A Round of A-paws (Patreon)

(contains multi-head and arm TF)

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Is there anything better than a Saturday morning? Actually, yes, a lot of things could be considered significantly better. That was a rhetorical question Desmond pondered while going about a morning walk in the brisk autumn dawn. Today the squirrel-fox was just full of energy and cheap McDonald's breakfast sandwiches. On most days it was considered a miracle he got out of bed before ten AM.

But what he really loved about weekend walks were the yard sales. Some of the best advice anyone ever gave him was that if he ever needed any common item, it was better to buy off someone's lawn. As long as a microwave could work who needed to spend eighty bucks for one at Best Buy?

Now if only he could afford a car. Having to lug the heavy shit back home barely made any savings worth it. Good thing today was more about window shopping than necessity. Desmond was in search of adventure and anything shiny to distract his attention. It was a squirrel thing.

"Good morning, big tail," called a bearded gopher before one paw had touched his driveway. "Out a bit early aren't you?"

"How could you tell?" Desmond shot him a friendly smile, well aware how unkempt his hair and tail fluff looked. Trying to groom an appendage the size of his body tended to take more time than a scientist cared to commit unless it was a significant occasion. "Besides, you gotta get up early to find the good stuff."

"Ain't that the truth." The gopher gave a pensive nod. "Well, let me know if you find any...ah hell, be right back."

The ringing of a phone could be clearly heard through the man's open garage door. Desmond barely regarded his departure having spotted a table set out with an impressive spread of jewelry. Most looked in need of a good polish, but the designs were amazingly varied and intricate as if taken from dozens of different cultures. Either these belonged to a gopher wife, or this man was an avid collector.

Rising sunlight reached over neighboring houses drawing Desmond's attention to the glint of a decent looking necklace. He was especially curious about the three wolf head pendants bundled together on one ring, being a fan of the species in general. A quick glance back at the garage showed no signs of the gopher returning, though. Hopefully, it would be okay to just try on some things without being accused of stealing.

The metal heads clinked together as they settled upon the Mass Effect logo of Desmond's shirt. Securing the clasp around his neck left him surprised by how light the new weight felt. It had looked like the whole thing was made of silver. Slightly disappointing to think it was all just some cheap aluminum. He was only going to pay about five bucks for this trinket, maybe eight if the guy was pleasant.

"Mmph?" Desmond glanced into the provided vanity mirror, stopping cold when a strange grey light flashed over his eyes. Not a second later he was using the table as a brace against waves of disorientation. The signs were way too familiar to ignore in this line of work. "Why is someone always selling something cursed?! NGGH UGH!!"

Sering pain welled up at the base of Desmond's neck, nearly causing his knees to buckle. As the cramps and pops continued on, he realized they were actually originating a bit to the side in that little space of collar bone between neck and shoulders. Things only got more alarming when the slack of his shirt began to rise around the areas into prominent bulges. Space quickly grew taut, causing the cotton collar to pinch against his esophagus until Desmond found the wit to yank his shirt off.

"Phew! Thanks, that was getting cramped."

Desmond's shirt slid from his stunned fingers into a pool around his pawed feet. His ear had been tickled by a sudden new voice right next to it. One with a hauntingly familiar tone. A quick glance to his left saw the outline of an equally familiar black muzzle smiling back in his peripheral. No amount of turning could get a full view of this figure, but it did help Desmond become a bit dizzy. Some disgruntled snorting on his right made Desmond aware of another person keeping most of their face just out of sight when he tried to face them.

"Hey. How's it going?" Said this third party.

"Well...shit." Desmond glanced back at the mirror to confirm what he already figured; he was now sporting three identical heads. Well, semi-identical might be a better term. The left head had more rounded ears and pronounced teeth emphasizing his squirrel side, while the right had wider triangle ears and a slimmer muzzle befitting a fox. Both were regarding their new surroundings with varying degrees of excitement. "God, I hate being turned cerb, especially when it's not universally controlled."

"I know exactly how you feel," said the squirrel Desmond. "Wait, can we not control the arms too?"

"YIP!" Desmond jumped when his left hand suddenly shot up to bap himself on the nose.

"Yup, we totally can if he's not focused on it," declared a laughing fox head.

