FSE

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Chapter 6.

08:40, Friday, the 5th of February, 2029.

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Charlotte reminded me sometimes of people that I’d met during an apprenticeship to a fairly prestigious bank.

The huffy ones, lacking any real-world experience or hardships to iron them out, coasting on familial connections. Not bad, per se -- everyone lived different lives -- just… irritating.

The dog across from me, with her stupidly expensive jumper and ridiculously fluffy ears, was such a liar. I'd gone to school for business; I could practically smell when someone was trying to bullshit me, and every single thing Charlotte had said that day had been an act, and not a very good one.

She was wildly, undeniably, heartbreakingly upset.

Really, I didn't even need the practice to see that. The fact she'd ‘forced’ a date out of me tugged far too hard at my heartstrings. I'd have probably gone if she'd just asked outright. I didn't quite get what we were, not really, and it still felt… weird… the whole thing.

I liked her, I knew that much, but it had all happened so fast that I didn't know how much -- not even a week and we'd already slept together while piss drunk. So fucking the first year of college.

What I didn't like were the stares. Christ. I didn't know how celebrities managed it.

Literally everyone with eyes and a working brainstem was watching us, waiting for something to happen.

In fact…

“Do you mind not staring?” I, a little too loudly, asked the man at the table beside ours. Charlotte, sundae still stuck to the end of her long muzzle, looked up at me, then over at the older bloke and his wife, her brow crinkling with poorly hidden nerves.

The man balked, sitting upright and stiff-spined. “Excuse me?”

“I asked you not to stare at-" I froze for just a moment, my mind rubber-banding back into place because, really, what even were we? “...us.” Because that felt safer. What would she even do, I wondered, if I called her my girlfriend? Or even just my friend?

Catch-22.

The man sputtered out some excuse that I immediately blanked on, as my focus was already back on Charlotte and how she lifted her snout up in exaggerated pride, her scarlet eyes flickering over to me, uncertain, then down at the remains of her treat.

I got up, the chair scraping as I pushed it back, and, standing fully, I raised an arm to crack at the elbow. “Be a sec,” I said, clear enough for her to hear me. She didn’t say anything.

At the counter, I ordered two cookie doughs with vanilla ice cream and a snack pot of sour, fizzy sweets, which I hid poorly in the pocket of my jacket.

For the cookie dough, I got a takeout box and slid both in. “And what do you think you're doing?” Charlotte asked when I got back to our table, a brow raised. “I like it here.”

“Nah,” I grumbled, pushing my chair back in fully and sorting the table out, wiping the surface down with an only slightly stained paper tissue. “We, uh, we're heading out.” And then the ice cream on her face, which she let me do without argument.

Charlotte's nose twitched, long whiskers twitching. “Where?” She sat up straighter, her posture prim and proper, the sleeves of her jumper ruffling. “I doubt you'd know anywhere suitable.”

“Yeah, no dip. I don't live here.” Despite her apparent complaints, she followed, jumping theatrically from the cushioned bench and falling into step right beside me. “But I've got an idea.”

“An idea…?” She mimicked, incredulous. “Now this I've got to see.”

The warm inside of the diner was traded for the bitter air of the outside world. The cardboard takeout box was a bit of a misery to carry, especially since it basically a pizza box, but I wasn't like I was about to leave it on the floor.

I led her back to the car, speed walking nearly, doing my best to avoid the scant few people loitering around at 9am on a Friday. I unlocked the passenger side door and crawled in.

Charlotte followed wordlessly, and I was glad that she'd quieted up just a little.

I still felt… off after what she'd said.

Ice cream was just the start, apparently.

I needed to prove myself, apparently

I wasn't sure how to feel about that. The indignation sat in my chest like I’d swallowed something wrong, and I chewed on it for a second before deciding it wasn't worth the energy. She was hurting. I'd hurt her. The math wasn't complicated even if the rest of it was.

I started the car. It wheezed, caught, and grumbled to life beneath us.

Charlotte had slunk over to the back seat at some point, which I only noticed when I checked the mirror and found her there, curled loosely atop the frayed seats, watching the town slide past the window.

I didn't say anything.

