don’t sink in me with your dog teeth

Your eyes are half closed and drooping farther by the second, a warmth so bone-deep blooming beneath the skin that it fully encapsulates your consciousness.

John keeps your head against his chest, one callused hand on the back of your skull and massaging in small circles. You hear him hum under his breath as he watches you; his own lids teetering up and down.

In the background, the gentle sound of the record player spits out Beethoven.

"You're makin' me sleepy," you whisper, nuzzling against John's chest and his shirt with a large sigh. The man grunts, and you feel his lips meet your scalp in a deep kiss. He smells like linen and beard oil.

Into your hair, John mutters, "Good." It's more a purr than anything else as you shiver at the sensation of his body grumbling from under you.

The living room is the picture of a Saturday afternoon—dishes in the kitchen sink, laundry in the basket to be put away; the couch you both lay on sinking with your combined weight. Sun streaming through the curtains.

You've forgotten how you both ended up in this position in the first place. Not that it mattered to you now.

"Like you here." The Brit huffs, the blue of his eyes dim and content. Pools of molten sapphire. It's as if whenever he holds you everything else falls away into a sheen of contentment.

There's no war here with you on his chest—no gunfire or yelling orders. Just the heat of your body and the swell of lungs as your chest bares down on him. John's lashes flutter.

"Course you do," you tease, slowly, before kissing his clothed chest. John stifles a chuckle, his lips curling along your scalp as his breath tickles your hair. His hands spread out along your back—curling as a snake would. Tight and firm. You don't mind in the slightest. "Careful, Captain...don't go sleeping on duty."

Briefly, you peek up at him through your addled haze. He lays a kiss on your forehead and his lips twitch as you continue. Such a greedy cuddler. "We still have sheets to put on the bed, y'know."

There was no way the both of you were leaving this couch. Not with John's large hands caressing your spine. Not with how you fit atop him so perfectly with your dead weight and adorable sleepy blinks.

This was fucking heavenly.

"Fuckin' hell," the brunette grumbles; he hikes you farther up as you let him drag you like a stuffed animal with a tiny grunt. John sighs, settling you. "Bloody forget about it. You're not movin' an inch."

"That a promise...or an order?"

"Both." You smile, letting his large lungs raise you up and down as if sleeping atop a grizzly bear. Maybe, you thought, you were.

"Sleep, Love," John whispers. "I'll be right here with you."

And as you close your eyes fully and slot your head under the man's chin, the gruff brunette joins not seconds later into the state of oblivion. Soft inhalations; greedy hands that anchor like steel. A scrape of beard hair against your ear.

The house settles, the music plays, and the two Lovers sleep; dead to all else except one another's arms.

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The touch of your hand brings him out of sleep—quicker than it usually does, because instead of fingertips brushed lovingly down his spine, the butt of your palm meets his shoulder blade in quick jabs, sort of like how he's watched you knead bread—which almost makes him laugh, except it's accompanied by your frustrated huff, and his brain blearily starts to put the situation in order.

He reaches a hand across the bed behind him—eyes closed, because part of the routine is knowing exactly where his things will be. He presses a button and expects silence; and it's relatively present, save for the whine that's still brewing in the hollow of your throat—

"Shhh, shh shh," his body moves on autopilot, turning over to where you are. John cracks one eye open—just to make sure he's not about to catch a stray smack to the side of the head—and sees the what he knows to be the vague outline of you, mostly amorphous under the fluff of the comforter you've buried yourself under. And he sort of just—holds the whole thing, arms reaching around mostly blankets until he feels the familiar squirm of your body against his chest. You poke your head out—eye-level with him now, and clearly not happy.

"Good mornin', beautiful."

Your eyes narrow—but even in the dark he sees the way they start to curve upward the more he speaks.

"Didn't mean t'wake you," he murmurs, leaning forward to press his forehead to yours. He feels no small amount of pride over the way it's an anesthetizing thing—your eyelids flutter closed, and your exhale is long and controlled against his skin. He makes short work of the comforter you're tangled in—only a matter of time before it becomes overstimulating anyway—and brings your body closer to his.

What fucking heaven this feeling is—the soft give of your chest against his own, the dip of your waist and the way it cradles the arm that rests atop it, the hand splayed across your back to bring you closer still. You shuffle a little farther down until he's got your head cradled in his bicep and his lips pressed to your forehead—pulling up at the corners when he feels you truly settle into his arms and, he thinks, consider forgiving him for the sensory overload first thing in the morning.

