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“Leif.”
The man in question glances up from his nest of a hammock, the piles of acquired blankets that he has to sleep with now that they’re solidly in one location with actual weather patterns.
He looks a mess, his hair tangled and breaking at the ends where he pulls at it, the natural wave pattern collapsed into a frizzy rat’s nest. The dark circles under his eyes could be bruises, if he had someone to fight other than Caspar – who Gloria bets couldn’t throw a punch hard enough to bruise if someone gave him steroids.
Gloria strides over to him, pushing his hair behind his ears, resting her palm against his sallow cheekbone and running her thumb along his bottom lashes.
“Wow, you’re assertive today,” he jokes, but she isn’t listening, instead grimacing and tilting her head.
He waits for a tense moment, the air hanging thick in the humid Pasadena autumn.
“Gloria? You’re, like, scaring me,” he says, this time only half a jest. Her eyes are intense.
“Come on, pup,” she murmurs.
He perks up, the word tugging him to attention as if it was a pull on a leash. He tilts his head at an angle, eyes going wide and pouty. Gloria snorts. It’s cute.
“You heard me,” she says. “Get up.”
He lurches out of his hammock, struggling to shed the blankets tangled around his legs and ankles from hours of restless tossing and turning, falling to his hands and knees before sitting, legs splayed, listening with a focus in his expression that she hasn’t seen in weeks.
He gets distant with depression. He still laughs, still plays into their schemes, but there’s a separation between the actions and the thought behind them, as if he’s acting on a rudimentary autopilot.
Now, his green-flecked eyes are locked into her gaze with all the intensity he can muster in his underfueled, weary body.
“Good girl,” she murmurs, reaching into her pocket.
The sound of a clicker runs like an electric shock through him, sparking from just behind his eyes down to the soles of his feet.
He whines, part of him wanting to retreat back to his nest, whining until Gloria gives in and cuddles with him. It would be easy. Being her good dog sounds like so much work right now. But he wants to be perfect for her and he can’t help but admit, sinking quickly into the haze of subspace as she starts to scratch at his scalp, that the isolation he’s imposed on himself in the past couple of weeks has made him buzz with the need to be touched.
Gloria’s eyes soften, as if she can hear everything running through his head. She can’t, technically speaking, but she knows what he needs. And if she has to play a little bit to get him to accept help, she’s not opposed.
“Stay still, pup,” she murmurs, kneeling to his level, and Leif does. He knows what that means to her, has had the rules explained as many times as he’s needed to be her good girl, so he fights the ancient urge to freeze like a cornered animal.
She is not scrutinizing him. Her brown eyes are soft.
Gloria tucks his hair behind his ears, fussing over the grown-out roots of the lavender streak in the front and the tangles in the back. She slides a headband behind his ears, settling the band comfortably before letting the fluffy golden retriever ears flop down, their texture familiar and comforting. He’s just a dog now; he doesn’t have to think for himself.
“You need a bath,” she declares firmly. “And a good grooming – look at that hair.” She clicks her tongue.
Leif can’t muster any self-deprecation at his objective dishevelment. In fact, he can’t muster any thoughts at all, spare an insistent pulse of adoration and mindless obedience, timed perfectly to the beat of his heart.
Gloria watches him melt fully into subspace, waiting until he’s settled and leaning his head into her hands for more scritches before asking anything more of him. As soon as he’s completely lax, she clicks the clicker again.
“There we go, pup.”
She loops two fingers into his shirt collar, tugging at him. He takes the cue fluidly, standing up. His hunched posture should be pathetic, but in this context Gloria revels in how submissive and, frankly, adorable he looks.
Leif follows her, trailing behind and holding her hand. She helps him down the ladder, of course — he’s so clumsy and she’s so nice to him. It’s only muscle memory that keeps his feet from slipping.
When they get to the ground, she pauses to fuss with his ears, which are slipping down over his forehead.
“My good girl,” she croons again, kissing the bridge of his nose. He whines, leaning into the touch and nudging his head against her, eager for more. He’s being a good girl! She said so!. Good girls deserve pets.
