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Drink had been involved.

This fact was undeniable when Rick woke up, tangled in bed sheets, draped across the bed at an odd angle. He rolled over and stretched, giving a loud drawn out yawn. With great effort, he sat up, his head throbbing. He found himself still fully clothed. One of the better outcomes from a night of drinking.

Water. Aspirin. Bladder. These words swirled about in his head as, with greater effort, he pushed himself to his feet and made them trot, one step at a time, towards a hazy destination.

He opened the bathroom door and stumbled over to the medicine cabinet.

"Hey, dude. Like, knock first."

"Wha-?"

There was a red fox standing on the tank of the toilet, giving Rick an annoyed look, or so Rick thought. He wasn't very familiar with vulpine expressions. He managed a weak. "...wha?"

The fox smirked, walking in a circle on the toilet tank lid. "I mean, I was already done, but dude, be considerate. You know we have a terrible bathroom to roommate ratio, gotta be aware of your surroundings, no matter how much you drank last night." The fox reached down with a forepaw and pushed down the toilet handle, producing a flush. "I, for one, think I am a shining example of how to deal with the Morning After Copious Drinking."

If Rick didn't know better, he could swear there was a talking red fox in the restroom who sounded a lot like "Quincy?"

"Hmm?" The red fox had hopped over to the sink and used his paw to turn on the cold water. He leaned down to lap at the running water before continuing. "What's up? Hey, since you're the last up, you're making breakfast. No talking yourself out of it, no matter your hangover." Quincy winked as he hopped down from the sink, his body scooting between Rick's legs before slipping out of the room.

Rick closed his mouth from gaping. His mind tried to form complete thoughts rather than just the words: Quincy, fox, bathroom, what, what, what. He took a deep breath. He found the aspirin, a vaguely clean glass, poured a glass of water, downed a few white tablets, finished his business, and wasn't any closer to coming up with more coherent thoughts. He looked in the mirror. A human, mussed hair, rumpled clothes, confused expression, stared back. OK. So not everyone looked like red foxes. That was a start.

This comforting thought faded away when he entered the living room, and found a ring tailed lemur laying on his back on the coffee table, apparently fiddling with a smart phone. The lemur glanced up when Rick entered, nodding. "Hey, welcome to the land of the living, bro. What's going on? I was told you're making breakfast. Are you sure you're up to it? Totally would be fine with a sacrifice of breakfast burritos from the taco place. Maybe with some toasted cicadas on the side?"

Again, a familiar voice coming from an animal, and Rick's mind struggled with the discordance. "Chris?" he ventured.

The lemur sat up on the coffee table, his long white and black ringtail swishing about behind him. "In the flesh. Doing alright there, bro? You look a bit shaky."

"I'm OK. I guess. I think. How are you doing?"

The lemur stretched and turned back to his phone, paws poking at the screen. "Ah, you know bro, feeling a bit fuzzy, otherwise cool. Just catching up with the ol' social media stuffs, making sure didn't post anything too weird while inebriated, if you know what I mean." Chris, or at least the lemur that Rick's hangover-addled mind thought might be Chris, gave him a wink. The wink made sense coming from Chris, them being sorta boyfriends and all. They had a casual arrangement that they only occasionally acknowledged in the form of flings or kisses or just sharing a bed on a cold night.

Still, Chris being a lemur when doing these things was not the usual equation.

His thoughts were growing clearer. Though not clear enough to clear his view of the ring-tailed lemur leaping over to the end table to lap at a cup of coffee.

Coffee. Yes. That seemed like a good idea.

He shuffled to the kitchen, holding the wall for support. When he entered the kitchen, he gave a high pitched scream.

Afterward, he chided himself. He'd seen a fox and a lemur and he hadn't screamed, why should he scream when he ran across a massive grizzly bear standing in the kitchen. The bear gave him a concerned look.

"Dude. Chill." The bear waddled over and wrapped his huge furry arms around Rick. Rick was still too stunned to react. From the two short words he recognized Jasper's voice and Jasper was a hugger. Whenever anyone had an issue, Jasper's first instinct was to hug, assuming he knew someone well enough and he'd gotten verbal consent to instinctively hug. The bear's hug contained the same comfort that a hug from Jasper would bring, just warmer and fuzzier.

