FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Levi Jansen, African Dogs, log number three. It's amazing how you never really realize how huge the ocean is until you're flying over it for half a day. It's like... like unrolling a huge spool of blue felt fabric, with each of the stray little fuzzies representing the waves. From up here, it almost doesn't look liquid. It doesn't look three kilometers deep. Can't help but think about how much credit ship navigators deserve. Drop me in and spin me around, and I'd be lost. Hand me a compass, and I still wouldn't be able to find my way home."

The maned wolf paused with his thumb on the button of the recorder, half-leaned-forward in his seat with one elbow on the armrest. A little nagging thought in the back of his mind made him wonder if the buzz of the plane's engine would be too loud in the recording.

"I wonder where Dad is in all that water. Like when Grandpa took us fishing over the lake, and he dropped a rock in: plop, splash, watch it sink and spin... and then it's gone. Imagine a research vessel in the Atlantic Ocean is no different."

He had originally intended to say more than that, but his train of thought failed him after this and, after another moment, he shifted his thumb to the 'stop' button. He'd done things like this several times before - though this had been so far the only time for him to be moved overseas for a job. Sure, it was exciting, but it also fared badly with his dislike of travelling to new places. Hopefully this would go better than last time he'd left his home city.

The story was, in recent years a disease or virus of some sort had been discovered to be ravaging the feral African wild dog population of - well - Africa, particularly the southern regions. Diseases happen, the report had (pretty much) said, but this one's particularly important because the species is already endangered... normally Levi would have chosen another project to work on, but this one interested him primarily because the disease actually decimated the population every few months, reducing the numbers by about ten percent, and after looking at some pictures of the animals... well. Too damn cute, he'd said in his first audio log.

Levi was no biologist - God, no; that had been his father's realm. He was simply a caretaker for the animals, a sort of intern working under the head veterinarian. It was his job to make sure whatever the rest of the team was studying had proper habitats, food, comfort... a job that got a little dull at times, but a necessary one. He couldn't get his vet certification until he'd spent a certain number of hours in the employ of an actual one, as well as assisted with a research project... and this was it.

The intercom clicked into life overhead. "Attention passengers, we will begin our descent in about one hour's time - until then, you may keep your electronics out and seatback tables down..."

~ ~ ~

It was evening by the time the team had gotten into town, and at least half of them weren't feeling quite up to travel the next three hours deeper into the African wilderness, so about half of a hotel hallway was rented for everyone. Levi ended up in a room with a nice female weasel, with whom he'd so far exchanged three words - 'hello' and 'thank you' - and who spent half the night vomiting into the toilet. "Don't know why I signed up for this," she growled, about twenty minutes before Levi's alarm would have gone off - he just turned it off and got up; "I hate flying."

The temperature had climbed into the mid seventies by the time they had all gotten on the road. Levi's fur had stopped shifting halfway between his winter and summer coats, and he had no trouble figuring out why: back home his mother would be complaining about the A/C bill during the hot summer day, while down here in the grasses of Africa, the locals were enjoying a comfortable winter. At times he couldn't tell if he was too hot or too cold, and also didn't know which would be more proper.

The research outpost, thank God, had already been set up by the on-site scientists here: all that remained was for the team to move in. Local hunters had also gathered a few specimens for the research - "alive," Levi had heard the leader shout over the phone, "or we'll be burying you alongside what you killed."

"I trust you've done your research, Mr. Jansen?" one of the biologists, Dr. Ross, asked Levi when the team started to get out of the vehicle. The maned wolf glanced around the station: it had been used for various purposes in the past and as such had permanent concrete structures, though more tents had been set up around in the grass. He hoped that he'd be sleeping behind solid walls. "Nobody's really domesticated these dogs - and unless you can speak, whatsit, Afrikaans or tribal or what-have-you, you won't get much information from the residents."

"Yes, sir." Not at all. He'd gotten distracted looking at the pictures of the animals. "I'll handle it. Do we know where they're being kept so I can take a look at them, make sure they've got what they need?"

"That building, over that way." Ross pointed a grey-furred finger. "There's another section to that one that's only got room for one, and since you're the one who's most qualified to watch the animals, it's all yours."

Levi shifted his bag over his shoulder and patted his shirt pocket. Seven times on this trip so far, he'd panicked and thought that he'd left his glasses at home. "Me? Instead of you?"

"It's my job to make sure that bacterial cultures and blood samples are doing well. You have the same job, but with the dogs themselves. I have to go get everything set up - you should do the same."

The grasses in the areas between the buildings had been worn down to their roots; gravel crunched beneath Levi's feet as he walked over to the tent that the biologist had pointed out. He wasn't quite sure what to expect, having worked with only regular feral dogs before, and one feral wolf... he had a fairly firm grasp on canid anatomy ('interpret that how you will', he always said to people who asked, but he found that very few understood his meaning), but that told him nothing about how to expect these dogs to behave. All the sources he checked online told him little more than 'African wild dogs are very social'.

And so, he pushed the door open and ducked inside, into the cooler electrical lighting of the place. There were maybe seven cages set up around the room, most remaining empty, while those that did have something in them were spaced apart from one another; a foldable table sat in the middle of the room. The most interesting things about these creatures were, of course, their pelts, all different - like the elementary school science experiment of dropping food coloring and soap into milk, except less vibrant.

The cage closest to the door held an adult male with a black-dominated coat. One ear was half-chewed off, a sickly greyish gash marred one leg, and he looked dreadfully skinny, even though a fresh slab of meat had been pushed through the bars in front of him; Levi knelt down, pushed it further in with a stick from the ground, and waited, but the dog didn't even seem to notice it. After looking at him a moment longer, he noticed the pale milky cataracts that fogged over both of his pupils... the maned wolf could see no discoloration in the fur or excessive callouses on the footpads or anything else that would show advanced age, and other than the weight, this one looked like he should be in the prime of his life. Levi stood up and continued looking.

Next was an adult female, lying on her side with her legs splayed out, ears flopped down, and muzzle pointed towards the cage door. A puddle of what looked to be vomit caught Levi's eye - or, rather, his nose - in the back corner of the cage, and when he looked, he noticed the same cataracts having started to form. This one neither blinked nor breathed.

