Snuffles. Part 2. Post Azkaban!Sirius x Muggle!Reader
CW: None, really.
Link to Snuffles. Part One.
After covering the car’s backseat with several old blankets, the muggle woman drives Sirius to her house. She leads him inside and makes it a point to direct him away from any of her furniture, and after getting a quick look at himself in one of her full-body mirrors, Sirius can’t say he blames her. There’s mud, dirt, and some dried blood caked to almost every inch of his body. He notes how much thinner he looks now in comparison to the last time he got a decent look at himself.
Sirius follows her to the kitchen and seats himself in the corner of the room. The house is quite small, so a large dog like Sirius doesn’t have much space to move around without getting in the way or bumping into something.
“Okayyy,” The woman hums after grabbing something from the fridge, gently scratching Sirius’s head as she passes by. “Let’s see…. I assume dogs can’t have seasonings or too many oils, so I’ll just put this in the oven for you.”
In any other instance, Sirius would groan at the idea of unseasoned, baked chicken, but beggars can’t be choosers. Any kind of clean, unspoiled chicken sounds incredible at the moment. No matter how it’s cooked.
She preheats the oven and turns her attention back to Sirius, who’s sitting politely and trying his best to not get mud on anything. The woman is going out of her way to be kind to him, so the least he can do is to not fuck up her home by getting dirt everywhere.
She smiles and kneels in front of him. She keeps her movements slow and predictable, which Sirius is appreciative of. He’s self-admittedly quite jumpy and paranoid at the moment, so her efforts to make him comfortable don’t go unnoticed. She scratches and rubs his neck, “You’re the sweetest and prettiest thing. I have a hard time believing someone’s not missing you.”
Sirius almost scoffs, but he enjoys the compliments and affection nonetheless. The scratches feel good on his dirty, dry skin. Under any other circumstance, the woman’s cooing and borderline condescending demeanor would irritate Sirius, but it’s been a long time since someone has treated him so kindly. He’ll be damned if he ever tells anyone about this experience, but he’s absolutely exhausted. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy being taken care of and fussed over for a short period of time.
While the oven preheats, she checks his skin for ticks and fleas. No fleas (thankfully), but she finds and pinches off a few engorged ticks.
While she calmly sifts through his fur, Sirius turns his head to look around the house. It’s quite girly and a bit too colorful for Sirius’s taste, but he can appreciate how comfortable and warm it is. The walls are decorated with picture frames and paintings, and there are several muggle objects littered around that he has a hard time identifying. From what he can see, the house looks almost exactly like what he’d expect from a young woman—muggle or not.
The oven beeps, and she stands to put the chicken in.
“Well, that gives us fifteen minutes ‘til the chickens done. I’d like to give you a bath, but I don't know how well you'd tolerate that if you're hungry.” She says, kneeling in front of him once more. At this point, she seems to be talking to herself more than to Sirius, but he doesn't mind. It's nice to know what’s on her mind so he can know what to expect from her next.
And admittedly, he likes her voice. Her accent is kind of endearing.
She continues scratching his chin. Sirius closes his eyes and almost moans as her fingernails dig into his skin.
You sigh and coo at the poor dog. You aren’t sure what he’s been through, but it’s obvious that life hasn’t been kind to him.
He clearly doesn’t trust you; his eyes follow your every move, and his head snaps towards even the smallest of sounds. But despite his paranoid nature, he’s been nothing but sweet and gentle. Every time you bend down to his level to show him some affection, he practically falls apart in your hands.
You think he must belong to someone. Perhaps once he’s fed and clean, you can take a few pictures of him and post them around town.
Soon enough, the chicken is done. You take the chicken breasts out of the oven and cut them into smaller pieces, putting them on a plate and placing it in front of the practically salivating dog. He finishes his meal in record time, which doesn’t surprise you considering how thin he is. You just pray he doesn’t throw up after eating so quickly.
You figure the next logical step is to clean him up. He’s surely had baths before, but considering how skittish he is, you’re worried as to how he’ll react to it with you.
“Alright, pretty puppy,” You start, always making sure to keep your voice low and your tone calm. “You’re beautiful and so sweet… but you’re absolutely disgusting. So please don’t bite me for what’s about to happen.”
With a heavy sigh and trying to relieve some of your nerves, you make your way into the bathroom and start the water. While rummaging through your cabinets to find any soaps that you think would be suitable for a dog, your thoughts are entirely consumed with hoping/praying the dog won’t bite you.
He hasn’t shown any signs of aggression yet, but you’ve only known this dog for an hour or two tops. It’s hard to say how he’ll feel about this, and considering his massive size, you really really hope he’ll be okay with it.
