Work Text:
Rrrrring!
Kim opened his eyes a fraction. The insistent noise had buried itself deep inside his dream, producing a strange scenario where he suddenly had a telephone inside his TipTop racer, and had to try and answer it while he overtook the other drivers.
Rrrrring!
The dream dissolved into an incomprehensible nothing, and then into the pillow underneath his head. He fumbled on the nightstand until his fingers hit something. The water glass. As it toppled over, he managed to catch it on pure instinct. The water still sloshed over his hand, over the mattress and onto the floor. He swore under his breath.
Rrrrring!
He managed to find his glasses on the second try, eyes still unfocused with sleep. The remnants of the dream clung to the edges of his consciousness – it wasn’t just a race, had he been back at the...? He found the cord to the lamp, and finally the alarm clock. 4:49. Who the hell called at this hour?
Rrrrring!
The ringing was as relentless as it was irritating. Yawning and scratching his hir, he went into the living room and picked up the phone.
Rrrrri-
“Revachol 56-42-779, Kitsuragi speaking.”
“Kim! God, finally, I was about to give up!”
The last dregs of the dream evaporated at the stress and relief in the voice on the other end. Kim recognised it immediately. He adjusted his glasses and flipped the light switch, then blinked owlishly against the harsh light.
“Alice? It’s five in the morning. Is something wrong?”
“No- I mean, yes, there is, but not with me. Kim, I’m sorry to have called you at this ungodly hour but I need a favour.”
Kim stifled another yawn. “Okay, I- damn, just give me a second, okay. Stay on the line.”
“Of course.” He could still hear the tension and impatience in her voice.
He hurried back to the bedroom and pulled on a pair of tracksuit pants and a worn sweatshirt, then put the kettle on for coffee. While he waited for it to boil, he picked the phone up and carried it into the kitchen, the receiver nestled against his shoulder.
“Alice? Still there?”
“Of course.” She sounded relieved.
He glanced out the window. The sun had barely risen over the flat, wide fields surrounding his house, just a couple of rays illuminating the tips of the wheat and painting the distant hills gold and deep blue. He stifled another yawn.
“Gods, it’s early… what’s this about?”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “So.”
While he slowly went through his morning ritual of boiling water, grinding beans and pouring water through a filter, Alice talked.
She was the only person from his old career that he still talked to. He’d had a dream in his youth to do something with his life, something worthwhile, something that would make the world accept him. The Citizen’s Militia had seemed like the perfect choice. Hindsight, Kim supposed, was 20/20, the only time in his life he’d ever experienced that type of visual clarity. He’d spent five years in the Juvenile Crimes unit and hating it more and more with every month that passed. The straw that broke the camel’s back came when they wanted him to go undercover for a pinball ring. A pinball ring. He still cringed at the memory. The goddamn humiliation... He’d put in his resignation the same day and hadn’t looked back.
Since then, he’d made his career in technology instead, branching out from his interest in motor carriages to other machines, and then to electronics. He’d met Dominic Reyes at a radiocomputer enthusiast’s meetup. The two of them had hit it off immediately. For Kim, who had always had trouble getting to know people, having a friend with the same interests was invaluable. Dominic had been an intensely private man who lived on an old farm south of Revachol, but kept up a huge and complicated network of friends and acquaintances both by mail and by radio, and he’d introduced Kim to what would become his customers when he decided to try and get his repair business off the ground.
When Dominic died unexpectedly, he’d left Kim everything. Kim hadn’t been prepared for any of it. He’d taken one look around his boring flat in northern Jamrock, then left it all behind without a second glance. He’d lived on the farm for years now, working as a mail-order radio and electronics expert, working from the contacts Dominic had helped him establish, as well as helping the surrounding towns with repairs. It suited him perfectly. He got to do the thing he loved most and didn’t have to get bothered by other people while doing it; conversations were on his own terms and about the things he liked, and he had the freedom to live as he pleased.
Alice, meanwhile, had stayed behind in the RCM. They talked a lot over the phone and even met up from time to time when Kim went into Revachol for errands. She’d moved on from dispatch into Animal Handling, an inter-precinct division that mostly worked with the feral beasts roving the streets of the metropolis, but also took care of animal abuse cases. This one had apparently been a doozy.
The division had been tipped off about some kind of massive case going on in the southern suburbs, just on the edge of the city before the farmlands took over. A complex of houses and sheds inside a study, high fence topped with barbed wire, like its own little fortification. They’d been keeping it under surveillance for weeks. She’d talked about it once or twice before, he remembered as he poured the ground coffee into a filter and balanced it over the little pot. It had sounded fairly exiting, to be honest.
This morning there’d been a dawn raid.
Alice sounded both amazed and disgusted when she recounted the stakeout and the raid. With the size of it, they’d expected some form of resistance when they broke down the doors. There had been none. Just a massive hoarding of animals, not only the usual cats and dogs and farm stock, but a veritable zoo of exotic pets and wild-caught animals. Giraffes, foxes, rats, skunks, bears, fish, antelopes of all kinds, a huge aviary of birds; even animals from other isolas entirely, but only one or two of each. And, tucked away at the very back of one of the barns, a hucow.
“Wait, wait, wait-” Kim hesitated with his hand hovering over the coffee, the sugar forgotten. “Really? An actual hucow?”
“An actual hucow,” Alice confirmed. “We were as surprised as you.”
Kim shook his head and stirred the sugar in, then took the mug and the telephone back to the living room. “Where the hell did they get that?”
“Not they, him. It was one guy, managing all of it. I mean, we’d seen him going in and out, getting supplies, throwing out trash, but we thought he was the errands guy. Turns out it was just him all along, alone! We still have no idea how he did it! He must have had some help. Or he was just completely nuts. We’ll interrogate him later today.”
Kim made himself comfortable on the sofa and sipped thoughtfully on the coffee. Hucow farming was a very contentious subject. They were one of the species native to Insulinde, and had been there since time immemorial. The relationship between humans and hucows was fraught, to say the least. Most people defaulted to thinking they were an intelligent animal on par with say, a monkey or a dolphin, but there were a lot of people that considered them to be just as intelligent as humans. They were capable of human speech if taught it – still, most people claimed that it was the equivalent to teaching a parrot how to talk.
There had been some intermingling, of course. Mostly humans capturing hucows and using them for milk. It was a prized commodity, said to be superior in both taste and nutrition than cow or goat milk, and because it was so rare. Keeping a hucow wasn’t easy, since they were so intelligent. Tradition said that if you wanted hucow milk, you first needed a hucow friend. In the last hundred years, however, there’d been a push from a couple of large farming conglomerates to regulate and industrialise the hucow farming using new technology and certain drugs, made to increase milk yields and keep them docile. There was talk that there was some sort of breeding programme as well, but it was slow going since they had about the same generation time as humans. There had been a pushback against the industrialisation of the practice as well, both politically and practically with activist groups making their own raid at the big farms, but since the farming conglomerates had the backing of the Coalition, there was very little that could be done. As it stood, wild hucows were a protected species with capturing new ones being illegal, but the so-called domesticated ones were patented by the conglomerates and illegal to own or farm outside of them.
Kim almost put the coffee down on the sofa table, then remembered and put a coaster down first. “He must have stolen it somewhere,” he mused. “Or gotten it from one of the activist groups, maybe?”
“That’s what we’re thinking, yeah,” Alice agreed. “We’ll see what he says.”
Kim rubbed his eyes and suppressed another yawn. “This is all very interesting, Alice. But why are you calling me? You said you had a favour to ask?”
“So. Um.” He could hear her hesitate on the other side. “You know we don’t have very large facilities, Kim. Just, um, the kennels, and the pens, and the stable... and there were so many animals this time, like I said, a whole zoo – we actually talked to the Revachol Zoo, they can harbour some of them, the complicated ones, the giraffes probably came from there to begin with – but, you know.” She hesitated again.
Kim gripped the phone tighter. “Alice. Where is this going?”
“And we need to log them. All the animals. Including the hucow. And you know how the Coalition gets about the patents, Kim, they get rabid, really, it’s grotesque... so if we keep him anywhere here they’d probably take him...”
Kim groaned and ran a hand down his face. He’d always suspected that Alice was probably a little more involved in the activism part of the pushback against the hucow question than she’d let on. Evidenced by her using that pronoun, just now. She’d alluded to it in the past – friends she had, meetings she went to, and the reason she transferred to the AHD in the first place. He’d tried not to think about it too much. If her and her friends got caught it wasn’t just heavy fines, it meant jailtime.
“... so I thought that maybe we could log him but, you know, not keep him on the premises,” she continued. “Keep him somewhere safe. Ah. Off the books.”
The ensuing silence was full of hopeful suggestion.
“You’ll get in trouble, Alice,” Kim sighed. “I’ll get in trouble.”
“No, it’s fine, we talked it over – we’ll just make a mess of the paperwork! With this many animals going to all these different places there’s bound to be some mix-up, right? If they get wind of him we can keep them guessing until he’s well enough to be released into the wild.”
A domesticated hucow in the wild? Even Kim knew that was probably less than a good idea. “You think that’s reasonable?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know, Kim. To be honest, I don’t. But I can’t really come up with anything better. And you have that whole farm down there, with all those houses, and there’s no one around for kilometres. Please, Kim? I know this is a lot to ask of you but we can’t think of anyone else. Just until he recuperates.”
They probably couldn’t, he realised. The AHD was small and underfunded even by RCM standards, subsiding nearly entirely on charitable donations and the slimmest budget in the force. They were firmly on the bottom on the rung. All the people in it were there not because they wanted glamour or thrills, they were there either because nobody else wanted them or because they took what they were doing as a calling, like Alice.
He looked out of the window again. The sun had risen a little more, casting reflection on the little pond and the vegetable patch, the barn and the sheds making long shadows on the ground. He did have the space. There hadn’t been animals on the farm for decades, not since before Dominic bought it, but it wouldn’t be too hard to make some changes. The thought of letting someone else into his comfortable routine, though…
He could hear Alice shuffling nervously on the other side. Kim didn’t have many friends, and none that he’d consider closer than her. Besides, if he didn’t agree, she’d probably have to resort to something much more dangerous, like keeping the hucow at her flat. He grimaced at the thought. Yeah… just for a little while. And he’d probably want to be left alone, anyway. How much of a hassle could it be?
“Fine,” he sighed. “I’ll do it.”
There was a sigh of relief on the other end. “Kim,” she said quietly, “I’ll be in your debt forever. Anything you want. Seriously.”
“Is that so? I’ll be expecting my brand spanking new Rehm Rational within the week, then,” he said with a little smile.
“I’m honestly going to start looking. We’ll come down with him this afternoon, okay? As soon as we get the paperwork down.”
“All right. See you.”
“See you, Kim! You’re the best.” There was a little smacking sound as she threw a kiss, then the line went dead.
Kim put the receiver down and stared at the telephone, the coffee cooling in its cup.
A hucow. An actual, living hucow, on his farm. He leaned forward and rubbed his eyes again. Innocence alive. He’d have to make sure it had somewhere to stay, things to eat- what did they eat? Would it try to run away? Would he have to keep it locked up?
No, not it, he corrected himself. Alice had said ‘he’. Maybe better to think of him as a roommate more than a pet or a farm animal.
He stood up and stretched. The clock was creeping towards six, still earlier than he preferred to rise but too late to go back to sleep. He went into the kitchen and grabbed the old carton he used for eggs. Some breakfast, and then he could see if the barn was in a respectable state. He probably wouldn’t want to be in the house, anyway, not if he’d lived on a farm all his life. Ideas started whirling around as he went down into the henhouse at the bottom of the garden, resolving themselves into a list. All right. Fresh straw and some blankets to sleep on. Make sure the water is potable. Check the pantry for things he could eat. Go over the fence and check for holes...
The rest of the day went by quickly as Kim worked, stopping only to scarf down some lunch, then back to his preparations. The barn was small, mostly consisting of a few horse boxes on one end and an open area on the other that he used for storing machine parts, and between them a ladder that led up to the hayloft. He decided to use the box closest to the door for his new tenant. The water trough seemed to work fine, no rust or bad smells, and it was cleaned out already. It would do for now. He made up a bed in one corner, then hesitated and wondered if he should try to furnish it more. He decided against it in the end. Same thing there – if the hucow was used to an ordinary farm, a lot of new things at once could maybe be frightening. If he wanted, say, a chair later, there was time for that.
