Love Songs and Tooth Picks

It was then, that I decided to point out the elephant in the room. “Prove it.”

C looked at me, “Excuse me?”

“Prove just one damn thing you are telling us, and I might believe you. All that I know for certain, is that our hair and eyes have been changing. I don’t know who in the hell you are. I do not know who in the fuck you think I am. What I do know, is that I am me, and there is not a damn thing you can say that will change that. No matter what in the hell I look like, I AM ME!” I looked the woman dead in the eyes.

“I don’t care what you want. I don’t care what you need. I am me, and I am staying that way.”

Everyone was breathless until she smiled smugly. The guard on the left reached into his jacket, I reached for my lyre without realizing it. He started to draw something from it, but I drew my lyre first.

Melodious notes began to flow, and everyone was staring at me with wide eyes. I blinked once, and the world around me took on a different appearance. Individual colors of the world dimmed, yet the colors of everyone in the world sharpened. I started to see a form of aura glowing around each person. Johnny’s was flowing downwards from his head, colored a sharp blue. Sam’s was emanating from his chest, spiraling around his being in a pale red. The woman and the guards were green, starting from their disgustingly pointy teeth.

The melody accelerated; and for the first time in my life, the song started in my mind as opposed to my fingers. One word echoed throughout my thoughts, with each of its repetitions I could see a dull green wave flowing a long with the sound. I focused my vision onto my captors. For a moment, I almost thought I saw C say something, but all I could hear was heartbeats, breathing, and my song. I began to hum lightly to its rhythm. C actually smiled, almost happily. This infuriated me, my face twisted into a roaring, silent scream.

I looked over to Johnny and Sam, they were still staring wide-eyed at me, jaws dropped. I looked each of them in the eye for just a moment, and they realized my message, plugging their ears with their fingers. I looked back to C and her goons, and uttered a single word.

"Lullaby."

The effect was immediate as the word left my tongue, the green waves I had been seeing converted themselves into pale mint-green spikes, flowing directly into their ears. All three of them looked scared for a moment, but then each fell to the floor silently. I stumbled in the same downward direction for a moment, but Johnny caught me.

“Come on, we need to get out of here.” He looked over his shoulder. “Sam, can you get the door? I’ll get Lenny.”

Sam pressed his weight against the door and pushed once to test it’s resistance. He took a step back towards the other one, as his eyes began to glow pink. He charged. The door flew out into the street, with Sam on top of it. He bounced off and into the grass along the road. Johnny grabbed my exhausted form tightly, and said “On three, I want you to curl into a ball, as tight as you can.” I nodded meekly in response.

“THREE!” He shouted, throwing me out of the speeding limo.

I hit the grass hard, feeling my entire body crack and pop in unison. It hurt like a bitch. I blacked out again.

---Day 2 continued; late afternoon.---

The next time my eyes opened, was in a heavily wooded forest. I looked around and saw Johnny and Sam talking to one another, sitting on a log with their backs to me. I saw that they were in a rather intense debate, but I was too groggy to make the words out. And then I saw their tails.

My hand reached its way down to my own, my eyes shot wide immediately. “Fuck.”

Johnny turned his head, “Oh, look who’s back from the dead. Come on over here.” His voice sounded a little off.

I tried to get up, but everything hurt too bad to move much. “Can’t move much, you come here, what are you two talking about over there?”

“What do you think?” Sam shot back. “What the hell was that thing in the limo that you did?!”

“I don’t know, but it was exhausting as fuck. What time is it?”

Sam pulled his phone out of his pocket, and tried to check the time, but when he looked at it he saw the entire thing cracked in half down the middle. “Damn it, anyone got a watch?”

Johnny perked up a bit, “Hang on, let me check mine.” He stuck one hand into his right pocket, paused for a moment, and stuck his other hand in the left. He searched every pocket he had before groaning in disappointment. “I left it in back at the apartment, crap.”

I laughed a little, only to wince at a pain in my forehead. It wasn’t quite a head ache, more like a bruise covering my entire head. “So, where are we?”

Sam looked straight up, and stuck his tongue out in the air. It was a little longer than what would be passable as human. He tasted the air for just a moment, and looked back at me. “32.7 kilometers south by south-west of town, don’t ask me how I know that. And also, don’t ask me how I thought to taste the air.”

I grinned a little, trying not to laugh. “Well, don’t ask me how I did that thing back there.”

I saw Johnny sigh a little. “Why don’t I get to do anything weird or cool?”

I laughed again, hurting myself. Once I caught my breath, I glanced at him. “Because you keep making me laugh, it hurts fucker. Stop.”

