As Tom Phillips walked upstairs, the bulky wolftaur behind him growled low in his throat. The whole situation had become tense simply because a tween-minded adolescent couldn't handle divorce and had far too much power to try and solve the problem. Crushing together two dissimilar men, he had ended them and created in their place a new father: Drevor.
The new monster couldn't see me but subconsciously understood that the author who’d originally set things down this path was back in control. The presence of a dire wolf with black fur, mottled with purple motes of light as if a blank canvas of the void of space was how I’d shown myself to him. It was my motif. Glancing towards me, then over my shoulder, Drevor sighed as his awareness allowed him the knowledge that another, familiar author, was helping with this as well.
Tommy was moving slowly up towards the attic where he’d hidden the Emitter. The man clenched his fists, still angry. Lifting his front legs off the ground, he pivoted on a rear leg before dropping those front hand-paws onto the carpet facing away from the staircase. Shaking his head, he was already moving back toward the front of the ranch house as he verbalized his current desire: "I need a smoke."
Drevor let another long breath escape his muzzle as his heavy form trotted to the front door. Stepping through the open frame, he was greeted by dawn's light coloring the vast expanse of trees beyond the fence which lined the edge of the farm. The fresh morning air was tinged with blood; his blood—their blood. Taking in the calm of the moment, Drevor inhales as much as he can, filling his two sets of lungs with much-needed oxygen, and exhaling slowly. The tense feeling all over his body slowly receded as he pulled out a cig tin and extracted a single cigarette. He rolled it through his fingers then, thinking it was far smaller now. No. I’m just bigger. Shaking himself off the feeling lightly, he flicks the cigarette upwards in a spin in front of his face, quickly grabbing it between his lips like it was a treat.
"Don't know what I'm gonna do with you, you fuck." Drevor murmured as he leaned down to light the smoke with Trevor’s zippo lighter all while staring directly at me, ChronoSeth. Not that he knew me by name. Why’d I merged both of them? Simple: I wanted Trevor and David to merge and become a total hunk. No1Uknow wrote an amazing passage and, no, he didn’t write that part. He’s just helping with this one passage. Check that scrollbar, it’s a doozy.
Drevor glanced away from me towards his cruiser back to where it was parked at the still locked gate near where he’d climbed the fence as Trevor. Thor, his K9 partner, was still contained in the back of the squad car. He could hear him whining, but the wolftaur just shook his head. Dealing with his dog wasn’t the top of his priorities right now…
Looking back at me, his anger was still present: "I'm pissed about what yer puttin’ me through, though I obviously can’t stop it. You made my kid kill two people, and I won’t forget that." Drevor inhales the smoke into his upper lungs, then takes it out of his mouth with confusion. The regeneration had cured Trevor’s addiction—his inebriation too—and he only just noticed. "Doesn't feel right. Wrong? Whatever." Putting it into his mouth he inhales the whole cigarette to the end in one drag. Throwing the butt to the side, the bulky wolftaur exhales another calming breath as smoke billows out of his maw. "Fucking hell, you’ve left me broken too."
I did indeed choose to have him go through a horrible merge and the constant horror that he's aware of his previous lives and has only moments of memories to call his own. I may be a bit sadistic, but I was not evil. There was an end goal I wished to see for myself. That no1Uknow thinks that I want hot hunky sex is probably fair, but ultimately just a bonus. You see, Drevor may not hear me or know my motivations, but he can be assured I mean no harm. Not that he knows that.
This is kind of fun, actually.
Drevor stretches his thick and muscular body, feeling the innate heat and energy coursing through it. His body was warm and toasty as was natural for a bodybuilder like himself. With a big yawn, he looked down and felt a sense of pride at how Trevor's addition to David’s wolftaur form seemed, to him, impressive. The epitome of masculinity, he thinks to himself. His ears twitch as he hears Tommy climbing down the attic stairs, then shifting in place to follow Alice padding behind him.
In a sign of deference, Drevor feels her head lean into his humanoid torso’s side, paws over his lupine back in a hug. "I'm sorry."
Drevor scowls deeply, remembering how harsh Trevor was when dealing with his misbehaving pups. There were fixes to be made and he knew he had to use this chance and become a father deserving of his children.
"You did nothing wrong, Alice. Nothing,” he tried to impart upon her. “Don't feel sorry for things out of your control. You’re stronger than that." Drevor leans back as his large arm reaches behind the dire wolf’s head. Those triangular ears flattened as if expecting him to decide and swat her. His hand hesitated as he realized what she expected of her father. This one sees only Trevor in me, and I can see very clearly how bad that is. Instead, his hand lowered more gently and burrowed under her thick shoulder fur. As her ears cautiously rose to face him, he gave some scritches behind those triangular ears.
"Tommy gets to feel sorry because he has done fuc—ehm, goofed up. And me? I am sorry because I remember what things Trevor did to you and your mom. Sickens me. Makes me mad that Trevor's a part of me, but it's just something I have to live with, I guess." Drevor gives me a side-eye, those hazel-green eyes filled with accusation.
Drevor continues giving his daughter-turned-male-dire wolf some assuring head pats and scratches even going so far as to lean his canine head onto her own. The anger in him was spent. The alpha wolf needed to assure his meaningful place in the family hierarchy while still asserting dominance. If he was too forceful, he’d lose them. I guess this could be a win-win, he considered without looking at me. Trevor's memories get to stay with Holly, and so do David's. You and Tommy get a better dad with the parts you like from both of them... and hopefully less of the bad. That’s what he wanted to say to her, but she had to believe he was in full control of his emotions. Children could pick up an adult’s emotional distress… even more so in this moment because body language was essential for wolves and Alice had already shown herself more inclined to her instincts than maybe David should have facilitated.
Drevor sighed as Alice leans against his muscular wolf body, knowing that he needs to punish Tommy yet feeling torn. "I’d much prefer my first memory made with you both to not be Tommy’s punishment," were the words he chose to lead with. The young girl leaned into his lower body, that large fluffy tail easily covering her in comfort before she spoke:
"Daddy—” a title carefully chosen by Alice in part because she thought that’s what he wanted to hear and not because she knew this creature was her father. “—you don't have to punish Tommy..." but she trailed off as those wolfen eyes turned to meet her own, his head stationary as he did so, like a Terminator.
Drevor could see her shrinking away in fear, thinking she had overstepped. In a way she had, but the look his eyes gave her was a look from Trevor… and the idea that Trevor was here in such a powerful body truly terrified his little girl. Alice, who just last night had shared the mindset of a cold and calculating velociraptor… and just a short time ago had shown the strength of will to approach a trusted adult with a dangerous secret. The sudden appearance of Trevor Phillips seemed to have completely shattered that self-confidence and a good portion of Drevor—more than 60%—found that crushing. The very idea that her father was present makes her feel small and powerless. What an appalling relationship.
Drevor let escape a soft growl of dissuasion to his pup, Alice. "I have to, and I will." His triangular ears slid their aim towards his rear as he heard Tommy step down the last step of the stairs inside the ranch house. Pushing himself up from the patio with all four legs, he turns around and walks into the house, leaving Alice in a bit of a state. I’ll have to mend that later, he considered, not truly wanting to do what came next…
The Emitter in the teenager’s grip was loose but tight at the same time as if he couldn’t decide whether turning it over was the correct action to take. Drevor assured the pup of his rightful action by trotting up to him and standing tall; imposing. His 6'6” height loomed almost a foot over Tommy's 5'8. Reaching out with his left hand towards the device, Drevor’s eyes noted some concern in Tommy’s eyes that hadn’t been resolved. That hesitance in Tommy’s eyes took Drevor a moment to calculate as the boy handed him the device. Holding it in front of him, he glanced at Tommy, then realized what the boy must have thought: Trevor was right-handed, and David was left.
"Good. Now..." Drevor began, though trailed off as he took out Trevor’s phone from one of David’s carapace’s pockets. It appeared unmarred and intact. Plugging it in circumvented the lock screen and went straight into the Chronivac 4.23 application. Drevor felt the weight of the phone in his hands and the power to alter reality there in his mighty grasp. The thought of transforming Tommy into a jock briefly passes his mind. Then, the idea of making him his perfect son was ignored almost as quickly, but it still had a notable moment of thought allocated to it. That part of Trevor was still in there… and was properly suppressed by the parts that were David.
"Firstly, I’m taking off these five extra years—no skipping middle school—but just the physical. I’m letting you keep your years of experience growing up under Trevor,” Tom considered that not as much of a punishment… until Drevor finished his thought: “I expect you to get A's." Tommy held back a groan as Drevor made the physical-exclusive changes to the program and hit Change. Tom instantly ‘poofed’ back to his 11-year-old body with the Denver Broncos jersey falling wide over his smaller stature again. "Your mom and I will consult on more than that,” Drevor asserted. Tommy’s green eyes met the stern ones of the impressive wolf creature, but the boy looked away first. “Now. Go to the basement and stay there,” he pointed towards the door that led downstairs. “Think about what you’ve done. Your dad's got a bunch of things to fix… including breakfast."