Kim was mending a hole in the fence when he heard the sound of a lorry rattling along the road. It had the old familiar RCM logo on the side. It still stung a bit, seeing it – thinking about the possibilities that never came, the things that would never happen, now. But it was less and less each year, especially with the way the Coalition was handling Revachol. Better to be out of it. Kim wiped his hands on his overalls and stepped out in the yard just as the lorry came to a halt and Alice jumped out of the passenger side.
“So good to see you again!”
She ran up and thew her hands around him. He patted her back, a bit awkwardly. She’d always been far more free with her affections than he had – not that he wanted her to stop.
“Hello, Alice,” he said and gently untangled himself from her grip. “It’s good to see you too. Hello,” he added to the other officer stepping out of the lorry. “Kitsuragi.”
The officer offered a hand. “Hansson. Nice to meet you. I’m sure Alice said, but man, we’re happy you could take him. I really don’t think we could take care of him very well.”
“I’ll try my best,” Kim said and shook the offered hand.
“Okay. So.” Alice went round the back and stared to untie the straps that held the tarpaulin cover closed, then undid the clasps to the flap. “He’s really sweet, but he’s a bit spooked right now. I don’t know if he’s ever been in a lorry before. We couldn’t take the animal transport vehicle either. Too many questions.”
She let the flap dangle open, then got Hansson to help her roll the tarpaulin cover back. Kim slapped his cap on his knee. Despite his misgivings, he was getting curious. He’d never seen a hucow up close like this. Most people hadn’t; they were just a half-mythological story for city folks and poor small-towners like him. At the most he could remember seeing the ones in the commercials or activism posters, and in some story book when he was a kid.
Alice leaned into the lorry. “Harry? You can come out now.”
Kim took a step forward and looked in. It- he was sitting at the back, in the corner, on a pile of dirty blankets, breathing heavily and staring back at Kim and Alice with huge, bloodshot eyes. Even though the lorry was still, both hands were out to steady himself against the sides. Kim could see his fingers trembling with the effort of holding them up. There were traces of vomit on his chest, and on the blankets as well.
Alice clucked a bit and waved her hand. “It’s okay. We’ve stopped now. Can you feel it? It’s not moving anymore.”
He stared a little more, then blinked slowly. Just as slowly, he stood up, legs shaking, bracing himself on the metal.
Kim had to stop himself from gasping. He was taller than he’d expected. One ninety, two meters, maybe, and broad over the shoulders. As he gingerly stepped forward, Kim could see more of him. The bovine traits looked so much stranger and alien in person than they’d ever done in the pictures. Furry legs, brown with white markings, and a short beard and shaggy mane to match, with two short horns and a pair of long ears poking out of it. The fur looked unkempt, dirty and mottled, criss-crossed with scars. He was muscular but skinny in a way that suggested he’d been bigger recently. Kim’s eyes flitted quickly downward, then away. Well. Very obviously a bull.
“Come on,” Alice said and nodded. “That’s good. It’s okay. Look, you can come out.”
He hesitated, then took a few more steps, long tail swishing nervously – Kim couldn’t keep his eyes off it, the brown tuft at the end flicking back and forth. When he got to the edge of the lorry he sat down, big hooves resting on the ground. His pale face was right on Alice’s level. His breaths still came heavy and laboured, like he was trying not to throw up again, and he wiped a bit of vomit from his beard. Alice patted his leg.
“This is where you’ll live for a while, Harry. This is Kim. He’s going to take care of you.”
He turned and looked at Kim. It was strange. The tired, green-grey eyes had so much intelligence in them, much more than Kim had expected. But there was fear and mistrust there, too. Kim looked at the scars again. No wonder.
“Hi, Harry,” he said. “Welcome.”
No response. Just that stare, direct, calculating, a bit fearful. He looked absolutely exhausted. Kim slapped his cap against his thigh anxiously. The eyes flitted to it immediately, following the movement. Kim cast around for something to make him less apprehensive, and to be honest, for something to break the awkwardness. He nodded towards the barn.
“So, ah. Would you like to see your bed?”
“That’s a good idea, Harry,” Alice said gently. “You’re tired, right? Rest a bit.”
The hucow hesitated a little, then stood up, still without a sound, and followed Kim into the barn. He didn’t look around much, just sat down as soon as he saw the pile of straw and blankets, then leaned his head against the planking with a little thunk and closed his eyes. He still hadn’t said a single word. Kim decided to let him be for now. He seemed strangely disorientated. Better, maybe, to let him adjust on his own.
He rejoined the others out in the yard. “Well. He liked the bed, at least.”
“Oh, that’s good, Kim,” Alice said and gave him a thumbs up. “He seems to trust you already!”
“I’m not so sure. Do they normally act like this?” Kim looked back at the barn. “I mean... can he talk?”
“Oh, don’t worry, he can,” Hansson said with a grimace. “He didn’t shut up when we found him. But that was probably because he was drunk.”
“Drunk?”
“Yeah,” Alice said. “The stupid bastard that ran the place gave him alcohol, apparently. Drank with him like he was a mate at the pub. Probably to keep him calm. It wasn’t like he could get his hands on the proprietary drugs,” she added. “We looked at the paperwork. He’d been there for nearly a year, and it looks like the owner had given him booze most of that time. Quite a lot of it. So, ah.” She fiddled with the straps to the tarpaulin. “Him acting like this. Um. He... may be going through withdrawal.”
Kim sighed. “Alice...”
“Sorry, Kim! I didn’t know this morning, I swear! But you did medical as your specialty, right? You should be able to handle it?”
There was a pleading note to her voice. Kim took his glasses off with a sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Fair, yes, he had had done medical and first responder care in the RCM. That had been years ago, but... he could handle it, probably, unless there was something about the way hucows processed alcohol that was very different from humans. But it wouldn’t be pleasant. This was rapidly turning out to be far more of a hassle than he’d hoped.
“Sure,” he muttered. “Of course.”
“Thank you,” she said and grabbed his hand. “A Rehm Rational. I promise.”
“That was a joke, Alice.”
“I promise,” she repeated. “I have friends who have friends, Kim. We won’t forget this.”
He stood in the yard and looked after the lorry as it disappeared in a cloud of dust. Well. No use putting it off. He turned with a sigh and went into the barn.
The hucow was still sitting on the makeshift bed Kim had made, his shaggy head leaned against the wooden boards. He looked a little better, but still pale and sweaty, each breath deep and a little ragged. Kim squatted down in front of him. He jumped a little at the unexpected sound.
“Hey. Apologies. Didn’t mean to scare you there.”
“‘m not scared.”
His voice was deep and resonant, but low and tired, and a little wobbly. Kim adjusted his glasses. There was definitely a moist sheen in his eyes, like he was holding back tears. The words were clear and perfectly intelligible, however. Again, he seemed much more intelligent than Kim had expected. And much worse for wear, unfortunately.
“No. Of course. But there’s something else bothering you?”
He looked away a little, then up at Kim again, sniffling a bit and wiping his nose. “I feel pretty bad,” he said eventually. “In my stomach. It hurts. And my head. Really bad.”
“From the lorry ride?” Kim kneeled down to hive his shins a rest. It didn’t seem like he was going to bolt away right this minute.
“Yeah, but... before I got into the machine too.”
Kim nodded. Well. If he hadn’t been given alcohol for a while... the next few days would probably not be very fun for either of them.
“Okay. Well. You’re here now.” He sat down cross-legged. “Like Alice said... my name is Kim. And yours is Harry?”
“Um, no. It’s Harrier. But she said Harry. So that’s fine.”
Kim had never understood why people insisted on giving their pets human names. It seemed like a recipe for confusion. This was even stranger in his book; naming something like this after a revolutionary custom meant to keep children safe.
“Harrier? That’s... unusual. That’s a wartime name, isn’t it?”
“I dunno,” he said with a shrug. “Roel gave it to me. You can say Harry if you want.”
There was a little sound from over in the parts storage, probably a rat making something fall over. Kim was so used to all the noises by now that it barely registered, but Harry twitched so suddenly that he slammed his head back against the planking with a hollow sound. He immediately shrunk down, clutching his head in both hands and whimpering.
“Owww. Ow ow ow.”
“Okay, it’s okay, Harry,” Kim said as calmly as he could. “It was just a mouse or something. That head isn’t doing you any favours, is it?”
Harry shook the offending body part with exaggerated care.
“Would you like to talk a bit, to keep your mind off it? I’d suggest drinking water, too,” Kim added and nodded to the water trough.
“That has water?” Harry gingerly got up and looked at it, poking at it with one thick finger. “How does it-”
Kim had to slap his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing as Harry got a faceful of water. He shook it off like a dog and wiped his face, looking dejected.
“Is it supposed to do that?”
“It’s, ah, it’s made for horses, originally. There’s other ways you can get water, too. I can screw that off and put on a tap, if you’d prefer.”
Harry poked at it again, testing it out until he could produce a slightly less intense stream, then lapped at it. Kim watched him investigate it. He seemed to understand how technology worked, at least something as easy as pushing a lever to open a water spout. Then again, so could a hamster. Or a horse. When he was done, Kim took a handkerchief from his pocket and wetted it, then leaned over to wipe him off. A soon as he came close, Harry shied back. Kim stopped, handkerchief raised.
“Is it okay if I clean this off?” Kim nodded at the vomit traces. “I think you’ll feel better if I do.”
Harry eyed him warily, then nodded. “Okay.”
Kim gently wiped the spots off. Harry watched him, eyes confused in his pale face. When he was done, Kim hung the handkerchief up for him to use again if he wanted.
“So. Feeling better?”
“A little. Still hurts,” he said morosely and rubbed the back of his head where it had bounced on the planks. “Like the day after Roel gave me the spicy drink.”
“The spicy drink.” Kim tried not to let the emotion show in his voice. So the idiot really had been giving him alcohol.
“Yeah,” Harry said and rubbed the spot between his horns, lanky, greasy hair catching on his fingertips. “The one that makes you go all tingly and happy. And makes you spew if you have too much. You don’t have any of that, do you?” he said, looking hopeful. “It made the pain go away.”
“I suppose it would have,” Kim conceded. “But I don’t have any, no. And besides. That’s the reason your head hurts now, yes? So why have more?”
Harry frowned. “Um. Cause I really wanna?”
“Well. That’s the way it works, yes. It makes you want more.”
“Oh. I didn’t know. He never said.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. Harry rubbed sadly at his head, scratching at the base of the horns like it could take away the ache. Kim cast around for something more to talk about.
“So. This Roel... gave you the spicy drink? The alcohol? And he named you?”
“Yeah. He was nice,” Harry said and leaned back again.
Kim looked him over again. Most of the scars looked well healed, but a few of them were definitely less than a year old. Coupled with the fact that he was far too thin, with matted fur and, yes, now that he looked, overgrown hooves, made him doubt that whatever his previous caretaker had been it hadn’t been nice.
“He took care of us. There were a lot of us. He talked a lot,” Harry continued. “He talked to all of us, but I was the only one he understood when I talked back. And the cockatoos,” he said, after a bit. “I liked the cockatoos.”
“I see. What did he talk about?”
“I dunno.” Harry frowned. “He said that something was coming. Like, um. A thing? A big thing. A big thing that was gonna eat everything. He was really scared of the thing. But he said all of us would be fine. That’s why he bought me, so I could be fine with everybody else there.”
Kim stared at him. That sounded beyond bizarre. He made a mental note to ask Alice about the man, as soon as the AHD had had time to interrogate him properly. What the hell had he been doing with all those animals? And why had he been trying to do it all by himself? Alice said he’d drunk with Harry like he was a friend. And naming him, like some kind of ward against harm... He shook his head. Loneliness made people do strange things, sometimes. But it did explain why Harry could talk so well, if the man had held long conversations with him for nearly a year.
Harry had his eyes closed, breathing deeply. He was shivering a bit too, despite how warm the evening was. Kim leaned in and laid a hand on his leg; again, he jumped a bit at the intrusion into his space. All in all, he was showing a lot of symptoms of withdrawal already.
“Hey. Is it okay if I look you over? Just a little. To see if you have any injuries. Okay?”
Harry hesitated, then nodded. Tentatively, Kim reached out and scratched him behind the ear, then around the base of his horn. He made a little pleased noise and leaned into the touch. Kim scratched a bit harder.
“You like that?”
“Mmm.”
While Harry enjoyed the scratching, Kim let his other hand drift over his shoulder and arm. His first impression had been correct. He was muscular but thin, the skin strangely loose, like he’d lost a lot of weight quickly. He moved down, over the ribs, then over his stomach. The skin was loose there, too, and it felt harder to the touch than it should. Harry jumped a little when he pushed gently at it. Kim let go and felt his legs, then sat back. Well. No broken bones or open wounds, which was good, but he definitely had something wrong with his guts. Not strange, if he’s been given a lot of alcohol and very little food.
