ninefox | Fine Zinc Teeth

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Fine Zinc Teeth

There was a time Jedao would have said that half a century was barely any time; less than a mortal life, not more than two generations. But the world has changed so much since he first put the Americans' uniform on. Even the uniform has changed - they don't call dance halls dance halls any more, for another thing. But the smell of the place - sweat, desire, alcohol - that much is the same.

He slinks in under a stranger's face, although he doesn't disguise his own scent when he smiles, glittering, at the bouncer: a flashed lure that Fives might not even notice or recognize, let alone pursue. It took a few months to get someone to handle all the things which apparently needed handling for his "retirement", and a few more to track down one particular squad of decommissioned weretroops, out of thousands, mostly paperless, in the busiest city this side of the Pacific. But Jedao did find them.

He dances without keeping track of the time, lets his face slowly slide back to its default arrangement, lets his spine relearn how to hold him up without being army rigid. He has several drinks - people buy them for him, which is nice; one or two of them he even dances with until they can't keep up with him any more. Fives rotates from the receiving line onto the floor as the night wears on and patrons get drunker, and he maneuvers himself into Fives' line of view, always moving, twisting, flashing glances that catch on Fives' eyes as the beat hits. Slowly, as if by the whim of the music, he draws closer.

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"What kind of kitchen things did they get? There's so many now." Jedao can do amazing things with one wok, a sharp knife, and a big spoon, but after almost sixty years of eating in mess halls, modern kitchens utterly bewilder him.

"Um... mostly some pots and pans. A couple big knives and some littler ones, and a cutting board for using them on. A, uh, a vegetable peeler and a... steamer? Some really big spoons for stirring things and a couple of flat things, spatulas? For flipping things over? Oh, and measuring cups and spoons, and mixing bowls. And a whisk." He likes the whisk.

"I learned how to make pancakes and eggs, so I can make breakfast most mornings. And Rex and Cody taught all of us to make noodles and rice." He sounds prouder of that than is probably justified, given what a basic skill cooking is, but it's not one that any of them had ever been given any opportunity to learn before coming here.

"You can live a long time on eggs and rice," Jedao says approvingly, vaguely relieved that they don't have anything too incomprehensible.

"Probably," Fives agrees. "But it's better with meat in it. And Cody always makes us put vegetables in it too... but they're not bad with enough sauce."

He grins as they finally emerge into the top floor hallway. He can hear his brothers bickering behind their door down the hall, which means the general doubtless can too. Hevy and Hardcase wanting to throw the door open and greet the General in the hall, Cody telling them to settle down and be patient and help Tup today, and Rex yelling at them--probably from the kitchen--to settle the hell down and quit behaving like undisciplined pups. In an undertone to it all he can hear DB and Dogma both whining, DB in excitement and Dogma no doubt with anxiety.

Fives gives the General a slightly sheepish look then, raising his voice pointedly, announces, "Welcome to our home, General," and throws open the door to barely controlled chaos.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite squad and a half," Jedao says, grinning expansively, hands tucked in his pockets as he saunters in, not remotely military posture. "How is everyone?" He crouches after a few steps and offers Dronebait a hand to sniff, their eyes almost on a level.

"And who are you, then? Nice to meet you."

The General is definitely the only one (besides Fives, anyway), who's not in perfect military posture. The rest of them have clearly scrambled to face the door and snap to attention, though Hevy and Hardcase clearly jostled for position to the last moment and Hardcase has his shoulder shoved in front of Hevy's, partially blocking him as he faces the door, and Tup seems to have tried to shrink shyly into the background, partially hidden behind Cody and Jesse.

"General Jedao, sir," Cody greets him without moving, even as DB wriggles and squirms forward to sniff excitedly at the General's hand and then lick first the hand, and then the General's face. "That's Echo's boy Dronebait, sir," Cody explains as Fives steps in after the General and crouches down as well to receive his share of the mostly grown pup's enthusiastic greeting, ignoring Cody's disapproving look as he does so.

"We managed to, ah, liberate him on our way out, General," Fives adds, grinning as he scruffs his nephew's ears enthusiastically. "Right DB? Did we come rescue you with Daddy? Huh?" DB wriggles more enthusiastically and butts right into the General's chest, apparently intent on knocking the newcomer over so he can give him a thorough greeting.