“Sorry, can’t help it.” We sat for a moment, them on a log facing me, me with my back against a tree facing them. “So, Sam, what do you do for a living?”

He rubbed his chin for a moment, and shook his head. His pink curly hair shook too, Poor, poor, Twinkle. At least Gate and I get semi-gender neutral colors. “I am-err, was an engineer. Well, was going to be at least, after I got kicked out of college the only job I could get was as a mechanic, fixing cars for cheap cash. What about you two?”

“I’m a dentist, through and through. Fixing teeth is what I do.”

“Heh, you rhymed. I’m technically jobless. I just play my violin in the park, people give me money for it. It pays my half of the rent.”

“You barely pay a fourth of the rent.”

“I try!”

“Whatever man, I don’t particularly think that matters much at this point. Look at us, multi-colored freaks with tails.”

“I’d rather be a freak with a tail, than a freak with a tail and with an obsession over dental hygiene.” I smiled meekly, awaiting the incoming shit storm.

“Ordinarily, I would kick your ass for that, but I kind of did earlier, what with, the whole me throwing you out of a speeding vehicle and what not.”

Sam coughed a little. “So then, you two obviously know each other well enough. Might I suggest we get a move on? If those … things from earlier come looking for us, they’ll be looking in the woods first. We’re only 153 meters from where they last saw us, it would be an easy find.”

“How do you know the exact distance?” I asked curiously.

“How did you knock them out by playing a song?”

We both stopped talking for a moment, then Johnny smiled. He jumped in the air and shouted “MAGIC! Let’s just call it magic! So then, I agree with Twinkle, we should really get moving.”

“I really don’t think I can, it hurts to even laugh. My forehead is fucking killing me.” Both of them looked at me.

“That splitting, pinching, yet stabbing feeling at the base of your hair line,” Sam said, “us too, quit whining. Let’s go.”

“But it’s so farrrrr….” I started to whine, more for my own amusement than out of legitimate laziness.

“Shut the hell up Heart.” Johnny threw a small pebble at me. “Quit being such a pussy and get up.”

“Fiiiine.”

The walk was long and arduous, but signs of civilization began reappearing. We started along a road, when I heard a car approaching at a deafening volume, and I fell to the ground, clenching my ears flat against my head tightly.

Wait, ears? Clenching? Flat? What?

Once the painful noise passed, I put my hand to my head. Through the silky smooth of my hair, I felt that my ears were fuzzy, pointed, and pivoting towards any noise I heard. Gate looked at me with a questioning gaze. “Hey Lenny, you alright back… there…” He trailed off when he saw me clenching my ears in my hands. His own hands reached upwards to his head, and towards his new pair of light blue ears.  There was silence for a moment, save for the sound of Twinkle still walking.

“FUUUCK!”

I winced, Twinkle jumped in the air, falling forwards in surprise at the shout. He turned around and saw us both inspecting our new ears. He just looked at us and deadpanned. “Seriously, how far is this going to go?” He didn’t bother inspecting his own white ears, he just kept walking. “Come on, we might be able to pass this off as a cosplay costume if we just act nonchalantly. There is a gas station forty two meters past this upcoming hill.”

I sighed, and rose to my feet. “Yeah, good point.  We should at least try and phone a cab or something. All of this walking is getting incredibly boring.” My hands started twitching again. “Did you happen to bring that lyre with you when you jumped out Gate?”

He looked at me, “Why would I do that?” I just rose my hands for him to see why. “Lenny, your eyes are glowing green again.”

I blinked a few times, and colors started sharpening once more. “Oh come on, what is it this time, possessedhands? What do you want from me?!” I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head and I fell forwards. I went to rub the back of my head, but found something stuck in my hair. I tried to pull it out, but ended up shouting “AHFUCKGETITOUTWHATISIT?” You know, they say hindsight is always 20-20, I shouldn’t of tried a jerking pull to remove something stuck in my hair. It really hurt.

Gate, unlike me, was laughing his ass off. “Dude, your lyre just came out of nowhere, how the hell did it get stuck in your hair?” He walked behind me. “Weird. How did that even get here?”

I just grumbled. “Magic… fuck magic.” That asshat wouldn’t stop laughing. We followed Twinkle, who was a good quarter mile ahead of us by this point.

We approached the gas station, when Johnny stopped. “Guys, we should hide our tails. Ears can be passed off as cosplay, but the tails are obviously real to anyone who looks closely enough.” My tail twitched, it was a weird feeling. I suppose a better way of saying it was that my tail flicked in annoyance.

“I guess you’re right, how are we gonna do this?” Sam rubbed his chin.

“I guess we’ll just have to stick it down a pants leg.”  Johnny’s constant forethought was seriously getting annoying.