Drevor looked at both of his children with a stare, motioning with his head towards the door to the basement. Tommy and Alice reluctantly moved to the lower floor where David’s summer room was. He could hear them talking, then the click of the Super Nintendo’s power button flicking on. Distracted and safe. Good. Satisfied, Drevor pulled out David’s small phone from his other pocket. Sighing, he realized now it might have been a mistake in retrospect to reduce the object so much. He didn’t think that the first author knew when this story began, that this would be the result. Still, he targeted the iPhone 12 and, with a simple change, it transformed into a much larger, more current iPad Pro… sturdy, with a big screen, and compatible with both cellular as well as all David’s prior changes of storage.
"Alright, time to fix me first." Drevor looks to the side to see me, knowing it was unlikely I’d allow him to try to undo this merge. He'd have to sacrifice himself to return two assholes to the world, both of whom had debatably very different personality issues as well as living functionally in normal society. What a great foundation to build upon?
Selecting himself shows Drevor Nicolaus Scott III. It's a good thing that Tommy didn't pull him into the Phillips family instead… because David loves his grandparents. The stats are heavily altered now, whatever Trevor's was now mixed and matched with David's though it seems like Trevor's physique took center stage. His physique, but not his wolftaur form. That was all David.
"Alright... let’s do… something to help me process my thoughts better." Drevor then clicked on the option showing his IQ which revealed it as 113. While Intelligence Quota isn't an accurate scale for determining someone's mental acuity, it did measure somewhat the academic potential of a respondent. It was also something simple the Chronivac could alter with a number scale… part of that ‘archaic terminology’ patch note. Still, Drevor was a bit taken aback. “The fuck?” he asked himself. David had a memory of being measured at 240 when he was six from a test his parents had him participate in. Trevor only remembered scoring well enough on an aptitude test to be an officer. This stat was countered by David’s knowledge that if you’re too smart, they don’t let you be a cop in America.
A quick Google search revealed the human average might be 93 and most humans topped the scale at 145. “Oh… was it 140? Maybe it was 140,” the David part of Drevor considered aloud. Shaking his head. “There’s simply no way. David always thought the number was bullshit, and I certainly agree. He never felt like a genius.” He paused, rubbing his chin. “But 113…? Let’s see… 113 times two is 226… minus 140 is… 86.” He was happy he remembered how to get a missing number from one number and a mean. “Well,” he considered aloud. “That’s is lower than average, and a fine score for a cop,” he sighed. “Maybe David’s was 140. Maybe mine should be too?”
Drevor didn't need much of a push to bump his IQ ‘back’ to 140.
There were a bunch of other things he noticed as he scrolled down. His lifespan was a measly fifty-five years old, apparently taking in more of the wolf's lifespan than the human's. Drevor added a 1 to the front of that number, bumping it up to 155, and moved on…
The spot where timberwolf was noted was unchanged. On a whim—and maybe to be more closely related to Alice—he added the word dire in front of the timberwolf. The device should be capable of handling that. The following few changes were just something to prevent his biology from failing: changing his body's energy efficiency to 100% from 25%; making his body tougher in taking punishment; eliminating menopause as a biological function; activating his winter coat early to make his fur thicker to hide any other incriminating scar details of Trevor from his body; and restoring the end of his right ring finger. This was all part of a grander plan to appear more as David when Holly would arrive because if she saw Trevor in him first, he was as good as dead.
With his changes in place, Drevor did briefly go through a 3D model of himself to partly ogle his form and to find oddities in his internals and was brought to the awareness of several differences in his anatomy. He has two bladders, one leading to his penis and another to his vagina. He has two hearts to pump enough blood. I guess 400lbs of almost pure muscle needs a lot of upkeep, he surmised.
Executing the changes with a smooth style over a minute, Drevor felt his brain think a bit more clearly, his body altered within a new Preset he’d created saved as ‘wolftaur-DR’ which he could continue making use of in the future, leaving David’s old ‘wolftaur-DS’ intact. The most outward alteration was his height which increased an additional two inches to 6’8” as his wolf body became dire and therefore stockier still.
Running a hand alongside the ‘buzz’ cut of the short fur beneath his wolf ears, he wondered if he should change the auburn out of his fur coat. Glancing at his reflection in the glass of a nearby window, he simply shook his head. No, he considered. This should be fine. Running a hand through the thicker brown hair atop his head, he felt how it ended behind him in a mullet. “Maybe I should grow a mohawk?” He smirked, then shook his head, collecting his thoughts…
In a moment of curiosity, Drevor returned to the IQ stats. A part of him wanted to test if he could discern the difference in mental acuity if he set his awareness of the change to ‘none’. But as he set his IQ to 60 and a 10-second duration before reversion, he hesitated on tapping Change. He recalled the grandmother on David’s mother’s side and her failing memory and how that had terrified David. On the opposite front, Trevor’s memories brought up a friend who survived being struck by a big rig in high school but whose mental capacity was diminished greatly after the experience. While neither of those things should happen to him simply by lowering his IQ, those fears combined resulted in his hesitation. He shook his head, and deleted the change, having determined the experience would not be worth it…
He had a lot to clean up: the fence that Tommy had slammed him through last night; do something about the blood on the ground out front where the two men had died; Thor; the PI and his ‘dragon sighting’ information… actually, Drevor realized, I should probably check in with the PI first.
Drevor brings up the number and clears his throat multiple times to get his voice right. Calling the number with Trevor's phone, Drevor got a response within two rings. "Trevor here. Got the kids and David—" he almost said he was ‘not gonna be a problem anymore’, but suspected that’d be suspicious. “—kept the door shut, but once I told him the Safeword—” ‘Dunkin’, he recalled, from Holly’s sister, “—he let me take them without incident.”
"Acknowledged,” Ronan Bromell said, though sighed. “I advised you not to engage. If that guy really could make dragons, well, I still think you should have called the military.” He paused. “You sound a lot more coherent than you did five hours ago,” the other man realized. “You do not have to acknowledge if a fight sobered you up, and I won’t ask,” his friend said. “What’s our next move?”
"I’m calling off the investigation. I confirmed he didn’t sleep with Holly and the restraining order is over anyway. It’s been a long few weeks and I am bringing my kids home." Drevor swallowed the urge to growl to emphasize his point. Ronan was a human, and it would only raise further questions.
“A bit abrupt.”
“It’s my call. David and I have come to an understanding. We’re going to talk with my wife when she gets here to pick up the kids, then the four of us are going home together.”
"Good luck with that, Officer Phillips,” Bromell conceded. “I’m curious how that went, but I know better than to ask right now. Good luck to you. I’ll consider the case closed on your part," he said, but there was something in his tone. Was he going to keep looking into the dragons? That would complicate things, but it’s not like Drevor could point out the possibility without raising further questions.
“Good,” was all Drevor could manage. He knew he’d see Ronan again anyway in their off-hours. And, with that, the two said their goodbyes and ended the call. Drevor growled to himself, the nagging feeling that his friend wouldn’t let the dragon issue drop so easily. Fodder for future authors, he considered, glancing our way.
Sliding Trevor’s phone back into a front pocket of David’s utilikilt carapace, he padded out towards the car parked outside the main gate. Drevor could see the familiar police cruiser with its windows up and Thor looking at him through the windshield, barking. Trotting up to the perimeter fence on all fours, Drevor easily leaped over the gate and landed in the gravel path next to the cruiser. He tapped the button on Trevor’s key-fob which made two audible beeps and unlocked the doors. No doubt Thor would be hostile to him. The barking coming from inside the vehicle was… accusatory? He actually kind of understood Thor, he realized. There was fear and a warning there… if Drevor opened that door, Thor would defend himself.
Selecting Thor by narrowing his search to German Shepherd targets near him, Drevor fiddled with Thor’s awareness regarding himself. Doing so had the desired result of essentially transferring his memories of Trevor to Drevor which, presumably, made him his master. Once he hit Change, the barking inside the car quieted up. "Good boy…" Drevor feels his wolfy instincts feeling undignified at the idea of owning another… inferior wolf… well, worse: a dog. But then again what could he do? Glancing at the Emitter hanging out of his phone, he glanced towards me, then back to the car, shaking his head.
