#the signal at campsites is usually scraps of nothing

[leenfiend]

what’s ur type

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[curlicuecal]

Black Sheep (2/?) (packstuck au)

In which Slick does not eat Dave and Jade only nibbles him a little.

<<ch 1

—

For the Psychic Wolves for Lupercalia event.

relationships: Jade/Dave, endgame is JadeDaveKat, but I figure I’ll wait until I actually get them all on the same page to tag that.  Also: Jade & Wolf!Slick

notes: fantasy au, demonstuck, demon trolls + dancestor wolves. also dave is hella davesprite-ish/bird-demony, but I don’t think you can really count a character as davesprite if they don’t have the ‘am I just the back up version’ issues.

Read on AO3

—-

The voices of the townsfolk still call in the distance, sounding indistinctly back and forth through the shallows of the woods in several directions as you pick your way back to where you left your hunting site.  “Can you tell what they’re saying?” you ask Slick, where he pads beside you, a rangy black shape.  

He sends you a fuzzy tangle of scents and colors–more a confused burst of sensory input than any kind of words.  But you have a lot of practice picking apart Slick’s way of communicating.  Right now, the answer is something like –( no//don’t care.)–

You tug the thick fur of his ruff, near his bandana.  “Wow, thanks.”

Slick slants one lupine eye up your way, a glint of gold in black.  He taps his tail very briefly, and the peppery mental flare of his amusement makes your nose itch in sympathy.  You roll your eyes at his tail as he lopes off ahead, vanishing deeper into the forest.

Vanishing to your eyes, anyway.  He’s always right there in your head, the familiar, alien pressure of his mind a comforting constant, like a low-level static charge.

You couldn’t feel that other wolf-demon or his troll at all.

Is that normal?  Maybe that’s normal.  You wish you’d thought to ask.  Damn it, you have so many questions, and you finally get someone who might be able to answer them in front of you and you hardly get any of them answered at all.

You picture the pair as you first stumbled onto them, shy and wild, demon-gold eyes so like Slick’s, wary upon you, the black that gold was set in just beginning to spark with some other color.  Slick’s eyes glow like bottled swamp gas when he’s upset, green and furious.  So maybe that’s a species emotional signal of some sort?  Social communication, like a blush or a frown.  And not just for the wolves–you’d seen that troll’s eyes flicker, too.

Blowing a stray hair out of your eyes and adjusting your gun, you try for positivity rather than either wistfulness or rabid, unsatisfied curiosity.  At least they had decided not to hate you in the end! You think.  And if you ever run into another troll or wolf-demon you will know much better how to start and what inter-cultural pitfalls to avoid!

Or maybe all the rest of them will want to take Slick away from you, too.

Nope, positive!

Think about how interesting that troll-demon was! With his wolf-eyes and his orange horns and his black floof of hair.  And those cute little point-tips to his ears with just the hint of fluff.  You’re just sad he didn’t have a tail.  In the stories, trolls have tails, like their wolves.

Oh, oh! Or proper wolf ears.  His had been much more human than you’d think, for all their points and the way they twitched about with his thoughts.

His face was surprisingly human, too–something a bit alien in the lines and the way his face sloped into his nose, but not at all like you’ve heard.  Well–you suppose he’d have had to be a bloodthirsty, slavering monster to really live up to some of the stories about trolls and their hellhounds, but you still hadn’t expected him to look quite so… ordinary in his extraordinariness.  

Approachable, maybe.  

Angry eyes gone vulnerable-uncertain in that all-too-human face; saw-edged teeth caught in dark, almost human lips; frown just fading into puzzlement.  Soft, all over grey velvet, pale against the dark of his hair, against the curve of his claws.

The pads of his fingers had been black and furless, startlingly warm when he touched you.

You catch up to Slick at your campsite.  He’s lounging beneath a tree, near your bedroll and camouflaged blind.  “Don’t go rolling all over my campsite.  If you get your scent everywhere nothing will come near and I’ll have to find another spot to stake out,” you tell him, as you make your way down the slope.  You might have to anyway–you haven’t had a scrap of luck catching the erstwhile sheep-thieves here.  

