Soooo cryptids are kind of my thing right now, and seeing as how I have no motivation to write slash or any kind of sappy romantic stuff, here is more cryptid humor. Enjoy.

Brownie points to anyone who can guess what kind of cryptid Chester and Rob encounter before I announce it in the second chapter!

~

“Chester, listen to me. Not just creepy people go for a drive through the woods in the middle of the night. It can be a perfectly sane, normal thing to do, and I wish you would get it out of your thick skull that-”

“NO ROB! Have you never seen any sort of murder or supernatural film? BAD things happen in creepy dark places at night-”

“I hardly think this forest is creepy, Nature is beautiful,” Rob insisted, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel angrily.

“Turn this car around right now, or so help me Robert you will wake up with no dick tomorrow!”

“Chester we are halfway through the forest already, it would be useless to turn around. We might as well just keep going.”

“If you don’t turn this vehicle around this instant I will throw you out to the creepy midnight forest monsters and I will drive this thing by myself over your crippled body until you are mush-”

“You don’t know how to drive stick shift.”

Chester’s eyebrows furrowed together in frustration as he settled back into his seat. “I hope Bigfoot kills you.”

“According to research, Bigfoot can be a very benevolent creature…” Rob snickered to himself, glancing down to fumble with the heating controls for a second.

Out of nowhere, Chester suddenly started screaming bloody murder, jerking the steering wheel to the side and repeatedly banging his feet against the interior of the car, “Rob Rob ROB did you fucking see that Rob?!” he was out of breath, “turn this fucking thing around you almost hit that cute little puppy in the middle of the road, you murderer!”

Robert drove on, figuring that Chester had only made a scene because he wanted to turn around. It was unlikely that a cute puppy was in the middle of the road on a frigid winter night. Not to mention that they were at least fifteen miles from the nearest settlement. Even a full grown domestic dog would likely die of the cold before it got very far. Life didn’t thrive when there was three feet of snow on the ground and the temperature hovered around negative twenty degrees fahrenheit all day long. However, it did occur to him that there was a slight possibility that there could have been a dog and he had simply missed it while he was looking down.

“Robbie please you can’t leave that dog there! It’s so cold out!” Chester began his classic temper tantrum, tears beginning to form in the corners of his eyes “Rob the puppy will die! You don’t want to be known as a puppy murderer, do you?”

Rob stared straight ahead, conflicted.

“Puppy killer.”

“Alright, alright, fine you asshole! I’ll go back!” Rob did a y-turn and turned on his brights for a moment, searching the road for any sign of fluff and cuteness.

Sure enough, he soon came upon the quivering puppy. Rob was surprised that Chester had even spotted it. It was curled up on the gravel, its black fur nearly blending in with the road. He halted the car a few feet away and motioned for Chester to retrieve his new best friend.

The puppy, thankfully, was still breathing. It curled against Chester’s torso, snuffling quietly.

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

“Rob I am not going to check to see if it has a penis. I’m not into penis, whether it be man or dog.”

“Chester just fucking turn the dog over and look at it’s tummy.”

Giving Rob the stink eye while he did so, Chester prodded the dog, ignoring its grumbles of protest as he examined the soft underbelly. “It’s a boy!” he announced.

“Is there a collar?”

Chester checked. “Nope.”

“Well maybe he’s got a chip. We can take him into the vet in the morning to get him checked out, make sure he hasn’t got some sickness.”

“DOES THAT MEAN WE CAN KEEP THE PUPPY?”

“Maybe.”

“I wanna name it Marcus. That’s a cute boy name.”

“Sure?”

“You don’t agree?”

“Name the puppy whatever you’d like,” Rob responded, turning the car around once more and heading down their original route. He didn’t have the heart to say it, but he doubted that their apartment complex would allow animals. It was a lowkey, grungy hodgepodge of buildings that had definitely seen better days, and their landlord definitely was not lenient or easy to work with. At one point, Rob had filed a report about several burnt out hallway lights about eighteen times before finally they were replaced. Two weeks later, they burnt out once more, but Rob had learned his lesson and stayed silent.

The apartment complex was just a temporary fix for them. A cheap residence while they saved up money for something less… ghetto. Rob and Chester had met in one of their early morning college classes and had been friends ever since. Just friends. They got many knowing looks from people who simply assumed they were together, but that wasn’t the case. Rob was partial to males, but Chester was absolutely the straightest man to have ever existed.

Chester spent a few minutes gently grooming the dog, running his fingers through the matted fur. “I wonder where he came from. We’re pretty far out from civilization…”

“Someone might’ve dumped him out here.” As sad as it was, it wasn’t uncommon. People didn’t want to waste time and money trying to find it a new home, so they simply let it go. More often than not, the dog struggled to live in the wild after a life of being pampered and soon met its demise. “What breed do you think it is?”

Pursing his lips, Chester stared at the creature for a long moment. “I can’t really tell. He’s pretty dirty. Maybe after a nice, long bath we’ll be able to tell.”

In the light of the car, the blond bent closer to get a better look at his newfound friend. Marcus was tiny, only a little larger than a basket ball. His eyes were shut and he made little noises as he slept. Chester picked up one of the paws to examine it. It was a relatively standard dog paw. Small tufts of fur, squishy little toe beans. And… extremely sharp claws that looked like they could easily pierce flesh. He said a silent prayer that Marcus wasn’t one of those violent dogs that were bred to fight.

The rest of the night was quiet. They drove home in relative silence and made it home safely around one in the morning.