#howlinjack

The phrase ‘follow your nose’ had always bothered Jackie. When had following their nose ever done anyone any good? A year into having that bite on his side and he still wasn’t used to the face that he could follow his nose. Everything smelled so much more. The world was so damn smelly. Everything was much more than it had ever been before and more often than not lately, a nagging curiosity led him along rather than any sense of self-preservation. That and a whisper of a phrase on a downtown street that seemed to reach his sharp ears and no one else’s. A whisper that led him to a place in the woods with a smell he couldn’t place.

Somehow, he Toucan Sam’ed his way in front of a washer-dryer set that had seen better days. The building it was in probably had too. Jackie huffed. Flexed his hands by his sides. Who was he to judge? The machine looked unassuming enough. Just some buttons and knobs. Old as shit. What was the worst that could happen? He already felt foolish just being there. Pressing a button wouldn’t realistically make it any worse. The sound of a door hissing open startled him and he clutched a hand to his chest.

“Jesus.”

“Not that kind of place, sorry to disappoint,” a gruff voice mumbled. “Jumpy, ain’t you?”

And then a man Jackie had never met before in his thirty-six years of living sniffed him. He hesitantly sniffed back. Was that what he was supposed to do? The man looked at him, sniffed again, then cracked a smile that could have been threatening or welcoming.

“Picked a good night, first-timer. Go on in.”

Mmm don’t like that, Jackie thought. He gave his thanks and walked past the man that smelled like…not a dog but a different kind of animal. More woodsy? Walked past him right into a room that smelled strongly of dogs and beer and more dogs and…hot dog water? A room full of howls and laughs and yips that he simply couldn’t relate to himself. Yet it sounded like him. The him of before and the him of now.

Jackie all but ran to the bar top and sat down heavily in a spot away from the crowd. Right now wasn’t the time for a crisis, he urged himself, then ordered a whiskey neat. Stared into it because he wasn’t sure where else to look. There were too many smells, too many sounds, and sights he couldn’t make sense of. Velvet and steel and teeth and snakeskin. He just needed a breather. Just a minute and he’d be fine. Maybe another whiskey too.

—

The one downside of The Chimera was the parking. To say it sucked would have been an understatement. Sure, it made sense not to have a bunch of cars lined up outside the decrepit old building. For a place that did its best to remain under the radar, a veritable car show parked outside would have been a flashing neon sign that not all was what it seemed. Viv glowered down at the mud that caked her boots as she stomped down the stairs into the basement. 

Grizz had mentioned the place to her. When the circus had packed up, and taken her whole life with it, the old bear had done his best to provide her with some friendly faces, and to provide himself with some small shred of comfort in knowing the lamia had placed she could go. Viv had become a frequent face over the course of two years— shit, almost three years. Had it really been that long already? She did the math in her head again, knowing the answer even before she’d finished counting how many months had passed. How could she not know. Viv woke up every day with the exact number of days it had been since she’d seen her family last, and entered into this inescapable prison sentence of an existence. 

Viv pulled off her helmet and raked a hand through her hair, shaking it out as she jammed a finger into the dryer button. “Yeah, yeah, it’s just me.” The bouncer snorted, shaking his head exasperated as the lamia started to head inside. “One of these days, I’m going to lock you out.” He called after her. Viv laughed, shoving a crumpled ten in the man’s hands as she pushed past him. Blowing a kiss, Viv raised her middle finger with a wink to the bugbear. “Nah. You’d miss me too much.” 

The woman made a beeline to the bar, hoisting herself up onto an empty stool. “— Stevie, when I tell you today was a fucking bitch and a half,” Viv called to the bartender, slumping forward onto the bar as her fingers raked up into her own hair and she massaged her temple. “I had this one lady insist she ordered a different order five different times. No I ordered chocolate chip pancakes, no I ordered waffles with blueberry compote, god you’re incompetent, how do you have a job? Jesus fuck.” She groaned, relieved to finally be in a spot where she didn’t have to mind her tongue. 

A pint glass sloshed as it was set down in front of her, and Viv flicked her fingers at the bartender in a salute as they shook her head at her antics. She took a long sip, the tightly wound coil of tension she’d become unwinding ever so slightly as she sipped her beer. But the more she relaxed, she couldn’t help but notice the stranger she’d parked herself next to was radiating nervous energy in waves. Her brows raised, narrowed eyes taking in the sight from head to toe. 