One more problem: this vehicle isn't something a wolftaur could drive, he considered. Glancing back over the fence towards David’s car, he realized this was a problem taurs would have to tackle sooner rather than later even if he wasn’t here. Shelving that problem until later, Drevor opened the door and let Thor out, his strong scent filling the air. With Thor free, Drevor removed a few more important items from the cruiser. For one thing, the laptop in the passenger seat was his, which he hastily shoved into its bag and threw over his shoulder. The other primary item he grabbed was a UTS-15, tactical shotgun from its vertical slot between the front seats. Using the Chronivac again, he found the vehicle and selected the option for it to become a HotWheels-like toy car. Executing the change, the cruiser shrunk almost immediately.
Leaning forward to pick up the tiny car from its place in the dirt, Drevor’s tail went out flat behind him. Without thinking much about it, this gave Thor a bit of a clear passage to move underneath the taller legs of the dire wolftaur. It was clear he was trying to run through his legs, but briefly got stuck. Before Drevor knew what was happening, Thor pressed his head up into Drevor’s sheath and took a whiff.
Drevor had been considering his next course of action, not paying attention to Thor. He needed to hide his car from Holly and he’d done that. Next was clearing the blood, and probably calling her. The undercurrent of his thoughts was that maybe he could make this work… and he envisioned a near future in which he could take some of his pent-up feelings and have what amounted to ‘make-up sex’.
Thor, meanwhile, picked up not just the musk of his male partner—but a scent his new memories with Drevor had clocked before… that of a female canine on the cusp of heat. Leaning his head so that his muzzle was moving Drevor’s balls out of the way, Thor took a long lick over the tightly stretched underwear that kept him from Drevor’s somewhat moist cookie.
Drevor felt a shiver crawl up his five-meter-long spine. "Hey!” Drevor called out to Thor. “Sit. No, Out! Out! Don't do that boy." The wolftaur side-stepped overhead of Thor, moving his four legs in such a way as to lift the carapace and allow the shepherd to ‘escape’. He grimaced at the idea of having a feral animal licking his manhood… womanhood? Both. Trevor would’ve been sickened, but he was outweighed by David’s memories who had fantasies about such… just not with one of a feral mind. Some of David’s best friend’s fursonas were four-leggers, but they all had human minds. “I could make you a wolftaur,” Drevor offered to Thor who titled his head at his master’s remark. In fact, that sounded right. But just… not right now.
Somewhere internally, David’s memories of ‘Wolf or Dare’ insisted they needed to diversify their transformations. But Drevor, for his part, was mostly concerned with his immediate future. He need to focus, and adding another sentient to a situation that could end with a 12-hour reset from the Emitter just wasn’t needed. Focus! he insisted. If you screw this up, well… who knows?
Thor had initially moved away from Drevor, then approached him and sat down at his side. The dog did bring to the forefront that the wolf was extremely pent-up. From Trevor’s perspective, Holly had been riling him up as he stayed faithful… never giving up hope that they could be together again. He recalled how Holly had been all over him as David and if only this merge had happened before last night, he could have been laid already. "Fuck... I need release… or bred."
Memories of Trevor fucking Holly—and David sleeping around—flitted through his squared head, and a fantasy of him mounting overtop of Holly as he thrusted and knotted her filled his mind, all while something big filled his pussy. Hm, that was David, he realized quickly. Trevor had always been too manly to entertain Holly’s request to peg him. David had no such issues and—thinking about it now—neither did Drevor. Both were secure in their manhood. Even thinking that, though, Drevor’s mind briefly wandered to Holly’s new shape-changing abilities and a vision David had been having since last night… one of Holly knotting him instead. She’d long since denied having another child with him, though that was due to the love leaving their marriage. What if he offered to carry a child instead? Yeah. Every child be a boy, they’d just be a girl too.
Drevor gave a low growl as he tried to push the thoughts away, feeling his shaft crowning as he grew hard. Head turning to look across his own back, he realized that David had purposely extended the length of his carapace downward to hide his underbelly… but now that the body’s size had increased, he could feel more of the crosswinds from the morning air against his cloth-covered crotch. It was doing nothing to hide his musk, he realized, and a part of him was fine with that. How would potential mates know otherwise? I could just tell them, the human mind answered.
The feeling of Drevor’s cock getting pushed against the elastic band of his tight boxer-briefs caught his attention. He didn’t have to see his underwear tenting his underside to realize he had a sizable bulge there. There was a wetness, he realized, not just from his vulva, but the feeling of the band of his undergarments pushing copious amounts of pre into the fur between his many rows of nipples. He could feel the musky liquid's leaking flow thanks to his over-productive testes. There were twitches in his muscles where the wolf’s crotch are, his thoughts having spurred mating motions. Taking a few deep, long breaths, Drevor tried to do whatever he could to mentally change the topic.
His stomach growled…
Sparing a second to glance over at me, he mumbled, “Thanks,” as he realized how hungry and horny he was. Honestly, it probably would have happened anyway. He hadn’t eaten since last night and though David knew well that wolves tended to only have about one big meal a week, that wouldn’t stop the human mind of this wolftaur from still wanting to eat. It also wouldn’t account for the only meal he’d had since his transformation was the mashed potato bowls he’d had last night with the kids… certainly not enough food to fill this big body.
Not about to eat the farm animals though. Drevor assumed a cow would be the ideal source of meat for a dire timberwolf such as himself, but his grandparents purposefully didn’t stock the big freezer downstairs for the summer when they weren’t home. Ears twitching and eyes scanning, the wolf took in his surroundings for any incriminating details. Drevor nods at the fact that nothing here seems out of place, but also that this farm would be a poor hunting ground. The woods beyond the perimeter? Perhaps…
He took a few moments as he dug and buried the sizable patch of his musky pre into the ground, digging with his wolf half's front legs. Thor briefly smelled the patch and whined, which confused Drevor…
Jumping over the fence just as easily as before with Thor perhaps a little too close behind, Drevor looked over the big house that held his kids. He wondered about the future, his mind briefly drifting to the fact it was a nice house that maybe he would be left it someday. Beyond that, the wait allowed him to further ruminate on his new existence. What other things would I, Drevor, like to do?
There were memories of hobbies he remembered from both his halves, and some had common ground. Of the interests he hadn’t dwelled on before, the most immediate one for Trevor had been the discipline of his difficult workout routine. Possibly a bit of an ego trip, he considered. David didn’t have anything like that, but—no, that wasn’t true. David just didn’t think of it in those terms. Every fall he’d come and chop wood, sure, but he took some time every few days at the YMCA to swim laps… and he liked nightly runs. For Drevor, there was nothing to be ashamed of about this body. Both men had been in better-than-average shape, and it showed. Patting his abs to the side of his scars there and measuring the diameter of his unflexed biceps with his left hand… thick, he smirked, loving what he had and wishing to keep it. Not something that can be maintained with low discipline. Though, in the back of his mind, there was an inkling that his regeneration would prevent his body from atrophying… so much so that he wouldn’t have to spend as much time in upkeep. Hell, his growth could be greater…
Collecting himself, he diverted his thoughts back to the task at hand: covering up two murders and making the house look presentable to Holly now, and the grand folks later… He needed to put Thor somewhere secluded to prevent Holly from being tipped off. Then, again, if she walked the drive on foot rather than driving her car, she’d almost certainly pick up his scent with her new nose. Unless… unless that didn’t work while she took human shape? Questions for later, was David’s old refrain. Still, he had to do his best.
Drevor trotted up the gravel drive to the paved area where the cars parked. He found the pavement to be hard and warm to the touch under his padded feet. Just beyond it was the patio around the very front of the house, and before that, a notable stain in the grass and dirt where it felt like this story had all started a second time.
Taking a few tentative steps in that direction, he paused at the edge of the discoloration where Thor naturally stopped and leaned his nose down to sniff. In the dog’s mind, he registered Trevor’s old scent as a different one, but it was clear through his eyes the gears were turning. Shifting on all four legs, Drevor smiled down at the German Shepherd. The dog cocked his head to the side as the wolftaur began reciting a quote: “It was not by my hand I was once again given flesh. I was brought here by—” he glanced at me, considering the next word in the quote was ‘humans’, he instead said, “—wolves, apparently. Who wished to pay me Tribute.” He practiced David’s voice that he’d be using later for Holly as he responded to himself: “Tribute!? You steal men's souls—” he flinched, “—and make them your slaves!”
Sliding back to his original voice, somewhere between Trevor’s ‘New England Smoker’ and David’s ‘Smooth Video Game Announcer’ that he’d started from this very spot with, Drevor sighed. Skipping the line about his words being as empty as his soul, the dire wolftaur put his hands on his waist. “Mankind ill needs a savior such as me,” he realized. Putting his left hand towards his chin, considering his next actions. “What is a man?” he continued, looking to the edge of the house and where the side entrance to the maintenance room was. “A miserable little pile of secrets…”
“C’mon, Thor. I need a shovel…”
===—===
Thor and Drevor had marked similar territory near David’s basement window. This was before going into the lower level of the ranch house through the entrance on the side which faced towards the main barn. Within the workroom that housed the laundry machines, Drevor retrieved the shovel. Choosing the leave Thor closed in that room, he considered that perhaps it would minimize his scent on the property. Leaving him a bowl of water, he’d send food for him later.
