Work Text:
The thought came to Petey as Dogman was making dinner.
In concession to the kitten with a set bedtime whose life and happiness they were both now responsible for, it would be another early dinner. The sun was only just starting to set, and with the light coming through the south facing window beside him, Dogman painted a picturesque scene in his apron without even trying.
The kitchen was flooded with a warm, golden glow that caught Dogman's fur, casting one side of his face in platinum as he swayed side to side humming a new melody. It was one he’d been workshopping the last few days, though Petey only caught snippets at a time. If they were lucky, Dogman would give it a test run on the piano that night, if not the next.
It had Petey wondering, not for the first time, if Dogman was always so musically inclined. Did Knight used to play the piano, and Dogman inherited his talent along with his body? Or was it something he decided to pick up on his own now that he could reach the keys?
Petey didn’t go out of his way to make friends or cultivate an ‘approachable personality’—not for a long time at least, and not until Li’l Petey brought life and love and incessant questions into his world. It might’ve been the understatement of the year, but Petey didn’t like most people.
Dogman, however…was proving to be another exception to the rule.
The only problem now was that no matter how much Petey might want to talk to Dogman, short of writing down all his answers, Dogman wasn’t able to reciprocate. Human vocal chords hadn’t been included with the human body transplant, which limited Dogman in this small, but suddenly extremely important way.
After months of trying to unalive the guy, Petey actually wanted to have a conversation with him on equal footing. And he couldn’t. And he was pretty damn annoyed about it!
Though at the moment, Petey was just trying not to get caught staring.
In an effort to distract himself, he looked out the window instead.
From this angle, the tops of his tomato plants were all that was visible of his small garden. After two months, they were mostly just well developed vines, but his first tomato started to grow just the other day, a tiny green pod that didn’t deserve Dogman and Li’l Petey’s cheers or the way Petey’s eyes filled with tears upon its discovery.
But spending time outside, even seeing the sunset, was actually a pretty welcome change to the last few years, if an adjustment all on its own. With Li’l Petey having a set bedtime, and Dogman being irritatingly responsible about his own sleep schedule, it actually became routine for Petey to be in bed at a reasonable hour instead of tinkering through the night and collapsing on his desk in an exhausted stupor, waking up to Butler poking him with a broom to make sure he hadn’t choked on his own drool.
It was…nice. The same way home cooked meals were nice. Or Li’l Petey’s biggest hugs, when he tried to wrap his tail around Petey but it was just too short. Or Dogman laying his head on Petey’s thigh during movie nights, with Li’l Petey tucked snug against his chest. Or living in a real home again, however temporarily.
Tromping on the stairs snapped Petey out of his head and he turned to watch Li’l Petey skip through the doorway, 80-HD looming tranquilly behind him.
“Hi, Papa! Hi, Da-Dogman!” he chirped.
Dogman barked a greeting, throwing a grin over his shoulder as he stirred the meat sauce for spaghetti.
Li’l Petey came over to Petey for a cuddle first, climbing into his lap and nuzzling into his chest. This time, Petey only stiffened for half a second before wrapping his arms around his kid, tugging him close. After decades of cruel hands, or no touch at all, Petey was still getting the hang of positive physical contact.
“Hey, kiddo,” he muttered against the fur between Li’l Petey’s ears. “What’re you up to?”
A rumble started up in Li’l Petey's chest, like a tiny internal combustion engine. Petey didn’t respond with his own purr. He couldn’t. The old, raw, aching parts of him were healing, but slow, and they stifled any sound he might’ve made. He kissed Li’l Petey’s forehead in a silent apology.
“I’m gonna do cartwheels outside with 80-HD,” Li’l Petey said brightly.
Dogman chuffed in gentle reproach, nodding at dinner cooking on the stove.
Li’l Petey squirmed to be set back down, and Petey reluctantly helped him to the floor. “It’ll just be for a little bit,” he pleaded, zipping over to cling to Dogman’s leg like a tiny, orange and black limpet. “One minutes! Or, uh, two minutes!”
“A-woo?” Unconvinced, Dogman peered down at his little tagalong with a raised brow.
Li’l Petey fired back with a big blink, staring up at Dogman with puppy dog eyes. “Pretty please, Dogman?”
Petey hid a snort behind his hand. It served Dogman right to be on the receiving end for once—he was the one who taught puppy eyes to Li’l Petey in the first place.
To Dogman’s credit, he actually lasted a few seconds longer than Petey usually did before he broke completely, bursting into his howling chuckles. “A-roo, roo, roo!” He ruffled the fur on Li’l Petey’s head, the fur beside his own eyes crinkling from the breadth of his smile.
Li’l Petey nuzzled against Dogman’s palm, his purring starting up again. Petey wondered if he’d ever been able purr at the drop of the hat at Li’l Petey’s (biological) age. Maybe before Mom got sick. Before his dad left. Before casual callousness became an everyday occurrence. Long back when his memories were murky and golden, and his mother’s presence was all he had or needed.
Dogman licked a stripe up Li’l Petey’s forehead, making the kid giggle and lick Dogman’s nose in retaliation. When Dogman pulled back with a snort, Li’l Petey grabbed his hand and tried standing on tiptoe to see what was on the stove.
“Um, there’s no vegetables in there, are there?” he asked intently.
Dogman shook his head gravely.