“You seem mostly fine,” he said, trying to sound reassuring. “Are you hungry?”
Harry hesitated, then shook his head. “No. It still hurts,” he said and rubbed his stomach. “And I feel like I wanna spew again.”
“I can imagine.”
Kim sank down on his heels again. Would he even understand if Kim tried to explain it? But, then again... wasn’t it much worse to not say anything and let him suffer without understanding what was happening and why, or even know that it would stop, eventually.
“Harry, listen. That drink he gave you. It’s not good for you. Not for humans either, really, not if you have too much of it. That’s why you’re feeling like this right now, because you haven’t had it in a while. And... it’ll feel worse, for a little bit. You’ll have a bad stomach ache and you head will hurt a lot. You might get very bad dreams for a little while.”
Harry’s lower lip trembled. “Do I have to?”
“It’s not a matter if you have to do it or not, I’m afraid. It’ll just happen.”
“But... can’t I just have more of it instead?”
Okay, not the most reasonable response, but at least it was logical. “If you do, it’ll hurt you. Not all at once, but little by little. It’s better to stop. It’ll be bad right now, but it’ll pass, and afterwards you’ll feel much better.”
Harry sat in silence for a bit, obviously thinking it over. Kim hoped he’d accept the temporary pain over the temporary relief. If he didn’t... well. He’d have to try some other way. The main thing was to keep him from hurting himself. Perhaps if he did some research on hucows and drugs... But most of that was classified information, so-
Harry interrupted his train of thought. “It’ll get better?”
“It will.”
“Promise?”
Kim hesitated for a second. Given that he didn’t know exactly what was going on... lying felt wrong, especially to a creature that had spent his whole life depending on others, being exploited in the worst ways. But it was a fair guess that it would actually get better. Hopefully, fair enough.
“I promise.”
Harry considered it. “Okay,” he said, finally, shoulders slumped.
Kim suppressed a sigh of relief. “That’s good, Harry. You’re very brave.” Kim reached out and scratched around his horn again. “I’ll fetch a couple more blankets for you, and I’ll make you something to eat.”
The rest of the evening was spent on trying to make him as comfortable as possible. Kim’s thoughts kept going in the same tracks as before, going round and round in his head as he worked. If he’d been prepared for this, he might have been able to understand the process – would it be the same for him as it would for a human? And in any case, how bad was it? Would he hallucinate, get the tremors? If this didn’t work, could he taper him off little by little? Harry managed to keep down a little oatmeal porridge and some more water. The shivering was worse now, his teeth chattering against the edge of the bowl as he slurped miserably at it. Afterwards, he lay down and fell into an exhausted, uneasy sleep.
The following week was not the worst in Kim’s life by far, but it was one of the more nerve-wrecking. After that first night Harry barely said a word to him all week. Instead, he just lay there, shaking, quiet, curled up under the blankets, more like the injured wild animals Kim had seen – like the fox with the damaged leg that crawled under the porch to die, or the hare that had been ripped half to pieces by a hawk but still refused to perish. All he did when Kim came to check on him was whimper and shy away from his touch. He screamed in his sleep a lot, making deep animal noses mixed with garbled human words. Kim tried to keep him company as much as he could when it was that bad. He wasn’t sure it actually worked, but at least he could be there when he woke up. He didn’t eat anything – not that he would have kept it down, anyway. At least Kim managed to get water into him, along with a little crushed magnesium and Drouamine.
Kim didn’t get much done that week. He was too distracted by trying not to worry too much, by walking down to the barn again and again to check up on Harry, to wipe the sweat off his face and the little traces of bile from the corners of his mouth. The most he could manage was to go through the parts for his latest commissions. Sorting through them, putting each piece in its container, making sure he had the right wiring and solder – it gave him a little peace of mind, soothing the frustrations of not knowing exactly what was wrong with his new tenant. He’d never had to worry over someone else like this before, and it was rattling him in ways he hadn’t expected.
One morning when Kim came in he was laying with his eyes open, staring at a dove seated on one of the crossbeams. He was so still that Kim did a double take, fearing for the worst for just a second. Then he blinked.
Kim breathed out and hunkered down beside him. “Good morning. How are you feeling today?”
Harry blinked again and wiped his nose. “Better. My head doesn’t hurt as bad.” His stomach made a loud growling noise, making the pigeon flap its wings in alarm. “And, um. I’m hungry.”
Kim suppressed a relieved laugh. “That’s a very good sign, Harry. Come on.” Kim pulled on his hand, helping him up to sitting. “Let’s try that porridge I gave you the first night. You liked that, right?”
Harry nodded and wiped his nose again. Kim gave him a sharp look. The hollowed-out cheeks and dark circles under his eyes made him look like a skeleton. He’d be susceptible to all sorts of diseases like this, undernourished and weak from withdrawal. Maybe it’d be a good idea to read up on hucow health issues, stock up on some sort of medicine...? Hopefully it wouldn’t be anything too expensive or too hard to get.
“Try and drink some water while I get you breakfast, okay?”
Harry nodded meekly.
Kim made the oatmeal porridge as fast as possible, only stopping to duck into the root cellar for one of last year’s jars, then back to the barn. Harry was still sitting upright, watching the pigeon who now had made friends of a couple of house sparrows, all pecking on leftover seeds. They scattered as soon as Kim came in. Harry watched them flap up into the rafters with curious eyes, then dug into the porridge eagerly, making a happy mess of it. Kim watched him again. Despite his gaunt, pale appearance he seemed much more alert than the first night. The fact that he was sitting up and taking an interest in his surroundings was a good sign as well.
When he’d finished, Kim held the jar up. “Do you have room for a little more?”
“I think so,” Harry replied hopefully.
“How about some dessert?”
“What’s dessert?”
The question had come quickly, another good sign. “It’s when you eat something sweet after you’ve had your regular food, just for fun. Or to help digestion, sometimes.”
“Um, yeah. That sounds good.”
“All right then.”
As soon as Kim opened the lid, Harry’s ears perked up and his nostrils flared. “What’s that?”
“This?” Kim held it out for him to sniff. “It’s apple sauce. You’ve never had it?”
“I don’t think so. What’s an apple?”
Kim almost laughed, then though better of it. So inquisitive. But it made sense. If he’d been on a farm all his life, and then stuck in that strange zoo, how could he know what a dessert or an apple was? Or a fruit in general for that matter. There was probably a whole dictionary of words he didn’t know the meaning of.
“An apple is a fruit,” Kim explained. “It’s a sweet and sour thing that grows on trees.” He pointed out into the garden. “I have couple out there. I made this from them.”
He realised he’d forgotten to bring a spoon. Ah well. He poured out some of the mush into his hand and let Harry sniff it again. His ears perked up even more. Then he slurped off every bit of it, leaving slobber all over Kim’s hand. His tongue tickled against Kim’s palm, warm and wet. When it was gone he looked up hopefully, ears forward.
“More?”
Kim laughed. “You liked that? All right then. A little more.”
He filled his hand again, and Harry licked it up eagerly, making little sniffing sounds and flapping his ears with a look of excitement.
“There you go.” Kim cleaned his hand under the water spout and dried it off. “That’s it for now. I don’t want you to get a stomach ache again.”
“Okay.” Harry looked dejected. “Tomorrow?”
“Sure,” Kim said with a smile. “Tomorrow.”
This was good, finding something he liked, both the apple sauce and asking questions. Anything that could keep his mind off alcohol would be a boon, since there was little else Kim could do that to keep him distracted. It wasn’t like he could go to an alcoholics’ support group. He nearly laughed again at the thought of Harry sitting on a tiny foldout chair in some nondescript room, gnawing on a cookie and sniffing suspiciously at a paper mug of coffee. Although... He gave Harry a glance. Perhaps when he was stronger, he could help around the farm? He seemed intelligent and inquisitive enough. Perhaps he’d like learning some new things as well as words. If nothing else it could keep his mind of what he couldn’t have.
“Rest a bit,” he said with a smile. “You need to get your health up.”
Harry nodded with a huge yawn, then lay back down. “Thanks, Kim.”
That afternoon, Kim dragged out the old tin bath he’d found in one of the outhouses and filled it halfway with warm water, maxing out most of what his boiler could handle. It’d take a day or two to fill up again, but a cold shower tomorrow morning was worth it to get Harry clean now. Being in the little box with him this morning had really reminded Kim of the state of him. He stank. His fur was still matted with gods knew what, and a week of vomit and other substances hadn’t precisely made it better.
Harry gingerly stalked out of the barn while he worked, drawn by the strange sounds of metal and running water. He looked suspiciously at the bath at first. When Kim dropped a handful of soap flakes and some pine scented bath oil in it, he sniffed curiously.
“Smells like you.”
“Does it? I suppose so,” Kim conceded. It was the bath oil he used, after all. “Have you ever had a bath before?”
“What’s a bath?”
“It’s this,” Kim said and knocked on the side, making the tin ring. “Both the tub with the water in it and getting into it and washing yourself. That’s a bath.”
“I’ve been washed,” Harry said hesitantly. “And there was a brush. A big one. On the wall.”
“We’ll definitely get to the brushing,” Kim said with a calculating look at his tangled fur. “But first, you need to get some of that stink off you. In you go.”
Harry approached the tub like it would possibly tip over and cover him in water if he got too close to it too quickly. He swirled his hand around in it first, getting excited when he realised he could make bubbles from the suds, then took a hesitant step in and sat down. He slipped a bit on the bottom, and had to grab the edges for support, hooves scrabbling against the sides. The water sloshed over the rim.
Kim stifled a grin at the sight. “Are you okay?”
Harry gripped the sides tightly. “Yep. Yeah. Mhm. It’s, uh. It’s warm.” He looked a bit spooked, but didn’t immediately get up. “Am I doing this right?”
“It’s fine, Harry. You’re doing fine.”
Harry nodded with a look of barely contained panic, then watched Kim warily while he took his gloves off and took out the block of soap and the big scrubbing brush.
“I’m going to clean your fur first, okay?”
“Um. Okay.”
He sat forward a bit, allowing Kim to pour water over him, then rub the soap into his back. It was a treat watching him realise how good it felt. He was tense at first, jumping a little when the warm water ran across his neck; then his shoulders relaxed bit by bit, little shivers running through him as Kim got to work on his sides and lower back. Kim couldn’t contain a grin when his ears started flapping, spraying Kim with soapy bubbles.
“Head back a bit, otherwise you’ll get suds in your eyes.”
Harry tilted his head back obediently. Kim went over his hair and fur, soaping it up to get the caked-in gunk out as well as wiping out his ears, working from his back to his front, then down his legs, using the long brush. When he looked reasonably clean, he let Harry lean back and soak a bit while he trimmed his hooves. He would very much have preferred to have a farrier do it. But calling the lady in from town would have been too risky. Not worth it, to have someone blabbering about how Kitsuragi had managed to get a hucow. Luckily Dominic had left some old farming manuals behind, and one of them had some diagrams that seemed to work. Kim trimmed off as much as he was comfortable with. At least now Harry wouldn’t stumble around.
Suddenly there was a huge, wet sound that made Kim jump and nearly drop the rasp. He looked up. Harry was slumped against the side of the bath, long arms over the sides, snoring deeply. Kim grinned. He looked so human like this, if you ignored the ears, the horns, the hooves hanging over the edge and the furry legs poking up from the dirty water. He polished off the last of the excess hoof and patted Harry’s leg.
“Harry? Up you go. Time to rinse you off.”
“Uh?” Some more water sloshed out as he bolted upright. “Oh. Okay.”
He was about as hesitant to get out of the bath as he’d been getting into it, but after a bit of coaxing Kim got him standing on the grass. Kim rinsed him off with the hose, letting the suds and grey water run into the flowerbeds. He looked much better. His fur was a lighter shade of brown than Kim had guessed, and the light spots were more off-white than yellowish. When he was clean enough, Kim sat him down on the porch to brush him.
Harry basked in the afternoon sun, head tilted backwards to let Kim comb through his hair. He was obviously relishing being groomed. Kim wondered if this was a thing hucows did, like monkeys or cats. Or humans, he supposed. He’d never been much for being touched himself, but this was nice. Comfortable. Less like having to touch a human and more like being allowed to pet a skittish animal. He ran his fingers through Harry’s hair. The further down his back it went it was more like a mane than human hair, coarser, easier to detangle with a wide comb. When Kim got to the parts around his hears and horns, he let out a long, soft low and shivered a little.
