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Mike scratched at his nose with his bandaged fingers. It was one of the only spots on his body that hadn't been infected by the rot of the curse, and when he touched it and the rest of his still pristine face, he felt equal parts depressed and lucky that he still at least had that. (Okay, maybe not equal. It was hard to feel lucky about anything when your foot was threatening to fall off.) He guessed that someday, he would eventually loose his face too.
If he could have gone back in time to do anything, he would have told Davy to never go out with that creepy Lorelei chick in the first place. And especially not go out to her house, which was a big scary old one completely surrounded by water, far away from the town, and full of monsters. After their ghost adventure the previous year, you really would think that the four of them would have learned their lesson. But of course, there was no lesson learning to be had when there was a pretty girl in the way of it.
Still, Mike would have given anything just to tell Davy off from her, and that answer was a change from his normal answer to the question of time travel so severe that even Mike couldn't help but notice it. In the past he may have said that he'd go back a year or so and see the Beatles live, take some notes on their performance, see if he could get close enough to touch them. Or maybe he'd have gone back just to save himself some money, or taken extra time to make more. or maybe he'd go back and say goodbye to the old bandmate that he'd left alone in favor of his Monkees.
Or maybe he simply would have gone back and apologized to his mom for running away from home.
But now, despite that final option still having some draw for him, there was no question about it. If he could go back in time, Mike would go back, get Davy away from that creepy bird (though in this particular case "bat" was a more appropriate flying animal pick), and he would save them all from the curse.
It had been pretty rude for the curse to have hit just before Mike had unwrapped the bandages from his body. It had been pretty rude to sink those bangs into Davy's throat. It had been pretty rude to stab that bolt through Peter's head. It had been pretty rude to stick those ears into Micky's long curly hair.
Hair that was now fur.
Now that it was permanent, Mike couldn't even make his old joke about getting kicked out of Disneyland anymore. That world that they had lived in until these past few weeks, where all they had to worry about was their moptops being a bit too long, or their accents being maybe a little bit too camp, had already seemed hard enough. It had already been hard enough. But now, even that world was just so far away that Mike couldn't help but long for it. All of it. All the money troubles and the foreign spies and the slurs hurled their way.
At least in that world, they had been themselves. Now, he wasn't fully sure what they were. Now, instead of smelling like flowers and whatever amount of non-standard brand he'd been smoking, Peter smelled like rot and electricity. Davy's skin burned gray instead of comfortably tan in the sun. Micky had fangs and claws where his nice, mostly straight, human teeth and nails should have been. And Mike…
Mike didn't really want to think about what he had become.
Was he even alive?
Was he even dead?
He'd gotten so close to escaping with his own skin, and now, he hardly had any of it. He put his face into his rotting hands and tried not to cry. Men didn't cry. Especially not ones that couldn't figure out for the life of them if they were dead or not.
"Heya Mike," a slightly scratchy voice asked, muffled through the fur and fangs that its owner hadn't yet gotten fully used to, "how's it going." It wasn't really a question, they both knew how it was going.
Mike wanted to make a quip back, like, "not good shotgun," or, "how do you think its going?" or "what's it to you wolfman?" But he could not. He wasn't in the mood for jokes. The smell coming from under his bandages was so bad he should have been in the mood for living at all anymore, let alone joking.
Not that he was living anymore, not really.
"Mike?" Micky asked again, reaching out a paw and sitting carefully down beside him so as not to hurt his hip.
"Yeah Mick?" he managed, putting his bandaged hands in his lap and looking over at his newly furry friend. micky's head was tilted to the side a bit, and if it hadn't been something he'd always done a little, Mike would have gotten worried that more than just looks had transferred in the curse.
"You looked like you were thinking too hard." Micky explained.
Mike made a little hum of acknowledgment. "Like you don't."
"What," Micky said, a little smile on his face that showed his fangs, "I never do that."
He obviously did that. Mike had known him long enough by now to puzzle that one out. Micky was more than his jokes and his chatter. He cared what people thought about him. It was a shock that the new changes to his body hadn't led him to fall apart the way Mike had. Not yet, anyway.
"Alright Mick," Mike tried to smile, slightly, toothy, like he was really happy, "you don't."
Micky's tail wagged a bit for a second (baff baff baff baff against the loveseat), before he caught it with his hand to steady it. He couldn't really control the tail yet, and Mike guessed that Micky had been working on ways to get the thing into his old way of life, but struggling at the job. All of his impressions had probably gotten harder or even impossible with the sudden change in his voice and face, and Mike recognized suddenly (though not for the first time) that he was not the only one of them who had lost everything in this change.
And yet…
Micky was still there to try and make him feel better, he was still there for a friend falling apart as literally as he was figuratively.
Mike started to tear up, and he brought his hands up to his eyes as he shivered.
"I'm sorry Micky," he whimpered, "It's just hard." He was meant to be the strong one. The leader. The lead guitar. The cool masculine Texan. The straightest one of the bunch.
But he wasn't.
He was rotting and covered in bandages, and maybe he really never had been any of those things after all.
"But you're still Mike," Micky whispered, and it helped.
Mike felt the last pieces of his shell shatter, and he wrapped his rotting arms around Micky as he let himself cry. Despite the smell that his newly upgraded nose must have been giving him, as he pressed it into Mike's bandaged head, Micky hugged back. He was warmer than Mike could ever remember being, especially now that his bandages were the only thing keeping the heat inside of his body.
"You know Mike," Micky's voice said after a while, so close to his ear that even the whisper sounded loud in the tiny room, "I think you're my ultimate trip."
Mike made a little noise of confusion, but did not move from his spot against his bandmate's body.
"Like my button," Micky hummed, "love, you know?"
"Oh," said Mike, his face turning slightly red as he nuzzled his remaining human skin into Micky's shoulder.
He didn't mind the comparison. Maybe he wasn't the only one who's shell had shattered here. They both needed this.
"You're mine too," Mike whispered, so soft that only Micky's new wolfish ears could have ever hopped to pick it up, "trip, I mean."
Despite everything, Micky's tail began to wag, and this time he didn't stop it.