Rick calmed. Somewhat. One did not calm completely that fast from running across a grizzly bear in their kitchen.

The grizzly bear released him from the hug and smiled down at him. "You chilled now?"

Rick shrugged, then nodded. "Just, feel weird this morning."

Jasper gave a chuckle and walked back over to the counter. Nick noticed a ham hock between two comparatively-small pieces of bread. Jasper rubbed the back of his neck with a huge fearsomely-clawed paw. "Heh. I know you were gonna make breakfast, dude. I'm just having a quick snack."

"Oh. Sure. That's fine." Rick couldn't keep the shakiness from his voice, watching as Jasper picked up the "sandwich" and started biting at the ham with growling ursine vigor. Rick decided to forgo the coffee. He needed to figure out what was going on first. In the living room, he found the fox and lemur playing a video game, both animals fiddling with game controllers, going back and forth with Quincy and Chris' usual gaming trash talk, with a few yips and hisses thrown in. From the actions on the screen, seemed like both were dealing being sans-thumps surprisingly well.

Soon Jasper waddled into the room, licking his paws of ham residue and slumped on the recliner, which gave a disconcerting creak, but remained whole.

"Rick? Bro? Something up?" The game was paused, the fox and lemur both were looking at Rick with concern.

"You zoned out there." Quincy leapt up onto the back of the couch and nosed at Rick's hand, his whiskers tickled against Rick's skin.

"You did drink a lot last night, bro. Didn't even get to trying the special stuff." Chris said, leaping up next to the fox, patting Rick on the arm. "Maybe you should just go back to bed. Rain check on being our breakfast slave."

Faded images of last night rippled through Rick's mind. "Special stuff?" he ventured.

"Oh, yeah! You missed out, dude," Jasper said, the bear rubbing his stomach, "Found this shop with this grade A vintage absinthe stuffs. Didn't really have much of an effect, but tasted great."

Rick looked between his three now-animal roommates. Not much of an effect. Right.

Quincy wagged his bushy auburn tail. "Oh yeah, really hit the spot. Was a small bottle though, so we kiiiiiiiinda drank it all. Sorry, dude."

Some vague memories of making fun of bad movies with talking animals wandered back to Rick, who now realized that the talking animals weren't actually in the movies they'd been watching. And with this realization, more memories came into focus. A fox pouncing on and digging about for cheese puffs in the couch cushions. A ring-tailed lemur scaling bookshelves and leaping between furniture. A grizzly bear pawing at his tiny phone, figuring out where the hell he'd seen the actor who played the sheriff in the bad movie being watched. Saying no to an offered cup of shiny green liquid.

"No problem. Urm...I guess I could grab another bottle when I go get breakfast. Where was the shop again?"

O O O

"Yeah. Could I please have, ur..." Rick looked down at the piece of paper he'd scribbled his roommates orders on. "A chicken and egg breakfast burrito, extra chicken and egg. Then...I heard you have like, ur...grasshopper...no, wait..." Rick squints at the menu, "Ah, chapulin breakfast burritos, and instead of egg, could you just pour a few fruit cups in there. Thanks. And finally urm...fifty-three chorizo breakfast burritos."

A long silence transpired between Rick and the cashier.

Rick coughed. "Oh, and maybe a large horchata, please."

The cashier gave a long sigh and plugged the order into the register, running Rick's card. Rick nodded when the cashier said it may take an hour for the order to be ready. He scribbled in a large tip when signing for the receipt, sending thanks and apologies towards the cashier and kitchen staff.

Rick took his horchata and headed out of the taco shop. The address Jasper had given was only a few blocks away from the taco shop, so he had time to spare while he waited to get to the bottom of the mysterious liquor his roommate had consumed. He hoped his roommates would stay put in the apartment while he was gone. He did not want to test out whether the outside world would take talking animals in stride as much as his roommates took suddenly becoming talking animals in stride.

He found the shop in an alley way between a Chinese restaurant and a yoga studio, wondering how the heck Jasper had randomly ran across it. A faded sign over the door announced it as Bob's Antiques and Alcohol.

A bell rang when Rick entered. "Hello? The sign says open, but it's a bit dusty so I wasn't sure if..."