Kim chuckled. “Enjoying yourself?”
“Mmm. Yeah.”
“You’ll have to do it yourself from now on,” Kim warned.
Harry turned around, eyes big. “But if feels so nice when you do it, though,” he said pleadingly.
Kim hid a smile behind his glove. “Oh, well. I’m not saying I’ll never do it. I’m just saying its good if you learn how to use a comb. Of course I can brush you now and again.”
“Thanks, Kim.”
Harry turned back with a contented sigh and tilted his head back, waiting for more. Kim smiled again and dragged the comb through his hair.
The following weeks Harry got better and better. He was handling the withdrawal symptoms as well as could be expected. He still had the same kinds of nightmares as in the beginning, accompanied by moods swings where he got weepy and depressed. Sometimes he spent hours on his bed in the barn without wanting to get up. Kim wasn’t sure what to do when he got like that. He brought him food and petted him a little when he permitted it; sat beside him when he wanted and left him alone when he wanted. He supposed it would get better with time.
The best thing he could think of to distract Harry when he was in a black mood was to read to him. Besides the farming manual Kim had found, Dominic had left a whole little library of books in the attic – things he’d bought at flea markets, anything from children’s books to technical manuals, novels, comic books and everything between. Kim hadn’t known what to do with it all. Much of it was useless to him, but he’d been hesitant to part with it, since it’d been a gift as well as a memory of a dear friend. In any case, it came to good use now. Harry seemed to like it. He lay still, listening intently as Kim read to him from adventure stories and old magazines, then asked question after question in that deep, resonant voice. Kim had never really had anyone be this interested in what he had to say before, so impressed with his knowledge of the world, even if it was just everyday things. He had to admit it was extremely gratifying.
Harry was doing better physically, too. Some things remained, things that seemed to be many years old – a twinge in the jaw, pain in the back and in one leg. Kim supposed it must be old injuries, perhaps from the farm days. But most of the headaches disappeared along with the stomach ache, and his appetite retuned with a vengeance. Introducing him to new kinds of food was just as fun as introducing him to new concepts, like the apple sauce. There didn’t seem to be much he didn’t like. Kim didn’t try anything from the animal kingdom, for obvious reasons, but most everything else he tried and loved – fruit and honey, nuts, rich seed blends and sweet peas as well as fresh grass and the commercial feed mixes Kim bought from the store.
Kim brough him down a couple of things to try for lunch one day, just some mixed vegetables and leftover bags from his pantry before he opened the new ones. Harry sniffed the bags excitedly.
“Is it something new? It smells really good!”
“Kind of. This one is granola, you had that a couple of days ago, remember? And this is cracked oats,” Kim said and took out a handful. “I thought you might like it if I mixed it in with some of your other things. It’s a bit dry like this. It’s the same thing I make your porridge from, only it’s not boiled.”
Harry sniffed his hand, taking in the dry smell, then licked it. He sputtered a bit as it stuck to his tongue, then chewed and swallowed it. Kim forced down a smile. He looked a little funny, making those faces. Harry licked his lips and sniffed the bag again.
“Can I have some more?”
“Wait for me to mix it in, I don’t think it will be very good like this.”
“But I liked it,” he said and pouted a bit. “It tasted really nice.”
“I’ll mix it in with the rest of your feed,” Kim laughed. He shook some of the oats into Harry’s bowl and hung the bag on a nail. “Come on, I have some pears you haven’t tried yet.”
Harry took to the pears just as much as he had to the apples, and Kim set him to work carefully picking the ripe ones off the tree and bringing them into the kitchen. The rest of the day was fairly busy, and Kim didn’t have time to check on Harry too much. He didn’t really feel the need to either. He was doing well on his own now. A bit of a relief, honestly, since it gave Kim more time to work on his projects and on the commissions. He’d just been given one from the local radio station; one of their recording units had broken down and needed to be repaired – an old model, Kim’s favourite. After going into town and back to collect it, he got lost in trying to go through the old electronics and didn’t realise the sun had nearly gone down in the process.
Eventually the angle of the sun getting into his eyes alerted him to how late it was. He put the screwdriver down with a huge yawn and stretched. His stomach grumbled. He’d forgotten to eat dinner again. Which, he realised, meant he’d forgotten to bring Harry his dinner too. He frowned. Strange. Harry usually wasn’t shy to come up an tell him when he was hungry. But there had been no knock on the door, no sniffing by the window, nobody coming up and wanting to talk while he worked. He got up and grabbed a couple of pears from the counter and stuffed them in his pocket. If Harry had been his patient waiting, he really deserved a treat this time.
Harry wasn’t out in the yard or in the field, or down at the henhouse, or in the machine hall; the fruit trees and the vegetable patch was deserted. Everywhere Kim looked was as empty as before Harry had arrived. By now he was getting a little bit worried. Perhaps he’d decided to turn in early? But the box was just as empty with no sign of Harry. He was running out of places to look fast, and a little part of him wondered if he’d somehow got it into his head to take a walk even though Kim had explained multiple times how important it was that he never left the property. Just as Kim was about to get up into the hayloft and look, he heard a whimpering sound from one of the boxes further in the barn.
He found Harry laying curled up against the inside of the box, half buried in the hay, sniffling and whimpering as he clutched his belly. Beside him lay the bag of oats and a water bottle. The creeping panic turned into exasperated pity as Kim picked up the empty bag.
“Harry, what did you do?”
Harry looked up at him with big, wet eyes. “Kiiiim...! It hurts!”
Kim leaned down and ran his hand over Harry’s belly. It was stretched tight, bloated and as hard as it’d been when Kim looked him over the first time, and he lowed pathetically when Kim touched him. Kim put the bag down with a sigh. Eating all those dry oats, and then washing it down with water... he couldn’t have known it would expand in his stomach like that.
“You ate half the bag? You poor thing,” he murmured. “Harry. That was really stupid.”
“Sorryyyy,” Harry whimpered. “I didn’t mean to, Kim, I was hungry, you were doing the machines thing, I didn’t want to bother you...”
“No, it’s- Harry, it’s okay,” Kim said, trying to ignore the little pang of guilt. “Now you know not to do it again, yes?” He kneeled down and slid his hand behind Harry’s back. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed and see if we can do something about this.”
Harry whimpered all the way, one arm over Kim’s shoulders and the other clutching his swollen belly. Kim tried to lay him down as carefully as possible, then looked him over.
His stomach was hard and firm, bowing out from underneath the ribcage. Kim didn’t know much about cows, but he did remember that this happened to them too, sometimes. Hucows weren’t cows, however, and he doubted you could take care of them the same way. He wasn’t really sure how they even looked inside. The withdrawal, and the risk for diseases, and now this... there were too many things he didn’t know. He resolved to get a veterinary manual as soon as possible. He ran his hand down Harry’s side, as softly as he could, making sure there was nothing more wrong than just a bit of overindulgence. Harry grimaced, but at least he didn’t draw away. Kim pulled his fingers across his belly, pushing down gently.
“Is this okay?”
“Yes,” he whimpered. “Kim, owww... can you make it better?”
He looked so sad, laying like this, begging for help – again, trusting that Kim knew what to do, like with everything else. Kim sighed and kneeled down, then ran his hands over Harry’s sides, carefully. He squirmed a little, then settled down and turned so Kim could reach.
He hadn’t touched him this much since bathing him, and that was mostly his mane, anyway. The feel of him under Kim’s palms was fascinating. Warm, thick fur, coarse hairs over a softer undercoat, getting thinner the further up his body it went and thickening into a proper, shaggy pelt over his cow-like legs. Kim enjoyed the novel texture under his fingers as he did his best to try and shift some of the bloating, massaging his sides and lower stomach with gentle, circular motions. Harry lowed quietly, hands drawn up under his chin with a nervous look on his face. Kim pulled a hand over his sweaty forehead.
“Try to relax, okay? It’ll be easier that way.”
He nodded and let his hands drop a little. “Okay.”
As Kim worked, he realised that Harry wasn’t as thin as he’d been when he arrived. He pushed a little harder as he slid over the hip. Definitely a hint of softness there, a little padding that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago. He pulled his fingers over Harry’s lower belly; again, there was a thin layer of fat there, enough that his fingers sank in, just a little. Kim smiled a bit to himself. Apparently, Harry being this keen on trying new food was having an effect. Good. He needed it. He gently kneaded Harry’s sides, feeling the long, broad body shift under his hands. It was nice, doing this, feeling the warmth radiating from him, feeling his breath hitch, the little twitches when Kim hit a sore spot. The hesitation he always felt at touching someone wasn’t there, now. Probably because it was medicinal. Helping out, like giving mouth to mouth or stitching up a wound. Yeah, he decided, that had to be it.
Eventually, a bit hesitantly, he stopped. Harry looked better now, some colour returning to his face. He didn’t whimper at Kim’s touch anymore, but he squirmed a little still. Kim gave his belly a careful pat. That looked better too, less bloated.
“How are you doing?”
“Better,” Harry said with a deep, contented sigh. “Thank you, Kim.”
“Good. Now you know not to eat that much raw oats at once, right?” Kim gave his belly another, slightly firmer pat. “We don’t want you feeling like this again.”
“Okay,” Harry said meekly. “But, Kim...”
“Yes?”
“Could you pet me a little more? Just because? It feels so good.”
Kim adjusted his glasses. “You like it?”
Harry nodded. “It’s like when you brushed me,” he said with a hopeful grin. “Please?”
It had been very nice to brush him. Kim remembered the way he’d shivered and flapped his ears with pleasure when Kim dragged his fingers through his mane; how he’d come to Kim with the brush after that, holding it out shyly to ask for more. Kim looked down at him, stretched out in the hay. Even though his belly looked better, it was still round and firm. The weight he’d gained rounded him out a little too, making him less angular, complimenting the muscles. He looked up at Kim with a pleading look in his eyes.
Kim licked his lips, almost unconsciously. “Okay,” he said. “Just a little.”
Harry squirmed happily and stretched out, ready for more.
Kim made sure there were no open feed bags around for Harry to get into after that. But he wasn’t really prepared to try and put him on a diet, not since he was so happy about trying new foods; and he really did need to put on weight, not lose it. So he continued like he had – let him try new things, let him graze as he wanted, and fed him treats now and then for learning new things or helping out. Luckily, the experience seemed to have stuck in his mind, because he always went and asked Kim before he ate something, now.
All in all, Kim was getting more and more used to having him around. His idea of letting Harry help around the farm was working splendidly; he was almost as keen on trying new things as on trying new foods. He loved holding things as Kim worked, to help in the garden, feed the chickens, to carry things for him or lift heavy machinery so Kim could reach. When there weren’t any physically demanding things that needed doing he sat by Kim as he worked, looking over his shoulder, studying the diagrams in the mechanical manuals Kim used. Just to have something to do and for the novelty of actually speaking to someone, Kim started to read from them as well, to show all the different parts of an engine or explain how a radio worked. Harry sat in silence, just staring at it, taking it in. Kim wasn’t really sure if he understood any of it. Then again, he’d understood and asked questions about the story books, so who knew?
Trying to gauge his intelligence was an interesting challenge. He spoke fluently, although with a pretty limited vocabulary. There was a lot of things he just didn’t know what they were: baths, radios, kettles, apples. Anything he couldn’t conceivably have seen at the farm or in the zoo. But he was quick at picking up both concepts and words, and figured out things on his own most often than not. Sometimes he was a bit too quick at trying things. It took him getting a few shocks before he learned about electrical currents, for instance.
One day Kim was sitting on the porch, going through a shipment of used radiocomputer parts to try and see if he could us them to repair the one he had in the living room. Harry was sitting beside him, looking at the parts and chewing on a piece of hay. Kim rifled through the components, trying to see if there was a cosine oscillator anywhere. There might not have been – there was no manual, and he didn’t know the year and make of this particular machine. It looked more and more like it was a homebuild, just like his, or even parts from several different models.
“Damn it,” he muttered. “I was sure there was going to be a cosine oscillator here. I wonder if the forgot to ship one of the boxes?”
He turned and looked in another box, but all he could find was spools of wiring. Irritated, he dug deep into the box, piling up the wiring to see if there was something under it. There was some rustling behind him. He ignored it and looked in another box, shifting a broken filament memory.
“Kim?”
“Hm,” he said, not really listening. There were three linear actuators in here – who the hell needed three? They all looked like the wrong make, too. He put them aside and picked up another box.
“Kim, here.”
“Hm?” He turned.
