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The only warning signs were things that, if one didn't know what they were looking for, would simply think were puberty taking its course. Zanka, of course, was a tad confused by it all.
She was eighteen, shouldn't she be done with randomly feeling as if she had never eaten, and her body hair becoming oddly thick?
However, unluckily for her, it wasn't something normal, and her feeling under the weather for the past few days wasn't just a cold. There are.. A few misconceptions, when people talk about werewolves.
One of these is that it has to be some huge scene, a dramatic bite that changes someone. Rather, it is like several human illnesses, something that is spread by bodily fluids.
Not to say that Zanka did anything horrible with anyone. Just sometimes, when you live in a world that's covered in trash, you get home with an unexpected cut.
When she had gotten back from a mission, she had noticed a large cut over her calf and smaller scratches around her ankles. She didn't remember how it happened (when you are fighting for your life regularly the rush of adrenaline plus already having a pain tolerance makes it hard to realize when something may be wrong) so she was given her shots, to make sure she didn't get any of the expected diseases, and was told to not use that foot and be careful to not reopen it.
Life went as normal until, of course, the aforementioned symptoms began to affect her. They didn't really draw any attention to her until Enjin had commented on her eating habits, his intentions as pure as possible (when the person who normally hardly eats the same food as a toddler starts going for second plates of a grown man's serving, it raises some questions).
The breaking point was when im sure you can guess, the full moon the next month.
What proceeded was textbook, your body attempting to tear itself apart and rebuild as something much bigger than it's used to, takes a lot of calories, hence the whole rampaging thing.
However, it had begun with what she had thought was a cold, seeming to all go away, and reigniting as something she had never felt. It was as if fire was pumping through her veins rather than blood, and her heart rate skyrocketed.
When this had begun, of course, she was scared. Fear is such a lovely, human emotion. What humans attempt to pose as animalistic is often just things they are afraid to admit, making them truly human, truly alive. Regardless, along with the doses of fear and adrenaline coursing through her body, something new began to mix.
Knowledge.
That is what runs the world, and what was currently destroying hers.
She had stood, and for a woman who already has issues with vision going black when she moves too quickly for her body's tastes, it was as if she had been flashbanged. Once she had gotten her vision back, the first thing she notices is that everything seemed so much more.
The lights above her seem brighter, burning her eyes, she feels.. Heavier, as if there had been weights put on every limb. The ground under her feet seemed to be spinning, her head was pounding, her body was burning, and an awful pain was beginning to start in her hands.
In a truly Hollywood fashion, she shouts as she feels her nails being ripped out of their beds, being replaced with something larger, something, shocking, I know, inhuman. Bones begin to snap inside of her, regrowing longer, thicker.
She can feel her muscles tearing themselves apart and replacing themselves.
That was how we eventually ended up here, with a now fully transformed Zanka rampaging through the town, a few of her cleaner friends following along, making futile, pathetic attempts to calm her.
"Zanki?!" Jabber's voice rings out; she has been drawn out of the herd by promises of something good, also known as the screams of civilians, which always seemed to indicate entertainment.
Much to the disappointment of the cleaners and the gratefulness of the townsfolk, the sound of Jabber's voice causes the monster to stop, turn around towards the noise, bark, and then run up and begin to rub her head against the woman.
One may wonder exactly how Jabber recognized the now-inhuman being that is now rubbing against her. It may not be the most eloquent, however, in her exact words. 'I would recognize that fuck-ass hairdo anywhere. No one else can pull off half blond, half brown.'
"Oh, you're such a good girl!" She rubs against the inside of Zanka's ears, a very amusing size difference between the now almost ten-foot-tall monster and the almost six-foot woman, almost drawing a laugh out of some people.
Zanka preens, before sniffing her and growling, a motion that Jabber, somehow, understands as her telling her that she's hungry, which draws a giggle out of the woman.
"Aw, baby didn't catch any food? yah i was kinda disappointed when I came and didn't see any blood, don't worry, we'll get some food in ya."
The cleaners stand there, unsure of exactly what to do, but are quick to stop questioning when Zanka proceeds to sniff Jabber and drag her, via biting her sleeves, out of sight. Some very odd, unsavory conversations are in order for when she gets back.
