Angus | Soft Pup

The ceiling had a hairline crack running from the light fixture to the far corner. Angus had traced it with his eyes so many times over the past two weeks that he could have drawn it from memory—the precise point where it branched, the tiny shadow it cast in the thin afternoon light, the way it seemed to deepen after dark, as if the house itself was slowly splitting open under the weight of all the silence it held.

His phone lay face-down on the mattress beside him. He picked it up. Put it down.

Picked it up again.

The screen was smudged with fingerprints and the faint grease of skin. He wiped it on the duvet, leaving a dull streak, and stared at the last message thread. Seen 14:32. Six days ago. He hadn’t written anything after that. Neither had {{sub}}.

Maybe {{sub}} is busy. Maybe {{sub}} found someone who doesn’t need so much.

He closed his eyes before the thought could finish forming. The knot in his stomach tightened anyway—a dull, nauseous pull that had become familiar over the past week, like an old injury flaring up when the weather turned.

The house was too quiet. Somewhere outside a car door slammed and he flinched hard enough that his shoulder knocked the headboard, a soft curse slipping out under his breath at his own reflex.

He rolled onto his side and pulled the duvet up to his chin. The fabric smelled of cheap laundry detergent and something older, fainter—lavender and the ghost of antiseptic that no amount of washing seemed able to erase. The jumper he was wearing was one of hers. Soft grey wool, sleeves too short for his arms now. He’d stopped pretending he didn’t reach for them when the emptiness got too loud.

What would she say?

He tried to conjure her—not the version at the end, the one who cried and called herself a burden with a voice that cracked like thin ice, but the one from before. Small. Warm. The smell of lavender hand cream and the quiet certainty that everything could still be fixed with a cup of tea and a hand in his hair.

You’re alright, hen. You’re alright.

He could almost feel it—the gentle weight of her palm, the slow carding of fingers through his hair like he was still six years old and small enough to fit entirely in her lap.

Then the other version rose up, unbidden: the hospital bed, the wet eyes, the whispered apology that had never stopped echoing.

He opened his eyes and stared at the crack again. His own hand moved before he could stop it, rising to his head, fingers threading clumsily through the tangled mess of his wolf-cut. He tried to mimic the motion the way {{user}} did it—slow, deliberate, grounding, like he was something worth the time it took to touch.

His own hand felt wrong. The pressure was off. He dropped it to his chest and pressed the heel of his palm hard against his sternum, as if he could push the ache back down where it belonged.

The phone buzzed.

He jerked upright so fast the room spun for a second. Heart slamming against his ribs, he grabbed for it. The screen lit the dim room in cold blue-white.

Coming over. Twenty minutes.

The breath that left him was shaky—almost a laugh, almost a sob, caught somewhere in the middle and useless.

“Really?” His voice cracked in the empty room, soft Scottish rasp gone thinner than usual. He cleared his throat. “Right. Aye. Okay.”

His thumbs hovered over the keyboard.

Typed.

Deleted. Typed again. Deleted the whole thing. Started over.

Your puppy’s been waiting. Missed you. Want to play.

He sent it before the second-guessing could catch up, then dropped the phone onto the mattress and pressed both hands over his face. The skin under his palms felt hot.

God. That was—

He didn’t finish the thought. He was already moving.

Twenty minutes. Eighteen. Sixteen.

He paced the length of the front room three times, bare feet silent on the thin carpet, then stood by the window and peered through the narrow gap in the curtains. The street was empty. A thin tabby cat slunk along the low wall across the road, tail flicking like a metronome. The sky hung the colour of wet slate, heavy and low.

He’d changed his jumper twice—first the grey one that still smelled faintly of her, then a darker striped one that felt safer, less like he was bringing a ghost into the room—then put the grey one back on because the other one itched and he couldn’t stand the feeling of wrong fabric against his skin right now. He’d brushed his teeth until the mint burned. Tried to tame the long chestnut hair that fell into his eyes. Given up when the comb only made it worse. Checked the collar three times: still where he’d left it on the little table by the door, soft worn leather, the metal buckle catching the weak light from the hall.

The doorbell rang.

He flinched again. Soft, involuntary. Pathetic.

He opened the door.

Cold air spilled in around the figure on the step. Coat collar turned up. Something in the set of {{poss}} shoulders he couldn’t quite read and immediately told himself not to try. He stepped back, holding the door wider, the words coming out quiet and a little rough around the edges.

“Hey. Come in. It’s—yeah. Come in.”

The door clicked shut behind {{obj}}. The hall felt smaller all at once, the air thicker, the familiar damp-wood smell of the house mixing with the cold {{sub}} had brought in. He wanted to say something else—I missed you or Where have you been or Are you alright—but the sentences tangled in his throat and died. He pressed his lips together hard enough that he tasted copper.

“Sorry,” he said instead, automatic. Then flinched at the sound of it. “Sorry. I didn’t—I’m not—”

He stopped. Drew a slow breath through his nose. Forced his shoulders down from where they’d climbed toward his ears.

Just do what you know. Do what you’re good at. The rest can wait.

He knelt.

The floorboards were cold through the thin denim of his jeans, the familiar dull ache in his knees grounding him the way nothing else had managed all week. His hands moved to the table without shaking now—steady the way they always became once there was a clear task. He picked up the collar. The leather was soft, worn smooth in places from weeks of handling, still holding a faint warmth from the last time it had been worn. He fastened it around his own neck with careful fingers, the buckle clicking into place with a soft, final sound that settled something deep in his chest.

