Primal Instincts

Author's Note- Happened to me. Everything except the Nsync part. :)

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"Busta! Come on, get out there and go pee!" Chris watched with hands on his hips as the small Pug raced out the door. Chris closed Justin's sliding glass door behind the dog and turned to go and relieve himself.

It was break time and the guys usually spent the night at each other's houses since they all had to be at the same place in the morning anyway. Last night Chris came to Justin's for a movie watching buddy and ended up passing out on the couch. Earlier this morning, Chris vaguely remembered Justin muttering something about Britney. When Chris fully woke up an hour later, Justin was gone and Busta had to go out.

Chris went to the bathroom with the door open since no one else was in the house. To fill the silent void of the large house, Chris talked to himself about what had to be done today. When Chris was done relieving himself and ready for a nice, hot shower, he went to the backdoor to let Busta in. The Pug couldn't be trusted left alone, as Chris had found out months before after Justin came home to a backyard full of holes and half eaten bushes.

"Busta, I swear to God if you are eating another one of Justin's Rhododendrons..." Chris muttered, pulling open the sliding glass door. The warm morning sun hit his bare chest and Chris looked around, blinking from the reflection of the sparkling, dew-coated grass. "Come on!" Chris called, and then a growl from his left caught his attention. Chris leaned out the door and searched the bushes until he found the source of the commotion.

Busta had found a cat. Chris stepped out onto Justin's deck as Busta quickly got the tan cat by the throat. An angry, desperate growl escaped the cat and spurred Chris into motion down the few stairs. His bare feet his the wet grass as Busta shook his head viciously, eliciting more screams from the cat, screams Chris was too upset to hear.

"Busta, come here boy," Chris called desperately, his throat tight as blood began seeping from the cat's neck. Busta backed away from Chris, shaking the cat like a toy, like he was having fun killing the feline.

The cat made smaller noises now, and its head hung limp from the side of Busta's bloodied mouth. The continued to twitch as Chris slowly backed Busta into a corner, tears spilling from his usually warm brown eyes.

"Busta, drop it," Chris cried, begging with the small dog. Busta looked normal, like he had merely been caught going through the trash again. "Please Busta, drop it," Chris tried again, finding it was hard to catch his breath. HE finally got a hold of the dog's collar and with a sick feeling, tried prying the Pug's jaws open. Chris noticed through the tears in his eyes how hard Busta was holding onto the cat, how rock hard the dog's head was from it's clenched jaws. The cat now hung completely limp and dark red bloodstained the beautiful fur of the Siamese cat. "Busta drop," Chris said, trying to sound in charge even though his heart was racing and his cheeks were wet. Chris pulled on the dog's ear, causing it to yelp slightly and therefore dropped the cat to the ground. Chris grabbed onto the struggling Pug's collar, watching with a broken heart as the cat twitched once, then lay still, curled on its side.

"Busta, come on," Chris pleaded, pulling the dog away from the dead cat with trembling hands. "Let's go, come on boy," Chris repeated, mostly to himself, to hurt to be angry, to stunned to think about anything else but the cat's lifeless stare.

Once inside the house Chris let go of the dog and looked at himself, spotting a smear of blood on his bare leg, below his boxers, and a tuft of cat hair stuck to his leg with Busta's saliva.

"Oh my God," Chris whimpered, turning to look out the door. Busta ran around excitedly at his feet while Chris felt sick and confused. "What do I do?" he asked himself, gasping for breath. The house was empty; no one could calm him or help him. He couldn't go back out there now. With shaking hands he reached for the phone and called Joey. He paced as the phone rang, and rang, and rang. Chris hung up; his mind and heart racing. His dog had just killed a cat. Killed, as in tore a hole in the throat of someone else's pet. Shit.

Chris quickly dialed J.C.'s number, wiping his eyes and trying to catch his breath. "Shit," Chris whimpered, growing more desperate, feeling more alone. Someone had to help him. He couldn't deal with this alone. He'd never watched his own pet do something so cruel before, and he wasn't coping very well.

Finally Chris dialed Lance's number, pacing a hole in the floor and listened to the phone ring three times before a somewhat cheerful southern voice answered. "Yeah?"

"Hi," Chris started meekly, going to the door again then veering to the left and continuing his pacing.

"What do you want?" Lance asked jokingly.

