Willy sometimes wished his family wasn’t his family. "What are you doing standing around for?" his sister Vivian hotly demanded as she chucked his shoes at his feet, her hair braids flying about like swirling snakes growing out her head. "Mom’s been harping about the house all day long and you leave these in the middle of the floor!?" Furiously snorting she snapped about and marched out of Willy’s room having promptly delivered her complaint, leaving her brother to stare somewhat dejectedly at the footwear hurled at his feet before sighing and moving downstairs to place them next to the door.

"Marie, your cat is getting in the way again," Willy heard Dad say as he passed into the living room to see his father watching baseball like a hawk while Whiskers attempted to climb over his lap and nacho dip, accidentally skirting his tail into said dip in the process. "Gah..." Dad muttered and attempting to remove the offending hair practically dunked his fingers into the condiment.

"Harold!!!!" came an ironically timed but unrelated scream from the kitchen as the hulking rotund form of Mom came stomping through the doorway like some prehistoric giant. "I told you TWO HOURS AGO to take out the garbage to the street!"

"But the truck doesn’t even come by until six in the morning," Dad complained as he shook the hair out of his grip, and, having a hand covered in dip, proceeded to insert each of his fingers, one at a time, into his slobbery mouth surrounded by his unkempt face that hadn’t been shaved in nearly six days.

"Willy!" the demand came out as Mom grew impatient and saw an idle body that could be cajoled into performing physical labor, "take this garbage out now!"

The teenager considered protesting, but hesitated, thinking better of it. However, he opened his mouth before he paused, an action that his maternal overlord caught with her huge narrowed eyes. "WILLY! Don’t you make me march over there!" her demand crashed through the house like a rampaging pig horde, and Willy hurriedly nodded so as to forestall further risk of upsetting the portly Valkyrie who lacked only the armor for the part... and a voice that didn’t sound like a low pitched duck call mixed with a cheese grater.

Rushing over and hurrying outside, Willy sighed and tried not to contaminate his pants against the grimy smeared slop sloshing around just inside the bag’s interior, threatening to splatter upwards out of the top of the poorly tied bag. Panting heavily as he halfway ran in an attempt to lessen the time of hefting the bulky black bag of waste that assaulted his nose with putridity, he was almost to the side of the road when he tilted just a little too much to his side and a splatter of pale yellowish goo lurched from inside the garbage like a amorphous pouncing glob and splashed all over the side of his pants.

Groaning and futilely attempting to wipe the reeking slop, Willy so focused his attention that he failed to notice the skirting and rustling of brush that occurred just within a stone’s throw away. Strange noise did manage to catch the attention of his ears, but earned nothing more than a cursory distracted glance. Spotting a small shape rustle past behind the bushes, he immediately dismissed it as just another rabbit or squirrel and continued feasting his attention on the sour mess his pants were now sullied with.

Stumbling inside to a rather loud "discussion" between his parents on the drawbacks of sitting on remote controls and wedging them into the infinite black hole of inside-the-sofa, a sigh forced itself out.

Willy meandered around the kitchen with a blank but also forlorn look on his face. He moved past the kitchen table, crowded to the ceiling with a massive pile of bags and containers and books and magazines and purses and snack food boxes and the list went on and on... they didn’t have enough garbage in this house?

Swatting a few flies away, his eyes nearly glazed over the dark ladle with a gift wrapped bow still attached to it. The thing had been a gift to his family from his Great Aunt Ruth way back in the spring. Great Aunt Ruth was probably one of the few nice people in the family, even if she had a beard; still, nice. But as things were, the handcrafted ladle had been lying on the edge of the table for months doing nothing but collecting dust. There was little use it could get in this house, as Vivian strolled in impatiently and practically ripped open the freezer door open to grab a TV dinner and shove it into the microwave. This was followed by impatient pacing and occasional scowls and glares at her brother who just sighed. The microwave barely had time to beep before its contents were unceremoniously yanked out and hurried off into the living room where Vivian brusquely occupied half of the sofa and proceeded to alternatively stuff heated food into her maw and text her various "acquaintances" (Willy was hesitant to call them "friends" as he wasn’t sure if it was possible that his sister could have relationships that didn’t consist of her ripping them into mincemeat).

Willy putzed, still cradling the ladle, eyeing it oddly as he looked into the living room where his father slowly dined on nachos and watched sports, his sister impatiently ate her heated meal and Mom paced around the back of the room not ceasing her tirades. Naturally the others paid less and less mind to her the more and more she ranted, an observation even she could not fail to notice. Careening her bulky form over the top of her sitting husband like she was feebly attempting to imitate a giraffe, she curved her back and neck until her head was nearly upside down glaring at Dad. Her weight vigorously protested this maneuver resulting in her fwopping over the back of the couch and crashing into her husband. The end result was a suddenly flailing of limbs from both parties, a great deal of shouting and a colossal mess of nachos and dip spilling out like a sack of gutted garbage.

"What did you do that for!?" Dad shouted.

"Me?" Mom shouted back, "I wasn’t the one with that bucket of dip in front of me! You should be more careful!"

"Oh, please Mom," Vivian rolled her eyes in a momentary break from her endless texting, "It’s not the biggest stain we’ve ever had either," she said, her eyes turning to the brown moldy spots dotting the carpet, patrolled by the occasional fly or roach.

"Filthy, filthy!" Mom complained, "All of you need to be more careful when eating in here!" neglecting of course the fact that a couple of the room’s near ubiquitous stains in fact owed their existence to her.

Immediately Willy looks down at the ladle, eyeing it. "Well," he muttered, patting the kitchen implement, "we could always eat in the kitchen," he said aloud.

A rolling of the eyes was the instant reaction from Vivian. "And eat where, exactly?" she asked offhandedly, never broke eye contact with her phone.

"Urm... well, we could always clean off the kitchen table," Willy meekly began.

Dad snickered. "Where would your mother put all her shopping goods then?" The response was immediate and prompt and two seconds later he was wincing and rubbing his head.

Willy tried to resist sighing too loudly. "We could... we could even try cooking for once! Look at Aunt Ruth’s present; she gave us this months ago, and we haven’t even used it once."

"Cook? Cook?" Mom asked derisively, "We don’t have time to cook in this house!" she said as she sat down and wrestled the remote from Dad in the other chair. "Don’t you pay attention at all? Who’s got the time to cook in this house, you?"

Looking down at the ladle, Willy suddenly found himself nodding. "I could you know, I could at least try,"

"You? Cook?" Vivian snickered. "With what that old ladle your holding?"

"Why not?" Willy asked.

Vivian’s lips curled in disgust, "Why on earth would you want to do that? I mean, seriously? The thing’s from Aunt Ruth of all people. It’s got her hairy-woman cooties all over."

"Oh Vivian you know there’s no such thing as cooties," Dad said dismissively as he wiggled in his chair and unsuccessfully stifled his flatulence. "Just silly school nonsense."

