when we were ourselves (part iv)
They ended up compromising, because they genuinely did need extra supplies - special food, an actual dog bowl to put it in, smaller syringes from the vet’s office. Joe searched for, and found, a glucose meter made especially for dogs, which Nick couldn’t argue with, and a ball to play fetch with, which he could. And did.
He lost. Joe eventually got him to reluctantly admit that he’d gotten a little bored of just chasing Joe’s toes under the blanket until he fell asleep, but he refused to admit that he actually wanted to fetch things for his brother.
“I need to stay active,” he said primly as they checked out all of his new swag. (Joe couldn’t stop grinning. It was like buying for Winston all over again! Only, for Nick, which made it even better, somehow.) “And running around chasing a ball is as good exercise as any. Besides,” he added, blushing as he handed over his credit card to the clerk, “it seems like it’d be kind of...fun.”
The girl behind the register gave them both an extremely strange look as she hesitantly passed the card back to Nick, looking like she wasn’t quite sure whether he was dangerous or just normal L.A. weird. Nick gave her a tight, polite smile and turned on his heel, blushing furiously as he left. Joe followed him out, nearly choking, he was laughing so hard.
Thinking of Winston reminded Joe abruptly that he’d been away from his puppy all night and most of the morning, and, feeling guiltily panicked, he called Garbo once they got home and hastily spun a story about having to help Nick because he’d come down with some kind of stomach bug and was really sick and could Garbo just keep an eye on Winston for a couple days until Nick was feeling better and Joe could come retrieve him? Garbo was more than amenable; as the newest and by far cutest addition to the bachelor pad, Winston was Jack and Garbo’s new favorite thing in the whole world. Winston already had two card-carrying fanclub members besides Joe.
Garbo furthermore didn’t mind putting the phone down to Winston’s ear when Joe asked him to, although Joe had a feeling he wouldn’t be hearing the end of it for a while. He reassured his puppy that he was there and he’d see him as soon as he could, that he loved him, that he was the handsomest dog in the entire world and Joe’s very favorite bulldog of all time. He didn’t notice Nick standing in the doorway listening until he had already devolved into baby-talk in a high-pitched tone that made Winston bark excitedly into the phone.
The smirk on Nick’s face made Joe clear his throat and quickly wrap up the call, but at least he didn’t have to worry about who was going to take care of Winston for the next little while.
“Shut up,” he told Nick before Nick had even said a word. Nick’s grin only broadened as he casually crossed his arms and leaned in the doorway.
“Admit it, Joe. You have a huge crush on your dog. Bet you wish you were the were-puppy so you could go have a love affair with him.”
“You're just jealous, Nicholas,” Joe said loftily. Nick snorted and shook his head.
“I don't want to be your dog boyfriend, Joe, trust me. You slobber on me as a human. I can't even begin to imagine what you'd do as a puppy.”
Joe leered at him. “You love my slobber, Nicky. Love it. Besides, if we were both puppies, you'd be slobbering, too, so what would you care?”
Nick rolled his eyes and pursed his mouth a little, but the corner of it was twitching. “I like bitches, Joe. Sorry.”
Joe choked on a laugh. “Well, then. We'll go scoping lady dogs at the park tomorrow morning if you want. Find you a girlfriend!”
The deer-in-the-headlights look of horror that came over Nick’s face then absolutely made Joe’s day. “Joe, I was kidding.”
“Oh, we're totally gonna do this,” Joe said, ignoring him completely. “We'll find you a cute little terrier or a Pomeranian to slobber on you instead. And you'll be a hit with human girls, too! Even more than you are already, even!”
Nick scowled. "Joseph Jonas, do not take me to a park to pick up dogs. I hate you so much."
"I am trying to improve your social life, Nicky. It's not healthy for a growing puppy to be without friends and pretty girls." Joe grinned huge, giving away that he was just teasing.
Nick glared at him. "I will pee on you again if you take me anywhere near a park while I'm a dog, Joseph. I can't go out in public like that."
"Nobody would know it was you, Nick. Hell, I could call you Nick in front of a bunch of people and the most they would thing would be that I was a psycho who names puppies after my brother. But," he said a bit sadly, sighing exaggeratedly. "I suppose we don't have to. I'll just keep you all to myself and play fetch with you."
Nick sighed, seeming content with that, and nodded, although he absolutely did not concede the point about fetching, Joe noticed. "Good,” he said.