Then there was a much smaller one, a young female not yet out of puppyhood: relatively tiny ears, underdeveloped fur pattern, pink showing through the white splotches. She seemed a bit more energetic than the adult male, as she padded to the front of the cage when Levi stepped up and stuck her nose against the bars.

"Hey, you," he cooed, and started to reach a finger down to touch her - but then thought better of it and stuck his paw into his pocket. It was tough. "Hey cutie. Are you feelin' okay? Nausea, dizziness? Head's feeling alright, vision's perfect?"

She only showed a cataract just beginning to form in one eye. That was the most obvious outward sign of the disease, aside from bad balance, fur falling out in strange straight lines (as opposed to patches like many other diseases; he'd noticed this on the tail of the deceased female) and crippling joint pain, when the afflicted dogs did gather the balance to stand up. This puppy seemed to be doing fairly well.

And then, way at the end of the tent, was another young one all on his own - except this one looked to be in perfect health, with no sign of the disease whatsoever. He appeared to be somewhere between a pup and a full adult, though definitely already past the age of sexual maturity. He regarded Levi warily from the back wall of the cage when the wolf approached. The two just watched each other for a moment - Levi's amber eyes to the dog's more vivid gold; a white splotch crossed the left one - and then, without provocation-

-he barked at the wolf! It was a bright, energetic noise, and showed the dog's youth in that it kind of sounded like a half-squeak. Levi couldn't help but chuckle, and watched him for a little longer before ensuring they all had food and water; the female puppy was missing a water dish, so he just took the one from the other adult's cage. She wouldn't be needing it.

~ ~ ~

"Levi Jansen, African Dogs, log number five. Woke up late at night to hear howling from the dog cages. Went over and found the female puppy dead, with the male raisin' a huge fuss over it. Dunno how he knew - at least fifteen feet away, and she wrapped herself up in a towel first. Maybe he could smell it. I guess they were littermates, or something. I alerted Dr. Marcus that the adult was dead when we arrived, and he took care of the body... I don't know whether I should wake him up now to tell him the same for this one.

"I took her out and rested her on the table by the cages. The young male was scratchin' at the bars, barkin' at me, howling and yipping... I was worried that he'd wake everyone else up, so I took him out, too, and then regretted it a second later when he bolted. He didn't want to leave, though. He's maybe three-quarters the size of the adult male in the front cage - that one's still doing fine; just sleeping a bit heavily - and had no trouble reaching his front paws up to the table, leaning over, nosing the female. The size difference is a lot more noticeable when they're so close. I'll have to ask the hunters if these were taken from different packs than the adults. It's possible that he's the small one's father.

"...Endangered species. We were lucky to have four on arrival, and now maybe eighteen hours later, we have two. One and a half, really; the adult male doesn't look like he'll make it. Really, I shoulda put a mask on before coming in here, shoulda put gloves on before touching the little one... we don't know yet if the disease can be transferred outside of the species. I hope the male didn't catch it, nosing at her like that.

"I didn't really have the heart to lock him back up so far away. After putting her back in her cage, I moved him to the one right next to it. He nuzzled my paw as I was reaching in to give him his water dish, and then lay down with his nose through the bars facing her cage. He fell asleep like that."

~ ~ ~

He ended up waiting until the following morning to let Marcus know about the death, and once he had, he went back into the building to find that the young male had slept about as badly as himself - and Levi's eyes felt a lot heavier than they did yesterday. There had just been something in the male's noises that stayed with him... he had gotten up three times after heading back to bed the previous night, thinking that he could hear scratching on the door of his room, just at the opposite end of the one with the cages - when he was in high school one of his two cats died, and the other one from then on would also scratch to come into his room and sleep with him until morning - but each time opened it to a dark, quiet room, with cages set up around and a table in the middle

The young male was sleeping, though fitfully, when Marcus took the silent puppy away. Levi really had better things to do, like call his mother and let her know everything was going okay ("every day, Levi! Do you want to end up like your father?"), but he didn't really want this male to be alone when he woke up without the fading scent of his sister or daughter just one cage over. He pulled the foldable chair over from the table and sat down on it in front of the cage.

"Levi," called Marcus a while later, picking dirt out of the fur of his fingers, "We told the hunters to gather a few more. That adult male is a prime example for the late stages of the disease, and since the young one doesn't appear to have it, we'll use him as a control - we need to look at this thing in all stages of its life to fully figure out what it is. Do you think you can get the rest of the cages clean and readied for their arrival?"

The veterinarian's voice had awoken the young male. He opened his yellow eyes, gave voice to a cavernous yawn, flicked his ears forward, then back, then forward again, shook his head out... and then focused his gaze on the empty cage beside him. He only looked away when Levi came along with a broom, and then simply shifted to the maned wolf's muzzle. Levi stuck a finger through the bars; the African wild dog leaned forward, sniffed at it, sniffed at the other side, and rested his head on the ground.

"Feeling okay?" the wolf asked when it was time to clean the young one's cage. Back at the other end, the adult male was still alive, still lethargic, and now dripping a thick yellowish fluid from the corner of his mouth. The fur along his belly had started falling off in odd lines. "Tummy hurt or anything?"

The wild dog flicked his ears again when Levi patted the side of his chest. The fur wasn't as soft as he'd expected, but very smooth, warm.

"Probably just your chest, huh? Your heart?" He dropped the rag he held in one paw to his side. The dog turned his head and fixed his bright eyes on him. From what he'd seen, the best indicator of an African wild dog's age would be the size of its ears in relation to its head. The ears were also, in his opinion, the cutest part of the dog other than its coloration: he'd seen them range from teacup, to teacup saucer, to deflated kickball, to desk fan, to dinner plate, to radar dish...

Having drifted off into his thoughts, he hadn't noticed that he was still petting the young male. He didn't seem to mind, however: those golden eyes had drifted shut, and now, his tail slowly swayed from side to side. Levi smiled to himself and continued cleaning.

Around lunchtime there had been no news from the hunters; due to the relative scarcity of the species in the area, it usually took a while to catch even one. Sure, it felt damn barbaric and cruel keeping them in cages, but "that's all the funding permits," as Dr. Ross put it. "That's where you come in," he'd said when Levi approached him about it. That made sense. At least the building was air conditioned.