You’re nearly certain you’re looking at a wasp-demon attack–they’ve been unusually common enough in the area some of them might have hived up and started taking larger prey–but you haven’t been able to track any of them far enough to turn up a nest.  You’re still hoping you can find the right place to properly stake out their flight paths, but that might take nights yet.

Slick’s thought tangle is dismissive: the dusty smell of long-dried bones, the rumble of empty stomachs, boredom.

“Nothing to hunt doesn’t mean we’re not still hunting ,” you say marching up to him–and then eep and stumble backwards as something drops from the trees into directly into your path.

“There you are,” Dave says, brushing leaf litter from his palms as he rises from his landing crouch.

“There you are,” you say back to him, when you have decided not to have a heart attack.

–(The tasty bird-fluff is here,)– Slick indicates to you, mildly, in a sensory jumble that is nevertheless inescapably smug.  You can just smell the amusement rising off his thoughts like bright burnt metal.  

You can’t help but start laughing.   –You’re an ass,– you tell him, adding to Dave, “You scared the bejeepers out of me, geez.”

Dave looks briefly bewildered–and then his jaw sets in that flinchy, unhappy angle he gets when he realizes he’s done something a little too far outside human norms.  Something like drop out of a tree faster than his hunter-girlfriend can react.  Oops.  You pull him into a tight hug before he can think too hard.  

“How’re you feeling?  Better?  You look better.”

Dave raises his eyebrow at you from where you’re holding him at arm’s length for inspection.  “Yeah, it’s usually hard to top my extreme attractiveness, but luckily ‘poisoned by a fucking demon-scorp’ gives me a long way up to go.”  He lifts his cloth-wrapped right arm in demonstration.  “Last of the swelling went down last night.  Still itches like the devil’s own wooly underwear in a sandpit, but I guess this demon-touched feathery shit’s gotta be good for something.  These bandages are now officially 100% aesthetic only.”  He strikes a pose, arm swaddled dramatically to his chest, butt pushed out.  “Just some fine-ass Strider styles of the medi-fashion variety so the locals don’t wonder why I’m such a quick-healing hottie.  No big.”

Pfft.  You lean up to drop a kiss on the tip of his nose and grin when he goes pink.  “You’re a cutiepie all right.  You bring me breakfast?”

“Breakfast and news.”  Behind his shades, Dave’s face is unusually serious.

“The townsfolk?  I heard them out calling.”

“Eat first,” Dave says, and presses a paper wrapped packet into your hands.  You recognize the tavernkeeper’s baking.

“It’s that bad?”

“You just might not want to stop to eat after.”  He nudges the packet in your hands again until you finally settle against Slick, swinging your gun to one side but still in reach, and set about unwrapping your meal.  Dave makes a face at Slick and doesn’t join you on the ground.  He hovers over you instead, pacing and tapping his fingers and generally doing his best impression of a fluttery mother hen.  You stare him down over your meat pie, and then wiggle your eyebrows and grin at him as you take a very pointed bite.

That earns you a flash of a smile.  “Marni sends her best with the pies, by the way,” Dave says, finally dropping to squat opposite you. “She says I’m ‘not to let that nice hunter girl get away from me.’”

“Marni is very correct,” you say around a bite of food, and then pause to grin at him.  “Besides, you’d have to shake me off your trail first.”

“D’awww,” Dave says deadpan, like he’s joking, even though you can tell he really isn’t.  He produces another wax-paper packet from his pack, unwrapping it for Slick.  “Here, fur-face, a horrible pile of body parts from the butcher’s scrap bucket. Yum yum.”

Slick snaps at his retreating hand without any particular intent, his mind humming lazy pleasure and amusement.

“You boys play nice.”

“I’m always nice,” Dave says, tilting his head to flutter his eyelashes at you over the top of his shades.  When he thinks you’re not looking, he sticks his tongue out at Slick.  

You snicker and nearly inhale a chunk of onion.  When you’re done choking and otherwise reaffirming with your body which items go down which pipes, you lick gravy from your fingers and look up at Dave, one eyebrow raised.  “Okay, I’m eating.  What’s up?”

He sighs out a long breath.  Fiddles with the dirt by his feet.  “Bro says we need to get out of town.”

Oh.  “Another of his notes?”

“On the pillow this morning,” Dave agrees.  “I swear to fuck I closed the window; I don’t know how he got a bird in.  You think their little feet could work a latch?”

