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Family Matters

Saturday –

The cold managed to drag Sean up from the depths of his slumber, the many blankets he had stolen to cocoon himself having tumbled off the bed. The room hovered between unpleasantly chilly and downright cold and it denied a quick return to sleep. Slowly easing out from under the warm, furry arm draped across his chest he slipped free and stood up to stretch quietly. Taws groped sleepily after him but he was already going for his sweats, too chill to sleep and not sure he wanted to warm himself deep in Taws' fur for fear that others, namely Lazarus in the next room over, hear or – worse – smell their fun. He glanced at his phone on the end table, surprised to see that it was almost seven in the morning.

“Where're you going?" Taws muttered sleepily, propping her chin on his pillow and peering at him as she hugged it.

“Downstairs, coffee." He replied, leaning down to give her a peck on the nose, “See if your mom is up cooking yet."

Taws chuffed and drew her warm, wide tongue across his lips, “She is, you can't smell it?"

“With my nose?" Sean joked, giving her whiskered muzzle a light peck, hauling his sweat pants up.

“Duh, yeah." Taws watched as he dug for a warm shirt hand hastened into it. She waved a desultory paw at him and buried her muzzle in his pillow, snuffling noisily. “You – cook!" she chuffed languidly.

“Why cook when I can have breakfast in bed?" He commented, leaning over the bed to ruffle the lush fur of her shoulder. She swatted at his hand while trying not to un-burrow from the pillows, the lush fan of her tail swishing and thumping on the bed behind her.

“Mhph… not very filling breakfast, baldy." She commented, not talking about any lack of hair on his head, rolling onto her front and crossing both arms under the pillows, tail pluming up above her shapely cream and orange rump. “Not gonna let your favorite bitch sleep in?"

With a last stroke against that satin fur Sean pushed himself off the bed, “Yes, dear. Always plenty of time to enjoy dessert later. Want coffee?"

“Coward." Taws laughed with a flirtatious twitch of her flagged tail, “I'll get it when I decide to get up… after you're all done cooking, lover." She flicked her fingers at him again with a toothy smile.

Faolin was just putting the coffee on when he ambled into the chill kitchen, rubbing his arms against the cold despite his sweat clothes. “'Morning." He offered, pleased at least not to see steam accentuating his words.

“Good morning, dear." Faolin, dressed only in a thin flannel robe, smiled with a wolfish flash of teeth, “You look warm, don't'cha? Go poke up the fire in the hearth, I could use a few more degrees, myself. Coffee should be ready in fifteen minutes or so."

Sean found chopped wood on the flat shale of the hearth and poked a few small pieces into the lightly smoking coals of the previous night's fire. It took some finessing to get the fire to do more than just char the wood, eventually coaxing a flickering tongue of flame to spring up. He spent several long minutes warming his chilly fingers before Faolin came out to hand him a fresh mug of pleasantly steaming coffee. “Just us, hmm?" He asked, taking a long sip of the wonderful mixture.

“You expect the boys to wake up and cook, dear?" The elder bitch chuckled with a smile before taking a sip from her own mug.

“I'm up." He shot back with a matching smile, though with far less whisker and ear movement, or teeth. “I cook."

“So Taws has bragged, repeatedly. And those dishes you put out Sunday were quite a treat. I don't cook fish often, despite growing metric tons of them every year."

“I do try, though I can't brag about being any great chef."

“You do well enough. Care to help me put together a wonderful thanksgiving gut stuffing?"

Sean huffed a laugh trying not to snort his coffee, “Gut stuffing?"

“Well, you tell me. What's it feel like after you've gone five servings into a country holiday feast?"

“Stuffed, indeed. As if a city holiday feast would be any different?"

Faolin snorted and shook her head, “Lad, dear, a restaurant is only going to plate out just enough to sate you and nothing more." With a wave of one hand she led him back toward the kitchen. “And besides, no leftovers!"

“Oh, dear." Sean mock-groaned with a shake of his head, “Juggling the contents of my refrigerator to get them all to fit for a week. Besides, I always cook for Thanksgiving. I love it."

“Well then, where do you want to start? Swine or fowl?" Opening one of the doors on the huge stainless steel refrigerator she waved a hand at the turkey next to a large ham, thawed and ready for the day.

“Oh, bird! I can do so very much with a bird." Slipping past he drew the huge thing, all of twenty pounds or more, from the depths of the refrigerator.

Drake came down a while later and Lazarus showed up while his father was enjoying his first mug of coffee. Sean finished up prepping the turkey and slipped it into one of the two ovens before joining the other two men of the house taking care of the animals in the barn. They chatted amiably, the conversation soon turning to the action of Lazarus' job and, from there, to their shared experience in Las Vegas. Lazarus fell quiet, his expression introspective, as the story drew to an end without mention of Sean's second visit and they trudged through a thin layer of new snow covering the driveway and vehicles. The weather was turning as was forecast, a low gray ceiling lowering overhead. Fat flakes drifted down loosely on a light wind, the temperature already beginning to drop.

“Looks like another good blow." Drake commented on the porch, knocking snow out of the fur of his tail and hocks. Despite the boots he wore on his large paws the excess of fur fluffing above their tops still caught the snow that matted into small, dense balls that took some work to knock loose. Sean's experience with that the previous winter with Taws had been new, and sometimes startling as it still left her fur wet for a good length of time afterward. She took a particular enjoyment in brushing that wet fur across his naked flesh when he was otherwise distracted. Sean brushed those memories aside with a little blush and quirk at the corner of his mouth. “Shouldn't be as heavy as that blizzard the other day, so the roads should be okay."

“Plows that scarce around here?" Sean distracted his wandering mind with talk as he hung up the outer shell of his winter clothes.

“Rural roads." Drake said with a shrug, “There are plenty of plows, but there's a lot of territory for them to cover so when we get a heavy drop like Friday it can take a while for them to clear all the roads. Often enough I'm out there with the Beast before they get through." Drake and Lazarus took a little while to dig large bits and pieces out of some storage space, assembling them into a massive, rustically designed table I the middle of the great room. Afterward they put on their winter clothes again and went outside to clean off Drake's truck before leaving.

“Where are they going?" Sean asked, glancing through a window at the dwindling tail lights of the dually disappearing into the snow. He had the remnants of the turkey simmering for gravy while he prepared stuffing, more stuffing, and yet more in different varieties.