A thoroughly unconvinced look was Vivian’s main response. "This is Aunt Ruth we’re talking about, not some smelly little unwashed boys. Trust me, you spend enough time around anything to do with her and you’ll grow a beard and a saggy bosom yourself."

"Now see here young lady," Mom said standing up, "my Aunt isn’t someone you can just insult on a moment’s notice."

"Why, do I need to submit a form in writing?"

Any hope of further pressing his point deteriorated right there as Mom and Vivian quickly entered into a contest about who could kill their vocal chords the quickest by sheer volume of air. Willy started pacing, mumbling and moaning to himself and holding his hand to his forehead as though to keep the degenerate anarchy from spilling into his head and contaminating him. As it was he barely heard the knocking on the front door.

Surprisingly it was his mother who heard and reacted first, though unsurprisingly she did so while practically shaking her fists at the heavens and denouncing the gall of the cosmos that never ceased to bother her. Stomping out of the living room, Willy could hear her pound the door from the inside as if it were the source of all evil in the universe and demand with a loud bellowing "We don’t want any; go away!" Pounding the door again for good measure she stamped her feet back into the living room.

There was no respite however, for in addition to starting another dispute within seconds, the knocking resumed at the door, this time more forcefully and demanding. The banging continued amidst the din of the TV and the arguing (which quickly morphed into screams), leaving Willy’s ears constantly under assault. Finally Vivian managed to turn to him among the roaring ruckus. "Willy, would you go answer the door and tell whoever it is to just go away?"

Seeing nothing better to do, Willy marched over to the door. Truth be told he was probably doing whoever it was a favor; exposure to this household could incur long term mental damage and scarring. Not sure of what to expect, Willy opened the door and...

Saw nobody?

Huh? Had they already left? They had just been knocking a few seconds earlier...

"Hiya!"

It was then that Willy realized that the voice was coming from below; standing shortly in front of him was a 2 and a half foot jackal, tan with black sides along with white stripes running between them. The furry creature carried not a thing with him nor an article of clothing, save for a worn armband that vaguely looked as though it belonged in a field hospital for some reason.

"Um... hi," Willy uttered, trying to figure out what the canine was doing here amid the constant din of screaming in the house. The little fellow couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8. "You lost kid?"

"Nope!" the young jackal responded energetically and with some measure of glee. "My name’s Medik!"

Willy raised both his eyebrows at the diminutive canine. "Yeah, ok... Medik, you need something?"

"Weeeeell...," the jackal said, leaning sheepishly and rubbing his footpaw on the ground as if summoning the will to speak up. "It’s kind of cold out, and I don’t have any place to sleep for the night..."

Standing speechless, Willy scratched his head wondering what to do. It WAS bit nippy out, and the little guy was pretty destitute looking and dirty looking. But...

"I TOLD YOU, FOR THE LAST TIME, NOT TO SIT THERE HAROLD!!"

"Um, right... look pup," Willy began.

"Kit," the jackal corrected him.

Narrowing his eyes in confusion, Willy went "Huh?"

"Kit, not pup."

"... But little... I mean young... kid jackals are called pups," Willy responded.

"Nuuuu uh," the canine that called himself Medik said, "Imma kit, not a pup." He took a moment to suddenly shiver and wrap his arms around himself. "Um, it’s kinda cold out here..."

"Er... Look pu-ki-...er... Look, Medik. There are lots of other houses in the neighborhood. I don’t wanna sound stingy but," he paused searching for the right way to phrase it, "You could find a lot better places to stay for the night than here."

The jackal’s ears drooped as his whole frame sunk. "But I already asked a whole bunch of other houses, and it’s getting really late now and I haven’t eaten in several days," he rubbed his flat belly revealing the impression of a ribcage in the fur and skin that Willy could have sworn wasn’t there before.

"But it’s not where you keep saying it is!" came a shout from inside the house.

"Look harder you greasy ungrateful baboon!"

Willy bit his lip. "Yeeeeaaaahh..." he said, unable to come up for any excuse at all for his family’s shouting.

Medik shot a paw out forward, however, undeterred. "That draft feels warm in there," he said, looking up at Willy pulling off puppy dog eyes. Warm? Probably. The whole house is warmed by all the hot air, he thought to himself. "Please? Can’t I just come in to warm up... erm, what’s your name?"

"Willy," he answered, holding up his hands about to say something else.

"Willy? Can... can I please come in? Just for a little bit, just so I can get warm?" he tilted his head to the side pitifully.

"... I... It... Ok fine" the teen said relenting, but barely had time to back up before he found the jackal had brushed up to him and hugged his legs. Not sure what to do, he patted the little canine on the head. Sure enough, he felt quite a bit cold from the chilly night air, his tiny frame shivering constantly. "Alright, alright, just... stay here for a minute I have to-"

"Who’s that?" Vivian suddenly demanded as she craned her head peering over to the door.

And of course, despite what Willy had told him, the jackal hurried into the warmth of the house. The teen just sighed and did the only thing he could do to limit the damage; close the door and prevent the electricity bill from blowing out the door. Anything else was just wishful thinking at this point.

"This... this is-"Willy began.

"Hiya, I’m Medik!" the jackal proclaimed.

Mom took one whiff and gave the small canine a critical scowl. "What’s that doing here, Willy? Why’d you let him in?"

Part of Willy was afraid that the young jackal would start rummaging around the living room, sniffing about at will and getting into everyone’s faces. Instead he mostly just stood there and looked all puppy like and twisted about sheepishly like a child afraid to ask for some candy. "I just needed someplace warm for a while; it’s really cold outside and I’ve been walking all day."

"Walking?" Dad perked up in extra curiosity. "What good sense is that, you’ve gotta have someplace you live."

"Well..." Medik said, "Right now, I don’t really have any place to stay, it’s really nice of you to let me inside and all."

This caused a predictable bristle on Mom’s part. "Now see here, you little urchin, I haven’t-"

"Really warm in here," the jackal commented, interrupted Mom like she wasn’t even there. "Really nice with how cold it’s been out," he said leaning over to the sofa and leaning against it.

Vivian raised a critical eyebrow. "Mooooom, why is it leaning against me?"

"I don’t know," Mom declared somewhat forcefully, "And frankly, little pup-"

"Imma kit! With a K, you know; just like my name. It’s Medik with a ‘k’ not a ‘c’ at the end!" the diminutive jackal declared. He looked around the room some more and ended up coming face to face with the family cat. Whiskers stared at him suspiciously, eyeing the new furry arrival and not altogether liking what he saw, his hackles raising at sight of the jackal getting close. The canine for his part narrowed his eyes and glowered with them, intently focusing on the feline critically, as if conniving, plotting. Then, just as quickly he spun around carefree as if sunshine and roses were all that was on his mind.