After ensuring the 'specimens', as they were officially called, were fed and watered (the adult male had gotten skinnier, and Levi had to remove yesterday's uneaten meal from the cage), the wolf busied himself with gathering grass from outside to pad the bottoms of the cages. At least they were spacious: if he could find the balance and energy to do so, the adult could easily stand up to his full height and walk around in a circle about the same radius; the younger one could do the same, with a small amount of space more. Really, they weren't that different in side. Maybe Levi just thought of him as being younger because his eyes looked so much brighter, so much more alive... not quite yet fogged over with the beginning of cataracts.

The wolf, munching on a chip from a bag he'd bought for a snack, knelt down outside the young male's cage. The wild dog slept near the back wall of the cage, patterned back facing his visitor and large ears held back. Levi took the time to inspect this particular one's markings: like all of the other dogs he'd seen, it looked almost like he had run through splashing paint fountains - to say that any one color would be the 'main' tone of his fur would feel incorrect. Splotches of cinnamon and ochre tracing their way down his back, over his tail; charcoal radar-dish ears that turned to a more chocolate color near the bases - oh! one flicked in his sleep! how cute - and then different colors in the splotches on his back, almost... almost like a topographic map.

He stirred in his sleep, then lifted his head, shook his ears out, and looked around for a short time before focusing his eyes on Levi. The wolf smiled, waved, and slid a chip in between the bars; the young male leaned towards it and wriggled his nose and whiskers in sniffing at it, but didn't put any effort into moving towards it. Levi's smile widened, and he got up to go grab more grass. When he came back, the chip was gone, and the dog was munching on something back in his corner.

The hunters returned a few hours after dinnertime, and brought almost enough to fill up the cages. Levi took a good look at each of them when they were brought in, and adjusted things in the cages accordingly. Most were adults, one looked to be a pregnant female, and there were a few puppies, but none of them caught his eye quite as much as the first young male. After the new specimens had been settled, the wolf went back to this one and stuck a finger in through the bars; the dog got to his feet, yawned, padded over, sniffed the finger, and then licked it. His splotchy tail wagged behind him.

It was odd: he'd read that African wild dogs were greatly social, and yet this one seemed to only enjoy his presence - when the cages on either side of him became occupied, all he gave in response was a flick of the large ears. He didn't get up to sniff the bars or look at who it was... he only got up when Levi knelt down nearby.

Perhaps the others had been sedated, as none of them put up much of a fuss about being kept in the cages. The young male, however, kept on scratching at the floor or the door whenever Levi turned his back, and wagged his tail when he looked at him.

That was why he decided to let him out of his cage.

~ ~ ~

"Levi Jansen, African Dogs, log number six. Late last night, after everyone was either busy or asleep, I made sure the door to the building was locked - if someone asked, I could just tell them I couldn't risk one of the dogs escaping - and then opened the cage for the young male. He had been getting restless, and I think it's because he's been locked in there for a while. I can't believe it hadn't occurred to me that maybe these dogs need to be walked or whatever. They spend their lives running around hunting and playing, and yet we've got them locked up in here...

"I'm not technically supposed to name any of them, but I think I've decided to call this one Jackal. Of course, that's between him and me... his ears have a slightly triangular shape to them, and the coloration along his body is similar. Besides, it's funny, and he responds to it, too. After letting him out - he stood up, stretched his legs, yawned, looked at me, and padded out - I said, I whispered, 'hey, Jackal!' and his cute ears perked! I think it's the 'J' noise that gets his attention.

"I think I've grown on him. Dr. Marcus grabbed him to take a blood sample early this morning, and he was all wriggling and whining and complaining - so I said, I said to Marcus, 'hey, let me carry him', and as soon as he dropped the dog into my arms, Jackal quieted down. Marcus looked at me, flicked his ears - he's a cat, that happens a lot anyway - and then asked me to follow him. Jackal only whined again when the blood was being taken, but after that, he was fine. I know housepets seem to know when you don't mean them any harm, but... hell, this is a wild fuckin' animal. He just has really pretty eyes. Like... like a pair of polished citrines illuminated by the sun. If it's alright for me to get poetic.

"Really, I should have put him back in his cage last night, but... well, I couldn't bear to see him so bothered. Looked closed in, uncomfortable. I was expecting for him to go and, like, sleep under the table or something, but after lying down in my own bed for a while I heard the door creak open... and rolled over to see his bright yellow eyes watching me from over there. He went over to the corner of the room, curled up, and fell asleep. I made sure to wake up extra early to corral him back into his cage, though. It felt like he understood.

"Maybe we... bonded... or something, over the death of the female puppy. The scientists were all business about it - 'oh, that's a shame', 'damn, now we'll have to get another, she was a great example for... early-stage blah blah blah', but... eh, I don't know. I'm just... sitting here, recording this, watching Jackal gnaw on a bone..."

Levi rested an elbow on his knee, watching the dog through the bars of his cage. He came to about two feet tall at the shoulder, which put him at the lower end of the average size for his species, and weighed enough that it gave the wolf a bit of a challenge picking him up, but nothing at all too strenuous. Sharp teeth, too, sharper than any other dog he'd worked with - of course. The more he watched him, the more he realized it had been a huge risk to let him out of his cage.

"...he's a cutie. Gonna be hard saying goodbye to him once this is all over. I have no idea how long something like this usually takes - a disease of some African wildlife... because they're endangered, I'd imagine it to take less time, but because we don't have enough funding, I'd imagine it'll take more time. Just have to wait and see, I guess."

He looked back over to the door to the bedroom. The mattress in there by far wasn't the most comfortable he'd slept on, and it both felt and smelled like it hadn't been washed in a while, but it was better than sleeping on the concrete floor... or on a pile of dry grass from outside. It would be cleaner to sleep in his clothes than to take them off for bed every night, but with his thick fur, he got too warm to do that.

"Jackal is still showing no signs of the disease. That's good. I'm starting to get attached to him - he's the only dog out of all of these that comes when I call them, or eats the food I give them while I'm looking, or lets me pet him. African wild dog ears are about as warm as they are big, and soft, too. I think the blood-drawing made Jackie grumpy, and he did the same thing that young boys do when they're upset: he sat down and acted all aloof, like he didn't want to feel better, but when I went over and patted his head and gave him a snack, his tail wagged. Ah... well, however, there's no way we'll no for certain whether he's sick or not until the vets come back with his bloodwork. That could be, shit... today, tomorrow, a week from now.

