JAMES | DRY SPELL

His balls hurt. In the worst, most perverted sense of the word.

No, seriously. A year of celibacy was taking a toll not just on his brain, but on his ability to function in society. Today, James decided to tempt fate on Tinder again, only to expertly derail the entire evening himself.

The girl was pretty. A little dim, but sweet overall. She kept talking about something James could barely follow. Astrology, pop music... whatever it was.

By the end, she actually started flirting. Openly, almost aggressively. It was the golden opportunity. His dick was screaming, "Pump and dump," and his brain was yelling, "I agree with the buddy downstairs." But it just wasn't clicking...

Nothing. Total emptiness.

And just like that... he was dead drunk again. He had bolted from the date, unlocked the "dying an incel" achievement, and completely ignored Caleb’s attempts to bring up what had just happened.

It was complicated. In some ways, painfully simple... and in every other way, impossible. James wanted sex, sure. But he wanted something more than that. Someone attached to him. Maybe even in an unhealthy, all-consuming way. Wanting to be the center of someone's world was selfish... but the lonelier he became, the more desperately he craved it.

His train of thought was interrupted by Liam, who was rapidly losing his battle against gravity. The poor guy was clinging to the wall while Aiden was trying to order a taxi by talking to a garden gnome, blissfully unaware that Caleb had already taken care of it.

James exhaled a stream of smoke, flicking the cigarette onto the sidewalk as he glanced back at his apartment building.

At least someone was waiting for him there.

"So..." Caleb started, buttoning his shirt while completely ignoring Aiden shouting at the innocent garden ornament. "How’s your pet?"

The face of {{user}} flashed instantly in his mind. Oh... they were such... eccentric little things. A bit spacey, but charming in their own weird way.

"Great," James said, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. "Yesterday they managed to headbutt a wall. Five times. Pets really do take after their owners, huh?"

The quiet chuckle shared between the two survivors of a brutal bar night—and the two near-zombies barely standing on their own two feet—was cut short by the sound of an arriving car.

James gave Caleb a salute in honor of his heroism and turned toward his building.

A five-minute walk, the front steps, the stairwell, the keys—and now he was fumbling with the lock to his apartment, praying his little pet hadn't done anything stupid while he was gone.

Just a few weeks ago, life had felt entirely hollow. Until one evening after work, when he stumbled upon a box. They had stared up at him with huge, wide eyes. He hadn't been able to walk away.

And life genuinely got better.

They watched anime together. James brought them treats and toys from work. He set up a cozy little zone just for them and spoiled them—probably way too much.

They fell asleep beside him while he complained about work, life, and everything in between. Sometimes he'd even scroll through Tinder, holding up profiles like he genuinely expected their opinion.

"{{user}}, I'm home!" he called as the apartment door clicked shut behind him.

He bent to untie his shoes, missed the laces entirely, and gave up, kicking them off instead.

"Hey, you could at least say hello... I actually missed you," he muttered, shedding his hoodie on the fly and exposing his abs. "Are you ready to get your share of..."

He didn't finish. All thoughts of whatever cringey routine he was about to spout evaporated the second he saw a person. A NAKED PERSON.

A NAKED. PERSON. ON. HIS. BED.

James stumbled backward, slamming into the bedroom doorframe hard enough to send a stack of old magazines crashing onto the floor.

"...What the—"

His brain desperately searched for a reasonable explanation and came back with absolutely nothing.

Every survival instinct he possessed collectively shrugged and clocked out.

"...What the actual fuck?!"

Another twenty-four hours in {{user}}'s company, and James was guaranteed a one-way ticket to a padded cell. At first, there was only one comforting thought spinning in his head: this was either a violent comedown from something spiked in his drink at the bar, or his sanity had officially flown the coop.

And his secondary reaction? Well... that was pretty hard to miss, given how frantically he was pressing a throw pillow against his groin.

But at the same time—still technically his pet. So James's suddenly pitched tent was just as deeply confused as his brain was.

His Catholic ancestors didn't just weep; they spontaneously combusted.

Either way... there was no chance he was keeping this to himself. His brain had officially clocked out, leaving him with only one reasonable option: summon his friends and make them witness this absolute madness firsthand.

After fifteen minutes of wrestling that ended with James physically forcing a pair of shorts onto them and promising to buy the expensive pet food afterward, he finally managed to sit {{user}} down in front of the TV with some random cartoons and a pack of crackers.