“I’d be more concerned with how a bird could move a window twenty times its weight.”

“Maybe you’d need twenty birds,” Dave says.  “Shit.  Now I’m picturing, like, stalker bird conga lines outside my window while I sleep.  I’m never gonna close my eyes again.”

“Ha.”  Your meat pie seems a lot less delicious than it did a few minutes ago.  You make yourself keep eating anyway.  “I guess he didn’t say why we needed to leave.”

Dave shrugs, working his shoulders like the baby-fine feathers hiding along his spine need help to settle.  That’s a sure sign he’s more unhappy than he’s letting on. But then, Dave always blames himself for these things.  Dave’s a big dummy.  “You know Bro.  Dude loves his cryptic messages.  It’s like, ‘I can monitor my baby bro all across hundreds of miles of countryside to know when there’s trouble coming his way, and I can painstakingly bird-courier a note across said hundreds of miles to let him know he ought to skip town, but do I have the time to jot down the five extra words that would tell him what the hell is going on?  No.  No I do not.’”

“Well!”  If it’s not all the way to cheerful, you at least manage brisk and firm.  But really, it’s not like this is bad news.  “We would have been moving along soon anyway.  I’d’ve preferred to track down the wasps or whatever’s been picking off the livestock first, but it’s not much sooner than what we were thinking.”  It’s a nice town.  The people here always seem happy to have a hunter visit, and remarkably tolerant of your group’s little collection of eccentricities–but there’s no point pressing your luck.  

Slick mutters a low tangle of anger and dissatisfaction and dismissal into your mind.  That makes you smile.  Slick is not a people person.

Spirits strangely brightened by his misanthropy, you shake the last crumbs of pie crust into your mouth, and gather up your and Slick’s wrappers, folding them neatly before passing them back to Slick.  He stretches, gets to his feet, and trots a little ways away to bury the trash in the dirt with a few negligent flicks of his paws.

Padding back your way, he wanders over to go snuff at Dave’s hair.  For his part, Dave pretends not to notice the giant black wolf invading his personal space.  You hide a smile as the pretend nonchalance turns into pretend-not-to-be-having-a-stealthy-shoving-match.  They do enjoy one-upping each other.  “Those hunters a few towns over are supposed to be heading this way any day now, aren’t they?” you ask.  “They could handle a wasp nest, or whatever else this is.”

“Runner said they might even make it in later this morning or afternoon.”  Dave’s looking tense again.  

You inspect him through the broad lenses of your glasses.  “Anyone we know?”

“Not that I heard.”

“You think that’s what your bro was warning us about?  These hunters?”  

Hunters are… well it’s hit or miss whether they’ll be substantially more tolerant of Dave and his demon-touched gifts, or less.  You both try not to bring Slick into the question at all.  Everybody knows you have some kind of high-content hybrid animal and you leave it at that. (Wow, though, the idea of wolf-demons breeding with actual wolves.  Ew?  You are pretty sure they would not be down for that.  They’re not some near-animal lesser demons–Slick’s as much a person as you or Dave.)  So, whatever. Let folks think you keep your “dog” mostly out of towns and out-of-sight because you don’t quite trust him with strangers.  It’s not like that’s a lie.

Dave shrugs a response to your question, frowning at his fingers where they lightly brace his perch in the dirt; picking absently at the hint of scales on his unwrapped wrist.  He doesn’t even seem to notice when Slick sets his teeth testingly in his shoulder–not until the bite grows hard enough for him to turn and swat reflexively at the wolf.  “Ow, lay off already, you overgrown dustbunny!”

Slick releases him without appearing to pay any mind to the batting hands.  His mind buzzes a staticky cloud of irritation.  –(Distracted,)– he pronounces.  He prowls over to sit next to you, eyeing Dave with a look you think might not be dissimilar to the intensifying scrutiny in your own green eyes.

“Daaaaave,” you say.  “I can see you thinking.  Tell me.”

“Nah, it’s nothing really,” Dave says, sounding entirely like it’s something.  “I’m just thinking–we really oughta clear out of here, shouldn’t we?”

Your lips purse further.  “Yeah, probably we should.  But there’s something else, isn’t there?  Something you’re not telling me.”   You narrow your eyes behind your glasses.  “Those townspeople didn’t get all riled up and go running around in the woods without a very good reason.  That’s not safe.  What happened?”