"Okay, that's enough of this." Desmond wrinkled his nose and wrenched control back from his sudden roommates. At least he had the majority say over his own body still. With any luck, these embarrassing dunces would vanish once he removed the… "Uh, oh!?"

Fingers fumbled a little for the necklace clasp only to find it no longer existed. Of course, it would not; that was just how cursed objects liked to screw with people. There was literally nothing but a smooth strand of branded metals around Desmond's neck. Naturally, that was also too small to lift over his head.

"Hah. Guess you're stuck with us for a while," the squirrel head teased, but then wondered. "Or is it stuck with ourselves. I mean, we still have the same memories and stuff…I think."

"Yeah, but I hate myself," said the original Desmond head. A few desperate tugs on the necklace finally made him give up. He was more likely to choke himself before the damn thing would come off.

"Aw, don't be so hard on yourself, Desmond," the fox head said using a hand to scritch the middle head behind an ear. "I hate you too."

"Thanks a lot."

"You guys feeling little indigestion coming on?"

Desmond shot a quizzical look to his squirrel half before noticing the cramping in his torso. It rose into a painful bubbling but was not focused on his stomach. If anything, it was pushing out against the skin of his waist, just beneath his armpits. All he could do was double over with a pained yelp unable to stay standing any longer. He fell to his knees, hugging himself to calm the pressure. Not that it ever helped; the skin along his sides rippled and pushed back against his palms. Its force became so intense he feared his ribcage might explode.

A few seconds later, it felt like exactly that had happened. The fur and skin ruptured in a massive rush of flesh and bones, flinging Desmond's hands aside. Joints formed near-instantly taking on mimicking features that overwhelmed the squirrel-fox's brain with new nerves. When his dazed sickness finally passed, Desmond was only half surprised to look down and find a second pair of arms under his originals. He flexed each new hand into a fist before control was promptly yanked away. The alien force instead opted to use them for stroking along the black fur of his belly.

"Cool!" exclaimed the fox head. "Now we got more to share."

"I wonder if cutting one of us off kills the rest," Desmond muttered under his breath.

"We can always start with you," countered the fox head.

"What the hell you been doing out here!?"

"Oh, NOW you come back!" exclaimed all three heads in unison. They promptly turned to each other with a synchronized, "Don't you dare start that shit!"

The gopher was hardly amused by their antics as he stomped over. One of his fingers pointed a chipped claw at the jewelry table. "Can't you read the signs, you blasted idiot."

"What?" Desmond tried to follow the finger but saw nothing except piles of rusty trinkets. It was the squirrel head that noticed several bracelets were not hung on a stand, but atop a cardboard sign with some barely legible marker writing on it.

'Momentos of my cheating ex-wife, who was a witch. Please ask before trying on, as many objects could still carry magical effects.'

"How the hell were we supposed to notice that?" asked the fox head, with agreeing nods from the other two.

"Try looking, I don't know." The gopher snorted. "Don't matter now that you got it on anyway. I can't exactly get it off."

Desmond rolled his eyes, along with his squirrel head. "Somehow, I knew you were going to say that. Ex-wife witch, huh?"

"Wickedest devil I ever met," said the gopher. "Took my money and my boat. Left me with a bunch of junk that could leave you a sphinx or statue. Still waiting for my damn lawyer to soften up before I can sue her."

"So does this necklace wear off or anything?" Desmond swatted away his lower arms as they tried to rub under his chin. "And will you two calm down!"

"Make me," retorted fox head.

"It's bound to wear off on its own," explained the gopher. "If I remember right her Cerberus stuff recharges on the full moon and tends to run out of juice within a week or two. Maybe faster if you keep doing morning exercise walks like this."

"But we hate walking," whined the squirrel head.

"A moot point anyway," grumbled Desmond.

"Why's that?"

"Tonight IS a full moon," answered fox head before Desmond could get his mouth open.

"Yeah, that." All three heads folded back their ears at the prospect of their coming month's worth of company. They were brought back down by the irritated cough of an older man. Their gopher host was holding out an expecting hand.

"Since you gotta take it with you, that'll be fifty bucks for the necklace. And if you want to argue about that, I got some permanizing wands and the need for a guard dog to interject with."