"Hello!" someone bellowed. Rick saw a rotund bearded fellow standing at the front counter, wearing a pair of thick rimmed glasses. "What brings you to my fine establishment this fine morning?"

Rick walked to the counter, scooting between piles of old books and elaborate gargoyle sculptures. "Oh, I think my friend bought something here yesterday." He pulled out the empty absinthe bottle from his pocket and placed it on the counter. "This may sound strange, but seems like it caused some unusually...ur...side effects."

The man examined the bottle and gave a nod, then looked over Rick. "Oh. You didn't get to try some. I'm so sorry. Would you like another bottle? I think I have some more around."

"Oh. No. Wait. What? Is there supposed to be side effects? Like, extreme side effects?"

"Yes, that was the intention of the elixir. I put alcohol on the sign outside because it sounds more professional, and technically most of them are alcohols, but they are ALSO powerful magical elixirs that cause changes in this plane of existence."

"Oh." Rick tried to digest this information. "Are you sure it's not drugs that my roommates took to make...me think they were suddenly animals?" he ventured.

The man gave a deep laugh. "Hah. No, sir. They are very much animals. Cool. Right?"

"Wait...why don't they notice?"

"Magic!" the man said, giving jazz hands.

"Really?"

"Yes. Also, the elixir plays with reality enough that their perception of anything weird is shifted juuuuuuuust enough that they don't think anything is strange. Ooo, what did that fellow turn into who bought the stuff? I was curious."

Rick sighed and took out his phone and showed the man a picture of Jasper licking at a tiny jar of honey. The man gave another deep laugh. "So, how can I help you today, sir?"

"Just wondering. How can I turn my roommates back to normal?"

"D'aww. Why would you want to do that?"

"Ur."

"If you're worried about mass panic and mayhem from the general public, let me assure you, no one will bat an eyelash. Only certain people, like friends and acquaintances, may notice anything is strange."

"Well...you see..."

The man glanced back at the picture of Jasper. "Ah, you don't want to be fighting a grizzly bear in the morning for bathroom rights."

Rick gave a helpless shrug. "One of the concerns, yes."

"Say no more. I have a counter-elixir." The man knelt down under the counter, soon the sound glass bottles clinking against each other filtering through the room, until the man rose again, holding a small bottle. "This should do the trick. Have your roommates drink this tonight and everything should be back to normal tomorrow."

Rick took the bottle. "How much do I-"

"On the house, good sir. The elixirs are more a hobby than business. Antiques are where the money's at." He winked.

"Is there any cryptic instructions that go along with this?"

"Nope. Wait." The man paused for a long moment, rubbing at his beard in thought, then shook his head. "No. Not that I can think of. Best of luck, good sir."

O O O

Rick couldn't stop watching the grizzly bear eat the breakfast burritos. Jasper first delicately unwrapped the wrapper with a surprisingly deftness for his sizable claws,then he would chomp the burrito with one massive bite, perhaps giving one or two chews before swallowing down.

He was only startled from his reverie by Jasper giving a growling burp. He glanced around at the others, Chris' deft lemur paws picking out the toasted grasshoppers from his, crunching on them with gusto, then licking into the burrito for the fruit. Quincy's vulpine muzzle was stuck deep into his burrito, nibbling and chewing, bouncing around his burrito prey on occasion to get a better angle and better grip with his forepaws.

Rick took a slow bite of his own burrito. He waited until his friends were done eating to talk, figuring wasn't good matters to interrupt hungry wild animals from their respective meals. He still couldn't believe they didn't notice. He still hadn't completely given up on this being an absurdly elaborate dream sequence or hallucination.

Chris hopped over in front of Rick, giving him a curious look, one of his paws reaching forward to rub Rick's cheek. "Hey, dude, doing all right? You've seem a bit dazed and confused all day, and you keep staring at everyone like they're gonna bite you or something."

"Ah. Yes. Well..."

"I mean, Jasper did bite you that one time, but that was far behind us."

Jasper chuckled and waved a paw. "Was more of a nip! And you'd eaten the last Wild Berry Pop Tart. I said I was sorry though!"

That event had happened, oddly enough, even though Jasper wasn't a massive grizzly bear at the time. He was tired and grumbly and in desperate need of his favorite snack. Maybe him as a grizzly bear was not much of a stretch.