The town thinned out almost immediately. Shopfronts gave way to terraced houses, then to the kind of quiet residential streets that all looked the same to me, then to hedgerows and open fields beyond. The GPS muttered directions in that flat, unhurried voice that always made me feel like I was being managed.

In the mirror, Charlotte's head shifted with the turns. Not dramatically. Just the faint, automatic adjustment of a canine, tracking sounds I couldn't hear. A lorry passing the other way. Birds, maybe.

Her nose twitched once.

I kept driving.

The GPS announced the park half a kilometre before it appeared, which gave me enough time to clock the blur of a makeshift fair on the far side of the road – a few sad-looking rides, tents that had seen better weather, and a van selling something fried. A ragtag operation that Charlotte didn't seem to notice.

I pulled in, found a space near the far end of the car park, and cut the engine.

The silence without the car noise was immediate and slightly too loud.

Old oak trees. Freshly cut grass. Women in short tops jogging the gravel paths like it was the most natural thing in the world. I sat back, head pressed into the spongy surface of the headrest, and let myself just stop moving for a second.

Charlotte leaned forward, paws pressing into the back of my seat, metal thumb bending for an easier grip as she peered through the windscreen at whatever verdict she was forming about this place.

I waited for it.

“Did you truly think it a wise idea to bring me to a dog park, espèce d'imbécile?” She ground out, one crimson eye staring at me sidelong.

I brushed past her to unlock and half-heartedly kick the car door open. “This isn’t a dog park; it’s a park park, and we're here because think I’ve started to get your… issue.”

Her eyes shot open, brow muscles rising high. “Excuse me?” She squeaked, climbing over to the driver side and shambling out, almost tumbling onto the pavement. “My issue, Max? My only issue is you.” She stood up, curls falling in all directions, tail high and tense.

Fur stuck out from the edges of her jumper’s collar.

Very natural.

Kind of cute, truth be told. I almost wanted to ask her to take it off – it wasn’t like she had cleavage to cover up, I reasoned. Not that I hadn’t appreciated what she did have the other night, all nine of them, but still.

Car now locked and one hand in my pocket, I took a quiet moment to look around. It was an unfairly nice-looking place, I thought, so scenic it felt almost fake. The grass was too green; the people too calm and at ease. Not nearly as… rough… as a place like it might’ve been in my uni’s town.

I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d actually seen a woman jogging with wired earphones and sweat pants. It looked like a commercial.

“Are you even listening to me?” She snapped, close to my side now.

“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking.”

I looked down at her, at how she'd folded her hindlegs beneath her on reflex, her sharp eyes roaming about the place, black lips twitching. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, I noticed at last, and it made her seem younger for it. Less domineering and more…

Charlotte.

I hadn’t even really thought about her name, but it was very human.

Charlotte. I could almost picture her as some bossy young woman with curly black hair and dark brown eyes. Hand on her hip, with a scornful look on her face. Smooth caramel skin.

“Thinking?” She snarked, head tilted just slightly, expression flat. “I’d be careful there. I wouldn’t want you to strain anything.” Her eyes narrowed, lip curling. “If you died, who else could ruin my mornings so excellently?”

An uncomfortable, prickling heat blossomed and rolled behind my ribs. I folded my arms over my chest and swayed on the balls of my feet, still balancing the takeout box. “I was thinking about what you’d look like,” I admitted, my words coming out more wistful and aged than I’d meant them to. “As a human.”

“As a real woman , you mean?” I’d come to expect a lot from her, even that exact question, but not the raw anger behind the words. It actually made me flinch, the sound of her snarling, and her muzzle wrinkling like she were about to snap at me.

But when I looked her in the eyes, heart pounding, she softened.

“You are a real woman,” I said honestly.

The fury didn’t fade completely. It flickered, coming back and then disappearing in fragments. “...And what would I look like?”

“Short,” I said without hesitation, as I began walking forwards, trainers crunching audibly against the gravel pathway. “With, uh, curly hair and…” I glanced back over at her, at the stark crimson in her eyes. “Pretty brown eyes.”

The skin just faintly visible beneath her eyes flushed red before she stifled herself. “Short?” she said instead, forcing a smirk that was brittle at both ends. “I’m quite tall for my breed, I’ll have you know; it's why my father purchased me and not any of my siblings.”