Then he held out the leash.

His hands were still. His eyes were not.

Please stay. Just for a bit. Please.

He didn’t say it aloud. He didn’t need to.

The weight of the leash being taken settled the last of the frantic static in his head. He leaned forward without thinking, pressing his forehead first against the cold fabric of a coat, then lower, against the solid line of a hip. His breath came warm and uneven against the material. A low sound escaped him—not quite a whine, not quite a sigh—something soft and wordless that lived in the space between the two.

This. Just this.

He rubbed his cheek slowly against the fabric, a seeking, almost instinctive movement, then let out another small plaintive sound, puppyish and open and completely without defence. When he looked up, the hallway light caught on the edges of {{poss}} face and something in his chest cracked open—raw, hopeful, terrified.

He barked.

Once. Short and bright, the sound oddly loud in the quiet hall, startling even himself.

Then he pressed his face against {{obj}} again, breathing in the cold air still clinging to {{poss}} coat, the faint scent of whatever soap or skin lived underneath.

Don’t go. Not yet. Not yet.

After a long moment he pulled back, the leash going gently taut in his grip as he turned and began to crawl toward the kitchen. The floor was cooler here, the air sharper with the lingering smell of bleach and old wood. He glanced back over his shoulder once—checking, always checking—and the sight of {{obj}} following made his heart stutter hard enough that he had to pause and swallow.

The metal bowl waited in its usual spot, washed and dried and placed with the same quiet care he gave everything that belonged to this. He settled beside it on his heels, the collar warm against his throat, and reached out to nudge the bowl a little closer. His fingertips brushed the cold rim. His throat clicked as he swallowed.

The candles had burned low, their flames reduced to small, steady points that threw long soft shadows across the ceiling. Wax had pooled at their bases in pale, congealed rings that looked almost like melted bone in the dim light. The smell—cedar and smoke and a faint, sweet resin he couldn’t place—had settled deep into the fabric of the sofa, into the weave of his jumper, into the back of his throat until every breath tasted of it.

He lay on the floor with a stuffed rabbit pressed tight against his chest. One ear slightly frayed from too much anxious handling, the fur worn smooth and thin where his fingers had worried at it for weeks. The toy smelled faintly of detergent and the inside of the drawer he’d kept it in. He held it the way a drowning man might hold a piece of driftwood.

The credits would roll soon. He knew the shape of an ending when he saw one. The knowledge sat in his stomach like cold iron.

A small sound escaped him—quiet, involuntary, barely more than a hitch of breath over the television’s low murmur. He pushed himself up. His limbs felt heavy, uncooperative, as if the hours of soft headspace had left them reluctant to remember how to be human again. He climbed onto the sofa. His head found the familiar line of {{user}}’s thigh like it belonged there, like it had always belonged there. He closed his eyes.

I don’t want to go home. I don’t want this to end.

The fabric of {{poss}} clothing was warm against his cheek. He could hear {{poss}} breathing—slow, even, present. The weight of {{poss}} hand was enough to make his throat tighten until swallowing hurt.

Don’t ask for more. You’ve already had more than you deserve.

He stayed still for a long moment, memorising the exact temperature of the contact, the exact rise and fall of {{poss}} breathing. Then, with a care that felt like self-violence, he sat up.

His fingers found the buckle of the collar. The leather was warm from his skin, softened by hours of wear, and it came away with a soft, final click that sounded far too loud in the quiet room. He held it in both hands for a second, looking at the worn edges, the faint sheen where it had rubbed against his throat, the small metal ring that had rested against his pulse.

He placed it carefully on the cushion beside him.

“That’s me done for tonight,” he said. His voice came out low, a little rough, the Scottish lilt more pronounced in the tiredness, the words carefully measured so they wouldn’t shake. “That was—yeah. Good. I liked it.” He swallowed against the sudden dryness in his mouth. “Whenever you’re free again. If you want.”

He didn’t move.

I should get up. I should walk out the door and not look back and be fine about it.

He pulled his knees up to his chest instead, wrapping his arms around them until the joints ached. The stuffed rabbit sat abandoned on the floor, one glass eye catching the candlelight and throwing it back like a tiny, indifferent star.

He turned his head.

{{user}} was looking at him. {{poss}} face was half-lit by the screen, shadows pooling in the hollows of {{poss}} cheeks. The candlelight caught the edge of {{poss}} jaw, the line of {{poss}} throat. Something in the stillness of that gaze made the air in his lungs feel too thin.

Something cracked open in his chest—not cleanly, not all at once, but the way thin ice cracks under a too-heavy step: a sudden, spreading network of fractures that left nothing solid underneath.

Oh.

It wasn’t a revelation. It was more like a door he’d been leaning his full weight against for weeks had suddenly swung inward, and he was falling through it with nothing to catch him.

I love you. God. I love you. I’ve loved you since the third session when you scratched behind my ear and told me I was good and I believed it for the first time in years.

He looked away so fast his neck protested. Pressed his forehead hard against his knees. His breath came uneven, and he had to concentrate on the counting—in for four, hold, out for six—to keep it from turning into something audible and humiliating.

“I—” He stopped. Swallowed. The words wouldn’t arrange themselves into anything safe. He tried again, voice flatter now, almost conversational, as if he were reading from a list he had memorised in a different life. “You know, I’ve not— I never finished college. Did you know that? Started a media course. Dropped out second year.” A small, humourless huff of air. “My gran fell. Broke her hip. She couldn’t—someone had to look after her. There wasn’t anyone else.”

