Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This collection is mine, as are Duke and Jake. I had some fun writing this one, though it turned out to be much more difficult to write than I thought it would. Enjoy!

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016 – Who Let the Dogs Out?

(For The Sacred and Profane; Prompt: 'Duke [briefly] becomes human')

For a long, long pause, Leon just stood there in the doorway to the house where he and Tifa lived, staring at the spectacle in the hallway, knowing that he should probably look away, but…what?

"What?" Was all his brain could come up with.

Tifa had wrangled the strange woman to her seat on the floor in the middle of the hallway; Tifa's harsh breathing said that that had taken some effort. The stranger in front of her had wild ginger hair and wide amber eyes…and she was mostly naked. Mostly because it looked like Tifa had managed to get her into a pair of pajama bottoms, and she was working on getting a t-shirt on her.

"What?" He repeated; it was all he could do.

As soon as both women spotted him, the ginger haired woman jumped to her feet, excitement blazing through her eyes as she practically leapt at him. Or, she tried, but her legs seemed to have no bones in them and she collapsed just as quickly with a squeak. Leon instinctively moved forward and caught her. But instead of being grateful or at the very least embarrassed at her state, the stranger straightened in his arms and landed a big, wet kiss to his jaw. Leon almost dropped her in shock.

He looked to Tifa, bewildered. "What?"

Tifa had gotten to her feet and used the woman's infatuation with Leon as a distraction to wrestle the t-shirt onto her, covering her up. "Donald agreed to train me in this new spell but it misfired or I botched it or something happened and it hit Duke—"

"Duke?" Leon glanced around for the dog. "Where is she?"

"—Well…We thought it was a dud or a fluke or something, because she was perfectly fine for a while." Tifa's voice sounded odd for some reason, like she was trying to hint at something without saying it directly. "Then…all of a sudden—"

"What did you do to my dog?" Leon asked, "Where is she?"

"You're…" Tifa fidgeted a little. "Holding her."

Leon stared at Tifa for a confused few seconds, and then slowly looked down at the unbalanced woman in his arms. She looked up at him and a smile spread across her mouth that was positively canine. She tried to go in for another kiss, but he blocked her this time. Her legs weren't working, or she wasn't used to having two instead of four, so he scooped her up instead and deposited her properly on the couch in the living room.

"You're not serious?" Leon asked Tifa once the woman had stopped moving. "Who is this woman?" He pointed with his thumb.

"That's…Duke." Tifa lifted her shoulders sheepishly.

The woman, Duke, spun to look at the two of them. "Can we go outside?"

Leon nearly leapt out of his skin. "What?" He asked shakily.

"Can we go outside?" Her voice was lower and throatier than her outward appearance suggested. "I really, really want to go outside, like, right now." She bounced a little.

Leon swiveled his head slowly to look at Tifa. "Call Donald."

"I tried already. No answer." Tifa ran a hand through her hair.

"Then we take her to Merlin." Leon said, standing again.

Tifa looked dubious and Leon understood why. Getting from their house to Merlin's required crossing the Residential District, going through the Marketplace, and maneuvering through the Borough: all big public areas where everybody knew each other and tended to hang out with the same people. Sure, Radiant Garden had massive numbers of visitors, tourists, and new soldiers arriving every day, but Leon didn't walk around with any of them. And he surely didn't carry them around, which was what he was going to have to do, since the woman—Duke, his dog, of all nonsense—wouldn't be able to walk on her own very easily.

"All right." Tifa sighed in resignation, standing. "Duke, do you need—"

Duke blinked and turned, having not been paying attention. "Huh?"

Tifa deadpanned and looked to Leon, "She's only going to listen to you, really. I'll go on ahead and make sure that Merlin's home, tell him about…all of this…so he'll be ready to get it over with by the time you get there."

Leon paused and then nodded. Clearly Tifa just wanted to leave Duke with him; the whole situation was probably making her uncomfortable. Hell, what about him? Duke wasn't looking at TIFA like she was the center of the universe like she was to him. Tifa returned the nod and abruptly left the house, leaving man and dog-turned-human alone together.

An awkward beat passed.

"So…" He tried not to think too hard about the fact that he was trying to have a conversation with his dog…Not that that was new, but now she might answer.

"Can we go outside?" She chirped, trying to stand again and failing.

Leon smirked despite himself. "Sure."

Duke was determined to stand and walk on her own, and to her credit, she got the hang of just standing up fairly quickly. It was the walking one foot in front of the other that she had trouble with.

"I can do it. I'm a grown…thing." She swatted away his help, even as she started to teeter sideways down the hallway.

"Look, we don't know if there's a time crunch here. Sometimes spells become harder to reverse the longer that they've been left alone." Leon pointed out. "I'll just carry you—"

"Absolutely not." Duke shook her head violently and staggered toward the door.

She was a stubborn thing; Leon sighed and followed her out. They made their way through the Residential District fairly inconspicuously, and Duke eventually caved enough to allow Leon to help her balance as they walked. On and off, she would fasten her pacing, slow it down, veer to either side, and often bumped into him.

"Not used to a higher center of gravity?" He prompted with a grin as they walked.

"I feel like I'm going to fall over if I so much as lean." She said, holding onto his shoulder to walk.

They walked past two kids at the mouth of the Marketplace playing catch with a baseball. Duke's eyes lit up at the sight of the children, and they followed the trajectory of the flying baseball like a laser. When one of the kids overthrew, the ball bounced past him. Duke started forward, a playful yet determined look in her eyes, but Leon physically held her back.

"No. It's their ball. Not yours." He chided.

"But—" She tugged slightly against him.

"No." Leon said sternly.

Duke actually whined in her throat as she looked back at him woefully.