He spent most of the rest of the day sleeping off the lingering lethargy from being so sick the night before, and Joe privately worried himself nearly sick that if - when - Nick became a puppy again, he wouldn’t be able to stop the same thing happening as had happened the first time. He didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t take care of Nick through this the way he’d promised he would. He was Nick’s big brother. He had to be able to look out for him. It was his job. And that helpless feeling, not knowing what to do or how to fix it when Nick was suffering, was something he’d never wanted to feel again, swore he wouldn’t ever feel again. He wasn’t completely sure he could stand being the one solely responsible for Nick’s survival like that. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself that much. But he knew for damn sure he didn’t trust anybody else to do it right.
“Any idea what time it happens?” Joe asked curiously as they slumped together on the couch in the livingroom later that evening, remains of a prefab frozen lasagna shipwrecked on the coffee table in front of them. Joe was staring mindlessly at the TV as Nick channel surfed and thinking about decorating the house for Christmas. They never decorated this house because they never spent Christmases in it, but Joe was having a hard time getting in the holiday spirit without a tree to decorate and lights to string and presents to shake and put his hands all over, trying to divine their contents, when Nick wasn’t looking.
“None whatsoever, if you want a specific time,” Nick admitted, settling on a soccer game and turning the volume low because the commentary was in Spanish. “It was later than this. Not very long before you got here, I don’t think.”
“Hmm,” Joe mused, lulled nearly comatose by his brother’s warm weight leaning against him and the fluttering blue glow of the TV in the dark. He wasn’t sure when they’d grown fond of sitting in the dark watching television like vampires or whatever; maybe from too many late nights spent, wired beyond sleep by adrenaline and jet lag, under enforced lights-out policies when they’d sit up together in one bed with a hotel TV running for white noise while they untangled their days together. Joe felt a little disloyal thinking it, but this felt like home more than actually being in Dallas with all his relatives would feel like home. Sitting in the dark, talking with Nick about everything and nothing much at all, would always be comforting to him.
“Were you, like, doing anything when it happened?” he wondered, thinking about possible causes, triggers, precipitating actions. What he expected he had no idea - to hear that Nick had been butchering chickens in the bathtub or something?
“Nothing unusual,” Nick said, in a tone that suggested he had read Joe’s mind just then and did not approve. “I was sitting at my desk, working on my laptop. Texting with you, I think.” He punched Joe’s thigh a little. “Maybe it’s you, Joe. Maybe you make me so crazy the only way for me to cope is to turn into a dog so I can’t understand a word you say.”
“Maybe,” Joe deadpanned, “you are being taught a lesson in being man’s best friend, Nicholas. Maybe you need to learn how to fetch, and obey commands, and do tricks for Milkbones.”
Nick sighed, shaking his head and then flopping it onto Joe’s shoulder. “I really have no idea why I even talk to you,” he said mildly, but Joe had his head resting on Nick’s hair and his arm tucked securely around Nick’s shoulders, so he figured that made him the winner.
“C’mon, Nick. Who else is gonna play ball with you when you’re a pooch?”
Nick grinned helplessly against Joe’s shoulder but didn’t say anything. Joe smiled too. He didn’t need to hear anything.
Nick made them clean up the dinner stuff and do the dishes, because he was a heartless sixty-year-old grandpa, and then they returned to the den to play Mario Party. As it got later and later, Joe kept glancing over at him, waiting for he had no idea what. What would it look like when Nick turned into a puppy? Would it be...would it be awful, scary to watch his body changing? Or would it be quick and painless and magical like a Disney movie? Or maybe it’d be more science-fictiony, kind of--
“Joe. Stop watching me, you’re making me insane!”
“Sorry!” Joe said, ducking his head and pulling a face. “I’m worried!”
“You wouldn’t be if you’d just stop thinking about it for five seconds.”
“Nick, that would honestly be like asking me not to notice a massive-ass gorilla sitting next to me on the couch. It’s a gorilla, I’m gonna look! And you’re my brother, so I’m gonna worry.”
Nick sighed, dropping his Wiimote and straightening up off the couch. “I’m going to go get a drink, do you want anything?”
“Coke, please,” Joe said, abashed and grinning up at Nick, who rolled his eyes.
“I’m not forgetting that you compared me to a gorilla, by the way,” Nick told him, voice muffled as he opened the fridge and rooted around in it for soda.