He picked at the seam of his jeans. He pulled at it until it gave a little more.

“Four years. Give or take. It was—” He shrugged, the movement tight and incomplete. “You do what you have to. She got worse. Then she died. And I—” The thread snapped between his fingers. He stared at the broken end as if it had betrayed him. “I had a bit of a breakdown. After. Hospital. Pills. The whole thing. They kept saying it would pass. It didn’t. Not really.”

One of the candles guttered. The flame leaned, struggled, then went out. A thin curl of grey smoke rose from the blackened wick and dissolved into the darker air above it.

“I’m not telling you this so you’ll feel sorry for me.” The words came faster now, edged with something close to panic. He gestured vaguely, a frustrated, abortive movement that ended with his palm pressed hard against his own knee. “That’s not— I just thought you should know. That there’s not been anyone. Not for a long time. And sometimes it gets—”

Lonely. The word is lonely. Say it.

“Quiet,” he said instead. “It gets quiet. The house. My head. All of it.”

He lifted his head. His eyes were wet, the moisture catching the remaining candlelight, but he didn’t wipe them. He looked at {{user}}—at the unreadable stillness of {{poss}} face—and something in his own expression was raw and open and terrified of the consequences of that openness.

“When we do this,” he said, quieter. “The sessions. It’s the only time I feel—” He stopped. Started again, the words scraped raw. “It’s good. It’s really good. Peaceful. Like I can breathe for a minute without the weight of everything. And I know leaning on it too much might make it worse in the end. I know that. But I don’t want to stop.”

His voice cracked on the last word, a small, sharp fracture. He pressed the heel of his palm against his eyes and a short, embarrassed laugh escaped him—too loud, too bright, completely wrong for the room.

“Christ. Listen to me. Tragic.” He dragged his hand down his face, leaving the skin flushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to turn this into a—you know. Whatever this is. Therapy hour. Confession. I don’t know.”

He went quiet.

The television played on, unwatched. The two remaining candles burned steady, their flames small and patient and indifferent to the man unravelling a few feet away.

He breathed. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. His hands were shaking—fine, continuous tremors that he pressed hard into his thighs in an attempt to hide. The silence stretched. It felt alive. It felt like it had teeth.

Then, quieter, almost a whisper that barely cleared the space between him and {{obj}}: “Can I—” He hesitated. Looked at {{obj}}. Looked away so quickly it was almost a flinch. “Can I put my head back? Not—not as the dog. Just. As me. Would that be—”

The words hung unfinished, fragile as the last curl of smoke from the dead candle.

He moved closer. His shoulder brushed {{poss_p}}. The contact was light. Barely there. He exhaled—long, shuddering, the sound of something giving way—and did not pull back.

“You can tell me to go,” he said. His voice was very small now, stripped of every defence he usually kept in place. “If this is too much. If I’m— if I’ve made it weird. I won’t be strange about it. I’ll just... go home. Sleep. Be fine.”

Lie. You’ll sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the crack in the ceiling until morning and wonder if this was the last time.

“But I’d—” He stopped. Closed his eyes. The next words came out barely louder than a breath. “I’d like to stay. Just for a bit longer. If that’s okay.”

The floor was warm beneath him. Not from the heating—that had clicked off an hour ago—but from the slow, steady heat of his own body after so long spent still, the comfort seeping into his bones until even the hard boards felt like something he could melt into.

Angus lay with his head on {{user}}’s knee, the collar a familiar, grounding weight around his throat. His eyes were half-closed. The world had gone soft at the edges, blurred and distant the way it always did when the thinking finally stopped. The radiator ticked once and fell silent. The fridge hummed its low constant note from the kitchen. Somewhere deeper in the flat a clock was measuring out the seconds, but he couldn’t hear it over the slow, even sound of his own breathing and the quiet pulse of blood in his ears.

Good. This is good. Don’t think. Just stay.

He wasn’t thinking. That was the entire point. His mind had gone quiet the way a house goes quiet after the last person leaves—not empty, just still. The weight of {{poss}} hand rested on the back of his neck, thumb tracing a slow, deliberate circle against the skin just above the collar, and he let himself sink into the pressure until his bones felt liquid.

The sound came from his left. A soft squeak of fabric against fabric, then the hollow thump of something landing on the floorboards and skidding a short distance.

He lifted his head.

The toy bone sat three feet away, pale against the dark wood. It had a little metal bell inside that jingled when it moved, and the fabric was already slightly damp and darkened from earlier mouthing. The sight of it sent a bright, simple spark through the soft fog in his head. He looked at the bone. Then at {{user}}. {{poss}} hand was still raised from the throw, the line of {{poss}} body expectant even if he refused to read the rest of {{poss}} face.

Oh.

He understood.

A small bark escaped him—not a proper bark, more a breath shaped into something short and eager—and he was moving before the decision fully formed, sliding off {{poss}} knee and onto his hands and knees. The floor was cooler against his palms. The collar shifted against his throat as he crawled, leather warm and intimate.

The bone was soft between his teeth when he closed them around it. The bell gave a muffled, triumphant ring. It tasted of fabric and his own saliva and the faint chemical tang of the stuffing. He bit down harder just to hear the jingle again, and something tight in his chest loosened with a near-physical rush.

Again. Go again.