The extent of his love is unfathomable—you, this little thing in his bed that he would burn the whole god damned world down for without thinking twice. You, who cradles all of the shrapnel of him tightly enough to push him back together every morning. You, who makes him feel like John, the man—not the dog, not the captain, not the monster—John, who can't stop himself from stealing 10 minutes of your sleep in the morning just to hold you. John, who—once he finds the strength to untangle himself from your limbs—will get up only to put on the kettle, and to figure out what he might cook for breakfast.

"Go back to sleep," he tells dip of your temple, punctuating the only order he now gives with a kiss and delighting in the shiver it elicits. Your response is mostly sound—low and pitched around your grogginess, you shift closer to him like you'd burrow between his ribs if you could. He understands the feeling. You press your face to his, nuzzling him like a housecat, and he's so endeared he's nearly sick over it.

He groans, rolling until he pitches forward, moving you with him. "I said sleep," he presses kiss after kiss to the side of your face, wherever he can reach, "you muppet."

The laugh that leaves you is more of a squawk under his weight. It's a moment he indulges in; the sound of your voice, the warmth of your skin, the trailing vines of your legs curling over his hips, holding him there, the syrupy beginnings of a different pleasure, swirling in his gut—

He huffs, pushing up and away from your body, willing his blood to move away from where it currently wants to pool. As much as he would love to let it—to wrap himself around you until he's not sure where he ends and you begin, to slip inside you until your soft little gasps saturate his pillow—he truly does want you to sleep a little longer.

"I'll come get you when food's ready," he tells you this softly like it's a secret between you, bending down one more time to press his lips to your brow bone, "rest a bit for me."

And you—the perfect, angel thing that you are—are already way ahead of him, eyes closed and settling deeper into his side of the bed.

You were just outside of the base's main building, walking around in the faint half-light of dusk lost in thought when these soldiers rounded the corner, probably on their way to the mess hall, and spotted you, immediately sneering at you before—

Your breath catches pitifully and painfully in your chest as the first tears are beginning to spill over your waterline, and the slight tremor in your hands—one clutching the cold and smooth edge of the skin while the other one is still desperately pressing the towel to your temple—only worsens.

You have known, deep down, it wouldn't last. Known, that despite how almost pleasant these first days on the new base with your new team have been, you would inevitably end up hurt and alone again. That it would only be a matter of time, that things wouldn't change no matter where you are, that there just wasn't a place anywhere where you could truly belong.

But you've let yourself get blinded by how good—how almost comfortable—you felt these last few days around your new team when you had expected and prepared for the worst. Not that comfort means much to you when you're not sure if you've ever felt truly comfortable, truly content, truly safe in your life before—certainly not in a way normal people would describe these sensations. Although since your arrival on this base, you had almost tricked yourself into believing—desperately and stupidly hopeful—that all of these woefully distant and entirely unfamiliar experiences like contentment and comfort and safety could be finally within your reach.

Not because you were greeted with open arms by these new teammates of yours—which you weren't. You're more than aware that they were—and still are—to varying degrees, wary of you which you can't exactly blame them for. You don't know what they think they know about hybrids, what stories they were told about your kind growing up, or about you specifically by the brass.

Nor because your new handler—Lieutenant Simon Riley—is a nice person by any conventional means—which he certainly isn't. He doesn't talk much to you, or anyone else for that matter, and when he does, he's curt, his deep voice almost deliberately gruff, never voluntarily seeking out anyone's company as far as you can tell, not even his own teammates'.

It's simply because neither of these four men is ever cruel to you. And to someone like you, growing up as you did, experiencing what you have, the simple absence of abuse feels a hell of a lot like true comfort.

But of course it's not only that.

It's also because these men don't seem afraid of you at all.

The Lieutenant didn't even hesitate when he took off your restraints the day you arrived. Nor did Sergeant MacTavish think twice about sitting down next to you in the mess hall the next day, immediately chatting about this accident the base's administration actually seems to think qualifies as nutritionally beneficial, as Sergeant Garrick set down his tray on your other side, not talking nearly as much as his Scottish friend, but giving you a kind smile whenever your eyes dared to flit up to his for just a moment. He asked you questions too, easy ones, considerate ones, gently trying to make you more comfortable around them, to show you it's okay and appreciated to open up to them just a little, but you still didn't risk speaking up much around them, too apprehensive around them, unsure of them, too used to expecting reprimands or something far worse behind every corner, every seemingly kind word or gesture.

Captain Price is more subtle around you, more professional and pragmatic, but not less cordial. When he talked to you these past few days, it was about your training, your experiences and skills, whether you'd been part of an active mission before. You answered him dutifully but carefully as he's your captain, and only when he asked what had made you decide to join the military, your voice faltered, trying to think of something, anything to say without surrendering everything about you and your past to him. The captain simply waited a moment longer, giving you a long and assessing look before simply dismissing you, but not unkindly.

