The Year of the Salamander - 2. Chapter 2

“Come on, Specter! Come on! Please...? Oh, Specter, just do it, please... Specter, get back here!”

Desmond peeled his eyes open, almost positive that he was dreaming about something in his past, even though he could not remember this particular conversation.

“Specter, please...!” he heard through the open window and blinked several times. So it’s not a dream, he thought. Then he remembered about the dog and swore softly. He glanced at the clock. Great, he thought bitterly. It’s three in the morning.

“Rayhe...” he muttered and got no response. “Rayhe!” he said louder, and the sleeping figure next to him just sighed and threw a leg over his hips.

“Goddammit...” Desmond growled softly and pushed the leg off him. Then he peeled off the arm that was hugging his waist, and got out of bed. He almost walked through the door when he remembered something, went back to the bed, grabbed a pair of pants off the floor, and put them on. Finally, he went out of the bedroom, swearing softly under his breath.

The light in the back yard was on, and Desmond jerked the sliding glass door open. Sam immediately turned around, a puzzled expression on his face.

“Kid,” Desmond said, squinting his eyes at the light. “It’s three in the morning... What the hell are you doing?”

“Potty training him,” Sam said with a slight frown. “Just like you told me to...”

“It’s three in the morning...” Desmond said again with dark desperation. “And you keep yelling like there is no tomorrow...”

“Sorry,” Sam said quickly. “It’s just he won’t get back here, and I need him to go already... Sorry,” he said again.

“Seriously,” Desmond nodded firmly. “Three in the morning...”

“I have to take him outside every two hours,” Sam said patiently, and Desmond recognized Rayhe’s patient manner in his tone of voice. “This way, he’ll get used to the idea quicker... The idea that when he has to go, he has to do it outside, you know...”

Desmond gritted his teeth.

“Just keep your voice down,” he said in defeat, and then frowned. “Every two hours?”

“Well, yeah...” Sam shrugged. “I set up my alarm clock...”

“Good God...” Desmond muttered.

“That’s the usual thing with dogs,” Sam shrugged once again. “Didn’t you ever have a puppy?”

“No,” Desmond said without even bothering with a snort, expecting Sam to roll his eyes.

“Me neither,” Sam said instead, and Desmond blinked. “I wanted one for as long as I can remember...” he said with a crooked smile. “I’ve read all about dogs... I know how to train one; I know all about the diet; I know almost all breeds’ weak spots... For a shepherd, for example, it’s the hips... The same with Specter’s breed...” he nodded towards the white furry ball that was busy with something he found in the grass. “But it’s not as frequent,” Sam nodded. “Sometimes, the Akbash would also get osteochondritis dissecans..."

“Huh...?” Desmond frowned.

“It’s a joint disorder,” Sam said quickly. “But again, it’s not frequent...” He sighed. “Sorry for waking you up,” he said quietly. “Is Gabriel awake as well?”

Now Desmond did snort.

“Are you kidding me?” he asked in a low voice. “The man can sleep through Apocalypse!”

Sam smiled at that.

“Well,” he said with a small shrug. “This whole potty training thing shouldn’t take too long... Give me a couple of weeks, okay? I promise, that by the mid-August, he’ll be only doing this outside... If there is an accident inside, I’ll clean it,” he added quickly. “But dogs are pretty smart... And Akbash dogs are amazing!” he smiled.

Desmond looked at him thoughtfully for a minute or so.

“Turn the lights off when you done,” he said finally, and Sam smiled again.

“I will,” he nodded. “And I’ll keep my voice down...!” he called after Desmond who was retreating into the house.

“Uh huh...” Desmond nodded absent-mindedly and closed the door.

Rayhe was still out (of course!) when Desmond got back into bed. The ex-assassin muttered something through his clenched teeth and rolled over, his back towards Gabriel. Rayhe immediately mumbled something in his sleep, and his right arm wrapped around Desmond’s waist, while he pressed his entire body against his half-fuming mate. Desmond blinked and turned his head to look at the sleeping man.

“Good God...” he muttered with a slow blink. “You are asleep, you horny bastard...! Are you hard twenty-four-seven?!”

Rayhe didn’t even stir at that, and Desmond just sighed, entwined his fingers with Gabriel’s, and closed his eyes. Soon enough, he was asleep.

****

Several weeks later, Desmond came home after he spent several hours in the bookstore, looking for a particular book he needed for the new semester, which started in two weeks. He found the book after he almost gave up, his mood improved immediately, and he walked home, enjoying the mid-August sun on his face.