Back at the front of the house, it didn’t take long to dig up the terrain where all the blood had soaked in. He couldn’t keep from recalling the terror of all four hands—six hands?—pushing through the mass of another man… the feelings of bones snapping and organs melting the heat of heart-pumping terror… He could feel his blood spreading out as he died not once but twice… No, twice, but once. One each? “Horrible,” he’d said softly to himself more than a dozen times while working, his mind getting distracted from the details… like one of David’s teeth floating in a sea of muscle before one of Trevor’s eyeballs popped. It was as if Drevor was stuck in a loop of trauma and could not muster any other words than “Horrible” while he worked.
A part of him managed to wonder if Alice could hear him…
Once the harder surface had been broken up, he found the dirt beneath softer and easier to break. At one point, he instead leaned on the shovel with his upper body as his front legs took the focus, digging up the earth and shoveling it behind him from under his carapace and tail. His muscles burned as his claws raked the earth and tore it apart. Minutes passed of trading work between his front limbs until he’d hauled and shifted the topsoil so that it was buried a meter below the surface.
He wiped his forehead out of habit before realizing he was panting. The sweat glands at his feet left a big scent spot on the earth, and the one at his tail smelled a whole lot like ‘fear’. This was not at all fun. “Feels like I'm doin' sumthing illegal here…” he spoke before considering his words. A moment later, he once again recalled his situation as if it was fresh. There must have been something more terrible than he realized about his ‘birth’ because every time he thought about it, there was a fresh dread of realization. He shook his body, a little dirt falling off from his underside as he did so. “Right… I’m hiding evidence," he realized. “Evidence that my boy killed two people… just like any father might do?” For a second, he lingered on that question mark. Trevor’s father was more a cop than a person, so maybe that wouldn’t apply. Reaching up toward his black and red plaid overshirt, Trevor’s reflexes reached to make sure the body cam was off, even though he hadn’t been in uniform when he died.
He allowed himself a nervous chuckle. The new dirt spot might look suspicious, but to whom? It was just a patch of dirt. Maybe Alice was digging in the yard? He shook his head. No, this definitely smells like me. Trevor and David’s memories both aligned as they realized you shouldn’t have an answer for everything. They both knew it made you look ‘sus’. Trevor for having seen it first-hand as a cop… David from, well, Chester and… the TV show Columbo. It’s not like two men melted together in a traumatic body horror puddle very often… who’d even think that?
Drevor trotted over to the area where David had momentarily died the prior night thanks to Tommy's dragon rage. A fleeting thought was spared for the idea that young Thomas had actually killed David twice. Did that mean he’d killed three times? Sure. But ‘double jeopardy’, right? Drevor mused even though, in a world where someone could survive death, did that count? Would his deaths legally have counted? Who knew? The blood was still there all over the fractured bits of the fence. At the least, he could use this as a reason for his enhanced form if Holly asked. She already knew Tommy had walloped him, though David had deliberately left out the part about him dying.
Using Trevor’s phone, he took a picture of the damage and dropped it in its own folder on his device. Drevor then took some time to measure the break in the fence caused by David’s impact the previous night using its built-in AR measuring tool. As he was googling the price of such wood, he realized something. Changing the Emitter's default selection to search for objects 'within 10 feet' and 'fence' he found the broken pieces of it listed there. Tapping Change, he made them intact once more, though they were still on the ground. It was then that Drevor’s strength came into play and he all but one-handed the individual fence rails one at a time, slotting them back in place of their respective posts.
Easy peasy, Drevor thought to himself. “That should be just about everything and—” there was an image of Trevor in his mind, firing his Glock 22 over his shoulder as he ducked it. Turning back towards the ranch house and considering the confrontation this morning once again, he realized that there was a bullet hole somewhere just above the front door where the man missed… been missed… by himselves.
“Himselves?” he repeated, looking at me and rolling his eyes. “Sure, man.”
Moving back around the ranch house’s side in the direction of the front stoop, Drevor passed by the flowering bushes that Alice had created last night while a fairy. Careful not to select ‘the house’, Drevor instead tried to see if there was a listing for ‘bullet’ maybe? He could, but then what? He was happy to discover one could not simply delete objects, so there was a bit of comfort there. Still, was anything functionally different if he made the bullet into air instead? And that’s what he did, then selected the damaged board specifically and grew it back into place as an undamaged plank once again.
The next few hours were filled first with feeding the animals, followed by a few small chores here and there. He repaired the upstairs shower heater for David’s grandparents. That thing could only do lukewarm even at max settings, and his grandparents would love that he found the time to fix it. David's grandparents? Well, no. His… so long as he didn’t fumble any interactions. David would have honestly done it a while ago, but it was Trevor who knew how to work a water heater. This change would save money and make the house better for the foreseeable future. His family's future…
Walking back in, Drevor managed a smile at the thought of the quick handiwork restoring the house's state. Everything looked the same however the scratches, worn wood, and even the carpeting now had almost none of its age showing. He had to admit, using a tool that controls reality to make quick alterations as if it were a house from The Sims was way easier than the time and money it would take to do it like everyone else had to. He smirked. The house felt renewed and that resonated… with him.
He's new. Yet he's old. And living with the same memories as Trevor and David did; however, everything he experiences from now on is unique to him alone. While his choices would be influenced by their histories, from this point forward he was his own individual person. From this point forward, he would be himself and no one else.
Drevor let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. "Was not expecting a life-affirming realization this early in the morning." Glancing at David’s iPad which sat propped on an easel on the kitchen island, Drevor realized it wasn’t morning anymore. It was afternoon. Blinking, he realized he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t eaten. The food in the house wasn't going to last if he kept making big meals and he wasn’t yet sure about using the Chronivac to turn other things into food. Would it taste right? Meh. Probably. Questions for later…
Timing so optimal it had to be planned, the tablet began to ring. ‘Holly Phillips’ was displayed as the name on the screen, the circular picture of a crop of her as a sexy zombie nurse from last year’s Halloween. David had driven her and the kids around when Holly’s car had failed again, unaware that was actually the first time Trevor had ever seen the man… tailing him in his cruiser with the lights off.
Drevor shook his head. Shit. How long was it ringing? he wondered, clearing his throat. I’ve got to stop having these reveries at some point… Just before voicemail would take the call, Drevor tapped his left index finger’s paw pad to the screen, answering the call. “How're the kids?" she asked.
Drevor hesitated for a second. "The kids are fine. I'm fixing breakfast but I don't think what I have in the house is enough for me alone." His voice was noticeably gruffer than he’d meant, deeper. He was unpracticed with his David voice and a little nervous talking to the kitsune on the other end of the call. "Can you pick up an order on the way in?"
"Um, sure, I'm just getting out now. Rough morning?" Holly enquired, clearly referencing his voice right away.
“I told you about getting knocked through the fence, yeah? Well, even though the regen saved me, I thought it best not to risk the kids accidentally taking me out or something,” he said, recalling he hadn’t mentioned that Tommy had killed him. “That dragon really hurt, so… I went over my Preset and improved some things, ya know? Made myself a bit beefier. I guess I need to tweak the voice?”
"Oh?" There was a bit of a mischievous tone in her voice as her mind latched onto only one facet of what he’d said. "You made yourself big, hm?” Drevor could only chuckle. David would have dissuaded her from the considered innuendo… but as her husband, he wanted her mind in that place. Once he explained the situation to her, he hoped that the weirdness of the situation wouldn’t be a major turn-off.
"You tease,” she went on. “But, about the kids. No more transformations until I get there. And please turn them back if they're in other forms. I don’t want anyone coming to look for them and not see regular human children" Her tone was warm but commanding. Trevor wouldn’t know that side of her, but David understood it as the ‘friend being asked to take care of the kids properly’ tone… which meant, for the moment, Drevor had fooled her. “I want to see all this stuff with my own eyes,” she added. While her words could have meant the transformations of her children, the tone implied she wanted to see David as he was. Was she considering cheating after all? David had essentially changed her mind. "Where’m I going? Pizza Hut?"
"Sure. It’ll be a big order. I’m starving here. Don't want me to eat the kids. Hm… or you?" He laughed in David’s voice, allowing himself one of those flirting interactions the man had allowed himself when Holly had started it.