“It’s your manly, hairy physique, Nicholas, anybody would make that comparison.”
Nick didn’t answer. After a second, Joe heard something heavy hit the kitchen floor; his eyes went wide and he scrambled up in a panic, darting into the kitchen to see...
The little brown puppy curiously sniffing the burst-open two-liter of Coke fizzing and spitting and puddling on the floor in front of the refrigerator.
“Shit,” Joe said, partly out of disappointment, partly out of despair at the mess. The puppy wagged his tail at him, barking once, and then proceeded to start lapping up the pop.
“Ohh-h-h no you don’t!” Joe said, startled, and ran in to scoop Nick up out of the caramel-colored lake. “You nearly melted down over Thai barbecue, god knows what soda would do to you.”
Nick whined pathetically, stretching his nose out toward the soda he obviously desperately wanted to keep drinking. “You’ll make yourself sick, Nicky, no. No,” he said again, stressing the syllable, feeling a little guilty that he was talking to his brother like...well, like a dog. He had to stop himself saying bad dog, partly because it felt ridiculous, and partly because whenever he said that to Winston, he always got the saddest, most crestfallen look back, and he couldn’t bear the thought of making Nick look at him like that.
“Here. C’mere. Oh shit, wait,” Joe said suddenly, carrying Nick to the island and settling him on it, turning him to see where his pump was still connected to him, caught up in the crook of his arm. “Okay, yeah, this is gonna be a problem,” he muttered, glancing quickly up at the wall clock. It was just after ten. He made a mental note. Tomorrow night they would need to get Nick out of his equipment while he was still boy-shaped or he’d end up tearing himself to pieces ripping his pump out over and over. Very, very gently, Joe searched around for the patch that held the tiny tube in place against Nick’s midsection, already half pulled loose from Nick changing shape so drastically. He slowly pulled the patch off and the cannula free of Nick’s skin, Nick whimpering just a little, head jerking back toward Joe as if to nip at him and make him stop, but he didn’t offer to bite. “Gooood boy,” Joe gentled, opening a drawer and pulling out a dishcloth to hold against the tiny bead of blood welling up on Nick’s tummy, the fur slightly paler on his underside, a little softer, all wispy curls like the short, delicate hair at the nape of Nick’s neck. “Good. There you go,” Joe said, pulling the dishcloth away, the bleeding already slowing to a stop. “All better. Okay?” Nick looked back at Joe, his tail starting to wag again, and Joe nearly slumped with relief, grinning easily. He bent to kiss Nick’s soft, furry head.
“Okay. Let’s check out your new stuff, okay?” he suggested, pulling Nick’s new bowl and bag of food out of the shopping bags. Nick immediately trotted over to have a sniff, interested and, Joe felt, vaguely critical. “Now you picked these out yourself,” he warned, “so you’d better not change your mind now.”
Nick cocked his head at Joe, then stuck his blunted little furry snout into the shiny silver bowl, different from Elvis’ blue plastic one. He bit the side a little bit and then looked up at Joe, wagging his tail. Joe took that as a yes.
“Glad it meets with your approval, Mr. Prez,” Joe said, smirking. Of course Nick would even be picky as a dog. He tore open the bag of special diabetic-formula kibble and poured some into the bowl; Nick either liked the sound or it annoyed him, Joe couldn’t tell which, but he barked at the bowl and braced his feet like he wanted to pounce on it. Joe laughed. “Okay, okay, here. Are you hungry? You just ate not too long ago.” He nudged the bowl toward Nick, who immediately bent to smell it. Joe laughed louder. “You sniff your food as a person, too. What, d’you think I sneaked some brussels sprouts in there or something?”
Nick either wasn’t listening or was choosing not to deign Joe with a response of any kind. He finished up sniffing his bowl and then promptly ignored it to nose at the plastic PetCo bag nearest to him. Joe pursed his mouth, shaking his head. “I really hope that means ‘I’m not hungry, right now, Joe, but thanks for offering’ and not ‘This smells like shit, I’m not eating this,’ cause that’s dinner, breakfast, and midnight snack.” Joe took the other new bowl to the sink and cursorily rinsed it out, filling it with water. He moved both bowls to the floor next to the island and then leaned on the counter to scratch at the ruff of Nick’s neck.