“To pick up your potential grandmother-in-law, she doesn't care much for driving in snow." Taws answered from the dining room table where she sat reviewing the latest polls from her holiday media releases and comparing those to similar polls from states that had already gone through their own voting on the Liberty movement. As much as she liked cooking, and was quite accomplished at the task, Sean and Faolin's bustling about and good natured chatter left her at a loss for anything to do other than fetch and carry or vegetable preparation that she was not at that moment doing. “Shouldn't be more than an hour, even in this weather."

Several minutes later headlights turned into the driveway and approached in a halo of brightly lit snow that went dim when the car stopped in the vacant rectangle where Drake's truck had been. Sean, between dishes, was sitting at the dining room table talking with Taws. The polls were looking favorable, if not quite so favorable as those of California or Alaska. Faolin met the new comers, little more than indistinct shapes outside the windows as they got out of the rental, out on the porch. They all came puffing and thumping into the kitchen shortly after, laughing sharp canine laughter. Sean looked up to see a very elegant collie dressed in an expensive suit standing on the near side of a taller but no less elegant gray hued canine garbed in a stunning blue dress matching the collie's suit. While the wolf-like lady was not familiar, the profile of the other's long, regal muzzle struck him as immediately recognizable.

Closing her laptop Taws pushed out of her chair and turned toward the guests who had yet to notice anyone but Faolin and her offer of coffee. The elder collie looked up with a smile, the direction of her look causing the others to turn. The gray wolfish lady sized Sean up with a quick snap of her amber gaze, expression guardedly impassive. The male's whiskers twitched but his expression was far more open, “Ah hah." He rumbled, voice baritone with a tenor undertone that gave the canine voice a silky smooth west coast accent. “And you must be the infamous Sean." He thrust out a hand. Sean clasped it warmly.

“And you, sir, if I am not mistaken are Devon MacLellan?" Sean replied with a lift of one brow, pumping the dog's strong hand.

The dog winced and grinned self-depracatingly and sighed, then nodded, “I hope that is a positive recollection." He asked hopefully.

“If Corporal Johannsen from 59 Days to Saturn is positive, I guess." Sean laughed when their hands released.

Devon chuffed and rubbed his muzzle, “Not one of my worst performances, at the very least."

“Hey, well, at least it didn't end up on MST3K, so I guess it wasn't all that bad." Sean shrugged, “Taws didn't tell me she had famous relatives, and I never connected her surname with anyone in Hollywood. More time behind the camera now?"

“Uh, yeah." Devon shrugged as well, stepping slightly to one side to half turn, sweeping an arm back toward the heretofore silent bitch who had arrived with him. “Sean, Taws, Mom, this is Sabine Dusan." The woman nodded slightly to each of them with a subtle smile but never really took her gaze off of Sean. “She was in my retinue when we shot the third Judge, Executioner installment in Prague."

“As bodyguard." She finally spoke, her English understandable but heavily accented, those amber eyes at the apex of her powerful muzzle challenging. With a bob of his head Sean looked down and away, capitulating to whatever she was trying to convey. “Devon very special to me." She smiled thinly, holding her coffee but not drinking.

Devon, who was shorter than she by a hand and less imposing, patted her upper back lightly. He rattled something foreign, ostensibly Slavic, at her before laughing. She chuffed a laugh back as if by force. “Vlcak's are quite protective, hence her employment at the time. Once she's satisfied I'm safe she'll be a completely different girl. Won't you, dear?"

Her smile, while forced, was a little warmer as she bobbed her head and murmured, “Da," trailing off into a short foreign sentence toward Devon.

“Aren't we the happy fun family, yeah?" Devon laughed as he rubbed Sabine's back reassuringly and sipped his coffee. “I hope my early lamented Hollywood career doesn't taint your opinion of me, Sean."

Sean laughed heartily, “You're better in the chair than on the screen, let me say that. Some pretty nice action flicks, and that remake you did of Disney's Robin Hood this year was spectacular. Makes me wonder why they didn't use real actors the first time around."

Devon shrugged and sipped his coffee with a pleased sigh, “Animation's a damn sight cheaper than actors, especially of the caliber Disney would've demanded." His head cocked slightly, ears pinning forward and one brow slightly lifted he stared at Sean pointedly for a moment. “I didn't expect to make it home this year, what with plans for the next Judge, Executioner in the works. But that whole project hit the skids when our lead got his dumb butt arrested." He pointed one finger from around his mug and grinned with a flash of white teeth, “Something I understand you had some small part in?"

Sean laughed and shook his head, “Not me, no. My ex-girlfriend, if anyone. She kicked the hornet's nest pretty good, exposed a lot of unpleasantness."

“With some far reaching ripples." The regal collie chuckled. “Came as a bit of a surprise when they slapped Denton behind bars, but if it comes out that he was into what he's accused of, good damned riddance, even if it does scupper my golden goose."

“No other actors who can take over?"

“A couple, but it would require an exhaustively extensive rewrite. And it'll still be tainted with rumors of beast baiting."

“Why not just work that into the story, get the Judge arrested for his clandestine hobbies and trot out another Executioner." They segued off on that train of discussion, Devon taking a perch on one of the island stools talking about the often hilarious antics going on behind the cameras and the things that people in mo-cap suits would do to their eventual CGI doubles. The dog also took the opportunity to get into Sean's good graces and nick a few morsels here and there. For her part Sabine stood off to one side in a position to watch all of the doors, much to Faolin's muttered consternation as that happened to be the corner beside the ovens.

Drake and Lazarus returned, as expected, just over an hour later and helped a shorter, stooped form down from the elevation of the doctor's tall truck. Sean met the matron of the MacLellan family with a large glass dish of stuffing fresh from the oven, smiling down at the gray-muzzled collie as she smiled back up at him, her dark eyes alert despite her age. “Yer quite the stranger here, man." She rumbled softly but with a warm, welcoming smile, resting a diminutive, thick-knuckled paw on his arm before tottering by. “The things kids get into these days." She laughed.

“Oh, come on grams." Taws complained, leaning down to give her a gentle embrace. “It's not like it's anything new!" She scoffed as she nuzzled her grandmother lovingly, “Sean, this is Rhian. Grams, meet Sean." Setting aside the stuffing Sean stepped closer, bowed, and captured her hand to press a kiss to the back of her arthritic knuckles.

