A Boy and His Dog (Eric)

[maxine]

Max woke with a start, but that was pretty usual for her. There was always something going on and she was a light sleeper. But she had to be a light sleeper just in case Master woke up and something was wrong and he needed her.

What was strange was that Max was cold. She’d gotten up in the night because she’d felt really strange and had slept on the floor in case she got sick. She didn’t want to get sick on Master’s bed. He wouldn’t like that very much. But now she was cold. That was strange because Max had too much fur to be cold too often. And then Max opened her eyes and the world looked different. There was so much color!

She stood up shakily and stretched, but then realized that there was something else strange. She was standing on two legs and her paws had changed into feet and her front paws had changed into hands. Max had become human and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. But she knew that she needed to tell Master.

Max pounced on the bed and crawled up to Master’s face and whined happily. Then she bent down and licked his face to wake him up, just like she did every other day. Then she barked and licked him again to let him know that it was time to get up. She would have wagged her tail if she had one, but she didn’t. Instead she just wiggled happily.

[Deleted]

The thing about Eric’s sleep cycle was that as vivacious as he was, he also really enjoyed his sleep. Without his nine plus hours, he was actually uncharacteristically cranky, and trust me, he didn’t want to unleash that into the world. As for this particular day, he was actually having one of those nights where it was one perfect dream after another. Currently, he was hearing that voice again, but instead of looking around and feeling hopeless over ever finding her, this time he could track it. He was running out to the water, and yes, this was it, he was sure…

Except something wet that definitely didn’t have a high amount of salt content came onto his face. His waking mind knew that it was probably Max, waking him up like the good dog she was. Sometimes Eric semi wished that weren’t the case, but only jokingly unless it was the first five minutes of the morning. He rolled over in his bed and mumbled, “Max, not now, please?” He figured that he still had a chance to catch the ending of the dream, if he just ignored Max enough, but as time went on, he could see the outline of the girl on the rock fading away from him. He even reached out his hand as if that would somehow help him out, but it was no use. The dream faded away.

Letting out a sigh, Eric realized that his fate of having to meet the waking world was inevitable. “All right, all right Maxie, you win,” he groaned, half joking as he began letting his eyes flutter open and he sat up, not quite looking in his dog’s (or rather his former dog’s) general direction as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “I think my subconscious is trying to tell me something about the girl who saved me…I never seem able to finish that dr—“

See, by now, he had turned around, expecting to see the ball of white and gray fluff that was his English sheepdog that he had raised from a puppy, probably panting happily and ready to slobber him with even more kisses. Instead, what he saw was a small blonde girl…who was still ready to slobber him with kisses.

Now that was a wakeup call, to say the least.

“What the--??” Eric exclaimed, jumping back from surprise and that, of course, led him to falling backwards from his bed and onto the floor, his blue eyes bugging out as he sort of tried to collect himself, even if he knew that he was going to feel those bruises tomorrow. There was a girl. In his dorm room. Luckily he had gotten a single, but this was still not a good thing! He couldn’t have random girls coming into his room and…oh my God, was she the one that was licking him?? Oh that was just…come ON, let him buy you dinner first, don’t jump into his bed when he wasn’t even wearing a shirt! As if it’d somehow make it better, he pulled the blanket over his chest.

“Wh-who are you? How’d you even get in here?” he cried. Usually he’d be much calmer about this, but for God’s sake, it was first thing in the morning!

[maxine]

Max loved waking Master up. He was funny in the mornings when he groaned and grumbled like that but she just loved to see him and lick his face to the point where he probably thought she’d licked it off. So she waited patiently when he blew her off and rolled over. It wouldn’t be long now until he would get up.

Max listened to Master as he talked about the girl. The one he always talked about. Max had seen her that day that she and Grimsby had found Master lying on the beach. Max liked that girl, whoever she was and she liked listening to Master talk about her. But today Master took one look at her and fell off the bed.

Max sat back on her heels and looked down at herself. She was wearing those silly clothes things that humans wore to keep themselves warm and she’d wanted to wake Master up to tell him she was not a dog anymore. But didn’t he recognize his own Maxie? His little dog Maxine who he’d raised from a puppy?

