ladyjanelly

Warnings: Animal cruelty, dog fighting, werewolves, ??

Jeff’s on his back porch when the call comes. Sipping his coffee and looking over the wasteland of his yard. Weed-filled kennels and runs and pens. Contemplating if any of it is worth salvaging or if he should start getting quotes to have the whole miss-matched mess of it bulldozed. A stray cat ghosts through the morning sun, striped tail flicking as it stalks some unseen prey.

Jeff heads inside at the sound of the phone, leaving the circle of life to go on without his observation. Checks the caller ID and almost doesn’t answer. It’s been months since Jared’s called. He knows Jeff’s done. Burnt out and broken. No more rescues, no more dogs.

He thinks of the guys. The special network of cops and vets, foster-families and handlers. Thinks maybe someone needs something he can still give and he hits the talk button.

“I didn’t think you’d answer,” Jared says in response to Jeff’s gruff greeting, and Jeff knows it means: “I was sort of hoping you wouldn’t because I shouldn’t be calling you.” He needs to hang up. Knows it was a mistake to answer at all.

“Please,” cuts in Jared before Jeff can close the phone and walk away. “I know, Jeff. I know. You’re retired. Or whatever. Please, just listen.”

The kid’s so god-damn earnest. Means every word he says with every fiber of his being. Makes it hard, but still Jeff says “No.”

“Jeff.” Jared’s voice is a whisper. “I wouldn’t call. I wouldn’t. But this. Nobody can take this one but you. I’ve seen you turn a killing machine into a lapdog. Nobody else could handle this. I wouldn’t trust anyone else.”

Jeff wishes for a drink, for a cool bottle to press against his temple while the whiskey burns down his throat. He threw the booze away months ago though, and the pills too. He’s going to paint, and teach himself guitar and run his bank account dry for a year while he gets his shit together again. No more dogs, no more charity cases, no more seeing the worst that humans are capable of written in scars upon the skin of helpless creatures.

“Just—” Jared struggles for words and Jeff can hear the strain in his voice. The kid’s not easily shaken and it takes renewed effort to not care. Not his business, not his problem. “Come look,” Jared finishes. “Come see what I’m working with. Tell me what to do, how to handle this.”

This is how it starts. Come see one dog. Take him home for a few weeks.

“Fine.” The word is out before he can stop it. God damn Jared. Six months. He had been doing so well.

===============

Jared gives him an address and Jeff packs his truck and heads out. What he needs to do, he decides as he drives, is sell the house. Get a tiny efficiency of an apartment with barely room for a bed and his easel. Sell the truck and get a little sports car with no back seat. Hell, better yet a motorcycle. This wouldn’t happen to him if he wasn’t so conveniently set up to transport and keep a dozen or more dogs at any given time. He needs to show he’s serious with this retirement thing. No more. Walking away now. He thinks about taking the cage out of the back. Just dumping it on the side of the road. Maybe finding a grocery store with a dumpster behind it. Anything to not get stuck taking whatever special case Jared’s found back to his house.

He turns on the radio and gets on the interstate. The DJ is rehashing the news of the day—some poor werewolf kid dragged half-dead behind a truck then shot in the head with silver in a god-damn ditch. He wishes he had any surprise left at all for the shit people do. Not that he has any fantasies that the Were-races are any better. Too few of them to make the news as often, is the only difference. Better at hiding their shit. He switches stations twice until he finds some Duran Duran. It makes him think of sun-touched rivers and how much easier it was before he got into all this trying to make the world a better place bullshit. He sighs and makes himself relax his grip on the wheel. They can’t make him take this job. Can’t make him take the dog home unless he lets them. He just has to stand firm. Tell Jared what he needs to do and walk away. He can do this.

The afternoon sun is bright through the windshield as Jeff turns off the main road onto a dirt track through the hills. These never lead to any place good in his experience. He’s seen puppy mills and animal-hoarders. Horses standing in shit-filled stalls with their unclipped hooves curved up like wooden Dutch shoes. Trailers packed with a hundred starving cats and ferrets crawling through the walls. The brush by the road grows so close it squeeks against the truck’s paint job like nails on a chalkboard. Like a rabbit screaming as it’s thrown to a pack of hounds.