Gloria, smitten by the display of neediness, obliges him completely. She’ll indulge him as much as he desires today. It’s hard not to, when he’s being her good dog, but especially now when he’s going to be so vulnerable. She’s already more proud of him than he could ever know for accepting the help, even in headspace.
She tugs him along to the back entrance of the diner and their bathroom setup. They’ve got a proper tub now, thanks to Leif’s fit of creativity in the earliest days of being cooped up in Pasadena, which will make this easier than it has before. He likes to be a brat and shake the water everywhere, usually.
Leif hesitates when he sees the shower. Water is nice, he likes water. And he’s a good girl who will let Gloria give him a bath. But something drags at him, lifting him from the blissful lull of puppy time for just long enough to think, I don’t deserve a bath.
The thought, unfiltered by his normal ability to actually fucking think and suppress what needs to be suppressed, snowballs. Maybe he isn’t a good dog, he thinks. Maybe Gloria shouldn’t be so nice.
He whimpers. From Gloria’s perspective, this is unprompted, and her senses immediately jump to alert. She doesn’t intervene – not yet. But she watches him carefully.
He whines, dropping to his hands and knees in front of her. This isn’t unusual. He vastly prefers all fours when he’s like this, and he’s told her afterward how awkward it can be to walk on two legs once he gets into it.
However, what is unusual is him rolling over onto his back, baring his stomach to her in a gesture of – anxious – capitulation.
She refrains from immediately pausing the scene, because she expected some vulnerability, but she keeps the option close. She sits crossed-legged next to him, not accepting the offer to rub his belly, no matter how cute he is.
“C’mere, good puppy,” she coos, patting her lap. Dutifully, he settles his chin on her ankles. “You’re such a good girl. You’re doing a great job, pup, exactly how I want you, so obedient and sweet for me. All you have to do is follow directions, and you’re doing that well.”
The raw, painfully human part of Leif surfaces again. “I’m a mess,” he admits. His family wasn’t religious – he never went to church, never experienced anything near a confessional. But Gloria, in his adoring, empty puppy head, is the closest thing to God that Leif believes in. And he can’t let her think he is good, with his depression nest and undone hair and a thick coat of grime on his skin he hasn’t been able to muster the energy to wash away. No matter how he longs.
“Color?” Gloria asks, put off by the sudden admonition. His voice is soft, docile, still clearly under the influence of some kind of headspace, but he doesn’t speak during these scenes.
“Green,” Leif mumbles. “Sorry. You just needed to know.”
Gloria knows he isn’t trying to be a brat. That he’s genuinely vulnerable and upset with himself. But right now that needs to stop, and she doesn’t have time to talk it through with him.
So instead, she clicks her tongue and states, “Good puppies don’t talk.”
Instantly, comforting haze swathes Leif’s synapses, muffling the anxiety behind a thick blanket of fog. He was being silly – of course it’s fine. Everything is fine. If Gloria was upset she’d call a stop. He can be a good puppy and shut up.
Gloria sees the shift back to languid submission in the way his shoulders relax. She rewards him with another click and a brush of two fingers against his lips. His lips parts beneath the touch, but she doesn’t rise to the request quite yet.
She turns on the bath, running the water to a temperature just shy of painful. She wants him to be aware of himself. Aware of the heat on his skin and her hands and the feeling of all the sweat and dirt and grease built up on his skin melting away. Aware of her, and the power she holds over him.
When she turns back to Leif, he’s tugging at his shirt, fruitlessly attempting to pull it off. Maybe if he can be a good pup and take his clothes off, she’ll use the clicker again…
Gloria snorts. “Aye… Come here, puppy.” He’s so hopeless.
He sits back on his haunches in front of her, tilting his head back as she gently undoes his shirt button by button, the tips of her nails brushing his chest in butterfly kisses. He starts wriggling when she helps him with his pants.
“Silly pup,” she coos. Part of the movement is from anxiety, she’s sure, but he’s just too cute.
Leif wishes he had a tail to wag.
Once he’s naked, spare the ears which he can keep on for another few minutes until she gets to actually washing him, she turns the water off and checks it with her hand. The tub isn’t full, but she plans on using the showerhead anyhow, so that’s perfect. The temperature, too, is right where she wants it.