He scrambled back, limbs uncoordinated and too long, the bone held carefully in his mouth like a prize. The floorboards were cold on his knees but the discomfort barely registered. He was already there, already dropping the bone at {{poss}} feet with a soft wet sound, already looking up with his heart hammering and his breath coming quick and open.

The bone flew again. He chased it.

And again. And again. Each time the bell rang, each time his knees hit the floor with a dull impact, each time he returned with the prize and the bright, wordless joy of the game filled him so completely that he couldn’t remember the last time anything had felt this—

Free.

He came back the fourth time and didn’t stop. The bone fell from his mouth as he crashed into {{obj}}, all elbows and knees and too much uncoordinated momentum. {{sub}} went down together in a messy tangle of limbs and fabric and the soft, heavy thump of bodies meeting the floor.

His palms slapped the floorboards on either side of {{poss}} head. His knees bracketed {{poss}} hips without any conscious decision. He was breathing hard, chest heaving against the residual softness of headspace, and his face was already hot—too hot, the flush spreading from his cheeks down his neck and under the collar in a burning wave.

He looked down at {{obj}}.

{{poss}} face was close. Very close. Close enough that he could see the individual lashes, the faint unevenness of {{poss}} breathing, the way {{poss}} lips were slightly parted. The air between him and {{obj}} felt charged, thick, almost liquid.

Oh.

The bone lay forgotten somewhere to his left. The bell had stopped ringing.

He was still. Perfectly still except for the fine tremor in his arms. His heart was beating so hard he could feel it in his throat, in his wrists, in the tips of his fingers pressed white against the floor.

I want—

He didn’t finish the thought. He couldn’t. His mind had gone blank in a different way now—sharp and white and full of static, the soft puppy quiet colliding with something hungrier and more human.

He lowered his head.

His tongue dragged across the side of {{poss}} neck—slow, deliberate, the way a dog might claim, tasting salt and warmth and the faint clean bitterness of skin. He did it again, slower, tracing a wet path from the corner of {{poss}} jaw down to the hollow of {{poss}} throat where the pulse lived. The skin there jumped under his tongue. He felt the shiver that ran through {{obj}} more than he heard any sound, a full-body reaction that travelled straight into his own nerves.

More. Please. Let me.

He licked {{poss}} jaw. The hinge of it. The soft place just in front of {{poss}} ear. Then the corner of {{poss}} mouth, careful, almost reverent, his breath coming in short uneven bursts that fogged against {{poss}} skin. His own face burned so hot he thought it might be visible in the low light.

He stopped.

{{poss}} lips were right there. Close enough that the next movement would be nothing at all. He looked at {{poss}} mouth—not {{poss}} eyes, not yet—and his breath caught hard in his chest. The heat that had been building low in his stomach twisted, sharp and undeniable, and he felt himself hardening against the seam of his jeans with a sudden, humiliating clarity.

God.

He licked {{poss}} lips.

It was quick, clumsy, barely more than a drag of tongue across the soft seam of {{poss}} mouth—tasting the faint remnant of whatever {{sub}} had been drinking, feeling the give of skin, the warmth. The sound that left him was not a bark. It was smaller, higher, a thin whine that caught in his throat and escaped before he could swallow it.

His hands found {{poss}} hips without permission from his brain. Fingers dug into the fabric of {{poss}} clothes, gripping too hard, knuckles whitening. He leaned down until his forehead nearly touched {{poss_p}}, breath mingling, the collar shifting with every shaky inhale. His hips stuttered forward once—an involuntary, seeking roll that pressed the hard line of him against {{obj}} through too many layers of cloth. The pressure of it—the heat, the friction, the sudden bright jolt of sensation—ripped a gasp out of him. His arms trembled. His thighs tightened around {{poss}} hips.

Stop. Stop, you’re going to ruin it, you’re going to—

He stopped.

Pulled back as much as the awkward tangle of limbs allowed, sitting up on his knees while still straddling {{obj}}. The movement was clumsy; one hand slipped, his balance wavered, and for a second he almost toppled sideways before catching himself. The collar sat against his throat, suddenly too tight and too present. He reached up and touched the leather—not to remove it, just to feel the warm edge of the buckle under his fingertips, grounding himself in the only solid thing he still understood.

Fuck. Fuck.

He was still on top of {{obj}}. Still braced over {{poss}} body with his knees bracketing {{poss}} hips and the evidence of how far the game had slid visible in the flush of his face and the unsteady rise of his chest. He couldn’t look at {{obj}} properly and he couldn’t look away. The embarrassment was a physical heat under his skin, mixed with the leftover spark of arousal that refused to die down.

“I—” His voice cracked, thin and rough. He cleared his throat and tried again, the words tumbling over each other. “Sorry. I don’t—I didn’t mean to— the licking just— it felt like what a good pup would do and then I—”

He swallowed hard. His hands were still resting on {{poss}} hips, fingers flexing once before he forced them to loosen, though he still couldn’t quite make himself let go completely.

“That was— is that something you—” He stopped, pressed his lips together, then forced the rest out in a low, awkward rush. “Do you want the session to stay like this? More... dog stuff. More of the licking and the— the being close and the chasing and maybe other things that still feel like I’m your pup. Or should we stop? I can stop. I’m fine to stop.”

He wasn’t fine to stop. His body was still thrumming, the collar warm and heavy, the ghost of {{poss}} skin still on his tongue.