“I’m not saying we should stay…” Dave starts, reluctantly.

“Dave Strider.  I am about five ‘dot dot dots’ from dying of impatience over here, mister.  Just tell me already!”

His words come all in a rush.  “Shia Keeper’s youngest didn’t turn up for breakfast this morning.”

You blink.  You sit back heavily on your tush.  

Now that Dave’s started, he doesn’t seem to want to stop.  “It’s still too soon to tell, but they think he might have gone out to see the sheep.  He’d been talking about them, I guess.  Knew the adults were worried.  There’s no sign of a struggle or an attack anywhere–some kicked up leaves, maybe, in the pasture near the shallows, but who knows what that means.  None of the dogs picked up any trail.”

You blow out a long breath, thread your fingers into Slick’s fur beside you.  He’s an anchor, his mind a little more alert and interested, but otherwise unmoved.  “Outside the village ward circle?”

“Yeah,” Dave says.

Your fingers tighten further.  “Same details as the missing lambs.”

“Yeah,” Dave says again, and doesn’t say anything else.

“If it’s a wasp-demon nest he might still be alive.”  For a while.  Weeks even.  They like to paralyze prey to keep for their hatchlings.  You pet Slick’s fur, focusing on the texture of it.  “Her youngest,” you say after a little while, trying to sort faces in your head.  Maybe it will distract you from the sick churning in your gut.  “That would be… Odain?”

“Ossi.  He’s six.”

Nope, your gut is definitely still churning.  “Fuck,” you say, with feeling, and stop trying to pretend like you’re not upset.  Slick lays his head on your leg, fixes you with his cold golden eyes–not like he’s sympathizing, but still like he doesn’t want you to be distressed.  Maybe it’s not nice of you, but you’re grateful for that crisp, clear wind of pragmatic disinterest that is Slick’s thoughts.  Sometimes, maybe, you need a little ruthless selfishness to deal.  

…Sometimes, it would be nice not to care.

You give yourself just a very few minutes to regroup, pull yourself back into working order.  Life’s massively stupidly unfair sometimes, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep going.  Look at this situation head on.  Problem solve.  “All right,” you say with a little of that borrowed briskness.  “So he’s either dead or he’s stuck somewhere we can’t find.  Only one of those options is time sensitive.”

Dave nods, does that uncomfortable shoulder-shrug/feather-settling motion again.  “He still might just be wandered off somewhere,” he adds.  “It’s only been a few hours.  Kids do dumb shit.  Not like there’s any evidence something actually snatched him.”

“Could be.”  You don’t really believe it.  Dave doesn’t either.  You’ve both been out on the roads long enough to have a good idea both how nice and how not-nice the world can be.  “Either way, if he’s anywhere a little kid or normal predator or even a  lesser demon could have gotten to, the townsfolk’s search parties will turn him up.”

“That just leaves mids and up as the possible nasties they can’t deal with,” Dave says.

“Like the wasps.  And there’s more hunters due in town any minute.”  

The pair of you share a look, trying to convince each other and mostly failing.  Dave’s Bro’s warnings are sometimes cryptic, but they’ve never led you wrong.  You should let these other hunters handle the situation.  You should, but…

Your mind snags on another factor you hadn’t considered.  “Oh.”  Angry alien face under a dark tangle of hair, watchful eyes, fur and teeth.  …Demons.  “Um.  So.  Dave!  Did I mention Slick and I had an interesting encounter this morning?”

He must be a  little too familiar with that chirp in your voice, because Dave’s mouth goes instantly flat with suspicion.

“We, um.  Met another wolf-demon and his troll.  Actually, I think it went pretty well!”

Dave’s bland expression doesn’t twitch, but there’s a subtle movement along his scalp like a wind ruffling through.

“I mean, except for when Slick bit them, or when they got all snarly about me being with Slick, or when we kind of sort of may have lost our tempers a little bit.”

“Jade.”  Dave’s orange-blond hair still rises almost invisibly, fluffed by the feathers underneath.

“But it all worked out and nobody shot anybody and I think they probably even didn’t want to fight us anymore in the end!”

