A Dog Unfed.
includes— hawks x reader. angst. hurt/comfort.
warnings— animal abuse analogy. discussion of drugs and cravings. be warned and avoid this if you need. sorry for spoiling the subtext lol, but it needs a tw. though, i encourage you to apply this however you feel it apply.
perhaps we all have a dog.
Did you ever tell him?
The fullest extent of it all, the thorny vines that adorn your past— more bondage than decoration, a dragging weight against your throat and up your nasal cavity. A growth, an infestation, a plague on your subconscious.
It is a dog you unwittingly adopted— a drooling rottweiler that smacks its jaws and begs and paws at your thighs, pleading to you each night: "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry. Please feed me, I'm hungry."
Everyone who has ever seen your dog has mistaken you for it.
Everyone who has seen your dog has peered down their pudgy little noses, muttered "mutt", spit it and clinked their heels away; or perhaps they simply looked on in sneers of smiling horror, down past their clutching pearls.
"This is you? By god, my goodness! An animal, an animal!"
You used to hate your dog.
You used to lock it in chains outside, let its fleshy paws burn and blister against the cement in the heat of the blaring sun. You grew tired of feeding it, of crushing up its kibble, of leaving it out to dry then quenching its bottomless thirst.
Now you just sit with it.
You sit by its side with your knees to your chest, listening to the cicadas chirp their prayers. Some days, you even let your back burn against the molten floor, a grounding heat while you lie down flat; but every day, every position, your eyes always remain locked on it.
You stare as it rests on its side, fusing to the glistening cement. You listen to its keening whines and dying breaths with a familiar pity and an unbearable disgust.
You blink, unfeeling again now.
You're sure it will never die, no matter how many hours it spends dying.
You never wanted to show Keigo your dog; even though a part of you is screaming and begging to present it to him. A gift from your innards, dirty in the palms of your blistering hands.
Keigo is just like everyone else, you assume. He is kind, he is gentle, he is an angel among men and he is the exact same as everyone else.
You've come to realize a person's good qualities— openmindedness, kindness, empathy— mean nothing in the face of what one is taught. No one is immune to propaganda, and there is no shortage of that nowadays against people with dogs.
The part that makes you doubt your assumptions is this: Keigo has honey in his eyes. Flicks of gold specks dust along the amber of his irises, a sticky kind of love swimming in them that drips down to his lopsided and infuriatingly safe smile.
You could never fathom his nose upturned, as he has been on the ground too many times to do that to another; nor could you picture a sneer from a mouth as sweet as his, honeysuckle and gentle, bright yellow.
So one night, you allow it to spill, hoping for him to soak up your blue one last time.
It's not uncommon for you to spend the dim of your nights at Keigo's home— his real home, the one the commission has never barged themselves in, the one he keeps hidden from every soul in this world but one.
It is uncommon for him to listen to the water of his shower run for several hours.
If you had feathers as sharply perceptive as his, you'd detect the nervous pacing of his leather boots against the carpet of his bedroom floor, even through the sheetrock that separates the two of you. The patter of the showerhead is far too consistent for his liking, very little movement being detected at all and his mind is bouncing off countless possibilities while sticking to none.
Those worries overflow from the cup of his bleating heart, bleeding when he turns sharply toward the bathoom door, resolute.
With a barely audible thud, his forehead traps golden strands between it and the wooden door it rests against.
He doesn't ask you if you're okay. Keigo never bothers with questions he already knows the answer to.
"Baby, open the door. Please," he begs. "I promise, it's okay— just need to be with you. Please."
The song of your sobs muffled through the door causes his feathers to sting an unbearable itch.
How his heart is just as red as those wings. It begins to drip, the string connecting him to you pulled too far for him to take. It— he needs to be with you right now.
A palm slides up the plane, resting firm by his cheek. The air of his breath hits the wood, fogging back against his lips.
"Please, let me in?"
His hopes blossom in the heavy pause that follows.
"...The door's unlocked," you answer.
Keigo knows. He could have pried it open in a heartbeat with a single feather even if it was locked, but trust and respect are precious commodities. They are irreplaceable, yet entirely and easily breakable.
Slowly, the knob creaks open, the careful movement still startling your spine stiff. The heels of your feet gently propel you backwards, firmer against the icy wall at the furthermost corner of the shower. The expanse is wide enough to accomodate fierce wings, wide enough to swallow your comparitively puny body in its open jaws.
Curled in on yourself, soaked, and trembling; this is what Keigo sees when he enters the room. This is what he sees when he dashes over, mumbling words you don't quite catch— some are familiar. "Dove", "sweetheart", "oh, my baby."
Down, he kneels by your side under the pour of the synthetic rain. The fabric of his shirt clings to his skin now, hair soaked just like yours; a wet dog all the same.
And with your tears plopping down against the flat tile, scratched knees held to your chest, you allow it to spill.