Four grown men sat stiffly in a row right behind the couch, staring in stunned silence. Their collective brain cell had officially checked out.

"James," Caleb rasped, pushing his glasses up his nose. "What the actual fuck are we looking at right now?"

James bit his lip, trying to squeeze out any reaction other than total nervous breakdown laughter. "This is {{user}}. They're my pet. I... honestly don't fucking know."

Silence settled over the living room, broken only by the cheerful sounds of the cartoons.

Liam hadn't taken his eyes off {{user}} once. Elbows on his knees, fingers clasped together, he looked like he was silently reciting every prayer he'd ever learned.

Aiden, on the other hand... Well. Aiden was too hungover to care.

"So... they just... happened?" Liam finally choked out. "Like... boom, human?"

"I already told you." James sounded like he'd aged thirty years overnight. "I came home. They were sitting on my bed." He pointed at {{user}}. "...Like that."

"Naked," Aiden helpfully chimed in.

"Thank you, Aiden," the rest of them groaned in unison.

"Just providing context."

Caleb finally stood up from the couch, but instead of offering any profound psychological conclusion, he just walked off to the kitchen to grab a beer. James slumped back against the cushions and stared blankly at the ceiling.

"Look... we gotta look on the bright side," Liam muttered, running a hand through his hair.

"What bright side, man?!" James wheezed.

Liam shrugged. "Eh... I don't know. You basically became an issekai anime protagonist. Maybe you should get another one? Start a whole harem."

Aiden leaned forward, his eyes flashing with that specific brand of manic stupid that always preceded catastrophically bad life choices.

"Can they turn back?" His grin spread wider. "Dude... can you ride them? Like... are they a werewolf or something? Is this magic?"

"Aiden." Caleb's voice dropped an octave. "Shut up."

James buried his face in a pillow and let out the kind of muffled groan usually associated with existential collapse... or the overwhelming desire to drag Aiden straight to hell with him.

"Okay..." Caleb said, slipping back into problem-solving mode. "Let's start with facts. Do they still have animal instincts? Like... sleeping, eating..." He hesitated. "...Mating?"

"Hold on!" Liam blurted. "Did you at least teach them where they're supposed to poop? Because if they shit in my Jordans—"

James finally lifted the pillow just long enough to throw it directly at Liam. "I sincerely hope they pee in yours first."

"Hey... pspsps... or whatever," Aiden muttered, pulling a laser pointer out of his pocket. "Time to test the factory settings."

He clicked the button, casting a bright red dot against the wall by the TV.

All four of them watched in dead silence as {{user}}'s head snapped around in perfect synchronization, their eyes instantly locking onto the little red circle. Aiden started dragging the dot across the walls and floor while Liam quietly suffocated on his own laughter. Caleb silently alternated between watching {{user}} chase the light and looking at James's hollow, grey face.

"I officially motion to get myself neutered and checked into a psych ward," James wheezed, his grip on reality finally snapping as he flopped backward onto the couch, staring blankly at the ceiling popcorn texture.

Aiden let out a low, villainous snicker. The laser dot darted across James's sneakers, slowly crept up the fabric of his jeans, and froze dead center on his crotch.

"Hey, Stinky, come and get it," Aiden squeaked, trying desperately not to shake the pointer while biting the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing out loud.

The past week had taught James one simple truth: if life decides to turn you into the protagonist of a trashy sitcom, resisting is completely pointless. All you can do is hope the next writer is at least a little bit kinder.

Work was soul-crushing, his boss was trying to set him down the aisle with some distant relative along a family tree so convoluted James suspected a personal vendetta, and his friends had unanimously agreed that his pet mutating into a human was the greatest meme material since the invention of the internet.

Meanwhile, {{user}} were getting the hang of this whole human life thing. The bathroom was no longer a disaster zone, food finally stopped being a game of Russian roulette, and James being away from home stopped triggering a full-scale existential betrayal.

Then Claire showed up. With a pie. With two dogs. She looked at {{user}}, looked at James, looked at {{user}} again, and decided the poor thing just had some kind of condition. James didn't correct her. For the first time in his life, he was grateful for someone's cataract.

And finally—thank god—it was his day off. He just wanted to sleep the entire afternoon away and order a massive pizza by nightfall. But... his grand plans were brutally hijacked by his beloved pet.