"DB! That's enough!" Cody orders and the pup immediately backs up a step and drops his backside to the floor. He can't quite stop squirming, but he's mostly doing it in one place now, with his tail thumping energetically at Hardcase's ankles. "General, sir, my apologies for Dronebait's behavior."

"Aw, he was just saying hi, Codes," Fives protests, cutting Cody off and stroking the top of DB's head once more as he gets to his feet.

"Oh, very good," Jedao murmurs after hearing news of the rescue. He definitely doesn't get knocked over - doesn't even wobble - and gets a good ear ruffle in himself before Dronebait reluctantly heels.

"I don't mind him," Jedao assures Cody, then waves a hand. "At ease, everybody, at ease forever, I'm retired," he announces, although there's no reproach in it for their hard-earned reflexes, and he flips Hardcase a Kennedy half dollar for winning the unspoken contest, because he is a terrible influence, grinning as he manages to catch it out of the air despite Hevy's scuffling attempts to intercept.

"Fives has been telling me stories about a roof garden, I'd love to see it," he adds, voice warmly hopeful without calling Tup out either by name or by gaze.

DB seems to be aware they're talking about him, and he wriggles his way a little closer, in obvious hopes Cody won't call him to heel again. Hardcase, meanwhile, is busily buffing his prize against his shirt, clearly just to rub it in to Hevy that he won and the General noticed.

"Hardcase!" comes Rex's voice from the kitchen, sharp and commanding, and Hardcase deflates almost visibly. "Get in here, it's your day for KP duty and these potatoes aren't mashing themselves!"

"Yessir," he calls, and turns towards a door to the left. "It's good to see you, sir!" he adds to the General before trotting obediently off.

"Jesse, Hevy," Cody adds. "Finish setting the table, we can all catch up with General Jedao over dinner. And Tup-" He turns and looks at the youngest member of their little clan, his voice going a little gentler as he smiles encouragingly at him. "Why don't you take the General up to the roof. Echo can help you show off your garden while Fives gets cleaned up for dinner." And he fixes Fives with a quelling glare, just daring him to protest being kept behind.

Fives rolls his eyes and sighs, prepared for the inevitable lecture on getting above his station. "It's Tup and Echo's garden, so they're the best to show it to you," Fives agrees, and even if he's annoyed at Cody he doesn't let any of it come through for Tup. "Go on, little brother. Take DB up with you too, he'll want to go see his dad now that we're here." He knows Echo had only left him behind because he'd have been beside himself trying to get down from the roof to greet him at the door otherwise.

"You too!" he calls after Hardcase, laughing just a little. He waves gamely at Hevy and Jesse, letting Cody herd everyone, and gives Fives a quick squeeze on the wrist and a warm smile.

"I'm really glad I ran into you," Jedao says, low but definitely not too low for Cody to catch, even though it was less "running into" and more "determinedly tracking down." Even if Fives might hope or guess, none of them know. Then he releases Fives and follows Tup, trying to look mild and unintimidating without any real understand of what could make someone be intimating other than "being an angry dragon." He's certainly not angry, at least.

"Me too, General," Fives answers with a warm, slightly soppy smile, and immediately turns a smirk on Cody as Tup leads the General out the door to the access stairs at the end of the hall, DB on their heels as the door closes behind them.

Tup, for his part, is just as tall and almost as broad as his brothers, though he's clearly not carrying as much muscle mass. Still, he would probably be just about as intimidating to a stranger, but there's something a little subdued, maybe even timid about how he holds himself that makes him seem younger. Smaller. Altogether less imposing than his boisterous older brothers.

"I, uh... I don't remember if I ever thanked you, General," he murmurs about halfway to the stairs, only looking at the General out of the corner of his eye as he walks. "I don't... I don't remember a lot. From then. But Fives said-" He stops and chews at his chapped lips and reaches an open hand down that DB apparently recognizes as a request for reassurance, butting his broad head up under Tup's hand for him to ruffle his ears. "He said you kept them from, uh... putting me down. When I got sick."

"Mm," he confirms, quiet and a little more somber than before, unable to respond to Tup's nervousness with any flippancy. "I had - no promises, but some hints the stand-down would be coming. I thought you could make it, given half a chance. And so you have."

Tup swallows hard and chews at his bottom lip again and starts up the stairs before answering.

"Thank you, sir." He tips his head just a little, making tentative eye contact. It's nothing like the military bearing he was trained into, or that his brothers still display, but he's forgotten a lot of that too. Not all of it, but enough it's not his automatic default the way it still is theirs.