“I’ll go first then.” I slipped behind the nearest tree that was thick enough, and took my pants off. What I saw was rather shocking, to say the least. I was starting to grow fur, mint green fur. It was nary but a patch, starting at and including the lyre marking. “FUCK!”

Johnny came running up. “What is it? What happened?” He would have asked more questions, but he stopped talking and immediately turned around when he saw my pants were not on.

I pulled my pants back up, careful to slide the tail down my left pants leg. It was quite possibly the most uncomfortable thing you can imagine. I walked back to the others, refusing to make eye contact with Gate. “That was awkward.” He said quietly under his breath.

“Never speak of it again.”

“Huh? You heard that?”

“Dude, these ears are fucking OP. I can hear your heartbeats if I want to.” His eyes went a little wide at that, I can’t blame him. It was a rather disturbing thought to me as well.

Sam walked off behind the tree, and ever quietly returned. On the way back to us, his walk looked stiff and unnatural. I leaned over to Gate and whispered. “Is that what it looks like when I walk?”  He nodded. “Jeez.”  He went off to the tree himself.

“This is the most annoying thing I have dealt with in my entire life.”

“What the tail? It’s not too horribly bad, not a preferred situation, but it is bearable.”

“No, not the tail, though I agree with you on that. What I meant, was the eyes.”

“What about them?”

“My eyes are probably as good as your ears are. Everything within my field of vision, every crack between the wings of a fly, every seam between leaf and stem, every individual bit of hair on your head; I can see it all in incredible detail.”

“Whoa, neat.”

“Not neat, it’s annoying as hell, I’m getting a head ache from focusing on too many details at once.”

“Well, at least you can close your eyes. I can’t close my ears. When that car drove by earlier I honestly thought the noise was going to kill me…”

“…And that was a hybrid, a quiet one I might even.” Sam added.

I just groaned “So glad this road is unused.”

“I agree, I hate this pink ass hair.”

Gate walked back over to us with an awkard look on his face, “So… Fur.”

We both just nodded and walked across the road and towards the gas station. It was a raggedy old place, very run down, but it’s owners seemed to still care about outward apperances. It was clean, if you ignore the layer of dust over everything but the one car in the lot. Well, it was clean in my eyes, but I heard Twinkle gag a little. We made our way through the door, I gained a slight smile when I heard the pleasant bell ringing when the door opened. An old man sat at the counter, his beard and hair reaching his shoulders. He reminded me of Gandalf.

“What can I get for you, ladies?”

Twinkle whispered without turning his head, he knew I would hear it. “Did I just hear him right?” I nodded. Gate, ever the logical had already designed a story for the man.

“Hello there sir, our car broke down about 5 miles out, do you mind if we use your phone to call a cab?”

“Certainly, go right ahead.” He gestured towards a phone in the back of the store. Johnny walked over to it and started dialing. Sam just wandered the store. “Hey, uh, you do know that you have that harp thing in your hair, right?” he said, looking towards me.

I face palmed. “Don’t remind me…”

“I could… help you get it out if you’d like.” My eyes shot wide and my mind went on overdrive-paranoia again and I backed away slowly.

There is something awfully rapey about this guy…

"Look, it's fine where it is, guy."

"I don't like your tone, little lady." He walked over to the door, and locked it. Oh fuck. He approached me rather quickly, taking me by surprise. He grabbed my shirt with both hands and tore it clean in two. Oh fuck he's strong. "Flat chested eh? I can still work with that. Come here little lady!" He said whilst tackling me to the floor. He grabbed my arms in one hand and forced them behind my head. He sniffed the air a few times. "Hmmm you smell like mints." He licked his lips and ran his tongue from my stomach to my neck. "Taste like mints too. This is going to be refreshing."

I shivered at his touch. "I'm a guy, stop calling me little lady..."

He opened his eyes a little wider. "I don't mind, you look like a lady, you are little." He licked me again. "Mmm"

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!" I screamed while flailing under his weight.

"I'm working on it! My belt buckle is stubborn!" He said with a smile. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my exposed chest. I panicked a bit more.

I managed to knee him in the groin hard enough for his grip on  my arms to loosen. Somehow, I managed to scramble away from the beast of a man. I took off through the store, nearly barrelling into Twinkle, who turned out to be in the middle of stealing bottled water. "TWINKLE! RUN! SALESCLERK! RAPIST! SHIT!"

"Wha-" He was interupted by a rag appearing over his mouth, held in a hand that came from nowhere. He fell, but was caught and gently set down by the hulk of a man who tore my shirt. I ran again, but slipped on the smooth tiles. He was on top of me in no time. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, waiting for it to be over.