“In you get,” she urges, wrapping a hand around the nape of his neck. She’s always careful with that general area, but he likes to be scruffed.
To prove her point, Leif straight up keens.
“You’re into that tonight, huh?”
Leif would reply, if not for the fact that her words have melted together into a comforting, wonderful string of pure adoration and safety in his head. He can’t parse what she’s actually saying, only that she loves him.
He’s so fucking tired, and he aches, but she loves him and, just for now, he believes her without question.
She tugs him to the bath, helping him clamber in to the water, waist-high when he’s sitting with his legs out on either side of him.
His breathing gets rough as he feels the sting of the water, hapless tears welling up in his eyes. He went far too quickly for water this hot, not leaving himself any time to become accustomed.
But that was the point.
And then Gloria slips his ears off the crown of his head, setting them safely out of the splash zone, and cups his face with wet hands, forcing his eyes closed so she can wipe the tears.
“And now, pup,” she declares. “You’re getting a bath.”
And thus begins the waterworks.
For a moment, he doesn’t even realize what’s happening. He shocks himself with the first choked sob that claws its way out of his throat, physically flinching and only making the tears fall faster.
This is scary. He never lets tears actually fall from such menial discomfort, even if it’s refreshing to feel them bead up in his eyes. Dog or no, pain or no, Leif Thorvaldson does not cry.
He whines unhappily, shaking himself out. He doesn’t want to be a bad dog, and good dogs certainly don’t cry about being given a bath. Good dogs listen and let their owners help them, and he wasn’t doing that, either, and he’s sure this must be the last straw-
Gloria catches his face in her hands, taking a fistful of his scalp and leading him to meet her gaze.
“Oh, puppy,” she sighs. Leif braces.
“This is so much, isn’t it, pup? You haven’t gotten a good bath like this in such a long time. I’m sorry, puppy dog, I should have been taking better care of you. You’re my responsibility, after all.”
Leif stills. She doesn’t seem upset. And her hand tugging at his hair feels really nice. She only lets him feel really good when she’s happy with him.
Gloria is much less concerned about the tears than she was about him speaking earlier. She lets him cry, leaving it unaddressed for now. Him being a wreck is hot. She does, however, take the initiative to grab the detachable showerhead in preparation for washing his hair.
“Eyes closed, pup,” she instructs. He’s too weepy to fully obey, which she doesn’t blame the poor thing for, so she shields his eyes with one of her hands before turning on the showerhead. She runs it over his head, first of all, close up to his hairline, just to wet it all thoroughly.
Once it’s all wet, she admires the sight; she doesn’t take her hands off him, grounding him to reality and reminding him that she’s here, but she lets the moment linger. He truly looks like a sodden dog, whining and crying, not even bothering to wipe the tears as they fall. (In all fairness, she hasn’t told him he’s allowed to, and he loves to take her cues for even the smallest matters.)
She wipes the water from his face, gently hooking her thumb into his mouth and running it across his canines, as a treat. He leans forward as if he’s never experienced intimacy in his life.
“Hair next, pup. You’re so fluffy, gonna need to leave that conditioner in for a while to get all those tangles out.”
Leif makes an attempt at a bark. He’s aware it’s pathetic, but Gloria likes him being pathetic, and he can’t stop crying long enough to make the noise sound halfway decent.
Gloria snorts, clicks the clicker, and a flush of humiliation rises on Leif’s cheeks. He whimpers, pushing his head into her hands in an attempt to reach her chest. He likes her chest, and she always lets him cuddle with her when he's being a good girl.
“You’re not getting water on me, pup,” Gloria says firmly, pushing him back. “Sit.”
He obeys the command swiftly, sitting cross-legged with his back ramrod-straight. This is adorable and oh-so-sweet of him. Gloria, still amused, gives him another click.
She lathers up her hands with a generous amount of shampoo – hers, coconut scented, much more suited to Leif’s hair texture than the generic two-in-one he has at the moment – and drags her fingers across the crown of his head.
This elicits a high, drawn-out moan. Gloria feels a heady twinge of satisfaction rush through her, familiar pride at knowing that she made that happen and that he felt good.
She tugs at his hair before starting to wash it thoroughly, lathering it up and massaging circles into his scalp. His hair is greasy, very much in need of the wash, and it takes another round of shampooing to get it clean.
