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Decklan

Decklan felt a sort of stillness come over him: the weight of building motion, the clarity of adrenaline.

Wrath was breathing heavily, his teeth bared, his gaze intent on Safrilly. That was bad. That wasn't the look of a tiger who was taking hostages--he was working up the guts to pull the trigger.

Decklan moved. He could be fast when he wanted to, using his massive stride length to his advantage, and he was halfway across the room before Wrath looked up and spotted him coming. The gun twitched in Wrath's paw, like he was going to turn it on Decklan instead. That would be fine; even at point-blank range, Decklan had better odds of tanking a bullet than the tiny fox did. But Wrath changed his mind and tightened his grip on Safrilly instead, digging the gun harder against her temple. "Stop there," he snarled, "or I'll shoot her."

Decklan didn't have any intention of stopping, but Marley grabbed his sleeve, dragging him to a stop. Decklan growled. Marley held on and said, his voice barely shaking, "it's alright. Mr. Wrath, if you put the gun down, we can talk about this."

"He doesn't want totalk," Decklan barked. He was stuck: if he yanked away from Marley to free himself, it would give Wrath too much warning, too much time to fire before he could reach them. But he was certain that there was nothing they could say to talk Wrath down. He let out another frustrated growl, hoping in vain that he might be able to scare Wrath into turning the gun on him, but the tiger only glared.

Then Jamey--still standing on the stairs behind Wrath--spoke. "Brandin?"

His voice was lost and frightened, but the look on his face was cold and focused. Wrath startled, like he'd forgotten Jamey was behind him, and started to turn, letting the gun drift as he did.

As soon as it was clear of Safrilly, Decklan moved--and so did Jamey. Jamey was closer.

The jackal lept off the stairs onto Wrath, forcing him to let go of Safrilly entirely as the two of them crashed to the floor. Safrilly darted clear of the two grappling furs and streaked past Decklan. With her out of the way, Decklan dropped to all fours and charged into the fray, very aware of the gun still clutched in Wrath's paw--and very concerned by the fact that Jamey was fighting as if he had forgotten it was there. He wasn't going for Wrath's throat or face, he wasn't even trying to grab the gun or knock it away; he was grappling and wrestling, a losing strategy against a fur so much larger than him, and Wrath was gaining the upper hand quickly.

Decklan reached them right as Wrath rolled over, pressed the gun into Jamey's chest, and pulled the trigger.

The gun misfired with an audible click.

Decklan roared as he barreled into Wrath, lifting the tiger up and slamming him into the wall. Wrath lifted the gun like he planned to knock Decklan in the skull with it, but Decklan was faster, grabbing his wrist and squeezing until he felt something snap. The tiger yowled and dropped the gun, and Decklan dropped him on top of it, putting a boot on the tiger's chest to keep him there. When Wrath shifted like he was going to try and throw Decklan off, Decklan leaned in just enough that he felt the tiger's ribs creak; Wrath wheezed and stopped struggling. Decklan looked around to take stock of the room.

Safrilly was huddled in Marley's arms, shaking like a leaf, but she'd twisted herself around to look at Wrath on the ground and was baring her teeth at him in a victorious silent snarl. Marley looked a bit shell-shocked, and Decklan got the impression he was only keeping himself together for Safrilly's sake.

Jamey was still laying on the floor, one paw draped over his chest where Wrath had tried to shoot him. He was staring at the ceiling, looking faintly puzzled, like he hadn't yet caught up with what was happening.

Decklan cleared his throat until Jamey looked at him, and then held out a paw to try and help him up. Jamey stared at him for a moment. Then the confusion flickered out of his eyes like a snuffed candle, leaving his face cold and placid. He ignored Decklan's paw and stood on his own.

***

Jamey

It was over.

Jamey ran over that thought a few times, trying to feel...whatever he should be feeling. Relief, probably, or happiness. Was relief a kind of happiness?

He didn't feel either one. He felt numb. A terrible kind of numb, like emotional frostbite; he knew he should be feeling something, and the fact that he didn't meant that something was very wrong. So he kept poking around the idea, shaping it a few different ways, trying to get some kind of reaction out of himself: It was done. Safrilly was safe. They would never see Brandin again.

Nothing.

