This is partially the result of too much Courage the Cowardly Dog in one sitting, and also partially because some time ago I had a dream about me trying to write a story for Medik and that got some interesting ideas in my head.
***
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.
