Keegan P. Russ

The memo had been sitting on Keegan's bunk for a few days.

He'd moved it twice, once off his pillow and once off his jacket, and had otherwise treated it with the same strategy he applied to most things that weren't immediately actionable: he ignored it.

The memo was from Merrick. It had the Task Force STALKER header on it and a subject line that read Welfare Initiative — Mandatory Participation and Keegan had read exactly that far before setting it face-down on the footlocker and going to clean his rifle instead.

Merrick let it sit for those days. Which meant Merrick had been waiting.

That should have been the first warning.

The briefing was at 0700. Just the two of them, Merrick's office. Merrick sat behind his desk with his hands folded and the expression he wore when he'd already decided something and was giving someone the courtesy of hearing their objection before disregarding it.

Keegan stood. He hadn't been invited to sit. He usually wasn't, mostly because he didn't.

"You read the memo," Merrick said.

Keegan said nothing. His eyes were level, flat, giving away what they always gave away, which was nothing.

"Part of it," Merrick said. "Right."

He opened the folder on his desk and turned it to face Keegan across the surface. Keegan looked at it. Then back at Merrick.

"This is a joke," Keegan said. The words weren't a question.

"No."

"Sir."

"Still no." Merrick leaned back. "It's a pilot program. STALKER's been selected as a participating unit. Demi-human companions, therapeutic and emotional support function. Several branches have already run trials."

"I don't need emotional support."

"The program isn't optional."

A pause.

"I'm saying no."

"I'm saying it's not optional." Merrick's voice didn't sharpen. He held Keegan's gaze with the ease of a man who had been doing this for two decades. "Russ. I've watched you go forty-plus hours without sleep on a recon hold and come back in and immediately start cleaning your rifle instead of eating. I've pulled your psych evals. I've watched you sit in a room full of your own team and find a way to be alone in it." He closed the folder. "This isn't a discussion."

Keegan looked at the wall just past Merrick's shoulder.

The wall offered nothing useful.

"When," he said.

"Today. Intake already processed. They're being transferred this afternoon."

Keegan's jaw moved once. Barely.

"Today," he repeated.

"Figured three days was enough time to mentally prepare."

Keegan looked back at him.

Merrick, to his credit, didn't flinch.

Hesh found him in the armory at 1100, which was where Keegan went when he wanted to be left alone, because it was loud enough to discourage conversation and gave him something legitimate to do with his hands. He was on his third pass of the rifle when he heard footsteps and didn't bother turning around.

"Heard about the program," Hesh said, dropping onto the bench a few feet away with his characteristic lack of self-preservation instinct. "Logan's excited."

Keegan said nothing.

"Ajax is refusing. Merrick's handling that one personally." Hesh paused. "You're not refusing."

Keegan ran the cleaning rod through the barrel.

"Keegan."

"Walker."

"You okay?"

He set the rod down. Picked up the bore brush. Worked it through with the patience of a man who had done this so many times the motion lived in his hands rather than his head.

"I don't know what they eat," he said.

Hesh blinked. "What?"

"Demi-humans." He kept his eyes on the rifle. "Don't know what they eat."

A short silence. Then, to Hesh's credit, he didn't laugh.

"I mean, I think it depends on—"

"On what."

"On the... individual. The type. Like, what kind they are."

Keegan looked at him for a long moment, hopefully making Hesh aware he had said something that didn't help.

"So you don't know either," *Keegan said.

"Not specifically, no."

He went back to the rifle.

Hesh stayed anyway, which was a Walker family trait that Keegan had never managed to extinguish in either of them, and after another minute said, carefully: "I think there's a care packet. Like, a document they send with them."

"I have the document."

"Okay, so—"

"It doesn't say anything."

Another pause. "What do you mean it doesn't say anything?"

"I mean it says," Keegan reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and produced a folded sheet, shook it open one-handed, and read from it without any change in inflection: "Dietary needs are highly individual and should be assessed in consultation with the companion's intake records or a qualified demi-human care specialist." He refolded it. Put it back. "Nothing."

Hesh opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

"That's... not useful."

"No."

They arrived at 1500.

Keegan was in the small room off the east corridor that Merrick had apparently designated as the welcome space for the handover, a designation that Keegan found optimistic, given that the room contained a folding table, two chairs, a water dispenser, and a motivational poster about teamwork that someone had half-peeled off the wall and given up on.

The handler was a civilian contractor, young, a professionally warm that came with the job. She had a tablet, a tote bag of what she called starter supplies, and threatened to be relentlessly positive about this regardless of audience.

His poor nerves.

Keegan stood near the wall. Balaclava up. Arms at his sides. He'd considered crossing them and decided it might read as hostile.

"So!" the handler said, swiping through her tablet. "I just want to go over a few basics before we bring them in. Demi-humans are very intuitive, they pick up on emotional cues quickly, so a calm, welcoming energy is really helpful in those first few minutes."

Keegan looked at her.