“Home!” he called when he walked inside. He got no reply, shrugged, and threw the keys on the little table by the front door. He knew that Sam and the dog (he’ll be damned if he calls that thing Specter; it’s the dog, that’s it!) were either outside in the back yard or in Sam’s room. His eyelid twitched with a nasty suspicion when he went to his room and noticed that the door was slightly ajar. He pushed the door open all the way, walked in, and several minutes later, he stormed out of there, looking like an avatar of coldblooded fury.

He burst into Sam’s room, and the kid jumped in his chair, startled. The dog took one single look at Desmond and immediately dove under the bed.

“What happened...” Sam started saying, but Desmond interrupted him.

“You...” he growled in a murderous voice, waving a torn-up shoe in the air, pointing at the bed. “You...!” he repeated and went down on all four, trying to reach under the bed.

The dog tried to melt into the wall when Desmond reached for him with a shaking from fury hand. It took the ex-assassin several desperate tries, and finally, he managed to grab onto the dog’s thick white coat and yanked him towards himself, ignoring the yelping and the grunting.

“Desmond, don’t hurt him!” Sam shrieked when Desmond emerged from underneath the bed, dragging the fully resisting dog with him.

“You...” he growled again.

“Desmond, I’ll buy you new shoes!” Sam cried, trying to get the dog out of man’s tight grip. His efforts were futile.

“You...!” Desmond growled once again, as if he forgot all the other words.

He shoved the ruined shoe under the dog’s nose.

“What is this?!” he hissed. “Huh? What is this?”

The dog turned his head away and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Oh, no...” Desmond shook the shoe one more time. “You look at me! You look at me when I am talking to you...! What is this?”

The dog seemed very determined not to look at the pissed off man. Desmond shook the animal furiously, but the dog’s eyes remained shut.

“Bad dog!” Desmond hissed and whacked dog’s muzzle with the shoe. The dog flinched and tried to pull his head into his shoulders. “Bad dog!” Desmond whacked him again. “Bad dog!!”

The dog accepted the execution patiently, without making any noises. Finally, Desmond whacked his muzzle one last time and relaxed his grip. The dog immediately disappeared behind Sam’s back.

“Desmond, I’ll buy you new shoes...” Sam said again in a small voice. “I didn’t know that he did it, I swear... How did he get it?”

“My door wasn’t fully shut!” Desmond whirled around, waving the shoe in the air once again. “That bastard figured it out! Sam, you'd better keep an eye on that thing and make sure that he doesn’t sneak into my room again! Because if he will, I swear to God...”

He stepped closer to Sam, the shoe making small circles above his head. Apparently, he looked as if he was threatening Sam even though the thought had never crossed his mind. He would hurt the dog in a heartbeat, but he would never even touch Sam. Well, the dog didn’t know that. He took his own punishment without complaining, he seemed to be terrified of Desmond when the man pulled him from underneath the bed. But now, when Desmond started threatening (that’s what it looked like, anyway) his favorite human, the dog jumped in front of Sam and let out a surprisingly low bark for a puppy of his age.

Desmond blinked and looked down. The dog was growling softly, teeth bared, fur standing up on his neck. His entire posture said loud and clear: “Back off, buddy!” Desmond lowered his arm, still clutching onto the shoe and thoughtfully stared at the dog. Sam grabbed Specter’s collar and pulled him back, panic reflecting in his eyes, as if he was afraid that Desmond would get even more pissed off.

“Shut up, Specter!” Sam muttered and quickly stroked the dog’s fur, trying to calm him down. “It’s okay... It’s okay...!”

Desmond blinked again and lowered himself into a crouch, staring into the dog’s eyes.

“You won yourself some points right now,” he said in a low voice without looking away from the dog’s brown eyes. “But do something like this again...” he demonstrated the shoe and the dog blinked. “...and I will make shoes out of you,” Desmond promised in the same low voice. “Or better yet – a bathroom mat!” He nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on the dog.

Bared teeth finally hid back behind the furry lips, fur on the back smoothed out, and the dog stared into Desmond’s eyes, trying to win the staring contest. Finally, he blinked again, and looked away, his expression indifferent, as if saying, “I am bored...” Desmond hemmed, whacked the dog’s muzzle with the shoe once more (this time, lightly), and got up.

“Stay the hell out of my room!” he said before leaving the room. The dog wouldn’t look at him, his expression still bored and almost indifferent, even though his ears were twitching nervously.

...Later that evening, when Desmond was reading a book on the couch, sitting next to Gabriel who was watching TV, his fingers mindlessly running through Desmond’s hair, the ex-assassin felt a gentle shove on his leg. He lowered the book and looked down. The white ball of fur was standing next to the couch, his tail wagging tentatively, and he held a decent size bone in his mouth. Desmond remembered that Sam stacked up on those bones a couple of days ago.

