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[b][u][center]Rubber-Reality Band[/center][/u][/b]

[b][u][center]Introduction[/center][/u][/b]

[b][u][center]For TerinasTiger[/center][/u][/b]

[b][u][center]By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

Ciro groaned as he dragged his fingers through the tub of rubber bands, doing his best to keep up the appearance of listening to his supervisor while gathering the next bunch of stretchy binders. The panther kept his mouth shut as Logan kept talking, the yellow-scaled lizard harping on and on.

“Just make sure that you always follow procedure,” the lizard said, nodding sanctimoniously as he always did. “It’s important that every batch of Office Goods Warehouse product is shipped out under the same blessing.”

The panther nodded absently as he began stringing the rubber bands between his fingers and along his arms, idly plucking each one as Logan continued.

“Yes, yes, that’s it. Pluck, pray, and bless the world with high-quality supplies.”

Ciro bit back a chuckle at the stupid, hippie-sounding approach. For all that he didn’t get the whole reason for Logan and the other supervisors pushing this whole ‘blessing’ thing, but considering his money situation, he didn’t have the luxury of questioning them. The factory was a step up from high-school retail or food service jobs, and it paid a bit more, too, so if the bosses had their little ritual, he wasn’t going to look too hard at it.

[i]Pluck.[/i] That one was simple enough; pull the band and make sure it felt right when it was pulled and strained, ensuring that it wasn’t going to break when stretched over something else. That made sense.

[i]Pray?[/i] Ciro didn’t get it, but the bosses wanted him to mutter something in a weird language. He didn’t even know what he was saying or if he was even saying it right, but Logan hadn’t corrected any of the sounds he was imitating yet, so he hoped that it was coming out right.

“You know, we are going to be short several workers tomorrow, Mr. Ciro. I understand that you’re looking for more hours; can we convince you to come in for a longer shift tomorrow?”

The panther hesitated, looking up from the bands. The yellow-scaled lizard, slightly paunchy with the sort of rolls and wrinkles to his face that made it hard to tell if he was old or just overweight, smiled.

“I hope I have not caused offense. I have read your file; you said that you were saving up for college?”

“I…yeah, I am.” Ciro rubbed the back of his head. “How, uh, how long a shift are we talking?”

“Not [i]exceptionally[/i] long. About ten hours.”

He hid a wince. Most of his shifts were between four to six hours. Ten would be brutal, particularly considering it was the holiday season and he was already getting pushed to meet quotas pretty hard. Not to mention that he had plans to hang out with some of his friends after school; work had been sucking up so much time, even if he did need the money to go to the same college his brother had.

“...There gonna be bonus pay for that shift?” he asked.

“But of course.”

That, unfortunately, clinched it. Even if he was overdue for some time away from school and work, Ciro needed that money. The panther could already hear the lectures from his parents if he dared turn this down. His brother had gone to college and was doing well for himself, after all, and Ciro was expected to support himself, even if he couldn’t measure up to Emilio. He might as well just throw his life away and be done with it, as far as the older felines were concerned.

“Fine. I’ll be here,” he muttered.

“Excellent. We do appreciate your work ethic, Mr. Ciro, and we look forward to having you here for as long as possible.”

“Uh-huh.”

He turned his attention back to the rubber bands on his hands and wrist. Pluck, pray, and then bless.

There was some other wording to the blessing, some kind of wish that the bosses said had to be phrased properly. He didn’t get that either, but his thoughts drifted, going back to his older brother, Emilio.

[i]Wish I could see how he handled all this bullshit.[/i]

Pluck –

Oontz oontz oontz.

Ciro blinked at the sudden techno-dance music in the air, tilting his head back from the bands around his hand and –

“…What…the…fuck?”

The steel-ceiling of the warehouse was gone, replaced with something like the post-industrial pipes and wiring that he was used to seeing at some of the hipster coffee shops around town. He’d gone from sitting at a work bench to being in a booth at the back of the room, and when he looked around, he saw a bunch of other guys in leather and latex, some of them almost naked save for a thong, others so covered up that he couldn’t see their faces.

And when he looked over his shoulder, he saw a few small windows, barely peeking out to street level, at the very top of the walls. One of those basement clubs or something, then? But how –

“Gentlemen, hope you’ve been having a wonderful night,” an unseen announcer said. “As always, it’s great to have you here at the Flesh-Pole.”

[i]The hell is the Flesh-Pole?[/i]

“Our dancers are always grateful for your patronage, but here’s one that’s even more thankful than the rest. Put your hands together – or around your dicks – for the one, the only, Emilio the Extraordinaire!”