It spills through the hiccups, it spills through the wet of your cheeks; and above all, it finally spills through your confession, nose upturned to look up at his shaky gaze.
"Oh, angel..."
You can hear the palpable crack of his beating heart in that voice; but even if you didn't, the rustle of scarlet feathers that puff out in protection give his wounds away.
Keigo busies himself with a racing thought: how could he not notice the signs? He knew there were secrets nestled in the cavity of your ribcage, tandrils of some sort of ivy even he couldn't quite recognize.
You have a weight. Shackles chaining you to be left out in the midday sun.
He could tell. It's not the same as his— it's another flavor, another disease, another beast of its own— but in the most abstract of ways, Keigo could see it: you're just like him.
"Why didn't you tell me," he rasps, cupping your cheeks with shaky palms. They tap and squish like they're searching for signs— distress, hurt, anything.
You smile a mimicry of his, pulled from your most precious memories, and silently beg for that wobbly smile back; but it does not come. Instead, his eyes begin to shine, glassy and wet.
You've never seen him cry before.
You've never felt as desperate for his yellow as you do now, but you have felt this pathetic and small, once. You have felt like an animal, desperate to be domesticated— a synonym for loved.
"Y-You don't need to worry! I'm good, I'm still clean, see? See?"
As if that's the only thing that matters, you tip your chin towards him to offer your pupils as proof.
Such a gesture may shatter hearts, and Keigo is but a man. Despite it all, he is but a man.
He declines the offer, your words more than enough for him— his body opts to tackle you in an embrace instead, clutching your skull close to his hammering chest.
With each wide-eyed blink, the droplets resting on your lashes flick onto his chest. The soaked strands of your hair cling to him, both bodies drenched now by the roaring downpour above.
Water cascades in heaps onto the floor below. It never stops.
With your cheek pressed against his sternum, his scent invades your senses. He smells like cedarwood cologne and thickets of the forest, a warm signature. It matches his labored breaths: sturdy and weighty and masculine.
"I thought you wouldn't see me as a person anymore," you confess.
He hushes your worries as your eyes flutter shut, kissing the crown of your head with unwavering pride.
"Dove... You're my person."
Keigo thumbs away your tears and pulls back to offer you a wobbly smile.
You offer your own in return— a real one, too, this time.
---
The greatest advice you've ever been told was "don't start".
The words felt feeble at the time, like a joke passed down through unproductive seminars in high school out the mouths of stuffy men in suits, men who spoke of the boogeyman and jumped out behind chairs.
It meant nothing at the time.
It means everything now.
It helps you explain a little better to people who've never had a dog.
The words "don't start" are a language they do not speak; and yet, it helps to say it to their mirrored face, to imagine the breadth of your world could be pressed compact into those two tidy little words.
Talking to yourself helps you pretend you're understood.
Even though it is not necessary to be understood before you can be loved:
Don't start.
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Lol I love my comfort character *torments him* *torments him* *torments him* *torments him* *torments him* *torments him* *torment-
Clear versions + rambling under the cut
The mind control thing could've been cool if it was LITERALLY mind control not just "Garroth Ro'meave gets no bitches" syndrome. It would make more sense too with his character arc.
He finally gets comfortable in phoenix drop with showing his face and having this new big family with the guards and aphmau. He can finally be himself.
But then the pendants start acting up ; there's threats of war and Dante's being secretive. His paranoia starts acting up. But he's got his friends and he knows as long as he's with them, it's going to be ok.
During the baby shower he cools off but then he sees something. He chases after the evil undertale looking bitch but then he sees something. Saw something he wasn't supposed to see. That's all he can remember at least.
But as he's making his way back he keeps hearing things, seeing things. It's almost like he can feel something at the back of his mind, digging into his skull , eating at him.
Over the next few days his mind is hazy with thoughts of okh'assis, muddled memories and regrets. He can hear his brother in his head whispering about how foolish it was to hide away from them. He had no chance escaping his own blood. By the time he snaps out of it he noticed he's moved. Right to the edge of the walls with his communication amulet.
The haziness and whispers just keep getting worse and worse and so does his grip on reality. He can feel the chilly okh'assis air in the middle of summer. He keeps seeing things in the trees watching him. Cadenza tells him he looks paler than usual.Lillian arriving just makes it worse. Eventually he locks himself in his room saying not a word to anyone.
He can't eat, can't sleep , won't even close his eyes.Refusing to let them win. All he can do is listen; sounds of reality and delusion mixing into a buzzing living nightmare. All he wants to do is to help Phoenix drop. But when he looks in the mirror all he can see is the same pale , snowy haired boy who left Okh'assis. Maybe he never left?
IDK I'm a sucker for battle inside the mind plots as well so I'd pay to see jury of nine garroth get dropkicked by regular garroth but serious lol get reckt whoreless scrub
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