“What do you want?” Desmond grumbled, and the tail wagging became more enthusiastic. “What?” Desmond said after a few minutes when the dog just stood there, wagging his entire lower half of the body, it seemed.

Finally, the fur-ball stepped closer to the couch, slightly lifted his head, and dropped the bone into Desmond’s lap. Desmond blinked at that.

“What are you doing?” he asked the dog, who moved his ears nervously.

“I think he is making amends,” Gabriel said in an amused voice, his attention concentrated on the dog, and not on the television. “He is offering you his bone in exchange for your shoe...”

“Nice try,” Desmond narrowed his eyes. “Not gonna work...! Plus now I have your drool on my pants...”

“That’s pretty impressive,” Rayhe said in the same amused voice, his chin resting on Desmond’s shoulder. “You have to admit, Des... It’s impressive...!”

Desmond stared at the dog for several seconds, then finally sighed, and took the bone.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “You can have it though... Don’t touch my stuff,” he added warningly and handed the bone to the dog.

The dog grabbed it from Desmond’s hand, wagged his tail a couple more times, and retreated into the kitchen. Rayhe laughed softly, and Desmond sighed again and put away his book.

“Damn dog,” he grumbled.

“He is something, all right...” Gabriel said with laughter, his fingers tangled up in Desmond’s hair. “When are you going back to school?”

“The semester starts in two weeks,” Desmond said quietly, leaning into Rayhe’s touch. “I’ll go there earlier though... In ten days, maybe. I need to set everything up, to make sure that I have everything I need, check the list once more... I keep having the feeling that I forgot to get a couple of books...”

“You turned into a true teacher,” Gabriel hemmed and nibbled on Desmond’s earlobe. “Didn’t think it was possible...”

“Me neither,” Desmond sighed and pulled Rayhe closer. “Sam is at the bookstore...” he muttered. “At least for the next couple of hours...”

“Uh huh,” Gabriel said and ran his tongue over Desmond’s lips.

Desmond opened his mouth and caught that tongue, squeezing it gently with his teeth. Rayhe’s fingers started unbuttoning his shirt swiftly, without pausing on any button, and after a minute or so, Desmond was shirt-free. He tugged Gabriel’s shirt out of the other man’s pants and pulled it over Rayhe’s head, not even bothering with the buttons. He let Gabriel to push him down onto the couch, slightly arching his back when Rayhe’s hands started caressing his chest, never letting go of the other man’s mouth, drinking him with his eyes closed, moaning quietly into him.

Gabriel’s hand slid down to Desmond’s hips, and the ex-assassin shivered when he felt fingertips brushing over his greedy, pulsating need. He arched his back even more, aiming for Rayhe’s hips with his own. His aim was rather good, and Gabriel let out a quick, shaky breath into Desmond’s mouth, pressing harder into his insistent hips, rotating against him slowly. They kept the slow, almost lazy rhythm for a while, their hands living their own lives on each other’s bodies, their kiss turning into something else, Rayhe’s tongue more dominant than usual. Desmond’s moans were completely unrestricted now that they were alone in the house, and Gabriel swallowed every single sound that escaped his mate’s throat, wishing for more.

Suddenly, Desmond felt uneasy. He had a feeling of being watched intently. He slowly opened his eyes, and broke the kiss, turning his head to the right. The white furry dog was sitting safely far from the couch, watching both of them without blinking. Desmond stared at him with disbelief.

“Get out of here!” he said finally, but the dog didn’t move. He kept watching them with the same blink-free expression. “Get out!” Desmond said louder.

Rayhe looked at the dog with a small frown.

“I am with him on this one,” he nodded. “Get out!”

No reaction from the dog whatsoever. Desmond growled something unintelligible, grabbed the remote control from the floor where Gabriel dropped it earlier, and threw it at the dog. The fur-ball got up very quickly, stepped aside, letting the remote control to land on the carpet behind him, and sat down again without shifting his gaze.

“Son of a...” Desmond closed his eyes for a few seconds. “So much for having the house to ourselves for a change... Let me kick him outside...”

“No,” Gabriel sighed and got up, pulling Desmond’s arm. “He’ll bark until we let him back in; he hates being outside alone, you know that...”

Yeah, Desmond knew that. A week or so ago, he let the dog outside and closed the glass door. The damn dog barked until he started wheezing, and he kept scratching the door with his paw.

“Come on,” Gabriel started walking towards the bedroom without letting go of Desmond’s arm.

“Bloody hell...” Desmond grumbled, and followed him.