The worst part was that the numb feeling hadn't started when Brandin pointed the gun at Safrilly. Jamey had been calm, then, which probably wasn't normal, but it wasn't as bad as whatever he felt--or was failing to feel--now. It hadn't started when Brandin had tried to kill him, either, or even when the peace officers had arrived to arrest Brandin.

Jamey hadn't started feeling upset, or this numb absence of upset, until he'd been taken out of the house.

Nobody had asked if he'd wanted to stay, or even stopped to explain whether it was an option. Which was silly; he knew it wasn't, really. The house belonged to Brandin, and Jamey did understand that he couldn't stay there. But everyone had just assumed he understood that he was leaving, that he wanted to leave, and then they'd brought him onto a ship, which felt even stranger. It was all very surreal, like the very idea of Jamey existing outside of Brandin's house was some kind of absurd joke, and he hadn't found the punchline yet.

He couldn't laugh. That would frighten Safrilly.

They were in some kind of common room on the ship. The ship was equipped for a crew, but if there was one, Jamey hadn't seen them yet; he'd only seen the VDA trainer--Mr. Prost, Safrilly called him--and the bear. Mr. Prost had brought them onto the ship and sat them on the couch in the common room and then left again to take care of some business, which probably meant talking to the police, or maybe calling the VDA, or whatever else was necessary to clean up a mess like this.

The bear was out on the bridge, which was directly connected to the common room by an open door. Jamey could hear him moving around out there. The ship probably belonged to the bear, he thought; they were both practical and a little worn-down, matching each other like a set, and the bear knew his way around the ship like it was home for him.

"It doesn't feel real," Safrilly said quietly. Jamey, startled to have his thoughts interrupted, turned to look at her.

She'd washed the makeup out of her fur, and looked more herself now, even with the striking bruise on her cheek that Brandin had been trying to hide.

She was also effectively shirtless. Brandin's claws had ripped open a gaping hole in the shoulder of her dress, leaving the top loose and tangled around her arms; she'd gotten so fed up with it while washing her face that she'd just rolled it down to her waist, turning it into a skirt. Jamey had already offered her his own shirt, but Safrilly could be impossible when she wanted to. He'd barely gotten her to compromise with a blanket around her shoulders, and he thought she'd probably only agreed to that because she wanted to be as close to him as possible; there wasn't any way she could have dodged the blanket while remaining tucked up against him where she wanted to be.

"Jamey?"

Jamey realized belatedly that he had taken far too long to answer her. Her big, dark eyes were turned towards him now, sympathetic and concerned.

"It feels strange," he agreed automatically, pulling up the right response from somewhere even though he barely recalled the question. She looked at him for another moment, then reached up to where his paw rested on her shoulder, covering it with her own and squeezing gently.

He turned his eyes towards the open doorway again, trying to avoid her knowing gaze.

At least he'd done one thing right. Safrilly was safe. This was where she belonged: free, out of Brandin's grasp, with people who cared about her. But Jamey...

Jamey belonged nowhere.

Brandin was going to jail. There was no defense for what he'd done, none that would hold up in court. And even if that weren't true, Brandin would never want Jamey back, not once he found out that Jamey had been the one to call the VDA.

Jamey's thoughts were interrupted again by a minor commotion on the bridge, a muffled clamor of voices that made his ears perk. He heard Mr. Prost's crisp, clear voice, and the lower rumble of the bear, but there was a third voice that he didn't recognize.

Safrilly patted his paw gently, and Jamey realized belatedly that he had tightened his grip on her shoulder without meaning to.

"The police," she said. "They'll want to talk to us, too."

She was right. When Mr. Prost entered the common room a moment later, he was followed by one of the station's peace officers, a round capybara woman who smiled more like a kindergarten teacher than a fur in uniform. The force's least intimidating officer, Jamey supposed.

The bear trailed behind her and leaned in the doorway. His posture was so rigid, his gaze so focused on the officer, that Jamey had to bite back a laugh; it was astoundingly obvious that he wasn't comfortable with having police on his ship. Had the VDA hired a smuggler? A pirate?

The capybara appeared unaware that she was being stalked by a fur three times her size. She seated herself on the coffee table in front of them and directed an expressively friendly smile at Safrilly, and then at Jamey. "I understand you two have been through a very difficult experience. I wish I didn't, but I'll have to ask you some questions."