"God." He sighed. His suitcases and bags sat in an untidy stack at the foot of his bed, in the other room. "I should have brought more books to read."

~ ~ ~

Past getting the cages cleaned and ready for the dogs, Levi actually didn't have too much to do. One of the other interns brought a collar and leash on his request, but only one of the animals didn't bark or growl or snap at him when he tried to put it on them to take them for a walk, and after the first three days, he didn't have to put the leash on that one anymore to get him to follow him. Jackal looked good in a red collar, even if it was a little large on him and tattered near the buckle. He just wished it didn't have fleas; after the first time he put it on him, the dog started scratching a little more than usual. Levi couldn't see anything each time he inspected him, though, so he tried to push that worry out of his mind.

The wolf also discovered that Jackal had a liking for milk. Every three days or so, the team's liaison with the nearest town brought back supplies and groceries, and since Levi was slightly lactose intolerant, he just placed his share of the milk in the little fridge beneath the desk in his room - though one day he'd left it out, and Jackal was out of his cage and knocked it over, and when the wolf ran back in to clean up, he saw the wild dog lapping up the mess. If he hadn't known better, he'd have thought that the resultant white stain on Jackal's muzzle was just another splotch in his fur.

Levi tried offering milk to the other dogs - maybe it was a species thing! - but only one of them took it. The adult male that had been present upon his arrival had died after the second week, and a replacement had not been acquired; the wolf had overheard Dr. Marcus telling the hunters that they just needed a 'specimen in the late stages of the disease', and that the research had to be put on hold until they could find one. It had been a sad sight, watching that one get progressively more lethargic - if such a thing could be possible: it was in his breathing, the stirring of his tail, the flicking of his ears. It all got slower, weaker, less hopeful.

Eventually it got to the point where Levi couldn't tell if he was still breathing. When one of the ever-persistent flies that had been buzzing around him and the various puddles of bodily fluids that had started to soak into fur settled on his open eye without him blinking... well, he figured it was time. Other members of the time had started to avoid coming into this building on account to the acrid odor that hovered around that cage, nearest to the door. That was okay: when one of the vets came in to see Levi lounging back in the chair reading a book while Jackal - "that young male" - played with a round rock outside of his cage, the wolf received a lecture about how he's "threatening the integrity of the experiment" and "only making it harder on yourself when we have to leave, why do you think the rest of us try not to get attached to the specimens?"

Specimens. Not all scientists were like that - Levi's first job, watching a housecat with an unseen form of cancer, had been very emotional. The vet for that one had brought the cat up from when she was a kitten... "I remember when Mrs. Hernandez brought Masha here in," the vet told him, "after she'd fallen from a tree and hurt her leg. Oh, what a big fuss Masha was putting up - hissing and writhing and scratching. Turns out she'd just had a splinter and was grouchy because of it. And then there was - did you see how her tail was shorter than other cats? - when she fell asleep in the middle of the road, and only woke up when a truck went over her tail... ah, that was bad... Mrs. Hernandez said, after seeing me a few times, little Masha stopped complaining about going to the vet, always kept quiet... oh, just earlier this year, when I let her out on my table, she started purring and rubbing against me, and I'm trying to hold her in place, 'hold still, little cat', heh, 'it's time for your antibiotic'... even when she couldn't move her legs, she still tried to move her head to rub against me..."

"Levi."

The wolf looked up from his book. He was sitting at the desk in his room, half-absorbed in the chapter and half-absorbed in his own thoughts. Jackal had been locked back in his cage; he'd been planning to take him out again later at night. Dinner would be in an hour or two.

"Yes, Doctor Marcus?"

"Bloodwork came back on the young male."

He closed the book, making sure to mark his page with a claw. "And?"

"It's - amazing. He has the disease-" his heart dropped at that- "-but... his system's almost totally immune to it."

"Almost?"

"He has a slightly weakened immune system as a result, but it's nothing too bad. This'll greatly speed up the research: we're currently thinking that, if this one has an immunity - African wildlife don't exactly do vaccinations - then we know it's at least hereditary..."

Speed up research. So far, about three weeks had passed since the team arrived here - and Levi had only gotten closer and closer to the young male. Some nights, Jackal slept on the end of his bed, so that when the wolf rolled over and stretched his legs out, he could feel the warm weight of the wild dog's body on his feet.

Marcus was still talking. He sounded excited. "...so, if all goes well, once we get the late-stage blood sample - since we'd need a followup from the last one to verify, but unfortunately that one died - we can probably produce an antibiotic and antidote and start giving them to hunters to spread to the local populations, and some of us will... ah, but you know what'll happen. You've read the brief."

"Yes, thank you for letting me know, Doctor."

"My pleasure." The grey cat smiled, lifting his whiskers. "I know you've developed a liking for that young male. Some of the others laugh about it, but humanity is a great thing to have when you're a vet. Always remember that."

And he closed the door. Levi opened his book back up.

~ ~ ~

"Levi Jansen, African Dogs, log number twenty-seven. Good news today. Jackie's got the disease, but he's immune to it. Amazing, really - good for him. Made me glad. Sure, not as happy as if Marcus came back and told me he's clean, but... well, it's good for the research, I guess. Yeah. I should be happier. That means we can all... leave here faster."

The maned wolf really needed to do some serious maintenance on the tracks for his train of though. Tonight he lay back on top of his bed, stripped down to his underwear, with the wild dog in question sitting near the window looking out. The moonlight illuminated the white spot across his left eye, visible to Levi at this angle.

"I bet he misses being outside, with his family and all the space he could ever dream of. I take him on walks almost every day - these days I keep the leash on him because it looks good for the others - and he always wants to go running out into the grasses, but I can't let him. I want to, sort of, but I can't. Honestly, though, I don't know if I'm more afraid of upsetting the doctors, or of not seeing Jackie again. I like to think that he's gotten as fond of me as I am of him.

"I dunno. It's a weird thing to think about. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I'll get out of bed and go over to him, and... brush him with my claws, or trace over the patterns on his back... he likes it. If he's asleep, he'll stretch his body out and make these little squeaking noises, and if he's not, he'll close his eyes and then promptly go to sleep. They say that these things aren't domesticated, but hell, it looks like I've got this one pretty close. He doesn't really like it when I touch his belly, though. Which is a shame. That's the softest part of him."