He could hear her growl lustily over the phone clearly. "Mr. Scott,” she played with him. “I’m a married woman!” Drevor smirked… a few conflicting thoughts in his head had to be pushed aside. When was the last time she flirted with Trevor? Ages ago… Still, her tone hadn’t been dismissive, but playful. But she knew he had to make the order, so she pushed forward to end the call. “Anything else?”
“Just that I’ve… got a surprise for you when you get here.”
“Oh really? A surprise?”
“Yeah. Tommy helped put it together. He thinks you’ll like it,” he offered as a ‘technically truthful’ thought without being specific. The two of them exchanged pleasantries and ended the call. Looking at the foodstuff he’d assembled, he made a quick call to the local pizza place and put in his order… a few Meat Lovers, teriyaki wings, and a few other things that Holly, Alice, and Tommy had previously enjoyed. Paying for a big meal was easier when you had two people’s bank accounts at the ready.
With all that in place, Drevor set about the task of creating the home-cooked portion of the food.
===—===
"Breakfast's ready!" Drevor belted out so that both his children in the basement could hear him. Sitting at the rectangular wooden table of his grandparent’s dining room, the vintage yet modern setup of the space was equally comfortable and convenient. Some herbs could be found by the windowsills, putting them in easy reach of Drevor. He added them to his meals. Trevor’s abysmal cooking skills mattered not, though his persistence sure helped. David’s ability came through… years of cooking for himself since he was little, and then as he grew older to save money over fast food. While breakfast was supposed to be light, Drevor needed the meats and also, this was kind of actually lunch, so...
Heaps of bacon, three medium rare slabs of steak, eggs, and waffles all seasoned with freshly picked garlic, and other seasoning all lined the top of the table, with a pitcher of milk to the side. Drevor didn’t take the easy way out or skimp on the meals, he made sure each of the plates would fill up the empty stomachs of both his kids and himself. It wasn’t long before the light footsteps of his children approached from the basement, a certain concerned weight to their bodies. Drevor shook the concern off, down his head, down his two torsos, and to the end of his tail. He had hoped to make them a delicious meal that would smooth over the previous interaction, making them more comfortable. He just needed to give them some time…
A part of him hesitated as they approached. For wolves, showing teeth was often a sign of either aggression or respect, but among humans, it was friendly and inviting. His reflex was for a big canine grin, but he suspected Tommy might take it as menace and then what would the confused chestnut and gray dire wolf that was Alice think? In the end, he simply smiled with his thin black lips, motioning with his left arm across the table as they came across the living room towards the dining area.
“Hope yer not too hungry, but I made a lot if you are. I had a lot of work to get done to prepare to meet your mom,” he offered as a kind of apology. As they approached the table, their eyes went wide as they took in the entire layout of foodstuff. It was as if Thanksgiving was months early. Still, Drevor felt like he’d gotten one of his four feet in the door, metaphorically, and couldn’t contain the feeling of accomplishment. “Eat up,” he encouraged
Tom took up a seat like a normal human child just around the corner of the table from Drevor’s seat. Alice, for her part, approached the bench that Drevor had set along the side of the table opposite Tom and climbed up onto it so her head was more easily above the table’s top. The dire wolf sat tall, while Tommy was back to being his prior eleven-year-old height. Both their sets of green eyes, be they human or wolf, turned to watch Drevor as he approached the shorter length of the table where he’d removed a chair entirely. As he sat his hindquarters down, he realized they hadn’t touched their plates.
What had he forgotten? It was a big meal. Were they expecting a prayer over the food? Perhaps. Trevor was usually insistent, though the ever-present feeling of an author looking over the scene didn’t help the consideration that maybe Trevor’s ‘god’ wasn’t real after all. Mentally shaking the thought, he kept his body still as he realized he’d had one of his mental loading screens again.
Careful to remove any edge from his voice, Drevor lowered his voice and asked the table: “... What’s the matter?” But as often the case, thrusting a problem to the front for a request of assistance locked something tight in his brain. He understood their silence suddenly: Trevor. Everyone was to wait for the head of the household to take the first bite. It was something Trevor’s father had done with his own family, and his grandfather before him. That upbringing led to Trevor always taking a piece alongside Holly before their children could. Drevor sighed, the moment ruined by expectations set from much earlier. “You don’t have to wait on me… just for everyone to be present.”
“Okay…” Tommy seemed to accept this new rule, though his tone was clearly uncertain. He reached out for a pancake to place on his plate. Alice did the same, leaning over the table and tentatively grabbing one of the steaks between her front teeth as green lupine eyes shifted to look at Drevor. Thoughts of turning her back to a human right away slowly bled away from his mind as he leaned over and began adding some food to her plate that would be hard to attain without thumbs. With one front paw on the edge of the table, he leaned his entire humanoid torso up and forward as he scooped up some eggs and slices of apple, and dropped them onto her plate.
“Thanks, Daddy…” the big male wolf said, happy she could stay as such a little longer. Drevor suspected maybe the girl had overheard him on the phone upstairs as he stepped back with his hindlegs and lowered himself back to a sitting position at his end of the table. It was then that Alice leaned over the table, tilting her head to let her teeth bite into the stacked food. Tom’s eyes went from his sister’s animal motions to focus on his own plate as he also started eating his food. His pace was slower than Alice's as the dire wolf literally wolfed down her food. Drevor wondered if she wasn’t so big or wolf if she’d have less stomach to fill.
He smirked. “You know, a wolf’s stomach can hold up to several pounds in a go, unlike a human,” Alice looked up at him with her green eyes as she tilted her head to the side to lick her plate clean. “If you were gunna keep that form, we might need to make your body more efficient,” Drevor offered with a grin, trying to start a topic he thought might be of interest.
He picked some vegetables and eggs for himself as he put a few more on Alice’s plate as well. Cutting into his steak, he shoved a large cut of it into his mouth. His lengthy and powerful tongue helped it down his throat without much chewing. Pausing, he realized that while he could do that like a wolf, it removed most of the time he had to taste what he was eating. After all, it wasn’t like all this food was raw and unseasoned. He’d spent time on this.
As the next long slice was placed in his mouth, his tongue wrapped around it almost like a snake, an interesting benefit of Chester’s suggestion to the anatomy of his current form. The savory taste of the chow was impeccable on his lupine-shaped, human-budded tongue. The seasoned meat, rarely cooked, was appealing to both the human and wolf parts of Drevor. He resisted his wolf inclinations to swallow more chunks whole and instead continued chewing his food to give it more time with his tongue.
It was after the whole steak was deep in his gullet that he became cognizant that Tommy and Alice had remained silent. They were eating as he’d instructed, but made no move to converse with each other or with him. Tom helped Alice get more food, and what had been a feast on the table diminished to a few eggs and bacon. What about this was still making the moment uncomfortable? He held back a scowl, but he suspected Alice would pick up on his somewhat stiffened body language regardless.
“Kids, is something wrong? It’s been a bit and… you’re quiet.”
Drevor shifted to look properly at each kid, one eyebrow lifted to ask the question again. Both of them looked at each other first, then at him. Even with one of the two being inhuman, there had still been that understood glance of ‘if we don’t say anything, he’s going to get madder’ which Trevor kind of liked, but David recalled the same feeling over his own dinner table growing up, many times. With David being the heavier weight due to his empathy, Drevor realized he really didn’t like that he had somehow evoked this reaction.
Tom spoke up first: “It’s just… Dad, you act so much like old dad did, but show so much of Mr. Scott…” He couldn’t finish his thought. Those hazel-green lupine eyes met his and though Drevor didn’t mean it as a challenge, it still caused Tommy to look away from the staredown. Instead, Tom became entranced by a singular piece of bacon, and picked it up from the plate slowly, as if creating a verbal buffer where he’d become distracted by this slim, greasy stick rather than whatever unimportant thing he’d just been saying.
“Isn’t that what you wanted, son?” Drevor answered him almost immediately as he watched the tween place the bacon on his plate. The wolftaur felt some indignation rising within him, a resentment towards his own son… the young man who had caused all this… his suffering. It was a feeling Drevor couldn’t shake. Recalling the hole digging from earlier, the man once again reflected on the fact that the terrible event and all that followed was Tom’s fault.
“I did,” the boy said, not looking at his new dad. “I did… though I was hoping you’d act more like uncle David…” Tom trailed off as he said it, this time scared to even glance at his amalgamate father. Wolves grabbed their children by the neck to pin them down, didn’t they? He imagined easily a scene of Trevor as a wolf doing just that. Feeling an intensifying gaze, Tom blurted out: “I set the slider to be more him…!” Then he mumbled, “Why didn’t it work?”