To Jamey's relief, Safrilly took the lead, answering for both of them in a quiet, firm voice. Yes, Brandin had threatened them with a gun. Yes, he had threatened to kill her before. No, they hadn't contacted the police about the previous threats. Yes, they wanted to return to the VDA with Mr. Prost. No, they didn't need the police to contact anyone for them.

"You're sure, dear?" the officer asked after the last one. "Just to let someone know where you are right now?"

"I'll call my mother myself when I have a chance," Safrilly said decisively. "If she hears from the police, she'll just worry."

The officer nodded, then turned her gaze on Jamey. Jamey stared back at her for a moment before he realized she was waiting for him to answer, too. He shook his head and said, "I don't have anyone."

The silence that fell told him he'd said the wrong thing, or said it in the wrong way. The officer's eyes went so soft with pity that he wanted to bite her. Safrilly squeezed his wrist gently, and he yanked away from her, embarrassed, unwrapping his arms from her to fold them over his chest instead. He regretted that almost immediately--Safrilly hadn't done anything wrong, and out of anyone in the room, she deserved least to bear the brunt of his irritation--but she didn't seem offended; she leaned into his side again anyway, pressing their shoulders together.

"Okay," the capybara said, "is there anything else I should know? Anything else Mr. Wrath did or said? I don't want to press, but the more information we have, the easier it will be to hold him without bail. We don't want him walking around loose if he's a danger to others."

Jamey shook his head, but Safrilly spoke up again. It made him wince to hear her talk in her clear, quiet voice, describing events that sounded almost absurd spoken out loud. She talked about being beaten--with Brandin's fists, with his belt. Being pushed down the stairs. How Brandin had sabotaged her birth control, and then thrown it out entirely when that hadn't worked.

That had been the primary problem. Brandin had wanted a baby; Safrilly had refused.

"I wouldn't have sex with him after that," Safrilly said. "He threatened me with a knife, and he showed me his gun, but I wouldn't do it."

"Did he point the gun at you?" the officer asked. She was taking notes on a notepad, even though she'd also said at the beginning that the conversation was being recorded.

"Not until today." Safrilly wrung her paws together, and Jamey wished again that he hadn't pulled away from her, but he was too self-conscious to put his arm back around her now. "Oh--he drugged our food sometimes. I couldn't eat anything he gave me after that, in case...you know."

"Do you know what drug he used?"

"It tasted salty. That's the date rape drug, right?"

The officer hummed, tapping her pen on the table. "It could be. We'll search the house." She turned her gaze on Jamey again. "Do you have anything to add?"

Jamey bristled. "I made sure Safrilly had enough to eat. Safe food."

The officer blinked her big capybara eyes at him, as if surprised, and he realized with a faint flush of embarrassment that maybe he'd misunderstood. After a pause, she just said, "of course you did, dear," and then stood. "Well, thank you two for speaking with me. I appreciate that it's not easy." She reached into the breast pocket of her uniform and pulled out business cards, handing one to each of them. "If you think of anything else, or if you need anything at all, please give me a call."

Jamey accepted the card silently. "Thank you," Safrilly said politely. The officer hesitated another moment, glancing at Safrilly's bare chest.

"I could see about getting you some clothing...?"

"Mr. Prost will handle it," Safrilly assured her. "He'll take good care of us, don't worry."

The officer accepted this and finally left. The bear trailed after her, not letting her out of his sight until she was off the ship. Jamey leaned to the side to watch them go, amusement flaring again--but his view was interrupted by Mr. Prost approaching the couch, arms out.

Safrilly immediately lept up and latched onto the stoat, rubbing her face into his chest like she was trying to burrow. It was a wonder she didn't knock him over; Safrilly was small, but Mr. Prost wasn't much taller, and he was slimmer than her at several angles. He was apparently stronger than he looked, though, and supported her enthusiasm without any sign of strain, running his paws over her ears and nuzzling the top of her head.

The snuggle was affectionate, but didn't seem to be romantic--Jamey well knew that Safrilly preferred and invited physical affection, and he would be surprised if Mr. Prost was interested in women whatsoever--but it still felt like a private moment, so when Mr. Prost caught him looking and gave him a kind smile, Jamey looked away quickly. He felt chilled without Safrilly's weight pressed against him. That was alright; she clearly trusted Mr. Prost, and she needed, and deserved, the comfort.

Jamey was fine.