Zanka had been identifying the scent on Jabber, and was attempting to take her back to wherever she spent her time at, in this instance, some alleyway that she slept in after scaring away a man doing the fenty fold. Jabber doesn't want this and decides that she would, most definitely, legally get them a room somewhere.
"Come on, you big baby."
She hums and smiles while Zanka.. trots? Next to her, once Jabber acquires the key to a motel room (which. Is not very hard especially when one has a literal monster next to them) she leads Zanka into, she snaps above the bed, having to hold her stomach from pains from just how hard she laughed at the fact that Zanka *yipped* and then hopped up, looking at her with a tilted head.
"I thought that you were gonna be like, some really scary thing that wanted to eat me. But no. This literally just made you not ashamed to want praise. You go, queen, I guess." She walks up and giggles at how Zanka presses her snout to her chest, rubbing on her ears a little before pressing a kiss to her head and then backing away.
“I gotta get you some food though, stay.”
Zanka wines at that, a pathetic noise that makes Jabber look at her with a flabbergasted expression, and the puppy-dog eyes that Zanka had already somehow managed to perfect, almost make her consider taking her. She thinks that ‘taking my werewolf girlfriend to Costco’ is an entertaining concept, but perhaps not the best to indulge in.
“Nuh- uh I need you to stay here.” She pauses for a moment and looks back down at her. “Would I get like.. Raw meat? Nah, your bitch-ass is gonna be human again. I am not giving you salmonella.”
Zanka tilts her head and bows it.
Jabber ruffles the hair on her head and moves back to the door, looking back at the monster, who is curling up on the bed, huffing dramatically. Jabber tosses her jacket off, and it lands on Zanka's snout, making it twitch, and she throws it off.
“Good to see you're still a theater kid. Gonna come back to you, howling, dead girl walking. Wait, werewolves aren't gay. Ok, I didn't mean to say that you're definitely gay, but I meant to say dead. Freudian ahh slip bro.”
Zanka curls up in the discarded cloth, gnawing on it, and shivering at the texture of fibers against her teeth. She just lies on top of it until she hears the door open.
Her eyes open, and she feels her ears raise up as Jabber walks back into the room.
“Oh my fucking god dude.” Jabber sets a few plastic bags down onto the ground as her jaw drops.
“No way your freaking tail just started wagging. Imma fuckin’ cannibalize you thats so cute.” She stares at the monster, who is now sitting at the edge of the bed and looking up at her.
Her hands shake slightly as she stares, trying to get the pent-up energy out through the motions before she bites the werewolf. Sometimes, cuteness aggression makes one feral.
“I got you a couple of rotisserie chickens.” She opens the bag and takes out one of the containers.
Zanka seems to remember just how hungry she has been feeling, and nods. Jabber opens one and takes off a leg from the bird, grinning as she looks down at the very excited Zanka.
“Come,” Her voice is soft and high, the tone one would use on a dog, patting her thighs and resisting a full laugh when Zanka immediately obeys and looks up at her.
“You're like a big husky dude,” She comments as she drops the meat into the air, jumping slightly at how quickly Zanka jumps up to get it, and at how easily she snaps through the bone, the noise reverberating through the room for a moment.
Once she finishes it, Zanka whines, drawing a smile from her.
“Yeah, I know the hair is like reversed, but that's not what I was trying to get at,”
Jabber looks down with a suspicious, considering expression before ripping off a larger portion of the chicken and throwing it across the room, giggling when Zanka leaps from her spot and uses the bed to reach it in almost an instant.
“Hungry girl!”
They go back and forth like that for a while, Jabber tossing out a piece of food, Zanka catching it before it hits the ground, and most of the time coming back to Jabber afterwards to get head pats for her work. Once they work their way through the remarkable amount of food Zanka was able to get through, Zanka lies on the bed with her stomach up while Jabber lies next to her.
“Bro, this is so ass.” When Zanka looks back up at her with a small questioning, awo? Jabber is quick to clarify.
“Not like you being a creature like. I wonder if you still like spreading the thing while you're human or. We could say fuck it, we ball. And just tag team the world werewolf style. Thousands injured, millions dead, do not question my math.”
Zanka nods and nips at Jabber's arm, making her glance down at the monster and raise her eyebrows.
“Forreal? Bro, we’d like have to get a hotel room and a fuck ton of food and camp out- wait, that does not sound like horrible. Like a frat party but with uh werewolf stuff instead of getting drunk out of yer mind."