In the deepest pits of your bathroom, you find some shampoo an old boyfriend left behind. Selfishly not wanting to use your own moderately expensive hair products, you decide this’ll do fine.
You turn away from the cabinet to find that the dog had followed you and is now sitting in the doorway, seemingly watching your every move.
“Oh, god,” You mutter nervously, once again noticing the substantial size of him. You figure if he stood up on his hind legs, he could easily touch the top of the doorframe. “Please don’t bite me…”
The dog huffs and looks up to the ceiling in a way that could almost be mistaken for an eye roll.
You put your hands under the faucet to check the water temperature and make a few adjustments. Once the water feels right, you look back to the dog (who’s still looking at you) and pat your hip in a gesture for him to come over. “Okay, c’mere, pup. Time to get you clean.”
To your great surprise, the dog slowly stands and makes his way over. He walks past you and steps directly over the short walls of the tub, quiet grumbling sounds escaping his mouth as he seats himself in the center of the bath.
In a mild state of shock at how easy that was, you stare at the dog for a few moments. He stares back, looking seemingly annoyed and just ready to get this over with.
“Well… thanks for making it simple.” You muse quietly, grabbing the shower head and readying yourself to wet the dog’s fur. You take it slow, spraying him from the bottom up in order to help him get used to the sensation.
The bath takes longer than expected. His fur is much more dense than it looks at first glance, and thus takes a while to fully wet and shampoo. It takes a while and a lot of gentle scrubbing to remove all of the dirt and grime, but the dog is surprisingly patient throughout the whole process. There are even a few times you catch him closing his eyes and relaxing into your touch, but that ends once you try to clean his stomach.
After cleaning his chest and legs, you reach a hand towards the dog’s belly, and he stops you. His head snaps to face you, eyes looking deep into yours, his teeth slightly bared, he growls at you. It’s a quiet sound that emits from deep in his throat, and you definitely get the point.
“Okay, okay.” You try to placate, voice shaking lightly and quickly pulling your hands away from him. “Won’t touch your stomach—message received.”
With that, the dog quickly calms and relaxes himself once more, allowing you to finish rinsing the remaining soap off him. After the water is turned off, the dog sits quietly in the middle of the floor as you towel dry him.
In all honesty, Sirius felt a little guilty to scare you the way he did, but it needed to be done. Being given a bath is humiliating enough, and so he draws the line at you touching anywhere below his chest. Even if you do think he’s just a random dog.
Once the woman deems him dry enough, she leads him to the bedroom, muttering something about fixing the mats in his fur. Sirius waits patiently, seating himself in the middle of the floor as he watches her rummage through random drawers. The woman occasionally talks to herself (or to him, he isn’t sure), and Sirius gathers that she’d rather not use her own hairbrush on him.
Eventually, Sirius decides to take some advantage of the fact that he’s being perceived as “just a dog”. He stands from his place on the floor and makes himself comfortable on the bed, something the woman doesn’t seem to mind or even pay much attention to. Sirius isn’t sure whether or not it’s because he hasn’t had a proper bed in ages, but the woman’s mattress is probably the most incredible and comfortable thing he’s ever felt in his entire life.
A good sleep in a safe environment isn’t something Sirius has experienced in quite some time. He knows very well he shouldn’t be here, and he knows he probably shouldn’t even stick around long enough to spend the night. He barely even registers that he’d begun to doze off until he feels the mattress shift to accommodate the woman’s weight.
His eyes snap open just as she begins to softly run a brush through his fur, taking the time to gently detangle some of the more stubborn knots.
“I know you’re tired,” She coos quietly, Sirius’s eyes following her as she reaches behind her to grab some sort of spray bottle from her bedside table. Sirius startles slightly as she spritzes the coconut-scented liquid on a particularly difficult tangle of fur. “It’s okay, pretty.”
Sirius huffs, rolls his eyes, and lays his head back down on the mattress. He tells himself he’s too exhausted to bother with stopping her. He’s asleep before the woman is even halfway finished detangling his hair.
Sirius isn’t sure what time he wakes up, but he hears the woman snoring softly next to him and the room is shrouded in darkness. His muscles ache as he silently crawls out of bed, his stomach rumbling again.
The bedroom door is closed.
Sirius gives the woman one last long look (just to check that she’s actually asleep, of course) before shifting back into himself. As quietly as possible, Sirius slips out of the bedroom and makes his way to the kitchen.