A woman with a stroller and a crying baby passed us. She paid us no mind.

“Jack bought you because you’re tall?”

“I used to be a show dog -- I've mentioned this,” she reminded me, nodding shallowly. “It was a hobby of his, but when other dogs began to change, he took me out of it. He kept me at home, safe and secure.” She wet her chops. “I think he thought it might pass, but… well… it didn’t.” Her head rose and her vision locked onto the dogs at the park, with their required cyan collars and dopey expressions and the dimness in their eyes.

“He infected you on purpose?”

She kept watching the regular dogs. They looked so happy in their innocence. Playing with balls or kids and chasing sticks. No thoughts beyond instincts and love.

There was joy in ignorance, I supposed, ignoring how my stomach rolled uncomfortably.

“He was going to breed me, I think, but then he realised that wasn’t going to happen. I was kept at home until some idiotic scientists refined the virus, focused it, and sold it, and he bought it. I… I woke up to a needle in my spine and a whole new world.”

Everything in me was frozen.

Because as a dog, that was all normal, at least… mostly. I knew of breeders and how that usually resulted in… No. No. This was already fucked up, but with the context that she could now-

Cccconsent?

Christ, I could barely even think properly.

“H-He was going to breed you?”

She nodded. “I think with a distant cousin. Good hips, you see.”

“R-Right.” My heart thumped audibly in my ears, blood hot and heavy. “And then he- the serum? Gen two?”

Her tail, and the silly little puffball at the end, bent crookedly downward.

“He realised I couldn’t be his pet project, so I became his ward instead. Legally I’m his daughter, and he seems to treat me like one.” The Labrador in the distance tripped over its own paws as it rushed back, a splintered branch held in its mouth. Its owner wrestled the thing out of its mouth, made to throw it, hesitated, then laughed when the thing spun around in mad circles. “Most of the time.” Her lips trembled even when she pressed them so tightly together that her glaringly white fangs peeked over.

“What about your brother?” I asked, trying to sound steady for her. Her whiskers twitched and she swallowed thickly. “Can you not… talk to him?”

“He left,” she said quickly. “Didn’t want to work for Father his whole life, apparently, and got his own place. He gets money sometimes, but I think he has a job… and a boyfriend.” Her tail jerked to the left, then raised up, tense. “A-Alex. Some human he met online.”

“Oh.”

The wind blew, brushing against the branches of trees, leaves rustling. Someone’s picnic blanket was half blown away, but they laughed and saved the jam sandwiches from getting covered in grass and twigs.

Charlotte was steeling herself.

I watched it in slow motion out of the corner of my eyes.

The way she closed her eyes and inhaled sharply through her nose, chest expanding and expression shifting into faux-apathy. “But really~” she began, her voice sharp and almost mocking. “He’s only a half brother, so no great loss. A mutt, really. His father was some Saluki mix.”

She stared up at me, trying to smirk, but I was too weak to meet her gaze. I was busy staring off into the treeline, mind empty, chest hollow, hating the ache in the sides of my neck and the faint sting in my eyes.

Pathetic.

“Max.”

I could see blackberry bushes in the distance. Big ones. According to my older brother, they could live for fifteen years, the roots at least. Perennial, or something. He'd once made jam out of the shrubs in our garden.

Way too sweet. He’d cooked them on the pan.

“W-What are you doing?”

“Uh.” I swallowed, looked away, rubbed at my eyes with the back of a hand I freed from my trouser pocket, and stepped away. “Nothing. My eyes just kind of hurt.”

She huffed, sniffed again, and turned away from me completely. “You’re such a-"

Another sniff.

I couldn't look at her, but she could me.

“Max. Why-”

A dog ran up to us. Some young pup with faint brown fur and wide blue eyes, open and excited, tail wagging and tongue lolling. He panted, watching us both, then he ran up to Charlotte, sniffling at her and running between her long, lithe legs, trying to nip at her tail.

But she just pounced. She flipped him over with a forepaw and snarled. Hackles rising and lips pulled back in such a vicious, unnecessary growl it made my heart skip and the puppy yelp. It yipped and cried and ran away as quickly as its little legs would allow.