He pauses at the door leading out onto the roof, squares his shoulders, and finds the nerve to fully face the General, to look him in the eye and smile tentatively. "I wouldn't have made a soldier again, but... I love this life. My garden and my classes and my brothers. Thank you for giving me that chance."

Jedao smiles back, soft and strange.

"I don't...often get to save people. I'm very glad it could be you. Thank you for - taking it. For making something good."

Tup ducks his head, not embarrassed at all but suddenly hiding a smile. "If you don't do it often than you must have saved almost all of it for my family." Not just him, but Echo and Dogma and Fives... especially Fives. Because he's heard how the general kept him from the firing squad after the horrible the hellish mess with Krell that ruined Dogma, as well as when he'd fallen ill and Fives had come so close to getting himself decommissioned in his single-minded insistence on saving him. "So... thank you again. For my brothers."

He pauses with his hand still on the door, his smile gentle as DB waited patiently at his heels. "I think Dogma will want to thank you too, he just... needed a little more time." And so Echo had brought him up here, to the garden, and now Tup opens the door and lets DB bound through before following him out onto the sunlit roof, and the little corner of paradise he and Echo have been tending

"You were standing close together. It was a target of opportunity," Jedao says, at least a little bit true, but mostly tongue in cheek. Fives had caught his attention, and then - didn't let it go. And things happened so quickly, as war always does.

"Dogma can take as much time as he needs," Jedao murmurs, clearly enunciated, once the door is open. "I'm hoping to hang around for a little while."

He slides into foxform at Tup's heels, because it puts him more on a level with the plants, and it's convenient for sniffing and scampering around. Unlike the weres, he has a degree of flexibility with what happens to at least some of his clothes.

It's a typical old roof, flat and gravelly with a bit of a tarry scent, but it's a good sized building and one entire corner is taken over with planters all carefully constructed from scrap, and pots scrounged from curbs and dumpsters that have seen better days. But they've all been meticulously cleaned, and repaired where needed, and then filled with a riot of plants: vegetables and fruits and a scattering of flowers to brighten it all.

Echo's crouching down already as the door opens, arms spread for DB to run into them, wriggling and whining and licking his face. No one's quite sure if DB knows Echo's his father, but they've all made sure to encourage the unique bond between the two for Echo's sake. The only sign of Dogma at first is a pair of golden eyes looking through the greenery from behind a bed of tomatoes, but when the General slips into his fox form he pokes his head, and then the rest of him, cautiously around the edge, his head down and his tail wagging tentatively.

Tup laughs and follows after DB and the General, waving to his older brother. "Cody made Fives stay downstairs for a talking to," he tells Echo as he pauses to check on plants before passing by. "Dinner will probably be on the table in ten or fifteen minutes."

Jedao scurries around with a bubbling excitement that he kept mostly tamped down as a human, sticking his nose into a dozen different pots, dashing out to the windward corner to peer over the street feel the air ruffle his fur, then scampering back to lick Dogma's nose, his own tail swishing double-time.

Echo watches in amusement as the General, completely lacking in any martial dignity, skitters and scampers through the garden and Dogma, clearly nervous and bemused, creeps closer and closer as he watches. DB, on the other hand, is absolutely overjoyed at this new companion and he follows along, tail wagging happily as he checks each pot the General checks.

Echo and Tup settle themselves on a bench near the door to watch quietly as Dogma creeps out... and DB takes the opportunity of the General finally pausing to lick his uncle's nose to shove his own nose where it is not, politely, meant to go, sniffing industriously at the General's ass and crotch.

His tail whisks DB smartly in the face, less any attempt to push him off and more a crisp "I see you there." It's summer, so his testes are mostly hidden, but the tinge of ozone in his musky fox scent suddenly intensifies. He licks Dogma's muzzle one more time, more deliberately, in refusal to be rushed, before turning on a dime and bouncing upright, balanced on his back legs, his forelegs landing on Dronebait's shoulders. And suddenly, despite their relative weights which should have made it impossible, the wolfdog is the one knocked over, on his side on the ground. Jedao stands on him with his forelegs again, making a throaty rattling noise like a ratchet. He leans in with his triangular jaws open wide, around DB's ear, pressed sideways against his throat, closing gently around his muzzle.