“Oh, god.”  Dave still sounds completely calm.  Also kind of low-key dramatic, but if he wasn’t he wouldn’t be Dave.  He presses his hands to his temples like he is trying to hold his head together.  “Jade.  Why.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time?”  

In your head, Slick is snickering evilly at both of you.  He lifts his head from your knee to gape his jaw in a toothy doggy grin.   “Slick started it,” you add, tossing him ruthlessly to Dave’s disapproval.  Slick internally rolls his eyes at you, a very human cloud of thought.  Dave is not distracted.

“Holy shit,” he mutters.  “It’s like I can’t leave you alone for even five minutes or you’ll be out petting the bugbears and trying to ride the dryads.  Must you constantly attempt to befriend the big scary monsters that want to eat you?”

“Hey,” you say, a flash of anger actually licking through your veins.  

“Present company excepted, of course,”  Dave corrects easily.  “Slick being a big scary monster that does not want to eat you.”

You purse your lips at him, but your anger’s already gone.  Slick’s not offended and you know Dave really doesn’t mean it. Also it’s a little bit accurate.  “They didn’t want to eat me either,” you say repressively.  “Honestly, Dave, it’s not like being a demon automatically determines your personality.  They were just curious and shy and…” –that last moment, when you were all hollowed out and heartsore, and the troll had crept towards you, brows furrowed, hand outstretched– “…kind of protective towards Slick.”

Dave sighs and bounces to his feet, standing to pace back and forth in front of you.  You draw your knees up to your chest and watch him. You do not point out that his steps have gone just a little too fluid–a series of rapid, focused movements like–well, like a long-legged bird stalking along the ground.  He scrubs his hands through his unsettled hair.

Finally, he paces out his thoughts.

With another sigh, Dave drops down beside you all at once.  He doesn’t even react when Slick lazily flashes his teeth just on principle, and then flops partway onto your lap.

“You okay?”  Dave asks you, voice quiet now.

You smile a bit, stroking Slick’s ear.  “I’m good.”

“You said you lost your temper.”

There is absolutely no judgment in his voice, just a careful, abiding concern.  Dave would throw himself on knives for you, and he’s never liked that there are some injuries he can’t take.  That’s all right.  You decided years and years ago that you’re not letting anything happen to Dave.  You’ve never forgotten that, no matter how crazy things get.  Anything else that goes wrong is just noise, stuff you can fix later.

“Almost,” you confess.  You sigh and lean into him, settling your head into the curve of his neck and shoulder.  He smells like the trees he’s been travelling through and a little–you try not to let Slick’s thoughts color yours too much, but it can’t be denied–like something feathered and edible.  It’s nice, in a way that makes you want to burrow into him harder.

“We’re fine,” you tell him, and mean it.  “Slick and me.”

Dave huffs a breath that might be amusement or agreement or aggravation and turns his head in and down towards yours, face nuzzling automatically into your hair.  His hand around your shoulders starts preening out the ends of the locks, where it always tangles, a faint, pleasant tug against your scalp.  It’s familiar, reflexive kind of gesture, and you know it’s as much to comfort himself as you.  

You think it’s super cute when Dave does his bird-cuddle thing, but that is another point that you know he would prefer not to be reminded about.  Oh, well.  You’ll just have to remember it for him.  One of your arms is looped partway around Slick’s muzzle and neck in your lap, but you sneak your free hand out to pet at Dave’s shirt, straightening the collar, smoothing out the creases in it and the way it lies under the straps for his pack and katana.  Preening back.  You hum a little satisfied noise as he melts against you.  

“Was touch and go for a bit,” you tell him, “but we worked it out fine.  And they really didn’t mean it, Dave.  They were trying to look out for Slick.  They backed right off when they saw they’d upset us.”

“Hmf.  More like they backed off when they saw what a fuckin’ awesome bamf you were,” Dave mumbles into your hair, fond and amused.  “Nobody fucks with Harls and the Slick-meister.”

“Or you.”

“Damn straight,” he agrees.  “No fucking all around.  Between the three of us we’ve got the damn monopoly on unfuckability.”  You snort gracelessly and Dave huffs into your hair.  “That came out wrong.”

You can hear him smiling.

You snuggle further into his neck and nip lightly.  “Maybe a little fucking?”