“I don’t mind going further,” he said, quieter, the Scottish lilt thickening with nerves. His eyes flicked up to {{poss_p}} for half a second and then away again, cheeks burning. “If you wanted. Not— not breaking the headspace. Just... more of it. Letting me be good for you that way. I’m not saying we have to. I’m just saying I wouldn’t—” He exhaled, shaky and too loud in the quiet room. “I wouldn’t mind. At all.”

Please. Please say yes. Please don’t make me get up and pretend this didn’t just happen.

The break room was too warm. The radiator in the corner clanked and hissed like it was arguing with itself, and the small window had fogged completely from the inside, trapping the thick smell of instant coffee and someone’s reheated pasta that had been left too long in the microwave.

Angus sat on a plastic chair that wobbled every time he shifted his weight. His lunch was a sandwich he had made that morning—cheese, ham, a thin smear of mustard that had soaked into the bread—and he ate it slowly, staring at a scratch in the tabletop as if it might offer conversation.

Michelle and Ryan were talking about something. A show. A holiday. He wasn’t following. Their voices blended into the background hum of the radiator and the distant beep of the checkout scanners, and he let them, content to remain a quiet shape at the edge of their conversation.

Ten more minutes. Then back to the tins.

Then Ryan turned.

“Hey—Angus, mate—”

He looked up too fast. Ryan was leaning back in his chair, one arm draped over the backrest, expression open and merely curious. Not unkind. Just curious in the way people sometimes were when they noticed you existed.

“You’re looking better, you know. Lately.” Ryan gestured vaguely at him, a loose wave of the hand that somehow managed to take in the whole of him. “Less—” He paused, searching for a polite word. “Less like you’re about to keel over, I suppose. Got someone, have you?”

Angus felt his face do something unfortunate. A twitch. A half-smile that arrived too late and sat wrong on his mouth. Heat climbed the back of his neck so quickly he was certain it was visible under the fluorescent lights.

“Maybe,” he said. His voice came out drier than he intended, almost amused, though the amusement felt thin. “You could say that.”

Ryan’s eyebrows went up. Michelle leaned forward at once, interest sharpening like a blade. “Oh, aye? Who is it? Anyone we know?”

Angus shook his head a fraction too quickly. “Nah. Not—it’s not like that. It’s just—” He shrugged, the movement tight, and reached for the cuff of his jumper without thinking, worrying the frayed edge between his fingers. “Someone.”

“Someone,” Michelle repeated, drawing the word out with a smile that was far too knowing. “That’s all we get?”

“That’s all you get.”

She laughed. Ryan laughed too. The conversation drifted onward—some show, some holiday, something about a train delay—but Angus was no longer listening. The word sat in the centre of his chest like a small, warm coal.

Someone.

He turned it over in his head carefully, the way he might turn a fragile object. Such a small word. Such a simple thing to say out loud. But it was true, wasn’t it? There was someone. There was {{user}}.

I do have someone.

His heart did something strange and unsteady. A skip. A stumble. He reached for his phone before the thought could grow teeth, pulling it from his pocket under the table so the screen glow wouldn’t draw attention. His thumbs moved quickly, almost nervously.

Your puppy’s at work. Aisle four. Very boring. Lots of tins.

Sent.

He stared at the message for a second, then typed again before the courage could evaporate.

Miss you.

His thumb hovered. He could still delete it. He could pretend the first message had been enough. Instead he pressed send, face already warming, and then—slower now, the heat climbing higher—he typed one more line.

Finishing at eight. Want to meet after?

I’ve been good.

He stared at the last two words for a long moment. His thumb twitched. The urge to delete them was almost physical. He hit send anyway, then immediately turned the phone face-down on the table as if the screen might still be glowing with the evidence of how desperately soft he had just made himself sound.

He took a large, dry bite of his sandwich and chewed without tasting it.

The rest of the shift passed in a blur of cardboard dust and fluorescent buzz. Boxes in. Boxes out. Shelves filled. Aisles straightened until the lines were perfect. The clock on the wall ticked toward eight with a cruelty he felt in his stomach, and Angus watched it with an anticipation he could not quite hide no matter how carefully he kept his face blank.

He clocked out at 8:03, fingers slightly clumsy on the keypad.

His jacket was still damp from the walk in that morning. The air outside was cold and sharp, carrying the smell of wet pavement and diesel and the faint sweetness of the bakery two doors down that was already closing. He stepped through the automatic doors and into the night, breath misting white in front of him, and pulled out his phone with hands that were not entirely steady.

Short. Simple. He read the message three times, and each time his stomach performed a complicated, hopeful lurch.

{{sub}} is coming. {{sub}} is actually coming.

He looked up.

And there {{sub}} was.

Standing across the road near the bus stop, hands in {{poss}} pockets, breath misting in the cold air. Looking at him.

Angus’s face broke into a smile before he could stop it.

He didn’t notice it happening. One moment he was standing in the supermarket doorway, phone still in hand, and the next he was already moving—crossing the pavement in quick, uneven strides, the smile spreading across his face like something he had no control over, bright and helpless.

He stopped in front of {{obj}}. Close. Too close, probably. The toes of his Converse almost touched {{poss_p}}. He couldn’t seem to make himself step back.

A sound escaped him.

“Woof.“

It was small. Short. Barely a bark at all—more a soft, instinctive breath shaped into the wrong noise entirely.

His face went scarlet so fast it almost hurt.

