All Bark and No Bite
There were times when Cal wished he had never been born Were. He had nothing against Werecreatures in general; rather admired the group as a whole in racial pride kind of way. He would have greatly enjoyed being a Werewolf or a Werelion or a Werepanther or any kind of Werecreature that was something other than Yorkie. It made every family get together and reunion difficult when you got these little side looks that just said, "No. Seriously? A Yorkie?!" And then they would look away. It was embarrassing to the whole clan to have someone like Cal in the family; they had lost face with the whole supernatural community the minute that he was born.
Yorkies were cute, not dangerous. There was no way that they even remotely lived up to the epitome of those creatures that had once served under and battled vampires intermediately. He was a scar on the face of time-honored tradition, or so his mother had said at more than one such a reunion. Granted, his sisters had usually shushed her the instant she said it, casting sad, pitying looks in the direction of wherever Cal was at the moment, but he still heard.
So he had left England. His clan was almost completely London-based and rarely left it if they could manage, so it was hardly difficult to break ties with them. He had simply packed up and moved across the ocean to live in the States, where there weren't any Were clans at all, much less one resembling his own high class, tradition-bound bunch. There were a few Were scattered here and there, of course, but if anyone noticed that he was a Wereyorkie, no one mentioned.
The thing was-- Cal decided, staring broodingly into his coffee cup-- that being a Wereyorkie suited him. He was small, barely five foot four... and that was if he was standing on a slope. He had brown hair, gold-brown eyes, and had been sickeningly adorable as a small child and probably still was, much to his displeasure. Adorable was not the adjective that a grown man liked used to describe him. He had decided a long time ago that if he could manage to witch himself a few extra inches, he would probably turn into a wolf instantly, like a proper person descended from his clan. That should do it, at least. Yet, sadly, no one had come up with a spell yet that could alter a person's actual height rather than their apparent height.
It was on this obnoxiously sunny day, as Cal was drinking coffee with the air of a man drinking the most alcoholic liquor available, that the Nuisance began.
That was what Cal liked to call him, anyway.
"Anybody sitting here?" a man asked. He sat down without waiting for an answer, shedding layers of clothing left and right and finally leaving an extremely large pile of coats and sweaters tottering on the seat next to him. He looked at Cal and grinned. Cal scowled. Whoever he was, he was a Weresomething, and that something probably wasn't as ridiculous as Wereyorkie.
"Cold out there, isn't it?" the man said brightly. "My name's Evan, by the way. Tina, where’s my coffee?"
The waitress scowled, tapping one high-heeled red shoe on the floor. "Where are the pleases, Evan? The thank yous? Do you remember those?"
"Yes, yes. You're welcome, then," Evan said, waving her off with the kind of short, jerky motions that made it seem like he was shooing off a fly. He turned back to Cal, who was given a rather discomforting view of bright, bright blue eyes. "So what're you called, then?"
"Calhoun St. James."
Evan's eyes brightened even more, fingers tapping restively on the table even as his foot bounced up and down. He made the table shake with his barely-suppressed energy; Cal didn't really think he needed more coffee and was well-prepared to take it from him if necessary when the waitress returned, for his own sanity.
"Oh, you're English. Fantastic! Cal-- I can call you Cal, right?-- I am very pleased to meet you. How's life?"
Cal blinked once. Then again. He counted to ten backwards and forwards, yet still couldn't make sense of it. Did Americans normally act so forward as to sit down with someone they didn't know and inquire as to their health without regard for manners?
Cal then recalled his cousins, who would no doubt do the same, and decided that Americans probably weren't alone in this affliction.
"Good... and yours?" he replied.
"Awesome!" Evan said cheerfully. "Thanks, Tina." The woman's look not only sent daggers at him; it had him drawn and quartered, stuffed into a meat locker, mailed to the Arctic, and finally lit on fire. In what most would consider a wise move, Cal inched back and tried to find some weaponry to defend himself with. The spoon just wouldn't cut it, literally.
Once the scary waitress went away, Evan continued with great enthusiasm, complete with waving cutlery and flying sugar packets. "I'm off work, my hair did what I wanted it to this morning, and I'm drinking coffee with an incredibly good-looking Were. What are you, by the way?"
"Leaving," Cal snapped. He was not getting into that conversation with a man all too hyper for his own good.
"Leaving? I haven't heard of leaving? Is it some sort of German animal or something?" He gave a meditative slurp of his cappuccino as Cal tried to find a way to get out of the booth past the long legs that were stretched out beneath the table, blocking his way.
"No, leaving. In other words, I would find it preferable to be gone. Nice to meet you, I had lots of fun, let's not do this again next time."
"Wow. You're really rude." It was all Cal could do to stop himself from laughing at that statement coming from this man. "Cover this for me, would you, Tina? We're going, apparently."
"We?!"
Cal wondered if that strangled noise had really been his voice as Evan began to, in the pun of all puns, dog his heels.
It took all day for Cal to finally manage to lose Evan by slipping out of a darkened movie theatre and hiding in a dumpster until the danger had passed. A day spent in Evan's company had nearly driven him mad. When it was one's intention to spend a long amount of time moping, it generally was unpleasant to spend it in the company of someone else. Especially if that someone was Evan. Evan was loud, overly friendly, occasionally rude, and his eyes were far too gorgeous for Cal's peace of mind.