To their great misfortune, Li’l Petey recently learned that most kids didn’t like eating their vegetables, and so he’d decided for the past week that that would be the case for him too. While Petey’s only solution was to beg and plead with his clone son to eat even one carrot, Dogman just got sneaky. Today, it was broccoli chopped up so small that it was indistinguishable from the meat in the pasta sauce.
Dogman nudged Li’l Petey away from the stove and toward 80-HD, who was still idling by Petey at the kitchen table.
“Ru-ruff!” he barked, not quite chiding.
“Oh, right,” Li’l Petey exclaimed. “Let’s go, 80-HD! Papa, Dogman, make sure you watch me do cartwheels!”
“Wouldn’t miss it, Li’l P,” Petey said, his smile starting to falter despite his best intentions. Dogman chimed in with his own affirmative grunt.
The kid rushed off, robot in tow, and Petey found his gaze immediately drawn back to Dogman, like metal shavings to a magnet.
What started as a niggling sort of murky feeling back when he and Li’l Petey first moved in had developed into a persistent, gnawing sort of guilt, the kind that got worse the longer he sat on his hands doing a whole lotta nothing.
Dogman was already back to happily tending the cooking, humming even louder than before, not that Petey could hear it over the ringing in his ears. He tapped his fingers against the table, and beneath it his knee bounced at mach speed, all the while the words churning in his gut rose up his throat and pushed against his teeth.
“Hey…D-Dogman,” he said as casually as possible.
“Hm?” Dogman’s ears perked up, catching the waver his voice at once. He already looked concerned when he glanced back at Petey.
Great. Failed step one.
Petey let out a breath and pressed on. “Have you ever thought…”
What, ‘about how you can’t speak?’ No duh, idiot.
He tried again and this time, when he opened his mouth, he found himself unable to close it again.
“I mean, I was thinking that you might want to try—not, not that you have to, but I know that you have trouble communicating, uh, certain things to people and that’s not your fault! Obviously! And this would be different, and-and weird, maybe, and not everyone would even understand anyway, but it would be better than nothing right? Or…or wrong, I guess, but—”
His awful, awful rambling ended when his clenched fist was covered with a gentle hand. Petey looked up to find Dogman in front of him, his head tilted to the side. The ridiculous, infuriating dog smiled, confused but gently encouraging. “A-woo?”
Petey’s free hand trembled as he laid overtop of Dogman’s. He forced himself to speak clearly and succinctly. Get to the point, stupid.
“H-have you ever thought about learning sign language?”
Dogman’s eyes widened. “Ruh?”
Petey spoke fast again, desperate to explain himself. He wasn’t trying to be evil anymore. He wasn’t.
“You-you don’t have to, obviously! You communicate plenty without using actual words. But I thought you might want, maybe, to y’know, have conversations that’re less one-sided?”
The surprise on Dogman’s face melted into thoughtfulness, not a bad reaction by any means, but still Petey stumbled over himself as if snarls and handcuffs were imminent.
“We could learn together…if you wanted?” he offered hesitantly, his voice raising an octave on the last few words in a galling display of weakness. Candy-ass, as dear ol’ Dad would say.
That had Dogman’s ears perking again—definitely in the good way, this time. He didn’t have a tail to wag anymore, thanks to Petey, but his body swayed side to side like it was still there.
It was enough encouragement to make Petey break into a crooked smile, warmth flooding his cheeks. “Y-yeah. I mean, how hard could it be? I am a supa genius, after all.”
Dogman growled at him, but it was a playful sort of sound. Petey made a show of rolling his eyes. “Aaand you’re a supa cop. I guess.”
Dogman made a show of poking him hard in the chest. And don’t you forget it, the gesture seemed to say. Petey couldn’t wait to learn for sure.
A familiar, adorable giggle had them both looking to the window, just in time to catch one of Li’l Petey’s cartwheels. Well, calling them cartwheels was maybe a bit generous. They were more like handstands that turned into backwards flops, but they’d be calling them cartwheels when the kid asked.
Dogman pointed excitedly out the window before gesturing between the two of them, and it only took Petey half a second to understand what he was trying to say. “O-oh, yeah. Yeah! Li’l Petey would learn with us.” LP had always understood Dogman without words of any kind, so ASL lessons would just be a bonus.
Before he knew it, Petey had Dogman in his arms, hugging him around the middle and lifting him up and out of his seat. “W-whoa! Okay, thank you, or, uh, you’re welcome. But you can put me down now—”
Dogman tugged him even closer and nosed against his cheek, making Petey’s words curl up and die. Dogman’s warm breath fanned across his fur and he let out an undignified squeak, hands slowly lowering to settle across Dogman’s shoulders.
Of course, he came back to his senses when Dogman was unable to help himself and swiped his tongue across Petey’s cheek.
“Oh, UGH! Come on!”
They started with the basics. Numbers. The alphabet, and all that jazz.
Petey took to fingerspelling everything he said, especially around Li’l Petey, in an effort to familiarize them all with it. It backfired on him almost immediately as LP became a proper little menace by picking it up faster than him, silently fingerspelling behind his back to the endless amusement of Dogman.
Dogman too was a quick study, as he was in most things. He was the one to start introducing more phrases into their study; simple things, but specific enough that Dogman had never been able to convey them before with a mere look or genial bark.
The first time Dogman signed more than piecemeal words to him was burned into Petey’s memory.
