The stroll back to his apartment was a nice, long, peaceful one. In between each bubblegum-clogged sidewalk line he’d made sure to count, he was free to take in some really stellar views of the Kakatu Mountains off in the distance. Most of the friends he’d made in his two years at Oregon State were local, and all had grown used to the masterpieces perpetually unfolding right outside their valley, so they still sometimes got irritated when Dante needed a second to take it all in. It was his first time on the west coast, well this close to it anyway, and he took care not to take a single second for granted. And hyperbole aside, he could account for more than you’d first assume.
So, if there was anything to enjoy about his occasional Nights out on the prowl, it was definitely this. This solitary trek back to civilization with a damn near guaranteed zero chance of running into anyone he knew, or anyone that might want to get to know him. Where he could just be perfectly alone with his thoughts and dreams and countless fake scenarios of social confrontations executed better than he could ever manage in reality.
He could tell that his Wolf, though slumbering, was still well within the upper realms of his subconscious from how easy his front door came loose. It gets worse each passing day, and for the first time in 2 months he got it open with a simple tug. He groaned as he saw the long paths of slime that were strewn about the hardwood floors like brush strokes. At first glance, he wanted to pick one, follow it through to its conclusion, where he’d promptly start whacking Shallow on the head with the newspaper, but his search was much easier.
Shallow was napping in a nice damp spot on the couch, with an empty bottle of Tito’s knocked over on the floor beneath him. Dante tethered the building aggression within him. Another trick that he’d come to master over the years. He couldn’t avoid becoming angry, especially when in states like this, but he could certainly recognize it coming on, and he’d rather catch it, nip it, and keep it moving, before giving into baser instincts and potentially get his ass whipped by a kraken. And, after seeing the speed at which Shallow could flop his tentacles around, Dante saw this not as a common phrase, but as a very real possibility with its own percentage chance and everything.
Also, Shallow paid for damn near everything in the apartment, to include the apartment itself, so Dante taking care of the household duties paled in comparison. It was one of the first things he always made sure to remind himself of whenever Shallow was pissing him off.
Dante simply walked over to the fridge, grabbed a breakfast beer, pulled a frosted bottle of Tito’s from the freezer and dropped himself in the least slimy spot of the couch, and placed the bottle off his side of the armrest. He dropped rough too, to wake Shallow up. Not out of hopes for petty roommate retribution, but just to open conversation. He usually wakes up around this time anyway, when he’s not drunk.
A tentacle jerked awake, tilting the fish bowl quite a fair bit before coming back to a rest, and teased a few taps around the couch until one of them landed on Dante’s leg.
“AH. YOUNG WOLF. GOOD MORNING. HOW WENT THE NIGHT? TERRORIZE SOME TOWNS? EAT A FEW MAIDENS?”
Dante stretched like he was tired even though he wasn’t, as he adjusted to the oily, moist-sweat effect of Shallow’s psychic communications. It took him months to get used to at first. “Just fine, just fine. Nothing crazy happened. I think.”
Shallow shook a tentacle or two in protest, “AGAIN? HOW CAN YOUR BEAR IT? IF IT WERE UP TO ME I’D GATHER THIS SHIT STAINED STATE WITH A MERE TWO TENTACLES, AND RIP IT IN TWAIN.”
“If it were up to you you’d suffocate in minutes. We’re in Oregon.”
“MINUTES ARE ALL I REQUIRE.”
Shallow’s smallest appendage tapped around on the floor. Searching around for a few seconds before it tapped the bottle, lifted it, and poured nothing but air, and promptly threw it against the wall, the pieces falling like a cluster of gnats dispersing. Dante sighed.
“I FORGET WHICH ONES SHATTER. SORRY.”
“The glass ones, Shallow. The glass ones.”
Dante’s heart jumped before he even finished the last sentence.
If Dante hadda made this fuck up just 45 minutes later, last night’s meal, which was indeed a possum, would’ve combined with what he managed out of this morning’s breakfast and produced a shit too impressive for mere boxer briefs to contain. I probably would’ve started the story there too. Two tentacles pounced out of the fishbowl and immediately pushed down towards the ground, holding the fishbowl up like it had a pair of incredibly meaty, suspiciously smelly legs.
“YOU CALLED ME FUCKING WHAT, YOUNG WOLF.”
“Nothing, dude. It’s just—“
“I’M NOT ‘DUDE’ EITHER. I AM STILL CONFUSED ABOUT YOUR WANT FOR HIGHER LEARNING WHEN YOU STILL CAN’T REMEMBER MY PROPER TITLE.”
Dante fought the urge to pick up Ye Ol’ He Who Dwells in order to paint the wall with him, and apologized. Shallow was still a little heated, so Dante presented the frozen bottle of Tito’s as a peace offering, which he gladly accepted. Dante had felt an argument coming up, and he liked to be proactive about such things. The old sailor smelter was halfway through the bottle when he began slurring his way through apologies of his own.
“MY DEEPEST REGRETS, YOUNG WOLF. I’M SOMEWHAT FOND OF YOUR PET NAME TOO, BUT WE HAVE BOTH GROWN, AND YOU STILL HAVE MUCH MORE TO GROW INTO AND MANY TOOLS TO FIND ALONG THE WAY. DISCIPLINE. RESPECT. THE DELIGHT OF A TERRORIZED PORT EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE. OH, AND YOUR ‘DEGREE’ OR WHATEVER OF COURSE, BUT I DIGRESS. TO REACH DOWN INTO THE DEEPEST DEPTHS OF THAT DARKEST BLUE AND SNATCH WHAT IS THERE TO BE CLAIMED, WE MUST CONTINUE FOSTERING YOUR DEVELOPMENT. AND SOMETIMES, THIS MEANS LEAVING BEHIND THE TREASURES OF YOUNGER YEARS.”