Sirius quickly eats a few spoonfuls of leftovers he finds in the fridge, then rummages through the cabinets. Sirius doesn’t recognize most—if any—of the muggle snacks he sees in front of him, but he sees a pack a cookies and a box of something that’s labeled as nutrition bars and he stows them away in his bag.
He contemplates taking more, but is unable to do so. Not only because the woman was kind to him, but also because she doesn’t seem particularly wealthy and he isn’t sure how costly muggle food is.
Sirius head to the bathroom and looks himself in the mirror. He looks much more clean than the last time he’d seen himself (and perhaps smelling a bit more feminine than he’d typically prefer, but at least he’s clean). He’s not quite as thin as he was directly after Azkaban, but he’s certainly not a healthy weight either.
Even though he’s been on the run for a bit now, he finds himself surprised by how old he looks. He still isn’t used to seeing the “new” lines on his face or the flecks of gray in his beard. He looks a bit like his father, if his father were ever homeless and living off scraps.
Sirius sighs at the thought.
He finds a pair of scissors behind the mirror and cuts a few inches off his hair and beard. He briefly considers shoving the hair in his bag as to not disturb the woman, but then he imagines the confused and surprised look on her face as she finds a clump of hair in her trashcan.
Sirius smiles to himself and throws the hair in the trash.
Before disapperating, he contemplates the idea of leaving behind a note—something along the lines of “Thank you for your generosity, but for your own safety, please refrain from taking in anymore strays.”
But Sirius figures that would be too much. No need to frighten or confuse her anymore than he may have done already.
Sad to say that my NATM hyper fixation (posting and fic writing) has been replaced by my RP blog, I'm sure I'll pick it up again soon but for now my life is easier when writing with my mutuals
I'll write here and there, but for now, I'm having more fun with new things
Hope you guys aren't too disappointed! Think of it as a hiatus! I'll be back before you know it <3
An almost decade old hyper fixation has returned after a trip to the movies, and I have discovered a lackluster amount of x reader fics with my favorite character. So, Now You See Me Jack Wilderxreader fics will be incoming while I still ride this high. Probably do some Henleyxreader while I’m at it.
I also like Charlie and Bosco from the new movie, but might wait on those two for a lil bit since it just came out and I don’t wanna spoil things.
(Also, dw, Date Everything and Arcane have not left my mind just yet)
You know what anon i really like that moment so imma go into it
I talked about this before, but Ben has found a method to suppress his emotions for callum and the hurt he feels for this entire situation, and that's hostility and dehumanization; Ben has always been aggressive when he's upset and it's the reason we see him get his ass kicked and fall into these same old patterns over and over. So Ben is treating Callum with hostility and placing a sort of emotional blockade through that, only letting himself deal with him on a superficial level since any other level is one where Callum would have the advantage and could convince him he's wrong, something he desperately doesn't want to be (Callum is more emotionally intelligent than Ben and you cannot tell me that if Ben broke down crying Callum wouldn't swoop in and comfort him and then be able to gently nudge him in his own direction instead of Ben's stubborn trench made out of hurt and anger).
Ben wants to hate Callum. He wants Callum to be a "grass" and thus dismissable. If Callum is just another person he has to silence or another person who betrayed him, he is able to ignore the massive amount of hurt, betrayal, and self hatred he's currently feeling. This is how he approached Callum in the very beginning (telling him to leave, saying he couldn't love a grass, etc).
But Callum knows Ben better than that. He knows better than to come in angry because then Ben will have a wall to yell at and justify his anger. He instead goes for the classic Callum approach of begging Ben to understand what's going on and how's feeling, stressing the love he and Ben share and explicitly NOT being aggressive. Callum is never aggressive. It's one of the things Ben loves about him.
You can see Ben become more frustrated as the scene goes on, as Callum is trying to bypass the wall of hostility to communicate about the hurt Ben obviously doesn't want to feel. And so Ben starts to feel unjustified in his anger but still ANGRY, and I think the "OH STOP" moment is so perfect because it shows not only how sick Ben is of hearing how Callum feels and how his efforts to break through Ben's emotional barricade are kinda embarrassing, but how much conflict Ben is feeling with trying to cope with this massive betrayal. He has never experienced such a betrayal of trust before and so is at loss to explain all these terrible feelings, and now Callum comes in with his usual declarations of love because its so ANNOYING and its so much EASIER if Callum could be anyone else. But he can't.
And you can see Callum wear Ben down during their scene together where Callum proclaims his commitment to their relationship. Because Callum can always do that; Ben buys sappy love talk line and sinker. And so Ben's defenses crumble that much more as he finds himself with an impossible choice to make.