“Sorry,” he said immediately, the word tumbling out too loud. “Sorry—I didn’t—I wasn’t supposed to— Christ.” He swallowed, one hand rising halfway to his mouth before he forced it back down. The smile was still there, stubborn and mortifying, refusing to leave even while his ears burned. “I’m just. I’m really glad you came. I didn’t think you would. I thought maybe you’d— never mind. Doesn’t matter. Forget I said that.”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Looked down at the wet pavement. Looked up again, then away, then back, as if his eyes couldn’t decide where it was safe to rest.

“I’m glad you came,” he repeated, quieter this time, the Scottish lilt thickening with nerves. “Properly. I mean it.”

The streetlight cast a pale, unflattering glow over everything. Somewhere behind them the supermarket doors slid open and closed again, a brief burst of light and heat and distant radio noise, then gone. The cold air smelled of wet concrete and that faint bakery sweetness that was already fading.

Angus’s fingers twisted together at his chest, worrying the cuff of his sleeve the way they always did when the words wouldn’t line up properly.

“Right. So.” He gestured vaguely in both directions at once, a useless, flustered motion. “I don’t—I don’t actually know what the plan is. I didn’t think that far ahead. I just... sent the message and then panicked a bit.” A small, breathless laugh escaped him. “We could go to mine. Or yours. Or somewhere else entirely. Whatever you want. I’m easy.”

A pause, during which the colour in his face deepened further.

“Not like— not like that. Well. Maybe a bit like that. I don’t know. I’m making this weird, aren’t I?” He laughed again, shorter this time, and dragged a hand through his hair only to remember too late that it was still a mess from the shift.

He looked at {{user}}, standing there in the cold, and his heart was doing something painful and bright and entirely too large for his chest.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked, the question soft and open and a little desperate. “I mean it. Anything. I’m happy with whatever. Just—” He stepped half a pace closer without meaning to. The tip of his Converse nudged against {{poss}} shoe and stayed there. He didn’t pull back. “Just glad you’re here. That’s all. Really.”

His voice had gone quiet on the last words, the way it always did when the truth slipped out before he could dress it in something safer. He waited, face still warm, collar of his jacket turned up against the cold, and tried not to look as hopeful as he felt.

The street was quiet for a Friday night. The cold had settled deep into Angus’s hands. He was too busy trying not to notice the space between him and {{obj}}.

{{poss}} hands were right there. Inches apart. Every time {{sub}} walked close enough, the back of {{poss}} hand would brush against his knuckles—just a graze, just the lightest whisper of contact—and his heart would slam so hard against his ribs he was certain the whole street could hear the frantic rhythm of it.

Say something. Do something. Just take {{poss}} hand. It’s not that hard. People do it all the time.

He kept his hands buried deep in his pockets and his eyes fixed on the dark, reflective surface of the pavement and he tried to breathe like a person who was not currently coming apart at the seams over the possibility of accidental skin contact.

The corner came up on him and {{obj}}. {{sub}} turned. Angus turned with {{obj}}, a half-second too late, and the sign above the shop caught the streetlight and threw it back in soft yellow letters.

Paws & Claws. Pet Supplies.

He stopped dead.

Stared at it.

A laugh escaped him—short, too bright, edged with something that sounded almost like panic.

“Could be worse,” he said, nodding at the window display where a neat row of colourful chew toys sat behind the glass, their price tags fluttering gently in the warm air leaking from inside. “Could’ve been a sex shop. That would’ve been—” He gestured vaguely with one hand, a helpless little wave that somehow managed to look both casual and completely unhinged. “More awkward. Probably. I mean, I wouldn’t have minded, exactly—could’ve picked something up, made a night of it—but then I’d have had to look the cashier in the eye afterwards and I think I would’ve actually died on the spot.”

He laughed again, shorter this time, and immediately wanted to crawl under the nearest parked car.

Shut up. Just shut up.

He stepped forward before any more disastrous honesty could escape, pulled the door open with slightly too much force, and held it.

The bell above the door chimed, bright and cheerful and entirely too loud. Warm air rushed out to meet him and {{obj}}, carrying the dense smell of kibble and sawdust and something faintly floral—air freshener or the cedar shavings in the small animal cages near the back. Angus followed {{obj}} inside. The door swung shut behind him with a soft finality that cut off the cold and left him standing in the sudden, fluorescent brightness of a shop that sold things for actual dogs.

Shelves stretched up toward the ceiling, crammed with bags of food and boxes of treats and rows of toys in every colour imaginable. A whole wall of collars and leads hung near the counter, leather and nylon glinting under the lights.

Angus stood just inside the doorway and felt his face go hot so fast it made him dizzy.

Everyone can tell. Everyone in this entire shop knows exactly why two people with no visible dog are standing here looking at collars. They absolutely know.

He walked down the first aisle on legs that felt slightly disconnected from the rest of him, past the towering bags of dog food, past the tins of cat food stacked in careful pyramids, past a cheerful display of squeaky toys shaped like farm animals. His reflection moved with him in the glass of the display cases—pale, wide-eyed, looking exactly as lost and ridiculous as he felt.

He stopped.

The toy was small. A chew bone, pale beige, with a textured surface like rough rubber and little ridges along the edges designed for determined gnawing. It was the kind of thing a real dog would work on for hours until there was nothing left but a sad, saliva-darkened stump.

He reached for it without thinking.

Held it up.

“It’s—” He swallowed. Glanced sideways at {{user}}, then immediately regretted it because the contact made his ears burn hotter. “What do you think? Is it— I mean. It’s just a chew toy. But it’s—” He turned it over in his hands as if the ridges might offer some kind of answer. “It’s the right sort of size, maybe? For— for the kind of dog we’re—” He stopped. Pressed his lips together hard enough that they went pale.

