dazlious | Call me animal.

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Call me animal.

WHO: Heather Mason and Maurice Hutch (OC)
WHERE: Dogtrot, Texas
WHEN: Just easing into spring.
WHAT: What probably would have been a night spent loitering around the drug store and breaking bottles in the alley like generic malcontent youths takes several unexpected turns when a vampire hunter interrupts Maurice while waiting for his friend from up north.
RATING: Probably PG. CW for violence, mild body horror and transformation.

awsum ill be outside where the rentareel used to be

Maurice had put out the call and now he was in his place, hands in his coat pockets. He hadn't seen his friend for a while now. One thing or another would come up (said things including worrying mothers, various injuries, and plain bad weather) and now that at least the weather had calmed its bad self down, the world was ready to be trampled again.

And what a night for it! It was clear with chilly breezes sneaking around buildings and down alleyways. An orange moon hung low on the horizon and kept the clouds far on the edges of the horizon. It wouldn't rain for two more days. Spring was coming. The tiny green shoots had just barely started poking out of the ground where there was enough actual soil instead of the red clay of Dogtrot. Crispy dead leaves still hung in the corners where the buildings met the sidewalk. Easter candy all but overflowed on super market shelves.

The vampire thought of all the things they would do once Heather got there. They could graffiti the old building marked to be torn down the following week since it was technically not illegal anymore. They could eat pizza at Tod's until they were sick. And DRANKS. And Sega. If Meranda hadn't taken over the sofa for the night. An outlet in her room had blown (or so she said) so she spent a lot of time on the sofa during her WoW raids.

Something interrupted his thoughts. He had lived in Dogtrot for years now and not a lot surprised him. He knew the local vampires, he even knew a local spook or two. He knew the drug addicts and the few homeless and what they sounded like. What he heard on that empty chilly street was none of those things.

"Quack quack!" It was mechanical. Grainy.

Maurice lifted a brow and tugged his phone out wondering if Meranda had passive-aggressively changed the ring on it again.

"Quack quack!"

"The hell...?" It wasn't his phone. Maurice pocketed it and looked all around. The quack came from an alley across the street between a now defunct QUICK CASH and what was going to be a shiny new laundromat. Maurice looked both ways and ventured forward into the gloom.

The garbage can at the end of the alley quacked. Maurice screwed up his face in thought. Broken toy that suddenly came back to life? Stranded cyborge duck?

Up above on the rooftop, a long and lean and very crafty hunter was watching his prey fall for his trap hook, line, and sinker. His father had been a hunter--a normal hunter. Deer, ducks, rams. He had watched him make odd noises to get the attention of the deer. A whistle or a click to make them stop in just the right place. Sometimes to even lure them in.

Humans were the most curious animals that he knew of and though the thing in the alleyway wasn't human (not in the slightest) he had to watch it in fascination and amusement before he made his move.

Maurice peered into the trash. There was an old Talkboy straight from the eighties in the trash quacking away.

"Oh, man, sweet!" It was all his! He reached for it. Something dressed in full army camo descended upon him and drove a thin knife into his shoulder. Maurice screamed like a wildcat and the fight began.

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Perhaps surprisingly, there weren't any grotesque crunching sounds or squelches or other weird noises generally associated with bodily transformation.

There was, however, some rustling and scraping.

She'd... she'd pretty much ruined the shirt she was wearing. 8[;; Oops. Good thing she'd pulled off that hoodie long before monstering out. And her jeans were already shredded to hell and back anyway. She yanked them both on, thanking whatever was listening for the fact that baggy clothes made going commando less uncomfortable.

"Okay..." she said at last, voice back to normal. "Nudity averted, it's safe to open your eyes."

Those noises were a little unnerving but he was thankful for the lack of crackling or twisting bone. He parted his fingers and beheld his dandilion-headed friend standing there in a hoodie like it wadn' no thang.

He heaved out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding in and leaned his back against the trashcan. It didn't last though because the last few pegs were settling into place.

"Augh! You were naked! Oh, God, I'm sorry!"

Like you aren't naked every time you're a dog or a bat, Maurice.

"NOW will you tell me what's going on?" He tried to stand again. This time he made it all the way to his boots but he leaned heavily on the trashcan. He could still see that stupid Talkboy inside. Maurice fished it out and mashed the button. The tape squealed as it rewound.

"Quack quack!"