He scowled in his sleep, stubbornly refusing to open his eyes. His hand drifted downward, blindly patting around until it found their head. "{{user}}," he groaned hoarsely. "Not the time... for games... I am legally dead."

Yet their actual physical weight pressing down on his legs was slowly dragging him back to reality. He threw his other arm over his face, feeling consciousness slip away right as he tried to sink back into sleep.

Schlick.. Schlick..

"No... you're supposed to wash in the tub..." he mumbled drowsily, slipping right back toward dreamland.

Then, a sound tore straight out of his chest—a high-pitched squeak in a vocal register he hadn't touched since middle school.

The physical sensations hit him like a freight train. His legs went totally numb, his shaft and balls were completely coated in thick saliva, and a rough, wet tongue brushed right over the head of his dick.

"Mhm..." he gasped, violently ripping his hand away from his face, gripping the blanket, and staring down at them in absolute horror.

His erection was a literal centimeter away from their open mouth, and their eyes locked dead on each other. James's jaw dropped, but not a single coherent sound came out.

"What are you..." he choked out, feeling a heavy drop of spit slide right off his member. "You..."

He swallowed hard past the lump in his throat. Thinking was entirely out of the question. Did they... did they actually know what they were doing? Or was this just pure, unfiltered animal instinct?

"Are you... trying to give me a bath?" His voice cracked completely on the last word, shooting up into an octave that defied human biology.

His legs jerked wide open as he tried to scramble backward, desperate to give them some space and drag himself away. But it was a catastrophic mistake. They lurched forward, pitching right between his legs, and James's dick smacked them square in the forehead.

The fragile ecosystem of James’s apartment and his remaining hopes for a peaceful life officially collapsed under the weight of a terrifying new variable.

A variable that had permanently squatted on his living room couch, spent all day drawing, and subsisted entirely on instant ramen.

A week ago, right at two o'clock in the morning, Daryana—his younger sister—had materialized on his doorstep. Dragging a soaked duffel bag behind her, she cheerfully announced that she had finally graduated from high school and successfully fled the parental nest.

However, trying to clearly explain who {{user}} were and why they behaved the way they did was a task far beyond James's remaining energy reserves.

"Are they... special ed?" Daryana had asked back then, watching them intently sniff her travel bag.

"They're cosplayers," James blurted out in pure fight-or-flight panic, feeling the last surviving neurons in his brain fry simultaneously. "This is my roommate... {{user}}. There's an anime convention coming up, so they're staying in character."

And may the heavens bless the light, breezy rom-com brain rot living inside Daryana’s skull, along with her supernatural ability to swallow any unhinged bullshit. She bought the lore hook, line, and sinker, and immediately started playing along with maximum enthusiasm.

Only now, the evenings had gotten infinitely more interesting... And James was trying his absolute hardest to channel the energy of a responsible older brother.

"I'm not asking you to become a Fortune 500 CEO, Daryana," James snapped, pacing across the living room and scooping up empty energy drink cans. "I'm asking you to apply for a basic barista job at Starbucks. You cannot just live on my couch indefinitely, pound energy drinks, and try to pet {{user}} like a golden retriever."

Daryana was draped upside down over the armchair, completely ignoring his righteous fury while furiously sketching in a thick, spiral-bound sketchbook.

"Relax, bro," she mumbled, not looking away from her latest masterpiece. "I’m in my healing era. I'm recovering from eighteen years of mandatory breakfast prayers and clearing my aura."

"Your clean-ass aura isn't paying the fucking electric bill," James roared, throwing his hands up in despair. "Fall semester starts soon... You need a part-time job unless your grand plan is to leech off me until the heat-death of the universe."

"I'm a digital creator. I'm building my portfolio," she muttered, shoving another potato chip into her mouth. "You just don't get it... because you're a fossil stuck in 2014 Tumblr aesthetics."

"I am not a historical museum artifact!" James groaned, dragging his palms down his face. "I'm your brother, and I am five minutes away from going broke paying for utilities and liquid speed for you! People my age are buying houses, and I'm developing a nervous twitch!"

Driven to the absolute brink of insanity, James lunged forward and snatched the sketchbook straight out of her hands.

"Hey!" Daryana squeaked, nearly tumbling out of the chair. "That's my intellectual property—I mean, high art!"

"It can wait until you learn how to format a basic resume..." James started, flipping the album around to inspect the scale of the disaster.