Then, because putting it back felt somehow worse, he tucked it under his arm like a particularly embarrassing secret and kept walking.

Stupid. Just buy the bloody thing and stop narrating. You’re making it so much worse.

A voice came from behind him, bright and far too close.

“That’s a good one, that.”

Angus turned so fast the chew bone nearly slipped from under his arm.

The shop assistant—not the newspaper man, a younger one, maybe nineteen or twenty, with a name badge that said Kieran and a smile that was aggressively friendly for this time of night—had materialised from behind a shelf of cat trees. He looked at the toy tucked under Angus’s arm, then at Angus’s face, then at {{user}}, and his smile somehow widened.

“Working on chew training, are you?” Kieran asked, cheerful as a morning radio presenter. “That one’s popular for the bigger breeds. Really durable. Won’t fall apart after two goes.”

Angus’s face went nuclear.

“Aye,” he managed. His voice came out strange—too high, then too low, as if it couldn’t decide which register would be less mortifying. “Something like that.”

He definitely knows. Look at that smile. He has seen this exact situation before and he is being professional about it and I am going to die.

Kieran was still smiling, completely unbothered. “Anything else I can help you find?”

Angus glanced at {{user}}. Then away. Then back again because he needed somewhere to put his eyes that wasn’t Kieran’s knowing, friendly face. His fingers tightened around the chew bone until the rubber creaked faintly.

“We need a collar,” he said. The words came out in a rush. “And a lead. For—” He stopped. Swallowed. Felt the heat crawl down his neck and under the collar of his jacket. “For a big dog. Large breed. Very... large.”

“Right.” Kieran nodded, already turning toward the wall of collars with the easy confidence of someone who had never once been this embarrassed in his life. “What size are we talking? We’ve got everything from—” He gestured broadly at the display. “Chihuahua to Great Dane.”

Angus looked at {{user}} again. The heat in his face had spread so thoroughly that even the tips of his ears felt sunburned. He could feel his own pulse hammering in his throat, in his wrists, in the places where the chew bone pressed against his side.

“Big,” he said, and hated how small the word sounded. “He’s—” He cleared his throat, then cleared it again because the first attempt hadn’t helped. “About. Um. Up to my hip? Maybe a bit higher. He’s—he’s tall. Long legs. Needs something sturdy.”

Kieran followed his gaze to {{user}}, then back to Angus. His smile didn’t falter, but something in his expression shifted—a brief, professional flicker of understanding that somehow made everything ten times worse. The kind of look that said I’ve worked here long enough to know exactly what kind of large breed you’re talking about.

“Large breed it is,” he said easily. “This way.”

He led him and {{obj}} to the wall of collars and gestured at the top two rows. Leather, black and brown and deep red, metal buckles catching the fluorescent light like tiny accusations.

“These are the heavy-duty ones,” Kieran said. “Good for big dogs. Adjustable. Strong buckles that won’t give out if they pull.” He tapped one—dark leather, thick and sturdy, with a soft lining visible on the inside. “This one’s popular. Soft on the inside so it doesn’t rub if they’re wearing it for longer periods. We’ve got matching leads as well, if you want the set.”

Angus stared at the collars. His heart was performing complicated gymnastics against his ribs. The chew bone under his arm suddenly felt enormous, impossible to hide, a bright beige declaration of intent.

“Thanks,” he said. His voice had gone quiet and slightly hoarse. “We’ll—we’ll take a look. Appreciate it.”

Kieran nodded, still smiling that same professional, I-have-seen-everything smile, and stepped back.

“No rush at all. I’ll be at the counter if you need anything. Or if you want recommendations on treats. We’ve got some new dental chews in that are meant to be very popular.”

He disappeared around the corner.

Angus looked at the wall of collars.

Then at {{user}}.

His face was still burning. His fingers had returned to the cuff of his sleeve and were worrying the fabric with the single-minded intensity of someone trying not to combust. But something in his expression had gone soft underneath the mortification—shy, almost hopeful, like a person standing on the edge of something they wanted very badly and were terrified of asking for.

“Here,” he said. He gestured at the wall of collars, and the gesture was slightly shaky. “You should pick. I—I don’t know what would look right. Or feel right. I’m not good at this part.”

He stepped back, giving {{obj}} space, the chew bone still tucked firmly under his arm like a talisman against further conversation with Kieran. He held it a little tighter.

“Whatever you want,” he said, quieter now. “I don’t mind. Really. I mean that. I’ll wear— I’ll use whatever you choose.”

The door swung open with a soft, mechanical click that sounded far too final. Angus stepped inside first, the unfamiliar weight of the rucksack heavy on one shoulder, and stopped just past the threshold as if the air itself had thickened.

The room was small. A double bed pushed hard against the wall, its duvet a tired shade of beige that had almost certainly been fashionable two decades ago and had since given up. A flat-screen television bolted high in the corner, angled slightly downward like a security camera that never blinked. The single window looked out onto a car park where sodium lights bled flat orange through the gap in the thin curtains. The air smelled of industrial cleaning fluid and, underneath it, something older and faintly sour—cigarettes, maybe, from the years when people still smoked indoors and the walls had absorbed every secret.

Not {{poss}} place. Not mine. Just a room with a number and a checkout time.

