aroceu's ficwhen the wolves come out
by aroceu
Summary:
[Hybrid dog!Pat and hybrid!cat Pran AU: A meeting of sorts.]
Notes:
As a prompt request by Sani :)
Everyone he knew always said to avoid that side of town, it was dangerous. And Pat had done so, except now something smelled so curiously wonderful that he couldn’t help but wander closer, just a little.
That side of town was surrounded by clean, crystalline pillars, barred together in a way that made Pat want to run away. They were everywhere; but the smell was tantalizing, and strong, and Pat just wanted to see what could make such a delicious scent. He’d never smelled anything like it before, not from the scraps of meat he’d dug out from the trash, or even the bags he’d nick from unsuspecting humans. He usually had to fight for things that smelled even remotely appetizing, especially if he couldn’t steal it, so he was ready to fight for whatever this was, as he’d gotten particularly good at fighting. The hybrids with collars, the cowards who always hid behind their owners if they sensed Pat coming—they couldn’t fight worth anything.
But even as he climbed over one of the gates, it was too quiet, too peaceful that Pat started to think he might not need to fight anyone at all. It was so strange here, the buildings wide and spacious instead of narrow and cramped. There was barely an alley in sight, when Pat had always managed to find an alley to spend a night in everywhere else around the city. Things were clean, and in order, and Pat wasn’t sure if he liked it.
The smell was getting stronger. It was coming from one particular building—a window, open and overlooking the street. There was a dainty little ladder below that looked just big enough for Pat to scale it, so, light on his feet, he made his way up, mouth watering as the smell got closer and closer.
What he didn’t expect at the top was to be met face to face with another hybrid—big, brown eyes, pointed ears unlike his own poking through a curtain of black hair, and a sparkly silver collar around his neck. While Pat was in a short sleeve hoodie and ripped jeans, this hybrid was in a plain white button-up and fluffy pink shorts, tongue on the back of his hand like he was just grooming himself. His tail was long and the scent was overwhelming. It was clear it was coming from this hybrid.
“Uh,” Pat said, and then the hybrid—the tail and ears were like a cat’s, this must be a cat, even though Pat had only met maybe one or two before, since they tended to avoid dogs—jumped up and approached Pat, so close that Pat nearly fell out the window.
“Who are you? What do you think you’re doing here?” the cat hissed. “If you don’t get out right now, you don’t even know what I can do to you.”
Oh, this is the fight, Pat thought dazedly. The scent was so strong with the cat this close to him that Pat felt a little lightheaded with it. He should probably be scared, but Pat had never been scared of anything in his life before, so he merely blinked and sniffed, getting in more of that delicious smell.
“Do all cats smell like you?” he asked.
The cat scowled at him. “What?”
“I just.” Pat leaned in again to get more of his scent, especially around his neck. The cat smacked him away and stared, like he’d never seen a dog before. Maybe he hadn’t. “I didn’t know cats could smell so good,” Pat said, and then ducked down below to stick his face between the cat’s legs.
“What—hey, stop!” The cat hissed at him again and slapped him away, scratching Pat’s cheek with his claws in the process. And it wasn’t like Pat had never been in a scuffle before, but the pain shocked him, overwhelming him more than the smell.
The cat seemed to realize what he had done, especially when Pat pounced on him, throwing the cat to the ground with Pat on top of him, sneering in his face. “I know we just met,” Pat said, “but you should know that other dogs don’t fuck with me, for good reason—”
“Keep it down, my owners will hear!” the cat whispered, panicked.
Pat chuckled darkly. “Oh, your owners?” he said. “You need them to protect you, you can’t fend for yourself, even after you made me bleed?”
The cat opened his mouth, but Pat put a hand over it, watching in glee as the cat struggled beneath him. “Your owners can’t save you,” he taunted in the cat’s ear, and slid his fingers under the silver collar so he could tug at it. “And I only came in because you smelled so good, you know, otherwise I—”
“Pran?” a voice called from downstairs. “What was that? Are you okay?”
Pat froze, too. It definitely was a human; Pat could tell by the scent beyond the door. Even though he could fight the other hybrids okay, he always steered clear of humans—that was a threat he was never too curious about. They either hated hybrids or owned them, and Pat had never been fond of them either way. But they had their own ways of hurting hybrids, of controlling them like they thought they were so much more powerful than hybrids, that Pat had understood since he was little that the less contact he had with humans, the better.
He and this cat—Pran—stared at each other. Pat took his palm off Pran’s mouth slowly.
“I’m fine!” Pran shouted. His voice was a little throaty from where Pat had restrained him. “I just bumped into something!”
“Okay,” his owner called, and Pat could feel Pran let out a sigh of relief beneath him.
“Will you let me go?” Pran asked, and Pat blinked down at him. The scent was still as strong as ever here; Pat didn’t particularly want to move. “You’re just a mangy old street mutt, I don’t know why you’re still in my room.”
“You—what did you just call me?” Pat demanded, but Pran was already shoving him off, stronger than Pat expected. Pat landed on his backside as Pran gathered himself up, brushing himself off. He licked his hand and made a face and licked it again.
“You’re one of those wild dogs, I don’t even know why I’m bothering with you.” Pran said this all without looking at Pat. “Go back to the streets where you belong and don’t bother with me again.”
Pat was baffled. Anyone who lost a fight against him usually cowered and gave Pat what he wanted. But what Pat wanted in this case was Pran, who didn’t seem ruffled in the slightest, aside, apparently, from where Pat had touched him. “But,” he said.
Pran’s eyes flashed at him. “Or do you want me to call my owners this time?”
(What Pat didn’t know was that Pran wasn’t just doing this for Pat—he was doing this for himself, too. If she found out that Pran had ever had something so dirty and unruly like a common street dog in his room, she’d never let him open the window or go outside again.)
After a moment, Pat said, “Fine,” and started to head to the window. “You won’t see me again.” But Pran smelled so damn good, Pat wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or not.
Pran didn’t say anything, and Pat slunk back out the window and into the night. When he was gone, Pran sniffed his wrists and rubbed them, where Pat had pinned him down to the ground.
If he let that dog’s scent linger and tugged at his collar to imitate the same thing the dog had done to him, no one needed to know.