On school days, he tried to drag himself out of bed before eight so he could spend time with Li’l P before he left. Dogman was always the one to drop him off as A. the only one of them with strict work hours and B. currently in ownership of a car. The Robo-Bee 2000 was currently impounded, though Petey was fighting the double-parking charge. Giant flying mechanical bugs should technically be classified as oversize loads and he had all the required permits no matter what Gretchen at City Hall said.
On one such disgustingly cheery morning, as Petey shuffled into the kitchen wrapped tight in his fluffiest bathrobe with his eyes half-open, Dogman looked up from where he was eating bacon out of the pan on the stove. And Dogman barked, smiling at him, bedhead fur and cavernous eyebags and all. Then, his smile faltered at the corners and an unfamiliar nervousness entered his eyes as he gestured; his right hand came down flat from his chin to the open palm of his left hand, before he tucked his left hand into the crook of his right elbow and brought his flat and palm up right hand back towards him.
Petey, half delirious from his usual bout with insomnia that resulted in a total three and a quarter hours of sleep paired with his pained squint against the general brightness of day, had to take a second to let his brain compute what Dogman was telling him.
When he put two and two together, it was electrifying, a bolt of lightning singing in his veins.
“Good morning,” Dogman said, the first thing Dogman had ever said to him that didn’t have to be written down first. Combined with his unexpected, if charming, show of nervousness, it was as effective in waking Petey up as a quadruple shot of espresso. Maybe even better.
Petey’s laugh was probably a little (or a lot) manic, but he was too ecstatic to care.
“Say it again?” he asked.
Dogman ducked his head, poorly hiding both a flustered smile and the flush in his cheeks. Petey just counted himself lucky that his fur hid the worst of his blushes, like now.
“Good morning, Petey,” Dogman signed after a second of wringing his hands.
And that, that was Petey’s name sign. Dogman turned the sign for the letter ‘P’ into the whisker motion of ‘cat,’ naturally as anything. Dogman said his name for the first time.
Petey slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle his burst of incredulous laughter, though it didn’t do anything for his idiotic grin. At that moment, he just didn’t care enough. “Say something else!” he insisted, feeling lightheaded.
Dogman howled eagerly, his earlier embarrassment forgotten. “Something else!”
Petey laughed breathlessly, overwhelmed by the limitlessness before them, the opportunity to see Dogman’s clever mind at work beyond the skills he inherited from Knight. He didn’t want Dogman to stop talking to him, now or ever, but they had a few more lessons to go before that became even a remote possibility.
“Good morning, Papa!” Li’l Petey all but shrieked from the kitchen table (volume control wasn’t his kiddo’s forte at this hour), before accidentally upending his entire bowl of cereal over the table and floor in his excitement, sending Petey and Dogman scrambling for paper towels.
“ Good morning, Dogman,” Petey would sign back, once the cereal and milk mess was mopped up and Dogman was setting his coffee mug on the table in front of him, already doctored with the spoonful of cream that he liked. His hands shook as he fingerspelled ‘D-O-G-M-A-N.’ Petey wanted to give him a name sign too, had one in mind even. But Dogman wasn’t his real name, and Petey’d lost any right to use that a long time ago.
A year ago, give or take a day, he probably would’ve been rotting in Cat Jail for the 48th time. Or holed up in his windowless garage, hunched over his workbench with blowtorch in hand, building his next Evil Invention 2000. Either way, he would’ve been alone, miserable, and pretending to like it that way.
Today, he was lying on his back at the top of a grassy hill with his son curled up on his chest, the sun warm on his fur and a breeze wafting the sweet scent of his roses over him. And here, Petey thought he understood a sliver of what true contentment was like.
He didn’t always let Li’l Petey drag him out of his workshop in the basement when he was mid-inventing, but his puppy dog eyes had been big enough and Petey’s will was weak enough that he gave in to the request to join him outside. And now that he was out here, seeking nonsense shapes in the clouds, he couldn’t find it in himself to regret it.
Li’l Petey butted his head against Petey’s chin. “Oooh, what does that one look like to you, Papa?”
“Hm?” Petey had gotten so comfortable he’d closed his eyes a bit ago, not quite asleep, but hovering at the edge of a true cat nap. Though he opened his eyes lazily at LP’s prompting and followed his pointing finger. “A cloud.”
“Papa.”
“Fine.” Petey yawned, covering his mouth a beat too late. “A spiky cloud.”
“Yeah,” Li’l Petey cooed. “Like a tree. A Christmas tree!” He gasped, nudging Petey’s shoulder. “Papa, will we get a Christmas tree?”
“Huh? Uh, yeah, we should.” His mom always loved Christmas. She tried to get him to love it, too, but it was tough when the cold just made her sicker, and their tree in the shelter was a crappy plastic one with lights that never worked.
But he could make Christmas special for LP in all the ways his mom tried to do for him, and that he hadn’t been old enough to appreciate.
Li’l Petey squealed. “Where are we gonna put it? Next to the piano? That way me and Dogman can play Christmas carols!”
“Yeah, yeah, next to–” Petey faltered, uncertainty ringing in the back of his mind like a plucked guitar string. He sat up a little. “Uh, LP, we won’t be here at Christmastime.”
“Oh?” Li’l Petey tilted his head to the side, the same way Dogman did when he was confused. “Where will we be?”
“Uh.” Petey chuckled weakly. “W-we’ll be back at my lab. The radiation from my Potato Peeler 2000 will definitely have cleared up by then.”