He never really bites down: it's all surprise and no pain for the overeager pup, over in a handful of seconds, but the vulpine gesture of dominance translates neatly. Then Jedao licks his muzzle too, and hops over him to let him up. He circles around in a careless mince, and gets a quick sniff of Dronebait's ass before the bigger canine manages to get back to his feet. Jedao makes a cackling, yipping sound of playful amusement, and whacks Dronebait's back legs with the wedge of his head to nudge him up. He's perfectly friendly, but puppies will know their place, even mostly-grown ones with a hundred pounds on him.

Then Jedao goes back to paying attention to Dogma, nuzzling at his neck, tail wagging steadily again.

Echo's on his feet the second the General knocks DB back, eyes flashing gold and a growl starting to rumble in his chest, but Tup wraps a hand around his wrist and whines softly, under his breath. It's enough to break Echo out of the knee-jerk protective response, to see DB tucking tail and whining like the overgrown pup being chastised that he is, and he drops back onto the bench and leans in to rub his cheek against Tup's in thanks and apology.

Dogma, for his part, had sunk down to his belly the moment the General approached, all cowed submission and eager apology. The lick surprised him enough that he just watched DB's chastisement, but once it's done with he gives his nephew a quick nip to one ear to reinforce it. He clearly doesn't know what to make of the General's renewed attention, and he sinks down to his belly again, whining quietly and trying to lick submissively at the General's muzzle in response, but his tail actually relaxes a little, and makes a halfhearted start at wagging at the clear affection and reassurance in it.

Jedao yips happily to find Dogma now entirely in range of how short he is, and curls up half against his flank, half draped on top of his shoulders. Ten or fifteen minutes sounds like ages right now, and he intends to spend some of it cuddling in the sunlight. Dronebait, chastened but hardly discouraged, plays a game of Bother with him, wriggling forward curiously from different angles and then darting away from the lazy swipe of a paw, while Dogma looks long-suffering.

After a few minutes, once Dogma is mostly relaxed underneath him, Jedao slides back into manform, legs tucked under him now, still pressed against the bulk of the werewolf's side, petting Dogma gently. The fox's pleased high trills slide into baritone words without so much as a missed breath.

"You're a good boy, that's right. I'm very glad to see you, here and healthy. And you're a good boy too, of course you are," he adds when Dronebait launches half his weight into Jedao's lap, sensing opportunity. Jedao scritches his ears with his other hand, then glances abruptly up to Tup and Echo, watching the scene unfolding with amusement mixed with other emotions. Jedao's smile turns from sweet and silly to something older, steadier, and he holds Echo's eyes, gives him a slow, respectful nod.

"You're a brave one. I know all you boys are. But he's lucky to have you."

Echo flushes at the praise, but he meets the General's gaze steadily and dips his head in turn. "He's all I have, sir... all any of us have." Which isn't true in the most literal sense, they have their lives and each other, after all, but of all the pups he and Fives and Cody and Rex were forced to sire, Dronebait's the only one they could save. The only one they even know for sure survived.

Tup presses their shoulders tightly together and squeezes his thigh, and Echo breaks the General's gaze to smile gratefully at his younger brother.

"It's, uh, it's probably dinner time, General," he adds, and as he pushes back to his feet DB scampers up from his spot on the General's lap and bounds over to him. "Are you going to join us, Dogma?" he asks, and Dogma's tail does a slow sweep of the roof as he licks the General's chin with a grumbling whine.

"Does he not usually?" Jedao asks, dropping a kiss between Dogma's ears before levering himself up. He can see it either way: the whole family boisterously slipping him bits as he slinks around the table, or Rex having firm ideas about What Constitutes Human Mealtimes.

"No, he usually does," Echo answers, padding over and reaching down to scruff Dogma's ears gently. "But he's been more anxious than usual today-" For obvious reasons he's not going to actually state. "And sometimes when he has a bad day he just likes to stay up here as much as possible." And stay out of Fives' way, and avoid the inevitable feedback loop of anger and guilt and frustration that either of them having a bad day can set off between the two of them.

"Come eat with us, Dogma," Tup adds quietly. "It's not the same without you."

"I can see why. It's a lovely place you two have made up here," Jedao says, rather than trying to coax Dogma himself, entirely sure that there's no way he could phrase a request that Dogma wouldn't hear as an order, and Jedao has imposed himself on the nervous creature enough already. He gives him one more gentle pat and then heads for the door, although he does glance back when he gets there, wordlessly hopeful.

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