"It’s a really nice place you’ve got here, all comfy and cozy," he said, stepping over the carpet stains and flies nonchalantly. "Where can I sleep exactly?"

"Er, huh?" Dad asked.

"I won’t take up much room, I promise," the jackal pleaded, "Just a tiny smidgeon, I’ll sleep on the floor if you want."

"Why should we let you spend the night runt?" Vivian demanded.

"Weeeeell," Medik answered, "I don’t take up much space, and I promise to be quiet."

"Hmmph," Dad muttered. "Suppose you want a meal too?"

"Actually you don’t have to feed me or anything; I’ve eaten... enough recently." Willy opened his mouth to speak and then closed it, unsure of what to say or how to say it. Hadn’t the little guy just complained about not having eaten in several days and shown off a starving withered belly?

"Bah, enough of this," Mom declared. "Harold, kick him out already."

Medik’s ears drooped sadly and he looked at each of the family members in turn, even at Whiskers, before settling his eyes on Willy. He scrunched up all sheepishly, begging with his whole body.

"Er... I... I guess he can sleep in my room tonight."

"What?" Dad and Vivian both said in unison. Mom just blinked in surprise.

"Awww, thanks!" Before Willy knew it the jackal had run up to him and was cuddling the sides of his pants.

"Bah," Mom said waving her nose. "You’re going to keep that unwashed thing in your room?" Willy tried to avoid glowering at his mother, and to avoid gazing at the ruined state of the living room floor, but he did have to admit, the little guy had a very distinctive dirty canine smell. The floor smelled bad, but he had l ong gotten used to that. New bad smells, though, took a long time to get used to.

"I guess," Willy replied.

"Fine, fine then! If you do it, you can wash your bedsheets then, because I’m not wasting a drop of my sweat on it," she declared and marched off.

Willy sighed and just ignored everyone else and walked upstairs to his room. He didn’t have to usher the jackal up with him because the canine was practically hugging his leg up all the way.

"Thanks so much!" Medik declared when they made it up, "It’ll be nice to sleep somewhere warm for a change."

"Um... just one thing," Willy said. "You said earlier that you haven’t eaten in days, but just now you said something about not having to eat?"

"Oh that?" Medik giggled. "Oh don’t worry about me. I get enough nourishment from the good hearts and souls around me. It’s... well," he shrugged, "It’s soulfood! Good as any meal!"

"Right," Willy said. He scanned his room, which sadly enough was generally the cleanest room in the house. "Really you can just sleep anywhere you want, no biggie." He started changing his shirt for his nightwear when he heard scratching. He turned around to see Medik’s arm reached around his own back, his right leg kicking into the air.

"What?" he said as Willy gave him a look, "Jackals do this, you know."

On the one hand, Willy wasn’t much of one for insulting or pushing people. On the other, the little guy was pretty unwashed; every single time he scratched it was like a cloud of fur and dander rose up an scattered about his room. "Not sure I mind that per say; when’s the last time you had a bath?"

Instantly the canine’s muzzle curled in disgust. "Bath?? Bleeeeeeeeeeeh. Ick. Blah. No," he shook his head vigorously. "Baths are nasty; I haven’t had one in years."

Willy was dumbfounded. "Are you serious?"

"Yepyep," the diminutive canine nodded, shaking as he did so. Willy tried to suppress a grimace as more dander and fur were let loose into the air. "So," the jackal said as he poked around the room, "Just the four of you in this house then?"

"Yeah," Willy said distractedly as he poked around with his alarm clock.

"Sooooo, fun bunch eh?" Before Willy could properly respond, Medik barreled on. "That sister of yours... Vivian I think she was called; she younger than you?"

"Older, though she doesn’t look like it," Willy explained before finding himself throwing in an extra, "and she rarely acts like it."

"Awwwww," Medik responded, sounding genuinely depressed by that statement. "So no other siblings at all?" Upon seeing the shaking of the teen’s head, Medik pondered absentmindedly. "Siblings can be such a hassle; you’ve never had a younger brother or anything." He suddenly giggled to himself, "I’ve never had an older brother, so I guess we don’t know how the other’s going to react really, do we?"

The remark took Willy off guard. "Huh?"

"Oh nothing," the jackal waved his paw dismissively, "just talking in hypotheticals; you don’t normally interact with younger boys, I don’t usually interact with older ones."

Willy blinked and then shrugged, and then got into his pajamas. When he turned around his found the jackal on top of his bed poking down. "Hey what-"

"Oh nothing much," the canine cut him off, "Just checking out how bouncy the bed is. I’ve known a lot of kids who got sooooo easily distracted and mystified by jumping on beds and only ended up damaging themselves and nearby furniture." He settled down on the bed and plopped."

"Wait, hey; I though you said you were-" Willy began

"I knoooooooow, but it’s a lot warmer up on here than the floor. You wouldn’t mind it terribly much if I slept on here, would you?"

Frankly, at this point, the teen was pretty much too tired to care. "Oh all right, fine," he said, crawling into bed himself and laying his head on the pillow, hoping to fall asleep quickly so the stress induced headache he had accrued.

Such sleep was put on hold as he felt a fuzzy presence curl up against his side. Blinking he saw Medik laying right up next to him. "Hey, what gives?"

The jackal just tailwagged slightly. "Hey, but you’re nice and warm up here."

"You... You’re... kinda unwashed," Willy groaned.

"Awww, it ain’t so bad," Medik said happily, as if to make his point he rubbed against Willy’s side. He could actually feel the cloud of dander and fur billow out and settle on him, making his nose twitch several times; he brushed his face several times with his palm. "Yahahaha," the jackal softly giggled in a curious sort of barking manner. "What, you act like it’s a bunch of cooties or something. It’s just normal well weathered jackal smell; you get used to it."

Willy blinked and squirmed a bit, unsure of how to ask the small canine to please move away as his unwashed and wild reek made his nostrils want to fold inside out and crawl all the way down into his lungs to hide. But by the time he thought of something to say the little guy was fast asleep, curled up against his sides, snoring softly. He really couldn’t bring himself to move him, so he just sighed and tried to sleep, trying to resist itching at the smelly dander everywhere.

---

The night was relatively peaceful once Willy finally got to sleep. Eventually his fatigue caught up with him no matter how irritating the fur and the dander were. The only thing was that the night, while full of uninterrupted sleep, didn’t last as long as he would have liked. It was a Saturday morning so he expected to sleep in at least till 10 AM, but at 8:30 sharp the jackal was up and about, practically jumping out of the bed and irrevocably waking Willy in the process.

Immediately the canine started moving about and after finding an old baseball lying around started repeatedly tossing it into the air. He opened the door, to head to the bathroom presumably (though it proved far too much to hope that he would bathe). In the meantime, Whiskers slipped into his room where Willy just laid awake in bed, unable to get back to sleep. The bed reeked of unwashed jackal, and the cat could smell it. He jumped up onto the bed, apparently somewhat agitated by the whole affair of the foreign canine being allowed into the house at all, much less the fact that his scent was all over Willy’s bed.