He'd left the window slightly open tonight, so that the cool night breeze could swirl in around the room. Each time the wind picked up, Jackal lifted his black nose and sniffed at the air. The only noises from outside were the sounds of what of the rest of the camp remained awake, and the whispering of the tall grasses and brush.

"...I made sure to call Mom today, tell her what's going on. I might have gotten excited and let her know the news about Jackal. 'Just let me know if I need to purchase a dog crate,' she said, in that way she does, and... ah. There's a thought. It's impossible, but still a nice thing to think about. Like my first boyfriend in high school, that mink from online... the thought of one day seeing him, hugging him in person, kissing him. Nice thoughts, not a shred of sensible possibility, but nice nonetheless. I never did see him outside of pictures and video calls. And this? What I've got going on with Jackal right now is the closest I'll get to calling him mine.

"Shit, just listen to me. Like-"

The commotion of the African wild dog hopping up onto the bed startled him out of his recording, especially since he hadn't heard or seen him move away from the window. It seemed like those yellow eyes gave off light of their own, like the moon halfway into an eclipse: in the wan light filtering in through the window, all Levi could really see of the dog was his eyes, the shape of his muzzle, and the white patches along his body and underside. His sheath underneath was stark cream-white.

He honestly expected the dog to curl up and fall asleep right there near his feet like he usually did, but no: instead, Jackal watched Levi's muzzle for a few seconds longer, tilted his head, and then started stepping forward, further up along the bed. The wolf's thumb fell away from the 'record' button, and he shifted to the side to allow the beast more room to walk - he'd felt the claws on those paws before, and while they were slightly blunted, they still hurt.

"Hello, Jackal."

As he expected, those black dinner-plate ears flicked at the sound of his name. Jackal's tongue lolled out of his mouth - tepid pink was hard to miss even in this bad lighting - and his tail stirred. He'd stopped moving forward when his front paws came to within a few inches of Levi's inner shoulder.

"Can I help y-"

Without notice, the wild dog leaned in and dragged his tongue up along the side of the maned wolf's muzzle in a quick lick, taking him by surprise. Levi struggled with wiping the sticky animal saliva off his face - tasted funny; he'd gotten some in his mouth - and once he had, he looked back down at the dog to scold him. Jackal, however, stood there with his ears perked and tail wagging, and the wolf's complaint died in his throat.

Then, just as he was about to say something else, the African wild dog lay down where he stood and rested his muzzle across Levi's arm. The wolf, speechless yet again, just did nothing for a moment; then, slowly, carefully, he brought that arm up around the dog and scooted him closer. Jackal responded by rolling onto his side, back pressed against Levi's side, and then breathed out a gentle huff - and settled down to go to sleep.

A light click resounded through the room when Levi moved his thumb to the stop button on his recorder. He could feel Jackal's body shift against his own and against the mattress beneath them with each slow breath - inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale... he tried to avoid brushing his paw against the dog's belly, since he knew how he didn't like that, and instead just traced small circles in the fur of his side with a claw. Soon the dog's breathing balanced out into a steadier, slower rhythm, and his ears and tail went limp.

Levi remained awake for quite a bit longer, just feeling Jackal's heartbeat beneath his paw and his breathing against his side. Thank God he'd remembered to lock the door tonight - this would be rather embarrassing for someone to walk in on... though really, of all the feelings running through him right now, 'embarrassment' was among the least prevalent.

~ ~ ~

The next morning, he woke up with a still-asleep and now drooling African wild dog on his shoulder; Jackal had rolled over at some point during the night, but was still sprawled out with two of his legs held close to his body while the other two reached out over Levi's bare chest. Here I am being held like I haven't been in... what, seven years now... and it's a feral dog doing it.

He couldn't feel upset about that, though. Something prevented him from it, an odd warmth pulsing in his chest. Even though the sun had risen above the horizon and cast its bright yellow-orange rays in through the window, still ajar from last night, Levi remained lying down - he didn't want to disturb Jackal. Besides, at this angle he could watch his face while slept, and if there was anything cuter than a sleeping dog... each time his ears flicked looked like a flag waving, where one part of it started the movement and then the opposite end finished a short time later. Levi lifted his paw and gently caressed one of those black ears between the pads of his thumb and forefinger... a bowl this size, if filled with stew, would probably be able to feed the entire population of the nearest town for a day and a half.

Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration. Also slightly racist.

Jackal stirred awake about a full hour after when Levi should have gotten up to clean out the other cages - and only did so because the wolf noticed a speck of dirt beneath the dog's eye and tried to rub it off, only succeeding in startling the poor young wild dog awake. Jackal looked around, twitched his whiskers, flicked his ears, and then stood up, stretched, and hopped down off the bed. Suddenly Levi's side felt a lot colder, prompting him to get up, too.

The once nice thing that would come from being done with this whole trip would be that he'd finally get to sleep in again. Today didn't count; everyone owed themselves a nice break every now and then.

All throughout the day, he found himself wishing for time to pass faster so he could climb back into bed, and for a different reason than what he was used to. He also didn't have the heart to lock Jackal in his cage at all today; the young African wild dog stayed near him while he worked around this building, and when he left for any reason, he'd come along and keep close to his legs. Levi thought he could see or hear some of the others quietly talking about it, but he didn't pay it any mind.

Then the time came for him to call his mother for today. She didn't pick up, so he left a message: he told her the news about Jackal and the disease (and then couldn't remember if he'd told her that he'd decided to name the wild dog, so he put that in, too), then shared his opinion about the food here, the temperatures at night, the way the air smells, the sunsets... it was strange; he just felt... better today than he did yesterday. The sun gleamed down through a space in the clouds like a huge, bright golden-yellow eye; Levi squinted against it while giving his usual "I love you, and miss you, Mom. Talk to you later."

Something had changed. He ate lunch in silence, though not quite on his own: Jackal continually pawed at his leg to share, and Levi continually obliged him. The hours came and went without so much as a visit from the scientists or anyone else on the team - and that was perfectly alright. One of the other 'specimens' started vomiting uncontrollably near dinnertime, though, and Levi spent a rather unpleasant twenty minutes cleaning everything up and trying to keep that one comfortable through the nausea, and thought that Jackal felt a little jealous because of all that attention.

And, then, later that night, something else changed.