She crawled over to the edge of the bed to look at Master in the floor and whimpered. She wanted to tell him who she was so she opened her mouth to bark, but instead words came out. “Max!” she cried, startling herself. That was very strange. She wanted to do that again. So she tried again. “Max!” she cried out gleefully. She was gleeful that she began to bounce on the bed, crying out her own name. “Max! Max! Max!” This was fun!

[Deleted]

Eric wasn’t at all sure of what he was supposed to do here! His brain was going in about a dozen different directions and that, turns out, lead to a whole lot of lack of productivity in actually figuring out what to do about the very strange blonde girl in his room. I mean, he couldn’t just throw her out, that would just be so harsh, but it wasn’t like she could just stay with him, right? He was pretty sure that was a good way to get kicked out, and Grimsby would never let him hear the end of it, especially since it was because a girl that he wasn’t even intending to marry!

But before he could even start panicking about the possibility of getting expelled over this girl, something else very strange went on. The girl started to whimper. Not even like she was about to cry or anything, but almost like…which reminded him, where the hell was Max? By now his dog would’ve been doing two things; licking the girl’s face off or, if she was one of the few who weren’t on her “okay” list, she’d be growling at her…and that was when Eric was fairly certain his mind would explode and would never recover.

“Max! Max! Max! Max! Max!”

Eric never thought that something as innocuous as his dog’s name would have the potential to echo in his head, but boy did it echo, and it was freaking loud. While it could be said that Eric was clueless in some matters, he was able to add two and two together. Today, those numbers were the strange girl in his room who was shouting his currently absent dog’s name. Even more compelling was that if you listened right, it almost sounding like she was happily barking said name. Which meant only one thing, one thing that Eric was barely able to comprehend and it was making him wonder if he was still dreaming.

Eyes still wide, he dared to rise to his feet at a painstaking rate, eyes glued onto the girl who might have, somehow, once been his dog. “….Max?” Somewhere in his spazzing mind, he thought that perhaps his eyes were just going nuts, and he rubbed them, just to get any remainders of sleep out of them, and then he opened his eyes again. Nope, that was still a blonde girl instead of his shaggy dog.

“…I’m dreaming. I’ve got to be dreaming here, right? For whatever reason, my subconscious is making this girl sound like my dog,” he muttered to himself, still staring at the girl…er dog…er…hallucination before him. “Uh….” He looked around and somehow his frazzled mind remembered the cliché about pinching yourself awake and he decided to give that a shot.

“Ow!” Then he looked back over at the bed…yeah, he was still up here, the girl was still there, and he was pretty sure the only thing that wasn’t still around was his sanity. “This can’t be happening…”

[maxine]

Max was having quite a lot of fun with this new ability. She could say her own name! She could really say her own name! But Master didn’t seem to happy about this. He was looking very confused even though Max had just told him who she was. She was still his Max.

But she really didn’t like when Master was confused and she whined for a moment, not really knowing what to do until he said her name. And then she grinned and yelled out “Yes!” very much in the same fashion she had said her own name. She was even more delighted by this realization that she could say two words! This game was sure fun!

But Max was confused when Master said he was dreaming. He wasn’t dreaming. He was awake and this was not a dream. Not at all. Max didn’t understand why Master was so confused but she thought that maybe it had to do with her and she didn’t want Master to be confused. That was not fun.

So Max did what any good dog would do. She wanted to comfort Master so she crawled off the bed and stood on the floor and flung herself at him, trying to lick his face because that always made Master feel better. So it had to make him feel better now too. It would work.

[Deleted]

You know that thing about hindsight being 20/20? Eric was about to discover that this was entirely true, because honestly, Max was always doing that sort of thing whenever he seemed even slightly distressed. And slightly would’ve been an insult to just how frazzled he was feeling at the moment. The fact was that Max was always so very perceptive about when her Master wasn’t at his uber-happiest, and that usually earned him kisses galore. Unfortunately, Eric was so frazzled over the concept that somehow his lovable dog had turned into a human girl overnight, that it wasn’t until he was actually being tackled by said girl…dog…Max, and when she was actually trying to lick him that he realized what was going on.

Eric had never felt happier about his decision to have his own room. Eyes bugging out once again, he actually flinched back instinctively. Even if his brain knew that this was his dog, his eyes were still taking in a girl he had never seen before, and you just didn’t have strange girls licking you! Even if said girl was your dog not 12 hours ago, because it still looked so very, very wrong!

