Matt to the window, starts scanning the skies himself. “It’s kinda hard to see past the clouds,” he gripes.
“Those are clouds?” Matt asks. Everything looks washed out and dull to his eyes, but he can still notice Jay shift ever so slightly in his peripheral vision.
“Oh man,” Jay sighs.
“Gross, Matt.”
“It’s not my fault!” Matt whines, on all fours outside in their backyard, the regurgitated contents of his stomach puddling on the grass. “How was I supposed to know that’d make me sick!?”
From his vantage point on the threshold of the door, Jay just grimaces. Matt’s ever-so-helpful Birdie.
He retches again.
Jay politely looks away.
“I can’t even begin to,” Matt wheezes, “to count how many times I’ve had milk teas before. Why now?”
“Well.” Jay bites his lip. “I mean, You did kinda… go through a pretty big change, recently?”
“What?” Matt squints up at Jay, before understanding washes over him. “Oh, you mean the—... werewolf thing?”
Jay furrows his brows and nods, disbelief blanketing his expression. "Yes, I mean the werewolf thing," he says as if it's obvious, which Matt supposes it kind of is.
“Right. And that’s supposed to—to change my digestive tract, too? My intolerances!?” Matt howls in mildly inconvenienced agony.
“Uh,” Jay starts, offering very little sympathy. “Yes?”
“Oh man, fuck that, dude.”
“You’re the one who didn’t care about being a werewolf,” Jay states, revisiting an old argument only because he thinks he’s landed on a winning point. "Now look at how you've ended up!"
“Right, and you’ve got a—a fuckin’ werewolf UNO-reverse-card hidden up your ass?” On shaky knees, Matt tries to stand himself up, but he ends up just sitting on the grass, instead. Haha. Ass on the grass. “It’s a mental game, Bird. Being transformed into a supernatural freak. And I’m winning it.”
“Says the guy complaining about not being able to drink milk anymore…”
“Nope." He shakes his head, slow and deliberate. "Noooope. Done with that now.” Matt waves a hand lazily through the air, trying to ignore the dull pain in his stomach. “It’s not a problem, Bird.”
“It’s not?”
“Sure isn’t. Or—... it won't be. Wanna know why?”
Jay makes a face, a perfect blend of mild curiousity and lingering exasperation.
“Lactaid, dude. Lactaid! I’m just like any other schmuck out there with a lactose intolerance, really!” Matt proclaims, a feeling of satisfaction making a home in his heart at this epiphany. “Fuck this gastrointestinal upset crap. I don’t need to put up with this! I’m not some piece of shit wolf that can’t handle milk and can’t do anything about it, I’m a human, too!”
As he watches Matt’s revelation making itself known, Jay idly wonders, “Is a werewolf half-wolf, half-human, or is a werewolf its own thing…?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It might.”
“Humans invent. That's the whole thing with humanity. And they’ve invented beautiful caplets to take that can make milk not make me wanna shit my pants. And I, part-human, can take these beautiful caplets for myself and reap the benefits. My reward.” Then, imitating Aladdin, he goes on, "My eternal reward..."
"What?"
"Oh shit, wait, the eternal reward was death!" Matt laughs. "That's not right. The Lactaid's not gonna kill me, that's not it..." Another wave of nausea hits him, and he lets out a pained groan. "Okay, whatever. Point is, it doesn't matter what the fuckin' taxonomy of a werewolf is."
“I still think it might matter…” Jay mumbles. “Especially if they’re designed for, uh, human humans.”
“Offensive.” Matt huffs, before moving to lie on his back, seeking out whatever relief he can find.
"Why don't I make you some soup?" Jay offers. "And maybe you can just stop drinking milk."
“Not giving up milk. Not yet. Give me a day—ah, fuck—and then we’ll see, eh?”
—
As it turns out, Lactaid caplets do not help werewolves. In fact, they might’ve just made things worse.
They flush the rest of the tablets down the toilet once Matt’s done with it.
It feels pretty great, actually, lying on Jay’s lap. Matt chalks it up to one of his many newfound wolf instincts and proclivities, and Jay seems to accept the explanation with enough grace. Maybe it’s a bit domesticated of him, gross, but, well. There’s worse places to act domesticated than in your own home with your best friend.