"Hhhhh," sighed Maurice. "I don't think we're gonna make it to Tod's..." He was kind of full of stab wounds and Tod's was a respectable pizza place where you couldn't just waltz in covered in your own blood.

Maurice, you don't need to apologize for the fact that she ripped off all her clothing and turned into a giant hellmonster to save your ass. THAT CHOICE WAS ON HER END, even if she was somewhat regretting it. Couldn't she have probably fought that guy off as a human? It wasn't like she hadn't fought much worse.

When he opened his eyes, she was smoothing down the front of the hoodie with one hand and holding the shredded remains of her tank top in the other.

"What's going on is you're hurt and we should get outta here before someone else comes along. Can you walk?"

He frowned at her but he knew that she was right. That guy was bound to tell somebody that something happened and the sooner they got lost the better.

"Yeah..." He took a few shuffling steps toward her to prove himself and pocketed the Talkboy. "I think I'm gettin' the feeling back in my arm. I don't think that guy could shoot a fish in a barrel. And uh...holy shit, thank you."

Now that he was closer, Maurice was looking her over again trying to find some telling trace of I AM BIG BIRD that he somehow missed all these years. He wouldn't put it past himself.

If it made Maurice feel any better... there really wasn't.

She was the same old Heather, and there really wasn't anything remarkable about her. Not on the surface.

"Don't mention it."

She shoved her hands into the hoodie pocket, scuffing a bare foot (now distinctly less clawed and massive and distinctly more pink and fleshy) against the ground.

"Do you like... need a doctor?"

Were there any vampire doctors around here? She knew there was that hospital in Daggit, but...

Heather was a mysterious little being. He'd known her for ages now but he knew so little about her besides things like which songs she could scream/swing all the way through while intoxicated and her unfortunate love of Spice World.

Damn Spice World.

But now he felt strange. Closed out.

"No, I just need a drink and, uh...a coat that's not full of holes." He looked at what he could see of his feet. "Maybe two drinks."

That was the thing. It was easy to be a shallow friend. The one who you partied with and told dick jokes with but didn't do anything too deep with. It was easy to be the friend who knew more about you than you did about them.

Keeping secrets wasn't a problem when no one knew she had secrets to keep.

But now Maurice DID know, and that opened doors to questions that Heather had been hoping would never come up.

Still, she quelled the worrisome dread in her gut as best as she could, offering Maurice a hand.

"Maybe we should just try and get back to your place. We can order delivery."

"Yeah...if I wanna be covered in blood in my own home, they can't do shit about it. Ow." Okay, so Heather was going to pretend she hadn't turned into Big Bird? Okay. He'd let her get by until they crossed over onto Hutch/Leeds territory.

They would have quite the walk too because Maurice had flown. He had wanted to save gas and hadn't plan on being brutally attacked outside the old Rent A Reel.

And so that long walk began. Maurice didn't ask any more questions. He kept his eyes on the road because the last thing he needed was to be ran over that night. Town had expanded and the gap of open farmland was shrinking more and more by the month. Any questions about his well being were answered with short grunts--partially because he was distracted thinking up questions and partially because he was in too much pain to really be much for conversation until he had some alcohol in him.

SHE SURE WAS.

Well... at least for a little while longer. As long as she could.

She knew she couldn't do it forever-- she wasn't delusional. But at least one good thing about the long walk was that she could use it to think.

And think she did.

After the first few meager attempts at conversation failed, she kept quiet. Awkward, maybe, but well, not like this whole situation could get any MORE awkward than it already was.

The trailer loomed. The light from the windows made the shadows of the lawn gnome and flamingo stretch ominously out into the road. Bloodspur's water dish was overturned again but Maurice didn't have the energy to set it right.

Meranda was sprawled over the sofa reaching out to her laptop on the coffee table tapping away. A battlefield of fallen Mountain Dew cans surrounded her and she wore the rings of a sleepless Pandaren warrior around her eyes. She was going to get this fucking item drop if she was up all night! When the door opened, Meranda glanced up breifly. Then she did a double-take.

"What the hell happened?"

Maurice was already shrugging his coat off. "I got jumped in an alley. We're ordering pizza, what kind do you want?"

"Wh-what? Jumped? I thought Countess Crankypants took care of all the vampire hunters." Meranda allowed her little level 56 hunter to die as she sat up.