Chris took a deep breath, feeling his throat tighten again and tears sting his eyes. "Um, okay, so I let Busta out this morning...and he killed a cat," Chris finished, crying softly.

"What?" Lance asked, clearly not expecting that as an answer, let alone an option, at ten fifteen in the morning. "He killed a cat?"

"He got it by the neck and it was screaming and he was just playing with it like a toy and by the time I made him drop it there was a big fuckin' hole in it's neck and there's blood all over the place and it's really gross and I can't touch it-"

"Chris, take a breath there kid. Where's Justin?"

"He left," Chris whimpered, putting a hand to his mouth as he went back outside. "What do I do Lance? It's just lying there, and I don't know what to do, no one else was home."

"Well you can't flush it," Lance chuckled.

Chris's heart sank. "I know," he said, feeling sick.

"Well, just like, bury it," Lance suggested.

"I can't," Chris replied. "He'll dig it up again. I can't just go and leave it on the street by the gutter. I don't know what to do." Chris's heart had calmed a little, just by having someone to talk to.

"I don't know Chris, just wait until Justin gets home or something. I'm sorry man, but I don't know."

Chris walked towards the still lump of blood stained floor and immediately tensed, almost waiting for the cat to jump up and attack, avenging its death. "There's a hole in its neck Lance, and this was someone's pet. I've never seen it before. It was a really pretty cat, it didn't do anything wrong."

"Chris, take a deep breath, it'll be all right. Just get Justin to take care of it."

"Okay," Chris sighed, turning back to the house. "I'll, uh, let you go then."

"Okay," Lance said. "Bye."

Chris hung up and went to get a shower, spending half an hour scrubbing the cats blood off his leg and bringing his own to the surface.

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"Hello? Chris? The house is still standing so you have to still be alive..."

Chris tore his gaze away from the window and looked towards Justin's voice. Thank God it was no longer him and 'that dog'.

Justin rounded the corned and entered the living room where Chris was sitting, knees to his chest and looking for all the world like he had just cried his eyes out. "What happened?" Justin asked.

Chris sighed, feeling his tears well up but now he was not so upset. "Busta killed a cat. It's out back."

Justin's concern immediately softened and he approached Chris. "Oh my God. I'm sorry, are you okay?"

Chris nodded. "Yeah. Justin, it's really gross and I don't want to touch it."

"Well come on, come help me at least."

"What do we do with it? We can't bury it, Busta will just dig it up and eat it."

"Chris, I didn't need to know that," Justin replied, going out the back door. "Where is it?"

Chris silently led Justin to the cat. It hurt to look at it. It had drizzled in the time between the haunting incident and now, and the cat looked even more pathetic and cold. And dead.

"Go get me a shovel or something to pick it up with," Justin ordered quietly, kneeling down in the mud and wincing at the torn flesh.

Chris silently obeyed, his mood matching the damp gray sky. There would be no sun today. He returned to Justin with the spade and a bucket.

Justin went to push the cat in the bucket, only to find that it had gone stiff and merely flopped over like a pancake.

Chris yelped and jumped back. "Justin, it moved, I swear it just twitched."

"Chris, it's dead, see?" Justin asked, driving the small shovel into the cat's side. "Oh God, I'm gonna puke," Chris said softly, turning away.

Justin pushed the stiff cat into the bucket and stood up. "Come on, lets go drop it off at that Chinese restaurant," Justin smiled.

Chris's lip trembled. "That is so sick Justin, that's was someone's pet! Some family is going to be looking for that cat! We're gonna get a flier in the mailbox that says, 'Lost Siamese Cat. Name is CreamPuff. Please return to loving family.' And I'm gonna feel like shit, because I'll have to tell them that my dog fucking ripped a God damn hole in their cat's neck!"

"Chris-"

"And I watched it Justin, I chased that little bastard around the yard in my boxers while this cat is dying in my dog's jaws! This is my fault, I'm a cat killer!"

"Chris, it's not your fault. Those are Busta's instincts. He saw the cat and it's the cat's own damn fault it was in my yard. You couldn't control it. Dogs are programmed to hunt and kill."

"Poor little CreamPuff didn't do anything, he didn't deserve this," Chris said, his voice softer. "Poor cat."

Justin smiled and put a hand on Chris's shoulder. "Come on, we'll take it to a vet, okay? They'll take care of it."

"Okay." Chris silently trudged after Justin.

What a beautiful start to the weekend.

Finish- That's Life.

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