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Jess POV:
It's hard.
Hard to see them.
Hard to see how much Sang is struggling to keep it together, even though she currently has the defence of being Violet to hid behind. We can't comfort her, it would break her being Violet, which is her only defence against the world outside.
Hard to see how much Luke needs her right now, this is almost as hard for him as Sang, he loves animals as much as her, but he doesn't have an 'alter ego' to hide behind. I think he might soon, he mentioned something about it a few weeks ago. North looks slightly better, yet still pale, slightly ill. I know I look like hell.
Hard to think that there are real people out there that feel this is acceptable behaviour toward anyone or anything, let alone sweet, innocent animals, puppies.
But right now, it's the work that's hard. Extremely hard. Washing, then disinfecting over two hundred dogs, is earth shatteringly tiring, plus extremely hot work, encased in protective clothing as we are, including the full-face masks we had to wear to break them out. Even with eight of us there, it's so hard.
We have to transfer the clearly terrified puppies from the vans and trailers to the first three rooms in the quarantine ward we cleaned earlier. For the moment that's Raven's and Marc's job. Then in each of the three bays are me, North and Violet (she still hasn't washed the dye out, I think she knows she'll shatter). We are washing then completely disinfecting all the puppies we are brought, by the first two. It would be me, Luke and Violet (as we are the ones who work best with animals), but Luke needs some kind of closeness to Sang, even if she is, technically, Violet right now.
However, it means that Luke, Gabe and Corey are the ones taking the bowls of dirty washing water out and refreshing them for each puppy, as we disinfect them. Then they are taking the puppies to one of the prepared bays, well-spaced, unlike being shoved in those tiny stables, the images are still making me feel ill. I kind of wish they had step counters on right now, just to see how far they are walking...
This continues for almost half an hour, at about one puppy per each pair, just over every two minutes for most of us, faster for Violet and Luke. It means that by my count around forty – two puppies have been done when Raven brings the first one that needs proper medical attention. It takes Violet and Luke of the cleaning rotation, into the fourth bay. Corey gets dragged into the station she was using, while Marc is pulled in to do the job Corey just was, Him and Gabriel now working almost twice as hard, the two of them working for the three of us washing. Raven has absolutely no problem carrying three puppies in his enormous arms, his touch surprisingly gentle despite his size, it's cute to see him carrying them, even if they are filthy.
I feel like a robot. Dunk in the water, scoop cleanish puppy out, dunk puppy up to neck in the disinfectant, after checking it has no open wounds.
If it does then it's disinfected with a sponge, around the cuts, before being sent to Violet and Luke, with either Raven, Gabe or Marc. By the time Raven brings the last puppy in I'm so tired I can barely stand. No one else is much better. The one good thing is that Sang is back, purple dye out of her hair, blonde again to be fair it does come out with just a dunk of water, Gabe is great at inventing hair stuff.
The top of her 'outfit' is stained with the purple dye, it looks at though Luke just upended a bucket on her head at some point, needing her back. She is obviously just as tired as the rest of us, but she still offers me a half smile as she wraps an arm around my back, I miss her physical contact when she's Violet. She mostly carries me towards one of the bays, the one that I slept in that first night, lying me in the straw, telling me to sleep. I want to protest, knowing there is still so much more to do, but Sang can be extremely stubborn at times.
"Go to sleep!" she sounds slightly sterner this time, despite the exhaustion clouding her eyes. My mouth opens but the words turn to a yawn, she raises one eyebrow, dropping a blanket over me. The warmth seeps through my body, and I can feel myself being tugged into sleep. "Night J." Sang kisses my forehead, like a comforting older sibling would, I get this feeling of peace. One that has been building for almost a year now, but it's just been magnified. I get the slightly shocking realisation that I would save this people, this place, over brother, and probably my mother as well, even though I do really love her.
And it doesn't scare me. Which makes it scary, in some twisted strange way, but right now I can't think about it, I'm just too tired.
When I wake, I have no idea how much later, it's to someone shifting in the straw beside me. My limbs still feeling so heavy, that I can barely turn my head, I manage enough to see Sang's classic long blonde plait, a tanned arm holding her close to the body on her other side, Luke by the skin tone.
My head moves up and I can see his face, just peaking out over the top of her head, his eyes meet mine briefly, we're both too tired to communicate anything other tiredness by our eyes. But Luke mouths the Sang has fed all the animals, and that he then found her basically asleep outside Leo pen. I assume that means he carried her here. I can just about see the twins on one of the shelves on the opposite wall, they might be almost a year old now, but they still stick to Sang or/and Luke like glue when the two of them allow it. Samira is curled up in the crook of Sang's legs as she curls into Luke, which means Jeffery is probably the other side of Luke, the two of them are as impossible to separate as Leo from the lambs.
It's also highly likely that Jason is somewhere round here, with all the extra people in the house there is no way that his not his normal overprotective self, watching Sang every second. Another person stumbles into the bay, North.
"You all ok?" his voice is low, tired, like us all, BB appears behind him, I can feel something standing on me, paws, "Lucky lie down, don't stand all over her!" North hisses, still keeping his voice low. A huge feat for him, even with all the work his been doing so that it doesn't scare Sang. Not that it does anymore really, she dare I say it, trusts him, as least as much as she trusts me and Luke, which isn't a small thing, not for our Sang. I have no idea where the others are, but I assume someone, probably North as his the most awake, has shown them to some semblance of room, with a bed, of some kind. Lucky settles in my knees, my family safe, all together again, even after the rather stressful day we've all had.