You realized, with a sort of startled disbelief, that they're simply treating you like they probably would any normal soldier who just joined their task force, not the monster from the fairy tales of their childhood. Not the hybrid with the strange ears and tail, knowing that a violent and unpredictable animal is slumbering underneath her skin at all times. And you don't know how to handle that at all. Or if you can trust it—trust them. Yet.

And then of course there's Lieutenant Riley.

You can't claim that you have the slightest clue what to make of him, and you're not sure the rest of the base has either. He's not trying to be sociable or approachable for anyone at all, hiding his face and his expressions behind this skull balaclava of his at at all times, only pushing it up as far as necessary to eat or drink during mess, or to smoke on the steps behind one of the smaller buildings, coming back to his room he's sharing with you reeking of cigarette smoke, the stench of it almost making you scrunch up your nose on instinct every time.

And you can't help but think that your new handler is somewhat of an odd guy, with his clipped tone, this weird and edgy mask you've never seen him taken off these past few days, and his dark and frankly completely inappropriate jokes he seems to like throwing around when the whole team is gathered somewhere, just to watch Sergeant MacTavish's blue eyes widen in pure horror and indignation. (You were so caught off-guard the first time the Lieutenant made one of these jokes in front of you that you almost laughed out loud despite yourself, stifling the sound at the last possible moment, but his head still whipped around towards you, which made you shrink into yourself and brace for a furious reprimand, your ears folding back close to your head on instinct, but his eyes just seemed to widen in surprise behind his mask before he simply turned away again.)

But you wouldn't have it, have him, any other way.

You like him just how he is, sharp edges, blunt tone, edgy mask and all, because you've never met anyone as considerate and attentive to you ever before, someone who actually seems to care about your needs and wants, even if he never directly asks about them. For that, for the way he's treating you like a person worth caring for—in his own gruff manner—, you're grateful to him in ways you're not sure you'll be able to ever adequately express. Much less if he'd want to hear it anyway.

Still, it doesn't actually seem like Lieutenant Riley likes you necessarily—or anyone else on base for that matter—, and that is entirely fine by you, because it's not like you necessarily trust him either.

But until now, he's also never given you a reason not to.

He didn't even hesitate to take off the silver collar, irritating and burning your skin, and the muzzle that was fastened too tightly around your head the day you arrived, mere seconds after meeting you, probably being in the presence of a hybrid for the first time in his life. And the same night, he marched you straight to the base's infirmary to get your neck cleaned and bandaged, almost ripping off the head of the doctor on duty when the man sneered he wasn't a veterinarian, insisting on not treating "an animal like that".

Not to mention that your handler is literally sharing his own private room with you, just so you have a comfortable and peaceful place to sleep instead of whatever the base's administration had originally planned for you. You didn't ask him about it, and he didn't tell you, but each night you lie down on the foldable cot in the corner of his quarters, your back to his and his, on his own bed, to yours, and you silently thank him for how much he's accommodating you.

Since then, your first few days with the 141 have been spent by you trotting behind the lieutenant to the training grounds or the gym to train, to the mess hall to eat (where he made sure you always got additional meat done extra rare without you ever once mentioning your unusual dietary needs), and to his quarters to sleep. Apart from this, he's giving you more freedom than you comfortably know what to do with, but doesn't complain when you mostly stay right by his side, silently acknowledging why you're not overly keen to roam around base all on your own.

Because apart from your team, the rest of the base is unapologetically unreserved about making it absolutely clear to you what exactly they think of you and your presence among them.

It started small, like it always does, before it escalated like you already knew it would—but had stupidly, naively hoped for the opposite. Hoped, that maybe here, maybe this would finally be a place where you could belong, or at least exist in peace, even just as the military's new favorite pet monster doing their bloody bidding.

But the soldiers staying at the base as well as the rest of its personnel made a show of avoiding you since you first stepped one of your bare feet into the main building, trailing after Lieutenant Riley just after your arrival. Some simply walked in the opposite direction with a grimace on their faces while others stopped and stared openly, pointing at your tail and ears. Others still gasped in shock and horror at seeing you without any restraints at all, just freely trotting after your handler who didn't seem to care in the slightest about what a spectacle he had created with freeing you as he had.

Then, when you entered the gym the next day, walking into the spacious room after the lieutenant, head down and ears flat to your head, the gym cleared out in a matter of mere moments. The soldiers who had been training just seconds ago all brushed past you and your handler in unspoken agreement, glaring at you, one even knocking his shoulder painfully forceful into your own as he walked past you, making you stumble a few steps back. And when you sat down in the mess hall to eat later that same day, flanked by the sergeants and the lieutenant, the long table they chose for the four of you remained completely empty except for your little group throughout the whole dinner.