Thus began a campaign by the feline to rub his own scent over the bed. Nevermind that it hardly seemed like it could make any headway against Medik’s entrenched stench; Whiskers was intent. And he continued to be intent up to the moment that the jackal walked back into the door. He stared at the cat for the longest time imaginable. "What?" Willy finally asked.

The jackal didn’t respond for a good minute. "Nothing, nothing’s wrong," he said curtly and slipped out of sight.

---

Willy spent most of the next several hours wasting time on the internet and experimenting with his keyboard. He also had to contend with his sister barging in and demanding to know if he was the one responsible for accidentally stuffing a red t-shirt in with the white clothes load, which had by now resulted in a pile of lightly pink tinged underwear and socks. Later Dad came by with the baseball Medik had been tossing up into the air, apparently after the jackal had left it lying around.

"You know son, you should really check out the baseball team tryouts," he said, hefting his belly forward to try and pat Willy on the shoulder, though accomplishing it awkwardly as his horrible garlic tinged breath gushed out of his mouth. It was doubtful whether he had brushed his teeth in several months, to the point where he could have spit into a petri dish and spawned a whole civilization.

"Dad, I don’t even do sports," Willy tried to reason.

"Sports’ll do you good, son! A little bit of exertion’d be good for you," Dad emphasized and with that waddled away back to the kitchen to find snacks for watching his 24 hour baseball coverage channel.

A random look out the window and he saw Medik running outside, carrying several wooden planks. Wha?... He knew the jackal was sticking around the house for a little bit, but what the heck was he doing?

"He hasn’t eaten anything as far as I’ve seen. Nothing’s missing from the fridge," Dad commented. And he would be the one to know if food was missing.

"So, just what is he doing?"

Dad shrugged. "I dunno," he said absentminded and turned back to the TV. "Far as I’m concerned as long as he’s not costing money I’ve got no problem with him."

Willy remained concerned, and went outside himself to investigate. However, searching throughout the whole of his overgrown yard revealed nothing. He looked high and low, and eventually just shrugged and went back inside, where he was confronted by an angry mother who had wandered into his room and did not hesitate to chastise him about the unwashed canine smell permeating it.

"You know we don’t like dogs in this house, there’s reasons we’ve never gotten one, and now you’ve gone and let that filthy little thing dirty up your sheets! I told you not to let that happen," she berated.

Willy sighed, not wanting to contradict his mother who last night merely informed him that if his bed got filthy he would have to clean it up and not her. He nodded frequently and uttered several obligatory "yes, Mother"s and putzed off as quickly as he could.

It was about this time that Vivian came up to him, looking more agitated than usual. "When was the last time you saw Whiskers?" she asked somewhat hotly, as if he had something to do with it.

"This morning," he shrugged, "He was rolling all over my bed."

Several loud snaps were suddenly heard outside, along with a great deal of shouting and commotion. Willy found himself rushing outside, along with his sister and even Mom and Dad, the latter of whom opted merely to rush to the doorway in the nightwear that he had not changed out of and was content to simply watch from afar.

Immediately they were confronted with a decently sized catapult, all curled back when suddenly it was sprung loose, snapping its arm up and sending its white and tan contents FLYING through the air at unbelievable speed, farther than Willy would have thought possible. Over the din of the stretching and roaring of straining wood one could barely hear the sound of a screaming and wailing cat as it flew over the horizon.

"Wha... Wha... wha..." Mother stammered.

"Was that... Whiskers?" Vivian asked.

Dad squinted over to the distant sky in the direction that the cat had flown. "Um, maybe emphasis on ‘was.’"

Emerging from behind the wooden contraption was Medik, slightly dusty with wood dust and with a wide, ecstatic smile across his face.

"YOU," Mother suddenly pointed at the jackal. "WHAT. DID. YOU. DO?"

"Me?" the diminutive canine said innocently. "I was messing around with some carpentry I learned some time back.

"That was Whiskers! That was our CAT YOU MANGY MUTT!"

Medik pondered for a moment before nodding. "Yup, it was."

"ANY YOU JUST SENT HIM FLYING INTO THE AIR ON A CATAPULT TO GOD KNOWS WHERE!!??"

That was it. Willy knew how this would end. It would end with tufts of jackal fur everywhere and no more stinky canine smell except in his final resting place. She was going to tear him into pieces.

However, the jackal seemed oblivious to his impending doom. "Wait a moment, you doubt you cat?"

Out of anything that he could have said probably nothing could have dumbfounded Mom more. "What," she said flatly?

"You don’t think Whiskers is up to this? Don’t you know the old song, ‘But the cat came back, the very next daaaay,’" the jackal sang crudely. "I know, I know it’s a song, but you don’t think that your little Whiskers won’t come back home? You think that the sentiments expressed in that tune are just completely made up and fabricated?"

"Err..."

"Are you telling me," Medik demanded, marching up to the three of them, "that you’re DOUBTING the tenacity of your beloved four legged and furry friends, that you don’t believe that they have it in them to cross heaven and earth to get back to their treasured families?? That you just dismiss their love as ‘oh I happen to live with these slobs, I might as well make the best of it?’ That you’re telling me that you think so little of your cat’s determination to be home and of his love for you that you think that he’s going to give up because of a silly short catapult launch!?"

He was standing right in front of them now, marching past them like a critical drill sergeant. "And you call yourself a family!! You think THAT little of Whiskers? You outta be ashamed, the whole lot of you!" With that, the jackal stomped off and marched back into the house, brushing Dad out of the way and slamming the door behind him.

None of them spoke. None of them spoke for a long while. Instead they stared blankly and looked somewhat... sheepishly. Willy practically couldn’t believe his eyes.

---

The shell shock wouldn’t last long, at least that’s what Willy thought. They may have been verbally battered into a stupor by that Chewbacca Defense, but the teen knew that this could not last forever. Eventually someone would stand up and physically strangle their unexpected guest, and he preferred not to be around to see it.

His room was the obvious choice to hide out in for now, and he scurried there quickly and quietly. As he sat down at his desk and opened his computer his nose twitched again at the ever present smell of dander. Sighing, he just did his best to try and ignore his family, the new arrival, Whiskers’... disappearance, all of it. He just had to get it out of his mind. He nearly got an hour to himself before someone shuffled into his door behind him. The rapid shuffling of paws was more than enough to tell him who it was.

"Hiya Willy!" the canine said.

"Hi..." the teen said haltingly. Instantly his nostrils started twitching.

"I don’t recall seeing you eat anything today, you want something? What do you normally eat in this house?"

"Um, usually just a TV dinner or frozen pizza."