"My guess?” Drevor considered aloud as he eased into his hind legs, sitting back from the table, his tenor colder than he’d mean if he thought about it. “It's because you are too inexperienced to understand the results. You can’t wrap your head around what you asked an AI to do.” He sighed, then crossed his arms before raising his left away from his chest as he made the following point as hand motions in the air. “David and Trevor were diametrically opposed on some things, Tommy. That means completely opposed…” he explained, even though five more years of vocabulary probably meant he knew the word. It was habit. “Opposites,” he clarified.
Pressing onwards, Drevor wondered aloud: “Did you know David hated cops? Cops Trevor worked with… because cops killed two of David’s friends from work during those BLM protests,” he explained. “And, Trevor wasn’t just a cop… he was friends with those guys… which means now I am friends with guys who killed my own best friends," he laid out the building blocks for Tom to comprehend. "I know you have no idea what that does to a person because I'm me and even I am just figuring it out..."
Drevor's voice shifted to David for a second, "What am I always telling you, kiddo?" he asked and Tom’s mouth fell open a little, eyes quickly darting to the monstrous-sized new wolftaur. "You've gotta get consent. My life..." Drevor swallowed, going back to his new normal voice. "David's life was filled with times he could have been in major trouble without it... and you betrayed that,” he couldn’t help but growl. Tommy looked away. “Look at me,” Drevor said, firmly but without malice. Tom turned his head to look up at the muzzle of his father. “He may be dead, but know that you killed more than his body… you killed his memory too.” It was harsh, but they couldn’t get through this without the boy understanding what he’d done. Tears began to trickle down his face, silently.
Seeing those tears made tears well up at the corner of Drevor’s eyes, but still, he went on: “You changed him and your dad without their consent… because you knew if you asked either one of them to try being together as one, they would rightly each turn you down. So you didn’t ask.” Tom’s eyes hadn’t looked away from his father, finally finding the strength to meet the problem head-on. Drevor almost smiled, but now was not the time. “So maybe… just maybe, Tommy, you're not used to David being angry with you and you're just associating that with your father who often is." He paused. “David couldn’t really be your father these last three years… just a role model at best. He put on a good show. But if there was only one lesson he tried to impart upon you, it was that of consent… this—” the 6’8” tall wolftaur with broad shoulders and muscles on his muscles motioned broadly at his stocky form, “—is what you get from ignoring that lesson… and now we all have to live with the results.”
This would have been an awkward moment of heavy silence save for young Thomas crying and Alice’s throat unable to prevent a whimper. For Drevor, it was time for one of his newly instituted moments of internal conflict. The life experiences of Trevor and David suddenly became shared as Drevor had a vision of David Scott Junior and John Phillips—his fathers—having a similar seat at the end of the family table. At that moment, Drevor remembered the punctuation of the moment would end with the father’s phrase of “Now finish your meal” and the rest of the family would sit in mostly silence until maybe their mother tried to break the tension… maybe. It was a shared trauma for both the people who made up Drevor’s memories.
Drevor understood that his children hated—but mostly feared—Trevor… but he also knew that if he didn’t tackle this moment, Tommy would not live with his mistake… and he knew he had to. Drevor knew that because David and Trevor had each made mistakes. If you weren’t forced to learn from them you wouldn’t. Which, admittedly, had been a better project on David’s part than Trevor’s. Still, he had to be true to himself, or this was never going to work.
Before the wolftaur could firmly pick a course of action—or even be aware enough time had passed that he should have already performed one by now—Alice interjected. “It’s… confusing, Daddy…” she started to say, but when Drevor’s golden green eyes shifted to look directly at her, she froze. His face softened as an apology, hoping she would continue, and she did. “I don’t know what to say,” the wolf struggled for words, her chin dropping close to her plate in deference to his imposing visage. “How… How do we not make you angry.”
The shoulders of the dire lupine seemed to shrink as his body appeared to deflate in size. Without thinking about it, he instinctively pulled out David’s voice: “Kiddo. I’m… I’m not mad at you.” His eyes turned to look at Tommy, his voice shifting to Trevor as he spoke: “I’m not mad at you either.” Alice’s ears perked up, and Tommy caught his breath so quickly he gave himself the hiccups.
It was Drevor’s voice that laid out the entire situation next. His eyes were unfocused, and he tried not to look at me. Oh, he was mad at me, but what would it solve to tell the children that? So he shook his head and voiced his concerns: “I’m mad at me.” His words carried weight as Tommy silently hiccuped. “I’m mad that Trevor pushed you away so that your mom wanted to be with someone else. And I’m mad that David basically left a loaded gun where a child fearful of his father could get to it,” he said slowly, deliberately. “I’m mad because I’m innately a broken person, made up of two damaged men who in their own ways failed to be good parents.” Closing his eyes, he sighed a long breath, then opened them. “They were the ones who messed up, but now I have to clean up a mess I didn’t make.” Drevor’s mind recalled the hole out front again, and he shivered. Those wolfen eyes lifted then looked between his children. “The responsibility lies on me to guide you two… to do better than they did. But that sadly has to start with me being upset with Tommy, both because he needs to understand what he did—”
“I know what I did!” the boy yelled through hiccups and a sniffling nose. Both Alice and Drevor turned to look at the young man who threw his hands in the air. “I’m sorry, OK. We can hit undo!”
Before Drevor could reply, Alice leaned forward with her neck over the table as she spoke softly to her brother. “That would kill Drevor,” she said matter-of-factly. The wolftaur gave Alice a sad smile, then looked to Tommy. Without saying anything, he simply motioned to the boy’s sibling as if to say ‘I was going to say that’. Alice whined softly. “Besides, look at him,” she offered, her eyes glancing toward Drevor for a second before looking back at Tom. “The merge would be more than ten changes away now. Remember? Last night David was worried about not being able to undo mom’s kitsune change by having our transformations be too many?” She asked. “You can’t just undo it now.”
Tommy almost choked on the words: “So they’re really dead?”
Drevor’s eyes met Tommy’s. The truth was that David and Trevor’s universal transID’s from the cyocLayer were both tied to him now. There were ways to select them, even individually, and to do something that might bring them back… but that would complicate things even further, wouldn’t it? When given all the possibilities in the universe, it was hard to make the right calls.
Ultimately, it would be decided by a future author...
Sighing, Drevor reached up to his forehead to knead an incoming headache away with his left hand. Maybe some good news would assure them? “Yer Mom’s coming back with some stuff from Pizza Hut. Your favorites. And—” as Drevor’s eyes passed over Tommy, the boy felt he couldn’t withstand the look that he thought his new father was giving him. Pushing back the chair from the table, Tom quickly stood up. Wordlessly, he rushed away, down the stairs, to cry out of view—but not earshot—of the rest of his family. “And now there’s that,” he said softly to himself, looking back to Alice. “I’m trying,” he finally said, confiding in the big male wolf.
“Tom is scared you’ll do to him what he did to dad and… ‘uncle’ David.” The wolftaur blinked a few times at Alice. “You know… like… do something like he’d die.” Drevor looked from Alice to the basement stairs, then back to the little girl, his jaw opening just a bit. “‘What if he combines me with Thor, or Leeroy, or you?’ she imitated her brother’s voice.
Leeroy Beaufort was, essentially, Tommy’s primary bully.
Drevor shook his head, “Tom?”
“That’s what he started calling himself in his new memories,” she said. “He corrected me when we were talking earlier, so… Tom, right? Call people what they want to be called?”
More blinking from the wolftaur and he smiled and nodded. “That’s what David always said… that’s what I say too.” Reaching over, he ruffled Alice’s fur atop her head. “That’s why you’re still my little girl, regardless of how you look. Unless… you want to be my son?”
Alice tilted her head to the side. “What’s it called when you’d be both son and daughter?” she wondered.
“You mean if you and Tom were merged?”
The big wolf shook her head. “No. Well, yes, but. No, I meant… if I was a big wolf-taur like you. Both, right?”
Can’t hide anything from that nose, Drevor realized. “I guess just ‘child’... unless we wanted to make up a new word?” he asked her. Taking a breath, he lowered his hand from Alice’s ear. “I wouldn’t merge Tommy without asking. When I said that stuff this morning I…” he trailed off. “You remember when I—when Trevor cut his hand and was yelling at everyone who offered to help?” Alice nodded. “That was me. I was trapped in the moment of how much pain I was in, mentally. Still am,” he tried to explain to the little girl. “I’m sorry if I scared you. We’ll… we’ll figure this all out, together.”
Laying her head on the table, her eyes looked up at him. “Could I… could I be a big wolf like you now? I miss thumbs.” Drevor chuckled, petting his daughter’s head. “Later, kiddo. For sure. But… right now, your mom wants both of you to be human. Not sure why, right? Where’s the fun in being human?”
“Most of the fun I’ve ever had has been human fun,” was her retort.
“OK, fair,” the much bigger wolf nodded, but could not deny her logic. “But, no more transformations till at least after she gets here and, for now, I gotta change you back.”