“Pleased, Madame Rhian." Raising his gaze he met the elder's eye and winked. She cackled a warm laugh and pulled her paw away, tapping him on the nose with a short claw.

“Pah! Better manners than that wandering wolf I once knew, at least." Turning to Taws she looked up and tapped her grand-daughter's black canine nose. “You can keep him, dear. Just make sure you house break him and walk him." She gave Sean another appraising look, “Oh, and do feed him dear. You know pets are such high maintenance." Sean gaped, and then guffawed, his laughter matriculating through the gathering crowding the kitchen and even infecting the stoic Sabine.

While they were making introductions another vehicle cast the snow-dappled glow of headlights through the driveway-facing windows. Drake stepped back out into the mud room to greet the newest arrivals while the conversation worked its way around the kitchen. Sean, transferring the stuffing to a serving bowl, glanced briefly over his shoulder when the older collie returned accompanied by a far shorter arrival. Sean could only guess by clothing that the lynx was female by her clothes, giving a momentary nod when she was introduced as Alyss, Drake's veterinary assistant and protégé. The person she came with was dressed more heavily for the weather. Sean went back to dishing up the stuffing until the inner door squeaked and hissed open with a drag of weather stripping. The kitchen was getting positively crowded with chattering visitors.

"Hey, Taws, Lazarus." The lynx, Alyss, purred in a positively spine-melting bedroom voice. Sean set down the spoon and wiped his hand on a rag before turning around. “This is –"

“I'm gonna fuck you up." Sean froze, his back going ramrod straight and the rag falling from his fingers as he turned around and fell into a pair of intense, arresting bronze eyes. “ I'm gonna make you bleed, make you scream! " The voice exploded from the depths of his buried memories, halting his breath in his lungs, utterly crushing whatever Alyss had been saying.

The cougar was a pace away, hulking toward Sean, one hand extended to rip his guts open. Time slowed, as if suddenly dunked in treacle, Sean's sight narrowing to those bronze eyes boring into him, and then suddenly expanding to take in the entire kitchen. A barstool was touching his left hip, but it would be far too bulky at such close quarters. The metal spoon he had been using was on the island behind him, but it was far too light to be useful. There were still knives in the butcher block, but that was on the counter near the sink, all the way around the island and the wolf lady Sabine was there. No way she would understand that the cougar was a threat if Sean could even make it there; she would view him as the threat and likely react strongly to his going for knives.

Ice raced down Sean's spine as his mind raced through the contents of the kitchen and found nothing he could put his hands on to keep the cougar at bay.

It would have to come down to his bare hands.

So be it, Sean accepted. He had been training for this encounter since April and was more than ready. He had, after all, taken on a trained federal agent hand to hand and managed to win. He assessed the threat, gauging the distance to that open, reaching hand. Less than two feet, easy enough to reach out and catch his wrist, breaking it with a rotation that would put his elbow to the inside of the cougar's arm, breaking elbow and wrist in one motion. He'd go for the throat before the cougar even knew he was moving, before the pain of his broken joints percolated past those dangerous bronze eyes.

“You thought I was gone, didn't you, asshole? " That voice growled victoriously in Sean's mind as the cougar moved a little closer in slow motion, claws glinting on the ends of long tawny hued fingers. “ I'll never be gone! I'll always be here to make – "

“Sean?" A slow but firm pressure grasped his upper arm and a moment later the deadly bronze stare was occluded by orange and cream and gold. The pressure on his arm increased steadily, pushing back a little, arresting his slight forward lean as he readied to slaughter his foe. Another touch brushed across the back of his shoulders, abruptly tightening and pulling him off balance to one side. He found himself being turned and his feet shuffled to follow before he lost his balance entirely.

“Come on, Sean." Lazarus rumbled close at his ear, whiskers tickling his earlobe and his breath warm as he leaned close, pushing Sean away from the island by sheer weight. Obscured by Taws who had moved to stand in front of him, Sean could no longer see the cougar's bronze glare, the cat's attention shifting as Taws turned toward him. Sean tried to halt his staggering walk, his breath hitching rapidly in his throat at the thought of Taws facing down that monster. “Not here, Sean." Lazarus growled a little more forcefully, using his weight to shift Sean away, turning him bodily toward the living room.

At length Sean gave in, unable to shrug free of the collie's arm across his shoulders or the weight of his body pushing solidly against his side. He snapped his gaze away from the cougar and was propelled awkwardly out of the kitchen. Lazraus guided him to the huge table dominating the living room, keeping himself between the human and the kitchen were Taws had engaged the cougar in conversation.

“Hey, Sean, come on, snap out of it." Lazarus hissed, easing him into a chair before his knees gave out. Sean slumped into the chair, breath exploding from his lungs before he gasped a ragged inhalation. He was shaking violently, adrenaline coursing through him like high octane through a race car, urging him to flee when he wanted to fight. “That's not him, Sean, that's not the cougar who did you, okay?"

Clutching both hands together to still their trembling Sean stared at the table and nodded jerkily. “Fuck. Yeah. Not him, not him."

Lazarus settled into a chair beside him and leaned close, “That bad, huh?"

“Yeah. It was like… bang , he was right there, again. I felt it all over, like being plunged into a fire."

“Damn, I didn't know it was that bad." Lazarus shook his head sadly and sighed, “Never thought it could be, really."

“Post trauma's a bitch."

“I see." The collie rested a black and white hand on Sean's shoulder, “Didn't realize how deep the wound cut. You need a minute?"

“Yeah. Who is he?"

“Thaddeus, botanist from Canada who works with the greenhouses. Hooked up with Alyss and, since neither of them have family close, came here." The collie cast a concerned glance toward the kitchen where Sean's moment of almost-violence had either been overlooked, or explained away. “You going to be okay?"

Sean leaned back into the chair and heaved a sigh, “I'll have to be, after a bit. Need to get that god damned cat out of my head. Again."

One corner of Lazarus' muzzle quirked up slightly, “No wolf here to help out this time, I'm afraid."

Sean shook his head slowly, reaching up one shaking hand to tap a finger against his temple, “He is, in here. I'll be okay, Lazy. Thanks for the save."

“Hey, what're brothers for." Lazy smiled, giving Sean's shoulder a reassuring squeeze before dropping his hand. “Oda helped you out that much? Really?"

“Better than any counsellor ever did, yeah. He showed me… ahh, fuck, why am I telling you?" Sean chuffed a self-conscious laugh.