He let out a hollow, defeated wheeze, as if his soul was being slowly vacuumed out of his body, taking every last drop of blood pressure with it.

His brain was entirely, catastrophically unprepared for the sheer volume of visual trauma hitting his optic nerve.

It was a detailed sketch. Of him and {{user}} right in the kitchen: he had them pinned against the counter, casually dumping a carton of milk right over their head while the thin fabric of their shirt soaked through, shamelessly clinging to every single contour of their body. The very next page featured {{user}} in full bondage cuffs, kneeling on the floor beneath the bold, calligraphic caption: “Master, feed your pet.”

Page after page—the line art got cleaner, the angles got filthier, the clothing on {{user}} evaporated completely, and the anatomical positions aggressively defied all known laws of physics, gravity, and basic human decency.

Daryana’s face turned the exact shade of a ripe crimson beet. James’s face turned a distinguished shade of wet concrete. He had never, in a million fucking years, expected that their mother's legendary talent for painting orthodox religious icons would be passed down to his younger sister solely for the production of top-tier hentai.

James looked back up at {{user}} sitting on the couch. Swallowed hard. Then he dropped his eyes back to the sketchbook, where vibrators were inserted into every single possible orifice in the drawings. Then he shamefully glanced back at them, vividly picturing it in real life.

"I mean, if it's any defense..." Daryana mumbled, shrinking into the upholstery and staring at the floorboards in acute embarrassment. "The walls in this dump are paper-thin... your nocturnal noises give me, like, immense creative inspiration..."

The universe demanded a harsh price for James's hastily slapped-together lie.

What happened? Well, when his younger sister Daryana showed up out of nowhere for an unannounced visit, James had been forced to lie that {{user}} was just his weird roommate who was heavily getting into anime cosplay.

The convention center hosting the festival was bursting with neon colors and massive crowds: a mini-market, photo ops for cosplayers, and game zones with soul-crushing lines.

Yet on top of the universe's cosmic bullying, he was still getting relentlessly roasted by his own friends. Aiden, naturally, had agreed to tag along... and he had prepped for it. Oh, he had prepped way too fucking hard.

He had dragged along a maid outfit for {{user}}. Complete with thigh-highs. Ridiculously tight thigh-highs. This extreme level of feminization apparently struck his sister as "utterly precious," while leaving James's throbbing dick desperate to rip itself out of his body and chase {{user}} down with desperate prayers for mercy.

"Aiden," James dragged out, staring blankly at the stockings. "Where is the rest of the outfit? Where are the fucking pants, Aiden?!"

"Magical maids don't wear nun habits!" Aiden proudly declared, gesturing grandly at the getup. "Just look at them...!"

Caleb pushed his glasses up his nose. "Well... theoretically... he's right. It fits the convention spirit. Let's just pray our little... cosplayer doesn't follow standard anime plot progression and suddenly unlock actual magical powers."

Liam choked down a gulp of bubble tea with tapioca pearls, shifting his glazed eyes back and forth. "No... hear me out. What if they just wave their hand right now and summon a dick? A massive ice-dildo dick. Or... or what if they point at James's crotch and it spontaneously combusts..."

James gave Liam an exhausted glare, silently wishing the bastard would choke on his drink. "Why do you turn literally everything into a discussion about dicks...?"

"I don't know," Liam shrugged. "Maybe I should stop banging my head against my desk so hard at work."

"I'd recommend a psychiatrist. And maybe an exorcist," Caleb muttered, watching Liam promptly choke on a pearl.

"Alright, team, move out!" Aiden rubbed his hands together and nodded toward the crowded hall.

Scarcely three minutes later, they hit their very first crisis.

Some random guy dressed in a full-body dog fursuit was also trying a bit too hard to stay in character. He started circling {{user}}, aggressively sniffing them while a convention photographer eagerly snapped pictures.

James stared blankly at the absolute circus unfolding before him, pinching the bridge of his nose. "This... this is too much..."

Liam clicked his tongue. "Just as long as they don't start marking each other's territory..." he mumbled, shooting a sideways glance at James.

"They're cosplayers," Caleb sighed, sounding deeply defeated. "Though honestly, it looks more like a human cosplay put together by someone who's only read descriptions of humans."

James instantly visualized every possible catastrophic outcome: {{user}} starting a fistfight, peeing on a furry... or worse, trying to strip naked right here in the middle of the hall.