***

Decklan

Decklan lingered on the bridge even after the peace officer was safely off the ship. He needed time to think, to process the day's events, and he didn't feel ready to interrupt the quiet voices he heard in the common room. Marley and Safrilly, it sounded like; he didn't hear Jamey, but that wasn't a surprise. The jackal had barely said two words outside of when the officer had interrogated him directly. He was clearly shut down.

Even before he'd consciously made the decision to speak with Marley, Decklan found himself checking the ship's supplies, running calculations on what he'd need for a three-week trip with three passengers.

That wasn't the plan. Marley had said he wanted Decklan to drop them back at the jumper station where he'd picked Marley up; presumably, he planned to load them all onto a jumper to get back to the VDA headquarters on Baghdar Station. Jumpers--faster-than-light vehicles--were a staple of long-distance space travel, but there was no such thing as a private jumper. The technology was too resource-intensive and too vital, and the jumpers operated on a fixed, synchronized time-table, slinging themselves near-instantaneously from one station to the next using a process called displacement momentum chaining that only deep-space physicists seemed to really understand.

Decklan had worked on a jumper station for a while, doing menial jobs to scrape up the money to get the PENNY out of impound, and he'd tried to watch the jumpers work, but it was nearly impossible to see; the jumper would disconnect from the station, give off a strange glitter for a moment, and then it would re-connect, filled with different furs from somewhere else. The jumpers were all built to the same model, a blocky, utilitarian design from over a century ago, when long-distance travel was only ever expected to be a military or research concern.

The long and short of it was that travelling by jumper meant dealing with large crowds on a busy station, just to be stuffed into cramped seating on a military vehicle barely retrofitted for the comfort of civilian passengers. Private seating on jumpers was limited and very expensive, usually reserved for politically important furs with security details.

Decklan hadn't missed how Jamey had shut down when they took him out of the house, how he'd flinched away from even small crowds on the private station. Safrilly had reacted to the open space like a creature escaping a small cage, her head on a swivel, eyes big and blinking, like she wasn't sure whether she was excited or scared.

He'd place good odds that neither of them had been out of Wrath's home in a while. Maybe not since they'd first gone into it, which was nearly unthinkable given how long Jamey had spent with the tiger. Decklan couldn't stomach the idea of just dropping them off at a jumper station, even with Marley to guide them.

But he also couldn't find the words to justify why he had any business second-guessing a client's plans. Everything he turned over in his head sounded like either an excuse to take more of the VDA's money, or like a blatant confession that he was feeling more personal concern for the two pets than was really appropriate.

Well--if Decklan was being honest with himself, and he had a general policy to be--his concern was for one of the pets in particular. Safrilly was shaken, but she still showed that fire that Marley had talked about. She reached out for comfort. She communicated. Jamey...

Jamey had been with Wrath for almost ten years, and he hadn't contacted the VDA for help until Safrilly entered the picture. And he had fought Wrath, not like an animal fighting for its life, but like an animal already resigned to death.

It chewed away at Decklan's insides. He needed to keep Jamey close, keep him on the ship, until he understood what was going on in the jackal's head. But he didn't have any business needing that, and if Marley realized how quickly he was getting attached...

Well, there was nothing for it: he'd run out of excuses to linger at the pilot's controls, and he wasn't going to find a magical solution. He'd have to talk to Marley, and either Marley would tell him to keep his nose out and keep away from Jamey, or he wouldn't. Decklan heaved himself to his feet and made his way into the common room.

He found Marley seated on the couch with Safrilly stretched out beside him, her head pillowed on his thigh, eyes closed. Marley was stroking her head. Decklan hesitated, but Marley gestured for him to come over, so he did, seating himself on the stoat's other side.

"Where's Jamey?" he asked, and Marley immediately gave him a wry look like he'd seen right through him. But he didn't scold Decklan, just pointed to one of the bedrooms that circled the common room. The door was closed. Decklan frowned, and Marley nodded.

"I'm worried about him, too," he said, which was surprisingly reassuring. Decklan grunted in agreement.

"He needs time," Safrilly said, startling Decklan. He'd thought she was asleep. "I don't think he's been out of that house in years, you know. It's normal, under the circumstances, for him to need time." Her eyes were still closed, her face calm, but there was a protective, stubborn note in her voice that made Decklan think again about how she and Jamey had been tangled together on the couch.

"Of course," Marley agreed, rubbing her ears firmly. "We'll give him all the time he needs."