Fuck, coming here was a mistake. Stupid to let Jared talk him into this. To think he could be here and not have it touch him.

He comes around one last curve and over a hill and he knows what this is. A maze of chain-link fencing scattered throughout with plastic rain-barrel dog houses and small kennel sheds, the central aluminum-sided barn for the fights and plenty of parking. Jeff’s spent the last week avoiding hearing the full news of this bust, but it made the networks and he’s caught bits here and there. Largest in years, over a hundred owners and handlers and spectators arrested. The place is quiet now except for the flapping of yellow police tape. The dogs have already been taken to a shelter, half of them put down for their wounds or their aggression. Jeff can’t figure what kind of dog would be so special that it would still be here, what Jared would call him in for, so long after the dust settled.

Jeff parks next to Jared’s Animal Cruelty Investigation SUV, but it’s Chris Kane he runs into first, standing outside the door of the barn and smoking a cigarette like he’s hoping for absolution from it. He’s got that long-haired, goatee-sporting redneck thing going. Chris is tough as any Jeff’s ever met. Has to be with the stuff he sees while undercover. The stuff he can’t stop if he wants to get close to the bosses.

Chris’ hand shakes as he brings the cigarette to his lips. “I didn’t know,” he says when he meets Jeff’s eyes. “Swear to god, man. I would have called in SWAT. Backup. Something.”

“Jeff,” Jared calls before Jeff can find out what the hell Chris is talking about. “Over here.”

The setup inside is pro-grade. Tiered bench seats around a central octagon pit. Blood-smeared walls and sand floor. Jared leads him through a door on the far side of the arena and into a back-stage area. It smells like dog-shit and cheap takeout food.

In the center is a raised cage, and in the cage is the largest damn dog Jeff has ever seen, all shoulders and broad skull, lean strong hindquarters. Sharper through the muzzle than Jeff usually sees in fight dogs. His fur is longer and thicker than usual too, shorter than a shepherd, longer than a retriever. Rottie markings. Scar-faced and angry. Jeff’s never seen any dog with eyes that green before.

Hey there, beautiful, Jeff thinks, and he wants to go over there, to give the dog a chance to sniff him, to see how much work it’ll take to make him into something nobody has to be afraid of.

The animal paces the width of his cage, hackles up and lip curling in a silent snarl. Jesus, he has to be over a hundred fifty pounds. And yeah, he can see why Jared called him for this, he’s just not going to take the bait. He shuts down his natural appreciation for the dog’s strength and beauty, denies his instinct to rise to the challenge of taming him.

“So?” Jeff asks Jared and Jared chews on his lower lip before answering, searching for the words.

“Here’s the thing,” Jared says, and Jeff waits for him. “When SWAT came through, there was a man in that cage. Naked and beaten unconscious. By the time they could get the paramedics in, he was a dog again.”

Jeff’s eyes go wide and he looks at the dog again. Long-legged, that narrow muzzle. Yeah, he can see the wolf in him now.

“We called the local werewolf council,” Jared continues, “And they sent someone over right away, but he got one look at this guy and started spouting off about ‘abomination this’ and ‘never should have been allowed’ and offered to put a silver bullet in him for us, and the whole time the dog’s going nuts like he’ll bust through the cage to get at him. So they’re no help. I can’t get any animal shelter to take him, and I’ve called every single one between here and Canada.”

Jared runs his fingers through his hair and Jeff can feel his frustration. “No human mental-health facility is willing to let him near their other patients, and even though he was clearly the victim here, the judge wasn’t willing to have him just cut loose in the world without at least having a conversation with him. I got the judge to agree that if we can find a private care-giver willing to take him that she’d sign off on letting someone take him for six months and see if he improves any.”

“This…Jared. Jesus. Even if I wanted to do this, I’m not your guy. You need a shrink or a doctor or something. I can’t…”

“You can,” Jared cuts in. “Just a few months. See if you can get through to him. Get him some self control, where he doesn’t think he’s fighting for his life every time he sees a dog. See if you can make him feel safe to change without being unconscious. Try to talk to him, let him know he doesn’t have to fight anymore. Aldis, Chris and I, we’ve been taking turns staying here with him, making sure nobody tries to take him. I think he thinks he’s just been sold or something. I don’t think he understands that it’s over. Please, Jeff. Please.”