“Yeah, I gotcha. Though we do things a lot differently in this plane of reality, ya’ know. Around here, nicknames tend to stick, and yours is just too good.”
“THE NAME I POSSESS WAS STUCK TO ME LONG AGO. IN THE GULF OF ALISTON WHERE SAILORS WERE FLOGGED IF IT WAS SAID ALOUD. BESIDES, YOU DON’T LIKE NICKNAMES YOURSELF. NONE THAT I PROVIDE, ANYWAY.”
Dante chuckled, “That’s because your nicknames are absolutely insane. They sound like something a journalist would come up with to get more folks off the street to fork out the $3.50 and learn about the most recent lunatic in town.”
“SHOULD IT NOT? YOUR NAME MUST SPARK FEAR IN YOUR ENEMIES. A NESTED WELL-KEPT DOUBT IN THEIR MINDS THAT RE-MINDS THEM NOT TO TRIFLE.”
“It’s a different world. I don’t need a name like that.”
“THIS DIFFERENT WORLD OF YOURS IS STILL DANGEROUS, YOU KNOW. A STRONG ARMY WILL WIN WARS BUT IT IS ONLY THEIR RESPECT, THEIR REPUTATION, AND THEIR TITLE THAT CAN END A CONFLICT BEFORE IT EVEN STARTS.”
Dante groaned. He could already hear the lecture that was coming his way.
“YOU MUST FOSTER YOUR REPUTATION WHILE YOU ARE YOUNG, YOUNG WOLF.”
“It’s Dante.”
“WHAT?”
The two tentacles flopped towards the ground, exasperated in defeat. Dante sipped his beer, and looked to the tv. He just now noticed Rick and Morty was on.
“THIS. THIS AGAIN. YOU REPRESS YOURSELF. YOU ONLY HURT YOURSELF. WHY?”
“Because I live in reality?” Dante didn’t notice the slight crack that appeared beneath the sheer weight of his grip on the poor beer bottle. “Because I have to go outside and actually interact with society? Because I’m not trapped in this fucking apartment all day? Or better yet, a fucking fishbowl?”
The two tentacles squeeged and lurched as they lengthened, their thickness growing in real time, standing the fishbowl up, perfectly erect, where the sharpied-on eyes of Shallow's sticky note face met Dante eye-to-paper. Shallow knew what he was going to do next would hurt, and that’s exactly why he did it. Nothing more than that.
“FIVE.”
He wouldn’t want me to tell ya, but that hurt Dante. It hurt him a lot.
“Six seven eight—you motherfu—“
“FIVE.”
Dante could feel the heat rising to his face. It started to itch.
“Six seven eight. Dude please, I’m sorry ok—“
“FIVE.”
“Six seven eight.”
Need I say more?
“FIVE.”
Dante answered it in sequence. With six, his left foot went back. With seven he clenched a not-so-right fist, and just the pull on his knuckles rang out like thunderclaps. With eight, his hand rose to launch it, but in his other he felt a stark snap. The bottle he’d been holding shattered in his hand. Blood dripped down and blended with the slime of one of Shallow’s ghastly trails.
They stood there for a moment. Just taking it all in. And without another word to share the duo went with a laugh. Dante went back into the kitchen to grab the broom from the pantry, and Shallow’s tentacles got busy fumbling around with the first aid kit.
Shallow grabbed the broom from him as he returned to sweep, and sat him down on the couch before beginning to dress the wound. Neither of them knew what words would be perfect to break the silence between them, so they just let the tv talk for them in the meanwhile. Eventually, Shallow found just the right ones.
“DANTE, DO YOU NOT HAVE AN EXAM TODAY?”
“FUCK.”
Yes, it was Dante who said that. He immediately lifted his right hand to check his watch. It was 7:43. His Biology exam was to start at 8:15. In Carnegie Hall. Shallow cleaned the wound faster. Not that it was an impossible task. With Dante’s healing, he really just needed a decent amount of vaseline and a bandage tightly wrapped around. He’d probably be perfectly fine using it again come nightfall.
“YOU PICKED A GOOD HAND FOR THAT BOTTLE.”
Dante laughed, “Yeah, I really lucked out, huh?”
Shallow took one final tug on the bandages. They were good and slimy, but all the diseases Shallow had acquired over way too many years of outright debauchery were so niche and specifically foul that any risk of cross contamination was nil. Shallow used the other tentacle to stretch its way over to the fridge and grab Dante another beer.
“CALM YOURSELF. YOU HAVE BEEN PREPARED. ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS GET THERE.”
Dante sipped at it as he got himself halfway ready. He can’t drink for shit, and the carbonation fucked with his gag reflex enough that he couldn’t chug. Yes, even with girls watching, so he left the bottle half full on the drawer right aside the front door and stepped back out into the street. Shoelaces flapping away in the wind as his walk became a jog became a sprint became the absolute worst time of Dante’s life.
His muscles, just sore enough for his run to be a struggle.
His thoughts, plenty too scattered, but still counting lines in sidewalks.
His life, almost having had its Last Day, he narrowly dodged the front bumper of this stupid fucking All Black Escapade, speeding down Bastion Street, the college town's major roadway.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Our dear Dante's destiny, rustled, but still looking good to me, took a moment to stare aghast at his would-be killer's gall, before running off again and successfully reaching Vance University's Psychology Department exam hall.