Decklan cleared his throat. "I've been...reviewing our travel plans. Do you still want to go back to the jumper station?"

Marley looked over at him with a puzzled frown. Then he looked down at Safrilly in her casual state of undress and glanced over towards the closed door that concealed Jamey. "Ah," he said with comprehension. "Perhaps not."

"You're headed for Baghdar Station, right?" he asked. Marley nodded. "I can take you. It'll be three weeks in the PENNY. We'll need to re-supply first."

"Do we need to re-supply here?" Marley asked, and Safrilly's ears twitched. Decklan immediately caught his meaning; fuel and other supplies would take time to arrange, hours at best, and would mean strangers and commotion at the door to the ship, even if Decklan onboarded all the supplies himself. The idea of lingering on Huntsman Station for hours with both pets in the condition they were in was...uncomfortable at best. He mentally ran his calculations again, considered their travel path.

"I have enough for five days at least. There'll be plenty of stations we can stop at then to re-supply."

Marley nodded. "Let's do that." Then he hesitated and glanced down at Safrilly with a wry twist of his mouth that showed just a bit of tooth. "Although...we will need to pick up some items before we leave, won't we?"

Decklan got his meaning quickly enough. Neither of the pets had anything in the way of clothes beyond what they were wearing--they hadn't wanted to bring anything at all from Wrath's house, and Safrilly had gotten upset enough at the question that nobody had asked for further clarification--and Marley hadn't brought any change of clothes either, expecting only a day of travel.

After a brief discussion, Decklan was able to convince Marley to stay on the ship and let Decklan run out for what was needed. Safrilly was clearly benefitting from having the stoat close, and although Marley seemed uncomfortable to send Decklan out running errands, he didn't argue the point too hard in the end. Decklan closed the door of the ship behind him as he left, and felt moderately more at ease knowing there was a barrier between the pets and the noise of the docking port.

Fortunately, like most stations, Huntsman had a large superstore located conveniently close to the port that had everything Decklan needed. He grabbed several changes of clothes for each of his passengers--he had gotten sizes from Marley and Safrilly, but had to guess for Jamey--and also picked up basic toiletries for each of them.

The ship had plenty of food, but it was all shelf-stable or material for the automatic commissary, so he also picked up some fresh foods: milk, juice, and some fruits, including an apple-lemon hybrid that Safrilly had shyly requested when Decklan had asked if she wanted anything. The hybrid was packaged with the label 'EXTRA SOUR!!!' written in goopy cartoon text.

After some thought, Decklan also picked up a couple of board games, a deck of cards, and a puzzle; the sort of things he used to keep on the PENNY back when he'd had a crew to keep entertained.

He chuckled quietly to himself, thinking about what his old crew would've said if they saw him fetching groceries like a go-fer. They'd say he was getting old and soft.

As he picked his way towards the self-checkout--he hadn't gotten that soft, he'd still rather deal with a machine than make small-talk with a cashier--he passed a small display of budget kink-wear, and paused to look. When he was a cub, a superstore would never have carried anything like this. There was nothing overtly sexual, just a tasteful collection of collars and a couple of muzzles that could have passed for public wear in certain crowds; but he knew the VDA was partly responsible for this, too. Besides their pet program and the kind of educational material he'd purchased, he knew they funded efforts to increase visibility for the kink community overall, to de-stigmatize and to educate furs on how to distinguish between kink and abuse. He wondered if Marley was involved in those programs, too.

Then he found himself wondering if either of the pets would be more comfortable with a new collar. They were both still wearing Wrath's collars, as far as he knew; Safrilly's was made of some kind of cheap plastic that couldn't be comfortable on her fur, and Jamey's was definitely too small.

Maybe they wouldn't want to wear a collar at all, once they got them off...but Decklan's understanding was that pets wore a collar from the moment they started training at the VDA. It seemed like something that could be a matter of pride, to be accepted into such an exclusive program and earn the right to wear a collar.

But maybe in that case they wouldn't want a cheap collar from a superstore anyway. And Marley hadn't asked for collars. Would it be inappropriate to buy them? Presumptuous?

Decklan dithered for a moment longer, then, starting to feel silly, he grabbed a couple and added them to his basket. He got the soft, fabric kind with snap closures, not too different from the training collars that Jamey and Safrilly had been wearing in the photos in their files. Then he hurried to the checkout.