Probably not a siren… they always struck Viv as a proud lot. She couldn’t blame them. If she’d been born with wings, she’d think she was hot shit, too. He didn’t have the feline grace some of the balam she’d known carried themselves with… no, the poor guy looked like a shaky dog, scared shitless and alone in a new place. “First time?” She asked, shifting in her seat to look at him. 

—

The sheer noise of the world had been the first of his changes to startle Jackie. It was all just so much louder, crisper, shriller. Dog whistles? Actual hell. The sound of the bar was, needless to say, a lot but it was…familiar. Reminded him of the Lion back home. He tried to focus on that feeling. Hold it close to his rapid heartbeat as he slowly spun his whiskey glass on the coaster. A soggy homage to The Slaughtered Lamb sign eyed him through the amber.

Through the sound of pool cues and laughter, a new one entered. Rolled up to the bartop like a gathering storm and Jackie couldn’t help himself but to glance over. One of the first rules of bar going was to never glance over. Julian had taught him that. And to hell with Julian. He lowered his eyes and listened. She was at this strange bar, same as him, but the way she talked about her job, they could have been anywhere. It was normal. She worked a job she didn’t seem to like all that much and after a rough day, went to the bar to raise her spirits. Like anyone would. The bartender knew her.

Not so different. 

Jackie’s brow furrowed. He worked a job he semi-liked, more out of convenience and an inhuman reluctance to just give up on the one thing he was ever good at, and he had found his way to a bar too. Or it had found its way to him. He wasn’t so sure how he felt about coincidences anymore. He listened to her tale and fought off a smile. Once, when he had wanted to piss off his dad, he had taken up some shifts at the Morning Glory off of 10th St. A favor to his friend, mostly, but also a moment to get away and not be in the gloves. He hadn’t been there long but the experience seemed universal.

Again, not so different.

The feeling clung to his gut like a burr and Jackie shifted uneasily. Someone howled in the corner. He was different. As far as he knew, irrevocably. The white noise drowned out the rest of the bar until he heard the shift of barseat leather and felt eyes on him. He tapped his fingers against the rim of his glass, then looked over. Her hair was pink. Sometimes, if a bout got messy, his hair would turn pink from all the blood. These days, it felt like he was always dyed with it. Another long moment and he registered her question.

“Me?”

A strained smile. One quick sip of his whiskey. He held it like a buoy.

“Oh, uh, yeah, first time. Clear as day, huh?” Jackie finally answered. “Heard about it, sort of, and thought, what the hell, why not? Beats going to…” He searched for the name of the place she probably worked at. Couldn’t grasp it in his hands. “...Waffle House? Nah, the pancake place. Pancake Hut? Palace? I got nothing, but y’know...”

A slight rise and fall of his shoulders.

“This a regular place for you?”

—

Viv snorted. “No, the other guy sitting here looking like a lost lamb. Yeah, you.” For all the bite her words could have contained, the exhausted, lopsided smirk of a smile on her face had her sounding more playful than pissed. The poor guy muscled out a smile like it was causing him physical pain to do so. He was holding on to the rocks glass like it was the single thing in the bar keeping him from crawling out of his skin. He seemed new, new. Definitely not a siren. Sirens weren’t made. He seemed like he’d been drop kicked into the fucking deep end, and was just barely treading water. 

She took a sip of her beer as she nodded, turning to kick one leg over the other as she really looked at the guy. She’d had years of feeling the safety that came in numbers. In a place like the Chimera, Viv felt a little bit closer to home. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend Andrej and Luka were playing darts across the way, bickering about who was the better shot of the two, or Eva was sat next to her, trying to convince her to dye her hair some other color than the faded out pink. This man didn’t seem to share that comfortability. This didn’t feel like a living room to him. Not yet. 

As easy as it was to feel safe in the chimera, the woman could remember a time when she was coiled and ready to strike at any given moment. It hadn’t always been safe. Once she’d been a scared kid who hadn’t had anyplace she’d belonged. Grizz had been the one to really bring her into the fold, and make sure Viv could start to live instead of just survive. The man in the bar wasn’t a scared kid like she’d been, but he sure as hell was in survival mode. 