The thing was, Evan was a Were. If he had been anyone else, Cal would have been fine with getting to know him, but all Werecreature society knew of his clan and what his... state would mean in accordance to societal norms. In other words, since he was a Were, Evan would know to laugh at the fact that Cal was a Mooning clan member and a Wereyorkie. His clan was famous for their Werewolves, purported to descend from the very wolf that had nursed Remus and Romulus themselves. Occasionally another breed managed to join, but always something of great reputation, and never had a child been birthed that wasn't a wolf or some other fearsome creature. There weren't any Wereyorkies; there were not, in fact, likely to be any other Wereyorkies in the entire world.
Evan's presence in Cal's life continued for an entire week, then another, and then yet a third. It finally came to the point that Cal found himself sitting on his couch with Evan half draped over him and wondering how exactly this had happened. He blamed his cousins for desensitizing him to obnoxious behavior, or maybe the waitress for not holding Evan back while he attempted to escape. Either way, he now had what had to be the most attractive man in the States, maybe in Britain as well, sprawled so that he was near all the way on top of him. Cal was both happy and unhappy all at once.
"You know, I don't think I've ever seen you Change." Cal stiffened, because therein lay one of the reasons why he was unhappy in addition to happy. "In a Werebeing way, not a 'please take off your clothes way'. Not that I would object, but, y'know. I've tried staking out your apartment, hiding out in your closet, and putting a camera in your bedroom around the full moon, just in case, but nothing worked." Evan his head back against Cal's shoulder, smiling beatifically up at him. His ginger hair was spilling back against Cal's skin, catching the light, and Cal could feel his stomach clench at the picture that he made. He shook it off quickly.
"Do we need to discuss the leaving again?" he threatened. "And, well, I haven't seen yours either."
Surprisingly, Evan flushed. "Um... yeah. I suppose you haven't. But... why won't you tell me?! It's not like it really matters, I guess, but it's just polite. You're breaking about five Werecreature etiquette codes, you know."
"Three," Cal corrected. "It's only five if we plan to..."
He turned pink; Evan grinned. "So tell me!" he said. "I want to know, and you wouldn't want to breach a whole five codes, would you?"
He did it on purpose. He said it like that just to make Cal blush, and it really wasn't fair. He really didn't want Evan to laugh at him, but...
"Fine." He lowered his head, looking away, and mumbled it out quickly. "Imafrkngyrki."
Evan wrinkled his nose, giving Cal a strange look. "Say what?"
Cal sighed and pushed him off, getting up from the couch and performing the Change as quickly as he could, and had to worm his way out of the mess of clothes he had left behind. Evan stared, wide-eyed, and Cal wagged his tail half-heartedly.
"A Wereyorkie? You were all weird because you're a Wereyorkie?! That's so freaking cool! It's like Bunnicula or something! You could bite people you didn't like on the ass and all they'd do would aww over you!" He crouched down on his heels, pulling Cal into his lap and petting him. Petting was nice. Petting was beautiful and awe-inspiring and should be done at every available opportunity, especially behind the ears.
After a few rather long moments, Cal was able to shake off the petting-induced funk and Change back. "You really aren't going to laugh at me? I'm a Mooning-- you do know that."
"Lots of... jokes. Stuffy people. Biting wolves tails. Could be fun, really..."
Evan was distracted and it only took a second for Cal to realize that he was still in Evan's lap and naked. Very, very naked. He made a curious squeaking sound-- uncomfortably similar to a yip-- when Evan's arms tightened around him and kissing really was as good as petting, except maybe even better, because there were tongues and lips that were soft and Evan smelled really good and his eyes were that blue.
"What are you, then?" Cal asked once he had regained control of his faculties and remembered how to form complete sentences.
"I..." Evan turned red. "I'm a Werecorgi."
Cal drew back slightly. "A Corgi? I would kill to be a Corgi. You're actually considered a real dog instead of some sort of play toy."
"Hey, don't knock the difficulties. I herd things. Seriously. And my sisters all think that I need to herd their kids for them and they have seven kids when they're all together. It's awful and they ride me."
Cal snorted. "As I hope to do soon enough. I do have a bedroom, you know. Shift arse, chop chop."
Evan rose to his feet, pulling Cal with him. "So demanding, but you're all bark and no bite," Evan taunted. "You Yorkies have a history of yapping a lot, you know."
"A commonly held misconception," Cal replied loftily.
"And you were being stupid about being a Wereyorkie. Don't do that again. I've got this friend, he's a vamp and his teeth are like, this big." He held his thumb and forefinger about half an inch apart. "He looks like something from Anne Rice. Now he has something to complain about. Girls keep stalking him and calling him Louis."
Cal laughed, pulling at Evan's hand to try to make him walk faster. "Yes, yes. Never again. Now, if you would hurry up before I decide the job would get done faster with you unconscious..."
Evan rolled his eyes, pressing Cal up against the doorframe and grinning like the Cheshire. "I'd like to see you try. Dogs do need some discipline you know, get 'em trained right."
"I prefer positive reinforcement. Besides, if anyone's disciplining anyone...."
"I'd like to see you try!" Evan exclaimed. Cal laughed again and shoved him through the doorway, kicking the door shut behind them.
"Is that a challenge?"