Li’l Petey’s li’l brow furrowed. “So, Dogman’s moving in with us?”
Petey’s heart leapt, and his voice followed shrilly . “What? No, no. NO. Dogman’s staying here, in his house.”
Li’l Petey blinked hugely at him, uncomprehending.
Petey closed his eyes, restraining the urge to groan. “Kiddo, I-I thought you knew that we’d have to go back to the lab eventually.”
“Oh,” Li’l Petey said, so, so quietly.
“What’s wrong? You like my lab, don’t you?” he encouraged weakly.
Li’l Petey didn’t look at him. “...Yeah. It’s okay.”
Of course it was just ‘okay.’ What real memories did his kid have of the place besides Petey rejecting him again, leaving him again, or his good for nothing jack@$$ of a father robbing them blind? Petey tried to make him sleep alone in a mop bucket in a damp broom closet. Why didn’t his kid hate him again?
Petey swallowed thickly, and it was like choking down a handful of thorns scraped off his rose bushes. “Would you rather stay here with Dogman?”
Li’l Petey gasped at once. “Yeah! I love it here with Dogman!”
Of course he did. What kid wouldn’t want to live in a home full of warmth and love like Dogman’s? Especially a kid who was so much like him, truly good to his core.
On that first night, when Petey wound up back at Dogman’s at Li’l Petey’s urging, he was taken aback by his first glimpse inside. Li’l Petey had lived there for a month without him, an entire lifetime that Petey spent buried in the work of creating 80-HD, and the evidence of that happy life was clear to see.
Toys on the mantelpiece and cardboard boxes drawn on with crayons to look like buildings scattered in the living room among matchbox cars, abandoned midplay. There were drawings on the fridge of a striped kitten and a smiling dog-man hybrid, pillows on the couch with ‘D’ and ‘LP’ hand stitched on the covers.
This little house on the hill, far from the noise and smog of the city, where the stars were clear, was Li’l Petey’s home more than the cold, dank lab could ever be. In the end, Dogman only found Li’l Petey abandoned on the side of the road because Petey was the one who left him there.
What kind of father did that make him? Was he better or worse than Dad, who left knowing that he had at least one parent who gave a crap what happened to him? Petey did the one thing his own father never did, and that was coming back of his own volition, but was it enough? Would anything make up for that one wrong choice?
Or maybe his own problems, his guilt complex, just didn’t matter. Only Li’l Petey’s wellbeing. Mom put him first, every time, until her death. How could he do any less for her grandson?
Petey smiled at Li’l Petey and pretended his eyes weren’t burning, that his heart wasn’t cracking and crumbling into the cavern of his chest. “Yeah. I know you do. I think…it’s best if you stay with Dogman too.”
Li’l Petey was overjoyed, all but jumping up and down on the grass. “Yay! Then you, me, and Dogman can be a real family!”
Petey inhaled and all but choked on his spit. He had to sit up properly to keep from coughing out a lung, and Li’l Petey happily rolled into his lap.
A real…what?
“Whoa, whoa, me? Whaddaya mean, me?” he managed breathlessly.
Li’l Petey gave him an overly patient look, as if he was the adult and Petey the bumbling clone kid. “We’ll live here and keep being a family.” Duh, he didn’t say, but Petey heard it nonetheless. He really needed to quit it with the attitude in front of his kid.
Petey shook his head even as his mind ran away with the idea, flooding him with equal parts ice cold dread and burning, pathetic hope. “I–no, kid, I’m not part of Dogman’s family. You are.”
Li’l Petey frowned with his whole face, like Petey had disappointed him again. “But don’t you love Dogman too?”
Cue Petey’s head all but exploding.
“Wha— SHHHH!” He glanced around wildly, as if Dogman might be hiding behind a tree and not somewhere halfway across the city foiling crime and kissing babies. His heart didn’t stop pounding despite the reassertion that they were alone. “Don’t say that!”
“Why?” Li’l Petey asked, predictably.
“Becau—”
“Is it a surprise?” Li’l Petey gasped.
“No! No, it’s not a surprise! Do NOT try to surprise Dogman.”
“Why?”
“Because—”
Li’l Petey gasped again. “Is it a secret?”
Petey dropped back onto the grass with a groan, hiding his face in his hands. “Yeah. Yeah, hun, it’s a secret.”
“Ohhh.” Li’l Petey dropped his head onto Petey’s chest, pressed up against his heartbeat. Petey started stroking him between the ears. The kitten didn’t speak up again for several long moments, quiet save for their breathing and the twittering of birds high above. “Hey, Papa?”
“Yeah, Li’l P?”
“I have a secret too.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. I didnt wanna say it before cuz I didnt wanna hurt your feelings.”
Petey swallowed thickly. His vision blurred, staring up at the cloudy sky, but he didn’t close his eyes. “You could never hurt me, sweetheart. If you wanna tell me, you can.”
Li’l Petey buried his face against Petey's chest, mumbling his answer against his fur.
Petey chuckled softly. “Well I can't hear ya like that.” He butted against Li’l Petey’s temple, kissing the fur beside his ear.
Li’l Petey turned his face to the side, still tucked out of Petey's view. “I want Dogman to be my papa too,” he whispered.
Petey’s heart leapt so hard it felt like a kick in the ribs. “O-oh? Y-yeah?”
