A Bombastic Beginning

 Stoker woke with a ringing in his ear and a curse on his tongue. 

 Blinking at a cerulean sky untainted by the soot of industry, he sat up and stared at a world wholly unlike the one he had come to know. 

 “Sixsmith you rotten codfish where the devil are we? How far did you blow us this time!?”

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When his eyes opened—and thank fuck they opened because when the curl of red fire and iron bars splintering apart was the last thing he saw, he was sure that was the end of the duo— Sixsmith was coughing with the memory of sulfur in his mouth and grit in his eyes.

His ears were still ringing when he heard Stoker’s familiar voice. Always fucking chastising, that one. “Eh?” He shouted, glancing around to see all greenery and no brick. “What the fuck—oi!” Sixsmith flinched away from the wolf he saw nearby. “You fuck off, mutt!”

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 He was startled from his awestruck curiosity by a shouting wolf.

 Now, in his time as a solver of mysteries in a city as vast and mercurial as London, Stoker had seen many impossible things, but this was capitally new. 

 “I don't know why you think I am the mutt, dear fellow, but I would very much like you to SCRAM.” He moved then to wave his hands at the talking beast and found that, alas, they were paws.

 Capitally new indeed. Stoker squinted through orange eyes. “Six?”

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The ironic bark meant to ward off the wolf died in his throat when the damn thing kept yapping— but that wasn’t all; they were whole sentences with those familiar perfect manners that had grated his nerves for years because why the fuck couldn’t Stoker just say fuck.

But this, this was impossible. This couldn’t be true.

Sixsmith’s eyes widened. “Christ, I did die.”

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 A deep and wild anger stirred within the gentleman bruiser. 

 “You didn't die, you blew us up!” He launched himself at the other wolf, hoping to set upon him and tackle him to the ground. 

 Alas, Stoker had woken with two more limbs than he was used to and tripped ass over tea kettle.

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Sixsmith flinched a second time, this time with guilt. “Stoker, I—eh, back off, you fuckin’ cunt!”

Wrenching back when the wolf lunged for him, he realized with sickening gravity as he stumbled that he had fucking fur. “I find it hard to believe I blew us into a different fucking species!”

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 “I don't!” Stoker snarled, gaining his feet and whirling on his friend with renewed vigor. 

 As impossible as it was, as improbable as it was, the most likely explanation at present happened to be the least plausible one.

 Hailing from a stalwart bunch of Roman Catholics, Stoker was a devout atheist. But belief systems aside, the companions did seem to find themselves in a frightful state of purgatory. 

 Anger fizzling quickly, the darker wolf thrashed its tail before lamenting that it had a tail. “Crimony. What I wouldn't give for a spot of brandy right now.” He mused. “And thumbs.”

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This time the wolf squeezed his eyes closed, relenting to the teeth that would come at the behest of Stoker’s rage; a tongue lashing came instead that added to his impossible guilt.

“Oh, fuck your brandy. I could belly a flat of cocaine and it wouldn’t be enough to manage—” he tried to wave a hand and only managed to offset his balance with a clumsy paw, “—this.”

Peering around at the scenery, he let out a whine that disgruntled him by how canine it sounded, though at this point that couldn’t be helped. “Where do you suppose the fuck we are? Looks like bloody Iceland.”

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 “When did you go to Iceland?” He quipped rhetorically.

 It wasn't so much jealousy, but simply the fact that Stoker did not like to think of his life before Six. 

 Now, it seemed, he wouldn't be able to imagine an afterlife without him either. Stoker had not yet decided if this was a blessed turn of events or a dreadful one. Shaking out his fur, ugh fur, he began to pick his way over the rocky outcroppings, nose twitching at the end of his elongated muzzle. 

 “Well, come on then. Let's go see what's afoot.”

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Stoker’s question was smothered by the nauseating realization that the ringing in his ears had waned to a different peculiar noise; some rodent snuffing about in the dirt. Six was suddenly more bothered by the instinct to find the wee cretin than he was about waking up in a different country, in a different body.

Mercy, hopefully if he died again, he could come back as something less barbaric— and with thumbs.

Anything except a Mandrill. Filthy fucks.

“What’s afoot,” Six muttered as he worked across the rocks and wild grass after his friend, “Should it not be what’s apaw now? What a fuckin’ joke.” As impossible as this was, the nearness of Stoker calmed the more frazzled bits of the man as the unfamiliar wolves gawked at the new world. “Spose we’ve had worse, eh? Least there’s no bars or brush shanks.”

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 Stoker did not look back. He didn't have to, he knew Sixsmith would follow. “Tell me you've had worse the first time you go to relieve yourself and find your leg cocking to ninety degrees.”

 Thus the pair was thrust into a world unknown, and a curious new existence.

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finito

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