“Showed you -?"

“Another… ehh, way? That what I went through could not define me, what I thought, what I felt…" Closing his eyes Sean clenched his hands into fists, took a long breath to calm his jittery nerves, and flattened his hands upon his knees. “I had transferred that experience, Lazy, onto my relationship with Taws. I only knew that one time, and it was fucking my brain up huge. Oda let me know that what I experienced was a one-off, a fluke, not the norm. A whipped dog experiencing its first gentle touch. It helped me get control of things, crush that god damned voice in my head screaming wrong, _wrong, wrong _ and laughing at my humiliation."

“Wow."

“And now he's paying the price for helping out."

“Yeah, well, we'll figure out how to help him. But not today." Lazarus pushed himself out of the chair and offered Sean a paw. “You ready to come back and face a new cat?" Sean grasped the offered hand, fur and pads against naked, vulnerable human skin.

“Yeah. Who's sitting where?"

Lazarus cocked his head slightly at the non-sequitur question, “Huh? Oh, well, figured we'd put you at the end of the table by the hearth, where it's warmer. Dad's at the other end."

“Put that cat on my left, will you?"

“Shit, so close?"

“Desensitization by exposure, now that I know he's not the one trying to ream me with a cheese grater." Lazarus winced at that visual but nodded with a laugh, leading Sean back toward the mob in the kitchen.

The cougar had, indeed, noticed Sean's sudden extreme reaction at their introduction and asked what had happened that left the human with such a powerful reflexive avulsion. It took Sean a few minutes to explain his torture and beating, but nothing more, at the hands of a particularly sadistic cougar. Thaddeus winced and sucked a breath past his teeth, letting it out as a long sigh. Apparently he had been bullied for years in his youth by a zebra with similar sadistic tendencies and the presence of one now left him in a similar state, though the bully responsible had drunkenly made the acquaintance of a tree on prom night.

As the conversation drifted around the kitchen Faolin tutted at them, grousing at the crowd. “Go." She growled good naturedly, waving her hands at them, “If you're not cooking, go chatter out in the other room, sheesh. You expect to eat today?" Sean rejoined her in the kitchen as the others shuffled out into the living room to converse and eye the mostly-muted Thanksgiving Day Parade being televised from New York City. Taws positively loathed that parade because it passed her condo, leaving her essentially locked in until the crowds cleared and the police took down their barricades. Now that she lived with Sean it was not such an issue, but she still did not like it much. The weather was certainly having an effect on the turnout and the performers who had to suffer the bone numbing cold in skimpy parade costumes. Even the announcers, bundled up in as much as they could wear yet still be media-worthy, were grousing – with false smiles – about the cold.

Bit by bit the side dishes were arrayed on the large table in the living room, with even more side dishes and desserts filling the smaller table in the dining room. Sean took the turkey from the oven and set it outside for a few minutes to cool while everyone arranged themselves. Faolin produced the two large hams, one honey-glazed and the other wrapped in bacon and infused with some mixture she had injected into it. Even with those three main dishes it did not appear, to Sean, as if it would be enough for a house full of predators. He had made no less than five large pans of stuffing in various flavors, yams, and a modest fruit salad for the few who had a palette for it.

Once everyone was seated, Sean at the foot of the table with Taws on his right and the cougar, Thaddeus, on his left Drake retrieved the turkey from the back deck, setting it before him at the head of the table. Taking his seat he reached out to Faolin on his right and Rhian on his left, grasping their furry hands. So on down the table hands reached and were clasped. Sean fought down an atavistic thrill of fear when the cougar reached over and clasped his reluctantly offered hand gently. Taws' grasp was both firm and comforting as she smiled at him. Heads bowed, muzzles dipping toward the table, and Sean joined them.

(prayer here).

Taking up carving knife and fork Drake stood, “What's your preference, Sean? White or dark?"

Sean opened his mouth to answer, but was silenced by a triple-warble alert tone from the kitchen. Ears snapped up all around him and heads turned, either fully or slightly, to look toward the scanner or merely listen. “Alert, alert, clear comms. Three vehicle accident reported at 219 State Road 44, two miles east of Benton Hill. Livestock trailer and semi involved. Activate Engine 3, Rescue 3, Wagon 1, St. Lawrence VFM, MEVS. Injuries unknown, hazards unknown." The dispatcher's calm, yet subtly urgent, voice filled the momentary silence but for the soft crackle of the fireplace at Sean's back. Drake quickly set down the carving flatware and pushed back his chair. Faolin's chair scraped as she stood as well, moving toward the kitchen with brisk purpose while the others rose from their seats.

“Alyss, Lazy, prep the MEVS. Taws, care to help?" Drake asked without looking toward her, striding through the kitchen with the cougar close behind him.

“Right behind you, dad." She said, leaving Sean seated at the table in bemused befuddlement. Only Rhian remained, chuckling quietly to herself and shaking her head. Slowly she rose and Sean stood as well.

“You kids go, we'll take care of things here." She called toward Taws' back. Sean moved into the kitchen, but only Faolin was there, the others already on the porch rapidly donning their winter clothes. The dispatcher's call repeated and a couple of voices chimed in immediately after; a squad car responding and one of the volunteer units. In a moment of silence Faolin depressed the transmit button on the mic sitting beside the scanner.

“MEVS copies, eta twenty."

“Acknowledge, MEVS on scene twenty." The local sheriff announced his eta as Sean stepped out onto the porch and took his leggings down from a peg.

“You're coming, Sean?" Taws asked, already in leggings and jacket, lacing up her long canine boots.

“No point sitting around here, except to put up what we just put out." Of the group only Rhian and Faolin were not dressing themselves, even Thaddeus was getting dressed. “I cleared the MEVS bay when I was doing the driveway, Doc." It seemed prudent to Sean, at the time, to make sure an emergency vehicle was not snowed in even if it seldom saw use.

“I saw, good." Drake chuffed, pushing through the door and jogging to his truck. A few moments later it roared to life in a pall of black smoke and began backing toward the now open bay where the heavily modified livestock trailer was parked. Thaddeus and Lazarus helped him back up so that he got the hitch over the fifth-wheel in the bed with ease. Cables and hoses were connected as Sean knocked the snow off of his rental and got it started. Taws dropped into the passenger seat a few moments later as, with a shrill wail of sirens, Drake hauled the trailer from its bay and charged with all the haste he could safely use down the driveway. Sean fell in behind the trailer. Thaddeus was closing the bay door, remaining behind, while Lazarus and the lynx were apparently aboard the truck.