Li’l Petey sniffed. “Yeah,” he warbled. “Only, I wouldn't call him Papa, cuz you’re my Papa. I…he would be my daddy. But I dunno if he even wants to be.”
Petey wrapped his arms around Li’l P, bringing him close. His hands trembled as he cradled the back of his son’s head. “You can have more than one papa, kiddo. You’re not replacing…anyway. I think Dogman would make a great second Papa.”
“You think so?” Li’l Petey asked, his voice so small.
Petey swallowed thickly. “I know so.”
“But-but what if he doesn’t want to be?” like you, Li’l Petey didn’t say. Maybe he wasn’t even thinking it. But Petey was.
“Honey, Dogman’s already your second papa.” He huffed a laugh so he wouldn’t cry. “You just gotta make it official.”
Li’l Petey pushed himself up to look at Petey, tilting his head to the side again. “What’s that mean?”
Petey pinched his kid’s nose lightly, like Mom used to do to him. “You gotta ask him, Mini Me.”
Dogman’s ears must’ve been burning, as not even half a minute later they heard the rumble of the Designated Dogman Vehicle 2000 (really just a junked car that Petey rebuilt from scratch) pulling into the driveway.
Li’l Petey gasped so intensely, it was a wonder he didn’t get lightheaded. “Dogman’s home!” He jumped to his feet, but instead of immediately racing inside the house and ambushing Dogman at the door, he stayed planted, wringing his little paws.
“Should I tell him now?” he asked, looking at Petey with big, worried eyes.
Petey smiled at him, hoping it came across as encouraging rather than a strained grimace. “Go ahead.”
Li’l Petey dashed off, leaving Petey alone on the grass, but not before kissing him on the forehead.
Petey reflected on that little press of warmth as he let his arms drop to his stomach, staring up at the clouds. He found the image of a fish and a wrench, and the treetop rustled above him, leaves throwing shadows across his face.
He knew it hadn’t been Dogman’s decision to move from his quaint abode in the suburbs, but the little house he’d chosen, with its grassy hill and luminous oak tree, was everything Petey dreamed about as a kid and forgotten. Somewhere peaceful. Somewhere safe. A place of their own.
It wasn’t quite fall yet, so the tree was still a full and brilliant green, but he could picture it barren and the backyard engulfed in snow, the dismal gray of winter awash in the glow of Christmas lights at the windows. Dogman seemed like the sort to go all out with his decorations.
They’d have their joint custody situation ironed out by then, surely? That way Li’l Petey would be able to enjoy his first Christmas with all the bells and whistles he deserved, comfortable, warm, and happy.
He heard the creak of the back door opening and Li’l Petey called out, his soft voice pitched up with excitement.
“Papa!”
Petey sat up, turning to look behind him at the approaching pair.
Dogman had come outside carrying Li’l Petey, and while Li’l Petey was smiling and wiggling with happiness, Dogman looked…nervous in a way Petey had never seen before. Not even nervous, no—he was scared.
Cradling Li’l Petey tight in one arm, Dogman used the other to sign desperately with a fist over his heart, rubbing a circle over his uniform shirt.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Petey didn’t laugh, but it was a near thing. Dogman was so confident in himself when it came to fighting sentient buildings in a giant mailman mech, that Petey sometimes forgot how soft the supa cop really was. How much family meant to him, and how afraid he sometimes was to overstep where he felt he didn’t belong.
It was endearing. In a heartrending way.
Dumb Dogman, Didn’t he know that he was Li’l Petey’s parent long before Petey understood the meaning of the word?
“Whoa, Li’l P,” Petey said, purposely casual. “Looks like you’ve got two Papas for the price of one, huh?”
Dogman stopped in his tracks, and from his arms Li’l Petey cried, “Yeah! You were right, Papa.”
“Yup, yup, yup.” Petey sniffed, buffing his nails on the fur of his chest. “I usually am, munchkin.”
“But what about the time with the—”
“Besides the time with the lawn gnome and the paper shredder.”
His only warning was a soft, disbelieving doggy whine before Dogman launched himself at Petey, tackling him in a hug that sent all three of them tumbling down the hill. Li’l Petey shrieked with laughter, Petey just shrieked, and Dogman laughed that howling laugh of his.
“Dogmaaaannnn!!”
They rolled to a stop at the bottom of the hill, less than a dozen feet in all, and despite the momentary heart attack, Petey had never really been afraid. How could he, with Dogman’s arms wrapped tight around him and their kid bracketed between them. This close, he could smell the cheap station coffee clinging to Dogman’s fur and LP’s adorable kitten scent, close and warm and safe, and some long dead thing in the depths of Petey’s chest rumbled with something almost like a purr.
Li’l Petey was still in the middle giggling when Petey raised his head, and found Dogman leaning over him.
Close enough that Petey could count the flecks of gold in his brown eyes, Dogman looked down at him with an unreadable look on his face. There was something earnest there, something caring, but Petey had no idea what it was. Whatever it was, he was frozen stockstill in the face of it.
In the space of a blink, Dogman ducked down and kissed him. Just shy of his lips, but not just on his cheek either.
Still speechless, now with fur standing on end courtesy of the flush racing down his body, Petey watched Dogman pull back to sign just once, smiling like he hadn’t just tilted Petey’s world off its axis again.
“Thank you.”