His skin heats against your lips, but his voice remains deadpan.  “Gasp.  Madame, you offend my virtue.  My little heart, it is all a flutter.  To think that you would suggest such liberties with me, a delicate maiden–”

You’re outright laughing now, elbowing Dave in the stomach and curling over so your glasses go askew.  Slick makes an irritable noise where you’re bouncing his head in your lap.   –If you don’t like it, move,– you tell him, pulling a mental face at him, still giggling.  

Slick just hunkers down intractably.   –(No. Mine.)–

Ah-haha, these boys.  

“Jade,” Dave says, sobering up some.  His fingers still fiddle with your hair.  “I gotta ask.”

Oh, that does not sound promising.

“We’ve got a missing kid and some coincidental demons in the area…”  His words make your draw yourself up without even meaning to.  Dave’s arm tightens, holding you close.  “I’m not saying they did it!  I’m not saying anything.  Hell if I know, I never even met the dudes.  I am not the demon-whisperer, here.  My troll-demon knowledge file is sitting at a big oh oh, and my wolf-demon file is only one tick better.  Though extensive.  I just… gotta ask.”

You blow out your breath.  Roll back your head on his shoulder and frown up at the canopy and make yourself give the topic proper consideration.  It is, you know, a very fair question.  You’re not sure why just the suggestion of it bothers you so much.  You thread your fingers through dark black fur, mentally leaning in to the still mildly bored hum of Slick’s mind.  

Maybe it bothers you because it could so easily be asked about you and Slick.  (About you and Bec.)  

But Dave’s right.  You don’t really know them.  They might not be monsters, but they’re also not Slick.  “I got the impression they were trying to stay away from humans.  They said they were just passing through,” you say slowly, thinking aloud.  “With their pack, looking for territory.”

“There’s been sheep going missing for weeks,” Dave says.

“I think he was telling the truth when he said they hadn’t been in the area very long, but I can’t say for certain,” you confess.  “Still.  I could see the lambs, maybe. Heck, we’d probably poach a lamb if we were hungry enough and we couldn’t find any game.  But a kid?”

“It’s not a troll kid, though,” Dave points out, voice still mild, neutral; fingers soothing along your shoulder.  “Would they see a difference between a sheep and a human?”

Your first thought is of course, but your second thought is maybe.  That troll had spoken to you, snarked and bantered and asked questions of you… but he’d also clearly seen you as something automatically other, something different and potentially dangerous.  Something that couldn’t be trusted with Slick.

Would they think like a human about this topic?

You run the velvet of Slick’s ear through your fingers over and over again.  He’s watching you, golden eye tilted upward from your lap, as aware of your busy, uncomfortable thoughts as you are of the current serene simplicity of his own.

“What do you think?” you ask him, forming the words as mental question simultaneously.  It always takes a little extra effort to be sure complicated ideas get across clearly.  But Slick and you have been making your strange, static-y psychic connection work for years.  “Do you think a wolf-demon would eat a person?  A human kid?”

Slick blinks lazily at you.  His response is a tangled haze of disdainful negation. Not so much a ‘no’ as a general disapproval of the concept.   –(Why/stupid/pointless).–   You get another cloud of thoughts and pictures and smells.  Some of them remind you very much of his psychic name– of the smell of death, of the slipperiness of blood under paw, of the cold, and the dark.  Slick doesn’t remember exactly what happened to his pack for you to find him young, alone, a chained captive in a human merchant’s caravan.  But he doesn’t not remember, either.  

“He says you never meddle with the pups if you’re going to leave the parents alive,” you translate for Dave.  

“Charming,” Dave says, but the snark sounds mostly pro forma.  Dave has the same idea of what lies in Slick’s past as you.  Fighting is just how he and Slick bond.

“It’s a good point, though.  It would be a dumb thing for them to do.  They weren’t dumb, Dave.”

“And this conversation just continues to be a source of great comfort and reassurance to me.  The possibly hostile, possibly human-phobic, possibly mad-at-you pack of troll and wolf demons are not dumb.  Excellent.  How much of a powder keg do you think this situation will become if the townsfolk figure out that there’s a pack of high level demons passing through the area?”

Your stomach rolls uneasily.  

–(Much,)– Slick thinks with the first interest he’s shown in the conversation.