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. God-damn Jared, pushing all of his buttons like this.

“Where the hell do you expect me to keep him?” he asks, thinking of this dog demolishing his way through Jeff’s house.

“’Accommodations suitable to his form,’the judge says. A kennel if he’s like this, your spare room if you can civilize him a bit. There’s a stipend for his support,” Jared counters. “Look. Just keep him a week. And if you don’t think there’s any hope, I’ll take him back. Just give me time to find somewhere for Harley and Sadie to go.”

That startles Jeff. “But you love those dogs…”

“They’re just dogs.” It sounds like it hurts Jared to say it. “This is a person, and he’s been fucked over enough. You don’t want to know the kind of places they’re talking about storing him if I can’t find someone to take him.”

Jeff hesitates too long because Jared’s off again, the words pouring out of him in his desperation.

“You’ve still got that kennel closest to the house, right? Where you put the pregnant bitches and those with puppies? The one with the run in the shade?”

“How are we doing this?” Jeff asks, because saying ‘yes’ would be too painful. Jared lights up at the words.

“We’ve got a tranq gun and more sedatives. You’ll ride with him and me and Aldis, and Chris will follow in your truck.”

Jeff nods and the dog glares balefully at them both. “Fine. I shouldn’t be in the room when you shoot him.”

They both step out again. Keys are handed over, last minute arrangements made, paperwork signed. Aldis, sleeping in Jared’s vehicle, is woken up to be ready for his part. Jared talks to Chris for a bit and then goes back in. “It’s done,” he calls a few minutes later, and when Jeff gets there, the dog is swaying on its feet, and Jared is waiting by the gate with a blanket in his arms.

Jeff’s never seen a werewolf shift before. Few humans ever have. It’s a magical thing, watching as fur shrinks into pale skin, as limbs stretch and bend, as skin twitches over a new configuration of bone and muscle. The man hits the ground and Jared’s in the cage right away, pulling the dart and wrapping him up in the blanket.

Jared passes the unconscious form down to Jeff, and Jeff gets a good look at his charge. Jesus. He’s not sure what he was expecting. Outside of the covers of romance novels, weres are typically short and dense guys with coarse features and a tendency towards hairiness. Five o’clock shadows you could sand wood with and unbroken uni-brows. He’d expected the scars to stay at least, the dark grooves in the dog’s muzzle and the notches out of his ears to translate into marks on the man. The man that Jared hands him though, he’s unblemished, beautiful. Tall and thinner than it seems he should be. Strong jaw and full lips, slim straight nose and a classical profile. Soft brown hair spills over his forehead and Jeff brushes it away from his eyes. And there, the only signs that the dog’s torment has passed to the man—dark shadows under his eyes and a sharp edge to his cheekbones, a pinched look, like peace has been far from him for too long.

“Got him?” Jared asks and Jeff hefts the man up in his arms.

“I’ve got him.”

=====================

The ride back to Jeff’s house is rough. Jared drives and Jeff and Aldis take the back seat, the Were stretched out over them in case he has to be restrained. Jeff watches the young man sleep and marvels at how rugged a dog can make such a fragile human. He fights the temptation to brush his fingers over the man’s features, to see if he’s real.

“So what am I dealing with?” Jeff asks to distract himself, and because he really does need to know. “What sort of reactions does he have to people? Did he have a handler he was attached to?”

“Chris would know better than me,” Aldis answers, “But he said this guy had to be dragged into every fight, two dudes on poles and another with a cattle-prod to get him moving. I’m guessin’ he didn’t think of anybody there as friend.”

Jeff presses his lips together and nods. With a dog, he’d think that was a bad sign. Every canine Jeff’s ever worked with has wanted, in it’s heart of hearts, to find a master, an owner. Some have had it beaten out of them, temporarily. Been made too skittish to accept affection without cringing or snapping. He wonders what it means for his werewolf. If he’ll learn he’s safe quicker than a dog would, or if his human mind will cling to that distrust.