In the dark of their bedroom, with only pale moonlight streaming across the foot of the bed through a crack in the blinds, Petey had all the time in the world to wallow in his thoughts.
Around them, the house creaked gently, settling in the night, and Dogman’s deep, even breathing filled the room. It was the kind of peace that would’ve lulled any sane cat to sleep: a soft bed, a warm bedmate, and an obscenely late hour. But Petey, an insomniac by nature and no one’s definition of a sane cat, found sleep as elusive as a successful evil scheme.
Tucked against his hip, Dogman was doing his best impression of an octopus, his arms wrapped tightly around Petey’s middle and their legs tangled together, until he couldn’t tell where one of them began and the other ended. Petey was no less guilty, with his tail acting of its own free will to encircle Dogman’s waist under the covers, not that he could bring himself to let go.
He’d been the one to push for a real bed initially, though they’d never set out to share it. Petey’s back was already a screwed up mess from too many nights hunched over a poorly lit workstation and he’d be damned if he was gonna contort himself to fit in a dog bed on the floor. Li’l Petey got the spare room all to himself, as he should, but Petey’s presence was meant to be temporary. So Petey got the new bed and Dogman took the couch, and that went on for a few weeks until he realized Dogman was having nightmares.
Dogman, for all his goody two-shoes showboating and annoying habit of butting into other people’s problems, was very private about his own struggles. To an almost comical degree, considering how happy-go-lucky he usually presented himself as. But that was the rub, wasn’t it?
As much as Petey might have slightly over exaggerated his own evilness, once plain ol’ Greg became the Dogman who was lauded in newspapers and hounded by press, mayor, and police, he became a wrecking ball of good cheer and obliging subservience, accepting any task, errand, or request made of him, no matter how unpleasant, and smiled for the camera whether he wanted to or not. Because that’s what they expected from him. What they made him to be.
Dogman gave up the bed without protest, and probably wouldn’t have said a single word (figuratively) about the nightmares he was having almost every night. Petey only knew about them because he’d lain awake in bed one evening plagued by thoughts of a self-cleaning motorized toaster, and made to slip into his workshop to at least draw up the blueprints. But that led him past the living room, where he found Dogman curled up under his blanket, expression taut with distress as he whimpered in his sleep.
Petey had woken him up and sent him to the bed since he wouldn’t be using it. But then it happened again the next night when Petey got up to get a drink of water. And again two nights later, when he woke up in the middle of a nightmare about Li’l Petey dangling over that volcano instead of him.
When he crept into the living room that night and found Dogman enduring another night of troubled sleep, Petey decided enough was enough. With a nudge to his shoulder, Dogman was awake and looking up at him, confused and blinking tears from his eyes. Petey hadn’t spoken, only jerked his head for Dogman to follow him.
They’d shared the bed that night, and every night since.
To Petey’s knowledge, Dogman’s nightmares had dwindled to zero. Not that Petey’s rest was any more…restful recently.
He looked down at Dogman now, or the top of his head at least. Curled into Petey’s side, his eyes were closed, his breaths deep and even, softly snuffling, and the gold of his fur painted gray in the gloom.
Petey scowled.
“I hate you.”
His signing was clumsy, filled with words and phrases that were still new to him. As he ranted silently, he was forced to fingerspell more than half the words, each letter formed sharply, with every inch of his frustration, pent up over months.
“I don’t understand why you’re so….nice. I hate it. I hate you.”
Petey’s scowl buckled, splintering like old wood, and he reached out, slowly, carefully, so as to not wake him. One of his hands hovered over Dogman’s face, dancing over his fur and the worry lines at his brow and by his mouth, softened in sleep.
He didn’t know how much longer he would have this, this closeness, this lo—this affection. Dogman had the words now to kick him out whenever he wanted, or give him a deadline to move out, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t, and that uncertainty was killing Petey as much as every one of Dogman’s good morning kisses to the cheek, or his piano lessons, or the commentary they shared over Li’l Petey’s head. How much longer was he allowed to be happy?
Petey bit the bullet and ran his fingers across Dogman’s head, stroking over his ears, like he’d wanted to do for months. He might not get another chance, after all.
He sighed, and it sounded overly loud in the muffled quiet of their room.
With his hands full, Petey abandoned the attempt at signing altogether. He was learning more every day, but there were still too many signs he didn’t know off the top of his head. Besides, considering the turn his thoughts had taken, rambling and pitying and nothing Dogman would want to know, it was for the best that they stayed rattling around in his head, where he was the only one they could hurt.
I hate how much I love you, because I don’t deserve you. You or Li’l P. I know it. Everyone knows it. You should definitely know it, but you let me hang around anyway, even though you shouldn’t. I’ll just drag you down. You and Li’l Petey both.
Dogman’s brow shifted under his palm, furrowing like it usually did when he was having a nightmare.
Swearing under his breath, Petey tried to stroke away the tension on Dogman’s forehead with longer, gentle caresses. The last thing he needed was for Dogman to wake up and see Petey like this, raw, stripped down and exposed like a faulty wire.
But of course even that backfired on him, because Dogman’s eyes started to groggily blink open. Petey had probably been too rough, or pulled his fur, or something equally terrible. What did he know about being comforting or soft? He wasn’t made for snuggling in bed with someone he loved anymore than he was made for playing house with them.
His arms burned as he pulled them away from Dogman, curling them tight against his chest.