Harry sat patiently, cobwebs in his horns. He was holding a part out, flat on the palm of his hand. A delicate glass tube with complicated wiring inside. A cosine oscillator.
Kim took it and turned it over. In perfect condition, even, just a little dust on it. He looked up at Harry, who was looking unsure. “Where did you find this?”
“It was under the porch. I think it fell down. It’s the right one... right?” he added, trying to gauge Kim’s reaction.
“Harry, it absolutely is! That’s excellent, it was the exact part I was looking for!” Kim turned it over. “If you hadn’t found it I’d have had to scrounge for a new one, again, and spend even more money. And this would just be laying under my porch, rusting.”
Harry beamed at him. Kim reached out and scratched him behind the ear, then around the base of his horns, clearing away the cobwebs. Harry preened and pushed his head into Kim’s hand.
“Did I do good, Kim?”
“You did, Harry. You’re a very good boy.” He scratched behind the ear again, and Harry flapped it, eyes blissfully closed. “Good boys deserve treats, don’t you think? What would you like?”
Harry sat up excitedly. “Can you make me my favourite?”
“Of course. Let me just pack this up.”
After making sure his treasured component was tucked away safely in a box beside the radiocomputer, Kim set to work boiling up a big bowl of oatmeal porridge. Harry sat on the porch, watching him through the open door, eyes glued to the saucepan. When it had cooled, Kim drizzled a generous helping of golden honey and a handful of nuts on it and brought it out for him, then watched him eat it while he gnawed on an apple. Harry dug into the meal enthusiastically, ears flapping.
“Slow down, slow down,” Kim said and grinned. “Remember how bad you felt when you ate too much.”
Harry looked up from the bowl, his moustache sticky with honey. “Yeah, but... it felt really good when you petted me afterwards.”
“Well, I... I can do that without you overeating,” Kim said.
“You can?” Harry licked his lips. “Um, could you, could you do that today?”
He looked even more eager at the thought of getting pets than he had at getting his favourite meal. Kim bit his lip. The memory of Harry stretched out in the straw, eyes pleading... that long, muscular body and round belly covered in soft fur. That memory had occupied Kim’s thought more than he was comfortable admitting. It had been extremely enjoyable, touching him like that. The warm fur under his fingers, the noises he’d made...
Kim’s ears were getting a bit warm.
“You’ve been very helpful today,” he managed. “Sure, why not. You can have two treats.”
“I’d love that!” Harry beamed at him again and slurped down more of the oatmeal.
Kim watched him eat, ears burning, trying not to think about the fact that petting him would definitely be a treat for both of them. He ate a handful of nuts and gave Harry seconds to distract himself. When he was done, he sat obediently while Kim wiped bits of nuts and oats from his sideburns.
“All right. I think you’re clean enough to be on the sofa now. Just wipe your feet before you come in.”
Well inside the house, Harry moved as carefully as he could, hooves clacking on the wooden floor. Kim watched him in fascination. He was tucking his elbows in, holding his tail, anxious not to accidentally knock anything over. He’d never had him be in the house like this before, Kim realised, just in the kitchen now and then. It felt a bit strange. Harry was looking at everything, eyes big as saucers, sniffing at the many books, radio parts, half-assembled clocks and other ongoing projects. He looked so out of place… but still, at the same time, so right. Kim permitted himself a moment of just looking at him in his home like this, then patted the sofa.
“Come on. Lay here.”
“Okay!”
Harry stretched out on it, hooves hanging comically over the armrest. Kim put a pillow under his head, then settled down, pushing his legs a little to the side. Harry looked up at him, a big, contented smile on his face.
Kim patted his leg. “All right. How are you feeling today? You didn’t eat too much?”
“Nope. I’m just full, like nice full.” Harry wriggled a little and pushed his shoulders into the cushions. “I like this, it’s soft.”
“Mhm.”
Kim looked him over. He’d been filling out nicely over the last couple of months, adding on to the slight padding Kim had noticed last time. All the work he’d been doing around the farm – helping Kim lift things, carrying firewood and machine parts, all of it had helped him put on a bit more muscle, and his ribs and hipbones had gained a healthy cover of fat. He stroked his hand over Harry’s belly. He was definitely full. He could feel the slight stretch of the stomach, a firm bulge underneath the ribs. But there was more than that, now. Kim’s questing fingers could feel he beginnings of a paunch, soft and yielding. As he pushed the heel of his hand into it, Harry let out a soft, pleased low.
“You like that?”
“Yes,” he mumbled. “It feels so good, Kim.”
Kim moved his hand in slow circles, massaging the soft swell. Now that he had time to properly look him over, he really was plumping up. His teats were filling out, there was a little pad of fat under his chin, and the chub on his sides was starting to form soft rolls. Harry had his eyes closed, arms over his head, arching his back into Kim’s touch with obvious delight. Kim swallowed. Such a difference from the skinny, shivering creature that arrived a couple of months ago.
“You’re looking good, Harry,” he said and patted his flank. “You’re getting chubby.”
Harry stretched like a cat, basking in Kim’s attention. “Okay! Is that good?”
“Oh, definitely. You were way too skinny when you got here. Didn’t you get enough to eat, where you were?”
They hadn’t talked much about where he was, before, not since the first evening. Harry hadn’t brought it up, and Kim didn’t want to pry. From everything he heard it hadn’t been good, and Harry had been doing so well up until now. Digging around in old, perhaps painful, memories hadn’t felt like a good idea.
Harry frowned. “I can’t remember,” he said slowly. “I don’t... I don’t think there was much of anything. Just... you know. There was my box. And... sometimes Roel brought other animals to talk to. And we drank the spicy stuff. The alcohol,” he added, looking proud of knowing the right word. “But he never had much food.”
Starving a hucow would have been awful practice. But so would pumping them so full of drugs they basically lost their minds, too. But that was often the reality of it. A hucow that was too old to produce milk would either be euthanised, or sold off to whomever paid the highest price. Considering some of the things Kim had heard about the second alternative, the first was often better. In this case, Harry’s last owner had somehow been able to buy a half-dead hucow, worn out and basically mind-wiped from drugs, and managed to nurse him back to life. It seemed most of his funds had run dry after that.
Alice had given Kim a run-down of what had transpired during the court case. Roel ten Horst had by all accounts been a very strange man, spending his life obsessed with collecting animals of every sort. He’d been nearly unintelligible when they talked to him. But it seemed he was convinced he was building some sort of safeguard against the end of the world – gathering two of every animal to make sure they could repopulate Elysium after the end he was sure was coming. He’d rambled on about how the spirit of the city spoke to him, warning him about an impending nuclear war and the encroachment of the pale. When asked about Harry he’d broken down in tears over how he was the only one who understood him and how sad he was that he could never find him a mate. He’d been carted off to an insane asylum not long after. Kim hadn’t told Harry about it – again, digging around in old memories seemed like the best way to disrupt the progress he’d made so far.
Harry was still frowning, his good mood evaporated. Kim regretted bringing it up. He really wasn’t used to talking to people like this. He’d just blurted it out. Trying to think of something to distract him, he gently pulled a hand down Harry’s arm.
“It doesn’t matter,” he murmured. “You’re here now. And as I said. You’re looking very good.”
Harry shook his head a little. “Yeah. Yeah.” He seemed to put the matter aside, looking at Kim instead. “But... you’re skinny, though. Are you sick?”
Kim pressed a hand to his mouth. “No,” he grinned through his fingers, “I didn’t mean it like that, Harry. I’m perfectly fine. I just meant that I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to be big and muscular. A bit bigger than this, even. At least that’s what hucows tend to look like.”
Harry perked his ears up. “Oh, okay! That’s fine, then. I don’t want you to be sick. I like being able to carry things for you, too.”
“Well, then, you should make sure to eat plenty in that case. Without hurting yourself,” Kim added and put a finger up. “We don’t want any more incidents.”
Harry shuddered. “No! I promise.” He laid back down and made himself comfortable against the cushions again. “More?”
Kim chuckled. “Fine. More.”
Harry flapped his ears and made little happy noises as Kim kept petting him, slow strokes from his ribcage to his hips, across his softening stomach and down the sides of his legs. Kim’s ears were growing warm again. Now that Harry was relaxed and happy, not in pain from overeating, it was hard to ignore how pleasant it was to touch him, to be able to pull those little noises from him just with the movement of his hands. He carefully tried to keep his eyes on Harry’s upper body and not let them roam between his legs. So far he’d tried his best not to acknowledge the fact that Harry was naked all the time. He’d even considered asking him to wear something, but Harry hadn’t seemed bothered by it, and Kim didn’t want to press. But even though he tried, it was hard to ignore the fact that Harry was proportionally long and thick in that department, too.
“Kim?”
Kim almost jumped out of his clothes as he realised that even though his eyes hadn’t roamed, his thoughts definitely had. He adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat.
“Khm. Yes?”
“You said you’d seen hucows before.”
“Ah, oh, yes.” Kim tried to get his thoughts back on track. “In pictures, not in real life, unfortunately.”
“Oh,” Harry said. He was looking up into the ceiling with a thoughtful expression. “You think there’s any around here?”
“You mean wild ones? Not on Le Caillou, no. A lot of other islands have them, though.” Kim let his hands still on Harry’s side. “Do you want to meet some?”
So far Harry had seemed happy recuperating, learning new things, enjoying life with Kim. But it would make sense that he’d want to be with others of his own kind. He was a herd animal, after all. He nodded slowly at Kim’s question.
“Yeah. I don’t...” He stopped and looked confused. “I don’t remember that much from before Roel’s place. But there were others there, I remember that. It was nice being with others. Even if the other bits weren’t.”
“Well.” Kim and patted his leg. “As soon as you feel up for it, we’ll make sure you get to meet others.”
“Yeah! I’d love that.”
The way he beamed at the thought sent a strange pang through Kim’s heart. He’d gotten used to having him here. It wouldn’t be the same the day he decided to leave. But he’d have to, of course. It wouldn’t be right keeping him here just because Kim enjoyed his company, enjoyed being close to him – enjoyed feeling his fur under his hands, the way he smiled and looked at Kim like he was the most amazing person in the world. Kim stroked his leg.
No. It wouldn’t be right.
The hucow veterinary manual he’d ordered had arrived at last, and Kim spent a whole week of nights skimming through it, trying to understand at least the basics. It doubled as a husbandry manual, which meant he got a lot of information on other things as well. It hadn’t been easy to obtain. He’d had to go through a very strange bookseller in Villalobos that otherwise mostly had books on hydroponics and medicinal plants, but seemed to be less than interested in whether or not the thing Kim was looking for was patented information. The book had a huge warning on the first page about how it was only for use inside commercial farms and for licensed practitioners. Kim didn’t feel the least bit bad about carefully cutting the offending page out with a scalpel and using it to light the stove.
At least the thing was very comprehensive. It seemed he’d been doing well on the food front. Hucows weren’t really omnivorous, the book said, but much more so than regular bovines – they could apparently even eat meat now and then, even though it wasn’t in their regular diet. Nothing too closely related to themselves, however. The book had a big section on prion diseases and possible connections to tzaraath, enough to scare anyone away from trying it. Anything vegetarian seemed to work splendidly. Apparently, they didn’t have four stomachs like a cow, but more complicated bowels and a gut flora that could handle grass, more like a rabbit. In any case, most of the diet section of the husbandry chapters was dedicated to maximising milk output, which wasn’t really Kim’s concern. As long as Harry was healthy and happy, he was good.
And Harry was doing good. He was still putting on weight, belly softening little by little, the strong muscles on his arms and chest cushioned by a layer of fat. Since he liked it so much, Kim had continued to give him belly rubs as a treat more often than sweets, so it was easy to notice. He loved being praised for it too, preening and flapping his ears when Kim called him a good boy. There was no way Kim could pretend he didn’t like it. Having someone close like this, all the time, someone that gave you space when you needed, listened to you talk, liked being touched like Harry did – it was something he hadn’t known he was missing. And he enjoyed seeing him get better, to see him filling out and getting stronger, more confident and curious; and just to spend time with him, being close.
He tried his best no to think about the inevitable day when he’d have to move out and be with his own kind. Harry talked about it now and then, ever since they had brought it up, telling Kim anything he could remember about the other hucows on the farm. It was fascinating to listen to, fascinating and horrifying. The way he told it as like someone recounting random pieces of a long and drawn-out nightmare – Kim supposed it must have been just that, with the drugs and what he knew now of how intelligent they actually were. It gave Kim a renewed respect for Alice and whatever she was doing, and made him want to do anything to keep Harry safe and happy, far away from all of that. Wherever he went after this Kim would make sure it was a good, comfortable place.