“Flipped.” She supplied, taking another sip. “Local diner. But if you’re going there for anything other than the pancakes, you’re fucking insane. The foods good, but the pancakes are one of the few things keeping me from finding a different gig.” Viv sighed as she set her beer back down on the counter, stretching her arms overhead before settling back in her chair. “Regular enough. I can get more comfortable here than I can at the Wormhole. Y’know? Can’t get past the front door if you’re not a part of the club.” The woman held her glass up in a salute. “Viv. Welcome to the party.”

—

Jackie huffed through his nose and nodded his head. Yeah, she had him there. The room felt full of a familiarity that he couldn’t touch, only observe. The outsider. But he had been let in, for a reason that didn’t sit right under his skin. He tried not to think about that so much. To stay present as she talked to him, looked at him. Saw him. There wasn’t any flash of recognition, a look that started with ‘hey, aren’t you…?’ He was glad for that. That didn’t stop the way he tensed when she turned and fully looked at him. 

It was just a conversation at a bar, it didn’t have to be anything more than that, but it was. Jackie had passed a sniffcheck at the door and got an okay that he wasn’t sure he felt okay about getting. He had gone in anyway. Sure, he worried, but part of him held off any sense of self-preservation or caution. Reckless. That yawning beast in his chest turned over at the thought of it. He lifted his eyes from the bartop and looked back at her too. An easy smile, comfort, confidence. He’d had that once too. It fit her. It didn’t feel like it fit him anymore.

“Right, Flipped,” Jackie agreed. “They’re that good, huh? Guess I should probably try it. Beats the Jimmy Dean breakfast shit I throw together every morning.” He lightly tapped fingertips against the bartop as he listened. Questions jumped up as she spoke but he withheld them. God, he had so many. “Yeah, I think I get what you mean. The Wormhole’s, uh, interesting. D’you know what’s up with the guinea pigs?”

The club. The party. She spoke about it all so casually that it made Jackie’s jaw ache with how tightly he pressed his teeth together. What was it like for her? Was she like him? He couldn’t tell. There were too many smells in the room and his heart thundered in his chest.

The smell of hot dogs overruled everything as one, fully dressed with mustard wolf ears and onion teeth, was slid in front of him. The bartender nodded at him. He didn’t nod back.

“...Jackie,” he said as he half-raised his glass. “Right, the, uh, club. What is it?”

—

Whoever he was, he didn’t like having all eyes on him. Viv ignored the impulse to lean closer to see what might have been hiding below the surface. She didn’t know his life. What was more, she knew what it was like to suddenly be surrounded by a world she hadn’t known existed. At seventeen, she’d felt safer than she had in her entire life when she fell in with the Cirque de L’ours, but she’d still been a coiled little corn snake, playing at being a viper and ready to strike at a moment's notice. It had been hard to give up a defense mechanism that had been decades in the making. 

She leaned back on her stool, draping herself across it like she owned the damn place as she took another long sip from her beer. “Listen, this town and I have no love lost. But when I do get the fuck out of here, I will miss the pancakes.” Viv snorted, rolling her eyes. “It’s a shithole, you can say it. But it’s a good one. The owner Harvey’s a good guy. And do not gamble with those bitches— those fuzzballs are sharks if you’re not careful. Won three hundred off me once in a poker game.” She paused a beat before continuing. “In case it wasn’t clear, they’re not really guinea pigs. Not really sure what they are, but they love to gamble.”

The man sat across from her was wound so tight, she was practically waiting for his head to pop off his shoulders. She wanted so badly to write it off and just enjoy her drink, but the voice in the back of her mind that sounded far too much like a grouchy old bear had something that vaguely resembled a kind smile settling on her lips. “Fuck, you are green. The not quite human club.” She shut her eyes, and when she opened them again the deep brown of her irises had been replaced with a vivid red, serpentine slits dashing the place human pupils had once been. “No one here bites. Unless you’re into that sort of thing.” She winked before leaning onto the bar and flagging down the bartender. “Stevie— can I get a dog too? That smells good. And a round of shots for me and my friend Jackie, here, before he passes the fuck out.” 

—

“Ready to leave town, huh?”