Jeff is in so far over his head.

Halfway there, the young man stirs, long lashes flutter open and a soft whine slips from his throat.

“Shh, it’s okay, sweetheart,” Jeff murmurs, and Aldis is already uncapping the needle. “It’s okay,” Jeff says again and Aldis finds bare skin under the blanket and makes the stick. Jeff whispers soft and low and pets the man’s hair until he’s unconscious again.

===================

It’s going o’pn dark when they get back to Jeff’s place. Aldis and Jared carry their charge while Jeff gets the yard lights on and checks over the pen they’re planning to use. It’s plywood on two sides, field fence on another and chain link on the fourth. Corrugated tin roof over it all, high enough for a man to stand in. There’s a dog-size door on one of the plywood walls that opens onto a narrow run under a broad-branched pecan tree. It’s about as luxurious a dog pen as Jeff has. Plenty of shade when the weather’s warm, and a good wind-break when it’s not. Still, there’s something reprehensible about putting a person in a place like that, never mind a naked, unconscious person, and Jeff ends up cradling him from the bare cement, knowing that he can’t be in here when the young man wakes up and changes.

“Go drag the living room couch out,” he tells the guys, “And grab another blanket out of the closet and see if you can find a pair of sweats in the laundry.”

The werewolf’s eyes are moving behind his lids by the time the guys get it all set up, lying on the couch and wearing Jeff’s clothes. “Go on,” Jeff tells Jared and Aldis as he clips a padlock to secure the latch. “I’ve got it now, and I don’t want him to see you guys here just yet, no offense,” and they go.

The man in the cage rolls off of the couch and Jeff winces at the thunk of flesh on cement. The guy takes one deep breath in, turns his head and looks at his surroundings and the comes up with a growl. Shifts form and hits the chain link snarling and snapping, blood on his teeth where he catches his own flesh between teeth and metal.

And Jeff doesn’t flinch, standing there two feet away. “Shhh now,” he says, and other soft nonsense. Lets the dog wear himself out and quiet down. Lets him see there’s no busting through the cage, but no answer of violence either.

“Hey,” Jeff says when the dog has spent his adrenaline fueled rush of energy. It feels weird to be having a one-sided conversation with a dog, but he won’t let himself fall into thinking this is just an animal. “This wasn’t my idea either. And I don’t want to be your jailer, but I don’t want you getting into trouble or danger or hurting someone else either, so this is how it has to be until I can trust you a little better, okay?”

The green eyes never leave Jeff and never blink.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Jeff tells him, “And I’d appreciate if you didn’t hurt me.”

The dog turns away like Jeff doesn’t matter anymore and starts to pace his cage, sniffing the perimeter and growling at the dog-scent still in the corners.

And yeah, Jeff’s in over his head. One of the most damaged dogs he’s ever dealt with on his hands and the person inside to deal with as well.

A slow smile tugs on his lips. God-damn but he missed this.

===================

Jeff can’t bring himself to feed his guest on kibble or canned dog-food, so he pulls the grill over and broils them up some steaks. “Need something to call you,” he muses while the beast methodically shreds Jeff’s sweat pants and shirt, holding the rags between his front paws while he pulls teeth-fulls of cloth until it rips into smaller bits.

He slides his steak onto a plate and the dog’s he cuts up fine and puts in a heavy plastic dish and doesn’t feel a bit of guilt about that because it’s clean enough he wouldn’t have any qualms about eating off of it himself. There’s a little gate in the cage, made ages ago so he wouldn’t have to open the human-sized door and let a roly-poly pile of puppies out every time he slipped momma-dog more food or water, and Jeff uses it to slide in the steak and another dish of water.

He expects the wolf-dog-were-thing to gulp the food down, considering how long it’s been since he ate, but it sniffs the food warily, nudges the bowl around a while, and finally takes the smallest bite before lying down curled around the dish.