One evening, they were sitting on Kim’s sofa, Kim reading a technical manual and Harry looking at the pictures in an old storybook Kim had found in the attic library. Harry had started to get more and more interested in books in general lately. Kim had been wondering if he could actually teach him to read. He’d never heard of that happening, but since hucows could learn how to talk and reason it shouldn’t be impossible. I would be another thing to keep him happy and occupied.
Kim was absentmindedly petting Harry with one hand while thumbing through the manual with the other. Suddenly, there was something wet on his hand. He frowned and pulled it away, shaking the slightly sticky moisture from it. He leaned in and looked at Harry. Something was glistening in his fur – a little milky drop. Kim looked closer. Definitely white. He pulled his hand over Harry’s chest, and his hand came a way wet, with another drop already beading on his nipple.
He sat up and cleared his throat.
“Khm. Harry?”
“Yeah?”
“Ah. I think you’re making milk again.”
“What?” Harry dropped the book on the floor and looked down. “Oh. Wow.” He prodded at his teat, and the little drop fell of, only to be replaced by another. “Um. Yep.”
Kim watched him poke at himself. He should have been a bit too old for it, but... the book had mentioned that this could happen, sometimes. If the reason he was sold from the commercial farm wasn’t that he’d gone completely dry, only stopped producing enough to offset the cost for his upkeep, then he was probably still able to. Being starved would have made it stop, though. But now that he was at a healthy weight again, it seemed to have picked back up.
Harry pushed at his teats with a strange expression. Kim had rarely seen him this downcast; he almost looked scared. He petted Harry’s knee reassuringly.
“Are you okay, Harry? If you’re worried about the sofa, I can just-”
“No! No, it’s... um.” He avoided Kim’s gaze. “I just, I don’t. Are you...”
“Am I what?”
He crossed his big arms over his chest protectively. “Do I have to start doing it again now?”
It took Kim a second to make the connection. Then he remembered what Harry had told him about his life before ten Horst’s strange ark. “You mean... getting milked?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I didn’t... I don’t remember much. But I didn’t like it.”
“Oh. No, I...” Kim glanced at the veterinary manual he’d left on the table the night before. There were several illustrations of milking equipment in it, and descriptions of the process. None of it seemed like it would be the least bit comfortable. “I can imagine you wouldn’t.”
“So... are you gonna?” Harry glanced up at him, arms still crossed over his chest.
Kim put the technical manual down and put a hand on his arm. “Not if you don’t want to. I don’t have any of that kind of equipment here, anyway. And I don’t plan on getting any. But it...” He hesitated. “As I understand it, if you don’t get milked you’ll go dry in a bit. It’ll stop. But it’ll probably be pretty uncomfortable while you wait. You may get a fever, and it’ll probably be painful.”
The veterinary manual had a large section on mastitis, detailing both what it entailed, how it could happen and how to prevent it. Kim had just skimmed those bits since he didn’t think it would come up. He was happy he had at least read some of it, now.
Harry bit his lip. “Okay... I don’t like that. But I really don’t want to get milked again.”
“If you don’t, I won’t force you. I’ll help you through it. Like we did with the withdrawal, yes?”
“Yeah, like that.” The anxiety was replaced by a look of relief, and Harry sat up and hugged him. “Thanks, Kim!”
“Of course.” Kim patted his back, a little awkwardly. A little patch of wet was soaking into his shirt.
The following week, Harry’s teats got fuller and fuller as the milk kept accumulating. He wasn’t producing a lot, but it was still enough to make him uncomfortable and irritable, unable to sit still, uninterested in helping Kim with his projects and losing his appetite. Mostly he sat in silence, scratching at his chest until the fur started to come off. One morning, Kim found him in the barn, curled up and whimpering. For a second he wondered if he’d gotten into one of the feed bags again, but when he touched his shoulder he was burning hot. Kim ran a light hand over his chest. His teats were hard and warm, and he yelped and drew back even at the lightest touch.
“This isn’t looking good, Harry.” He hesitated. “Are you sure I can’t help you?”
“Don’t wanna,” Harry said and curled up more. “Please, Kim. Don’t want the machines.”
Kim sighed and stroked his shoulder. “I don’t have any machines like that, you know that. I could try with my hands.”
Harry looked up, eyes glistening with tears. “You can do that?”
“Yes? I assume so. I mean... that’s how humans did with cows for thousands of years. Nobody ever did that with you?”
“I didn’t know. Maybe they did that.” He sniffled and wiped his nose. “I can’t remember.”
Kim nodded and sat down beside him. His forehead was warm to the touch too. Not a good sign. “If I do it now it’ll hurt, though, since you’re so tender.”
Harry whined. “Will it get worse otherwise?”
“For a while, definitely. It’s like the thing with the alcohol.”
Harry sniffled a little more. Then he nodded. “Okay.”
Kim petted his shoulder gently. He was trying so hard to be good, to be brave, trusting that Kim would make things better like he had before. Like he trusted him with the withdrawal and the bath and the stomach ache – every time, like he thought Kim was capable of fixing everything just like he fixed his machines. Kim scratched him behind the ear. He hoped to all the Innocences that all that trust wasn’t misplaced.
“Good. You’re being very good, Harry. Let me get something to get your fever down. It’ll help a little with the pain, too.”
He returned with some painkillers, a metal pitcher from his kitchen and the veterinary manual. While Harry rook the pills and washed them down with some water, Kim leafed through the milking section. He wasn’t sure exactly of the process, but looking at the pictures it didn’t seem too complicated. The book said that it was good to have some kind of comfortable routine, something to encourage letdown and make the hucow calm and happy. Well. He knew the just the thing for that, at least.
Kim handed the pitcher to Harry. “Here. Can you hold it?” He kneeled down and started to move his hand slowly over Harry’s belly, wide, calming circles. “You’re being so good, Harry,” he said, as softly as he could. “I’m very proud of you. You’ll get through this, I know it.”
As he continued, Harry relaxed a little, closing his eyes while Kim pulled his hand along his side, kneading the heel of his hand into it. With his other hand he slowly stroked along the teat, small, soft movements, barely pushing at all until he could see a small bead on the nipple. Harry whined a little and clutched the pitcher harder.
“There we go. I’m going to push a little now.”
“Okay.” His voice was strained, and he was still keeping his eyes closed, like he didn’t want to see it.
Kim pushed gently, and a little stream of milk fell into the pitcher. It was cloudy and smelled weird. Not very surprising. Kim pushed again, and more milk flowed out, flocky and off-colour. Harry whimpered again but kept the pitcher steady.
Kim worked first one side, then the other, trying to work fast but carefully until there was no more of the off-coloured milk coming. By now Harry was panting heavily, ash grey in the face. It must have hurt a lot more than he’d let on. Kim brushed the hair from his brow, feeling sweat on his fingers.
“There we go. You’re all done now.” He took the pitcher and made a grimace. “Rest a bit. I’ll go into town for some antibiotics. I don’t like the look of this milk.”
He dumped the milk on the compost heap before hurrying into town before the apothecary closed. By the time he got back it was getting dark. Harry was fast asleep, shivering underneath his blankets, still warm and sweaty to the touch. Kim woke him up to give him some antibiotics and more painkillers, then let him sleep.
He spent most of the following week in bed, fighting off the infection and allowing Kim to empty him out. Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as it had seemed at first. It started to get better almost immediately as soon as Kim milked him regularly. Harry was still apprehensive in the beginning – not very strange, since it still seemed to hurt, and Kim was sure he was remembering all the other times he’d been milked too. He tried to make the experience as nice as possible, gave Harry snacks to eat and petted him slowly before starting to make him relax. It seemed to work. With each passing day he started to accept it more, and then to enjoy it. By the time the antibiotics ran out he’d been back to normal for days already.
For Kim, adjusting to this new thing was less of a hassle than he’d feared. The first time had been medicinal, but just like with the belly rubs, he found that he didn’t much mind doing it. In fact, if he had to be brutally honest... it was just as enjoyable as all the other ways Harry liked to be touched. Now that he was enjoying it, he made the same little happy noises, flapping his ears, letting Kim stroke the soft fur on his teats until the milk flowed, giving him his much-needed release.
Another month passed in comfortable, companiable routine. Harry had been spending more and more time indoors lately, laying on the floor, tracing the letters in Kim’s books and magazines. He’d learned the alphabet quickly with the help of an old ABC Kim bought at the flea market in town, but it was taking longer for him to string the letters together into words. So far, he was mostly sounding them out under his breath, and getting excited when he found the ones that made up his name, or Kim’s. When he wasn’t playing with the books he was helping Kim with his projects or rooting around in the attic. He’d even slept indoors, once, but he preferred his bed in the barn still – having four closed walls around him when he slept made him anxious and jittery.
Right now, however, Harry was sitting in his favourite position, cross-legged on the sofa with the metal pitcher in one hand and half an apple in the other, crunching away happily, making pleased lows while Kim sat on a cushion on the floor, rubbing circles into his belly. He’d started gaining weight again now that the infection was gone, the soft paunch rounding out into a proper gut. By now Kim had to admit that he was taking every opportunity he could to touch him like this – to let his hands roam over Harry’s softening body, to feel his warm teats yield under his fingers as he milked him. With the little amount he was producing he only had to be milked once a day, but he was looking forward to it now, coming to Kim with the pitcher when he began to feel uncomfortable. Kim supposed that he could have taught him how to milk himself. But that would have mean giving up these little moments of joy.
Kim patted his flank to get his attention. “All right. Hold it up.”
Harry stuffed the last of the apple in his mouth and obediently put the pitcher under his left teat. Kim sat up a bit on his knees and started the now-familiar movements of getting the milk to express – slow, gentle pressure first, then a firmer grip around the nipple. Harry clutched the pitcher and let his head fall back with a long, low rumble.
Kim looked up in surprise. He hadn’t heard him make this particular sound before. It was always interesting to note all the different noises he made, a mix of human and animal sounds, but this was new. He could feel it vibrate in Harry’s chest, deep and bassy, coming again and again as he carefully pulled the milk out. His face looked absolutely rapturous, lost in pleasure.
Something stirred against Kim’s stomach. He looked down.
Harry was half-hard, his long, thick cock resting against his furry thigh, twitching every time Kim ran his hand over his teat. Kim stared at it; reddish-brown, silky skin with pulsing veins, a thick thatch of hair at the root. Kim’s ears went blazing hot. He’d heard about this, of course. It was one of the main reasons hucows were given so many drugs, that and to keep them docile in general. It hadn’t happened to Harry so far, but with his starting to enjoy being milked, it was probably inevitable. A natural reaction. He should have considered it happening, but... just as with the milk, he’d just sort of... assumed that it wouldn’t, with his age, and the trouble he’d had so far.
No. Be honest. Ignored it, more like, tried to push away the very real possibility that they’d end up like this. Or, if he was being even more honest… maybe even hoped for it.
Kim tried to breathe slowly, to ignore the heat building between his own legs. Gods. He looked so good now, tall and broad and soft, furry legs spread, his erection getting thicker with every movement of Kim’s hands on him. He massaged Harry’s teat gently, letting the milk splash into the pitcher – working on pure routine, not really thinking, staring at his swelling cock, just as lost in the moment as Harry. With every stroke came that deep, pleased rumbling, reverberating against Kim’s hand where it rested on his sternum.
The sound and smell of him was irresistible.
Slowly, he let the hand slide down until it rested on Harry’s round gut, then started to move it. The rumbling came even louder. He could feel Harry’s cock twitch and swell against his stomach. He suppressed a moan and leaned in closer, pushed in deeper, let the soft fat bulge around his hand, feeling warm, hairy skin against his palm. Harry lowed hoarsely and moved his hips until his cock rubbed against Kim’s t-shirt.
Slowly, Kim realised that there was nothing more coming from the movement of his other hand. Time to switch sides.
“Harry,” he said, a bit unsteadily. His head was swimming, his ears blazing. “Could you... could you move the pitcher?”
Harry didn’t respond, just kept moving his cock against Kim’s stomach, lost in pleasure. Kim gritted his teeth. The sound of him, the movement of his body, his wiry fur and thick muscles moving as he clutched the pitcher...
It’d been years since he’d been with anyone, all the way back since he stopped trying to go back to Revachol for a night out on town. Going there, trying to decide if he was going to be sober for the night so he could go back, or have to wait until he was okay to drive again – finding a good bar, finding someone who wasn’t a chaser or a bigot or just an asshole – and then, maybe, hooking up? It was too much of a hassle. He’d found a guy in town that was nice, and they hooked up for a while. But then he got killed in a car accident, and Kim just couldn’t care anymore. That had been four years ago. And most night for months now his thoughts had been occupied by the memory of Harry’s body underneath him, writhing in pleasure as Kim touched him, hands on his belly, his sides; his swollen teats, dripping with milk. He’d tried so hard to not do anything about it.