His head tipped to the side at her statement. Jackie wasn’t sure how to feel about Wicked’s Rest, let alone himself. The town felt off and strange, incredibly dangerous. And who was he to judge it for being all of those things? He couldn’t have before, certainly not lately. If this was the place for him, he didn’t know. In truth, he didn’t want to say that it was. What that would say about him. What it would mean for him to accept those parts of himself that had fangs and claws. If he could burn it out of himself, he would have with little to no hesitation. 

How freely she spoke, how she carried herself…A strange shame crawled along Jackie’s skin as he listened to her, softly laughing at the way she talked about places he had come to be familiar with. Desperately, he wished he could be that way too, to breathe and be that easy. But he couldn’t. He didn’t even know what to do with his own fucking hands anymore and they were what he had always felt certain of. He didn’t want to think of that, to wallow. He wanted to just be Jackie. Sitting in a bar full of people that smelled like him, that could smell the sickness on him, was a strange place to try that. 

He refocused on Viv and nodded in agreement.

“It is a little, yeah, but every town’s got their beloved shithole, right? One of those places where the quirks of it all are part of the appeal. What makes it feel okay,” Jackie said. The most he had said since he sat down. She talked about the guinea pigs like they had the wherewithal to make complex decisions, let alone rob people of their money. Given the way he was less human and more of a beast lately, maybe a guinea pig could be more human than he thought. Or something else, like she suggested. New fear acquired. “I’ve heard good things about him. Not so much the…not guinea pigs? I’ll keep that in mind, I guess.”

One moment, her eyes were like his, and the next they were a shade of red too bright to be blood. And inhuman. Jackie sat back a moment, blinked, then leaned forward the slightest amount. Curiosity widened his hazel eyes by a fraction.

“Were…Were you bitten by a snake?”

He felt silly asking it, no sillier than he already felt. Like an imposter no matter where he went in town. Her wink threw him off and his skin burned as he returned his attention to his drink. My friend Jackie. It felt rude to ignore the hot dog. Out of politeness, he waited until another one was slid in front of her before he started to pick at his own. And then their round of shots arrived.

“You didn’t have to do all that,” he said as he eyed them. Then he looked at her again. “Well, should we cheers to something?”

—

“That’s the understatement of the century.” She snorted into her beer. “Gets to a point where you’re gnawing at the fucking bars of your enclosure.” Viv had been rattling the bars of her invisible cage for nearly three years. She could never go to a zoo again. She understood what the poor bastards felt like. Locked in, pacing back and forth, and never able to get to that spot just behind the glass. It was enough to drive anyone— man, beast, or both— to the brink.  

He was coming out of his shell, little by little. Viv was pretty sure he hadn’t said more than four words in a row to her since she’d opened her mouth, so the complete sentences were a nice change of pace. “Yeah, Harv’s great. Won’t find a nicer guy. He’s pretty much the only reason I go in. Those fucking furballs, however. There’s some restaurant in town that flips to a casino at night. Little bastards will bleed you dry if you’re not careful. I really don’t want to find out what the Godfather version of a Not Guinea Pig is.”

She was expecting the surprise on his face. The curiosity that lit up something in those hazel eyes reminded her a bit of the kids who’d press their squishy little faces against the glass when they were looking at the ‘snake ladies’. The wonder and amazement, and the mommy, can I be a snake mermaid of it all. And then nostalgia of the moment popped like a soap bubble as Jackie asked what was possibly the funniest fucking question Viv had ever heard. 

Viv was laughing— a sharp, bright bark of a sound cut through the cacophony of the shifter bar and had the lamia doubled over. “No— fuck, sorry, that was funny. No, I wasn’t bit by a snake. I was born this way. Or hatched? Shit, did I hatch out of a fucking egg? Not important—” Viv sighed, shaking her head as she giggled. “Bit by a snake, like I’m fucking Spider-Man.” At least now she knew he wasn’t exactly like her. “I’m a lamia. We’re either born this way, like yours truly, or cursed by a witch or some shit. I’ve never met anyone who fell into the latter category though.” The embarrassed flush that was rapidly taking over the man’s face had Viv wondering what she could do to speed him along to looking like a bashful tomato. “Basically Medusa but sexier.” She continued, an impish glee lighting up the snake’s eyes. “But I can’t turn you to stone. At least, not like that.” 

