“You just can’t get enough of staring at my ass, can you?”
“Huh? What?” Milo asked, startled out of the trancelike state he got whenever he reviewed his photographs. Milo’s zeal for photography meant the photo shoot had lasted far longer than any of them had anticipated, so they’d headed straight to the cafeteria for dinner once they were done.
“I said your food’s getting cold. What did you think I said?” Dare sighed as he stuffed a taco into his mouth. “Jeez, you’ve been staring at those pictures for, like, an hour now. They look fine, mine especially. Just put down the camera for a sec.”
Milo blinked a few times, still half-entranced by his photos, but then he remembered the huge plate of food he’d filled up in line. He was usually a light eater, but somehow he found himself adding more and more to his plate while in the dinner line, piling his plate high with plenty of protein and green vegetables. Need to fill up, a body like this needs plenty of fuel to keep moving, he thought, then he frowned. Did he think that just now? It made sense that he’d need to eat more with his more muscular body, but that thought had never occurred to him until the moment he was looking down at the mountain of food he had piled in front of him.
“You’re not seriously going to eat all that, are you? I mean, I keep saying you’re a pig, but you’re really pigging out here,” Dare said through a mouthful of food.
“…You’re one to talk. Close your mouth when you eat,” Milo teased, trying to forget about the odd thought that had crossed his mind and started to eat his dinner. Nearby, Todd, Sam, Ollie, and Curtis were chatting excitedly, comparing their different changes to each other.
“Okay, whose ears are cuter? Curt’s or Todd’s?” Ollie asked, reaching over and giving Curtis’s floppy ears a quick tug.
“Can we not do this?” Curtis sighed, his ears flattening against his head in embarrassment.
“P-please?” Todd added, burying his face in his hands while his tail wagged behind him.
“Fine then, fluffiest tail? Coolest eyes? Come on, this is the coolest thing ever, and you guys are acting like it’s a Sunday drive! Embrace it, have some fun with it!” Sam added. He turned to Dare and put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “You agree, right? I mean, turning into a skunk, you’re basically getting a superpower! Squirting stink out of your tail? None of us’ll be able to do that!”
“Not sure I’d want to be able to…” Milo replied quietly as he continued to devour his massive dinner.
“Don’t be an idiot. Skunks don’t spray from their tails. You’re watching too many cartoons,” Dare snapped.
“But, you are gonna be able to spray, right? A skunk that can’t spray is basically just a weasel in a tux,” Ollie said, getting a chuckle from Curtis and Sam.
No, of course I can’t spray, Dare thought, annoyed with the series of stupid questions. I got my glands taken out when I was six, like any skunk would. Just like getting your tonsils out, a week off school and all the ice cream you can eat. Still have the scars on-
“The fuck?” Dare said, his taco slipping from his hands and onto the table. The others look at him, bewildered at the sudden outburst.
“Dare, what’s up? You okay?” Ollie asked, sounding genuinely concerned for his new friend. “Something I said? I don’t really think you’re a weasel with- Hey, wait!”
Without saying a word, Dare stood and started to walk away as fast as he could, leaving his dinner behind and leaving the others completely at a loss for words. He cradled his head in his hands as he stumbled for the exit to the cafeteria, glad that he’d trimmed his claws or he’d surely be drawing blood again.
“What the fuck was that…? It was like… Like I was getting memories or something jammed into my brain,” Dare muttered to himself. “T-that’s not me, it was someone else… It had to be…”
But the more he tried to push the foreign memories out of his head, the more related memories came. Himself, just a little kit, sitting in a doctor’s exam room with his mother, playing with a toy while the grown-ups discussed the operation. Laying on his stomach the day after, watching cartoons with his tail in the air while chowing down on ice cream. Strawberry ice cream, he recalled. Shit, he fucking remembered the flavor of ice cream.
It was too much for Dare to handle. Part of him wished he’d stayed with the others, just so he could have someone to talk to about whatever the hell it was that he’d just experienced. Would they even understand? They’d just think he was crazy. Maybe he was crazy, driven insane by the experience of changing from a human into a skunk. His thoughts were moving at a mile a minute, leaving him unable to focus on anything for more than a second before the next thought came to the forefront of his panicked mind.
