Raiyev Part 11
#11 of Raiyev
The first thing that truly hit Raiyev's mind hard when he realized that Harper was really gone was how he was going to be losing one of the few people who actually might know how to help his situation. Ever since he accidentally injected himself with the test chemicals, it had been riding throughout his mind like wildfire. He had idly hoped at one point to confront Harper, one of his most trusted associates, with this news and see what she could suggest, but now that she had just been arrested for premeditated murder, he was beginning to have doubts as to who he could trust at all.
And what of Toni Hawthorne? There was still no sign of her--not since she spoke with Raiyev personally and was interrupted by Dr. Paxton. Raiyev would go to check on her again, but he was already home. He didn't really remember the events of the day after Harper was arrested; his mind was just too numb. All he really knew now was that he was lying on his couch in front of the television, watching the evening news, while Brad was in the kitchen making dinner.
"Hey, honey," Brad called from the kitchen. "Can you come test this sauce for me?"
"Certainly!" Raiyev said, trying to sound cheerful. He went into the kitchen where Brad was leaning over a simmering, steaming pot of pasta sauce. Brad carefully lifted the shallow wooden spoon out of the pot and offered it to Raiyev. Raiyev took the spoon into his muzzle and tasted, looking back at Brad with a look of approval.
"So what do you think of..." Brad began, but stopped half-way to simply stare curiously at the raccoon standing next to him.
"What?" Raiyev asked. "It's good! Really!"
Brad simply stood in silence for a moment, staring at Raiyev, before he spoke again. "Since when are you and I the same height?" he asked.
Raiyev blinked and looked at Brad in astonishment. It finally dawned on him that he was indeed looking right into Brad's eyes at perfect eye-level, instead of looking up just a bit at his lover. "I don't know..." Raiyev began, looking over himself. His mind searched for possible answers, but he kept coming back to the chemicals he accidentally injected into himself.
He put the spoon down slowly onto the countertop and closed his eyes, sighing. "Brad," he said carefully, "there's something I need to tell you." He opened his eyes and looked at Brad for a moment, then said, "You may want to sit down for this."
Brad nodded solemnly and took a seat on their couch. Raiyev turned off the TV and sat down next to Brad. Holding Brad's paw in his own, Raiyev proceeded to tell Brad everything that had been happening in his laboratory since last week. He told Brad about Toni and her disappearance, about how Paxton had acted almost suspiciously before she was murdered, about Harper being arrested, and about the chemicals he injected into himself. Raiyev had really only meant to tell Brad about the chemicals, but he felt that he needed to get such a load off, and when he got started it was as if someone had opened up the flood gates.
After all was said and done, Brad simply sat silently, still taking it all in. "Okay," he finally said, a simple but strong trust in his voice.
"Okay?" Raiyev said, tears welling up in his eyes.
"Okay," Brad said, and hugged Raiyev close to him. Raiyev wept against the shoulder of his best friend and lover, who held his arms around him, cradling him tenderly. Brad, too, cried, though not as feverishly as Raiyev did. Brad nuzzled his mate's neck, a few of his tears rolling off onto Raiyev's fur.
"I'm just so scared right now," Raiyev managed to say into Brad's shoulder in between sobs.
"I know," Brad said, unsure of what could really be done. "I know," he repeated. Brad knew that his fiancée was feeling scared, hopeless, and alone, and while Brad didn't know how to fix all of those feelings, he knew that at least he could remind Raiyev that he didn't have to go through all of this alone. Raiyev ultimately cried himself to sleep in Brad's arms, and Brad drifted off shortly after, leaving the pasta dinner unfinished and long forgotten.
Raiyev and Brad awoke early the next morning to the obnoxiously loud sound of the phone ringing. Raiyev stumbled around, feeling a slight headache, and picked up the phone. "Hello?" he answered groggily.
"Brad? That you?" answered a familiar voice on the other end.
"One moment, Dr. Patterson," replied Raiyev with a yawn, and he handed the phone over to his mate, who was now sitting up on the couch where he had slept the previous night.
"Hello, Dr. Patterson," Brad said, rubbing his forehead with a free paw.