~ ~ ~

"...Levi Jansen, African Dogs, log number... um, twenty-eight? Hard time recording this. I'm... blushing, I'm shaking all over. At first I was hoping to use these logs as - I dunno - something to back up my resume, but... after this...

"The night before last was the first time that Jackal slept with me, of his own accord. Hopped up in bed with me, curled up, fell asleep... well, to go along with that, just this past night... ah. We... 'slept' together. I don't - really know how it started; I was on my back reading my book for the second time, in my boxers like usual, and then all of a sudden Jackie hops up onto the bed, and he's sniffing at my feet and legs, and then - and then I feel him nuzzle up... between my legs, like... y'know...

"I tried to push him away, tried to be responsible, but he kept on coming back. I've always thought of... this... as like eloping with a high school relationship partner: it's the proper thing to get the permission of the parents and let them know, but... hell, we're in the wild. This is Africa. This isn't someone's pet who's - sniffing at me, licking at me, getting me all hot and bothered... there's no one to ask permission from. It felt... wrong, sort of, but God. It felt so good.

"This... isn't the first time I've done something with a feral. God, no. This time, though, it was all different. Just - knowing this was Jackie, the African wild dog who first avoided me, whose sister or daughter died under my care, who... quickly developed a bond with me... the African wild dog who I'm supposed to be taking care of, and yet - hah - last night, he sure as hell took care of me with that tongue of his. I figured, the door's locked, the window's closed and the curtains are drawn, who has to know? Tugged my boxers down - by then I was already hard, after he licked at me at a few times through the fabric; and, God, I'm hard again just thinking about it - and put my book to the side, and... reached down, rubbed behind his ear...

"He just kept on licking. Wide, pink tongue, moist, warm - so damn warm... I didn't have to hold him down. I didn't have to keep him in place. It's like he knew what that would do to me and enjoyed it. Didn't take long at all: it'd been a few days since I'd last gotten off, and Christ, that tongue... had to dig my claws into the mattress and bite my lip, and still ended up gasping. Shot all over my chest; Jackal licked it all up, coming up along my body as he did so. The last of it landed on my collarbone. After he licked there, he looked up at me.

"I licked him back. I don't know - I just couldn't, I mean, I thought that - well... it felt like the right thing to do. It was like when he abruptly licked the side of my face that one night, except this was on me, it was my choice, and... I'm glad I did it. Licked his nose; his tail wagged, and then he flicked his tongue out to lick his nose, too. Tail still wagging. I was trying to catch my breath, closed my eyes, and because of that it took me by surprise when I felt that tongue against my own nose and lips - and, hell, again, I licked him right back. I'm... blushing like hell now, saying it, but... I couldn't tell if it was pleasure of the orgasm or the pleasure of - kissing him that made me shiver like I did then. I still don't know now, the next morning. I-"

Levi thought he heard a noise of someone outside, and ceased retelling his story - with this hot blush burning his cheeks and this obvious bulge in his underwear, he was quite glad that he wasn't supposed to be awake for another hour and a half. Nobody should come in to bother him. While waiting for the sound to die down, which it quickly did, he let his eyes come to rest on Jackal, asleep on his back at the foot of the bed.

"...I guess I didn't realize just how close to this damn dog I'd gotten. I don't know if he did that to me because he felt like he owed me for something, or because he - he likes me, but... I wanted to pay him back, for both my own pleasure and his. After some time had passed, after I'd let the shock of 'I really just did that' die down - fuck, I could still taste him on my tongue; kind of... a flat taste, slimy, but not unpleasant - I... went down towards him, put a paw on his belly - he doesn't like that - but, he let me, and... rolled him over on to his back, spread his legs.

"The pattern of his fur carried over down to his belly, and I sort of got distracted looking at all of the colors. But - moving down, following the splotches, the little bumps of his nipples... it didn't take long for me to get my mind back on track. I think he knew what I had in mind, too. A little bit of pink was already showing at the end of his sheath even before I leaned in to nuzzle him, just as he had me.

"I've handled dogs before. They're not exactly fans of just blowjobs. So, of course, I - shit, I'm... gonna have to rub one out after finishing this... - started... rubbing him with a paw, getting him the rest of the way out of his sheath. I didn't expect him to take it without moving or complaining, but he did. He only started moving when I squeezed below his knot, and when he did, it was to thrust into my paw and muzzle.

"I was so turned on. I didn't know what I was doing anymore, or why. I remember - swallowing him down, replacing that other taste in my mouth with a new one, and then I kicked my underwear off, got down on the floor on my paws and knees, lifted my tail to him...

"He's a lot heavier when he's pressing down on your back, as opposed to when you've got him in your arms. God - I'm no stranger to bottoming, but this dog... made me gasp, made me yelp, made me moan and grunt and make all sorts of other noises. Uncomfortable at first - always is when you're taking a feral dog; they don't know how to slow down or be gentle - but, Jesus, I swear that damn pup put me through two more orgasms, the first hands-free. I remember reaching down to paw off, and I was already slick all over... looked down, saw something streaked across the floor beneath me; hell, I might've came already. My mind was all over everywhere at that time."

He cast an eye over to the door before reaching a paw down to tug his boxers past his hard, throbbing length. "Before setting out on this trip, I'd read that African wild dogs' knots hardly last for a minute. This was good, and also true. As much as I'd like to have him tied six inches under my tail for forty-five minutes out of the hour - that's an exaggeration, the twenty-something seconds that we were tied felt both a lot longer and considerably painful; my rear is still sore - I was starting to get really nervous about the whole thing... last time I did this with a dog, he wouldn't stop trying to mount me in public. Maybe I'll have to start putting Jackie in his cage during the day again. I hate that idea, but..."

Later that day, the hunters finally returned with their 'late-stage specimen'; Levi didn't hear about it until fairly well into the evening, as the scientists had decided to draw the blood and run all their tests as soon as possible, in the case that this one give out as well. It was hard on the maned wolf, setting up a cage as comfortably as possible for something that could hardly enjoy it due to the shivers and nausea wracking its body.

He kept his word and locked Jackal in his cage from lunch through dinner, but past that felt both too bad and too lonely in his bed to keep him there. The young African wild dog padded out of his cage when he was let out, ears drooped down; Levi knelt down and drew him into a hug, and with that, those large ears perked back up and his tail wagged again. Then, the wolf received another lick to his muzzle, which he happily returned - and then blushed, realizing that he'd left the door to the building open.