His confused wandering soon brought him to the campus lake. It was nearly after dark, so the beach was closed and the lifeguard nowhere to be seen, which told Dare he’d have the whole beach to himself to sulk. Sulking, it seemed, was quickly becoming Dare’s default mode. He slumped down on the sand and held his knees tight against his chest, taking deep breaths to try to calm himself. He hated having to calm himself. Why didn’t he just stay with the others, with Milo. Just looking at that pig’s goofy tusked face was enough to-
Stop it, Daryl! This isn’t you!, he told himself frantically. It’s someone else, trying to change you. You can fight it. Why don’t you?
Because you secretly like it, don’t you? Daryl was a jerk. Try being Dare a little longer. Milo likes Dare.
“Shut up, both of you…” Dare whispered, shutting his eyes and trying not to think. He wished he had his claw clippers, just to give him something else to focus on besides his own thoughts. He wished he could be back in their dorm room, posing for Milo and letting him tell him what to do, how to position his arms. It was easier than thinking.
“Dare? Jesus, you scared the shit out of us, man.”
God no, why did it have to be him?
Milo came running up from the direction of the cafeteria building with a small bag in his hand. Dare groaned as Milo came closer and stopped next to him so abruptly that sand from the beach was flung up into Dare’s face.
“…Thanks for that. Glad you found me, Milo,” Dare spat, shaking sand out of his hair and glaring at Milo, who was looking down at him with equal parts bafflement and concern.
“I’m not gonna ask if you’re okay, ‘cause you’re just going to brush me off or lie,” Milo started off. Dare opened his mouth to refute that, but he realized Milo was completely right. “I know you’re not okay, since you’ve been acting weird all day. Don’t know if it’s a ‘turning into a skunk’ thing or just an ordinary stress thing, but it’s not normal. You need to calm down, or find someone who can help you calm down. And here, you forgot this.”
Milo reached into the bag he was holding, pulled out a take-out box, and shoved it into Dare’s hands. Dare cautiously opened it and saw two slightly crushed tacos, the ones he’d left behind at the table.
“Eat. You’ll feel better,” Milo sighed, sitting down next to Dare and getting out his own take-out box. Dare picked at his food, taking little bites at first but slowly picking up the pace. Him and Milo sat in silence, watching the sun set over the lake. Once Milo saw that Dare was beginning to settle down, he gently put a hand on Dare’s shoulder reassuringly. “Now, you really don’t want to talk about it? Whatever happened back there?”
“…No. I can’t.”
“Not even with Stripes?” Milo asked hopefully.
“Especially not with Stripes.”
“Well, then don’t say I didn’t try to help, Dare,” Milo groaned, finishing the last bite of his dinner and setting the box aside. Milo flopped down onto his back, feeling the beach’s sand on his neck as he looked up at the purple evening sky. All he could do was wonder what on earth he could do to stop Dare from acting like such a moody little-
Milo’s train of thought was interrupted as he felt Dare curl up next to him, resting his head on Milo’s shoulder and looking up at the sky as well. He was so close that Milo could smell the soap in Dare’s hair, see the white stripe more clearly that ever even in the dim evening light.
“You are helping, Milo. I just need a lot of help, I guess,” Dare sighed. “Maybe I’m just making myself miserable…”
Go with the flow. There's an odd sort of peace to giving in to who you're supposed to be.
Just a day before, Dare had wandered to this same spot, gotten that cryptic advice from Grayson, and immediately tossed it aside. Now, the words were coming back to him again, a little clearer than before, and yet…
“Still not ready,” Dare whispered under his breath as he leaned in closer to Milo. He felt an odd itching on his back as more black fur crept further and further down his backside, while a pair of raised scars painlessly dragged their way across his skin at the base of his spine. However, he chalked the odd sensation up some sand getting down his shirt. Nothing to be concerned about.