The park went strangely quiet around us.

Charlotte stayed frozen in that aggressive crouch, breathing hard, floppy ears flat against her skull. Slowly, ever so slowly, the hatred drained from her face. She stared at her own forepaw like it belonged to someone or something else. The metal prosthetic thumb whirred softly as she flexed it, pads turning upward as if searching for an answer.

I remained quiet, uncertain. The kind of tense silence where speaking felt like a danger unless you knew exactly which words to pick. It reminded me of when I’d gotten my parents mad or forgotten homework. But I couldn’t stand there gormless forever.

“I mean–" Her eyes snapped to me immediately, wide and still dangerous-seeming. I didn't flinch. “...He kind of started it.”

The tightness in her jaw eased a fraction, and her shoulders lowered, haunches lightening. “He did.” Her thumb still whirred, and whilst she was still watching me, but something was different.

She suddenly became very, very hard to read. Less an archetype of sophistication or some desperate poser, but instead this… girl.

A girl with the fluff of my car’s cheap-ass seats stuck to her furry cheek. I leaned down and picked it clean, throwing it aside and standing fully. “Let’s sit down.” Not waiting, I began walking, the ice cream atop the cookie dough likely already goopy.

She followed without arguing.

I rubbed at my eyes again and prayed she didn't see it. Even my chest still ached, but I had to be there for her. Someone in her life had to be.

I found a bench set back from the path under one of the older oaks, far enough that the joggers and the kite and the people with their rescued sandwiches were more background noise than anything else. I sat and opened the box on my knee.

The cookie doughs were warm mush, I found out immediately, grimacing. The ice cream had gone completely, sinking into it. Two plastic spoons sat upright in the carnage.

I handed her one anyway.

She took it, settled beside me, haunches folding beneath her automatically, tail curling loose around her own hind leg. She looked at the box. Then the spoon. Then I started eating without comment, quietly and methodically.

I did the same.

Around us the park kept going. Someone's kite climbed unevenly against the grey sky. The Labrador from before was being clipped back onto its lead somewhere behind us, still grinning its dopey grin, the branch long abandoned in the grass.

…I thought about needles.

About waking up.

One day a dog, and then not-a-dog. No warning, no gradual anything. Just a spine and a serum and a whole new world on the other side of it, and before that, Jack looking at her and seeing scores. ‘Good hips’ was still in my mind like an earworm. She'd just existed inside all of that. Not knowing it was wrong because there hadn't been enough of her yet to know anything.

My spoon hit the bottom of the box.

I thought about Charlie. Gay, apparently. Saluki mix for a father, which she'd said like an insult, and maybe it was. A human called Alex and a job.

He's only a half brother. No great loss.

The wind moved through the oak above us. A leaf came loose and drifted down, landing on the arm of the bench between us.

"...Not bad," Charlotte said eventually, voice soft; a far cry from the vicious snarl.

"Considering it's basically soup? Yeah."

She took another spoonful. The prosthetic thumb had gone quiet, motors still, resting loose against the spoon handle. The pads on the underside of her paws were solid black and… faintly scuffed. Normally they were pristine and smooth and visibly moisturised. The marring felt… real, however.

I looked at her. The long line of her pointed muzzle, her floppy ears hanging loose rather than held, and her bright eyes without a touch of makeup. She looked younger without the full face of it. She looked like someone having a hard morning, like someone I could relate to completely. Not a dog.

I wanted, quite suddenly and stupidly, to say something good enough.

I didn't have anything good enough.

Suddenly, I remembered the sweets in my coat pocket. I pulled the little pot free, popped the lid off, and held it out without looking at her. Sour, fizzy things in primary colours, slightly crushed from where I'd sat wrong getting into the car.

She looked at them. Then at me. Then she took three, which told me everything, and we sat there until the cold started getting into my jacket and the kite finally came down for good.

The sourness on the cheap gummies had faded, tasting faintly of plastic and the tang of the neighboring sweets. They'd been expensive, too, I thought, turning the plastic cup over like I were inspecting it. No way people with money really bought them.