His breathing slowed, and he fell to the floor next to me, unconscious. "What?"

I looked up to see Gate standing over him with a shocked expression. "Well, that just worked."

"What?"

Gate leaned down and pulled a needle out of the side of the man's shoulder. "Everything went blue for a second and I saw a needle on the counter, glowing a bit more than everything else. I grabbed in and followed a sort of glowing trail on the floor. When I saw him on top of you, I felt a warmth come from the needle, and saw a glowing spot on his shoulder, I put two and two together, and he fell over."

I blinked a few times as I stood up. "Well, guess you get something neat too."

"Neat."

"Yup, Neat."

"So why is Twinkle on the floor?"

"Oh, he chloroformed her saying something about saving her for later." His eyes went wide.

"You just called him 'her' ... twice."

"Weird. So how long until the ride gets here? I don't want that guy getting back up."

"Oh! Phil is on his way, shouldn't be more than 15 minutes."

"Cool, did you tell him about all of the ... uh... stuff?"

"Not quite."

The next 15 minutes passed rather dully. I got hungry, started grabbing some snacks off the shelves. Johnny shot me a dirty look at stealing. "Dude, he just tried to rape me, he tore my shirt to peices, he chloroformed Twinkle. I think he owes us a few dollars worth of snacks."

I bit into the beef jerky I had acquired by slightly not-legal means, and immediately vomited.

"You alright Heart?"

Once I caught my breath, "What the hell is that stuff?"

He picked it up, and investigated the package. "It's just regular beef jerky."

"IT TASTES LIKE HELL!"

He took a bite, only to join me in my opinion.

Several moments passed with nothing but the sound of he and I both shivering. There was a tapping on the window, and I saw Phil wearing a hoodie with the hood drawn. Sunglasses hid most of his face, but he still had that familiar cocky smile.

"PHIL! THANK GOD! The door is locked! Can you break it?" Gate looked to me and rolled his eyes.

"You saw where he put the keys right? Just go get them."

"The keys are in his underwear."

Gate paused for a moment, "PHIL! CAN YOU BREAK THE DOOR?"

He gestured, miming out that he couldn't hear us. I rolled my eyes and took a running jump start towards the window, crashing through. (Like a boss) I got my self up, dusted off a few stray shards of glass and looked at Phil. "Can you break the door, we are kinda locked in."

He stared me in the eye until I facepalmed. "Right, window."

We rode off into town in Phils car, sleeping Twinkle in tow. "So, Phil... Never seen ya in a hoodie before, same goes for the shades." I saw him smile in the rearview mirror.

He reached up and took the shades and hood off. His hair was now in a bit of a buzzcut, and was a light amber. His eyes were  a vivid red. His ears had ascended and grown fur, much like my own had. Looking at me in the mirror, he said "Heh, I thought mine were weird. Gold, green, blue, pink? I can deal with red eyes for that. "

"Oh shut up, your eyes were probably red from -other- things first."

"I haven't smoked in a good week, so you are wrong."

Johnny looked at him closely. "Let me guess, you've got a dumbbell on your thighs? Tail between them?"

"Aye, I do lass."

"Why does your accent suddenly sound forced? It used to be much more natural sounding."

"Ah, ever since the thigh thing my voice has been weird. You all sound different too. If I didn't know any better, I'd assume the lot of you were female."

Johnny had a look on his face, the very one he always got when he had a really mean idea. "Hey Snow, think you can beat me in a drink-off?"

His eyes widened, and he slammed his fists onto the car horn. He flexed all his muscles at once and screamed "YYYEAAAHHH!!!!" He huffed for a moment, and returned to normal. "Sorry, I have no idea where that came from."

"Heh, nice one Johnny."

We were still driving around when Twinkle woke up. At first he seemed groggy, but then a little panicky. And then he started screaming. "WHAT'S GOING ON? WHO'S CAR IS THIS? WHO IS THAT GUY? WHY DOES HE HAVE EARS TOO? WHERE IS THE RAPIST? WHY WAS I ASLEEP? WHY IS HEART NOT WEARING A SHIRT?"

"Calm down Twinkle, thats just Phil. He's a friend of ours. This is his car, Gate knocked out the rapist after he knocked you out and tore my shirt up. As for the reason why he have ears kinda like ours? I assume it's a similar reason to whyever we have ears like ours."

Twinkle studied him for a moment. "But he is still clearly masculine. That isn't fair!"

"Hey, you just admitted you are feminine, as you were whining like a girl. Don't hate on me for being awesome." That was a very un-like Phil thing to say.

The car came to a stop, at a red light. In the lane next to us was a black limo.