Jared had tried to ignore the calendar, but he ended up counting down the days until the next full moon. At least he had Eyrick to keep him distracted.
Every evening after school was inevitably spent at Eyrick's family castle, although it meant having to evade questions from his naturally inquisitive mother. The more he got to know the odd young wizard, the more Jared found himself falling for him. An unintended consequence was that he kept Eyrick from fully pursuing other alternatives for breaking the power of the amulet. Instead of letting him work uninterrupted, the two of them found new ways to get to know each other, especially with Eyrick's parents still out of town for the duration.
On the day of the full moon, he got even more antsy, especially when the coach was late for baseball practice, which caused it to run long. Fortunately, Eyrick showed up in time to transport him back to the castle before the moon rose.
Jared had been feeling energetic all day, and he felt no compunction about running his hands all over Eyrick the moment they were alone together. Eyrick returned the favor, but as he did he noticed that Jared's normally smooth chest had gotten hairy. He wouldn't have minded, but then he noticed that the hair was actually fur and growing thicker all over Jared's body.
Jared started to say something, but produced only a lame bark. His lack of voice scared him.
Eyrick winked at him. "Don't worry, Jared. You'll be your old self before you know it."
As moonlight shined through the castle windows, Jared's progress into full dog accelerated.
To test matters, Eyrick addressed his boyfriend. "Bark once if you understand me," he said.
Jared remained mute, looking up with slight curiosity. "Guess that means you really are all dog this time," he said.
Eyrick returned to his studies with the sheepdog curled at his feet. At some point, the dog got to his feet and wandered off. Eyrick didn't think anything of it until he heard the sound of water splashing.
"Oh, Jared, no!" Eyrick groaned as he walked into his bathroom and found the boyfriend he had kissed earlier in the evening drinking right from the toilet bowl, lapping up the blue-tinted water as if he had just emerged parched from a desert.
He grabbed Jared's collar and led him to one of the castle's kitchens. He produced a bowl of water with his spell, which Jared fussily ignored. "Well, you'll drink it when you get thirsty," Eyrick said. "No more drinking from the toilet, OK?"
It was a little mortifying to have to walk his boyfriend several times over the next 24 hours, but plastic baggies were not Eyrick's style. With a wave of his wand, he transmogrified Jared's waste into much more pleasant forms like blooming flowers and a flock of butterflies.
Nevertheless, he was eager for the moon to appear in the sky again. So, when it did, and Jared remained unchanged, he grew concerned.
It didn't take much perusing of the old tome to discover his mistake. "Oh, shit!" Eyrick exclaimed. He kept reading and soon repeated his expletive.
He had read the hieroglyphics on the page completely backward. It was an amateur mistake to make, but a real doozy as far as Jared was concerned.
He had restored Jared to human form knowing he would then be subject to the cycles of the moon, but he hadn't correctly interpreted the text.
He now knew that every full moon to come, Jared would be able to resume his human form for only 24 hours. Otherwise, his boyfriend would be stuck as a dog, both in body and, more importantly, in mind, for the long weeks between full moons.
"Oh shit!" Eyrick repeated again. How would he be able to face Jared's brother with this news?