#I am not complaining because honestly Mad with little fox ears is a great visual

[bookwormscififan]

Hybrids and Humans, Chapter 1

Don't Forget to Lock the Doors

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A/N: I may have been inadvertently convinced by @iamvegorott to start a fox Mad AU...

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Everyone knew the stories. A genetics lab in a remote part of the country had a mishap with some experiments, flooding the surrounding town with a pungent grey mist that had some… strange effects on the citizens.

The policy against hats in schools was abolished when students began turning up with augmentations to their appearance, initially just animal ears among their hair, then devolving into tails and claws. Panic consumed the town, families breaking apart from differences in breed, and eventually a nation-wide quarantine was placed over the state to keep people away from these new hybrids.

That was over fifty years ago. The children affected had since grown up and had their own children, and slowly the segregation of the town fell through. The hybrids could live their lives, crossing state lines and being themselves, on the condition none of them ever experimented with genetic sciences again.

Mare whistled as he washed his hands, using the back of his wrist to nudge his glasses further up his nose. The afternoon sun shone through the kitchen window, casting everything in a soft orange glow, and Mare smiled as he thought about the fresh batch of bread he’d baked for himself and his brother.

Phantom enjoyed texture in his meals, preferring Mare’s poppyseed sourdough loaves over the traditional wholemeal bread, so Mare always made sure to bake him a loaf of sourdough. When Phantom got home from his outing, he’d probably make Mare some sweets as a token of gratitude, and the thought made Mare smile more.

Phantom wouldn’t be home for a few more days. He was out on a tour to find somewhere new for them to live, having grown tired of their small house at the edge of town facing the forest.

“Don’t forget to lock up,” Phantom had reminded Mare as he left, giving a pointed look at the back door, silently warning Mare of the hybrids that had been rumoured to live in the forest. The dangerous ones that people said were unafraid of letting their animal instincts take control.

Drying his hands, Mare calmly walked through the house to lock up, flicking the latch on the back door with a roll of his eyes. He was sure he could handle a rabid stranger showing up at his door, what with his certain “gifts”.

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He was woken in the middle of the night by something scratching at the back door, the sound of nails against the wood making him sit upright. A cold chill had set in when night fell, causing Mare to stuff blankets and towels into every small gap in the walls and windows to keep the warmth inside, and curiosity got the better of him at the scratching on the door.

Climbing out of bed and tugging a blanket around his shoulders, Mare slowly crept down the stairs to the back door, peeping through the window to gauge what was there, but the dark covered everything. All he could see was a dark shape picking around the doorknob as if trying to dislodge it.

“It could just be a person,” Mare told himself as he wrapped his fingers around the doorknob, turning it and slowly opening the door.

A dark blur dashed past him before he’d gotten the door fully open, making a beeline for the smouldering fire and curling up close to it in attempts to get warm. After a couple blinks, Mare closed the door and turned around, gingerly heading toward the figure by the fire.

“Hello,” he ventured, making the shape out to seem human. Wrapped in a thick cloak, it was difficult to tell anything concrete, but the hands splayed out before the embers gave him a good clue. “It’s usually more polite to ask to be let inside before running in—”

“Sorry.” The voice was faint, weak, but certainly sounded human – not that Mare knew if the hybrids could speak – and the soft tone in the voice made Mare want to wrap his arms around this intruder and never let go.

“Well, I don’t really mind, honestly. I could rekindle this fire so you have more warmth, and you can stay the night,” Mare suggested, slowly moving to give his blanket to his guest. “My name is Mare, by the way. My twin isn’t here at the moment. He’s house hunting.”

The figure turned to look at Mare, hood falling from his head as he lifted it, and Mare started at the sight of two fuzzy fox ears sitting among the mop of brown hair. In the dim light of the dying fire, Mare could make out a pale face sprinkled with freckles and glossy eyes that seemed to reflect the orange of the embers.

“They call me Mad.”

Mare had never imagined coming face to face with one of the fabled hybrid humans before, but now he had a fox hybrid in his house, looking at him with grateful eyes, and he felt like his heart was going to pound out of his chest.

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@brokentimewatch @dungeon-dragons-dragons @rattyboyisemo