“Still think we should’ve got you a collar and tags,” Joe said, watching Nick push his head into the empty bag and look around as if he’d entered a magic portal. “Just promise me you won’t attempt a great puppy escape on me. I should have you microchipped just in case.”
Nick growled and attacked the bag.
Joe sighed. “What am I saying. You’ll have suffocated yourself in plastic long before you get bored enough to run away from home.” Gently he disentangled his brother (god, okay, thinking of the puppy as “brother” was pretty odd for a second) from the bag in which he’d gotten hopelessly wrapped up, then fished the little bouncy rubber-spiked ball from the other bag. “Here. Here, Nicky, look!” Joe said, feeling a little strange talking to the puppy that way now that he knew he was talking to Nick. “Uh, sorry,” he said, a little stupidly, but he’d got Nick’s attention, and when he waved the ball in front of Nick’s nose, the puppy’s tail started wagging happily again. Joe grinned. “See?” he said happily. “I knew you’d like it. You’re so never living this down, by the way.”
Gently snagging Nick up from the island, Joe set him down on the floor and easily tossed the ball once, experimentally, bouncing it low off the kitchen door. Nick’s ears perked way up and he scrabbled, jumping after it and pouncing on it, wrestling it between his front legs and his mouth, getting tangled up in his excitement. Joe laughed, moving to the cabinet beside the sink and pulling out a roll of paper towels to clean up the mess Nick had inadvertently made. He dropped the still-leaking bottle of Coke into the sink and mopped up the sticky soda from the floor while Nick rolled over and over in the floor with his ball. Joe was just throwing away the last of the paper towels when Nick came trotting over and dropped the ball at his feet. Joe grinned down at him and Nick barked excitedly.
“I told you you’d have fun if you just gave it a try,” Joe said, plucking up the ball and waving it at Nick again. Nick yipped happily and jumped up, trying to snag it out of Joe’s hand. Joe picked him up, hugging the armful of wriggly puppy maybe a little more tightly than he really needed to, cuddling his face against Nick’s soft, curly fur.
“I’m glad you like it, Nicky,” he whispered, as Nick craned his head around to lick his cheek and the side of his nose. “Y’know, this is pretty weird, but it it’s pretty awesome, too. You being a puppy, I mean.” He kissed the top of Nick’s head. “C’mon,” he said, pitching his voice up to make Nick’s tail wag. “Let’s go learn how to fetch, before you turn all human and grumpy again.”
part v
He lost. Joe eventually got him to reluctantly admit that he’d gotten a little bored of just chasing Joe’s toes under the blanket until he fell asleep, but he refused to admit that he actually wanted to fetch things for his brother.
“I need to stay active,” he said primly as they checked out all of his new swag. (Joe couldn’t stop grinning. It was like buying for Winston all over again! Only, for Nick, which made it even better, somehow.) “And running around chasing a ball is as good exercise as any. Besides,” he added, blushing as he handed over his credit card to the clerk, “it seems like it’d be kind of...fun.”
The girl behind the register gave them both an extremely strange look as she hesitantly passed the card back to Nick, looking like she wasn’t quite sure whether he was dangerous or just normal L.A. weird. Nick gave her a tight, polite smile and turned on his heel, blushing furiously as he left. Joe followed him out, nearly choking, he was laughing so hard.
Thinking of Winston reminded Joe abruptly that he’d been away from his puppy all night and most of the morning, and, feeling guiltily panicked, he called Garbo once they got home and hastily spun a story about having to help Nick because he’d come down with some kind of stomach bug and was really sick and could Garbo just keep an eye on Winston for a couple days until Nick was feeling better and Joe could come retrieve him? Garbo was more than amenable; as the newest and by far cutest addition to the bachelor pad, Winston was Jack and Garbo’s new favorite thing in the whole world. Winston already had two card-carrying fanclub members besides Joe.
Garbo furthermore didn’t mind putting the phone down to Winston’s ear when Joe asked him to, although Joe had a feeling he wouldn’t be hearing the end of it for a while. He reassured his puppy that he was there and he’d see him as soon as he could, that he loved him, that he was the handsomest dog in the entire world and Joe’s very favorite bulldog of all time. He didn’t notice Nick standing in the doorway listening until he had already devolved into baby-talk in a high-pitched tone that made Winston bark excitedly into the phone.
The smirk on Nick’s face made Joe clear his throat and quickly wrap up the call, but at least he didn’t have to worry about who was going to take care of Winston for the next little while.