Viv went right back to her game of process of elimination as she waited on the food and drinks. “Alright, I give up. I can’t sniff you out like the doorman. Not a lamia… and you don’t reek like hard boiled eggs, so probably not a hellhound. So either you’re literally spider man, or you're a wolf.” 

The shots were set down in front of them before she could lock in her guess, and she waved off Jackie’s protestations. “I had people help me out when I first found a community. Only fair I pay it forward.” Viv shrugged. She slid a shot his way before grabbing the other for herself. She raised the glass in a little salute. “To finding yourself a community?” She offered. 

—

Jackie bit the inside of his cheek, tasted blood. Gnawing at the bars of your enclosure agitated that fever beast in his chest. The monster had him caged and he had the monster in the saddest excuse of a grapple this side of the fucking river. The monster laughed at the idea of an enclosure and he frowned, trying to push down that flood of panic that seemed to rise every time he focused on where he was. She seemed so comfortable, confident. Everything about her said that and he mourned for his ghost that used to be that too. He looked at Viv and tilted his head.

“You can’t leave? Is it, uh, family or…?”

The mention of a guinea pig casino brought a brighter, lighter smile out of him. One that almost showed teeth until Jackie caught himself and made it something smaller. Dimmer. Covered the moon. Viv was easy to talk to. Nice. It had been hard for him to find words. Afraid of how inhuman they might come out. But sitting there, laughing about card shark guinea pigs and sharing a drink…He almost felt human again. In the most inhuman place he could have been. He sat with that for a moment.

He felt sick. Knew he was.

“I don’t think I do either, just watching the Godfather stressed me out enough for a lifetime. Y’think one of ‘em is named Vito? The biggest one maybe…”

Jackie turned his drink around in his hand thoughtfully. And then her laugh pulled him out of his own head. He felt eyes on them as people glanced over at the sudden sound and he felt his skin burn even more, but he didn’t feel embarrassed. Not necessarily. Maybe a little when she looked at him and giggled and he couldn’t help but smile back. Return her bright laughter with a soft, unsure laugh of his own. He barely knew what the hell was up with werewolves. Snakes (weresnakes?) were years beyond him. Then she talked and it wasn’t weresnakes and he was riveted.

“So…not Snake-Woman, Marvel trademarked, then…” 

He went to tear off a piece of the hot dog, heard basically Medusa but sexier, and froze in spite of it all. Centered himself to make another attempt but then the follow-through hit of being turned to stone caused his half-assed attempt to piece the hot dog apart to turn into a mess of condiments and mystery meat. He frantically reached for napkins and swore at himself under his breath for what felt like a lifetime, sure that she enjoyed this, and wanted to fade away into the floorboards. He wasn’t a boy, he had objectively heard worse, but this was different.

“Jesus,” he huffed under his breath. And then she continued on like he wasn’t suffocating and he tried to pretend for her sake that he wasn’t. “Spider-Man wouldn’t be so bad, maybe…”

He glanced down, a mess of a man, at his mess of a werewolf hot dog. There he was. He didn’t look up when he answered.

“Uh, wolf I guess. I was bit by one so now I guess I can get into places like this. Neat, right?”

Community. Help. Could Jackie be helped? It didn’t feel like he could but then he was at a bar with Viv being kind to him, with her bright laugh and her warm smile, and he wanted to believe that. Yet he still felt cold as he took the shot glass in hand and angled it towards her. Tried to find a warm smile in himself to share with her but it was buried deep.

“Sure, yeah, to that.”

—

“Ah— no.” Viv rolled her shoulders, trying to shake herself loose of the tension that seemed to creep in when she remembered that, given the opportunity, she’d leave the small town behind and never look back. “No, my family’s on the road… long story. Be careful before you promise anyone in this town anything, that’s all I’m saying. Real fucking careful.” 

The devil-may-care gleam in her eyes dimmed as she imparted the advice. It was as serious as she was willing to get that evening. There were nights that she’d stay up and watch the clock, counting the seconds that passed by as she grew older, and nothing changed. She’d sit in the dark of her apartment, a neon haze from the window casting the room in a purple hue, and rot in the anger until she was a shriveled, bitter husk of a thing. Nights like this one were the opposite. Viv shed that old skin, and embraced the one underneath. The one that chased pleasure as a distraction from the hell that she’d found herself in. 