"Brad!" Raiyev heard Patterson say loudly through the phone, "Things seem to be speeding up--get your furry tail down here pronto! We need all paws on deck right now!"
"Speeding up?" Brad replied, not fully awake to understand yet.
"Yeah. Look, I'll explain better once you get down here, so get moving!" There was a click on the other end, and Brad put the receiver back on the phone base.
"Well," Brad sighed, "looks like we need to get going early again."
"Do you think," Raiyev said slowly, "I could borrow some of your clothes? I don't think mine really fit me anymore." The events of the previous few days were still on the forefront of his mind, and as he was waking up, Raiyev noticed how much bigger he was becoming.
Brad stared at Raiyev, silently noticing how Raiyev appeared to have shot up another half a foot over the night. "Sure. Of course," he said, and they quickly got ready for work.
****
Work turned out to be bad news--apparently, the rate at which the planet was shrinking had increased dramatically, and if it continued at its current rate, their previous estimate of about seven and a half years would dwindle down to little more than two years. All the while, the events of Lab 8 had already become widespread news within all of EarthTech Labs, and with one of the premier minds of the Lab currently incarcerated, spirits were rather low, causing productivity to suffer. Raiyev wasn't fazed so much about this, though--he still had his own problems to contend to, and it didn't help that his height was giving him away.
Everyone who knew Raiyev noticed how much taller he seemed to be since the previous day, and were wondering if their own memories of him were skewed. Though they couldn't ALL have had the same hallucination, so Dr. Frost called Raiyev into her office later in the day to talk things over with him.
The grown raccoon did his best to reassure his boss (as well as everyone else) that he didn't know what had happened at all. Though his noticeable growth only got worse over time. By the end of the day, Raiyev could swear that his head was several inches nearer the ceiling than it had been when he entered for work that day, and even Brad's clothes were starting to feel rather tight on him.
After work, Brad took Raiyev to a Big & Tall shop, on Raiyev's request, and got him some new work clothes--some to fit him currently, and some much larger than what he needed, just in case. And "just in case" turned out to be a good plan, as over the next couple of days, Raiyev continued to grow quite noticeably. Everyone at work, whether they had known Raiyev before or not, seemed to be goggling at the 9-foot tall raccoon walking through the facilities, and Raiyev himself felt as naked as a newborn for all the attention he was drawing to himself.
All of this made Raiyev determined to spend some time after work to try to do whatever he could to "clean up" the mess he'd created. He cursed himself for his clumsiness and stupidity, and after one of the most awkward days he'd had at his place of work, he stayed behind to see what, if anything, he could do to reverse this process.
He began searching through all the files, both in the computer database and printed out, though he was having troubles getting his large fingers to type accurately on the now-too-small keyboard. He got frustrated with the computer and gave up, turning around quickly to head towards the filing cabinet again. However, as he turned, he heard a loud SMASH, and froze up, turning around again carefully to see, to his horror, that he had inadvertently knocked the computer off the desk with his tail. It lay there on the floor, the monitor cracked and smoking, and the minitower's guts being spilled out of the casing.
"Oh, FUCK!" he cried out as he bent down, trying to salvage the small chips and other broken oddments that had come out of the minitower, not yet realizing how much strength it must have taken to cause this much damage to the computer in the first place. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck..." he repeated, completely livid with himself and afraid of what would happen to him once others found out what he had done.
He decided it was a lost cause, and after slumping in a corner to mope for a couple moments, he got up and went over to the containers of the chemical they had extracted from the Gigantism subjects--the same chemical that they had made into a test solution that he had injected upon himself. He figured the answer would lie in those containers, though he needed to think of a way to reverse the process on himself. As he went to cautiously pick up one of the small test tubes, the glass shattered in his paw.
"FUUUCK!" he roared. "Will NOTHING go right for me here?!" He caught himself just then, remembering that it probably wasn't the best idea for him to be drawing any more attention to himself. He decided then and there that he had to just get out of the Lab and go home. When he left, he realized that he had to squeeze through doors, and he seemed to have gone from 9 feet to about 10 or 11. Silent tears started to stream down his cheeks as he left, leaving the mess behind, unaware that the smoking computer monitor was laying on top of some papers that began to catch fire after he left.