“Gaaaah…” he managed, staring at the girl who looked so damn eager to lick him, which, knowing it was Max, made perfect sense. Unfortunately sense wasn’t what he needed, because there was no possible way that sense could tell him how this had happened and how he was supposed to deal with this! “Uhhh, Max…” God, it was so weird calling her that when she didn’t look a thing like she normally did, to say the damn least! Still, he tried for an uneasy smile, because even now he realized that anyway he said this was probably going to hurt her feelings, and that wasn’t exactly something he was looking forward to. It wasn’t like this was her fault. Now how was he going to say this…

“Uh, wow, you sure look different today,” he managed to laugh, mostly an uneasy as all hell laugh, especially since he couldn’t have been understating things any more than he was now. All right, Eric, you’re going to have to breathe right now. I know it’s hard, but if you don’t, this is only going to get worse, since she’ll probably want to lick you awake again, and you’ll be right back where you started. So he took in a breath, vaguely thinking that maybe if there was some salty sea air, he’d be able to handle this a bit better…either that or Max would be trying to chase seagulls in her human form and he would have to hold her back physically…could this get any more complicated?

Even though it probably wasn’t what was best for his sanity, Eric pulled back enough to get a better look at Max, perhaps trying to reconcile his image of his dog with this girl right here. “How did this happen?” he muttered, not really expecting a response. After all, he was still getting used to the fact that she was human, forget about actually speaking English!

[maxine]

Max was confused and a little hurt when Master flinched. He never flinched when she tried to lick his face. That made her sad and she whined sadly. She couldn’t help it. She’d only wanted to make Master feel better but he wasn’t feeling better. And it made Max sad and worried. She was always able to make Master feel better. That’s what she was best at.

“Different,” she repeated with a confused and sad face. Master didn’t like it. And his laugh wasn’t right. It was strange. That was not Master’s real laugh. That was his fake laugh. He wasn’t happy. Master wasn’t happy at all.

Max didn’t know what to do to make Master feel better. He must be feeling funny because of her new body. But Max was still Max. She was still his dog and she still loved him. Master was still her best friend. She just looked a little different. She didn’t have any fur or paws or anything like that but she was still Max. She was still the dog that Master had raised from a puppy. She was still his dog, even if she looked a bit different.

She looked up sadly at her Master. “Don’t know,” she told him, not even noticing that she had suddenly made a two word sentence. She was far too busy focusing on Master and how unhappy he was. She whimpered because she didn’t know what else to do. Master didn’t want her to lick him and give him kisses and she didn’t know what else to do to fix this.

[Deleted]

Well, it looked like that in spite of not expecting a verbal response, that was exactly what he was getting and it only made him feel just a bit more hysterical. I mean, this sort of thing just didn’t happen! Pets didn’t turn into human beings overnight, and said human beings really shouldn’t have been trying to lick said masters, because it just…well, it just looked wrong, okay? You didn’t really expect to see a human girl licking a shirtless human male…well, okay, admittedly it happened, but Eric just didn’t go for that sort of thing! Letting out another nervous laugh, he started to say, “Well, something had to have caused it, I mean…” And then he looked back over at her.

Wait, was she…aww no, she looked like he had hurt her feelings. It was one thing when she was a whimpering dog. He already felt the need to spoil his dog, so of course seeing those sad puppy dog eyes was hard for him, but there was something about the fact that she was now a human whimpering and making those sad puppy dog eyes that just made it all the worse. Could have had something to do with the fact that Eric quickly realized that it was probably his fault.

Gah…he hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings, although looking back, he really should have realized that she wasn’t going to fall for his act. Max always knew when he was unhappy, even when, or perhaps most especially, when he didn’t want anyone to know that. And she was always curling up by him, nuzzling him and trying to give him kisses, and that used to almost always do the trick, especially if he talked to her. She was always the best listener, mostly because she didn’t feel the need to interject, even in her own doggy language…she just listened to him.

And this was really how he was going to repay her? By freaking out over the fact that she wasn’t looking like his dog? Talk about being a lousy master.

He let out a sigh, deciding to put his questions as to why this was happening onto the backburner, at least for now. “Aw Max,” he murmured, turning to face her completely. Normally he would’ve scratched Max’s head or something, but would that still work? He awkwardly reached out a hand to sort of ruffle the unfamiliar blonde hair with a rueful smile.

