Chapter Text
The fucking dog is back.
It's a scraggly thing. Gaunt and long, scarred and filthy. Just another stray begging for scraps. It's not the first he's seen hanging around. The faulty dumpster lock no one had ever bothered to replace makes the area a prime feeding ground for all the hungry vermin wandering the streets, the smell of old food and decomposing meat wafting down the alley.
John knows most of the regulars by now: the crows that come picking through the trash in the early morning, the rats hiding under the bins at all hours, the skinny little mama cat that comes calling every day after the evening rush, the small family of raccoons that mosey in after dark to properly unhook the latch and climb right in, taking great joy in their nightly dumpster dive.
The dog is new.
He’d first seen it in the rain. The downpour keeping clients away and condemning him to a long, slow moving shift. He flipped the sign on the door to claim his smoke break, yelled out towards the kitchen to alert the chef he was stepping out, and hustled out the back before the inevitable complaints started up.
Huddled under the slight overhang in an attempt to hide from the rain, John pulled out a cigarette along with his shitty gas station lighter, struggling against the wind and the wet for several moments before he finally got the damn thing lit, and only then did he look up. Only to find himself staring directly into a pair of dark eyes.
“Fucking christ!”
He fumbled the lighter and just barely managed to catch it, then took a moment to right himself, before glaring back out at the thing. It was big, much bigger than a normal dog, even soaked to the bone, but not quite big enough to be a wolf. Probably some kind of hybrid, he thought. It was standing over some kind of meat, half hidden behind the furthest dumpster. A bird of sorts, if the feathers were anything to go by. It stood unmoving, unnervingly still.
“...spooked the shit out of me, you did”
It didn't answer. Obviously. Didn't even twitch. Brown, almost black eyes staring him down. If he looked hard enough, he thought he could see the red glow of the cigarette reflected there. For a moment, he was transported elsewhere, to another pair of reflective dark eyes and the smell of slightly worse quality tobacco. To another brick building in another small town, to rough skin on gentle hands.
The dog lifted its head slightly, and sneezed, ripping him out of the memory. He stared for a moment longer and then snorted, pressing himself further against the wall, trying to hide from the wind that pelted the rain down harder against the overhang.
“Right. Big bloody thing ain't ya. Got yourself a good meal there, I see”
The dog tilted its head slowly, considering. Then, after a long moment, it hunkered down and continued to eat.
John let out a breath and relaxed slightly, taking a drag of his cigarette as he watched the thing. Dark fur plastered against muscle and bone, contrasting with bare patches of skin where scar tissue had taken over. Tattered ears flicked in the rain, a feeble attempt to banish the accumulating moisture there. A fighting dog, maybe, or the escaped charge of an abusive master. John wondered idly when it had last eaten. Judging by the efficiency with which it was tearing through feather and bone, it must have been a while. He felt a pang of sympathy and quietly hoped it would find somewhere warm, or at least dry, to rest the night. He was brought out of his musings when he felt the heat on his fingers, signalling the end of his break. He sighed and dropped the last of his cigarette, crushing it under his heel. When he looked back to the dog, It had finished its meal and was once more staring at him with that uncanny stillness, those painfully familiar eyes.
“Alright, I better get back to it” he said, gesturing vaguely back at the door. “Have a good one, yeah?”
He waited for a second, and when the dog showed no signs of responding in any way, he felt oddly disappointed. Disappointment was quickly replaced by mild embarrassment. It couldn't understand him, and probably didn't care to either. Yet he lingered, waiting to see if it would move. A moment later the dog flicked its ears again, stood up, and shook itself. It stayed standing until John, feeling silly, turned and pulled open the door. Glancing back again, only to see it had disappeared into the rain, leaving behind a small pile of bones and feathers.
He hadn't seen the dog again after that night, but his thoughts kept trailing back to it. He felt bad, in a way. It's not unlikely the thing had found some hole to curl up in and die. It certainly hadn’t been in good shape, and the empty roads and crowded bars in Nowhere, Scotland weren’t kind to broken things with nothing left to give. He would know, after all. There was a kinship there that he couldn't help but feel, if only because of their shared moment of stolen peace.
He hadn't seen it for the rest of his leave, and he still hadn't seen it 9 hours and 40 minutes into his 10 hour shift, the night before he would make his way back to base. He had already mentally declared the thing dead, gone and mourned, if only to save himself from the terrible lingering hope that it would return. And so, when he walked out into the night air at 23h45, he didn't bother with the quick sweep of the area he’d taken to doing, and very nearly missed the slight glint reflecting from between the dumpster and the diner’s brick walls.
But there it was. The dog was back. Curled up under the slight shelter created by the lid of the dumpster that had been tossed aside by the raccoons earlier in the night, resting his head on his paws and looking just as miserable as John felt.
It looked a bit better this time, a bit more meat concealing the muscle he knew was there, or maybe the dry fur was just better at hiding the shape of the body beneath. John paused for a moment before throwing the bag into the further bin, making sure to give the thing a wide berth, just in case it decided he looked like a better meal than whatever it could scrounge up for the night. Not that John would go down without a fight of course, and he doubted the dog could do much damage considering the state of it, but he’d rather not have to miss his train for a rabies shot.
“Hey big guy. Almost didn't see ya there”
He paused again, decided he deserved a break around now anyway, and began the process of trying to get his lighter working. They watched each other for the long minutes it took for the light to catch, and then he stepped back into his spot against the wall to take a long drag.
“Thought you'd gone an’ fucked off for good” he said through his exhale “Nice to see you’re still kickin’”
The dog raised its head, and they considered each other. John felt a prickle go up his spine as he was once again met with those eyes, so startlingly similar to the ones that occupied his thoughts more often than not.
He sighed and looked away. “You remind me of someone. You’re almost as spooky as him. Y’even got the whole silent and brooding thing down.”
The dog perked up a bit at that, fully raising it’s head to look at him.
“You got the same eyes an’ everything, I swear. I’ll have to tell ‘I'm he’s got a copycat on the loose. Or should I say copydog?” He snickered to himself quietly.
The dog huffed and slowly began to get up from its spot.
“Alright, alright, not my best I’ll admit”
John watched as it stretched out its long limbs, tail trembling with the effort. Stretch completed, the dog gave him one last long look, turned, and silently trotted down to the other end of the ally, disappearing around the corner.
“Yeah alright” he muttered, stubbing out the cigarette. He lingered only a couple seconds longer before sighing. He nodded to himself, turned, and walked back into the diner to complete his shift.
A couple of hours later, standing on the quay, he said one last silent goodbye to the dog before boarding his train.