He gently pried the pitcher from Harry’s grasp and put it out of reach on the sofa table. The movement made Harry wake up a little bit. He sat up and looked down at Kim, eyes hooded, a soft smile on his lips.
“Are we stopping?”
“No. No, I...” Kim ran his hands over his belly, pulling another deep rumble of pleasure from him. “I just thought. If you wanted...”
He hesitated. He’d tried to ignore it for months. Tried and failed.
He pulled a hand down and ran it over Harry’s cock with the same slow deliberation as when he’d milked him.
Harry’s eyes widened. His smile widened. Then he grabbed Kim by the shoulders and pulled him close to lick a long stripe up his throat and over his chin. Kim nearly burst out laughing at the tickling feeling and the sudden release of nervous tension.
“Okay, yes, I’ll- I’ll take that as a yes?”
Impatient, hungry, he pulled the cushions off the back of the couch and pushed Harry down on it. Harry wriggled against the sofa, biting his lip, watching Kim with eager eyes while he impatiently pulled his clothes off. As soon as Kim climbed on top of him, he immediately sat up and started to lick at him, pulling his broad tongue over his chest and armpits, sniffing and tasting him. Kim squirmed in his grasp.
“Gods, Harry, that tickles...!”
“Sorry, you just smell so good, Kim,” Harry said and burrowed his nose into Kim’s neck. “I love how you smell, you smell like machines...” He rooted his nose in and took a deep breath. “And smoke, and trees, and breeding, Kim, wow.” He licked another stripe along his chest, leaving a trail of slobber.
Kim pushed him down gently. “Like- like what?”
“Like this,” Harry said and reached between Kim’s legs.
Two thick fingers slid carefully around Kim’s cock, then into his hole. Long and thick, hairy all the way up to the knuckles, warm and sure – so gentle despite his bulk, nimble and clever. Kim gasped as he slid in deep, rubbing on the inside, slowly fucking him all the way to the hand, in and out, curling carefully. Kim gripped his shoulders and clenched around him.
“Harry, fuck...”
Harry pulled out, fingers slick with moisture. He sniffed them, then licked them with a pleased sound. “You smell so good,” he rumbled. “Taste so good...” He looked up, tongue between his lips. “I think that’s my new favourite.”
“You want more of that?” Kim laughed and scratched his beard. “Have you been a good boy, Harry? Do you deserve a treat?”
“Um, yes!” He started counting on his fingers. “I got milked, and I read the letters, and I ate, and I helped you repair the combine-”
Kim interrupted him with a finger across his lips. “You have been a good boy.”
He scooted forward and sat across Harry’s face.
Kim had no idea what wild hucows did for sex. There was probably someone who had done research on it, and there certainly were enough people that had written speculative fantastique about it, but he hadn’t read any more than a hurried, embarrassed rifling through it in a bookstore once, when he was younger. Whatever the rest of them did in the wild, Harry seemed to be very certain about what he wanted here and now. His wet tongue was all over Kim, tasting him, lapping at his cock, sucking at it like it was the tastiest treat he’d ever been given. Kim held on to the armrest, leaned over him, his huge hands around Kim’s thighs, holding him in place as he licked. He was making that deep rumbling sound again. It made a soft, teasing vibration that made Kim clench his stomach muscles and rut up against him, chasing it. Harry gripped his thighs tighter and plunged his tongue into his hole, lapping greedily, then back up, lips tight around Kim’s cock.
It had been so long... years and years since he had anyone’s hands on him but his own, let alone someone as eager to please as Harry. He was digging into Kim with the fervour of a starved man, that deep rumbling vibrating against Kim’s cock, maddeningly intense. Kim fucked into his mouth, hands gripping the armrest, hips snapping forward again and again until a wave of pleasure washed over him. Harry held him tight, sucking until Kim sobbed and pushed him away.
He moved down and sat across Harry’s hips, chest heaving as he recovered a little. Harry’s beard was wet and glistening, a wide, happy grin on his face. Acting on pure instinct, Kim leaned down and pressed his lips against Harry’s, tasting himself.
He didn’t respond at first, then clumsily moved his lips against Kim a little and laughed. “What’s that?”
Kim sat up. “That’s kissing, Harry. You don’t...?” Eating him out seemed to have come from pure instinct. Maybe hucows didn’t kiss?
“It tasted good! Again?”
Kim didn’t have time to pull back before Harry grabbed his shoulders and started licking his face enthusiastically. Shaking with supressed laughter, he managed to push him off after a bit of coaxing.
“Okay, okay,” Kim said and wiped the drool from the lower part of his face. “Maybe we could try that again when you’re not as, ah, eager. Yes?”
“Okay!”
Kim moved down a little, sitting across Harry’s hips again, taking the time to enjoy the sight of him laid out on the cushions – long and broad, thick hair and thick padding over strong muscles. He carded his fingers through the fur, combing it, smoothing it down over the teats where it made little whirls on the sides. When he pushed over the right side, Harry jumped a little underneath him.
“Ow!”
“I’m sorry,” Kim murmured. “I forgot we weren’t quite done there.”
Kim petted his teat gently, feeling the warm fullness of it. A little bead of milk gathered at the nipple, then fell into the hairs, slid along the torso and finally dropped onto the sofa. Harry lowed softly, staring at Kim’s hand on his chest, moving slowly. Another bead gathered. It hung heavy on the edge of the nipple, white and shining in the lamplight. Kim watched it, enraptured.
So far, he’d poured the milk down the drain. To begin with it’d been unappetising due to the infection, then useless as long as he was taking the antibiotics. After that it had been clear and smooth, just like ordinary milk. Still. It had felt weird somehow, like it was too intimate to drink it – too big of a step. He’d never had hucow milk from the store either. He didn’t want to support the industry, and besides, it was heinously expensive, a luxury for the bourgeoisie.
He kept stroking, fingers smoothing down the hairs. The bead grew, held together by surface tension. He watched it until it was right on the verge of detaching, about to fall into Harry’s thick fur.
He leaned down and licked it.
It was creamy and a little sweet, thicker than he had expected – and warm. Like drinking a glass of scalded milk with a few drops of honey in the evening. Harry let out another long, quiet low and gripped his hips, pushing his cock against Kim’s stomach.
Another bead was gathering. Kim laid down on Harry’s soft torso and licked it up as well, letting his tongue swirl around the nipple a little as he did. Harry pushed up against him and let out that deep rumbling sound. Kim looked up at him. His eyes were closed again, head thrown back, a look of relaxed extasy on his face. Kim licked his lips and settled down, one hand on his teat, the other playing in his fur.
He sucked slowly at the nipple, pushed his tongue up against it, feeling the warm milk flow into his mouth. He let it gather, then swallowed. The pressure from his mouth, the movement of his hand made Harry writhe and low under him, plush body moving against Kim; his long cock pressed on Kim’s stomach, the thick length hot and silky on his skin, smearing precum across his abs. Kim swirled his tongue and took another swallow. If he slid just a little upwards, he could rub up against it, slide his own cock over it... Without breaking contact, he moved up. Immediately, Harry’s hands on his waist gripped tighter, pulling him up, down, stroking himself on Kim’s crotch as he held him in place.
Kim hung on to his fur, lips held tight around the nipple while Harry stroked against him. Every time he sucked, Harry let out another low rumble, shuddering underneath him, hips moving in sync with Kim’s lips. Kim writhed impatiently in bis grasp. He could feel his cunt twitching with the need of having that slick, warm length inside him, to feel it – gods, he was huge, he’d fill Kim up entirely, fuck him senseless... But Harry held him tight, pushed up against him, sliding between his legs, each stroke pushing against Kim’s cock in a slow, undeniable, mindless rhythm. Despite himself, he was being forced into another climax. Kim slid his tongue around his nipple and sucked harder, moaning indistinctly as he came, drawing the last dregs from Harry with a shudder, hips twitching.
Harry stopped as soon as Kim let go, and he relaxed against his chest. “Good boy, Harry,” he whispered. He wasn’t quite sure if he could trust his own voice just yet.
Harry grinned down at him, a wide, dopey smile. “Was it good? Did it taste good?”
The milk lay heavy in his stomach, warming him from the inside. Kim reached up and scratched lazily around the base of his ear, then pulled it down and kissed the soft, fuzzy tip. He could get used to it, he really could.
“It was really good, Harry. I loved it.”
Harry wriggled underneath him. “Thank you,” he said breathlessly. “I wanna be good for you, Kim.”
“You are,” Kim mumbled. “Don’t worry.”
Harry’s cock was still hard and hot on his stomach. Kim reached down and slowly slid his hand along it, thumb swirling over the head, smearing precum over it. Harry bucked his hips, pushing into his hand eagerly. Kim grinned and gave it a long, firm stroke.
“Do you want to do one more thing for me?”
Harry grabbed his arm and bucked up into his hand again. “Yeah, Kim, anything...”
“I want you inside me.” Another long stroke, all the way down to the root. “Do you want that?”
“Nnngh, yeah, please, can I?”
“Well. Since you ask so nicely.”
Kim sat up and straddled his torso, feeling for the thick head, guiding it inside him. It slid inside easily at first; then he began to feel the stretch of it, filling him up. He took a deep breath and moved back a little more, pushing, trying to relax. Harry was trembling underneath him, tense with the need to move but holding back. Kim dug his fingers into the pelt on his hips and moaned. Such a good boy.
“Hold me, Harry, hold me up-”
His huge hands wrapped around Kim’s waist, holding him steady. Little by little, he sank down, relishing the stretch until he finally rested on Harry’s hips, then buried his hands in his soft belly. Sitting like this he could let his hands roam, feel his soft teats, push his fingers into the thick chub on his sides – explore him properly, all the soft parts of him. Harry slid him up and down easily, made Kim ride him, stretching each thrust out slowly as he choked out that hoarse, deep rumble.
Kim leaned forward and stroked his ears, soft, fuzzy skin between his fingers, his horns butting against the armrest as he threw his head back. Again, this slow, steady rhythm, sliding Kim over himself at a pace meant for a slow crescendo. He knew this, apparently. Knew it very well. Still, Kim wanted to know what else he could do. If he knew how to eat someone out, but not how to kiss... Kim clenched around him and moaned.
“Harry, do you remember- oh, gods, do you remember how hucows fuck?”
Harry’s hands gripped tight enough to bruise, pulling Kim down on him, deep, hard. “Hhh, yeah- they did, I got to see, they brought a bull sometimes...”
Kim clutched his shoulders, wincing. Oh, they probably would have. He instantly regretted bringing it up, but for once, Harry didn’t seem bothered by the memory. Instead, he kept pulling Kim down, hips tense, the rumbling coming louder and hoarser, the pace more frantic as he recalled whatever it was he’d seen. Kim dug his fingers into the flesh on his teats and moved his hips against his soft belly, sweaty fur rubbing on the insides of his thighs.
“Can you...” He ground up against him, all his mind filled with the hungry need to know. “Can you show me?”
Immediately, without a word, Harry slid him off his cock and stood up, chest heaving. Kim stared up at him. Tall, heavy, furred; slick length thick and dark between his legs, feral lust in his eyes. His cunt clenched at the sight. He leaned in and slid his hand up and down the shaft, lip between his teeth.
“Show me.”
Harry grabbed Kim and slung him over the side of the sofa, leaned over the armrest, ass up. He groaned as Harry pushed his legs apart with his knees, then leaned down and slid into him again with one hard push. Kim moaned and gripped the cushions. He was so deep like this, so heavy, soft body forcing Kim down into the armrest, pushing the air out of him. The coarse hairs tickled on his back, slick with sweat, thick with the scent of him – hay and milk and an animal in heat. Harry grunted and drove into him, every thrust making Kim’s cock rub on the armrest.
“God, fuck, Harry-”
Harry leaned forward, his whole weight on Kim, soft belly pushed against his back, strong arms holding him down, fucking him relentlessly. None of the slow deliberation from before, only deep, hard thrusts and a guttural rumbling. It drove every though from Kim’s head but the need to have him grind into his cunt, the thick cock stretching him out. He groped desperately between his legs to jerk himself off as Harry let out a stuttering groan and slowed his pace, moving his hips rhythmically, sliding almost all the way out before he thrust in again. Another long, slow push, another – Kim clenched around him as he came a third time, moaning into the cushions, feeling Harry force himself all the way in and fill him up, his trembling fingers gripping Kim’s shoulders.