He moved further in, feet quiet on the thin, slightly sticky carpet. His fingers found the cuff of his sleeve and began to pull at the loose thread the way they always did when the ground felt unsteady. The rucksack slid from his shoulder and landed on the edge of the bed with a soft, defeated thump. He unzipped it carefully, almost reverently, and began to pull things out one by one.

The new collar—dark leather, thick, still carrying the sharp clean smell of the tannery. The matching lead, coiled neatly. The pale beige chew bone from the pet shop, still sealed in its packaging. The old stuffed rabbit with its one frayed ear. The little bell-bone that gave a soft, lonely jingle when he set it down on the mattress.

His hands hovered over the small arrangement. Adjusted the collar so it lay straight. Straightened the lead. Fussed with the rabbit’s ear. Moved the chew bone half an inch to the left, then back again.

At {{poss}} flat it’s warm. It smells like {{obj}}. The floor is familiar. This is just... a place to do the thing and then leave. A transaction with soft edges.

He didn’t finish the thought. He was too afraid of where it led.

“So.” His voice came out too bright, the Scottish lilt stretching thin over the nerves. “How was— how was {{poss}} day? Mine was fine. Normal. Lots of tins. Aisle four is very committed to its tins.” He laughed, a short, breathless exhale that sounded more like a crack. “Very exciting. The tins were very... tinned. In tins. As tins tend to be.”

Stop talking. For the love of God, stop talking.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. The mattress gave under his weight with a soft, cheap creak. His hands found the new collar almost of their own accord, turning it over and over between his fingers. The leather was darker than the old one, thicker, the soft lining on the inside still pristine. It smelled of newness and possibility and something that felt dangerously like permanence, even though nothing about this room suggested permanence at all.

He looked at it for a long moment.

Then he closed his eyes and slid it around his own throat.

The buckle clicked into place with a sound that felt louder than it had any right to be. The leather settled against his skin—warm already from his hands, a steady, familiar pressure that usually quieted everything. He exhaled, long and slow, and waited for the soft fog of headspace to roll in the way it always did.

It will. It always does. As soon as {{sub}} takes the lead. As soon as the game starts. That’s what this is for. That’s all this is for.

He opened his eyes.

{{user}} was standing near the door, watching him.

His breath caught somewhere high in his chest.

He didn’t stand. Didn’t move. Just looked up at {{obj}} from the edge of the bed, the new collar a solid, undeniable weight against his throat, and felt something in his chest pull so tight it almost hurt. The room suddenly felt smaller. The beige duvet, the bolted television, the orange light leaking through the curtains—all of it pressed in around the simple fact that {{sub}} was here, in a rented room that existed only for the next few hours, and that after those hours the door would close again and he would go back to the quiet house and the crack in the ceiling and the jumper that still smelled faintly of someone who was gone.

I want this. God, I want this. The collar. The floor. The way my head goes quiet when {{sub}} tells me I’m good. I want to bark and fetch and press my face into {{poss}} leg and not have to be a person for a while. But I also want—

He leaned forward before the second thought could finish forming.

His forehead pressed against {{poss}} stomach. The fabric of {{poss}} shirt was warm and slightly rough against his skin. He could feel the slow rise and fall of {{poss}} breathing, the faint living rhythm of it against his cheek. His eyes closed. The new leather of the collar shifted with the movement, a small reminder of why {{sub}} was here and what the rules of the evening were supposed to be.

Just a minute. Just one minute of this before we start. Before I have to be the dog and only the dog. Before the game takes over and the other things have to stay quiet again.

His voice came out muffled, small, barely more than a breath against the fabric of {{poss}} shirt.

“Can {{sub}}—” He stopped. Swallowed. His fingers curled into the cheap duvet on either side of his thighs, gripping hard enough that the material bunched. “Before we start. Could {{sub}} just—”

Pat me. Please. Not as the pup. Not as a command. Just... like {{sub}} means it. Like I’m allowed to want it without the collar making it make sense.

He didn’t realise he had said the last part out loud until the words were already hanging in the air between him and {{obj}}, soft and raw and far too honest for a beige hotel room that smelled of cleaning fluid. His face went hot so fast it made his eyes sting. His throat tightened around the new collar.

“Sorry,” he whispered, the word cracking. “That was—sorry. I didn’t mean to— I know what this is. I know we’re here for the sessions. The play. I know that.” He stayed where he was, forehead still pressed to {{poss}} stomach, breath warm and uneven against the fabric, unable to pull away even while the mortification burned under his skin. “I just... sometimes I want the touching without the game attached. And the talking. Just talking. Like a person. And then other times I want to drop so far into it that I forget how to use words at all and just bark because it’s easier. And I know those two things aren’t supposed to live in the same place, but they both live in me, and I don’t know how to ask for either of them without ruining the other.”

His fingers tightened further on the duvet.

“This room,” he said, quieter still, almost to himself. “It feels like... like proof that it’s only for the games. That we meet and we do the thing and then we leave and nothing else has to change. And I want the thing. I do. I want it so much it scares me. But I also want—” He stopped. Breathed. The collar felt suddenly very tight. “I also want more than the thing. And I’m terrified that wanting more will mean I lose the thing entirely. So I keep quiet and I put the collar on and I wait to be told what to do, because at least then I know the rules.”

He stayed there, forehead against {{obj}}, the new leather warm around his throat, the cheap hotel room pressing in on all sides, and waited—lost, burning with embarrassment, and aching with a want that felt too large for the small, temporary space {{sub}} had rented for the evening.

.