The cup, however much a scam it was, was finished off and thrown into a nearby bin, while the crumbs from the cookie dough were poured out onto the ground for pigeons to peck at. Charlotte watched them, and at first I thought it was some canine instinct, and she'd pounce, but no, she really was just amused by the jerky way they moved about.

I leaned forward, resting my chin in my palm, elbow propped up on my leg, and, without meaning to, my eyes shut. I hadn't been able to properly relax ever since I'd said what I'd said and hadn't been able to think properly. The solo town trip was nice, but I'd been moving mostly on autopilot. Lulls like this felt almost a distant memory.

School. Failing at school. Finishing school. Failing at finding work. Being stuck in my car for months. Christ, even when I lived in an actual mansion, I hadn't relaxed. The drinking nights were fun, sure, but…

The wind blew again, and I could actually feel myself finally smiling. Park sounds, gravel underfoot, and the smell of freshly cut grass, tinged with something sweet and friend from the distant fair.

The poodle shifted wordlessly, moving closer and pressing herself to my side. I pretended not to notice even as my arm reached up and around her, crushing her closer and grinning when she squeaked.

My eyes opened as she nuzzled closer, making a sound dangerously close to a purr. I angled myself just enough to snake my other arm around her jumper-clad barrel, dragging her even closer Her muzzle snuck upwards, finding its way into the crook of my neck as her paws dug into my sides and her hindlegs inched her a degree into my lap.

Her nose was wet and cold, and her whiskers tickled my collarbone.

My chin found the top of her scalp as I watched the world around us.

Cuddling. Quite clearly, while surrounded by people, but she was so soft and warm that I couldn't bring myself to care anymore.

“I'm sorry,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time that day. She sucked in a shaky, choked breath. My head dipped again as I pressed a kiss to her forehead, then her cheek when she didn't say anything. She shifted, chest to mine, hindlegs bending awkwardly so she was more firmly planted in my lap.

The pooch pulled back just enough to look at me, eyes bright and slightly red at the edges, whiskers still trembling faintly. "I know," she said.

Again, I kissed her forehead. She let me. “I’m sorry.”

"I-I know, Max."

I kissed her cheek anyway. She made a sound that wasn't quite protest yet wasn't quite anything else, just breath, and her paws loosened against my sides.

I pressed another to the other cheek, slower. Then the bridge of her muzzle. Then the very corner of her mouth where fur met the dark skin of her chops, and she went very still in that way she did when she was pretending something wasn't affecting her.

"Max," she said.

"Mm."

"You're being-"

I kissed the other corner.

Her breath hitched sharply, and then she pulled her chin up and away with great dignity, staring somewhere over my shoulder. "You're being extremely-"

The zip of her jumper was right there. I tugged it down an inch, just enough to get my hand through, fingers finding the deep, warm fluff of her chest and pressing in, scritching lightly at the skin beneath.

Charlotte giggled.

It was a real one, unguarded and immaculately undignified, her whole frame rocking with it, and she clapped both forepaws over her muzzle immediately like she could put it back.

"Stawp-!" she managed, but it came out broken already, her haunches shaking.

I kept going, grinning so wide it hurt. "Stop what?"

"You know what, Max. S-Stop-"

She was squirming, hind legs shifting, tail going absolutely mad, and I was laughing properly now, the kind that came from the stomach, burying my face into her curls and kissing whatever I could reach between her attempts to bat me away. Her ear. Her cheek. The top of her head, even her neck, where I nipped hard.

"Staaawp-" Almost a whine now, giggling loudly still, forepaws pushing weakly at my shoulders with no real effort.

"You've got lovely fluff," I told her seriously, still scritching.

"I am going to-" Another giggle ambushed her. “Je te jure, p-petit pervers!"

A shadow crossed us.

We both looked up at the same time.

A woman with a pram stood on the path a few feet away, the Labrador from earlier on a lead behind her, sitting loosely and staring at us with big, dopey eyes and his mouth hanging open. The woman looked at Charlotte half in my lap, jumper zip down, both of us flushed and grinning. She looked at me. She looked back at Charlotte.

Then she turned the pram around very briskly and walked away at a pace that suggested she had somewhere very important to be.

The Labrador watched us for one more second before being tugged along after her.

Charlotte looked at me.

I looked at Charlotte.

We both lost it.