then worries came to perch on us

He huffed when he saw him stood, standing there. His white muzzle stained red, bitten and cut and chewed and grabbed.

His tail twitched.

Threatened to wag against his hocks.

He butted his head against him. His shoulder dragged against his.

Drew and swiped and dragged his tongue across the blood. The scabs that had formed.

“The fuck you do, old man.” He rumbled.

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He huffed.

“Dumbass.”

He pulled his leg away from him in favour of headbutting him. His head pressed against his. His ears pulled back, flat, against his head.

He rolled into him.

His cheek and neck dragged against the side of his head, the side of his neck, down and then under, beneath the underside of his muzzle. His shoulder and back pressed against him, against his shoulder. Blond and black and white, mixing together.

His back against his side before he rolled over again.

His paws and legs and stomach and chest facing his shoulder and hip. Blond-brown dirty paws and legs rested and leaned against his body, draped over his back.

He licked his lips.

Stretched and reached to nip at his chin and lick at his mouth.

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He dragged and rasped his tongue lower and lower, from his chin to down along his neck to down along his chest. Black, and then grey. Silver and white intermixed. Salted and peppered. Different, to the stark, contrasting, unnatural white of his face, his shoulders, his back, his back legs.

‘Have you been part of a pack before?’

One last, long, lingering, final ministration. His tongue flat and damp and warm. His mouth and breath hot.

The side of his face rested on the ground.

The old man sideways, in this view, in this angle.

Before him, and above him.

He stared.

“Yes.”

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His tongue against the top of his head, his face, his neck.

He huffed.

Shook.

Annoyed.

Space between them that he closed and control that he regained when he butted his head against the bottom of his chin. His ears pressed back. His voice against his shoulder, his chest, his neck.

“My parents were the leaders."

He dragged his tongue, once, over and against thick black and white fur.

"I was an only child.”

What else was there for him to fucking say?

He had been a shitty fucking kid, and a shitty fucking heir.

His teeth grazed his neck.

His tongue followed his teeth.

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He huffed.

“My mom kicked me out when I was a yearling.”

Maybe he would have left, eventually.

Maybe he would have stayed, and stayed, and stayed.

Maybe the hag’s love and patience was always a finite resource and it was destined to run out from the very first day he was born, and his dad would always choose her side over his, over and over and over again.

Maybe he deserved every single bad thing that had happened to him.

Maybe he didn’t deserve any of it at all.

He would have been a shitty fucking leader.

---

He took the attention he was given and shut up. Him and the old man, tangled around each other and wrapped up. Their tongues against each other's fur. Their bodies pressed against one another.

A world of their own making.

A world of their own creation.

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The old man rose.

Sudden and abrupt movement away from his side, out from beneath his draped and perched paws and legs.

He grumbled and groaned.

Stretched and splayed out alongside his back. His head tilted back. His throat on open display. His stomach and his chest and his undersides open and bared.

He pawed and nipped at the air. Lazy, half-assed, noncommittal movement. He watched him as he bowed and then ran.

The movements of his hocks. The movement of the backs of his thighs. The movement of his tail. The black and white and pink of his paw pads flashing.

“Come back.” He called.

They could do whatever he wanted to do here.

Here, where the ground and grass and dirt was soft and warm, warmed by their combined body heat.

They could wrestle.

They could play.

They could fight.

Him beneath him.

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‘Come find me.’

He huffed.

Annoyed.

Drawn and quartered and splayed, out along his back. His legs in the air. His own hips his counterweight. He leaned to one side. Stretched and reached with his front legs. The vertebrae of his back popping and stretching.

He rose.

Slow, and languid, and unhurried.

Sand inside an hourglass.

The grains slipping, spilling, and falling. Building, and building.

He shook the dirt and the grass from out his shoulders.

And he stepped into the underbrush.

“You’re a fucking dumbass.” He huffed. Amused, or maybe just annoyed.

His eyes searched and looked and roved for black and white fur.

His senses strained.

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He huffed.

Shifted, and shunted, the old man’s weight draped and pressed across his. His legs buckled and he stumbled, clumsy, as he stepped back, one of his back paws landing on his before he found his balance. His tail wagged. He curved—arched, reached—over his shoulder to nip at him.

His teeth already against his ears, the back of his neck.

“Everything.” He huffed.

Everything made him a fool.

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He was cold, without the old man to cover him. He was cold, without the old man there to drape and blanket him, his body against his, the black and dark grey of his stomach and his chest pressed against the blond and black of his back, his weight rested against his haunches.

And he was was cold, with the back of his neck and the space between his shoulder blades still damp. The fur drying and curling in the air.

He huffed.

Shook the lack of his weight from his shoulders.

And followed him.

---

"What."

He scratched at his side, awkward, with one of his back legs.

He butted his head, forceful, against his shoulder and his side.

His teeth and his tongue followed the movement.

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The old man lingered.

An omen, hovering over his shoulders, pressed against his haunches, licking and mouthing at the back of his neck, his voice held close to his ear.

An omen, licking and nipping at his heels whenever he walked.

His shoulders curved and curled.

His ears pressed back against his head.



And he couldn’t meet his gaze, when he stepped out in front of him.



“I don’t give a shit, old man.”

He didn’t.

He really, really fucking didn’t.

He already got his fucking point across.

He understood now, just how fucking stupid and how fucking gross and fucking disgusting and fucking worthless he fucking was. That blind, deaf, and dumb, motherless, mutilated baby foxes took fucking precedence over him. That everyone and everything held more fucking value and fucking worth and fucking talent than he ever fucking had.

He just didn't know why he had to be fucking reminded.

He just didn’t know when he fucking forgot.

“Leave me the fuck alone.”

He was tired.

He was hurt.

He understood who he was, now.

He understood what he was always meant to be.

Nothing.

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