After a few seconds of laying hunched over, panting onto Kim’s shoulder, he slid out. Kim couldn’t do anything else than lay across the armrest, heaving for air until Harry scooped him up and laid back on the sofa. With a deep sigh he held Kim close and sniffed at his sweaty hair. Kim lay boneless in his arms. His cunt was aching, fucked raw, leaking onto the sofa. He’d have to peel the covers off and wash them. As the stupid, entirely domestic thought ran through his head, Harry licked the sweat from his brow with a long, deliberate lick.
“Did I do good?”
Kim burst into laughter. “Oh, you- you did, I promise. You did.”
Harry nuzzled his nose into Kim’s hair. “Thank you.”
It was weird how little actually changed, after that. Harry still loved to be petted and milked, still loved food, still loved to learn new things and to help Kim out. The only change was that he always got hard when Kim milked him, eager to fuck if Kim felt like it, but just as happy to let it be or jerk himself off. He liked it best when Kim sucked from him while riding him, or fucking him from behind like he was trying to breed him. Realising how eager Harry was for his body felt just as gratifying as the way he just calmly accepted that Kim knew everything, could do anything. Kim felt drunk on all the attention, stupidly juvenile until they both calmed down a bit. Still. It brought them even closer together.
Life returned to its comfortable, calm routine. Kim went into town now and then to get supplies and take care of his postal orders, talked to Alice and kept up correspondence with some friends in the radio and electronics network. He’d given Harry one of the old radiocomputers to try and repair. He was surprisingly gentle with the components, fingers rearranging the delicate filaments as if they were something much bigger and easily manipulated. Kim wondered sometimes how much hucows used tools. There was so much he didn’t know. Nothing of it was anything that Harry knew either. All he’d know was the half-forgotten memories of his time on the farm and the year in ten Horst’s strange collection. No memories of anything else, no notion of what a wild hucow’s life was like. Seeing him like this, Kim was beginning to doubt that he could be returned to the wild.
Or at least, that’s what he told himself. Just thinking about the possibility made his stomach tie itself into anxious knots, so he tried not to. Harry still talked about other hucows now and then, enthusiastic about the possibility, and Kim didn’t want to discourage him. If that was what he wanted... Kim wouldn’t stand in his way. It wouldn’t be fair.
One afternoon Harry came rushing in, mud all over his hooves from digging in the vegetable patch. Before Kim could say anything about the state of his floors he waved excitedly towards the road.
“Kim! There’s a machine!”
Kim immediately put the tools down. He wasn’t expecting anyone. “A machine? What kind?”
“Um, it’s, it’s-” He frowned and snapped his fingers, words forgotten in his nervousness. “A motor, a lorry!”
“Okay.” Kim tried to push down the panic. What if it was Coalition agents, coming to take him away – or someone else who had gotten wind of it somehow? “Hide in the barn, in the loft. Okay?”
Harry nodded and fled.
Kim went out into the yard and waited, looking intently at the approaching vehicle. He tried to think of what had had to defend them, if it came to it – no weapons, but the scythe, or the wood axe... Then he relaxed. He recognised it. The RCM logo on the side, the tarpaulin on the back. As it rolled up he could see Alice’s face through the windshield. Alone, this time.
“Alice! Glad to see you,” he said as soon as she opened the door. “Why didn’t you call?”
She jumped out and gave him a quick hug. “Sorry to spring this on you. We didn’t have time. There’s an opening at a sanctuary on Archipelagos, a good place – I know the people that run it. They can take him, but we have to be quick.”
Kim stared at her. It was like a pit had opened up underneath his feet.
He’d know this day would come. But he’d shied away from it, tried not to think about it, tried to ignore the fact that Harry would have to leave. But now it was here.
“Harry,” he said slowly. “You can come down.”
Harry peeked out nervously from the barn, but relaxed when he recognised the lorry. Alice looked him up and down as he approached, eyebrows raised, taking in the dense muscles and thick padding under a fluffy, healthy coat.
“Kim, he looks great! What, have you had every day a spa day since I was here last time? You feeling okay, Harry?”
Harry rubbed a hoof against the back of his other leg shyly. “Um. Yes. Hi. I’m good.”
Kim looked at him. Having him stand there, in the same spot as when he arrived... yeah, the difference was stunning. It had been weeks since he had a really bad episode or a nightmare, months since he had a stomach ache; he’d learned so much, tried so many different things, settled in so well. Everything had gone so much better that Kim could have hoped for. And now he was leaving.
Still. It wasn’t fair to him, keeping him here longer that was necessary. That was just... greedy.
“Harry... you remember how we talked about you meeting other hucows?”
Harry’s ears perked up with interest. “Yeah?”
“Well.” Kim hesitated. “Well. Alice says that... there’s a place that you can go. A place where you can live free. Not on a farm, in the wild. Or close enough, anyway. There’ll be other hucows there. You can live like you ought to. Like you have the right to.”
Harry looked a bit confused. His ears flicked nervously. “Okay? Um. Yeah? That sounds good.”
“You sound a bit unsure.”
“I mean... you’re coming with me. Right?”
The look in his green-grey eyes was so earnest, so pleading. Kim couldn’t look at him anymore. “No, Harry. I’m not.”
“But...” His ears drooped. “But I want to be with you.” He looked from Kim to Alice, then back as the realisation hit him. “Can’t you come? Can’t I stay?”
“Harry, you... you should be with your own kind. And I have my whole life here, I can’t just-”
Harry stomped his hooves angrily. “But I- I want to be with you! Did I do something wrong, Kim? I don’t want to be sent away!”
“I’m not- Harry, I’m not sending you away, I just think you should-”
He was close to crying now; whether it was with anger or grief, Kim couldn’t tell. “Then why can’t I stay? I want to!”
Alice put a hand on his arm. “Harry, calm down. Kim, you too.”
Harry’s lower lip was trembling, shoulders slumped and ears hanging miserably. Kim couldn’t bear looking at him. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to keep it up, he wouldn’t be able to do the right thing – if he looked at him just for a second he’d get greedy again, want to keep him and have him around like he’d gotten used to. The talking and the casual companionship, teaching him things, learning about him and his kind, feeling his body under his hands. He didn’t want to lose it.
Kim stared fixedly at the ground. Gently, Alice put a hand on his shoulder.
“Kim... I mean. This isn’t my decision. It’s just a possibility. I mean, sometimes... animals can’t be rehabilitated.” She shrugged. “You know? They get too domesticated. Can’t be released into the wild. I was hoping we could, but, I mean... he’s not an animal.” She smiled at Harry. “You’re a person. And if you don’t want to go, you don’t.”
“I don’t,” Harry said immediately. “I don’t, I wanna be with Kim!”
Alice nodded. “I can see that. Are you sure you don’t want to be with other hucows, though?”
Harry shifted a bit from hoof to hoof. “I’d... I’d love to meet other hucows. I’d like some friends. But... I don’t want to go away from Kim.”
“I mean… I don’t see the problem.” Alice gave Kim a gentle bump with her shoulder. “I get the feeling you like having him here?”
Kim felt his ears go red. There was no way she could know. But. Still, apart from that, he did, so, so much.
He shrugged. “I do. Of course I do. We’ve... become friends.” He rubbed his arm and stared at the ground. “It’s been good. Having someone else around. I’d love to have you stay, Harry. But...” He looked up at Alice. “Would it be safe? What about the Coalition? Have they stopped?”
“We haven’t heard from them in months. I think they gave up after the third time they submitted paperwork and we lost it.” She bit her lip and looked around furtively. At what, Kim wasn’t sure, it wasn’t like there was anyone else around for a kilometre. “Listen, Kim. Potentially... would you be open to harbouring other hucows? If, you know. Something came up. Like, say. A farm got broken into.”
Harry’s ears perked up again and he leaned in, eyes glittering. “Others could come live with us?”
“We could divert some funds for you to house and feed them,” she said. “We don’t have much, but there’s... people with an interest in keeping a thing like that afloat.”
Kim gave her a level, calculating look. A little part of him was pleased at having been right. Another part was whooping in glee at the thought of being able to keep Harry. The rest of him was drawing up lists, considering the pros and cons, things that could go wrong – so many of them... And the things that would become right, and better. He’d wanted to make the world a better place, once, and then gotten the notion beaten out of him. Maybe this was the universe’s way of showing him there was still a chance to help.
“Alice,” Kim sighed. “Are you trying to make me a criminal?”
“Oh, like you’re not one already,” she said and waved at Harry. “Or is harbouring an escaped member of a patented species not a criminal offence, now?”
“You’re one to talk.”
Harry looked between them. “I’m a criminal offence?”
“Never,” she laughed and hugged him around the middle. Her head barley came up to his chest. “That’s the whole point, Harry.”
“That’s good. What’s a criminal offence?” he added.
Kim snorted. “It’s a thing I’m agreeing to right now, Harry.”
“So you’ll do it?” Alice beamed at him from under Harry’s arm. “Kim, you’re a lifesaver!”
“Yes, yes,” he said wearily, trying to contain a smile. “You still owe me a Rehm Rational.”
“Oooh, that reminds me!” She let go of Harry and ran over to the back of the lorry. “I have a surprise for you!” She quickly undid the straps and presented the inside of the lorry. Inside was a big box, strapped down and cushioned by blankets. “Help me get it out. Carefully!”
Kim helped her undo the straps, and Harry carried it out like it weighed nothing, putting it down carefully in the yard.
“Open it,” she said with a pleased smirk.
Kim took out his multitool and cut the thick tape keeping it closed. Inside was a massive amount of packing material, a couple of very thick manuals and a brand new radiocomputer. Kim ran his fingers over the gleaming metal and polished wood. The filament cradle looked a like a spider’s nest, empty but full of promises. He knew the make well. He’d wanted one for years.
“Alice...”
“I told you,” she grinned. “I have friends who know people. It just fell off the back of a Coalition lorry, can you believe it? I was going to offer it to you as, you know, a thank you for keeping him safe. But now maybe you can use it for coordinating... things. It’s got really good encryption protocols.”
Harry looked over Kim’s shoulder. “Coooool,” he said breathlessly. “Maybe I could...”
“Khm. You need to practice on the old ones first, Harry. But I’m sure you can understand it, with a bit of time.”
Alice tied the canvas back down and secured it, then took Kim’s hands. “I’ll call you soon, Kim, and we’ll send you some funds, something untraceable. Do you think you can be ready in a month? For, say, maybe three or four new tenants?”
Kim looked at the barn. He had enough boxes for them. It seemed to work for Harry, and if it didn’t, he could aways convert the loft, or one of the outhouses. Or even the attic, in a pinch. As long as he got some more money he’d be okay for food and medicine. He knew how all of that worked, now, what they needed, what he could expect. It wouldn’t be easy. But he’d have Harry to help. That’d probably make it much easier for them too, to have a familiar sort of face welcoming them.
“I think we could handle that, yes.”
“You’re a doll.” She reached up and kissed his cheek, and then did the same to Harry, standing on tiptoes as she pulled him down by the ears. “See you soon!”
They stood in silence and watched the lorry disappear along the road. Kim absentmindedly pulled his fingers over the gleaming, polished wood of the radiocomputer. There was a little sniffling from beside him.
“Harry? Are you okay?”
Harry glanced at him and rubbed his nose. “I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”
“Harry... I apologise.” Kim took his glasses off and pulled a hand down his face. “I never wanted you to feel unwanted. I just thought...” He sighed. “That you’d be happier with people like you, I guess.”
“I’m happy with you. I don’t want to have to leave you.” There was a stubborn set to his shoulders, a mulish look in his face. “I’m not leaving.”
“God. I don’t want you to, I- I really like having you here, Harry.” He felt his ears go warm. “I’m very happy that you want to. I just felt... greedy, wanting you all for myself.”
Harry put his long arms around him. “You can be greedy, I don’t care. Just don’t ever tell me to go away again.” He scooped Kim up and rubbed his nose under his ear, then flicked his tongue against it. “I really, really, really want to be with you, Kim.”
“Um.” Kim squirmed in his grasp. “I really want to get a good look at that,” he said with a longing glance at the shining radiocomputer in its box. “But... it can wait a little.”
Harry grinned and hoisted him over his shoulder like he weighed nothing. Kim felt his ears go even warmer. “Harry, wait-”
“Yeah?”
“Take it inside first? In case it rains.”
“Sure,” Harry said and laughed. “Anything for you, Kim.”