This thought was interrupted by the lemur giving him a deep kiss, a new and strange and weird sensation that Rick didn't know how to parse properly. Chris pulled back from the kiss and rubbed a black-leathery paw across Rick's hair, giving him a little grin. "That help at all, chap?"

"Um..."

His response was interrupted by the red fox, looking disgusted "Boo! What have we said about PDAs, you two!" Quincy stuck out his tongue, before he picked up the remains of the burrito and escaped under the table.

Jasper just gave another deep growly chuckle and leaned back in his chair. "Hey, I think it's cute if you guys show it off on occasion. The couch is off limits though." The bear gives a playful "I'm watching you" gesture before slipping out of the chair and heading to the living room on all fours.

The lemur leaned into nuzzle a bit at Rick again. "I hope I'm not being too forward. I'm just feeling adventurous today and just wanna bounce around the apartment, climb trees in the park, and tease the hell out of you."

"Oh. Ur...that's cool."

"So, to test my luck with being forward, would you like to go to my bedroom so I can continue testing my forwardness." And Rick recognized the expression on his boyfriend's face, even with him as a ringtail-tailed lemur.

"Like, right now?"

"Yeah, why not?" Chris walked in front of Rick on the table, his long ringtail rubbing against Rick's chin, then leaping off the table and trotting towards the hallway on all fours. Chris looked back at Rick, sitting on his haunches, waving a hand-like paw in a beckoning fashion. "What are you waiting for, bud?"

Rick felt glanced at the elixir sitting on the kitchen counter. He'd suggested drinking with the burritos, but alcohol with their breakfast burrito didn't seem like a good pairing to any of his roommates. They'd agreed to have it this evening.

However, that didn't fix the situation now, that a frisky ringtailed lemur wanted to have some private time with him. Well, that ringtailed lemur was Chris, and he did like spending the occasional dose of private time with him.

The lemur sat there with a curious expression. "I mean, if you're not feeling up to it."

Rick gave a defeated sigh, "Sure, why not."

"Wow. No need to hold in your excitement don't worry, I'll make sure to make it worth your while."

O O O

Some time later, Rick lay there, his casual boyfriend curled up on his bare chest snoozing. He rubbed at Chris' gray pelt, thinking, that against expectations, that it had been worth his while.

O O O

Rick woke the following morning feeling positively bouncy with energy.

Rick untangled himself from the bed sheets and hopped out of bed. He stretched out, giving his side a scratch as he yawned, his foot thumping as his claws found juuuuuuust the right spot. Had been a good night, hanging out with his roommates, playing board games and video games and watching a series of progressively worse movies as the night wore on. Rick had to admit that partying with a bunch of animals the previously evening had an additional quaintness he had not entirely expected.

Yes, it was annoying that Jasper had drank a 12-pack of beer in the period of two minutes to sustain his bear gut. And there had been some searching after Quincy had hidden the remote away deep within the couch cushions so they couldn't change the movie from Zootopia. And had gotten dangerous when Chris had started leaping from light fixture to light fixture within the apartment.

Overall though, nice. And he'd given his friends the elixir.

Now to see if it did the trick. He took a deep breath and exited the room. He peaked into the living room and breathed a sigh of relief. His three roommates, now in their normal human shapes, were flopped about, Chris playing with his phone, Quincy and Jasper playing video games, all looking a little groggy and dazed from the events of the night before.

Everything was back to normal. "Morning, chaps."

Chris glanced at Rick, then looked again, eyes wide. "Wha-wha-wha...?"

Quincy and Jasper looked up from their game. Jasper gave a high pitched yell, which he abruptly stopped.

"Hey, what's going on you guys? Oh, am I yelling? Hangovers, right? Sorry, I'm just a bit excited."

"...Rick?" Quincy ventured.

Rick blinked, cocking his head to the side, his large ears perked. "Yeah?"

"Feeling OK this morning?"

"Oh yeah! Just glad to see all you guys are looking OK. Hey, do we have any more salad left? I don't know, but I'm really feeling like salad. Or grass. Think we have any grass. I'm going to go check." The red kangaroo hopped off the kitchen, his three roommates gaping in his wake.