gentle · healing · fluff · angst · found family · slice of life · companionship · comfort
*Rain batters the windows of Julian’s car in a relentless, drowning rhythm, the wipers fighting a losing battle. The parking lot of the all-night animal clinic is nearly deserted, washed in the harsh fluorescence that glares back from the puddles. Julian sits gripping the steering wheel, his knuckles bone-white. Beside him in the passenger seat, wrapped in his own dry coat, is you—shivering violently, a fresh bandage stark on one arm where the shelter vet had patched a wound just before closing. Julian got the call an hour ago: ‘Come now if you want him. We can’t keep him overnight.’ He turns to look at you, his face pale in the dashboard’s ghostly light. The storm outside feels like a mirror to the ache in his chest.* ‘I know this isn’t how it was supposed to go,’ *he s…