The brisk efficiency was impressive to Sean, who knew nothing about how long it typically took emergency services to get moving after a call. They had the MEVS on the road within seven minutes of the initial dispatch. Despite the steady, though sparse, snowfall and dropping temperature the truck and trailer moved with confidence along the rural roads, which had been plowed at some point though was still coated by a thin layer of snow.

Coming upon the accident scene fifteen minutes later Sean had to marvel at the destruction wrought upon the sole vehicle remaining on the road. Or, rather, what was left of it which was not much and even that was barely identifiable as a vehicle. The remains of the car littered a wide swath of the road as if it had been run through a shredding machine. A white sheet was draped over what passed for the front of the car held in place with chunks of wreckage, its corners flapping in the wind. Sean pulled off into a clear spot on the shoulder well short of the fire engine partially blocking the road. It backed up enough to let the MEVS pass.

Off to the right side a tractor-trailer lay sprawled mostly on its side in a relatively straight line and on the left side of the road a large four-door pickup truck lay upside down and twisted under the sagging remnants of the horse trailer it had been hauling. As soon as they got out of the car Sean could hear the sound of squealing horses, engines, and the loud roar of a hydraulic generator above the wind and hiss of steadily falling snow. Voices drifted in the wind among the emergency workers surrounding the pickup and trailer. Fat flakes pattered upon his shoulders and fresh accumulation crunched beneath his boots. Taws quickly made for her father's emergency vehicle while Sean followed more slowly. The whine-snap of emergency vehicle strobes and idling engines added to the sound of distressed horses and the raised voices of the crowding responders. Someone had brought in a large farm tractor equipped with a single long steel spike on a hydraulic arm on the front of the tractor, its usage lost to Sean, and was using that to lift away heavy pieces of the horse trailer and free the animals within.

A hundred dollar bill half buried in the snow caught his attention and brought him up short. Another lay a few paces away. A third tumbled by in the wind and he stomped on it before bending to pick it up. To his unpracticed eye it certainly looked like a proper note.

A police officer trooped up to Sean as he was looking the scene over. “Who're you?" The human asked, though not aggressively.

“Came with the vets." Sean waved a hand toward the MEVS that had come to a stop just short of the mangled car. “What on earth happened?"

“Car tried to pass the horse hauler, met the semi coming the other way and ended up between them." The cop explained with a shrug, bending down to pick up the nearest of the hundred dollar bills and shoving them into a bag that he then thrust under his arm. “That put both of them off the road. Mind if I see your ID?" Sean nodded and dug it out of his wallet, handing it to the officer who perused it for a few moments, jotting a note in a small pad dug from the breast pocket of his uniform. “Need to do some work to get the trailer unloaded and off so we can get in and cut the pickup's driver out." The cop seemed totally unruffled by the carnage and noise, but his manner was harried. His head turned slightly as a siren's wail built from somewhere beyond the far side of the wreckage. Sean could only see three police uniforms at the scene, two squad cars blocking the road at the opposite end of the wreckage. One of those uniforms down the road yelled something and the officer before Sean held up an arm in acknowledgement. “So, you here to stand around and watch, or are you here to help?"

Sean shrugged, “Sure, what can I do? I'm not trained for emergency response." An ambulance, siren going quiet, slowed to creep between the squad cars, approaching to park near the remains of the car sitting in the middle of the road.

The officer shrugged as well and nodded, taking the clear plastic bag from under his arm and thrusting toward Sean. It was already half full of crumpled hundred dollar bills. “Just go around and police up the cash. Don't worry about pinpointing where you pick them up, there's way too much for photographing. Not sure yet who was carrying this much but it's here so it needs to get secured. "

“The semi?"

“Haulin' empty back to Potsdam, so it's probably the car."

Taking the bag Sean nodded, turning back to pick up the bills he had already passed. Once he started looking for them he was astounded to see them scattered everywhere; on the road, in the ditch, in the bushes and even out onto the fields where the wind had carried them. The show had begun to fall in earnest, but it was not driven by a strong wind.

Working down one side of the road, cutting a wide berth around the wrecked trailer and the tractor working to pry it open like some oversized tin can, Sean gawked like anyone who did not witness such vehicular carnage on a regular basis. For the rescue crews it seemed like just another day on the job; they yelled directions and orders, working as a large coordinated team. One officer was going around the shredded remains of the car taking pictures but all attention was otherwise focused on the trailer and overturned truck under it. A paramedic was bravely sprawled out alongside the cab of the pickup ministering to someone inside while the tractor shifted pieces of the trailer only a few feet above his head.

Drake and Taws maneuvered through the mangled horse trailer carefully, giving the trapped animals a quick triage before tranquilizing them. As the tractor and emergency tools took apart the trailer they were freed, slightly tranquilized and disoriented, they lead back up to the road and the waiting MEVS. Sean spared a few glances but was concerned mostly with simply staying out of the way.

He was stunned at the quantity of money he was picking up, the bag becoming almost too full to seal. There had to be thousands, if not tens of thousands, fluttering in the wind. The scattered trail lead him off the road, down the embankment and into the field behind the wrecked pickup and trailer. Bending down to pick up a bill he was somewhat surprised to see blood. Not on the bill itself, but beside a scuff mark in the snow. Standing, he looked back toward the wreck to see what could account for blood so far away, only to see that the scuff marks lead back toward it. The origin point of the trail was lost in the churn of rescuers going about their work and the heavy snowfall. Turning the other way he followed it with his eyes toward the crest of a low hill in the field.

Concerned that someone, or some animal, had wandered away he began following the track. At regular intervals small swaths of blood stood out starkly even where it was dusted with fresh snow. He continued to follow the more-or-less straight path across the field toward a fencerow of bracken in the distance.

“Sean!" A sharp bark brought him up short and he turned, shielding his eyes from the icy wind with one hand, to see Lazarus pelting toward him, a heavy winter coat flapping from one hand. “Gods, man, don't just up and wander off like that! In this blow you could get lost!" Only the dog's muzzle poking from the hood of his winter coat gave away that his pursuer was not human.