[i]…What…the fuck…is happening?[/i]

Ciro couldn’t even think as he looked back down the room. He’d been staring at the people around him and the room itself more than anything else. He hadn’t even noticed that there was a stage at the front, one that was occupied on either end by a wolf and a fox, both men, both wearing nothing more than thongs that thrust their packages forward by some way. His cheeks burned as he realized that he was in some sort of gay club, but –

The dance music turned up as the curtains behind the stage flew open, and Ciro’s cheeks burned all the hotter as he saw none other than his brother walking down the stage. Everything in him told him to look away, but it was like a car crash that had been cleared away by a freight train: it was so insane that he couldn’t take his eyes off the wall of furred muscle walking down the stage.

[i]How…what…[/i]

Some part of him hoped that this was some different Emilio, but no. He recognized his brother all too well. That little scar under the left eye, the way that some of his black fur had turned silver early over one ear, and the pecs that he’d been so proud of last time that he’d come home from college: they were all the hallmarks of his older brother, and…oh god, the thong that he was wearing…

Ciro didn’t know how much more he could take, but the sight of a purple thong around his older brother’s junk was just…too much. He could see every bit of his brother’s package, the sheer heft of it something that had been much easier to ignore at the pool or during some of the other family gatherings. He’d never known that Emilio had that much down there, or that he had been…been showing it off…

The music pulsed as the powerful cat pummeled the runway, strutting forward with power in his shoulders and hips, each step a predatory pace that made all eyes shift to him. The rest of the crowd cheered, waving dollar bills around the stage and reaching up to tuck it into his thong.

Even Ciro couldn’t help but just stare at the way that his brother swayed his hips, showing off everything and – oh god, he was thrusting his hips, making everything [i]bounce[/i] down there. Thrust, thrust, thrust, that package getting stiffer and stiffer and –

[i]Oh god, get me out of here, I wish I was back at work, I wish –[/i]

[i]Pluck.[/i]

“– and we’ll make sure that everything is covered and – Mr. Ciro?”

He was back at the factory. Ciro’s cheeks still burned, the image of his brother’s thong-covered bulge still burned into his brain. He’d just…and he’d watched…

“Mr. Ciro, are you alright?” Logan asked.

“I – I have to go. Sorry. Emergency.”

“Mr. Ciro –”

But the panther was already on the move, standing and running from his station. He ran his fingers down the rubber bands on his arms, shoving them away, sending them falling to the floor. His head spun as he moved faster, faster, faster through the warehouse, pushing past the other workers before reaching the back door. They parted with a shove, and he stumbled into the parking lot and over the side of his car.

Gasping for breath, he slung himself through the driver’s side door. The engine revved as he turned the keys, and he drove out of the parking lot by the time that Logan and the other supervisors left the building. It took him a full minute to stop holding the gas pedal down to the bottom of the car and drive sanely, and longer for him to be able to catch his breath and not pant like he was running for his life.

“What the fuck…what the fuck…what the flying fuck…”

That hadn’t been a dream. He could still [i]smell[/i] the reek of sweat and musk and so much more from the club. He’d been chilled from the room, felt the rush of air conditioning that hadn’t been there in the warehouse. The booth’s seat had been softer than his chair at the warehouse station.

He’d really left. He’d really gone from one place to another. How?

Something tugged at his wrist as he turned onto another road. Ciro looked down and saw one of the rubber bands still clinging to him. Shaking his head, he grabbed for it, missing it, plucking it as he muttered under his breath.

“Wish this all made some kind of sense –”

The world faded. Nothing. Emptiness. Darkness? No, just…emptiness. Darkness was different than lack of light; this was no darkness, no light, no nothing. It was emptiness.

It was horrifying.

[i]I wish for light.[/i]

Bedazzling, blinding brilliance, almost searing everything away.

[i]No, no, cancel, cancel![/i]

Nothingness.

[i]I wish for something.[/i]

Horrifying things, teeth, and claws, and ripping tearing nasty –

[i]Cancel![/i]

The wishes continued, and they came faster and more insane with each progressive one. A hundred wishes and a hundred cancellations before getting one right, then another hundred cancellations before getting another right, and so on. Bit by bit, Ciro watched as the world was made around him, the universe, and then everything in it.

He saw humans, creatures that had only been in history books, then he saw anthros, then a mix, then just anthros, and then –

His head spun and –

BEEEEP!

The panther flung the wheel to the side as the world reasserted itself. He avoided oncoming traffic, barely managing to steer himself into a parking lot. He turned off the car, shaking his head as he stared at the rubber band on his wrist, still getting more and more images in his head as the world moved around him.

Life.

