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"Johnny, that's not a real thing."
"I'm serious, Roy. You can't stay tonight. Any other night, sure. Not tonight." Johnny was completely serious, trying to push Roy out of his apartment door, but the man just would not leave.
"Seriously? We've been doing this for a few weeks now, and suddenly you're shy about me spending the night?"
"Roy, you have to leave." Johnny glanced anxiously out the window at the golden light of the dipping sun.
"You could at least tell me the truth."
"I am. I swear."
"Because you think that you're going to turn into a werewolf." Roy crossed his arms, not budging one inch.
"Yes, exactly that. Once the sun is completely set, it happens, and I can't control it. You need to leave." Johnny was practically begging.
Roy looked around the apartment, finally noticing the scratches on the baseboards and at the corner of Johnny's bedroom door. They looked like normal pet scratches, but Johnny didn't have any pets. And they weren't from a previous tenant because Roy had helped him move into this apartment.
"You can't control it?" He asked. The lamp that Johnny had last month was gone. Actually, Johnny went through furniture quite quickly, now that Roy was thinking about it.
"No, I can't. I don't even remember it. It's like I black out and then I wake up, and my apartment is trashed. So… must be pretty violent, obviously."
Roy slowly uncrossed his arms and sighed. "Okay, I believe that you black out. And that you can't control it. And… that you believe you are a werewolf."
"Don't patronize me."
"But I'm not leaving. If anything, now I feel like I have to stay for your own safety." Because Roy was pretty sure maybe Johnny was in the middle of a nervous breakdown, and he was having some sort of psychotic episodes where he trashed his own apartment once a month and didn't remember doing it.
Johnny slumped, practically collapsing in on himself in disappointment.
"But… it's dangerous."
"Yes, I think I'm getting that."
"For you, Roy! I might hurt you!"
"If you're really all that worried, get out those handcuffs from the other night. Cuff yourself to the radiator, then." Roy smirked, thinking he had called Johnny's bluff, but Johnny raised his eyebrows and pointed thoughtfully.
"That… is not a bad idea, actually."
He ran back to the bedroom, and Roy locked the front door, knowing neither of them were leaving that night. Johnny emerged with a pair of handcuffs that had fuzzy black padding all around them. Probably not the most secure, but it was good enough.
"Okay, okay, okay," Johnny muttered as he secured himself to the radiator in the dining area. He yanked with his wrist, pulling hard enough to make the old pipes clank.
"Easy," Roy grimaced. "You're gonna tear the radiator out before anything happens."
"That's sort of the point."
"To flood the apartment?"
"To make sure it holds."
Roy sighed.
The last of the sunlight stretched through the window and across the hardwood floor in a long, golden strip, and Johnny watched it with wide eyes while Roy leaned against the dining table and studied him.
He'd expected Johnny to break character by now. To laugh and admit it was some sort of elaborate, not very well thought-out, prank. Or a ruse to avoid an uncomfortable conversation now that they were getting a little more serious.
But Johnny sat on the floor beside the radiator, cuffed with fuzzy handcuffs bought from a sex shop in West Hollywood as a joke, looking genuinely scared. And that had Roy chewing his bottom lip with worry. Because that meant maybe Johnny was really losing it.
The sunlight had almost disappeared. Johnny went still, and Roy watched as nothing changed just yet. Nothing except the color of the room as the warm gold faded into blue.
"Roy, back up." Johnny's voice was weak. He grimaced in what looked like pain.
Roy actually did what Johnny wanted this time, taking a step back as he watched with an empathetic grimace to match.
Then Johnny whimpered and curled in like he was cramping. He started panting, and Roy had to stop himself from rushing forward. He had to let Johnny do whatever he was doing. But then a flash of light burst from Johnny's body, and Roy flinched away for just a second.
When he opened his eyes, Johnny's clothes were still there, next to the radiator, but Johnny was gone. Not even an arm in the cuffs.
"Johnny?" Roy whispered, not sure what the hell—
A tiny whimper. Not a Johnny whimper. It was coming from the clothing pile, which was moving. Roy inched closer and tentatively grabbed at the fabric, pulling it to the side. And then he stared.
The cutest, tiniest puppy tumbled out of the clothing that pooled on the floor. Mostly black with little brown smudges for eyebrows and around the muzzle. He had floppy ears that came to a little tufty point and a face that looked like it was smiling when he yapped up at Roy.
Roy would never admit to the undignified noise he made when he saw this little pup. But he definitely reached out to take him in his arms.
"Johnny?"
The puppy scrabbled its paws, either excited to have interaction or frustrated at not touching the ground. He licked at Roy's face, enthusiastically, as Roy giggled.