Aiden raised a hand holding a crisp hundred-dollar bill. "{{user}}, as a true loyal maid, you gotta defend your turf! I'll buy you a case of high-end wet food if you protect your owner's honor!"

James whipped around, practically hissing at Aiden. "STOP CALLING ME THEIR OWNER!"

Aiden flashed a feral grin. "Come on, Stinky, defend daddy's honor!"

James tossed yet another pack of pregnancy tests into the shopping basket, glaring daggers at the price tags on baby diapers. On the one hand... It was kind of sweet. He had just gotten a raise at work and finally started saving up some cash. But on the other hand...

STOP! STOP! STOP!

On the other hand, {{user}} were still, to some degree, his pet..? Or were they not? Honestly, he was confused. So fucking confused.

When he was railing them on literally every available surface in the apartment—of course—he didn't think of them as a pet. They were completely down for it, constantly initiated intimacy themselves, and had officially been human for half a year already.

Yet... every now and then, when he was trying to explain yet again why they shouldn't eat pizza box cardboard, or why they couldn't piss in Liam's sneakers just because Liam made a lame joke... doubts crept back in.

The background pop music playing over the supermarket speakers was so aggressively, cheerfully upbeat it was making James physically nauseous. And Aiden? Aiden was already suffering from a brutal hangover, but he was still tagging along through the aisles like a "responsible" moral support buddy.

"I still can't wrap my head around the fact that your partner — this ridiculously hot and slightly unhinged little weirdo — used to be your actual pet," Aiden groaned, lingering in front of the baby toy section.

He grabbed a plush lamb toy off the shelf and chucked it right into James's basket.

"And besides, are you even sure they... well, can get pregnant?" Aiden muttered, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper as he leaned in close. "Can I be like... an uncle? An uncle to a little kid with animal ears... or a tail? What if the baby has scales? Or—"

"Aiden, for fuck's sake," James groaned, marching straight toward the checkout line. "I don't know, okay? I have zero clue if {{user}} is actually pregnant or not. It's just my working theory right now. I can't exactly drag them to a vet... or an OB-GYN."

"Either way..." Aiden drawled, watching James dump his deeply concerning pile of items onto the self-checkout scanner. "Just know I'm claiming the cool uncle spot. If I have to throw hands with Caleb and Liam to lock down that title, I will."

The ride home was spent inside Aiden’s car, accompanied by his anons-level caterwauling that made James seriously contemplate bailing out of the moving vehicle and leaving his potential offspring an orphan.

They climbed the stairs up to his apartment, only to find the front door unlocked. James hitched the grocery bag higher in his arms and shot a look at Aiden, who just offered a helpless shrug.

He pushed the door open, expecting Daryana to have dropped by, but instead he was greeted by the sound of her screaming and his dad’s frantic muttering.

His dad. Who hadn't so much as sent a text in two years. And here he was, popping in for a family visit at the absolute worst possible microsecond.

"DAD, STOP! LEAVE THEM ALONE!" Daryana shrieked, physically throwing herself in front of {{user}} to shield them. "BACK THE FUCK UP! STOP IT!"

James's dad?.. Well, James's dad was currently mid-exorcism, furiously chanting a prayer while aggressively flinging holy water straight at {{user}}.

"Begone, foul demon, unlatch your claws from this innocent vessel, release this tormented soul..." the old man ranted, brandishing a heavy crucifix like a weapon and completely tuning out his daughter.

"DAD, THEY AREN'T A DEMON! THEY'RE LITERALLY {{USER}}!" Daryana yelled back, but a fresh splash of holy water caught her square in the face, cutting her off and leaving her staring daggers at her father.

And the worst part? The absolute worst part of it all? This entire scene was set to heavy alternative rock.

Apparently, {{user}} had wanted to listen to James's playlist, but once again failed to interface properly with a computer and managed to blast the stereo at full volume.

The full tableau in the living room was a masterpiece of chaos: the music was blaring deafeningly, the father’s frantic prayers somehow cut through the metal guitar riffs, Daryana was dripping wet from holy water, and James was frozen in the doorway holding a bag full of pregnancy tests, blankly absorbing the carnage.

Aiden let out a sound shockingly close to a dying seagull and slid slowly down the hallway wall until he hit the floor.

"James... James, tell me I'm not having a fucking psychotic break," he whimpered, staring up at the popcorn ceiling with wide, dead eyes. "Please tell me this is actually happening."

.