History.

Sex.

A lot of sex, as it turned out. A fuck-ton of sex, with so many different wishes and different ideas of what was right, wrong, obscene, hot –

Ciro shook his head as the last bit of it slotted into place, a wish for something – a coin, at the time – to become a rubber band. Something that could be lost, something that had been dropped into the vast stores of office supplies three years ago. And –

And the people that had been chasing after it. Lizards. In all the history that he had seen over the last few minutes, nobody else but that [i]one[/i] group seemed able to remember what had happened, and even they were foggy, most of the time, but they remembered that much.

The images faded from his imagination, but he still hadn’t been able to slow his heartbeat. He felt like it was going to slam right through his ribs and do a salsa on the dashboard. Ciro shook his head, staring at the little band around his wrist.

“This…you…what?”

No way. No way. It was…

No, fuck. Fuck. He had to think about this – somehow – rationally. He’d literally teleported out of the warehouse to his brother in a strip club (and that was a view he wasn’t going to forget in a hurry) with a wish. He’d bounced back with another wish. And he’d done it while plucking the band.

With shaking fingers, he reached for the band again. He gripped the rubber for a second, lost his grip, and had to grab it again. His voice failed him at first, and he swallowed as he plucked it again.

“I…I wish for a billion dollars.”

[i]Pluck.[/i]

CRASH!

Ciro almost had a heart attack as he whipped his head around to see the back-half of his car ripped off, the bottom broken through with literally hundreds of pounds – perhaps more – of some white powder. Drugs, some more attentive part of his mind realized. He just stared at it as his phone went off and the sound of sirens filled his ears –

“Cancel, cancel!”

Pluck.

His car was back to normal, and the sirens were gone, but his phone was still ringing. Ciro looked down at his pocket, his hands shaking worse than before. It took him three attempts to pull his phone out of his pockets, and he still felt like he could drop it at any second as he held it to his ear.

“H-hello?” he said.

“Mr. Ciro. It’s Logan. I believe that we need to have a chat.”

“Uh-uh…uh, about what?”

“I think you know. You have something that we’ve been searching for, and for quite some time, at that. I believe that you know it’s in your best interests to come back with what belongs to us.”

“Why do you want it?” he asked, looking around. “What’ll you do if I don’t?”

“…If you don’t?”

“Y-yeah, what if I – what if I keep it?”

“…I – you – we hadn’t anticipated that question.”

“Well, um, that – that’s my answer,” Ciro said, looking down at the rubber band. “Now – now leave me alone, or I’ll wish that you never existed.”

“Mr. Ciro –”

The panther ended the call, tossing the phone into the passenger seat. He stared at the band around his wrist, still shaking from head to toe as he realized what he’d done. Not just threatened someone, but threatened them with murder –

No, worse. Nonexistence. Paradox. Utter obliteration from existence. What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck?

He grabbed the steering wheel with an iron grip, his fingers turning white beneath the fur and his breath still coming in short, shallow gasps. It took him another three minutes to breathe deeply enough to calm that down, and even then his chest hurt from his heart pounding away.

Ciro forced himself to talk about it. Talk out loud. Talk so he could hear it.

“I have…I have a rubber band…that grants wishes.”

Okay. So what was he going to do?

“I don’t know.”

What did he want?

“I don’t know.”

Why didn’t he give it back?

“They were lying about it and didn’t want other people to know it existed.”

So, what would he do that was better?

“Nnngh…”

Ciro slumped forward, bumping his forehead against the steering wheel. The damn thing was a monkey’s paw, and it had proved it by twisting the money wish to having a billion dollars in fucking [i]drugs[/i] in his car, and the police on his ass. And the past bits he’d seen had proven that it would take random interpretations of wishes, too, not always malicious, but very seldom what someone wanted unless they were stupidly specific about it.

It would be completely stupid to use it without thinking about it. And yet, at the same time…

He imagined what it would be like to have a few things right in his life. He imagined what he could do to have a little fun instead of having to drive himself crazy just trying to keep afloat.

And he imagined what it would be like to do what he wanted, and let reality just…keep up with him for a while.

He stared at the band for a few more seconds, and realized that he was no longer panic-breathing. Safe enough to drive home, he supposed, but…

Okay.

Okay.

He’d have to think about how he wanted to do this, but…but he might have an idea of what to do next.

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: What happens when a tool that can alter reality comes up again? What happens when you make wishes not realizing you can?

Tags: M/solo, Strip Club, Panther, Feline, Lizard, Reality Warper, Wishes, Bulge, Brother-Watching, Embarrassment, Panic, Potential Series, StockingStuffer2024,