"Ahhh," Medik said. "I tried looking around your pantries and stuff but I could barely find where anything is. And half of everything was dust covered! I practically sneeze my muzzle off when I took a peak at the cooking supplies, do you ever cook in this house?"

Willy turned around to look at the minuscule guest and gave him a good hard look over. The jackal just grinned back somewhat loopily, his tongue practically sticking out the side of his mouth. He just seemed... he didn’t trust this pup, not completely; he was too slippery, too manipulative. And what he just had just done to Whiskers... Frankly Willy had to wonder why he hadn’t been kicked out. He opened his mouth to ask that very question, and stopped, unable to phrase it correctly. Instead he simply shrugged. "No, not really. We have some cooking stuff, a full oven, stove, pots and pans; heck, we’ve were even given a really expensive ladle by my aunt earlier this year that had to cost more than I ever have in my wallet. But... we never use anything."

"Aww, why not?" the jackal asked just as Willy tried to turn back to his computer.

Sighing, Willy elaborated. "Because we’re always too busy; no one in this house has time for each other." He stopped, realized he was getting a little too personal with this strange canine, and turned around back to surfing the internet.

Medik, however, didn’t take the hint. Sweeping around to stand right next to the side of the desk, he poked the teen. "What, you saying that your family doesn’t appreciate you?"

Willy paused and grimaced. "Erm... I’m... Look kid, I’m not sure I should be talking about this with you."

"Heeey," the jackal said, putting a reassuring paw on Willy’s lap. "Who am I gonna talk to? It’s not like I’m gonna blab to anyone; what you tell me stays with me, I promise." To demonstrate, the canine made a zipper motion across his muzzle in a showy fashion.

Willy hesitated. "... Alight Medik, yeah yeah. My family isn’t the best, right up there with a lot of other horrible families. I’m not unique. Frankly, sometimes I’d rather not have my family at all if it’s going to be this way. But I’m stuck with them. There’s not anything I can do with that."

Medik didn’t respond for a long time, but he gave Willy a sharp look over, making the teen slightly recoil, as if he were being looked up and down by a hungry predator. "That’s kinda sad," he said at last.

Out of anything the small canine could have said, that was perhaps the last thing Willy could have possibly expected.

Jumping in while the teen still held his mouth agape, Medik seized in. "I hate it when families get all icky like this. It just, gaaaah," he said, pulling at the fur on his head. "I... I just dunno. It sucks." Willy nodded and looked the jackal over, unsure of what to say. "Family can be like that," Medik sighed. "You just, I dunno, have to get past it and over it. I’m sorry, for what it’s worth."

With that, the little guy nudged forward and hugged him. Willy almost jumped in his seat despite its slow nature, almost like a slow mo train wreck. No motion on his part took place, however, and Willy found himself hugged by the jackal who actually climbed up onto the chair and his lap to hug him. "You’re an alright guy though, seem decent enough." He practically rubbed himself all over Willy, who swore that the dander was so heavy and its stench so penetrating that his skin tingled all over. "You could be like the big brother I never had, and I can be the Little Brother."

"Uhhhh?"

"Anyway!" the jackal said, jumping back down to the floor. "I think I know what we can do. I can make you all a big dinner! I spent a lot of time around some Southerners recently; they make some real good soulfood. Just goes right to warming your heart and keeping it going. I’ll go set on fixing some of that for you and your family right now!"

Willy barely had time to blink before Medik skipped out the door humming to himself. What... what just happened? He pondered, then scratched his chin, which was practically covered in stubble now that he thought about it. Dang, when was the last time he had shaved?

---

For whatever reason Willy just couldn’t stop itching. Everywhere on his body he had to scratch constantly, and the irritation just WOULDN’T go away. Checking for anti-itch cream revealed just an empty dust filled tube with hardly enough to cover the fore of his pinkie. He tried to think of something, ANYTHING, that would get rid of the itching, even some Aloe vera. That unfortunately came to nothing as he found the thing somehow in a pot practically devoid of soil which had long since caused the poor plant to dry up.

Frustrated and grumbling, Willy stumbling into the living room and plopped onto the sofa trying to relax. Even the ugly, putrid stench of the repeatedly stained carpet could not drive the jackal stench out of his nose. Even single breath he took, he could practically SMELL Medik as if he were standing right next to him.

He was so preoccupied with just trying to force himself to relax he barely noticed his dad wander into the kitchen just a few feet away. He couldn’t fail to notice, however, the stench of the jackal walking by. Geez, was it just him or was the little guy smelling even WORSE than normal. In his paws was a cheap plastic food container, but it wasn’t possible to tell what was inside. Quickly and quietly, however, Medik popped it out and placed it onto a plate and followed Willy’s dad into the kitchen.

Dad was busy rummaging loudly through the cabinets and the fridge, undoubtedly searching for some sort of food that just wasn’t available. "Marie," he shouted somewhat, "What happened to all the leftover sweet and sour chicken? Oh, er, high there Medik," he said surprised.

"Hiya," Medik responded in the other room, causing Willy to perk up in curiosity.

"Hey, is that what I think it is?" Dad suddenly asked softly.

"Yepyep: Homemade cheesecake. Made it myself!"

What.

"Here!" Medik said happily, "You can have it!"

"Wow..." Dad said, as if he had just discovered the Hand of Midas. "Just, wow, thanks." The next sound to be heard coming out of the kitchen was that of a large man loudly munching away with reckless abandon.

"I have more later if you want it!" the jackal said enthusiastically. "I’ll definitely have more goodies for you later; I’m gonna make a special treat!"

"Wow, awesome!" Dad said.

"Just be ready!"

Willy shivered involuntarily and rose from his laid back position. As he did he caught more whiffs of Medik’s unwashed stench coming off of him. Gah, this was just getting unbearable. "I’m going to take a shower now guys!" he announced to the house, hoping he would receive no angry objections or protestations that the bathrooms were currently in use.

"Fine, just make it quick!" came the curt disinterested reply from Mom upstairs.

No other objections were forthcoming, though Willy did spot Medik peek his head out of the kitchen to give him a quick look. The teen ignored this and went up to his room to grab a change of cloths.

As he snatched a shirt he heard a quiet but quick scurrying out in the hall. Finishing up and poking his head out his door he saw Medik’s tail disappear down the steps. Shrugging, he made his way into the bathroom and started up the water.

He ran mostly on autopilot until he took off his shirt. That’s odd, he thought to himself*, since when is my chest hair turning tan?* As long as he could remember all the hair on his body had been pure black, with not a trace of color in it. That was only the first oddity however, as the seconds past and there was no stream of water coming from the showerhead.

Craning his head, Willy saw only a dribble of water seeping out of the showerhead. Moving in to examine it, he saw the whole thing clogged to the brim... with tan and black fur. "What??" Willy exclaimed aloud. He tried poking at the obstruction, but his fingers met only at tightly packed mass of fur that no amount of poking could dislodge.