Jeff brings the deck chair over and one of the tiny tables and eats his meal there too, far enough away that the dog shouldn’t be worried about his presence. He drinks a cup of hot tea and tells himself he’s just relaxing a while but he knows he’s stalling. After an hour or so, he can’t put it off any longer and he heads inside, showers and heads to bed, half-expecting the dog to be gone when he wakes up.

Jeff sleeps restless. Wondering how the dog is doing, if he’d rather be inside, even though Jeff has no doubts that would be a horrible experience for all involved. He wakes up half a dozen times with the urge to go and check. To see if the human mind and opposable thumbs have let his charge disappear on him. Just after dawn he gets up for the day, pulls on jeans and boots and stumbles bleary-eyed out to the yard to check. For a horrible moment he thinks his worries were right. There’s no dog on the couch, no dog pacing the cage. And then he sees the shadow, the bundle of blankets stuffed between the couch and the wall, the tip of one tan-toed foot poking out.

“’Mornin’, sweetheart,” Jeff rumbles, his voice all deep and sleep-deprived. The dog draws his foot up tighter into the crack and Jeff smiles. “Yeah, I missed you too.”

The food dish is empty, so Jeff figures he must have eaten sometime during the night. He heads back to the house and fries up a huge pan of eggs and sausage. More familiarization, he thinks as he plans the day. See how close the dog will tolerate his presence before it feels stressed. See if he can get some sort of definite reaction to human speech.

He dumps half the breakfast into a new dish and slides it through the mini-door. He estimates it’s enough to leave the dog not feeling hungry, but little enough that he’ll still be interested in lunch later on. He sets his own chair up about five feet from the edge and settles down to eat and watch. Cautiously, the dog uncurls from its nest, nose sniffing as it catches wind of the new food. “There you go,” Jeff murmurs, and the dog glances at him, uncertain. “Go ahead, that’s for you, it’s good, look, I’m eating the same thing,” soft and low, mostly nonsense, just to get it used to his voice.

The dog dips its head, grabs the edge of the bowl in its teeth and drags it back over to the corner away from Jeff.

“That works too,” Jeff says and he smiles a sad smile because that level of distrust is going to take a long while to work through.

The dog takes a bite and lies down again and Jeff starts talking. “I don’t know if anybody thought to tell you what’s going on, what’s happening,” he starts, feeling strange to be explaining things to a dog-shaped-person. “The guys who had you, they were bad men, and what they were doing, the fights and all, that’s not how things are usually done, and when the good guys found out, they took the bad guys and put them in jail. Jail means cages, does that make sense?” There’s no reply beyond a flick of the dog’s ears.

“So those guys, they aren’t coming back to get you, and you’ll never have to fight again. And nobody is going to hurt you. Not as long as I can help it.”

The dog sighs and stretches out a little more and Jeff counts that as a small win.

“You really need a name,” he says. Before, names didn’t matter. Just something to call an animal that it’s future family wouldn’t take offense to. A positive name, to keep Jeff and everyone else who has contact with it in the right frame of mind. Buster instead of Killer, Cherry and Sadie-Mae and Sugar. Jeff thinks back to names and words that have caught his attention over the past day. Jantzen. It’s on the tag of one of his sweaters. But a harsh word, a rough name. Jensen, he thinks, softer that way and he says it out loud. “Jensen?” And the dog’s ears prick up and Jeff thinks that’ll do.

=================

Jeff makes his first big mistake three days into his acquaintance with Jensen. The dishes are piling up in the corner of the cage by the couch and it’s been a little while since the dog moved aggressively on him. He thinks it’s time to get a little closer. Not to force contact or anything, just casual proximity. He opens the lock and steps inside. The dog backs away, lip curled and low to the ground.

“Just getting the bowls, Jensen, nothing to worry about,” Jeff soothes. He keeps the dog in his line of sight but doesn’t force eye contact. Slow and careful. Reaches for the pile of bowls to stack them in his other hand.

His hand fumbles on the last dish and it clatters on the ground and the dog is moving on him faster than Jeff would have thought possible. Fast like a fucking cat and Jeff’s flat on his back with almost his own weight in dog over him, jaws around his wrist. The dog’s low growl vibrates down through his arm.

