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Burke does not want to pet Peaches.
“She’s really nice- to anyone who isn’t a Peggie,” Rook amends quickly, as the cougar in question languidly licks the back of its paw and rubs it behind its ears. After a moment, it turns and regards Burke with the same expression of bored indifference that’s typical of most cats.
“I feel like touching it would be a mistake,” Burke intones.
“She’s a she, and she really is very sweet,” Rook assures, kneeling down beside Peaches and running a hand down her back. Peaches arches her head back, leaning into Rook’s touch just like a housecat would.
Burke’s still not gonna touch her.
He’s lived in Montana long enough to know that fucking around with cougars is something that can go really wrong really fast. And unlike an actual housecat, if Peaches decides she doesn’t want to be pet anymore and takes a swipe at him, it’s probably going to land him in the infirmary.
So Burke does his best to keep his distance, as well as one eye on the deceptively benign cougar when he can.
They don’t send him out on missions, and don’t put him on patrol duty like most of the Cougars are expected to do. Burke doesn’t know if this is some sort of passive-aggressive consequence for killing Virgil, or if maybe it’s because they just don’t trust him with a gun, but whatever the case he doesn’t especially care: He spends his days on his cot or sitting on the lawn in front of the prison, usually whichever location has less people in it. It could be real, it could just as easily be paranoia, but wherever he goes he feels like people are watching him, whispering about him.
It could also, very realistically, be some leftover bat-shittery from Faith and the Bliss, but Burke is neither qualified nor interested in making that evaluation.
Wherever he goes, though, Peaches finds a way to follow him.
“Mrow,” she squawks at him, bumping against him and nearly knocking him into the half-scorched grass from last week’s assault on the prison.
(Has it really been a week since he’d killed Virgil?
God, time does fly when one is stewing in overwhelming shame and guilt.)
“Stop it,” Burke grunts, although he’s careful not to push her away or otherwise do anything that might make her take a swipe at him.
“Ra-nahh.” Peaches rolls onto her back, showing her stomach to him like she expects him to pet her.
“Oh, no way,” Burke says, shaking his head. “No way in hell. I’ve been around enough cats in my life to know how this ends. Not happening.”
After a while Peaches seems to get the message, because she rolls back onto her stomach and stares at Burke for a long time. Her chest and stomach rise and fall quickly, like she’s panting. But then, it is late August and she’s been spending her days running around and mauling cultists.
Burke, on the other hand, has been mauling people at Faith’s behest.
He covers his eyes, blocking out as much light as he can. Burke feels like shit, but the real psychological collapse is right around the corner. Soon the county will be liberated and the authorities will come, including his coworkers from the Marshal’s Office, and the thought of having to explain everything that had transpired made him want to find a gun and finish what Faith started.
Maybe that would be better, for him and everyone else involved.
“Mraaawr.”
Burke drops his hands, eyes flying open and stinging at the light.
Peaches had inched forward without him realizing, and was nosing at Burke’s knee. Her tongue darted out briefly to lick at his jeans before pulling back, blinking at him. She looks calm enough, but he doesn’t like how close she managed to get to him while his eyes were closed.
Burke slowly scoots back, then gets up and walks back to the prison, not turning his back on her until he’s far enough away that she can’t leap on him from behind.
Later, at night, Peaches comes for him again.
Burke might lie on his cot a lot, but that doesn’t mean he sleeps. He’ll pretend to if there are people nearby, but he gets maybe an hour or two a night. And whether he’s doing nothing all day or not, it leaves him feeling like shit on a regular basis. The cycle feeds on itself: Burke feels miserable, so he doesn’t sleep; and then because he doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t have energy to do shit.
He’s worked consistently since he was sixteen years-old. Burke’s not used to being totally useless.
So tonight he’s staring at the curtain separating the next cot from his, contemplating that worthlessness and trying to convince himself that no one presently in the room wanted to slit his throat to avenge Virgil.
And much like before, he hears Peaches coming before he sees her.
“Mrwar,” she wails as she comes into the room, feet padding softly on the floor. “Mrawr!”
A few of the cougars offer a greeting to their namesake, and Burke hears her purr here and there- probably getting a scratch behind the ears for her troubles. He’s content to ignore her presence until he feels it right beside him, hot cat-breath on his arm. Burke opens his eyes and sees Peaches staring at him, blinking benignly. For the first time, Burke notices that she has heterochromia: Her right eye is blue, but the left one is golden-brown.
“What?” Burke mutters.
Peaches sits down, stares at him. She’s still purring, and eventually Burke just shuts his eyes and tries to wait her out. Cats are fickle creatures regardless of size; she’ll get bored and walk away to find something more interesting at one point or another.
And then Peaches climbs onto him.
Burke jerks a little in surprise, eyes wide as Peaches’ giant paws press hard into his side. “Jesus- seriously? Really?”
“Mrrm,” Peaches rumbles, and Burke cringes as her claws start kneading into his hip. She settles in after a time, the upper half of her body settling neatly on Burke’s side. He stares at her, fairly certain he could hear a few people snickering from nearby.
“Excuse me?” Burke hisses. “You mind getting down?”
Peaches’ purr grows deeper and more satisfied in that way that a cat does when they realize they’re massively inconveniencing someone. Every deep rumble resounds through his body, through his chest and head in the most unusual way, and really it’s like sitting in a car while the engine revs.
(It’s not the worst feeling in the world.)
“Down,” Burke orders, though he makes no move to actually push her off; not a chance in hell he’s attempting that, not when her face and claws are so close to his vital organs.
Peaches ignores him, jaw opening wide in a yawn.
“Down,” Burke grunts again, this time turning his hip a little in the hopes of unseating her and reducing her interest in using him as a pillow.
Peaches ignores him, only lightly kneading his hip again.
(It actually feels kind of nice.)
Burke’s eyes roll shut. She’s a warm, heavy weight on him, but she’s not biting or scratching him or otherwise doing anything that would pose a threat to him. And it’s not like Burke had been planning on going anywhere. So he shuts his eyes and tries to ignore Peaches in return, tries to get some sleep.
He does eventually, absolutely not lulled to sleep by the steady rhythm of Peaches’ purring.
At some point during the night, Burke wakes up.
(It may or may not be due to another dream of Faith Seed’s laughter and Virgil Minkler’s dead, bloody body.
Better than any fucking alarm, if he’s being honest.)
Still half-asleep, Burke finds that he’s rolled onto his back and that Peaches has stretched out across his stomach and chest, her head lying on her paws. Someone walks past, and she lifts her head briefly to watch as they go, almost as though she’s keeping watch for enemies and predators. Slowly she lowers her head again, tail swishing back and forth over the edge of the bed.
Well, there’s one benefit: Even if anyone in the prison does want to slit his throat, they’re sure not going to lean over a cougar to do it.
Burke sighs. If Peaches does go feral in the middle of the night and decides to tear his throat out, it’s not the worst thing that could happen to him right now. He reaches to pat her head, and she raises it to meet his hand, rolling into the touch with all of a cat’s smug, victorious satisfaction.
“Thanks,” he mumbles.
“Rrm,” Peaches purrs.
Burke passes out to the rhythm of her rumbling again, and stays out this time.
-End