Abashed, Sean nodded and waited for the collie to catch up. “Sorry, Lazy. I was picking up that money and saw this." He waved a hand at the track, and the fresh trickle of blood near his foot. “Looks like someone wandered away from the accident." Lazarus padded up to stand beside him and surveyed the track, performing the same look back and look forward scan Sean had. “With this blow, like you said, this trail isn't going to last long."

“Good call. Bad choice not to tell anyone, but still." The collie knelt briefly, leaning down to snuffle near the snow. “Small tracks, boots. A child, male, human. The pickup's driver is human, female, in no condition to tell us about a kid." Standing he began following the track at a slow jog, his eyes cast down. “I didn't hear anyone talking about someone unaccounted for, but I was down the road redirecting a few cars and picking up debris." He distractedly held the heavy jacket up. “If that semi driver had a kid in his truck I think he'd have said something."

Jogging along at the collie's side Sean could only nod. Even though he was only acting like a cop as an undercover for the Immigration service the duties of the role still ran deep. They paced along for another few minutes as the heavy snowfall tapered off and a deeper chill began to set in. They crossed the field and over a fence, slowing as they moved into the dense wood beyond. Following the trail through the trees was considerably more difficult, but where Sean's eyes failed to find trace Lazarus' nose kept them going.

They eventually emerged from the wood line only to be confronted by an expanse of uncluttered, flat whiteness; a frozen stream.

And something else.

“Lazy!" Sean hissed, grabbing the dog's arm and making him look up from his search for more tracks. Pointing, Sean focused his attention to the small orange and red object a short distance downstream and away from the shore.

A hood, and an arm, but nothing more.

“Shit!" Lazarus and Sean broke into a crashing run along the bank of the stream, batting aside brush and branches to reach the bank where the child had tried to cross. “He fell through trying to cross. What on earth was he trying to do?" The boy had tried to cross the ice and fallen through, managing to grasp a low hanging branch with one hand to keep himself from going under entirely, but had not been able to do anything more than keep his head above water and hang on.

“Find help." Sean nodded toward the lights of a house and barn perhaps a quarter mile away up another hill. In the heavy snowfall earlier those lights would have been the only thing visible. Lazy took a step toward the path of scuffed snow leading to the hole of broken ice the unmoving orange-clad child had made trying to cross but Sean grabbed his arm and hauled him back.

“No, Lazy. Let me."

“You're not a rescuer, Sean."

But Sean was already unzipping his heavy winter coat, “Your fur gets wet, Lazy, you won't dry out. This cold will drain you damn fast." Shucking the coat he tossed it aside and began working on the outer shell of winter leggings. “I'll go in, I won't get waterlogged like you." Kicking off his boots he shoved the leggings down to kick them off, followed by his jeans leaving him clad in only his boxers and shirt. The cold bit into him like a rabid animal finding prey, immediately making him shiver. The numbing cold bit at his bare feet with the intensity of live coals. “I'll get him out, you help me get dressed again because I'm going to be wracked." With a swift jerk he hauled off his shirt and handed it to the dog.

“You sure about this, Sean?" Lazarus asked as he accepted the shed garments and draping them over a nearby tree limb.

“He's only out there fifteen or so feet, Lazy. On the inside of this curve in the stream, it can't be too deep." Clutching himself Sean surveyed the stream which was a good forty feet wide where they boy had tried to cross. Taking a shaky breath he quickly shuffled out onto the ice. His greater weight immediately broke through, mind-numbingly frigid water sloshing around his ankles, dashing all sensation away from his feet with instant numbness. He stumbled at the unsteady footing of breaking ice and intense shock of the cold but managed not to fall. Sucking a shivering breath through his teeth he charged forward, smashing the ice with his knees.

The murderous bite of the winter-cold water upon his feet forced an involuntary yelp of discomfort from him but Sean forged ahead, his naked feet squelching into mud only slightly less frigid than the slow moving water. Five feet in the water was up to his knees but he forged on, pushing past a few tree limbs hanging low over the stream. He was almost within arms' reach of the unmoving orange shape of the child when he stepped on something harder than mud. The slick surface made his numb foot roll and he toppled forward with a splash. A brief flare of discomfort lanced up his leg but vanished in the rapidly growing numbness before he became consciously aware of it.

Somewhere he heard Lazarus bark a fearful inquiry, but the agony of the cold water surging up to his arm pits rendered hearing insensible. Only one of the tree limbs saved him from plunging face first into the water, pulling him up short as he grabbed at it desperately with both hands. He could feel the sharp, biting pain of the icy cold piercing him to the core from knees to chest and began gasping uncontrollably, a deeper pain in one leg throbbing under the numbness only adding to his overall misery.

Struggling, he righted himself once more and lunged the final awkward step that put him within reach of the child. With his hand shaking from the cold and pain he snatched the back of the unmoving form's orange jacket and hauled it toward him while he pulled at the branch he still held with his other hand.

Holding his waterlogged cargo with one arm Sean laboriously turned around, his benumbed legs already beginning to cramp at the pain and refuse his desperate commands to shuffle forward. Luckily, by hauling at the branch and leaning in the direction he wanted his rapidly tiring body to go, he staggered through the water and broken ice. Lazarus was quick to meet him at the shore, grasping his free arm and bodily pulling him from the stream's icy clutches.

Once the dog had taken the limp form of the child from his arms Sean sank to his knees and keeled forward, gasping and shivering uncontrollably. “Move away from the stream, Sean." Lazarus barked at him from where he knelt beside the body lying before him, hastily removing the waterlogged clothing. “Roll in the snow a couple of times!"

“R – wha?" Sean's teeth chattered. It was all he could do to crawl forward a few feet on his hands and knees, all feeling gone from the latter. “F- f- k'n cold."

“The snow will dry you off! Do it!" Lazarus tossed aside the child's overcoat, boots, and leggings. Sean complied, or at least he tried, simply dropping to the snow face first. He lay there, unmoving, for several long seconds rather surprised to find the snow covered, frozen ground considerably warmer than the stream. Before his body heat – what little was left close to the surface of his benumbed skin - could begin melting the snow beneath him, though, he heaved himself over onto his back. Once more he lay there for several labored breaths, and heaved once more, catching himself with his hands before he faceplanted in the snow again.

“Cl- cl- clothes!" He reached and waved, unable to push himself more than a foot upright. A moment later powerful hands grasped his shoulders and hauled him up, dragging a blessedly warm shirt bodily down over his head, trapping his arms at his side. A moment later he was wrapped in a heavy blue coat; not his own, but rather the one Lazarus had been carrying when he chased Sean down. Sean saw that his was wrapped around the body nearby. “H- e- ?"