“Shut up,” he told Nick before Nick had even said a word. Nick’s grin only broadened as he casually crossed his arms and leaned in the doorway.
“Admit it, Joe. You have a huge crush on your dog. Bet you wish you were the were-puppy so you could go have a love affair with him.”
“You're just jealous, Nicholas,” Joe said loftily. Nick snorted and shook his head.
“I don't want to be your dog boyfriend, Joe, trust me. You slobber on me as a human. I can't even begin to imagine what you'd do as a puppy.”
Joe leered at him. “You love my slobber, Nicky. Love it. Besides, if we were both puppies, you'd be slobbering, too, so what would you care?”
Nick rolled his eyes and pursed his mouth a little, but the corner of it was twitching. “I like bitches, Joe. Sorry.”
Joe choked on a laugh. “Well, then. We'll go scoping lady dogs at the park tomorrow morning if you want. Find you a girlfriend!”
The deer-in-the-headlights look of horror that came over Nick’s face then absolutely made Joe’s day. “Joe, I was kidding.”
“Oh, we're totally gonna do this,” Joe said, ignoring him completely. “We'll find you a cute little terrier or a Pomeranian to slobber on you instead. And you'll be a hit with human girls, too! Even more than you are already, even!”
Nick scowled. "Joseph Jonas, do not take me to a park to pick up dogs. I hate you so much."
"I am trying to improve your social life, Nicky. It's not healthy for a growing puppy to be without friends and pretty girls." Joe grinned huge, giving away that he was just teasing.
Nick glared at him. "I will pee on you again if you take me anywhere near a park while I'm a dog, Joseph. I can't go out in public like that."
"Nobody would know it was you, Nick. Hell, I could call you Nick in front of a bunch of people and the most they would thing would be that I was a psycho who names puppies after my brother. But," he said a bit sadly, sighing exaggeratedly. "I suppose we don't have to. I'll just keep you all to myself and play fetch with you."
Nick sighed, seeming content with that, and nodded, although he absolutely did not concede the point about fetching, Joe noticed. "Good,” he said.
He spent most of the rest of the day sleeping off the lingering lethargy from being so sick the night before, and Joe privately worried himself nearly sick that if - when - Nick became a puppy again, he wouldn’t be able to stop the same thing happening as had happened the first time. He didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t take care of Nick through this the way he’d promised he would. He was Nick’s big brother. He had to be able to look out for him. It was his job. And that helpless feeling, not knowing what to do or how to fix it when Nick was suffering, was something he’d never wanted to feel again, swore he wouldn’t ever feel again. He wasn’t completely sure he could stand being the one solely responsible for Nick’s survival like that. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself that much. But he knew for damn sure he didn’t trust anybody else to do it right.
“Any idea what time it happens?” Joe asked curiously as they slumped together on the couch in the livingroom later that evening, remains of a prefab frozen lasagna shipwrecked on the coffee table in front of them. Joe was staring mindlessly at the TV as Nick channel surfed and thinking about decorating the house for Christmas. They never decorated this house because they never spent Christmases in it, but Joe was having a hard time getting in the holiday spirit without a tree to decorate and lights to string and presents to shake and put his hands all over, trying to divine their contents, when Nick wasn’t looking.
“None whatsoever, if you want a specific time,” Nick admitted, settling on a soccer game and turning the volume low because the commentary was in Spanish. “It was later than this. Not very long before you got here, I don’t think.”
“Hmm,” Joe mused, lulled nearly comatose by his brother’s warm weight leaning against him and the fluttering blue glow of the TV in the dark. He wasn’t sure when they’d grown fond of sitting in the dark watching television like vampires or whatever; maybe from too many late nights spent, wired beyond sleep by adrenaline and jet lag, under enforced lights-out policies when they’d sit up together in one bed with a hotel TV running for white noise while they untangled their days together. Joe felt a little disloyal thinking it, but this felt like home more than actually being in Dallas with all his relatives would feel like home. Sitting in the dark, talking with Nick about everything and nothing much at all, would always be comforting to him.
“Were you, like, doing anything when it happened?” he wondered, thinking about possible causes, triggers, precipitating actions. What he expected he had no idea - to hear that Nick had been butchering chickens in the bathtub or something?