“Can I have free memories like Tom?”
Drevor narrowed his eyes just a little. “Don’t push your luck kiddo.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “Maybe if your mom is OK with it. Me? I don’t think teenage minds inside child bodies is a good idea.” Reaching into his pockets, he pulled out the Emitter and stood up from the table, moving over to the Chronivac still on David’s iPad. “But maybe.” He conceded, then motioned for the big wolf to approach him in the kitchen. “C’mon… your clothes are there on the shelf,” he explained, having fixed them earlier. “When you’re ready, go in the bathroom and close the door. I have your transformation set to one minute and smooth style.”
Tapping the screen a few times, he looked over as Alice took the folded stack of clothes into her mouth and headed for the bathroom door. Her tail between her legs still indicated she was unsure, but she did as she was instructed. A moment later, Drevor heard the door latch as she had pushed it shut with her nose.
Like Alice had pointed out, there was no way to undo her specific change as he was even further back than the merge or Tom’s new memories. Rereading his edits on the tablet’s bigger than the phone screen, he swiped sideways to his saved settings for her. He’d already reconfigured Alice’s forms while he had been working on food earlier, it was simply now was the time to execute the changes. Scrolling through the details of the many stacked transformations, he was fairly sure of the result.
A few moments later, a little girl wearing red and white striped socks that reached up to her knees with a maroon-colored skirt stepped out of the upstairs bathroom. She was wearing a mostly white shirt with a pink battle bus on it little wolves and teddy bears jumping out in front of a rainbow. Her chest completely lacked the bust of the fairy she’d been the night before, once again pubescent. Physically, in body, she looked like Alice from the night before.
Drevor looked up as she approached. “Feel OK?”
“I feel small… and weak.”
“That’s only because you have something to compare to, kiddo. It’s because you’re eight, and not because you’re a girl,” he said to make sure he hadn’t just made his child transgender… Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
“I know,” she sighed. “It felt good. I like wolves,” she emphasized.
“Me too,” he said, holding a small bowl with some steak in it. “Take this to Thor, would you? I’ll be down in a few minutes.” Alice nodded, taking the saucer into her much smaller hands and carrying it towards the stairs. “I’ll be down in a few minutes…”
===—===
Monching on the last of the bacon, Drevor went about washing the dishes and placing them into the racks of the dishwasher. He could pick up the sounds of his children talking but doing his best not to eavesdrop. Sighing, he shook his head as he dried one dish he held over the sink. “Congrats. You’re just making different renditions of the same mistakes Trevor used to make.” He leaned over the sink. “Well… I both know and care,” which he surmised was an important distinction.
A notification made a swoosh sound on David’s tablet notifying him that the food was picked up from the Hut… that meant Holly was about twenty-five minutes away in the dead of early Wednesday traffic. He recalled that the ranch would’ve technically been out of the range of the delivery place, but David the Third and Senior both tipped well enough to make it worthwhile for any delivery driver. Of course, Holly picking it up made that a moot point, and as David finished his work in the kitchen, he eventually made his way downstairs.
Alice and Tom had stopped their activities and hushed up when they heard his heavy paws touch the top step of the just wide enough wooden stairs. The lumbering beast moved with an alien grace as they could see his dire wolf torso long before his upper, humanoid body became visible. Apparently, he had turned something into tight, form-fitting workout shorts which covered only his upper rear legs, butt, crotch, and part of his lower torso. His bulges were covered, though half his many nipples were not. Wagging behind him as he moved into the basement was that big fluffy tail, with the body language that he was in a good mood.
As reached most of the way down the stairs, he ducked to avoid hitting his head on the lower ceiling above. He’d left Trevor’s red and black plaid overshirt somewhere upstairs. Besides the shorts, he was now only wearing David’s white QR code shirt which stretched tightly across his pecs like a crop top. It was meant for a wolftaur notably smaller than he was and looked it.
Lifting his hands to a pipe that ran under the upper floor above him, the big wolftaur stretched, feeling his body’s muscle memory gearing up for the daily routine. Of course, most of that workout knowledge was wrong now. Only his upper body seemed to have any correlation to the old human forms he once had, and even Trevor’s mass wasn’t as big as he was now. Still, he was well versed enough in preparation and working out that he presumed he could figure out how best to stress-test this body.
Though David didn’t use the equipment his grandmother had—beyond the treadmill anyway—it was all out and able to be used if he saw fit. Drevor wasn’t a gym nut, though he wanted to be hale and hearty… and a part of him was very curious about what this body could really do. He didn’t say anything to the cubs. They were engaged with Donkey Kong Country 3. Instead, he walked in the direction of the maintenance room where Helena Scott had much of her equipment laid out or stored.
Drevor could feel the cool concrete beneath the carpeted space as he moved into the designated exercise space. “Now, where are those bigger weights?” The treadmill and workout bench were both visible, but he knew David’s grandmother had more. Part of David knowing women could be stronger than men was his grandmother… Why hadn’t he named her last night when thinking of examples? Considering it for a moment, he realized David had a tendency not to brag about his family’s accomplishments since it would contrast against his failures.
Shaking his head, Drevor caught the sight of his pups staring at him in the corner of his vision. He no longer heard the game playing and took their silence as his cue that they were watching his every move. Drevor knew working out was Trevor’s hobby, but it was something he wanted to do… right now, anyway. There was a sort of antsy feeling, his muscles begging to be used and feel the burn of lifting iron weights.
David didn’t bother with the equipment before and therefore didn’t know exactly where it was all stored, probably behind the crates stacked opposite the wall which had Thor on the other side. Trotting over near the laundry room’s door, Drevor smelled the familiar scent of iron wrapped in rubber. Pushing the heavy crates to the side, he found a rack holding many large weights. “Oh, damn. Grandma had these? I know grandpa was fit for farm work but these… no wonder she’s buff.” He counted the total numbers and his eyes went wide. “Whoa, wait… she has more than eight 45-pounders? That’s more than a set!” He leaned back on his hind legs and reached up to rub his forehead. “I’ve no idea what those two actually did for a living… but I’m starting to think it was spy shit or something…” He glanced at me, unsure if that had been the idea. Still, he shrugged and reached for the rack.
Recognizing the equipment he was looking for from Trevor’s memories, he cautiously took out a 50lb dumbbell. Testing it with a bicep curl, Drevor was very surprised to find it feeling light. His arm had no trouble taking on the weight, flexing as he lifted it. “Mmmh, yeah… that’s the thing.” The burn in his bicep faded away gradually, but the feeling of the pump in his arm didn’t recede. Huh, werewolf regeneration prolly repairing the damage within seconds.
Mentally, he’d been hoping his children’s stares would end and that they’d go back to their game. But he knew what happened upstairs needed to be addressed and preferably before Holly came home to Tom’s surprise. With a disappointed sigh—both because he couldn’t start his workout and find out if he could get worked up and because he really, really needed to start setting a better example as a father—he turned to look at his human children on the futon near the floor TV at the opposite end of the basement. They were tense and he really needed to prioritize fixing that more than figuring out a new routine.
Lowering his head towards his chest, he spoke their names loud enough that their human ears could hear him. “Tom. Alice,” he said, and he caught them flinching out of the corner of his eye. Though, to be fair, it was more Thomas cringing than Alice. Lifting his front legs in a kind of short hop, he pivoted on one rear leg and let the momentum carry him as he began walking in the opposite direction he’d just been facing and back towards the downstairs living area.
As he reached the both of them sitting on the futon, Drevor knew it was time to become the pillar that everyone could lean on, to become a figure of strength and stability for his family. Respected and trusted, but preferably not feared. A part of him felt loss no longer being part of the Phillips family, but that wasn’t really true. Whatever name he was listed by in the Chronivac wasn’t his legal name, and it wasn’t what he felt in his heart. Uh, hearts.
Their game was still paused as he approached from the side of the futon. Moving around the front of them, he laid down on the carpet after circling himself once. He was big, and at his size, his eight and eleven-year-old sitting on the futon were just about eye level with him. His shoulders loosened, and soon the rest of his body followed. Smiling, his tail wagged, happy that they didn’t simply slink away when he approached. Then again, maybe they just felt they couldn’t escape if they tried…
There was an unintended tension present, and he tried to cool the moment by saying: “I want to apologize.” He took a deep breath and watched as the two children looked at each other. Not a promising start, but he had to press on. They were still scared, but now they were openly waiting for his apology… something that should seem far more David than Trevor. His laying in front of them didn’t take away from his imposing air, which was good. The alpha of a wolf pack wasn’t a top dog, they were the parent. They were in charge, but they were meant to lead their family through troubles and danger… to be understanding when their children acted out… unless they put themselves in harm's way.