That night followed a similar course to the previous one, except this time, Jackal was the one on all fours with Levi pumping into him; the dog seemed to enjoy this, too, since when the wolf reached a paw down to get him off, he closed it around an already-throbbing shaft, spurting little jets of pre all across the sheets on the bed.

Then, the next morning, Levi wasn't feeling too good. Maybe he hadn't been getting enough sleep recently, or maybe he really shouldn't have drank that milk that smelled kind of funny: instead of a wet nose under his chin or a quiet dogsneeze, the first thing to wake him up was a wave of nausea shuddering through his body. It wasn't quite enough to make him vomit, but close; he just hardly made it to the outside door in his boxers before he got hold of one of the other team members and told her about what was going on. It was the weasel that he'd had the hotel room with.

"Damn, I'm sorry," she said. Levi couldn't help but notice how her nose and then eyes flicked down to the wild dog at his heels. "I'll talk to one of the vets and see if they can watch the animals today. Normally, I'd ask why that one is out of its cage, but I don't want you to have your mouth open for longer than you have to... something else might come up with those words. You know."

"Yeah," the maned wolf managed, before stumbling back towards his room. He had to slouch down in the chair near the table; it still faced Jackal's cage. The wild dog padded over and rested his head on one of his legs, looking up at him with soft yellow eyes.

"...Okay, boy..." he breathed, wiping the back of his paw across his forehead. "Gotta put you back in your cage. Someone else is gonna watch you today. Okay? That alright?"

Jackal nuzzled his paw and then licked it. Levi tried to herd him into his cage, but he wouldn't go.

"C'mon... Jackie... I'm not feeling well..."

Maybe it was the tone of his voice, but after another minute, he obeyed and curled up near the back wall, just like he'd done the first few days. Levi felt a little bad leaving him there, but it was for the nest. This didn't last long, though: again he started to feel lonely at night, especially after waking up around 2 AM with sweat soaking into the pillow beneath his head and the ghost of a bad dream fleeing the corners of his consciousness. Jackal gave him a few tepid licks on the side of his muzzle, then settled down beside him and watched him until he fell back asleep.

~ ~ ~

Things hadn't improved by the next morning - in fact, they'd gotten worse. He figured he just caught the flu or something (he'd told his mom about it during the previous day's call; "oh my God," she'd shouted, "my son has malaria!", before he spent the next fifteen minutes explaining how it couldn't possibly be malaria), and figured it best to play it safe and remain in bed. If he could remain standing for longer than two minutes without having to lean on something or someone, he'd much prefer to go about his daily business - as he'd finished the last book he'd brought with him, and was now out of things to do other than look up various things on his phone.

At one point, Dr. Marcus came in to see how he was doing. After entering the cat promptly scowled down at Jackal, who sat by the windowsill watching the grass outside sway in the wind, and the birds fly through the sky.

"That animal should be in a cage, Jansen. Especially with you sick like this."

"Oh, don't worry, Doctor, it's fine..." Jackal's ears had perked at the opening of the door, and now, the African wild dog looked back at the visitor with wary eyes. "He's fairly tame. Shouldn't hurt you."

"Technically, I should report this, but... well. I'd be careful about using that word, Levi. Even though his infection is asymptomatic, it's still there. If he were to bite someone, they could catch it, too; we still don't know everything about this disease..."

"I appreciate your concern. I said tame, not tamed... did you need something?"

The grey cat looked nervous about having the wild dog out of any sort of confinement. He hid partially behind the door. "Did... have you been bitten at all? By any of them?"

At this, Levi's heart caught in his throat. He covered up his sudden nervousness by pretending to have been hit with another wave of dizziness, which... wasn't too far away from the truth. "N... no, sir."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir."

"Alright. Well... let me know if anything changes, okay? Come straight to my office immediately if you notice any symptoms like what they have. I'm worried that it could be airborne... and besides, out of all of us, you've undoubtedly spent the most time near them... just let me know, alright?"

"Will do, sir. Thanks for checking in on me."

After the door clicked shut again, Levi looked down: Jackal had turned his eyes to the maned wolf again.

"Don't worry, Jackie. Things are going to be alright."

~ ~ ~

But, of course, they weren't. He woke up at several points during the night, and had progressively more trouble falling asleep after each one; when he got up around 4 AM to spit a disgusting glob of something out of his mouth, he realized that he couldn't quite wipe the fogginess of sleep out of his eyes, but figured he was just really tired. Ever since he first fell ill, he hadn't been sleeping well.

And, then, he woke up with the bright sunlight on his face and realized that there was something else obscuring his vision. He didn't want to believe it until he looked down and saw a strange thin swath of fur across his arm - or, rather, a lack of fur in that shape.

He rolled out of bed, startling Jackal, and stumbled over to Dr. Marcus's building. The cat had just gotten in, and as such quickly responded when he heard the calls of "Doctor! Doctor, come here, right now!"

"What?" He opened the door and looked out, then focused his gaze on the maned wolf. "Jesus, Levi, you look terrible. What's wrong? Is there... something in your eye?"

"You need to take a sample of my blood. Right now."

"Yeah..." Marcus helped him to his feet, never taking his eyes off his muzzle. "Yes, of course. Just this way..."

~ ~ ~

"Levi Jansen, African Dogs, log number... fuck, I don't know, thirty-three?

"So. Not only does it turn out that the disease is transmittable between species, but... it's an STD. And guess who's got it?

"God. FUCK. How am I gonna explain this to Mom? Marcus was wrong - it can't be spread through being bitten; only through being fucked. That's embarrassing. All of the other doctors knew what I'd done as soon as the discovery was made - I could see them looking at me. Just... hid myself in my room until something happened. At least I didn't have to tell Jackie, right? Hah. Ha ha.

"Ross sent Marcus to talk to me about it afterwards. Said it's not fatal to non-ferals - I don't know how they know that - but... it's contagious. Can be treated but not cured; more than just an infection. Which means that I won't be able to have any partners other than Jackal. He sat down in my room, talked with me about it... he sounded understanding and sorry, but... there was something else in his voice.