If it had continued like this, people just giving you a wide berth but leaving you alone otherwise, you would've been happy, you really would have, even if you had to live with the sharp sting of knowing you aren't really welcome here either. But of course they only leave you be as long as you're in the presence of one of the 141, which, as he's your handler, is Lieutenant Riley most of the time.

But as soon as you're without him, or the other members of your team for that matter, many of the soldiers, mostly in groups, immediately circle you like sharks smelling blood.

It starts with them calling you names like "stray" or "mongrel" or "mutt" from across the yard when they see you walking alone from one building to the other, laughing loudly among each other when you only fasten your steps and duck your head even more. Or when you pass a group of young men and women somewhere on base, one person is almost always going to start barking or howling exaggeratedly in your direction, the whole group becoming immensely amused by your reaction, because while you never look up at their taunts, you can't help that, without fail, your ears will instinctively turn towards the sound.

Others simply yell commands like "sit" or "heel" in your direction when they see you, or pretend to throw a ball, making a real show of it that you try your best to ignore, just continuing to walk even as your face burns in humiliation. Only to arrive at Lieutenant Riley's and your room to find a literal dog bowl with your name on it placed on the ground in front of the closed door. For a moment, you simply stared at it, your nails biting into your own palms to ground you, when the lieutenant rounded the corner. He took one look at you, then at the bowl on the ground and then back up at you before simply grunting he'd take care of this and picking up the bowl, waiting for you to close the door of your shared room behind you. And only then did he march back in the direction he had just come from, jaw set and fists clenched.

Some people even got brave enough to step right into your personal space despite all the gruesome tales issuing warnings about your kind, to tug on your tail or ears, simply laughing when you winced in pain and offense, commenting in cruel delight how "They really feel just like a dog's!". Still others liked to discuss whether fucking you would count as bestiality or not while you were within clear earshot, and if you actually went into heat like real dogs do, making bile rise in your throat.

And then there were the people whose faces would harden when you passed them, eyeing you full of cold suspicion and burning hatred before all but spitting on the ground at your feet, their voices vicious as they called you dangerous and a monster, called your mere existence an insult against the laws of nature before declaring something like you shouldn't exist—that it would be better off dead. You always kept walking, even as your eyes began to sting.

One person even shoved you so forcefully in one of the base's hallways as they brushed past you that you stumbled backwards into a wall, your head hitting the solid structure behind you hard enough that your vision began to darken around the edges for a few seconds. They didn't even turn back around to wait for your reaction, if you might retaliate, completely certain you wouldn't defend yourself, couldn't defend yourself, because if you did, you'd always be painted as the aggressor, never the victim.

And now, just this afternoon, you walked behind the base's buildings, savoring the way the cold wind nipped at your exposed skin, how it moved through the trees of the forest beyond the base, transforming it into something that almost felt alive, a living, breathing beast. Your ears instinctively turned to every little sound, every rustle of leaves or shuffle of a nervous prey animal in the thick undergrowth just behind the fence marking the base's grounds.

You took a few steps in one direction before turning around and walking the opposite way, no clear destination in mind, just aimlessly wandering around to get some fresh air and clear your head as best as possible when you're acutely aware of the fact that you're alone and don't know where any of your team currently is on base.

And—most importantly—to give the lieutenant a break from your constant and persistent presence around him. How he hadn't gotten tired of you or snapping at you yet for trotting behind him wherever he went like some sort of lost stray for the entirety of the last few days was a mystery to you. You desperately didn't want to risk exhausting the kindness and thoughtfulness he's constantly shown you, so you stubbornly, with your tail swishing behind you in agitation, refused to be more of a bother than you already knew you were, even if every instinct—both human and animal—insistently urged you to seek out the people you feel safe around on base.

When the sudden sound of a door falling shut behind you disrupts your train of thought, footsteps and laughter following immediately, your heart lurched anxiously and your steps quickened, but of course you'd already been spotted.

"Hey pooch!" a cruel voice rang out behind you, your steps faltering despite yourself until you came to a stop, but not turning towards the little group behind you, ears immediately flattening against your head while your tail tucked itself between your legs.

"Look at that," another person drawled, "look how well-behaved she is. Ghost must've already drilled some manners into her. What a good girl!"

A wave of vicious amusement rose behind you as your stomach twisted itself into a painful knot, humiliation burning brightly just behind your sternum. Without sparing a glance behind you, you started walking again, your hands now shaking by your sides, when the first voice yelled in anger after you again.