“At least you can be as loud as you want,” Rayhe said with a small smile, and Desmond agreed with that reluctantly. He glanced behind his back and frowned when he saw the dog follow them.

“Don’t even think about it!” he hissed before getting into the bedroom.

The dog attempted to sneak past him, but Desmond shoved him aside with his knee and slammed the door shut. Immediately after that, there was an urgent whining sound from behind the door.

“If you don’t shut up,” Desmond said very dangerously. “I will kill you!”

He had no idea if the dog actually understood him, or if the intonation of his voice did the trick, but the dog stopped whining immediately. That was good enough for Desmond.

“I bet you anything, the damn dog is staring at the door right now...” he muttered, and Gabriel pushed him against the said door.

“Let him,” he breathed and loved the moan that escaped Desmond’s throat when he attacked his neck with his mouth. He nibbled on that sensitive spot on Desmond’s neck, and slightly raised his head. “Don’t hold back...” he muttered without a smile this time. “Let it out...”

He didn’t have to say that twice. Desmond did let it out, his throat producing sounds that sent a series of shuddering waves down Rayhe’s spine. It has been a while since Desmond let himself to be so unrestrictedly loud. Sam was a very light sleeper, and Desmond would usually bite the pillow or moan into Rayhe’s palm every time the mood hit them – and that was quite often. Gabriel loved every single sound that came out of Desmond’s mouth. He yanked down the other man’s pants, and Desmond did the same, after impatiently kicking off his jeans when they slid down to his ankles.

Gabriel wrapped his arms around his mate, lifting him up and pressing his back hard into the door. Desmond immediately locked his legs around Rayhe’s waist, latching onto his mouth once again.

“God, I want you...” Gabriel moaned and the words rolled down Desmond’s throat in a delicious swallow. “Now...”

“Uh huh...” was Desmond’s reply, and Rayhe pulled away from his mouth just enough to be able to mutter:

“I don’t want to hurt you...”

Desmond threw a quick glance downwards.

“You are leaking like a broken faucet,” he said in a low voice. “You won’t hurt me...”

That was good enough for Gabriel, and he nodded and locked his lips on Desmond’s once again, his hips shaking with raw need. He proved that his own aim was as good as Desmond’s, and the ex-assassin let out another incredible moan that sent more shivers down Gabriel’s spine when Rayhe started moving slowly inside him, finding the right angle almost instantly.

Desmond didn’t know what it was – the fact that he finally could be as loud as he wanted; the fact that he knew that the damn dog was watching the door intently, and it turned him on even more for some twisted reason; or maybe everything combined. He didn’t know what it was, but the coiling heat in the pit of his stomach started to grow unbelievably quickly. He had never gotten this close to the edge so fast before. He tried to get himself under control, tried to make this last longer, but his efforts were ridiculously futile. He screamed out Rayhe’s name when an impossibly powerful release made him choke on his own voice.

“Oh...” was all Rayhe said in a strained tone when Desmond’s furious climax got him completely by surprise. Just like Desmond a few minutes earlier, Gabriel tried to get himself under control, but the feeling of Desmond’s body shuddering in unbelievably tight contractions around him, was too much. He mumbled something incoherent and dug his fingers into Desmond’s skin harder than ever, knowing that he would probably cause several bruises. Neither of them cared about that right now, however. Rayhe’s insanely strong spasms almost made him lose his balance, making his knees beyond weak. He managed to keep himself standing upright, pushing Desmond’s back even harder into the door, gasping for air in short, sobbing gulps.

“Holy shit...” he muttered weakly a while later, when he could speak again. “That was...”

“Quick...?” Desmond offered in a shaky voice.

“Well, that too...” Gabriel laughed somewhat.

“Ugh... I don’t know what happened...” Desmond dropped his head into Gabriel’s shoulder. “Sorry about that...” he coughed.

“Sorry?!” Rayhe repeated incredulously. “Are you kidding me? That was amazing... One of the best in my entire life...”

“Mine too...” Desmond muttered into Gabriel’s neck, slowly unlocking his legs and sliding off the other man’s waist.

Rayhe kissed his mouth slowly, without pulling away for air, his fingers buried in Desmond’s hair. Finally, Desmond broke the kiss with a small smile.

“Let’s clean up,” he muttered. “Because if the damn dog shoves his nose in my crotch, I will seriously maim him...”

Gabriel laughed at that and headed towards the bathroom.

“I don’t think Sam would appreciate that,” he said and turned on the faucets.

“No, he wouldn’t,” Desmond sighed in agreement, and let Rayhe to clean him slowly without looking away from Gabriel’s eyes.