Unbothered beside him, Dogman stretched with a long sigh, his dark eyes fluttering fully open. Despite Petey’s earlier fears, he didn’t seem troubled or upset to be awake. When Petey usually roused him from a nightmare, he’d be shaken, and when Dogman was startled awake he would growl.
This time, he reached up to wrap his hand around Petey’s fingers, giving a brief squeeze before sleepily signing, “You OK?”
Petey opened and closed his mouth a few times, for once too stunned for words.
That was it? He’d woken Dogman up at the dead of night following a twelve hour shift spent foiling some space lizards’ plot to flood the city and turn it into their personal swamp, after which he collapsed into bed but not before he made Li’l Petey his favorite dinner of dinosaur nuggies and played dinosaurs with him while they ate, and the first thing he dared to do was worry about Petey?
It was stupid. It was ludicrous. It made Petey want to stick him a big cannon and fire him at the sun. Again.
At his prolonged silence, Dogman sat up a little, carefully nosing at his shoulder. A quiet, barely perceptible concerned whine escaped his throat and that was the last straw.
“No,” Petey bit out, making Dogman jump a little with his abruptness. “Yes. I don’t…Greg, what do you want from me?”
“A-roo?” Dogman peered up at him with wide eyes, though Petey couldn’t guess whether he was more startled by the question or the use of his real name. Petey hadn’t used it since the incident, after all. The one he caused.
“Why am I still here?” he demanded, but he couldn’t muster the familiar blistering rage that had propelled him for so long. Where it had lingered like a second skin, simmering just beneath the surface, now it was like grasping at smoke and without it to fuel him, his voice came out strained and hollow. “Li’l Petey I get, he’s-he’s your kid too, and he’s a li’l cutie, but me? I’m-I’m no good, Greg, you know that. Screw up after screw up and it’s just a matter of time before I wreck this too.”
Petey gestured wildly, trying to indicate the house, with photos of all three of them on the walls, and their shared bed, their closeness, the irrational trust they shared. Dogman should hate him. Why didn’t Dogman hate him?
He didn’t realize his breathing had started going fast, too fast, until he felt Dogman’s hand against his chest. Petey gasped raggedly, tearing his eyes away from the far-off invisible point he’d been staring at, and found his twitching gaze arrested by Dogman’s, for once without the need for handcuffs.
Dogman took a deep, exaggerated breath in and then out, in and then out, and he didn’t stop until Petey started to copy him. Only then did he drop his hand in order to sign.
“What do I want from you?” he repeated, signing with absolute surety. None of the floundering that usually filled their conversations. Above his hands, his dark eyes were equally calm. “ I want you here, with me. I want you to keep gardening, because it makes you happy, and your tomatoes are almost grown. I want to have breakfast with you and watch you burn dinner and finally teach you a real song on the piano. And I want you to want that too.”
Petey stared. Halfway through Dogman’s second sentence, his chest had started to squeeze, so tight it hurt, and he felt a little lightheaded. “When did you learn how to sign all of that?”
Dogman shifted uncomfortably, his composure immediately faltering. It would almost be funny under literally any other circumstance. “Eight months ago,” he replied, avoiding eye contact.
“Eight mon—that was, that was right after the….the accident,” Petey trailed off lamely, only to rile himself up again with the second half of that revelation. “You’ve known how to sign this whole time? Why didn’t you say anything? Why-why didn’t you ask me to learn ages ago?”
Dogman smiled weakly. “I didn’t want to bother anyone.”
Petey threw his hands in the air with a scoff.
Of course. Of course Dogman would learn an entire language all on his own, in secret, just to have some way to communicate now that so much was expected of him. Even if it isolated him even more than before because he still had no one who understood him. How many times had Dogman wanted to tell him something, and simply couldn’t? As many times as Petey had wanted to know what he had to say? More?
A nudge against his chin had Petey glancing back at Dogman, and the small, disbelieving smile on his face.
“ But then you offered to learn. For me.”
“W-well…yeah.” Petey rubbed the back of his neck, but that felt even more awkward than his stutter. He crossed his arms next, but that didn’t feel any better.
Dogman hummed. Was he leaning in closer? “No one’s ever done anything like that for me before.”
“It was nothing.” Petey laughed nervously as heat started creeping up his neck the longer Dogman stared at him with dark, molten eyes. It was dark, surely Dogman wouldn’t notice.
“No. It was everything.”
Dogman climbed over Petey, settling gently over his lap. Petey let out a very un-catlike squeak, looking everywhere but at Dogman’s face, his own burning so fiercely he feared his fur would catch fire.
Dogman nudged his cheek, gathering Petey’s flailing hands together in a gentle squeeze before releasing them to sign:
“What do you want, Petey?”
What did he want? Since when did what Petey want out of life ever matter? He wanted his dad to care, for his mom to live, and how did that work out? He’d wanted to be the World’s Most Evilest Cat and he’d wanted to undo Li’l Petey. His wants were either a cruel joke or so awful he should just walk into Cat Jail and tell them to throw away the key because he was a danger to everyone he loved.
“I…um…”
Petey stammered, shaking his head and blinking. “I, well, you see, I…” His words kept failing him, his heart and his brain and his tongue twisting about each other in a ridiculous knot, but all the while Dogman watched him patiently, a reassuring, warm weight in his lap.