"Barnes, the leader of this whole expedition - I've spoken to him once, and that was to sign up - called me personally into his office, after I'd been administered the first strain of the serum and recovered a little. He was... God. I was ready to die right then and there. 'You did WHAT?! Jesus fuckin' Christ, Jansen, why the hell would you...' bah. I just kept my mouth shut. I've learned that this isn't something you can just explain to people that have chosen to be against it.

"My license as an animal caretaker has been indefinitely revoked, I've been fired from my position here and kicked off the team, and they're flying me home tomorrow morning. When the word first got out... they told me I was no longer allowed to see any of the animals. Don't know why I expected anything different. It's always the same - admit you're attracted to one feral, they assume you have an insatiable lust for all of them. That's not how it works. That's not at all how it works. But- I..."

Levi trailed off and let his paw holding the recorder to drop into his lap. Not like he was planning for anyone other than himself to actually listen to these logs. It was night now, and he hadn't yet gathered any of his things together. Nobody had bothered him, thank God, and he was feeling a little less ill. Still couldn't fully see out of one eye, though.

He felt lonely tonight, just like last night, and the night before, and the night before, but there was nothing he could do about that.

The wolf picked up the recorder again. "So there's half a year gone to waste..." but he didn't mean this. He'd gotten a lot of things from this trip, and only one of them was disease. The one thing that meant the most to him now lay curled up in a cage in a building on the other side of the camp, sunlight-citrine eyes undoubtedly tired and radar-dish ears drooped.

~ ~ ~

It took years - five, to be exact - but eventually Levi got his caretaker license back. Even though Barnes had yelled at him quite fiercely about the whole thing, Marcus - with whom the wolf had remained in touch with - told him that the leader had actually gone out of his way to keep the issue overseas and out of the wolf's personal life as best he could. Now, Levi worked as an underling at the zoo near his house, cleaning up after the animals and pitching in his advice when needed.

When he learned that there was going to be an African wild dog exhibit, his heart skipped a few beats, but he forced that emotion back down. There's no way it could be the same ones he'd worked with - those ones were sick, anyway; he hadn't heard any news of the serum for the disease, other than what was periodically shipped to him to treat his - and had also been almost entirely cut off from everyone. It was an awkward subject to cross with Dr. Marcus, so he avoided that when he could.

Levi intentionally stayed on the other side of the zoo when the wild dogs arrived, and intentionally did not go over there for the week after. However, his job priorities soon came to him, and he had to head that way to clean things up and prepare for the next day. He'd expected some sort of comment or hint from his coworkers, but nobody said anything.

The enclosure itself was a sad imitation of the real African wilds, but a damn lot better than spacy iron cages. Levi tried not to think about the memories that this scenery brought up in him - it was a damn long time ago anyway, and many of those memories were fading - and instead focused on how the tree looked like it was made of cardboard, how the grass was just really long unkempt blades of the regular kind that grew here, how the water was so clear...

...and then the time came to clean the back area, where the animals were temporarily being kept for him to clean the main enclosure. There were six of them, lined up: four were asleep, and one, a young female, wagged at him as he passed. He tried not to look at them. The last one scratched at the glass.

Levi bent down to continue sweeping. Only last year had he deleted the pictures off his phone - Jackal, he'd called that one African wild dog, the one that led him to all of this. He called him Jackal, partially to be funny and partially because his ears were vaguely triangular. Some female relation of Jackal had died, and Levi had put his finger through the bars, and the dog sniffed at it, looked at him...

There was more scratching from the glass behind him, followed by a low yip. And then there was the time where Levi found out that Jackal liked milk - and how he didn't really like having his belly touched, but after a certain amount of time, he'd let the wolf... and Levi was the only one who could bring him in to get his blood taken, and he could walk him around the site without having to put a leash or collar on him (though he still did sometimes because it was cute)... and once everything had gone to shit, he snuck one last picture with the dog, one that had remained the background on his phone for a good year and a half. He'd gotten to learn that dog's face so quickly, and then after not seeing him for so long, the details just started to feel slightly wrong.

He only turned around when that low yipping turned to whining and whimpering - maybe something was wrong with the dog, maybe it had gotten its paw caught on something, or... or...

Yellow eyes, the color of polished citrines illuminated by the sun; a patch of white fur stretching over the left eye; large dinnerplate ears, somewhat triangular in shape; and, a wagging tail; and clawmarks on the other side of the glass that quickly were being dug deeper.

He couldn't believe his eyes. The broom fell away from his paws just as the maned wolf fell to his knees. This one was a male, an adult in his prime, but... but he...

Technically, Levi had the keys to these doors, but wasn't allowed to use them unless it was an emergency. Technically it was a punishable offence for him to let any animals out - and if anyone from the African Dogs research caught wind of it, technically, he could be imprisoned for quite a length of time.

However, it all felt right when he found himself pushed over onto his back with a familiar African wild dog on top of him, tail wagging so hard that his rump swayed with it. It all felt right when that broad tongue dragged up the side of his muzzle, and then his cheek, and then his lips. It all felt right when he straightened up and threw his arms around the dog. It all felt right when he buried his muzzle in the fur of Jackal's neck and breathed his scent, like the sand and cinnamon that had lent their colors to his body, between soft sobs.

From then on, every day he had work Levi made sure to go by the African wild dog enclosure. Each time he did, that adult male would bound forward to the glass and put his front paws up against it for the maned wolf, stunning whichever visitors were there at the time; Levi would put his nose to the glass, and Jackal would, too, and the two would just look at each other for a span for a few seconds - amber to sunlight yellow - and then the day would continue until night. And then, each night Levi would wait until everyone else had left - oftentimes this meant him working up to fifteen-hour shifts, or he'd clock out early and stay behind - and he'd make his way back to the enclosure.

At first he was worried about the other dogs' reactions to him, but he never got more than a questioning sniff or a tilted head. Maybe they knew how Jackal felt about him. Gradually he started to wonder if, maybe, this was an arm of a wild dog pack, of which Jackal was the alpha... and that explained why, in breeding season, none of the others mated. Levi had read online that, in an African wild dog pack, only the alpha couple were allowed to mate.

One night, he walked in to promptly be knocked down onto his back by the same large male who greeted him here every night. Levi leaned up, gave Jackal his kisses, and started to stand up... until he saw the reddish-pink throbbing length protruding from a cream-colored sheath between the dog's legs.

Levi grinned.