Chapter Text
At the end of their first week as a real team TK can admit at least to himself and to Aspen that moving to Austin hadn’t been that bad. He glanced down to the floor of the bar where his badger demon was curled around his feet resting her head on her front paws and watching his father dance with the paramedic captain. His father’s daemon, a vibrant humming bird named Selene, buzzes around his shoulders appearing to dance to the music. Michelle’s own leaf nosed bat daemon, Sirius, watches the small bird closely while holding on to the shirt of his human counterpart.
He watches Aspen closely knowing that she’d normally be excited to join in but ever since the overdose both of them had not been feeling a hundred percent. He doesn’t allow himself to think about how close he was to losing her and to losing himself. Instead he thinks of the moments of joy and improvement he's seen since the team had come together.
Eyes traveling around the room he spots Mateo and his energetic hare daemon, Daphne, trying to teach the dance steps to Marjan and Paul. The latter two’s daemons sitting a few feet away off the dancefloor observing their humans learning the line dance. Marjan’s daemon Horus is not a bird instead a rather large porcupine, tail curled around himself and quills relaxed. Above Horus perched on a bar stool is Paul’s daemon, a beautiful northern hawk owl named Helena. None of these daemons were the expected counterparts of first responders and firefighters and maybe that is why they fit so well.
Even Judd who had a dog demon didn’t have the normal sleek breeds associated with firefighters but a large rottweiler named Maia who despite her looks was a very understanding and sweet personality as far as TK has seen.
So distracted in taking in the sight of his team celebrating their first major victory, TK doesn’t hear the footsteps nor the sound of paws as he's approached. Aspen is more alert to their surroundings and lifts her head, turning it slightly to see the handsome cop from the accident scene and his gorgeous wolf daemon.
“Hey” The officer offers to TK who responds in kind. Aspen continues to watch the other man’s daemon whose name they hadn’t learned. She wasn’t like any wolf daemon Aspen had ever seen, instead of the normal whites and grays of the few wolves she’d seen in New York, her fur had more rusty reds, tans, and browns. Aspen couldn’t help but think she was beautiful and so distracted in her own thoughts she didn’t notice the wolf had crouched down as their human’s checked each other out. Which is exactly what they were doing. Aspen knew what TK was like when he was attracted to someone.
“Hello, I’m Camellia.” The wolf spoke softly but confident. Aspen notices some black fur on her face not as dark and thick as the two black lines of fur running down her own face.
“Aspen” She answers and before she can say anything else the man was asking TK if he wanted to dance. She turned her attention back to him and watched as he considered the offer feeling relief when he accepted, acting more like himself again.
The two men don’t go far so the daemons are able to stay under the table together on the edge of the dance floor. They don’t chatter but both watch their human observing them as they dance. The wolf is much bigger than her similar to Carlos who is wider than TK. She rests her paw against the wolf’s thinking that TK was right, maybe leaving New York had been a good decision for them.