Leif’s sobbing has only redoubled since Gloria started to wash his hair, and it’s gotten to the point where she’d rather not ignore it. Every sob is met with a coo and murmured praise, and it doesn’t stop the crying, but Leif goes utterly and unapologetically melty.
Everything is safe, Leif knows. He’s getting a good grooming and he’s hers and she’s saying sweet things he’s too floaty to understand whenever he cries too hard – makes it hard to stop, but it feels good. It’s been so long since he’s had a cry about anything at all. He vaguely recalls it feeling like an impossible task, before, to force the tension in his chest to drain, like he’d have to stab through skin and muscle to drain the growing abscess of despair threatening to crush his lungs.
Gloria makes it easy.
Leif drifts for a while. Properly drifts. It’s beyond the easily-overstimulated airiness of his usual subspace. For what could be a minute or an hour, he is Gloria’s good dog, and he has never been a person, and never needs to be again. She’s washing out his fur because he’s a wreck and she needs her dog to look good.
Gloria finishes the shampoo and starts to condition the ends, working at the beginnings of mats with her fingers, massaging the conditioner into the knotted strands, all while Leif devolves into a whining mess, snuffling and rubbing his face against her arms, wriggling like he has a tail to wag. He is, she thinks with no shortness of love, completely and utterly spoiled.
“You’re my good puppy,” she murmurs, tugging at one of the tangles she’s trying to brush out. Leif takes a sharp breath in, warbling weakly on the exhale. “Good, sweet, obedient dog.”
He barks again, tilting his head to the side and opening his red-rimmed eyes to stare at her adoringly. It’s hard to see, his vision blurry from crying and pre-migraine auras he’s too puppy-brained to worry about at the moment, but he squints at her like he’s her world.
Gloria likes being his world. She fumbles for the clicker to mark that moment as particularly sweet of him.
His hair slowly but surely softens under her attention and brushing, the conditioner loosening the tangles. He whines breathily the whole time, unable to stop the noises whenever there’s another tug at his scalp.
He comes back a little once she’s finished his hair, floating back from the safe and blissful corner of his brain just enough to respond when she says, “I’m going to touch your neck now, puppy.”
It’s not a question, at least not outwardly, but this is a check in. Now, in the warm cloak of subspace, he can’t remember why that would be, but he knows what he wants. He bares it for her. He trusts her. He’s hers and she wouldn’t hurt him. She thinks he’s a good dog, and good dogs don’t get hit.
Gloria slides her hands slowly to his neck, rubbing at the scarred skin in gentle, careful motions. The burn marks, the abrasive scars from a too-tight collar worn and tugged on for longer than could ever be comfortable, they all tell a story, but it’s one Gloria knows. It’s one she’s slowly trying to rewrite.
“Such a sweet puppy,” she coos. “So perfect, you’re so cute. You needed a bath so bad, huh sweet boy?”
Leif, for all he doesn’t care to remember the context of this moment, or even how much it means to him every time Gloria touches his throat with gentle fingers and tells him it’s okay, leans into the touch like it’s the only thing keeping him alive and bawls his eyes out.
There has been a lot of crying today, Gloria thinks, but he looks so pretty doing it.
She goes over the rest of his body with the same gentleness, giving him forehead kisses while he hiccups and sobs. She’s given up on keeping herself dry, as she knew she would, and lets him rub his face against her shirt.
Leif is getting tired. The tears are making his head throb, and all he wants is to curl up in his bed in the back room and take a nap, even if the bath is soothing.
Gloria can tell that he’s exhausted, so she finishes up the bath much quicker than she’d begun it, rinsing him and draining the water in short order. She lays a towel down on the floor and helps him out so he can sit comfortably, towelling him off. He doesn’t end up dry, but she puts his hair up with a towel and wraps him up and makes the decision that she’ll worry about dealing with that in the bedroom.
“My good dog looks so sleepy,” she coos. “Let's get you to bed.”
When Leif tries to get up she makes a disapproving noise. “Pup, you’re a wreck. I’ll carry you,” she says.