"I think it was just...some guy." Maurice tried to hang his coat on the closet doorknob but missed. He left it in a pile on the floor. "I'm not sure he even knew where the human heart was. I'll be right back."

And then Maurice flat-out ABANDONED Heather there in the livingroom with a lit stick of dynamite.

Meranda, finally pulled away from her friend's recent situation, finally noticed--ah. Dandilion head. Her bodylanguage changed and she grew reserved with pinched brows. She instantly reached to unplug her laptop.

When Maurice came back out of his room with a clean and non-hole-filled shirt on, Meranda passed him in the hallway, computer, mouse, and cord in her arms. "Sausage and peppers for me."

"Alright..." Maurice dragged himself into the kitchen and sank down into the chair nearest the phone. Then he looked at Heather. Pointedly.

And after she didn't leave YOU alone with Assault McStabby?! GEE THANKS, MAURICE.

Heather didn't say anything when Maurice walked out of the room. Just folded her arms-- pausing briefly to give Meranda a quick, tense wave.

"Hey."

There was none of the shouting or rowdy grins that Meranda had probably grown used to when her roomie's obnoxious friend was around-- Heather just sort of stood there looking tense. She didn't say goodbye when Meranda walked out.

If anything, it was probably good that she was going off to her womancave or whatever, because there were uncomfortable questions coming and Heather sure as hell didn't want to answer them with Maurice's weirdly-hostile female room-mate sitting there.

When Maurice returned, Heather followed him to the table but didn't sit down. Just gripped the back of the chair and drummed her fingers. The pointed look got a slight scowl.

"Okay, okay. This is kind of a new thing, okay? I was gonna bring it up... you know, gently, but that didn't happen."

That was a lie. She hadn't been going to bring it up at all. But hey... what he didn't know wouldn't kill him.

Or would it have?

Maurice was trying not to frown back. The wound in his arm and the one in his side were still lit up brightly with pain and the red-black was starting to seep through this new shirt.

"I don't think anything that happened back there was, uh, gentle..." His brows peaked in concern. "I'm gonna do everything I can to help you out, Heather. You can tell me anything! But-- I gotta know or I can't do nothin'!"

"I don't need help. It's okay, Maurice. Nothing like... happened to me. It's cool."

Might as well get that out of the way to begin with.

Because she really was pretty sure that this wasn't something that 'happened'. It had been out of the blue, to be sure, but...

"It's just... a thing. Kind of been getting used to it. You know, like that dog you turn into."

Bringing up Snowball wasn't really that helpful though, since Snowball could be explained by the fact that Maurice was a vampire. Heather was still, as far as her friends knew, human. With that in mind, Slenderbird was still a total enigma.

Edited 2014-03-15 22:56 (UTC)

"O-oh..." Maurice's invisible hackles smoothed themselves back down and he leaned back more bodily in his chair.

Snowball wasn't the greatest example, no, but at least it was some sort of suggestion that Heather wasn't in pain when she was Slenderbird. But as far as he knew, plain old humans couldn't change into monsters unless they were under a spell or had some kind of artifact.

Maurice slowly lowered his clawed hands to his lap and lined up another question. "So, uh...I'm gonna guess this probably isn't like when you suddenly find out you're double-jointed after seeing somebody else do it, is it?"

In his mind, Maurice imagined if Heather had quite suddenly figured out she could be Birdzilla whenever she wanted, she would have been like HEY CHECK THIS SHIT OUT I CAN PROBABLY THROW CARS. But...this didn't feel like that.

She didn't seem very proud of it at all. Which made him worry.

"... Yeah, no, pretty sure not. It's a little more complicated than that, I guess."

At last, she tugged the chair out and slipped into it.

"I woke up one morning with bird feet and, well, y'know, one thing led to another..."

His head slanted to one side. "Just like that...?"

Maybe Heather just...didn't know she was a werebirdzilla. It could happen to anyone. COme to think of it...he didn't know anything about her folks--only that her dad seemed to be out of the picture in a very significant way.

The vampire quietly entertained a mental cartoon with two large horrifying bird monsters doting over a smaller fluffy birdmonster in a nest that used to be a van. The van was also on fire.

"So, uh...what are you then?" Maurice cringed all over. It felt like a rude question--really it was. People had asked him that for years but he couldn't help it.

"Well, I had a lot of nightmares first, if that means anything to you."

The reality wasn't quite as cute as his wild speculation. There was more fire though.

A huff of a sigh escaped her.

