Anniversary

___ I flipped idly through the channels, paying little attention to the seamless shift from noisy cartoons, to gory murder scenes, to wildlife documentaries as each station flickered by. I wasn't particularly interested in watching anything, but having spent much of my week analyzing data, I was up for something mindless. It was Friday night and I probably should have been out on the town socializing, but my social skills had been a bit stunted when my last attempt at blending in resulted in vengeance-fueled serial murders after my girlfriend was skinned for being the wrong sub-species. The fact that I was evolving into a bit of a homebody was understandable.
___ As if refusing to let me languish alone in a darkened living room, the phone suddenly rang shrilly from the kitchen. I groaned, rolling off of the couch and padding barefoot across the springy carpeting as it gave way to cold, hard linoleum. The caller ID indicated Gabe's cell phone, and I couldn't help but heave a sigh; he tended to be in trouble when he called. The fact that he hadn't been around in almost two weeks suggested that he was using again, which was ample cause for trouble. I lacked the motivation and the funding to post bail if he was being arrested again, and answered the phone with a scowl prepped to indicate as much.
___ "Trent!" the familiar voice shouted before I could greet. He seemed to be speaking over the volume of his car's stereo based on the loud crackling of destroyed bass. "Do you have any Vics handy?"
___ "Do you have a cold...?" I asked, perplexed by the peculiar nature of this phone call.
___ "No, it's for you," he said impatiently, coughing between words. It was phlegmy; he smoked way too much to sound that way so young. "Smear some under your nose so you can't smell anything, ok? I have a surprise for you."
___ Now I was curious, and slightly mortified. I couldn't imagine what Gabe was planning that would demand I deaden my senses; if we were going for Vics, he apparently thought the smell was both strong and distinct enough to give away the surprise before he could go through the motions. It was a valid concern when attempting to catch a therianthrope off guard, of course, but it still left me uneasy.
___ "Gabe..." I started, but he cut me off.
___ "Come on Trent," his voice was whiny, and reminded me of how young he was. "Please?"
___ Resorting to being polite? I supposed I'd have to oblige him.
___ "Fine, fine. When are you coming?" I wandered down the hall towards the bathroom, resigned to my fate of huffing camphor fumes to placate a teen aged werebear.
___ "I'm pulling into your street right now -" a horn blared to confirm as much as Gabe managed to cut off one of the few cars traveling Route 93, "- so hurry, ok?" The line went dead.
___ I stared at the receiver and shook my head, withdrawing the small blue container from the medicine cabinet, nose already wrinkling at its caustic reek even through the closed lid. Moments later I was sitting on the couch with a tingling upper lip and thoroughly thwarted sense of smell. As Gabe's car pulled in to the driveway and I found myself unable to detect not only its filthy, sputtering engine but his nicotine-and-heroin redolence, I tried to remember if this had been what humanity was like.
___ The screen door creaked open, and Gabe's angular face, cloaked in a scraggly adolescent beard from a recent inattention to personal grooming, poked around the frame. He still had a cigarette in his mouth and moved to put it out in the palm of his hand when I glared daggers at the bits of ash floating to my floor.
___ "Did you do it?" he asked, his own sense of smell so diminished from smoke that he couldn't be certain.
___ "Vics heil," I saluted him with one raised hand then pointed beneath my noise.
___ He smiled and slipped through the door, one hand behind his back and the width of his torso obscuring whatever he was attempting to hide. I frowned despite myself as he entered, noting that he looked even thinner than he had two weeks ago, his clothing wrinkled around an increasingly lean frame. If he noticed my shift in mood he paid it no mind, striding over the couch and fighting a grin the whole while. He stopped roughly two feet away, eyes jumping to the book case across the room periodically as though he had something in mind. Gradually, however, he fixed on my face, and then his features slowly became more composed.
___ "So," he paused awkwardly, running one hand through the red ridge of his mohawk, which was frayed and dilapidated today as though he hadn't had time to gel it, "do you remember what happened today, like a year ago?"
___ I didn't like thinking of a year ago; I'd just barely clawed my way back to semi-sanity and did not wish to be reminded of the chain of events that had nearly destroyed me as they had so many others. A frown tugged at the corners of my mouth, and Gabe looked alarmed.
___ "No, no no. Nothing like that. It's just..." he laughed nervously. "A year ago today, I tried to kill you, remember?"
___ How could I forget waking up to the sight of bear claws rushing towards my face, or the sound of them impaling my mattress as I just barely evaded the attack?
___ "Yes, I remember," I said, forehead furrowed with confusion. Gabe held a hand up before I could say anything else.
___ "Well, I got you an anniversary present," he said, voice dropping with embarrassment at the word anniversary and a sheepish grin that made him years younger playing across his face. As though he could contain the excitement no further, he whipped his arm from behind his back, presenting a small plastic cage with a blue lid. Inside, huddled in the folds of a washcloth, was a tiny black mouse, beady eyes wide with terror.
___ "You're always hanging around the house alone, and I know your last mouse died a few months back, so I thought you could use a new pet." He extended the mouse towards me.
___ I reached out and gently lifted the container from his outstretched hand. It was familiar; this was the cage I once used to bring my previous mouse, Animus, to the vet's. Gabe must have rooted around in the basement to find it when I was at work. The mouse reared up to examine its surroundings, eerily hand-like paws pressed to the acrylic and head bobbing as it sniffed the air. I smiled despite myself.
___ "This is... unexpected," I pressed one finger to the plastic, opposite the mouse's tiny paws.
___ "Do you like it?" he asked eagerly, bending close to look inside the cage. The mouse's comically large ears snapped upright with alarm and it buried itself abruptly beneath the washcloth.
___ "I do," I said, unable to resist a full-blown grin at this point. "Where did you get him?" Gabe's smile faltered a bit and a flush crept into his cheeks. Oh boy. This had to be good.
___ "Well, I know you don't like the whole 'animals as products' thing, so I didn't buy it..." Gabe apparently found his own feet very fascinating at that moment. I waited patiently for further explanation. "You're against experimenting on animals too, right?"
___ I looked at the mouse, which had cautiously re-emerged from its bedding. It was small, sleek, and solidly black with a short coat. I bet it weighed almost exactly 27 grams, and would probably bite me the second I opened the cage lid. It was a C57BL/6 - a popular research strain due to its unique immunophenotype.
___ "Did you steal this from the University?" I asked, my voice too amused to be scolding - which it probably should have been even if a younger, more idealistic part of me found the idea fantastic. Gabe seemed to sense as much and smiled knowingly.
___ "I'd like to think I... liberated it?" He tried to look very serious and noble, and we both broke out laughing at the same moment. It made me realize that I missed having him around the house -- even if he was immature, lazy, messy, and temperamental.

And this is where I'll stop for now, because I'm enjoying this exchange enough that I am seriously considering refining it and adding it to Vol. 2, haha.