Leif is okay with that. More than okay. Gloria is very pretty when she’s being strong, and he is, indeed, pathetic.
“You’re mine,” she tells him, wrapping him a blanket and scooping him into her arms bridal-style. She plants a kiss on his nose. “Good girl.”
She carries him to the back room, setting the blanket down on the edge of her bed and putting Leif down on it.
Leif whines, tilting his head questioningly at his dog bed — set up at the foot of Gloria’s bed, currently doing little more than storing some extra blankets — and she hums.
“You’re sleeping in the bed tonight, pup,” she tells him. Partly because she doesn’t plan on running the scene until he’s asleep, partly because he needs a lot more simple physical affection than he’s gotten so far.
That sounds good, thinks Leif, who would do just about anything she wanted at the moment.
She finishes drying him off and helps him into a pair of boxers. The only things she grabs before getting into bed are a hairbrush and a large bottle of water, and she sets those down before beckoning him over. Leif crawls, flopping down next to her with a content huff.
She brushes his hair and rubs his belly, and everything is nice and soft. Her skin feels good against his, and he likes brushings. He can think again, sluggishly, simplistically, but it doesn’t feel too bad. It felt bad earlier, maybe. Leif doesn’t know. Leif’s a dog and dogs don’t need to keep track of these things.
Gloria braids his hair loosely, tying it off with an elastic so it doesn’t tangle again while he rests. She knows he probably won’t be up to washing it again if it does.
“Up,” she says gently, a warning before she sits, shifting him to slump against her side. She brushes a lock of hair out of his face. “We need to redye your hair, hm?”
It’s a casual remark, but Leif nods just a touch too enthusiastically, and there’s an idea in that. She stows it away for later.
“Drink,” she urges, offering him a sip of the water she’d set down. It’s a straw cup so he doesn’t choke on it, and he takes it tentatively, as if he’s only just now remembered that thirst exists. She knows he must be parched, despite his hesitance.
The water is cool and a shock to his system, reminding his blood to pump and his neurons to fire in ways they seem to have given up on in the past 45 minutes.
Still, it isn’t as easy as giving him something to drink to drag him out of the warm space he resides in. He leans against her once he’s done and tilts his head up, putting himself in the perfect position for forehead kisses.
Gloria doesn’t hold back on that end, peppering his face and cheeks with little pecks, now that he’s given a signal that he’s ready.
“You did so well, sweetheart,” she murmurs. “Don’t rush yourself out of it, love, I know you tend to. Come up of your own accord. You look so nice like this, so pretty, so happy I could take care of you—“ and on and on, whispered praise that edges on sweet nothings, but means just enough that Leif hangs onto it.
He is a person, and that comes nice and slow, slotting back into place safely. He’s warm and comfortable and his hair is well-brushed; he smells like Gloria’s shampoo and his mind is blissfully, astonishingly peaceful still.
He kisses her chest, the easiest location to access, and she twists his braid around two of her fingers.
“Welcome back, Leif,” she says.
Leif understands the words, but can’t form his own in response. He babbles, a weak attempt, before giving up. She said not to rush, and he’s fucking tired and this is the best he’s felt in a week.
She laughs. “Or not.” She touches his upper lip, attempting to poke him. She enjoys seeing him a little squirmy when he’s too languid to get annoyed, and he absolutely thinks it’s funny, but as soon as her pointer finger goes anywhere near his mouth he opens it, staring up at her with a sudden intensity.
“Oh, of course. I did tell you earlier…” she says, running her finger over the tip of one of his canine teeth.
He giggles, which is absolutely adorable and Gloria can’t help but fold when he’s sweet like this. When he’s still hers and nothing else, but there enough to be a bit of a bastard.
She slips two fingers into his mouth, and he gnaws and sucks on them gently, content and melting into her every touch.
“Take better care of yourself,” she chides him as he cuddles even further against her, tugging the blankets up over the two of them and getting comfortable. It’ll be a more serious conversation once he’s all the way with her, and after a good, restful sleep. For now, she’s just reminding him. “Or at least let me do it for you.”
Leif scowls performatively for all of two seconds, before he loses the will and hums against her in a vague signal of acknowledgement.
“You did well,” she reminds him again. Because, really, he did.