"I don't think there's a name for stuff like me."

Actually, there were a few she could think of. But none of which she wanted to utter in front of him. In front of anyone whose mom had a light-up Jesus in their living room, no matter how chill they were about it.

Mysterious.

It had been a while since he encountered anything straight-up mysterious. He'd ran into all manner of critters from shadow people to angels to dust bunnies to his own demons. To werewolves and wasp men but...they'd all had names. They'd all introduced themselves to him in some way or another.

And here was his friend going through something almost as horrifying as puberty and for who knows how long--and all on her own too. It had to have been lonely. He wondered if that was why they hadn't hung out as often--that maybe it wasn't just poor traveling weather.

"I think Heather still works just fine."

She'd averted her gaze down to the table, but at that she looked up, a faint smile curling the corners of her mouth.

"Well, yeah. I'd rather you call me Heather than Chunky the Death Ostrich."

She picked at the edge of the table with one finger.

"I swear I would've said something about it eventually. I just wanted to.... y'know, play with it awhile first..."

Maurice let out a snort. She looked much more like a chicken than an ostrich. Or a big crow or something.

"You're an awful lot better at keepin' secrets than I am." Maurice knew that if he'd woken up with birdfeet half the county would have known before the day was over. If only from his dismayed wailing alone.

But then something struck him. He thought back to the alley, the man being lifted into the air by one arm and slammed against the cold brick. The shape of the birdbeast in sharp relief against the street lights.

"Chunky!" Maurice flattened his hands on the table and leaned up, ignoring his pains. "But you're so-- ribby! Oh, God, why didn't you tell me you had any food! I coulda-- you could have had some of ours! You always had power and a-- a TV, I thought you had money for food!" And she wore that vest and now her hoodie.

Somehow Maurice forgot that was what people (whether they could turn into big avian abominations or not) wore when it was chilly.

"I shoulda noticed and I'm sorry! I-- I forgot about the pizza! I'll order it right now!"

That was because she had lot of secrets, dear Zilla.

But she made no remark on that matter. Just let out a soft "Heh, yeah, I guess."

Only to blink up at him, slightly startled, when he suddenly remembered her boniness. She leaned back, lifting her hands.

"... Whoa, hey... no, no, dude. You've seen me eat, I eat plenty!"

THERE IS SUCH A THING AS A FAST METABOLISM, MAURICE.

Though she supposed if he was going to freak out about SOMETHING, she'd rather it be over how skinny she was more than the fact that she was secretly a monster.

"... I mean, yes please order the pizza, but it's okay. I'm fine."

"But I could see your ribs! Individually! That's not okay!" He slumped back into his seat and winced.

Yeah, okay, his friend was a giant bird inside. He could deal with that. But he couldn't deal with the idea of her going through all that and looking like those dogs out behind the other auto shop that Mr. Corey used to compete with. He felt like the most unobservant creature on the planet.

...Right, pizza. He heaved himself out of his chair and grabbed the phone off the wall. Maurice stumbled over his words as he placed the order and forgot what Meranda had asked for so she was going to get pepperoni and she was going to like it.

One he sat back down after having a conversation with someone that wasn't about giant birds, he settled back into staring at Heather again. It was just...hard to forget the first flashes of what he'd seen.

"So you can be a monster bird thing...any time you want? Or does it only happen when you're mad like the Hulk?"

"Well, yeah, but..."

She wasn't nearly as ribby as a human as she was as a monster... or at least, she didn't think so...

She let that stew a little bit until Maurice came back.

"Yeah. I mean, I've pretty much gotten the hang of it, I think..."

Maurice shifted a little in his seat, eyes still on her--though now it wasn't a worried or prying gaze. He just really wanted to see the cool bird monster thing again because dayum.

"You totally threw that guy into a mailbox. You know that was cool as hell, right? You just picked him up and fshawww! Bwwshhh!"

He recreated the battle in big showy gestures.

SORRY MAURICE SHE'S NOT GONNA HULK OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR DINING ROOM WHEN DEATH-ROOMIE IS RIGHT DOWN THE HALL.

But that small crooked smile reappeared.

"Heheh, yeah..."

It wasn't that she thought he'd be the sort to get all judgmental about monstery things. That would be kind of ridiculous, you know, considering. But it was still a relief to get away from that awkward silence she'd endured the whole way home.

"That guy was a jackass. Figured he deserved it."

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