“I’m sorry, you just surprised me, is all…but hey…” It was going to be a little weird using the baby voice with a human, but he was just going to have to keep on reminding him that clearly, she still thought like the dog he had adored ever since he got her for Christmas when he was twelve…God, that was the best Christmas ever.

“Who’s your best buddy?” And with that, he finally managed a full grin, for her sake. “And who’s my best buddy in the whole wide world?”

[maxine]

Max didn’t want Master to be upset or sad or worried. It made her sad because Master wasn’t happy. Making Master happy was always one of her top priorities and it was what she was best at, besides chasing things and playing. But Max would never think that Eric was a bad master. He was the best! He always wanted to play and he talked to her and she knew all of his secrets. And Master was her best friend in the whole world. He took care of Max and she loved him best!

Max looked up at Master when he said her name. And she liked when he ruffled her human fur. It felt kind of like when he ruffled her fur, but a little different. But it felt like Master was feeling a little better. He liked to pet her or scratch her head. And this was kind of like that.

And she could answer the question about who her best buddy was. That was easy. “Master!” she cried happily, beginning to bounce a little bit. And Master’s best buddy in the whole wide world was an easy question to. “Max!” she cried and bounced excitedly. This was more like the Master that she knew.

“Play?” she asked. Max wanted to play! And that would make Master feel better. They could play fetch! Or hide and seek! Max was good at that game! Or Max could chase squirrels! Max loved chasing squirrels. She liked chasing seagulls better because they made more noise and they were funny. But squirrels were fun too! “Play! Play!” she cried, positively dancing in her excitement.

[Deleted]

Eric was fairly certain his attempts at making things right with Max would work. It seemed like she still thought like a dog, and dogs had the wonderful tendency of not holding grudges and being very easy to please. Usually a belly rub was all it took on the rare occasions that Max felt like whining (usually when he actually had to leave her behind for something). Seeing as he wasn’t sure if he was quite ready for that, even if he was trying to accept the fact that she was a human now, he had been hoping his little best friend pep talk would do the trick. If the way she was bouncing around was any indication, it had.

In spite of himself, he had to laugh at the way she said “Master” and “Max” all excitedly, like she knew that this was exactly what he wanted out of her. “That’s my girl!” he added, finding that her excitement was as contagious as always, and the whole rubbing her hair thing wasn’t feeling quite as weird. Sure, her blonde hair was extremely different from her much shorter animal fur, but hey, hair, fur…it was all pretty much the same stuff, right? He hadn’t really paid enough attention to his science lessons, so if he was wrong, well, forgive him.

Wait…she wanted to play? Eric supposed that was to be expected, Max always wanted to play, but there was still the matter of they were in a dorm room where it was generally frowned upon to have a girl there. If they were going to have a proper playtime, they were going to need to get out of here unnoticed, and he sure as hell couldn’t say no when she looked that excited…

He nearly snapped his fingers when he figured out a way to make this work perfectly.

“Of course we can!” At this he grabbed onto his nearest clean shirt, this one a nice green one, then a pair of sneakers. “We’re going to go outside…and actually, I have an idea of a new game we can play!” Hiding one of her balls in his pocket (he’d worry about how very interesting it was going to be, playing catch with a human who thought of herself as a dog later), he started whispering.

“We are going to try to sneak out of here as quietly as we can without anyone seeing us. What do you say girl?” It had just occurred to him that there was a chance that if she still had the mindset of a dog, she quite possibly had the vocabulary of one too, which was about the same as a toddler…he hadn’t really spent too much time with toddlers, so he wasn’t sure if this was good news or bad news for him…but Max was always a smart girl. Maybe she’d figure it out…he hoped. The last thing he needed was rumors springing up about Eric having a strange blonde girl in his room at 9 in the morning.

[maxine]

Master was happy again. Max liked when Master was happy. He even sounded happy when he laughed like that and she knew that she was being a good dog and good dogs always made their masters feel better! It was a rule for dogs to always make sure their masters were happy and to do whatever they could to make their masters happy.

She was bouncing around now. Master was going to take her to play! Play, play, play! Max loved to play! It was her favorite thing! And it was more fun if Master played too. She was very happy to see that he was feeling well enough to play with her. She would have felt bad if Master still wasn’t being happy. But he was happy now, so Max was a happy dog.