Well, it’d still be better if said best friend didn’t always need to get up and do stuff. Sometimes Jay freaks out and claims Matt’s cutting off his circulation and that he needs to restore blood flow to his legs. Sometimes Jay wants to get a snack or a game or whatever. Sometimes Jay just wants to play the piano, and Matt’s not allowed near the instrument (he sheds too much).
“Um, Matt,” Jay starts, closing the DS and reaching over Matt to place it on the coffee table, “I need to pee.”
And sometimes nature simply calls. Matt can feel Jay try to get up from under him, to no avail.
“C’mon, Matt,” he whines.
“Why didn’t you go before I said I was gonna be here?” Matt chides, like a mother in the middle of a road trip.
“I’m not doing this bit with you,” Jay says. He starts shoving at Matt’s face. “Get off, already!”
After a finger nearly gets in his eye, Matt finally acquiesces, rolling off and letting Jay go to the bathroom. “You better come right back,” he mopes. “I’ll hear when you’re done,” he adds, ears twitching.
He’s always keeping an ear out for Jay, actually. It’s nice being able to.
Jay just rolls his eyes.
“Wait, I—I don’t want to have to call them!” Jay exclaims, clutching the frisbee Matt insisted they take out with them to the park close to his chest, as if it could defend him from having to unwillingly take on a task.
Matt doesn’t end up forming a response—he just stares at the frisbee.
“Matt.”
“What? Yeah. Huh?” He points. “Dude, are you throwing that thing, or what?”
Jay huffs, before conceding to Matt’s wide eyes and giving the frisbee a toss. Matt bounds after it, but catching it in his mouth just ends up with the flimsy plastic breaking apart, and he has to spend the next minute spitting out the shattered pieces. He returns to Jay with his head hung low and tail between his legs.
“Are you a wolf or a dog?” Jay mutters, before realizing Matt’s come back empty-handed. “Matt.”
“That frisbee was stupid, anyway," Matt argues before Jay can say anything else. It's not the first thing he's broken since becoming a werewolf. Jay very quickly got sick of attempts at Tug-of-War, and tying a rope to their fence just ended with the boards splintering in twain. A lot of Jay's clothes have been shredded into oblivion, too, much to his dismay. So. Matt's not really in the mood to get berated for breaking yet another thing. "We should get a tennis ball next time.”
Jay sighs, with all the weary resignation of an owner that wasn't ready for a dog that needs a job. “Weren’t we talking about using… this… whole… werewolf thing… to get a show?”
“Were we?”
“Yes!” Jay insists. “You wanted to call them, but then you told me to get out my phone.”
“Well—uh, yeah,” Matt agrees, the memory returning. He waggles his clawed fingers. “You think I’m gonna be able to make calls with these?” He starts miming inputting a number. “Deet deet doot—and... shit! There’s the keypad broken and cracked and fucked! Now we’re down a phone, all ‘cause you had to go and make the werewolf do it!”
“...Can I put it on speaker?” Jay offers.
“Uh…” Matt says, smartly. “That also works, yeah. Yeah, we can do that, too.” He nods. "Yeah, don't even worry, Bird. I got this."
Jay dials the Rivoli’s number into his phone, puts it on speaker, and holds it out towards Matt. When someone on the other end picks up, Matt doesn’t wait for whatever generic greeting to start pitching.
“You need a werewolf at your venue,” he says, putting on his best salesman impression—an impression that is only slightly ruined by the perpetual werewolf grit he’s got going on with his vocal chords. “To play at your venue. Hello? Yes, this is Nirvanna the Band, and, let me tell you, we—we’ve got a werewolf. Speaking. Speaking. Right now, to you. Me. Yep. I can fuckin’ sing, too, eh? We are a band. Nirvanna the Band." At a beseeching look from Jay, Matt adds, "A werewolf and a pianist. The most handsome pianist around. I’m telling you, it’ll be a hell of a night with us—”
Matt stops. Jay, who had been looking almost hopeful until now, frowns. He tilts his head toward the phone, clearly in an attempt to signal to Matt to keep going, man, but it’s no use. There’s a squirrel running off in the distance, and before Matt knows it, he’s already running off to make chase.
Through the cloud of animal instinct and in his peripheral vision, Matt can see Jay throw his hands up in the air in frustration, before evidently deeming himself unworthy of continuing the call and hanging up. He yells after Matt a bit, too, but it's pointless.
Oh well, Matt thinks distantly as he paws at the trunk of the tree the squirrel’s just scurried up, we’ll just try again another time.