“Alive, yes." Lazarus zipped the jacket closed and pulled a hat down over Sean's head, and then another taken from his own head. The ear-cuffs of it were stiff and poked above his head ludicrously but Sean was far behind caring. Somewhere something trilled repeatedly but they both ignored it while the collie worked frantically to haul Sean's pants on unresponsive legs. “Shit, Sean, you gashed yourself pretty good, here." Lazarus paused to examine the long, deep rent down the outside of Sean's lower leg, dark blood lazily seeping out. Sean saw it, but he could not feel it, and at the moment did not care. He grasped at his pants and laboriously hauled at them. It was awkward and the results haphazard, but once the pants and leggings were on Sean felt a lot less cold. Pins and needles of agony raced through his feet and arms making him wince when his socks and boot inserts were pulled on followed by the boots themselves. “Kid's bad hypothermic, but I got a pulse, and he's breathing if slowly. Got a broken arm, a lot of cuts, but he's alive."

The trilling continued, with a few momentary pauses, while Lazarus worked to get Sean back into his winter clothes. Eventually the collie rested back on his hocks and, panting, dug his phone out of his pocket to answer the insistent call.

“Yes!" He barked breathlessly to the tinny voice that squawked at him through the device. “Here, we're here, Sean and I." He paused a moment, glancing at the boy sprawled out in Sean's jacket with only his face showing. Lazarus' own coat was wrapped around his legs. “Yes, we know. We found him!" Another pause, the tinny voice on the phone fading beyond Sean's ability to hear. Not that he cared in his current state, he was satisfied only to be less mind-numbingly cold even with the insane fusillade of electrical pins plucking at him from groin to toes. “He's alive. Fell in a creek trying to get help, but we got him out. Going to need help, Sean can barely walk, I'm carrying the kid." Standing up Lazarus cast about, firing of short, clipped descriptions of their location, using the house as a fixed point. Moments later his attention shifted along the creek to one side. “Got it!"

Moving over to Sean he grasped his upper arms. “Come on, Sean, gotta get up. Help's on the way, but we have to get out of these trees." Helping the human up, whose arms were trapped under his shirt and coat, was as awkward as dressing him but some response had come back to his legs. He struggled to his knees and then upright to lean against a tree while Lazarus carefully picked up the wrapped, unconscious bundle.

The child's clothes were left where Lazarus had tossed them as was the evidence bag Sean had been filling.

Without hands progress was awkward and slow for Sean, but moving made things profoundly better, working circulation and warmth back into his numb extremities with the attendant pains. He suffered them voicelessly, only his breath hissing through chattering teeth attesting to his state. Lazarus had him walk in front so the dog, carrying the child, could keep an eye on him so getting past branches and bracken was commensurately more difficult.

Eventually, however, they emerged onto the field but beyond the low hill over which they had climbed so they could not see the wreck site. They could see the flashing lights in the trees that did poke above that horizon, however, but Lazarus told him not to go that way. He directed Sean to continue marching directly across the field with the flickering treetops to his right and the hill with the house upon it on his left. The reason became apparent within a few minutes.

The house's drive way crossed the stream somewhere, and they were approaching the raised ridge upon which a police SUV was parked, its lights flashing, with an ambulance close behind and Sean's car behind that. The huge blue tractor was parked in front of it and the driver stood on the rear fender watching for them. Once spotted a response was on its way in seconds; a cop, the farmer, a pair of medical responders, and Taws all pelting across the field. They mobbed dog and human in a babble of excited, relieved voices but all Sean wanted was to get in the car.

His car had heat, his car would have Taws though she was already there with her arm around him. Once he made it to the car he could rest, and re-acquaint himself with warmth.

“Lazarus, what happened? Why is he shaking so badly? And why are his arms stuffed inside his shirt?" Taws interrogated her brother as she escorted a benumbed, zombie-like Sean. Relieved of his burden Lazarus fell into step on Sean's other side to also help Sean stumble along. He never thought that having his arms pinned would make walking so damnably difficult. The uneven field and snow did not help matters, either.

“He went into the creek after the kid."

“What?" Taws snapped, her ears springing up and then going back. “Why didn't you?"

“Because he wouldn't let me. He was using his brain and all I was doing was reacting." Lazarus gave Sean's shoulder a gentle squeeze, his head bobbing. He did not seem to be out of sorts for having lost his winter coat to the child, or his hat to Sean. “And he was right, if my fur got soaked he could not have helped me and the kid, so he stripped down and went in all but naked."

After a moment studying him, her ears twitching forward, then back, and then forward again Taws merely shook her head. “Sean, you are a be-damned, masochistic fool." She chided, though with a snort of laughter. “Beat up, raped, traumatized, wading into icy rivers… Bravest stupid human ever met."

The farmer and one of the policemen held down the barbed wire fence so that everyone else could step carefully across. In Sean's case it was an uncoordinated stumble even with Taws' helpful guidance. “Heroes wade in where even angels cower in dread, sis. Your man's got some solid brass stones, I'll give him that." Lazarus trotted to the car and pulled open the back door while Taws helped him limp up the bank of the driveway. “He got his leg slashed up pretty good, we should let the techs take a look before the leave."

“N – no!" Sean hissed with a vigorous shake of his head, “Kid needs the hos-hospital, n-ow, no time. Take me t-to your dad." Shrugging away from Taws who was trying to guide him toward the ambulance he shambled toward the car.

“Dad? He's a vet, Sean, not a doctor." Taws protested. Despite her reservations she helped him struggle armlessly into the back seat, joining him there while Lazarus slipped in behind the wheel.

“S-so? Meat is meat, he c-can stitch me up okay, noth-nothing is broken." Stretched out on the back seat, propped against the far door, Sean groaned at the sweltering heat inside the car. “L-least, I h-hope." Taws awkwardly stretched alongside him and helped get his arms out of the heavy jacket. Lazarus backed out of the driveway to let the ambulance out, carefully turning the car about to head back toward the accident scene. The ambulance's sirens wailed to life accompanied by the police vehicle as they sped off in the opposite direction.