“Nothing unusual,” Nick said, in a tone that suggested he had read Joe’s mind just then and did not approve. “I was sitting at my desk, working on my laptop. Texting with you, I think.” He punched Joe’s thigh a little. “Maybe it’s you, Joe. Maybe you make me so crazy the only way for me to cope is to turn into a dog so I can’t understand a word you say.”
“Maybe,” Joe deadpanned, “you are being taught a lesson in being man’s best friend, Nicholas. Maybe you need to learn how to fetch, and obey commands, and do tricks for Milkbones.”
Nick sighed, shaking his head and then flopping it onto Joe’s shoulder. “I really have no idea why I even talk to you,” he said mildly, but Joe had his head resting on Nick’s hair and his arm tucked securely around Nick’s shoulders, so he figured that made him the winner.
“C’mon, Nick. Who else is gonna play ball with you when you’re a pooch?”
Nick grinned helplessly against Joe’s shoulder but didn’t say anything. Joe smiled too. He didn’t need to hear anything.
Nick made them clean up the dinner stuff and do the dishes, because he was a heartless sixty-year-old grandpa, and then they returned to the den to play Mario Party. As it got later and later, Joe kept glancing over at him, waiting for he had no idea what. What would it look like when Nick turned into a puppy? Would it be...would it be awful, scary to watch his body changing? Or would it be quick and painless and magical like a Disney movie? Or maybe it’d be more science-fictiony, kind of--
“Joe. Stop watching me, you’re making me insane!”
“Sorry!” Joe said, ducking his head and pulling a face. “I’m worried!”
“You wouldn’t be if you’d just stop thinking about it for five seconds.”
“Nick, that would honestly be like asking me not to notice a massive-ass gorilla sitting next to me on the couch. It’s a gorilla, I’m gonna look! And you’re my brother, so I’m gonna worry.”
Nick sighed, dropping his Wiimote and straightening up off the couch. “I’m going to go get a drink, do you want anything?”
“Coke, please,” Joe said, abashed and grinning up at Nick, who rolled his eyes.
“I’m not forgetting that you compared me to a gorilla, by the way,” Nick told him, voice muffled as he opened the fridge and rooted around in it for soda.
“It’s your manly, hairy physique, Nicholas, anybody would make that comparison.”
Nick didn’t answer. After a second, Joe heard something heavy hit the kitchen floor; his eyes went wide and he scrambled up in a panic, darting into the kitchen to see...
The little brown puppy curiously sniffing the burst-open two-liter of Coke fizzing and spitting and puddling on the floor in front of the refrigerator.
“Shit,” Joe said, partly out of disappointment, partly out of despair at the mess. The puppy wagged his tail at him, barking once, and then proceeded to start lapping up the pop.
“Ohh-h-h no you don’t!” Joe said, startled, and ran in to scoop Nick up out of the caramel-colored lake. “You nearly melted down over Thai barbecue, god knows what soda would do to you.”
Nick whined pathetically, stretching his nose out toward the soda he obviously desperately wanted to keep drinking. “You’ll make yourself sick, Nicky, no. No,” he said again, stressing the syllable, feeling a little guilty that he was talking to his brother like...well, like a dog. He had to stop himself saying bad dog, partly because it felt ridiculous, and partly because whenever he said that to Winston, he always got the saddest, most crestfallen look back, and he couldn’t bear the thought of making Nick look at him like that.
“Here. C’mere. Oh shit, wait,” Joe said suddenly, carrying Nick to the island and settling him on it, turning him to see where his pump was still connected to him, caught up in the crook of his arm. “Okay, yeah, this is gonna be a problem,” he muttered, glancing quickly up at the wall clock. It was just after ten. He made a mental note. Tomorrow night they would need to get Nick out of his equipment while he was still boy-shaped or he’d end up tearing himself to pieces ripping his pump out over and over. Very, very gently, Joe searched around for the patch that held the tiny tube in place against Nick’s midsection, already half pulled loose from Nick changing shape so drastically. He slowly pulled the patch off and the cannula free of Nick’s skin, Nick whimpering just a little, head jerking back toward Joe as if to nip at him and make him stop, but he didn’t offer to bite. “Gooood boy,” Joe gentled, opening a drawer and pulling out a dishcloth to hold against the tiny bead of blood welling up on Nick’s tummy, the fur slightly paler on his underside, a little softer, all wispy curls like the short, delicate hair at the nape of Nick’s neck. “Good. There you go,” Joe said, pulling the dishcloth away, the bleeding already slowing to a stop. “All better. Okay?” Nick looked back at Joe, his tail starting to wag again, and Joe nearly slumped with relief, grinning easily. He bent to kiss Nick’s soft, furry head.