Groaning in frustration and irritation, he sighed and just decided to take a regular bath. He normally hated those, but right now he just wanted to be clean. He shut off the showerhead and waited for water to come out of the bath nozzle... and got more dribbling. Mumbling a curse he felt inside and sure enough, it was clogged with fur. Jackal fur.

Slamming the bathhead he got back out and slapped a shirt back on. He spun around, ready to find that small canine and demand what was going on, when he practically bumped into him in the doorway.

"Hiya Willy!"

"What gives?" the teen demanded. "What the heck is with the showerhead and even the bathhead completely clogged with YOUR fur right as I try and bathe?"

Instantly the jackal’s face contorted in disgust. "Bathe? Why would you want to do that? Bleeeehh," he stuck his tongue out, looking almost physically ill from the thought. "Icky icky. What’s there to wash? You smell nice and normal right now."

"I smell like you," Willy shot at him.

"Exactly!" Medik said, like he couldn’t see what the fuss was about at all. "You smell just like a jackal! Trust me, if you’ll let yourself get used to it it’s a nice smell."

"Get used to it?" Willy demanded.

"Weeeeeell, you’ve gotten used to the house’s smell by now, haven’t you? Or have you discovered some unknown medical advancement to prevent spontaneous vomiting?"

Willy tried to come up with a good counter to that but had to admit, that made a bit of sense.

"See?" Medik exclaimed, "You can get used to any smell, and TRUST me; jackal smell is a lot better than putrid decaying carpet stains when you look at it on the whole." As if to further his point he gave Willy another tight hug, and seemed to rub himself all over. Willy patted the jackal halfheartedly and tried to squirm his way out, which he was eventually successful in.

Willy meandered down to his room. He sighed when he suddenly heard a truck pulling up into the driveway. Peeking out his window he saw a black delivery truck suddenly pull up, and there right in front of the truck was Medik, waving at the driver who proceeded to the back of his vehicle and unload an absolutely huge box.

Ok, just what was he up to now?

This time he wasn’t going to wait. He was going to find out what that mischievous little jackal was up to now before someone else got launched via catapult. He scratched at his ears, which suddenly started itching furiously.

Mom was on the other end of the hall when he walked out to head downstairs to investigate, and when she saw him and suddenly scowled. "Kids these days," she muttered, "always got some new fad or something."

Wait, fad? "Huh?" he asked.

"Oh you know what I’m talking about, boy," Mom chided irritatingly. "You suddenly get that despicable little wild mutt around and you go about imitating him and stretching out your ears." Without further ado she grumbled and marched into her own room.

Willy simply stood in the hallway perplexed. Ears? Stretching? They were itching like crap but... He suddenly paused as he scratched them, noticing two immediate facts. One, that he ears suddenly seemed fuzzy and slightly more angular shaped. Two, they were no longer strictly on the side of his head but were someplace else entirely up further up his skull.

The first thought through Willy’s head that he should panic and scream and run to a mirror. But this suddenly seemed too bizarre too accept. Seriously, how could his ears possibly be...

He suddenly felt his ears lurch upward slightly underneath his fingers ...Ok... He wasn’t dreaming.

Surprisingly he didn’t panic outright and scream his head off. Instead a slightly more reasonable half-panic occurred and he hurried into his room and closed the door behind him. Hurrying over to his desk he dug around in the drawers for a good five minutes before he found what he was looking for buried underneath everything else at the bottom; an old barely used handmirror.

Turning it to face him, he was met by a scraggly, scruffy face; it looked like he hadn’t shaved in two or three weeks! That, and his ears were no longer where they should have been, or in the shape they should have been. Instead, they were high on his head, almost above his temple. And they were angular and fuzzie, almost...

Canid ears.

Willy covered his mouth with his hand, screaming silently, flailing and falling over in his chair. He gasped and panted and looked at himself before curling up onto a ball beside his bed.

---

It was well into the evening before the door to Willy’s door opened again. It was not, however, his mother demanding to know where he’d been for the past several hours, nor was it his sister to insist that he clean up something for her, and neither was it Dad asking to know where the nacho dip was. It would have been preferable if it had been any of those three. Heck, it could have been the police or the FBI barging through his door coming to arrest him and it would have been fine and dandy.

Instead, he got a small cute looking jackal.

Willy couldn’t help but shudder. "Go away," he said, pulling up the covers on his bed trying to hide himself.

"Hiya!" Medik exclaimed, waving happily at the curled up teen. "How ‘ya feeling?"

Instead of replying, Willy pondered if he should just get up and pick up the diminutive canine by the scruff of the neck and toss him out the window. In fact, all things considered, the teen was sorely tempted by this thought. If just...

In leap that bounced Willy’s bed springs the little guy bounced onto the bed. "Cooooome oooooooooooooon."

Willy blinked under the covers but otherwise remained motionless beneath the bedsheets.

"Cooooome... On! I wanna see!" Medik grabbed at the bedsheets and tugged. Panicking, Willy grabbed and tugged back, not wanting to let his face see the light of day.

"Come!" Medik yanked hard. "On!" he said, straining as leaned his whole body back, "I wanna see it!..." Suddenly the blanket was pried from Willy’s grip and flew loose, sending the jackal falling over backwards, but leaving the teen now exposed and visible.

The jackal shook his head briefly, but then settled his eyes upon him, narrowing in a critical gaze. Then with a wide toothy smile that spread across his face, he suddenly let out a "Yahahahahahaha!" a strange unnatural combination of a human laugh and a jackal’s yapping. Willy found himself involuntarily cringing and felt his now longer ears fold down. Recoiling at this sensation, he smacked his hand on his now very jackal-ish looking ears, trying to cover them up.

"Awwww, you’re starting to look so cute!" Sniffing in Willy’s direction, he smiled wider. "And you smell just right too!"

"What... wha... why are you!?..." Willy stammered.

"Awwwww," Medik moaned with patronizing silence. "I think someone’s a little disoriented and confused. Anyway," he suddenly looked over at the digital clock which now read 10:53, "Looks it’s bedtime for you, got lots of sleep to get; growing bodies need lots of rest. How ‘bout we go to sleep in a nice jackal cuddle then?"

"No!" Willy exclaimed, throwing the blankets off entirely and backing against the back of the bed. "Stay away from me!" Medik still approached, closing in for the cuddle. The teen kicked haphazardly, and scored a lucky hit and caught the jackal pup square in the gut.

Doubling over, the jackal rolled over off the bed with a thunk!, disappearing from Willy’s sight. The jackal shook himself vigorously, then without any ado at all scurried for the door, threw it open, and skittered down the hall.

It... couldn’t have been that easy could it? Willy tried to catch his breath, and faceplanted his face into his palms, feeling the dense feeling of then nascent canid fur that covered it like the beard that covered the face of his Great Aunt Ruth.

