Here, Boy
(dog-coded Gale fic)
Gale knew that very first day that he was a stray, showing up in the doorway of John Egan’s room unloved and shy and bristling, coaxed closer with gentle touches and an eager voice—and Gale had fallen for it, head over heels.
He knows what it’s like to be kicked in the ribs, made to lie outside on the porch. To be fed scraps and yelled at. To be desolately desperate for love. But John gave it freely with open-handed affection, naming Gale and scrubbing fingers through his hair and squeezing him around the ribs to lift him bodily off the ground. Gale stared after him, answered his voice, followed at his heels. Guarded and guided, accepting John’s praise and requests with a voracious, guilty craving he fought to conceal. Hoping John couldn't see it in his eyes.
*** Dog coded!Gale, or
When John gets back to Thorpe Abbots, Gale can't cope
(read on AO3)