"Big scary werewolf, you are." He couldn't help it. He was speaking in baby talk to a tiny puppy that he was pretty sure was actually Johnny.
The little puppy broke free and started running, little tiny claws clicking on the wooden floor and then skidding as he tried to make a turn.
Roy had a realization. The floorboards. The scratches. An enthusiastic puppy who should be running around on grass or carpet, not slippery floors with no traction. Johnny's little body slammed into the wall as he failed to stop yet again, then new marks scratched into the floor as he started up a run again.
Roy lunged just as Johnny ricocheted off the wall and went shooting toward the living room.
"Hey—hold on. Wait."
He caught nothing but air. Johnny's tiny paws clicked furiously across the floor, his tail wagging as his behind fishtailed. He disappeared around the couch and came bursting out the other side with a sock in his mouth.
"Johnny."
The puppy froze, brown eyes lifting curiously, and he tilted his head.
Roy held out his hand. "Give me the sock."
Johnny's tail wagged.
"Come on. Give."
The tail moved faster. Then he took off again. This time for the bedroom.
"Of course you're untrained. He hasn't even had any sort of interaction or play… no enrichment at all as a puppy. Just allowed to wreak havoc."
He heard tiny growling. The effort of a puppy doing something bigger than he was capable of. Roy sighed and went to check.
Roy found him on the bed, teeth digging into the sheet and pulling it from each corner of the mattress. A big job for such a tiny thing.
Roy leaned against the doorway.
"Pretty violent, obviously." He repeated Johnny's words from earlier with an eye roll.
Johnny growled lower, pulled harder, and the fitted corner snapped back and sent him spiraling in a somersault.
Roy couldn't help it. He laughed. Johnny looked up, as if he suddenly remembered he had a friend, and bounded to Roy, stopping only when he reached the end of the mattress. Getting up had been a totally different and easier story. It had to look a lot scarier from up there.
Roy reached down and picked the puppy up again. "Hey, what do you say we go to the store before you destroy your own apartment again?" He asked.
Johnny licked and nudged his nose into Roy's neck. "Does that sound good? You wanna go to the store? Yes!"
Because Johnny needed a leash and some puppy chow, at the very least. Maybe. He hoped Johnny would like puppy chow. He wasn't sure what else to give a… what was he? A were-puppy?
Roy went to sleep with a little ball of floof and woke up with a naked, lanky human sprawled all over him, limbs everywhere. He smiled down at the brunette sleeping peacefully with his head on Roy's chest.
He couldn't help but reach his hand up and pet Johnny's head, loving the little smile and murmur as Johnny nuzzled comfortably.
And then Johnny's eyebrows furrowed, and he smacked his lips a few times. He opened his eyes and lifted his head, confused. "Roy?"
"Mornin'," Roy greeted, almost a whisper in the still room.
Johnny had no such reservations, eyes widening as he pushed himself upright.
"You're alive!"
"Oof," Roy grunted as Johnny's elbow pushed against his stomach in the process. "So far."
"You're not hurt?"
"Well, the elbow to the gut didn't help any."
"What—oh!" Johnny moved off of Roy, then leaned in and grabbed Roy's face, turning it one way and then the other. "Did I bite you?"
"No."
"Scratch you?"
"No."
"Did I—what happened?" Johnny sat up and looked at him. Then he looked around the room. A collar sat on the nightstand, with a bone-shaped tag that said 'JOHNNY'. His entire face took on a confused sort of disgust. "What? Roy, I like you, but this isn't really my scene."
"Scene?" Roy yawned. He pushed himself to sit up as well and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
"Yeah… collars, leather…"
"Johnny—"
"And it doesn't even fit. Wait, what?" Johnny found the toy rope at the foot of the bed. Next to a squeaking rubber fire truck. "Roy, what is all this?"
"Well, I couldn't say no. I just went for food and a leash, but you were so cute—"
"Cute?"
"—and you loved the fire truck toy. But the cashier said you couldn't be there without a proper leash and collar because only leashed pets could be at the pet store—"
"Pet store??"
"—so I got your name engraved on it. And then the food and the bowls. And you really can't just have hardwood only in a house with a puppy, so I got some rugs—"
"Puppy?!?"
Johnny scrambled out of bed, still naked, and went to see what the hell Roy was talking about. The living room and dining room had rugs laying everywhere, there were two dog bowls in the kitchen, a giant padded dog bed next to the couch, and toys everywhere.
"What the hell happened last night?" Johnny asked, hands pulling at his hair.
Roy came up behind him, calm as can be, and laid his chin on Johnny's shoulder.
"So… you're not exactly a werewolf."