"Hey, we're talking to you, bitch!"

And before you knew it, before you could even think about reacting, something solid and sharp connected with the side of your head, leaving you momentarily stunned as a blinding kind of pain exploded in your skull, dark spots overtaking your vision briefly.

A roar of laughter overtook the group of soldiers behind you, cruel delight clear in their reaction as they unanimously decided they apparently had had enough of playing with you and simply continued on their way, leaving you alone again, standing there all by yourself, dazed and hurt.

Only when you heard the sound of another door opening and closing somewhere to your right, the soldiers' laughs cutting off abruptly, you tentatively lifted one hand to your temple where the stone had hit you, the tips of your fingers coming back covered in blood.

And this is how you ended up here, in this tiny bathroom somewhere on base, with blood ruining your clothes and a wound that won't stop bleeding.

You barely register the tears slipping down your cheeks, nor the broken whine escaping your throat in desperation. You're at a loss as to what you should do, how you'll ever get this wound tended to all by yourself. Because you're certain that Lieutenant Riley can't find out about this, ever. You're already such a burden to him, already taking up so much of his time and space. He really shouldn't have to deal with this as well, not when you went out of your way—and his—specifically to give him some time to himself this afternoon. You don't want him to grow to resent you, realizing how much trouble you are when he seemed gruffly unbothered by your presence around him until now.

Which is why you startle terribly when the door of the bathroom suddenly bursts open, loudly banging against the tiled wall behind it, and your handler stands just a few steps away from you, his expression unreadable to you behind the balaclava. But you do notice the way his brown eyes narrow just slightly as he takes in this perfectly miserable picture you must surely make right about now, tears clinging to your eyelashes as you still clutch the bloody towel and press it to the side of your head, the blood on your hands and arm slowly drying on your skin, even making the strands of hair near your temple stick together.

You all but shrink into yourself, not able to look the lieutenant in the eyes as his gaze sweeps over you critically, not noticing how tightly his jaw clenches underneath his mask or how he balls his big hands into fists at the sides of his body.

"You weren't at the mess hall," he grunts in lieu of a greeting, and it's all the explanation for his sudden appearance you get before he simply asks, "What happened?"

You're not brave enough to risk even the slightest of glances his way, so you just mumble, not sounding convincing even to your own ears: "I—fell."

"No, you didn't," your handler immediately retorts, and you hide further into yourself, feeling too exposed, too vulnerable and raw to either rectify your words and tell the truth or double down on your pathetic lie.

The lieutenant simply watches you for a moment longer before sighing and stepping out of the doorway.

"Infirmary. Now," he tells you, his tone leaving no space for further discussion. Your head snaps up which makes you unpleasantly dizzy for a brief moment, eyes wide and worried, mouth still opening in protest.

"No, it's—fine, really, sir. I don't need—"

But Lieutenant Riley simply gives you a pointed look that makes you snap your mouth shut at once, letting your head hang as you shuffle past him into the brightly lit corridor, letting him escort you to the infirmary at the other side of the building.

You try to apologize to him exactly once on the way over which your handler pointedly ignores, instead telling you in no uncertain terms that he expects you to point out the soldiers who are responsible for your injury to him after your necessary trip to see a medical professional.

At the infirmary, a doctor you're not familiar with yet greets the two of you, hesitating only for a brief moment when she sees you before competently and efficiently tending to your injury. She informs you and your handler that you'll need to get stitches after inspecting the wound but that it looks good otherwise, wasting no time to gather and prepare the tools she needs for closing the cut.

The doctor even jokes that she'd worked in plastic surgery a few years ago so you probably won't even have to worry about getting a scar out of this, noticing how tense you are as she tends to you. After placing a plaster gently on top of the freshly stitched cut, she quickly breaks down the wound care for the next few days for you and your handler, telling you what and what not to do, and when to return to get the stitches removed.

The lieutenant gives her a short nod while you quietly thank her for treating you, before you and he step out of the infirmary again.

Together, you make the already familiar trip back to Lieutenant Riley's room, neither of you speaking as your steps echo through the empty hallways.

Only when the door of his room closes behind the two of you does your handler look at you again, his brown eyes boring directly into yours over the edge of the balaclava, his tone urgent as he tells you,

"Find me if something like this ever happens again, understood?"

And as if that wasn't enough already, as if these words alone don't leave you speechless, his voice softens almost imperceptibly when he says, "And don't just vanish like this again. The whole team was looking for you."

The only response you can manage is a pathetic little nod while your eyes stay firmly fixed on your naked feet, feeling the beginning of tears prick your eyes again.

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dividers by @/cafekitsune

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