"Come on, the faster we get to Merlin's, the faster you'll be back on four legs."

"Then onward!" She lifted one arm in a bold gesture, staggering off balance.

"Well, well, well," Jake Alms appeared, hands in his pockets, glint in his eyes. "What have we got here? Who's this, Leon?" His eyes roamed up and down Duke flirtatiously.

"NO!" Leon pointed and practically yelled at Jake. "Don't even think about it."

Jake blinked, "Defensive much?"

He glanced down and quirked an eyebrow. Leon followed his eyes downward and saw that Duke had taken a hold of Leon's hand with her own, interlocking their fingers. When had she done that? How long had they been walking like this? Leon's first thought was to pull away, but to Duke, that might as well have been kicking her to the ground in her eyes. So he kept a hold of her hand.

"Go away, Jake." Leon dismissed him flatly, leading Duke past him.

"No, wait, who is she?" Jake started after them.

"Go away, Jake." Leon just repeated.

"Pfft, fine, don't tell me." Jake snarked.

Duke looked back after him, staggering slightly off balance. Leon steadied her and they slipped into Merlin's house. Tifa was standing in the living room talking to Merlin, while Cloud was standing in front of the computer. All three sets of eyes shot to the woman standing beside Leon. Duke just grinned cheekily back at them.

"Hi." She beamed and gave a little wave to Merlin and Tifa.

"You were serious?" Cloud looked to Tifa. "I thought you were joking."

Tifa lifted an eyebrow, "Who in the world jokes about dogs becoming humans?"

Duke leaned over to Leon, whispering loudly. "I don't like him." She gestured to Cloud, clearly thinking she was subtle, when Cloud was looking right at her.

Cloud knit his brows at her, but Leon just snorted. Duke stuck her tongue out at him.

"All right." Merlin approached, adjusting his spectacles. "It sounds like this has been a transfiguration spell gone wrong." He inspected Duke, who looked wary of him. "Should be easily fixed."

"Thank goodness." Duke exhaled, propping her hands on her hips.

"Has it been that bad?" Leon prompted with a smirk.

Duke shifted with a frown, "It's just…two legs are so…cumbersome…And clothes? Ugh, so…constricting."

Merlin chuckled, brandishing his wand, "Okay. Duke, um, if you have any…final words…to impart?"

Leon glared, "You make it sound like she's going to die."

"Not at all," Merlin waved a hand, "But it is pretty clear that dogs do not speak."

"Psh, yes I do." Duke folded her arms, "You're all just too dense to understand it."

Tifa snorted into her fist.

Duke rounded on Leon, "And for the record, my barking at all hours of the night is because of the Nightbound Heartless that creep through the streets in the dark."

All four of them blinked.

"What?" Leon started.

Duke rolled her eyes, "You should count yourself lucky, bub. The nastier Heartless trick the security system and sneak into the town at night when it's darkest and easiest for them to move without being detected."

Leon exchanged a look with Cloud. Clearly this was new to all of them. "Well, what do they look like?" He asked Duke.

"How should I know?" Duke lifted her hands, "You keep me locked up in the house during the night, all I can do is smell them and try to scare them off with my intimidation." She tossed her ginger hair with a grin.

Tifa was jotting down a note on some paper. "Well, that will definitely spark Cid's interest for those night patrols."

Merlin bobbed his head and then pushed up his sleeves. "Are you ready, dear?"

Duke nodded, paused, and then turned and threw her arms around Leon, pulling him close and planting another wet, sloppy kiss to his jaw.

Startled slightly, Leon awkwardly returned the embrace, "What was that?"

Duke shrugged, "Just wanted to hug you while I still have elbows." She looked around at everybody. "I think I'm ready…Wait!" She turned back to Leon. "Stop slipping me leftovers when Tifa cooks…Even I have to say no to some things."

Tifa looked affronted, "Hey!"

Duke looked unapologetic to her, winked, and then looked to Cloud. "I still don't like you. I'm going to chew on your shoes when I get my proper teeth back."

Cloud, who had been snickering at the jibe to Tifa's cooking, glared at Duke at that, and Leon was inclined to give Duke a treat for that little gem.

Finally, Duke looked back to Leon. "And…I love you."

Leon wasn't sure what to do with that, so he awkwardly hugged her again. "Yeah, same."

Duke beamed and turned to Merlin. "Zap me back, magic man." She spread her arms.

Merlin muttered the incantation and magic flowed out of his wand to Duke. In a flash of light, the ginger haired woman disappeared. When the light faded, that familiar red-golden fur coat was back, and the canine was back to all fours. She gave a happy bark.

Leon reached down and patted her head; all was back to normal now. Duke wagged her tail enthusiastically, licked his hand, and ran around in a short circle before darting into the back room of the house. Cloud stiffened and then bolted after her with a cry of 'No! Bad dog! Stay away from my stuff!'

The front door opened and Jake walked. "Okay, seriously, who was that hot chick?"

Tifa burst out laughing, while Merlin looked confused.

Leon just exhaled and shook his head, going toward the kitchen to dig out Cid's secret stash. He really needed a drink after today's events.

"Duke! No!" Cloud was yelling down the hall. "Drop that!"

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A/N: The full prompt submitted was: 'Duke, thanks to a botched spell from a magic-studying Tifa (With Donald as her teacher), becomes human. Duke adjusts to a two-legged life but tries to constantly lick Tifa and Squall, leading to some embarrassing moments in public. Eventually Duke goes back to normal and thanks the doggy gods that she isn't a human.'

I took some creative license with it, but a prompt like this has to XD It was actually really hard trying to translate Duke's behavior into that of a human. I had quite a few ideas that never made the final cut of the ditty, but I think the end product was amusing all the same. Title of course comes from the song; no affiliation or ownership.