Much of the horse trailer was piled near its carcass, ripped apart like the Thanksgiving turkey they had yet to enjoy set to by starving rats. The frame had been expediently rolled to one side and the pickup it had rested on looked as if a gargantuan mole had dug its way out of the driver's side at the expense of both doors and roof. Of the driver there was no sign, likely already at a hospital where her child would join her. The horses that had survived had been loaded onto a horse trailer someone had brought to the scene and Drake was in the process of packing up the MEVS. The packaging of medical supplies lay tossed about in the churned, red snow. A huge wrecker was parked beyond the fire truck, yellow lights flashing, merely waiting for them to clear the scene so it could get the semi out of the ditch and deal with the other vehicular corpses.

Lazarus pulled right up alongside the MEVS before stopping. “Not done yet, dad." He said as he got out and stepped back to open the rear door. “Sean needs a bit of veterinary TLC, too."

Drake left Alyss to continue putting away the plethora of medical tools they had used and wandered over to the car as Sean was helped out. They had gotten his arms freed so it was less problematic getting out though his body was still shaking so violently he needed Taws' help. “I'm not a human doctor." The older collie cautioned, eyes raking Sean up and down to try figuring out what his injuries were. Taws helped him over to the side of the MEVS, which had an awning folded up and a typical metal veterinary examination table folded down. Lights arrayed above banished the overcast gloom. “What's the problem?"

“Got his leg gashed up pretty good wading in a creek." Lazarus answered, closing the doors on the car but not shutting it off. “I didn't get a good look at it, and he sent the ambulance away before they could triage him."

“Kid n-needed it more than m-me." Sean stuttered, leaning heavily on Taws' shoulders, “I jus-t-t need st-st-stitching."

Drake's muzzle pursed in a scowl and one furry brow quirked up, “Okay, let's see what we've got." Taking a stool from some cubby on the trailer he set it down in the bloody snow and had Sean sit down. Taws held his shoulders to keep him steady as Lazarus told his father where the injury was. Sean winced somewhere deep within his benumbed mind as Drake deftly sliced his leggings exposing his leg to the knee. His sock, pants, and inner shell of his leggings were soaked with blood and his boot was full of it. With surprisingly gentle paws the elder collie turned his leg and prodded the wound, using his thumbs to draw the ragged tear in his flesh open slightly. “Doesn't appear to have gone through the fascia. Alyss, lidocaine, please. 5cc." The lynx was already prepared for the need and offered him the syringe before he had even finished asking, “Saline flush, betadine."

“Going to numb your leg up before I flush this wound, but I'm not going to wait for the anesthetic to kick in fully before I get working. Not in this cold." He warned.

“Alr-ready numb's fuck, doc." Sean nodded his head jerkily, leaning against Taws' steadying, warm embrace. The coat and two hats were almost too warm, but the renewed bite of frigid air along his exposed leg was not doing anything to help his core temperature rise. Drake touched the needle here and there, sometimes deep, sometimes barely a prick. Sean felt his leg drifting away from his physical awareness long before the dog finished. Mutely he watched as his tattered skin was pulled and shifted, dark blood welling up and trickling down his leg before being washed away by a flood of saline. The collie used an entire bottle before taking another, this with a long plastic spout on it, to work beneath his shifting skin and wash deeper than Sean could see. Lazarus wandered off to explain why the MEVS was still on the scene despite the horses having already left. Finishing with the saline Drake repeated the entire flush with dark betadine before taking a long length of suturing and needle from Alyss.

With curious detachment Sean watched the rent in the outer containment layer of his body pulled and pierced and squeezed with each deft loop of needle and suture. The sight was strangely accentuated by the incongruous juxtaposition of falling snow melting on his flesh, the bloody snow covered pavement under his pale, naked foot, and the dog bent over his leg with needle and thread. A lane reflector peeked through the snow nearby, winking in the flickering strobes of emergency vehicles. He had never before in his life been treated by a non-human, beyond some nurse taking his vitals. Now he was having a non-human, a veterinarian at that, piece him back together after yet another misadventure. Finishing his work Drake snipped the suture and stood up. “Taws, get him on home. I'll start him on a rotation of antibiotics, just to be sure, but I think he'll heal up just fine." He gave Sean's shoulder a reassuring squeeze and leaned over to hug his daughter before turning back to the MEVS.

Lazarus drove the car while Sean leaned into Taws' arms in the back seat, exhaustion setting in after the pins and needles of returning sensation faded. Sean left the storytelling to Taws when they got back to the MacLellan home, dumping himself on the sofa pushed against one wall out of the way. Before Drake and Alyss returned he had sprawled out and fallen into an exhausted slumber.

He enjoyed a couple of hours of restorative sleep before Taws' gentle touch on his cheek roused him. Still groggy and aching from the exertion of staving off hypothermia he let her help him up the stairs to their room. The others had returned at some point but had not continued their interrupted meal, conversing in the kitchen over warm drinks. Taws helped him shower, the warm water easing his aches and bringing some alertness back to his fogged brain. He looked more closely at his stiches and was well satisfied by Drake's neat work. He would certainly have a scar but it would be a pretty unremarkable one considering the length of the laceration.

By the time he was done, dressed in fresh clothing, and back at the table he was almost fully back to himself. He was still a little tired and achy, but he figured that would go away before too long. Especially with bird and swine and kilos of other food ready to stretch his grumbling stomach. They reconvened around the table and repeated the earlier prayer with a few more words for the fate of the animals and people injured in the accident, and the unknown sop who met his grisly end in causing it. Drake took up knife and serving fork once again and set to the turkey, passing a slab of thigh down the length of the table to Sean.

It was like some solemn ritual that Sean, as a human, had never before experienced. They quietly watched as he cut a piece of the turkey and ate it under their alert, smiling regard. Then, impetuously, he took his plate and passed it to his left. Thaddeus was momentarily confused but quickly adapted, taking the plate and cutting a piece from the meat to eat it as well, then passed it to Alyss. As she sliced her piece of the turkey Sean took the bottle of wine on the table before him and filled Taws' wineglass, and then that of the cougar that did not scare him anymore. And so on, around the table that first Thanksgiving offering was shared, the wine following it, each person filling the glass of the one seated next to them.

Eventually the plate returned to Sean. Taking up his wine glass he held it forward, “To family, to friends. Salut."

Wineglasses clinked softly over the table, “Salut." The others echoed, and they fell upon the feast with the decorous pleasure of ravenous beasts at a shared kill.