The sound of arcing electricity snapped Willy out of his revere. Practically leaping into the air, he was greeted with the sight of Medik standing hunched over in the door way, wielding in his paws two defibrillator paddles that were at the moment very live and very much full of arcing live electricity, with the defibrillator box hanging and swinging behind by its wires.

"Yehehehehe," the jackal said, grinning with the most disconcerting happy smile and strolling onto the bed, "Cuddle time."

Willy gulped and shook his head. "N-no-GAH!" he shrieked as he was tapped with one of the paddles.

"It’s cuddle time, Willy." He ZAPPED him again, causing the teen to fall over on his side nearly off the bed. "Cuddle time now."

"But I-but I,"

This time Medik practically bounced into the air and SLAMMED both paddles down onto Willy, causing him to spasm and shake uncontrollably in pain. "Gi-gi-I-iv-I!"

Retracting the paddle tentatively, the jackal craned his head, "You say something?"

"I...uh-uh" Willy stammered.

Medik cupped one of his ears with his paw and leaned in. "What was that? You have something to say?"

"Cuddle," Willy said at last. "I... cuddle time," he nodded briefly and feverishly.

Suddenly the arcing stopped. And the defibrillator and it’s paddles were tossed aside into a cabinet where they CRASHED into the furniture. Suddenly there was a fierce pounding from the other room, "Quiet up in there, Willy, right this instant," Mom yelled.

"Yahahahahah," the jackal laughed. "She’s got a strong forceful personality, doesn’t she? Such a strong forceful... soul... Ah well, cuddles!" With a small "yapie!" he practically bounced on top of Willy who would have doubled over where he not already on his side. "Now come on then, quit dangling off the side of the bed like that," he chided, grabbing the teen by the shirt and dragging him with surprising strength into the middle of the bed.

Without further ado Medik curled up right beside Willy and crawled all over him, rubbing and rubbing everywhere as he went. The dander and fur filled the air and Willy cringed as his skin tingled in every single square inch of his body. Finishing up, Medik curled up in a fuzzy ball right against the teen’s belly. "Night, Big Brother," the small jackal suddenly giggled. "You can just call me Little Brother now, remember."

A moment later Willy belatedly nodded, and tried to keep himself from hyperventilating as he felt the tingling accrue around the base of his spine which he felt start to wiggle and shift around.

---

Early the next morning, Willy was staring cross eyed as his nose. If you could call it a nose anymore at any rate. Well, probably was, but it also happened to extend out from his face now by a couple inches.

Suddenly before he could do anything the door to his room swung open. There wasn’t any time to react at all; all that could be done was to sit there frozen stiff. And unfortunately (for once), it wasn’t Medik.

Mom stood in the doorway and just glowered at Willy. "Kids these days," she hmphed, looking over her son’s... altered shape.

Willy found that unconsciously his ears and his tail had drooped and tried to hide against his body which was now completely covered in tan fur, but with black on the back and white stripes on the sides. His hands could still be called hands... mostly; they had extra padding on the palms and on the fingertips, and the fingers themselves were stubbier and ended with elongated canid nails. His ankles had crawled upwards on his legs; he had tried walking experimentally earlier but had promptly fallen over. He blinked back from his mother’s gaze and said, "Erm... it... I... It’s Medik’s fault; he did this!"

"Riiiight," Mom said dismissively, "that’s what they always say; well your friend jumped off a bridge would you do it too?" Of course, she had to use that old cliché. "I’m telling you and telling you now, Willy, that I’m not going to put up with all these shenanigans anymore. The house, the shower heads, you’re... shape. Even this morning he suddenly had Vivian following him around at every beck and whim!"

"Wait, what?" Willy asked dumbstruck.

"What are you asking me about it for?" Mom hotly demanded as if she were just asked to explain a mathematical proof. "She said something about him offering to pay for unlimited texting messages, and now he’s got her wrapped around his pinkie... paw... whatever!! And now he’s gone and filled the kitchen with this giant black cauldron and all this hocus pocus powder he claims is ‘pure magic!’" she made a crude imitation of Medik’s voice. "But it’s going to end NOW I tell you. Just you wait!"

With that she stormed off downstairs. "Runt! You little mutt, get over here; we are going to have a talk RIGHT THIS INSTANT."

Willy curled up under the blankets, not wanting to see or hear what was going on. He tried pulling his headphones over his ears to drown out everything, but it turned out headphones aren’t particularly suited to jackal ears. Instead, he waited. And waited. He heard shouting, and stomping, mostly from his mother but... he couldn’t hear anything from Medik. Nothing at all; no shouting back, no defibrillators, no screaming from torture, nothing.

It may have been 10 minutes, it may have been an hour later before she came back up the stairs, Willy wasn’t sure. All he knew was that she walked past his room and looked him in the eyes. "Aww, you-you... you’re a good boy Willy," before staggering off to her room. It was all Willy could do but curl into himself and shudder.

---

The sun was well past its apex and had slid down into a late afternoon position when a call suddenly came out from downstairs. "Oh faaaaaaaamily," came the canid voice, "it’s time to get ready for dinner! Vivian and Harold and Marie, you should come early so your can get extra prepared; you all need to be in the... right frame of mind! Come and get it!" One by one the three other occupants of the house creaked the floor boards as they filed down the hall quietly like a funeral procession. The youngest member of the family, however remained under his covers for a long time before he summoned the will to peek out of his covers again. A tan muzzle greeted him, causing him to continually look down cross eyed at the new addition right in the middle of his face.

Gingerly he crawled out and, breathing carefully, he pulled his now fully digitigrade legs out and placed what were now basically elongated footpaws onto the floor and tried to balance himself. Wait, wasn’t he supposed to be using his tail or something to do this? Wobbling back and forth, Willy flailed and involuntarily let out a jackal-ish yelp and smacked his snout smack against the floor like a hammerhead.

Grimacing hard and rolling over onto his side, the transformed teen groaned in pain and rubbed the part of his face that shouldn’t have been there, that now hurt like it had been slammed by an anvil.

"Yahahahahaha," came the muffled yapping laugh from downstairs, along with the repeated clangs of pots and heavy shifting of tables and furniture. "Now this stuff," Medik could be heard saying downstairs, "this stuff is just the spice of life my friends; the spice of life. Really brings out your heart and soul."

Thoughts raced through Willy’s head. All this talk of "soulfood," "spice of life," all of it made his stomach churn. He’d seen what had happened to Whiskers; now something far, far worse was happening to his family! Right now, this instant.

Panting and struggling to get up, his mind rushed. He... he... he didn’t know what to do! What could he possibly do? Medik was a demon in mortal form, could anything really be done to him to make him stop at all? Was there anything Willy could even do?