Later he’ll think it’s a good thing he hit the ground hard enough to stun him. That if he’d had presence of mind enough to grab the dish and swing, that things would have gone so much worse. Instead, he has half a second to realize that his arm isn’t being crushed, that he’s winded but not injured. “Hey,” he says and his voice is a breathless croak. “Hey, I don’t hurt you, you don’t hurt me, right?”

Jensen whines and then lets Jeff’s arm go. He growls deep in his chest and steps back, one slow step and then another. When his tail hits the corner of the cage he barks. Sharp. Anger, frustration and fear.

“Shhh,” Jeff says softly, “Shhh, good boy, that was a real good boy,” and he gathers the dishes and goes.

=================

The fourth morning of his life with Jensen, Jeff wakes to the sound of the dog barking up a storm and the beep of a car horn at Jeff’s front gate. He groans and rolls out of bed, tangled in sheets and stumbling. He gets dressed and hikes up to where his driveway meets the road. There’s a woman there in a cute little red sport’s car, hair up in a messy bun and a stern set to her mouth.

“Can I help you?” Jeff asks when she rolls down her window.

“I’m looking for Mr. Morgan,” she says, “I’m Judge Ferris.”

Something falls in Jeff’s chest then. Too soon, damn it, even he can’t work miracles, but he swings open the gate for her. “I’m Jeff Morgan. Come on up.”

She drives the fifty yards or so up to the house but waits in her car for him to catch up, and he appreciates that, really.

“You want some coffee?” He asks as he holds her door open for her.

She shakes her head at the offer. “I’m not here in an official capacity,” she says, and Jeff thinks she doesn’t look like an official judge right now in her jeans and fitted white blouse. He realizes it must be Saturday. “I turned the care of a person in crisis over to the hands of someone not qualified in any sort of foster care or social work, and I wanted to come see what I had done.”

Jeff nods and sighs. “I can respect that, and if you want to come see him, you’re welcome to. I’ll be the first to tell you I’m making it up as I go.”

They walk around the house to the back, to the graveyard of empty pens and vacant dog houses. Follow the sound of barking dog until they’re outside Jensen’s cage.

“That’s close enough,” Jeff warns when they’re still twenty feet out. “I’m trying to let him feel safe and it’s better not having a new person crowd him.”

She stops, lips pressed tight and watching as the dog barks and paces.

“Do you think there’s any hope?” She asks at last.

“If he was a dog?” Jeff shrugs. “It would take time. Order, discipline, affection. But I think he’d be okay eventually. I haven’t had a dog yet that I couldn’t work with. But this isn’t a dog, and I have no idea how he’s wired, if what’s going on in his head is what I think it is. It’s been three days and he’s calmer now than when he came, and that’s an improvement.”

She watches for a bit longer, a frown between her eyebrows. “I’ll tell the DA that he’s an unsuitable witness,” she says. “If anybody calls you regarding the case, tell them to contact me.” Her pale gray eyes turn to Jeff. “I’m getting pressure from the werewolf council, to open his file to them. For now I’m telling them they had their chance and blew it. They’re going to have to escalate their requests up the chain of command if they want another shot.”

“Shit,” Jeff sighs. “You think they’ll be able to petition a higher court for custody or something?”

“I’m just hoping he’ll be in a fit state to decide where he wants to be by then.”

She turns and Jeff walks her back to her car. “Do you mind if I come again?” She asks and he shakes his head.

“You come back as much as you feel you need to, Ms. Ferris.”

They shake hands and she gets back in her car. Jeff walks up to get the gate, and feels unaccountably tired on the way back.

=========================

Jeff figures it’s only natural that he starts trying to spend as much time outdoors as possible. It’s just good manners if nothing else. You don’t leave a house-guest alone to stare at the walls if you can help it. He brings out his easel and canvas. Figures if he’s watching Jensen anyway, he might as well paint him. He spends the afternoon laying down lines and then hard blocks of black and tan but in the end there’s none of the dog’s strength or spirit in the final product, and he puts it in the pile of crap to paint over.