All at once, Dogman’s nearness overwhelmed him and the breath shuddered in his chest. Was it just a few minutes ago that he’d been afraid to touch Dogman, so sure that his affection wouldn’t be welcome? And like he’d read Petey’s mind, Dogman had made his desire irrefutable.
Petey raised his hands to sign between them, not trusting his voice, even as his fingers shook.
“I want to stay, Greg.”
Greg. Signed by turning the letter ‘G’ into the sign for ‘dog,’ palm up and middle finger coming down against his thumb.
Dogman’s joyful howl was more hushed than usual but no less eager as he wrapped his arms around Petey’s shoulders, swaying them from side to side. Petey hugged him back with a wet little laugh, going along with the motion. His eyes were burning, his vision swimming, and he closed his eyes like that would be enough of a barrier against the overflow of his emotions.
Dogman’s hands moved from Petey’s shoulders to either side of his jaw, and that startled him into opening his eyes again. Dogman’s eyes burned with warmth, but there was something settled, an earnest set to his expression Petey had seen once before. At the bottom of the hill, after his and Li’l Petey’s small family of two became three. Right before Dogman kissed him for the first time.
Breathless, Petey couldn’t look away for an instant.
Dogman let go of him, his fingers trailing gently past his whiskers, but he didn’t go far. Still looking bound and determined, Dogman moved to sign. He crossed his arms over his chest, before placing his hand flat against Petey’s, his fingertips pressing gently against his fur.
Petey’s breath hitched, trembling.
The sign was unmistakable. They both said it to Li’l Petey in the morning, noon, and night and had it signed back to them both in turn.
“I love you.”
“Oh. Are, um…are you sure?” he whispered.
Dogman whined, his hands coming up to cradle Petey’s jaw again. He didn’t realize he was crying until Dogman started wiping the tears away. He looked up at the ceiling, blinking hard, like that would stem the flow, and Dogman leaned forward, kissing the tear tracks. Petey fisted his hands in the back of Dogman’s sleep shirt.
“Cuz, um…I…I love you…too.”
Dogman hummed again, just a little snippet of his latest musical piece. Petey knew now that Dogman had chosen to learn piano after the surgery, because he loved music and it was something he’d always wanted to learn. Cause y’know, taking sign language and piano lessons at the same time was no big deal and not impressive whatsoever.
Dogman nosed against his jaw, his breath rushing over the side of Petey’s neck and sending shivers racing down his back. Then he kissed the spot just under his jaw, lingering there for an endless number of seconds, and every hair on Petey’s body stood on end. He must’ve made some sort of sound as his brain malfunctioned, the roar of blood pounding in his ears as he spit out something between a whine and a sigh.
But because Dogman didn’t do anything by halves, he didn’t stop there. Moving up a few inches, Dogman kissed his chin. Then his cheek. There he remained again, rubbing his cheek against Petey’s, marking his scent or letting Petey mark him, he didn’t know, didn’t care.
Petey trembled with helpless adoration; it spilled from his heart like blood rushing through his veins, overwhelmed by the vastness of it. Dogman’s weight in his lap, pressed against him from feet to nape, as if Petey could absorb every tender touch and never doubt again what was unmistakable, unshakeable in front of him.
With some effort, Petey managed to wrench his hands off the back of Dogman’s shirt and maneuver them around to cradle Dogman’s face instead. A slight nudge had Dogman pulling away, though still leaning over Petey. His hands had migrated to Petey’s hips, where they squeezed gently, prompting a shiver, as Dogman tilted his head to the side in question.
Everything okay? his eyes asked but Petey didn’t let him worry for more than a few milliseconds before yanking him close and planting a kiss directly on his mouth.
Dogman barely stiffened in surprise before pressing forward, giving a tiny whimper that made Petey feel like the most powerful cat in the world. He released Dogman’s jaw to slide his hands up to the back of his neck, while Dogman wrapped his arms around Petey’s waist.
They stayed like that for a while, wrapped up in each other, before finally separating a minute or an eternity later to catch their breath.
Petey felt lighter than air, fluffy-headed as the clouds Li’l Petey loved to watch, and he was sure he’d never smiled so much or so widely in his life. A miniature sun was glowing in his chest and its golden rays burned away his inhibitions (for the moment) and escaped him in fits of stifled laughter that should’ve embarrassed him horribly.
Instead, he snorted and flailed as Dogman got over excited and attacked him with far more slobbery kisses than before. “Shhh!” he hissed, still grinning helplessly. “If we wake up Li’l Petey you’re putting him back to bed.”
Petey managed to wrangle Dogman, pushing him firmly away, and Dogman allowed the manhandling with a huff. Still lying atop Petey, he settled down with his head on Petey’s torso, wrapped together but without any hands wandering toward ticklish spots this time.
Here, they breathed together, calming from the fervor of emotion and, er, activities that still left heat lingering in Petey’s cheeks. He pet Dogman, giving special attention behind his ears, and while he leaned eagerly into the caresses, his syrupy gaze never strayed far from Petey’s face.
“What?” he murmured, hating to break the stillness that had fallen over them again, especially now as it tempted to lull him to sleep.
Dogman smiled, nuzzling against Petey’s stomach. He lifted up one hand, pressing his middle and ring finger against his palm in a combination of the letters ‘I’, ‘L,’ and ‘Y.’ Or in other words, just another way of saying: I love you.
Well. Petey started all this because he’d wanted to know what Dogman was thinking, hadn’t he?