I know what North needs when his eyes flick to Sang and Luke, he has the same need to be close to her as we all do. I don't want to disturb Lucky, but I shuffle slightly over so that, when Luke gives North a subtle nod, he can fit between me and Sang, without being squashed. Lucky grumbles but moves over and resettles. My eyes close again, that small effort enough to take away the small amount of energy that sleep gifted me.
I'm a lot more with it when I emerge next, a small hand shaking my shoulder gently. I blink at Sang who just put her finger on her lips, pointing at the two boys who are still dead to the world, North with one arm now round his half-brother. BB dribbling in North's hair. The twins are apparently awake enough to have transferred themselves from shelf to shoulder, even though they a now practically asleep, draped over Sang's shoulders like a weird version of a mink wrap. Not sure what they were doing that made them quite so tired, but there we go...
As Sang can never resist getting her camera out when there is the possibility of a cute photo of her family, so it's absolutely no surprise when she snaps a polaroid of them, before reaching a hand out to me to help me up. She tugs me out of the bay.
"We have to feed all the animals, then we have almost two hundred puppies to start rehabilitating before they can find new homes!" she says it matter of fact, like it's not the huge task it is. I can't help the giggle of disbelief, only two hundred puppies! She makes it sound soooo easy, even when it's not, but somehow, she will make it work, she always does! Even if she will sometimes need our help, not that she will ever admit that! "Let's go see if any of the other boys are up?" she glances at me again, Jason and Lucky follow us down the corridor, as if they would be anywhere else.
Apparently the four boys are in the bay next to us. Corey looking remarkably similar to Sang, I'm stuck again at the fact that they're siblings, I know I knew anyway, but with him asleep curled into Raven's side he also looks small, vulnerable, like Sang does when she sleeps. If I hadn't already known, I would have been tempted to say something about it now.
Marc's snoring at the other side of the room, but Gabriel looks up blearily when we approach, his brow wrinkling as he stares confusedly/sleepily at us. He opens his mouth, but Sang shakes her head and makes 'come on' gestures.
Gabe gets dragged into helping with the feeds, not that it takes much dragging, he loves animals, that much is plain to see. We've just about finished feeding when the others start to appear. Marc's the first to appear.
"Coffee!" is makes us all jump, his standing behind us looking slightly zombified, "Coffee!" I can see Sang biting her lips, even as her eyes sparkle, when they meet mine, I can read the words in them, totally got a new nickname, my lip twitch as well, we are far too similar, Coffee Zombie? I question back. She loses the battle with her grin. I think I'll just shorten it to Zombie to be fair... Gabe's flicking his eyes between us, like he can half understand the conversation.
"Wherever you left it yesterday Zombie, that's the only stuff in the house!" Marc just nods at Sang's words, I don't think he even realises what she just called him. He turns and living up to his new nickname perfectly, stumbles out of the room. It takes all of three seconds for Sang to start giggling, uncontrollably, about a second later both me and Gabriel join in.
"That was fucding amazing!" Gabe hisses though tears.
"Nooooooo, why are you all laughing without me, the end of the word has come!" Sang's over dramatic 'boyfriend' even though they still haven't made it official, wails.
"Shut it, Lucien!" North whacks him on the back of the head, gently. "Baby..." he says, I'm pretty certain mock seriously, she looks at him with huge innocent eyes, with just the hint of mischief in them, but I could be wrong.
"Yes North Star?" she blinks at him, the eyes reaching baby seal size.
"We're not going to find another picture on the board in a few days, are we?" he raises his eyebrows at her, I have to bite my lip.
"Why ever would you think that North Star?" he narrows his eyes to almost a half scowl, though his lips press together.
"Baby..." he says warningly. By this point I'm not the only one struggling to not scream with laughter.
"Not in the next few days North Star!" she smiles widely at him, technically that's not a lie, the picture is a polaroid and already up there. His eyes still hold obviously disbelief. I, we, watch them having a staring contest for the next thirty of so seconds. Before Luke breaks the tension by scooping Sang up. "Hey! I was winning you just made me lose!" she half heartedly thumps him on the back. Luke snorts.
"You have never beaten North at a staring comp, no one has!" she mock scowls at Luke's words, as me and Gabriel return to the slightly hysterical laughter that we had from Marc's expression earlier.
"What laughing?" a very shirtless Raven appears. Corey just behind, everyone just shakes their heads, most of us still laughing, North still looking at me and Sang in suspicion. He knows there is no way that she didn't take that photo, but also that she doesn't lie.
"I'm not a Zombie!" oh now Marc got brain power! Everyone who wasn't here looks confused now.
"Yes, you fucding where!" it's left as that, sort of, as we call him 'Zombie' all day, after the others get the full story.
The rest of the day is sort of half normal half strange. The four extra boys fit in far too easily to our lives, helping without really needing to be told where to go, the jobs getting done super quickly as well.
What it finally means is that we have longer to working the terrified puppies, which is seriously heart breaking. We all given a couple of pens to work with, Sang gets us to just sit there and talk about whatever, or read the puppies a book. While I'm not sure Marc's choice of 101 Dalmatians, with a full description of the puppies being skinned, is entirely appropriate, it does make them a hell of a lot less nervous.
When the boys leave at the end of the day it leaves the whole house feeling very slightly empty. North's brain finally seems to click at dinner.
"Dammit, you have that bloody polaroid camera, I bet the pictures already up there!" Sang's already running, giggling, but running when the word polaroid passes his lips...
Commmmmmmmeeeeeennnnnntttttt ppppppllllllleeeeaaaaaaassssseeee!!!! (thank you)
I won't promise an update, give me a week maybe, I'm sort of half going on holiday (yay), but i really want to know what you think!!!! Please :)
Quick extra anyone want any bonus chapters by certain people???? As in POV