“Okay. Let’s check out your new stuff, okay?” he suggested, pulling Nick’s new bowl and bag of food out of the shopping bags. Nick immediately trotted over to have a sniff, interested and, Joe felt, vaguely critical. “Now you picked these out yourself,” he warned, “so you’d better not change your mind now.”
Nick cocked his head at Joe, then stuck his blunted little furry snout into the shiny silver bowl, different from Elvis’ blue plastic one. He bit the side a little bit and then looked up at Joe, wagging his tail. Joe took that as a yes.
“Glad it meets with your approval, Mr. Prez,” Joe said, smirking. Of course Nick would even be picky as a dog. He tore open the bag of special diabetic-formula kibble and poured some into the bowl; Nick either liked the sound or it annoyed him, Joe couldn’t tell which, but he barked at the bowl and braced his feet like he wanted to pounce on it. Joe laughed. “Okay, okay, here. Are you hungry? You just ate not too long ago.” He nudged the bowl toward Nick, who immediately bent to smell it. Joe laughed louder. “You sniff your food as a person, too. What, d’you think I sneaked some brussels sprouts in there or something?”
Nick either wasn’t listening or was choosing not to deign Joe with a response of any kind. He finished up sniffing his bowl and then promptly ignored it to nose at the plastic PetCo bag nearest to him. Joe pursed his mouth, shaking his head. “I really hope that means ‘I’m not hungry, right now, Joe, but thanks for offering’ and not ‘This smells like shit, I’m not eating this,’ cause that’s dinner, breakfast, and midnight snack.” Joe took the other new bowl to the sink and cursorily rinsed it out, filling it with water. He moved both bowls to the floor next to the island and then leaned on the counter to scratch at the ruff of Nick’s neck.
“Still think we should’ve got you a collar and tags,” Joe said, watching Nick push his head into the empty bag and look around as if he’d entered a magic portal. “Just promise me you won’t attempt a great puppy escape on me. I should have you microchipped just in case.”
Nick growled and attacked the bag.
Joe sighed. “What am I saying. You’ll have suffocated yourself in plastic long before you get bored enough to run away from home.” Gently he disentangled his brother (god, okay, thinking of the puppy as “brother” was pretty odd for a second) from the bag in which he’d gotten hopelessly wrapped up, then fished the little bouncy rubber-spiked ball from the other bag. “Here. Here, Nicky, look!” Joe said, feeling a little strange talking to the puppy that way now that he knew he was talking to Nick. “Uh, sorry,” he said, a little stupidly, but he’d got Nick’s attention, and when he waved the ball in front of Nick’s nose, the puppy’s tail started wagging happily again. Joe grinned. “See?” he said happily. “I knew you’d like it. You’re so never living this down, by the way.”
Gently snagging Nick up from the island, Joe set him down on the floor and easily tossed the ball once, experimentally, bouncing it low off the kitchen door. Nick’s ears perked way up and he scrabbled, jumping after it and pouncing on it, wrestling it between his front legs and his mouth, getting tangled up in his excitement. Joe laughed, moving to the cabinet beside the sink and pulling out a roll of paper towels to clean up the mess Nick had inadvertently made. He dropped the still-leaking bottle of Coke into the sink and mopped up the sticky soda from the floor while Nick rolled over and over in the floor with his ball. Joe was just throwing away the last of the paper towels when Nick came trotting over and dropped the ball at his feet. Joe grinned down at him and Nick barked excitedly.
“I told you you’d have fun if you just gave it a try,” Joe said, plucking up the ball and waving it at Nick again. Nick yipped happily and jumped up, trying to snag it out of Joe’s hand. Joe picked him up, hugging the armful of wriggly puppy maybe a little more tightly than he really needed to, cuddling his face against Nick’s soft, curly fur.
“I’m glad you like it, Nicky,” he whispered, as Nick craned his head around to lick his cheek and the side of his nose. “Y’know, this is pretty weird, but it it’s pretty awesome, too. You being a puppy, I mean.” He kissed the top of Nick’s head. “C’mon,” he said, pitching his voice up to make Nick’s tail wag. “Let’s go learn how to fetch, before you turn all human and grumpy again.”
part v