Distractions like watching Jackie’s face turn a delightful shade of red as her lack of decorum kept him on his toes. “Probably. Wonder if offering them some cannolis might do me some good.” Viv watched the flush creep up his face as the boisterous persona she’d adopted for the evening had the spotlight of attention creeping onto them. Another uncouth joke fell from her lips, and the poor man nearly choked to death on his hot dog, that proceeded to fall apart in his hands. She pressed her lips together in a thin line as she lost a battle with herself to not let the corners of her mouth curl up in a smile. “I’m no Spider-man. I’d need a filter for that. Closer to Deadpool, if anything.” The turn the conversation was taking had her missing a different wolf entirely. She wanted Jackie to agree to her toast just so she could take the shot and burn away the ache she could feel in her chest. 

“Neat, sure… terrifying at first though, I’m sure. Remember the first time I grew a fucking tail… thought I was the devil or some shit.” Viv gave the man a sympathetic glance. “Especially if you don’t know any of this exists… like being shoved in the deep end and not knowing how to swim. Once you find your people…. It helps, is all I’m saying.” She shrugged, lifting her glass. “To that.” she echoed, before hastily taking her shot. 

—

“You’re okay,” Jackie said as his eyes flitted around Viv’s face. Maybe it was discomfort he detected. Maybe it was discomfort at himself. Who was he to ask after anyone’s story when he kept a tight lock on his own most days? Anything prior to the last year could be read in the Inquirer. The last 365 days were the first that he could keep to himself. He hated and welcomed that. “Happy to hear it whenever you wanna tell it. If you do, y’know.”

Jackie didn’t want to assume, jump to any conclusions. The world he had assumed to be one way had turned out to be another. He wondered if that had happened to Viv too. Whatever it was, he wouldn’t prod at it any further. They were at that shared bartop for a reason. Two hot dogs, a few shots, and a loud silence between them. He took in a quiet breath, then showed Viv a quiet smile. A tired one.

“So I…shouldn’t promise you that I won’t promise anyone anything? Gotcha.”

He laughed low in his throat and rubbed at his knuckles to ease the flustered tension that gathered along his skin. Jackie was out of practice. Talking, being comfortable. Being himself. The mention of cannolis warmed his smile further. The mention of copyrighted characters that the Mouse would side-eye reminded him of home. Of arguments between rows of comics decades older than him. Hardly arguments but more playful excuses to talk for hours and hours about people that weren’t themselves.

He could spend a lifetime doing that.

“Well, glad you’re not really Ryan Reynolds, tryin’ to sell me fuckin’ Cricket mobile or whatever the fuck.”

It wasn’t neat. It was awful. It was soul-rending hell but over a hot dog wasn’t the place to dump all that. Time and place. Jackie thought about what she said. Thought of how placid and calm snakes always seemed when he crossed their path. They weren’t monsters, weren’t beasts. He didn’t see Viv that way. She wasn’t a devil. They didn’t come to him as kind strangers in bars with nice smiles and skin-warming humor. They came to him in more familiar shapes.

“I’m sure they’re, uh, nice. Pretty? Your scales and stuff.”

Jackie wasn’t sure of himself in that bar. Surrounded by a new familiarity that felt suffocating and life-ending. That made the creature under his skin turn over and over, furious that it wasn’t out. But he was alive and looking at Viv and he was okay. As much as he could convince himself that he was. Later on, when he was alone, that’s when the scaries would creep in.

“...Thanks for this, Viv,” he said to her, sincerity wrapped tight around his words. “For, uh, helping me figure out how to swim.”

—

Viv gave him a tight little nod. She was not about to dump her baggage on some guy in the bar. She hadn’t had anywhere near enough to drink to open up that can of worms. And besides— She had people to talk to. Sure they were only accessible to her through a screen in her pocket, and were all a thousand miles away, but she had people… 

The casual conversation was enough to drag her mind back to where she liked it when she was in a place like The Chimera. Light and casual, nothing too serious. Just enough to forget, for a few minutes. “Fuck— not Mint Mobile.” She snickered, shaking her head. “I’d have a way cooler side hustle than selling fucking phone lines.” This was why she went out. Conversations about bullshit that didn’t matter. Things that weren’t a constant reminder that she was stuck in the few dozen square miles that made up the town of Wicked’s Rest.