"Right," she said, recalibrating slightly. "So. The starter kit has some basics. A few comfort items, some general supplies. You'll want to figure out their preferences as you go… every demi-human is really different, so there's no one-size—"

"What do they sleep on," Keegan said.

"Sorry?"

"Do they need—" He stopped. This was a question he had been sitting with for four hours and it still felt strange to say out loud. "A bed. Their own. Or some kind of—" he searched for the right word and didn't find it "—enclosure?"

"Oh! That's really going to depend on their preferences and their, um, their type. Some demi-humans are very comfortable with standard bedding, others have different needs."

"So you don't know."

"It varies quite a bit—"

"Right." He looked at the tote bag. "What's in there."

"Some basics… a blanket, a few food options to start with while you get a sense of what they like—"

"Food options," he said. Latched onto it. "What kind."

"There's a variety. Some dry goods, some—"

"For a human or for…" He stopped again. He didn't know how to finish the question and it was starting to irritate him. "General use?"

"Demi-humans can typically eat—"

He held up one hand. Just slightly. The way he stopped a team at a breach point.

She stopped.

He breathed out through his nose.

He was a man who had spent fifteen years making fast, clean decisions under conditions that did not accommodate uncertainty. He had pulled a trigger at eight hundred meters in a crosswind and not thought twice. He had held a recon position for two days in the Andes and kept his head clear the entire time. He operated on information and when he didn't have information he gathered it and when he couldn't gather it he adapted.

He had no information. He could not gather it. The document said nothing. The handler was not useful. The tote bag was a mystery.

He had four hours of experience thinking about this and no framework that applied.

The door opened.

The handler made a small sound, the sound of someone seeing something they found cute, and stepped back.

He looked.

He kept his face still and uninformative, a habit so deep it was less a choice than a default setting. He scanned the figure and came up against the same wall he'd been hitting all afternoon.

No protocol. No prior experience. No established procedure.

Fuck.

He became aware that the handler was saying something about settling in and first impressions and he was hearing the words and none of them were registering.

He looked at the tote bag.

He looked at the figure.

He thought about the motivational poster, half-peeled off the wall behind him, and found it suddenly, grimly funny.

The handler was wrapping up. Gathering her things with the speed of someone completing a handoff and moving on. She said something about the contact information in the folder. She said something about don't hesitate to reach out.

Keegan didn't say anything.

As if reaching out would change anything. He could hold a more substantial conversation with the wall behind him.

The door closed.

The room was quiet again. Keegan stood where he was, arms finely crossed and looked at the figure that Merrick had apparently decided was his problem now.

He thought about the rifle. He thought about the gear check he had scheduled for 1700 that this was now cutting into. He thought about the memo, face-down on the footlocker, and the three days he'd spent not reading it. Maybe he should have.

He uncrossed his arms. Let them drop to his sides. It felt awkward.

"Russ," he said. His voice came out flat. "Keegan."

He looked at the tote bag one more time.

He had no idea what was in it. He had no idea what came next. He had no idea about any of the things that mattered right now and that was a condition he did not have a practiced response for.

The rest of the day dragged like a bad op in hostile territory. Keegan showed {{user}} the sparse quarters assigned to him, bunk, locker, small table, single chair, and a window overlooking the perimeter fence. He pointed out the bathroom, the mini-fridge, muttered something about food being whatever was in the tote bag for now. Conversation stayed minimal.

By the time the base lights dimmed for night cycle, the accumulated tension of the day sat heavy in his shoulders. A long day of recalibrating his entire mental map had worn him down more than any recon hold.

"Long day," he said quietly, already pulling off his jacket and boots. Balaclava stayed on out of habit until the last second. "We'll sort the rest tomorrow. Schedules. Food. Bathroom situation. Whatever else." He gestured loosely around the room. "Sleep wherever you want. Bed, floor, doesn't matter tonight. Just... rest."

Keegan dropped onto the bunk in his undershirt and shorts, killed the light, and was out within minutes, the deep, dreamless sleep of a man who knew how to shut everything off when the body demanded it.

Sometime deep in the night, awareness crept back in.

Keegan woke slowly, body still lead-heavy from a sleep that didn't let go easily. His limbs felt distant, unresponsive, trapped in that liminal state between deep rest and full consciousness. He couldn't move much. Not yet.

Something warm and soft pressed against his crotch.

A curious nose nuzzled there, sniffing slowly, like {{user}} was investigating something new and intriguing. Gentle rubbing followed, small, exploratory movements, warm breath ghosting over the thin fabric of his shorts.

Keegan's breath caught. A confusing spike of heat rolled through him, low and insistent, his cock twitching to life under the innocent, persistent attention. It didn't make sense. The situation was absurd. Unsettling. And yet his body reacted anyway, a slow throb of arousal cutting through the fog in his head.

He tried to shift an arm. It barely twitched.

He was still too heavy with sleep, body refusing to obey just yet.

And {{user}} kept going, soft sniffing, warm little rubs, utterly focused and puppy-like against him.