“I am apologizing for my behavior this morning… I was very angry about… what happened—” he said, careful not to trigger his own memory of the situation and interrupt his words. “—and how I expressed it to you both. To me, it was obvious the mistakes of your old father, Trevor, yet I still fell into his methods when I could not deal with my anger.” Reaching out with both arms, Drevor made a motion to them which indicated he wanted to hold their hands. Alice took his right, and, much slower, Tom took his left. Their hands were dwarfed by his own, he realized. Memories of holding each of them, Thomas and Alice, as babies came to his mind. He was there for their births, whatever the context. Drevor knew these pups were his and he had to protect them. The difference was so great—of size, of experience—he had to be gentle. In that way, nothing had truly changed.
His humanoid wolf paws gently held the smaller hands in his, the warmth all-encompassing. “I apologize for Trevor’s mistakes as well. Thanks to the merge, Tom, I can see how messed up it was… as if seeing myself from the outside. I promise to learn from their memories and to be the father you think I can be.” Drevor locked eyes with Tom, but not in a challenge for dominance. It was an impression he gave which meant ‘you believed in Trevor when no one else did… and we’re going to make that work’.
Turning his lupine head to look at his daughter, he went on: “I apologize to you as well, Alice. You are my baby girl, and I should be caring for you with proper love. From now on, I can promise to do better as Drevor.” The big wolftaur switched to lock eyes with her now, leaning forward to give a short lick—a kiss—to her forehead. Instead of giving a ‘bleh’ as some little girls might, she leaned into his neck, her head under his, and took a long whiff of his scent. That was certainly more of a wolf motion, and he didn’t know if she was left with instincts or just… being a weird little girl. Smirking at the action, his eyes shifted back to Tom. He gave his head a gentle ruffling of the boy’s hair, trying to let them both become comfortable with physical forms of fatherly love.
Waiting for a few moments, Drevor could hear their hearts slowly calming down. He tentatively spread his arms wide to invite them for a hug, though not forcing it onto them. Tommy and Alice glanced at each other speaking without words. There was a hesitance that Drevor could understand, but they steeled themselves and stood up from the futon, the both of them hugging him with increasing tightness. Drevor could feel his eyes water, memories of Trevor receiving insincere hugs briefly in his mind before he wrapped strong protective arms around his kids. He could hear sobs as both kids let tears flow into his fluffy fur.
“Daddy’s here…” Leaning down to kiss the heads of his children, rubbing circles into their backs. Their sniffles turned to openly cry as they finally felt safe to do so in his presence. He could only assure them as best as he could, shushing them gently. His thick arms shielded them from the cruel and harsh reality… a reality so easily bent thanks to the device he now had. Drevor glanced at me, somehow getting the feeling this was what the purple dire wolf wanted to see, but still resentful of what it took to get here.
“Let it all out.” Drevor allows himself a chuckle, giving verbal permission to release their tension. He held them close, wrapping a front leg around either of them from the outside. Those padded palms at their fronts while he places his hand over their shoulders, giving back rubs. Leaning forward, the wolf put his muzzle between the two of them, nuzzling each in turn. “Everyone needs a good cry sometimes,” he said, grinning with tears in his eyes. That was definitely not something Trevor would say.
The sound of the upstairs door from the basement latching into place made the big wolftaur’s ears shift upwards and to his right. That door didn’t get affected by any currents going through the house in all his years in this basement, but it did slide shut after a few seconds of being ajar. Suddenly, a vision of Ronan looking for answers about dragons got caught in his mind and he pushed his children low to the floor as he quickly stood up over them on all fours. A growl had begun in his throat before he caught a little white-blue form just under the bottom of the stairs.
There, just below the bottommost steps, was a little white fox with teal markings all over… a vixen, he could tell, and while the tension didn’t altogether leave him, he quickly realized at that moment who it was. Tails fanning out into three in total with paintbrush-like teal markings upon their tips, the kitsune shifted upwards into a humanoid shape with just a hint of spirit fire and ribbons as she did so.
The ribbons of teal and white wrapped around the humanoid fox as she stood up on the balls of her feet. She was easily 6’2”, taller than she’d been hours ago upstairs, but half a foot shorter than the wolftaur was at the top of his head. She wore a low-cut teal and white plaid kimono dress which went into a v-shape low in both the front and the back. The front showed her teal areolas peeking out from the white line of the v, while her revealed shoulders detailed the big crest of the White family in the low cut of the back. One leg forward, she showed off the curve of her thick thighs.
Lowered instincts or not, it was clear the kitsune had some ideas of where her interactions with David and her own children might go. Her bosom was barely contained without a shirt and it was possible her breasts only didn’t overflow due to magic. Her white hair fell onto her shoulders, tipped in teal. She flicked a strand away from her emerald green eyes with teal claws as she oozed ‘casual power’. Apparently, sometime in the last sixteen hours, she’d gotten very comfortable in her new form.
Frighteningly powerful, and extremely hot, admitted Drevor to himself. He pushed their children forward so that they were not so underneath him as he felt himself slowly crown. The anthropomorphic vixen fanned her three tails behind her, each pure of white except for the teal-colored, paintbrush-like tips. At their ends, a little cool teal flame burned a few inches above their tips, a show of casual power.
“Am I… interrupting something?” Holly smiled, but there was a bit of wariness in her eyes that Drevor could see.
What was that from? Lack of sleep? Did she already pick up any of the disparate clues that might reveal the current situation? How long has she been there? Damnit, she’s hot. Can we put the kids to bed already? Drevor shook his head, violently. Wait a second… is she… using a lust spell? No. No, it’s just… neither of the men who make me up has great control? Wait, no, that doesn’t sound right either. As he finished his shake, he quickly picked up from her question:
“Oh. You know. A tender moment,” he chuckled. She’d shocked him, and hopefully, she didn’t read too far into it. He was expecting to be able to brace himself for the coming discussion. Somewhere in his mind, he’d prepared a kind of ‘script’ of what he would say, and Holly’s sudden arrival had broken that mild preparation. Tenseness. Anxiety filled his body language and there was literally no chance an empathetic person like Holly wouldn’t pick up on it… and that was before she’d been turned into a kitsune. “Welcome back. Uh, where’s the food?”
Holly laughed a bit seeing the worried face of Drevor. “In… the car,” she said, her vulpine head shifting to the side as triangular ears focused on the children still hugging his waist. They’d buried their heads into the thick winter coat at his sides, trying to hide their surprise. Her voice had brought comfort, but the siblings understood that Drevor or Tommy both could each be in a lot of trouble. At about the same time, Tom and Alice looked toward their mother with red puffy faces. “Hey, my little kits, what’s the matter…?” Her voice brought a magical comfort, layered with love, kindness, and tenderness… but the wolftaur also heard the slight tinge of concern which would not bode well for him if things went south.
“Mom…” Tom spoke softly, almost inaudible to her ears. He was still hugging Drevor’s waist, the muscles under the thick fur and skin warm and sinewy. He felt sure… perhaps not that Drevor would be the father he wanted, but simply that he didn’t want his mom to take him away.
“Mommy…” Alice murmured, also latching onto Drevor’s thick waist as she basked in what felt like forever since her father hugged her. This was love, but also desperation. The little girl didn’t want Drevor to die either, but more than that… she hoped that if her mom split the two men, Trevor might be somehow put far away…
To Holly, this made no sense. David wasn’t her lover, and he wasn’t the type to overstep his bounds, but she had clearly heard him say ‘Daddy’s here’ just a moment earlier. Why were they crying? The Kistune had had several hours to get used to feeling rich empathy as if it were a cloud of sensation that hung around people. What a night she’d had in the hospital! But none of what was happening here had aligned with her expectations of returning to the ranch this morning.
Holly put her hands on her wide hips. She was picking up that something was wrong, or that they thought something was wrong, but what? Maybe I interrupted the hiding of the surprise and… her thought trailed off as she just decided to ask it aloud: “I was told Tommy made a surprise for me?” That’s all she could think of. She motioned a hand towards the group of huggers. “This it?” Holly was smiling kindly, though seeing her kids bury their faces into David’s fur and him standing without words were bringing a sense of unease into her mind. She expressed this with a lifted eyebrow, looking to what she knew as a muscular David for answers.
Then Thor, likely having scented a fox nearby, barked.
“Uh—” Drevor started.
The mostly white vixen’s emerald eyes shifted from the trio to the far room of the maintenance. Her little teal nose wiggled as she gathered up a familiar canine scent. Fur at her exposed back raised slightly as those gemmed eyes met those of the stocky wolftaur hugging her kits. “David… that’s Thor,” she said. As she looked back at his hazel-green eyes… the green, the buzz-cut, the auburn in his fur. “If that’s Thor, then…”
He flinched. The moment of truth.
“We can explain.”