Willy sat frozen on his hands and knees, petrified with indecision. Another yapping laugh ushered forth from downstairs. One thing at least seemed certain; if he didn’t try anything, it seemed that his family’s life force was about literally sucked out of it.

Wincing, Willy forced himself to stand, still hanging onto the edge of his bed. His legs wobbled at his unfamiliar weight distribution; just how was he supposed to walk? Babies spent years learning the muscle memory to walk on two flat plantigrade legs; here he was with these jackal-like legs and a tail and whole different body shape and yet somehow he had to walk all the way downstairs! Another laugh from the kitchen ushered out. Willy stared for a long moment and the grimaced, tightening his jaw and grabbing the side of the bed and pulling his wobbly legs with him.

He wobbled from the bed, to the desk, to the cabinet, to the door, his legs shaking the whole time, his tail waving about chaotically as he tried ineffectually to balance himself. Finally he passed through his doorway, letting himself feel some small measure of triumph as he felt some confidence in his ability not to topple over. He leaned against the wall down the hallway; so far so good.

And then he hit the stairs.

Willy blinked and ran his he hand... er... handpaw, through his hair... or... was it just headfur now? Bah, no time to waste on semantics! Gingerly he placed one paw down onto the first step. Seeing as how he didn’t immediately topple over, Willy let a small smile creep from his face and stepped down to the second step. Again he succeeded in not toppling over. And again with the third. Faced with such accomplishment, he of course got sloppy and allowed himself to loosen his grip on the side rails. Naturally he slipped on the forth step and lost his hold entirely on the rail.

Two seconds later a bruised and off balance anthropomorphic jackal tumbled and rolled into the living room in a mangled heap of limbs and fur. Groaning and blinking, he winced dizzily as he tried unsuccessfully to get his bearings.

"Yeah...," Medik said from in the kitchen softly, "you just keep struggling in there. Adds extra flavor to this wonderful soulfood. Now just hold still, and quit trying to talk to me; you’re moving the gags around too much."

Willy’s heart raced and he rolled over and grabbed the side of a chair to yank himself up. Shaking as he did so, the teen jackal didn’t even wait to gain his balance before hobbling towards the kitchen, stumbling repeatedly but not letting this stop him. Finally, at long last he forced his body into the kitchen doorway.

This was not the kitchen he remembered. Strangely colored stains of mysterious green and pink shades littered the floor, the walls and even the ceiling, making the normal everyday stains of brown spilt food slop seem mundane and positively benign by comparison. Several cabinets had been ripped from the walls and were nowhere to be seen, all to make way for the kitchen’s new dominant feature. Sitting smack in the middle of the floor was a giant black cauldron, made of what looked to be several remarkably finely welded chunks of pitch black metal, accompanied by several scorch marks on the floor. Sitting in this as of yet empty pot was his family, gagged and in some kind of drugged stupor, barely acknowledging their youngest’s entrance.

Medik stood on the other side of the kitchen, flipping Aunt Ruth’s special ladle over in the air while he whistled and mixed some strange unknown ingredients.

"Medik," Willy said, clutching the doorframe and pushing himself into the kitchen proper. "Stop. Stop right now."

The jackal pup spun about, but not so much as in surprise as in flair, almost as if he were dancing. "Well looks like someone’s up. And you look pretty much finished now, Big Brother!" he said happily.

"Stop it!" Willy said, waving his hand... paws about frantically. "Stop it, stop all of it! You can’t do this!"

"Aw, but you see," the jackal quieted down, almost to a whisper, "This is the really fun part. And also the most tasty part; we can hardly stop now!"

"No, it’s not going to happen," Willy said resolutely, standing tall and, miraculously, without wobbling his legs in the slightest, rising to his full height of nearly six feet looking down at the tiny two and a half foot interloper. "You’re not going to lay one hand on them."

Medik giggled. "But of course I won’t! I don’t have hands silly!" he exclaimed, holding out his handpaws and waving them about.

"Don’t make jokes!" Willy shrieked bordering on hysteria, "You can’t make jokes about eating people’s souls!"

The small jackal’s face twisted in an overly puzzled manner before it lit up. "Oooooooooh, you mean... you thought... you thought I was talking literally, didn’t you Big Brother?" Medik said, starting to crack up.

Willy could only stare back dumbfounded. "What?"

"Silly big jackal, I don’t know what you thought I was saying but you clearly misinterpreted. I have no intentions of eating anyone’s souls!"

"But... you kept saying..."

"Uh uh uh," Medik waved one of his stubby clawed fingers in front of Willy. "It’s not my fault if you read into my words what I don’t actually mean. I’m not going to eat your family’s souls, I’m just going to eat them. Their souls are completely free to go and do whatever it is souls do naturally, I never had any intention of enslaving or binding them or something like that. That’s just plain mean."

Willy opened his mouth to reply but couldn’t quite find the words. "Urm..."

"Relax, relax Big Brother, those three are perfectly free to do their thing, I was never going to do anything bad to them like that. Now come on, you get the water poured into the pot, and I’ll finish up all these ingredients. You can even put the water in lukewarm if you want to be nice to them; no sense to have them screaming with sudden scalding hot boiling water! Best to just keep the water mild at first and only gradually turn it up so they don’t feel a bad thing at all. It’s a lot better than what you thought I was going to do, wasn’t it?"

"Um..." Willy replied, unable to formulate a real response. "I guess."

"Make sense to you then? the small jackal asked eagerly.

Willy uneasily shrugged.

"Here then!" Medik said, thrusting a giant bucket into Willy’s grasp and pushed him over in front of the sink. "You just start filling this with some water for the cauldron and I’ll and I’ll get all these spices and stuff ready. This’ll taste so swell, I promise."

Willy stood motionless by the sink, the bucket ready to be filled; the only thing left to was turn the tap on. "Well what are you waiting for silly? The longer you putz around the longer it’ll take for this to be done!"

Suppressing a shudder and sighing deeply, Willy pulled the tap.

---

Burping, Medik placed Aunt Ruth’s ladle back into the stew. "See, we found a good use for your aunt’s gift! And you finally get to make use of your dining room table!" he said, indicating to said table that was now thoroughly clear of miscellaneous garbage. "Isn’t that swell?"

Willy numbly nodded back.

"Yahahahaha," the small jackal laughed and patted the bigger jackal on the side. "See, now you can just forget about all that ridiculousness about your family continually being horrible and not appreciating things. They’re in a better place, and you don’t have to be burdened by them anymore. Even better, you’ve got me!" Medik exclaimed, pushing his chair back and jumping to the floor.

The little guy walked with clicking paws on the tiled floor and hopped up by Willy’s side. "You’ve got me, and we can be pals forever! Can I get a cuddle Big Brother?"

Willy blinked for a moment or two and then belatedly nodded, picking Medik into the air and gave the giggling little jackal a hug. He didn’t fight. He didn’t resist. He just did what he was told. He was content with that.

And he loved Little Brother.