Guitar goes a little better for them both. Dinner eaten and the sun going down, Jeff pulls the patio chair over. Jensen comes close to the edge of his cage and listens as Jeff works through a couple of the exercises in “Teach yourself Guitar.” He snorts when Jeff mangles a note and Jeff has to laugh. “Everyone’s a critic,” he grouses, but Jensen stays close, lays with his chin on his paws, and it almost feels companionable.

The only problem with spending time in his yard is that he has time to actually dwell on what a mess the place really is. Back when there had been ten or twenty dogs at a time housed there it hadn’t seemed so bad. And yeah, the kennels and runs were mismatched and made of whatever recycled building materials Jeff could scrounge or pick up on the side of the road come garbage day, but it had all been serviceable and well-maintained. Clean, organized and safe enough for all it looked like hell to the outside eye.

Now though, the weeds are coming up everywhere and some of the older wood is starting to sag. Vines are climbing the chain link and mosquitoes swarming from un-used water troughs. Jeff tries to see it through Jensen’s eyes, this place he’s been brought to. Thinks about how the judge sees it.

Monday morning after breakfast, Jeff decides it all has to go. He pulls the truck over to the kennel furthest from Jensen because he wants to see if the noise is going to freak him out. He pulls on his heaviest gloves and his most resolved attitude and gets to work.

Taking down the pens is a hell of a lot more work than putting them up had been. Pry-bar to pull the boards apart and bolt-cutters to detach the fencing. Shovel to dig the cement footers of the fence-posts out of the hard ground.

By noon he’s got a tangle of trashed fence in his truck and three deep holes that need filling in to show for his work. His back aches and his arms are sore but he feels accomplished. Like he’s moving in the right direction.

===================

.

I've got very vague notes on this one, and some big parts that I am sure made sense at the time?

So. Jeff and Jensen slowly form a peace treaty. That cat from the first section starts showing up in Jensen's pen (When I was a kid, our pit bull yard-dog had a pet cat. Wild as anything, wouldn't let a human near it, but it slept in his dog house like they were best buds. My mom moved to NC and took the dog with her, and a few months later, he had a new wild cat). Jeff gets Jensen to shift and use tools by leaving cans of cat food and the can-opener.

Slowly, Jensen starts keeping human form more, wearing some clothes. Jeff comes out one morning and the pen is open, but Jensen hasn't run off. He starts using words, coming in the house. Jeff gets up the nerve to have Jared, Aldis and Christian over, and Christian and Jensen go off and have a long long talk.

While this slow healing is starting, Jeff is curious as hell about the whole "Abomination" thing from the werewolf community and gets in touch with Misha Collins, werewolf specialist at the local college's anthropology dept. . What Jeff learns is that usually werewolves (and other were-races), generally breed within their species or with humans. Were+were=90% chance of Were. Were+human=50% chance of were. Were+dog (or wolf)=50% chance of were, so out of a litter of 8, you could get 4 werewolves, maturing about 2 years later, ready for war. They mature at the dog's rate until full grown and then slow to that of a human. Creating abominations is a declaration of war. In the bad old days of territorial disputes, armies of abominations would be used and then destroyed by their creator when the conflict was over.

Jensen may be an accident, or may be a misplaced weapon. He might have 100 siblings out there, ready to upset local balance.

(and here things went vague, because I know someone is looking for Jensen but not why. judge Ferris is killed when she won't tell the bad guy where Jensen is. Something, something??)

But. Back to the Jeff/Jensen. Jensen gets more human by the day and he eventually becomes affectionate/attracted to Jeff and makes a pass, and even though Jeff is attracted to him back, he's like "Jesus no, you're like 4 years old!!" and Jensen gets upset and leaves, goes to Jared's place and hangs out there for a while.

Christian is working a new undercover job by then, illegal street fights, and is sort of lamenting to Jared that he's having a hard time getting in without a fighter to represent, and Jensen volunteers. The thing is, he's good at it. really good.

Jeff finally gets his head out of his ass and goes looking for Jensen. Jared sends him to one of the matches. Jensen can smell it when Jeff comes in the warehouse the match is at, and he's bloodied and victorious and yells out "Am I man enough for you now?"

Then...something. Chris is killed, Jeff kidnapped. Jensen carves a bloody swath getting them free. Something, something happy ending?.