You hope, again, that your advice got those two safely out of the path of the human searchers.  Surely you’d have heard something by now if it hadn’t.  Wouldn’t you? “With any luck they’re long gone and it will never come up.”

“Bite your tongue,” Dave mutters.

You both fall silent, contemplating the current predicament and all the many ways this situation could spiral into a less-than-happy ending.  Well, you and Dave contemplate.  Slick seems content to doze peacefully on your knee.

“So,” Dave says after a while.  “That’s the thing.”

“That’s the thing,” you agree.

“We still need to leave,” he says.

“We really, really do.”

“We’re not going to, are we?”

You look up, and meet the reflection of your gaze in Dave’s shades.  It looks steely and determined.  His face has the slightest hint of a smile on it, like now that you’re both acknowledging the dumb thing you’re going to do, he already feels better.

You quirk a grin back at him.  “Nope, sure aren’t.”

“I’ll head up through the trees and scout around, see if I can spot anything,” Dave says.

“I’ll take Slick and see if we can pick up a scent trail somewhere.  Though with half the town out in the woods…”

“Thought you might say that.”  Dave pats his pack.  “Brought you two one more present.  Stopped by the Keepers’ place on the way out of town.  Special delivery, one wax-wrapped bundle of dirty nightclothes, full of stank.”

“Dave!  You always know just what I like.”

Slick has tuned fully in to the conversation, head picked up, ears alert.  His mind hums and pulses with anticipatory energy.  He might not care about the missing kid, but he does love a good hunt.

You give him anticipation and determination right back.  It’s a much, much better emotion than sitting here feeling distressed and helpless and sad about everything.  “If we can’t pick up the kid’s trail we’ll go back to staking out flight paths for the wasps.”

“Yeah, well whatever you do stay clear of the search parties,” Dave says. “Or at least make sure Slick keeps that bandana super apparent.” He reaches out to flick at the patchwork of brightly colored cloth tied around Slick’s neck, retrieving his hand before Slick can take a piece out of it. “People are twitchy as hell.  Don’t need either of you getting shot.”

“Oh?”  You turn around, sitting up on your knees to look him straight in the sunglasses.  “And what about you mister?”

“I’ll be careful,” Dave promises.

You raise a wry eyebrow at him.  “You’ll be flitting around in the trees making a target of yourself.”

“I’ll be a careful target,” Dave insists.

“Uh huh,” you say.  You eye him thoughtfully. “Maybe I should put a collar on you.”

Dave’s pokerface is even cuter when his ears turn pink.  “Promises, promises.”

“Dave.”  You place a hand on his chest, resting over the scar you know is there, under the fabric, right over his heart.  The one that reminds you exactly how lucky you are to have this.  The one that reminds you that you’re never going to let go, and you’ll fight anyone who says different.

Dave’s yours.  

(And you’re maybe still riding a little too close to Slick’s thoughts with his anticipation for the hunt, with his mine, mine, mine, that he drove like blades at that other wolf and his troll, but hey you can defensive-possessive him right back.  They’re both yours.)

You close your fingers in Dave’s shirt, pull him in, and kiss him like you want to eat him so he’ll be safe.  He hums and leans into you like he’d let you.

Slick’s head butts between you.  He doesn’t nip Dave, so he must be in a really good mood.  

You send him a wave of utter annoyance.

He sends you nothing but impatient anticipation back–the crisp smell of wind rustling the trees, of a lightning storm building in the air.  The scrabble of prey fleeing for their life.  Slick’s front feet pat the ground and his golden eyes stare at you unblinkingly.   –(Go/now/hunt.)–

“Nobody asked you,” Dave mutters, apparently entirely willing to hold a conversation he can only hear one side of.

You sigh.  Right.  Things to do.  And all of them life-or-death important.  You can’t quite make your hand release Dave’s shirt yet, but you lean back on your heels.  “We should go.”

“Yeah.”

“Be careful?”

“The carefulest.”

“Meet you for dinner?”

Dave curls his hand over yours on his chest, leans back in, smile hiding on his lips.  “If I don’t, you’ll come hunt me down.  Right?”

You smile and press your forehead against his.  “Always.”  

He smiles back, for real.

You let him go.

You turn to Slick.  And you go hunting.