Regardless of her different form, Zanka still managed to give the 'I love you, you idiot' expression.
Jaber smiles and lets her head fall back onto the bed.
"Feeling touchy?"
Rather than making a noise in response, Zanka takes it upon herself to simply roll on top of her. In no negative way possible, currently, was a great deal bigger than Jabber, so this action knocks the breath out of her chest.
"Bro, you finna kill me, thought when ya did it it'd be some like major dying at your hands type shit not being smushed by your hairy ass!" The words don't pack the punch intended; rather than sounding aggressive, she breathes out a laugh, her voice almost disgustingly fond.
"Next time we meet up, we're gonna have a date where we both take those autism quizzes. Bro, I feel like I got sedated when you lay on me, and what shits a symptom! We ignore all of the others I have. Dude, I don't know if she's just bullying me, but Ms. girl back at camp told me I was a 'sensory seeking,' which like. They are coming out with new species of autism?"
Jabber rants, not really meaning anything behind the words, them being more something to fill the silence that hung in the room without it. And also, she just really liked this whole pressure plus someone being there thing made her brain feel good and fuzzy.
"I wonder if you're going to remember any of this when you wake up."
Her tone is almost empty, but quickly she forms a plan.
She attempts to sit up some, the monster may be heavy, however, Jabber is a strong woman, and looks down at Zanka, before fully licking up her snout.
"Blegh, that did not taste good. Looks like uh vanilla and chocolate ice cream, but tastes like sweat and uh I dunno soggy alleyway."
Zanka looks at her with a confused expression, brain not entirely processing what had happened, and why- Jabber was going in for another.
"I am losing the battle."
Jabber frees her arms from Beneth Zanka and grabs both sides of the other's face, taking small bites over the surface and fighting giggles over how Zanka's tail started wagging again, hitting the bed beneath them aggressively. The battle she had lost was with the impulsive thoughts and cuteness aggression; however, with the reaction she was drawing, she did not think this was a horrible defeat, she laughs.
"This shit making me sleepy-deeppy, bro. You snore, normally, do ya think you will like this too?"
Jabber hears another small noise.
"You're so right, dude. If that was the case, then all women who killed their husbands for snoring too loudly would have just turned them into werewolves."
Zanka makes a sleepy sound, breathing out and shivering.
"Don't cancel me on twitter fine people who kill their spouses, what's next, you're gonna make me include all the werewolf species? Dude i should like find werecat stuff."
At this point, Zanka is asleep, gently snoring on his chest, your body attempting to rebuild itself in a matter of moments is extremely tiring. That, however, does not stop Jabber from continuing her conversation with the creature.
She yawns and continues.
"Yeah, I think that'd fit me better. If I had a tail, I'd wrap it around yours like uh pipe cleaners, because I love you." She horrendously mispronounces some of her words, but that doesn't stop a contented smile from forming on her face.
"I'd like have little kitty claws and," she yawns, bearing all of her teeth as she does, "Bro, we need to check if you have toe beans. How little puppy codded are you this fine evening?"
Over time, her brainless rambling comes to a stop, her methodical strokes down the fur of Zanka's back, and even breathing lulls her along.
When Zanka wakes up the next morning, her eyes are bleary, and she looks around and sees tufts of hair spread out over the bed of the room that she remembers to be her own.
"Is the puppy awake?" Jabber's voice is excited, talking through a mouthful of leftover chicken from the day prior.
She walks over.
"..what"
Zanka's voice is hoarse, her vocal cords still working to get back to their normal.
"Lock in, you have stuff you need to remember."
Jabber picks up a paper plate and hands some microwaved chicken to her, and Zanka looks at it and then backs up at her with a look of disgust.
"Like you licking me? Fucking freak"
"One, your tail was waggin' the whole damn time, two, I coughed up a nasty ass hairball this morning, and I blame you."
They spend the morning together, mostly Jabber bullying Zanka over how she acted the previous night, and a bit of bickering. Zanka can deny it all she wants, however the way that Jabber instantly saw her in a vulnerable state and didn't do something bad, didn't use that to her advantage, and instead took care of her and stayed till the morning, made her chest feel weird. She could have given her more to walk home in than a pair of boxers and Jabber’s jacket, though. That walk of shame was brutal.