“Play!” she cried happily when Master agreed that they could play. They could play and she was bouncing and dancing in place she was so excited. And Max loved being outside! Outside was fun! That’s where the squirrels were to chase. And there were other dogs sometimes! Max liked other dogs. Other dogs were fun! And Master was fun outside.

But Max stopped bouncing and dancing when Master said he had a new game. Max wasn’t so sure about new games. New games had new rules and she didn’t really know how she felt about this. She cocked her head to one side, looking at Master with a perplexed face. She followed along for the most part. “New games?” she asked when Master was done explaining. “Sneak?” She didn’t really understand what sneaking was. “No see?” This didn’t sound like a very fun game.

[Deleted]

Oh boy, so perhaps he had overestimated his dog, because Max was looking very confused. Admittedly, he was beginning to see a perk in the fact that she could now display human expressions. If she were still a dog, the most he would probably get was an “Arh?” sound and the tilt of her head. Honestly, that could’ve been easily solved by just tossing a ball and Eric would’ve never known exactly what she was confused about, but right now, it was very important that she understood what was going on.

“Uh, yeah…” Okay, how was he going to make this easier for her, so they could get out of here without rumors going around…he supposed there were worse things, but the idea of people thinking that he was sneaking in pretty girls that no one knew about. It just wouldn’t look good, especially if, God forbid, “The Voice” knew about it…gah, that would be awful. He didn’t want her to think he was a man- whore…least of all with his dog. So he had to put this in words that she would understand…

With a snap of his fingers, he realized he might have gotten an angle out of this. “You know what? It’s like Chase and Hide and Seek rolled into one!” he stated, trying his best to sound excited, because he could also see that she was unsure about this. He needed to make sure that she thought this was going to be the funnest thing ever, and Eric knew as well as any dog owner that tone was everything when you were talking to your dog. “Basically, everyone else is chasing us, and we don’t want them to find us…do you get it now?”

Hmm, you know, perhaps he was wasting time in explaining and he would be better off just hoping that she could follow his lead. “You know what? Follow me, and be as quiet as you can, okay?” He kept smiling, no matter how freaking nervous he was about this working. What if he actually ran into someone? How was he supposed to explain this?

Come to think of it, how was he going to explain this to people period? He couldn’t exactly just leave her alone, could he? Well, he supposed that she was well behaved enough to stay in his room for a certain amount of time, but he couldn’t just lock her up forever, that’d be cruel and unusual, and it wasn’t even like any of this was really her fault…but the fact was that when he took her out, she was going to be acting like a dog and to the rest of the world, that just wasn’t normal. Hell, it was barely normal for Eric…

C’mon Eric, focus, he scolded himself as he poked his head out, checking to see if the coast was clear. As far as he could tell, no one would be the wiser. “Okay, Max, come,” he whispered, motioning for her to follow him as he walked out of the dorm room.

[maxine]

Max had never snuck anywhere in her life. She just wasn’t the kind of dog that could sneak. She was a loud, rambunctious, excitable dog. She liked to bark loudly at sea gulls and she barked at people sometimes too. And she was just generally a loud dog. She couldn’t help it, she just couldn’t be quiet. It just wasn’t in her nature. She even sniffed loudly. She was just a loud dog, so sneaking was probably not a good idea. Master should have known better.

But Max knew how to play Chase and Hide and Seek! Those were her favorite! She loved those games! She got to run around and sniff things and bark and it was fun! Fun, fun, fun! And Master sounded excited too! He was excited to play! He was excited to play this new game too! It sounded fun! Master and Max got to hide while everyone chased them! “Play!” she cried excitedly, bouncing in place again, her sweeping bangs sliding over her eyes. Not that this was unusual. Her fur had always gotten in her eyes as a dog.

Max liked this game! This was fun! Fun, fun, fun! Lots of fun! She always had fun playing with Master. He was the best Master ever! He always liked to play and help Max learn new games! This was going to be the best day ever! Ever, ever!

Max, bounded over to Eric when he called her, but the remembered that she was supposed to be quiet and walked carefully and on the balls of her feet. That was how she had always walked as a dog, though it felt funny in this new body, but she could still walk. And then she smelled something in the air. She stopped and sniffed it. And being the curious dog that she was she forgot all about the game and ran down the hallway after the smell.