Chapter 24 Dragon VS Baby
DRAGON VS BABY
“Whose bright idea was it to put wings on a dragon?” Ottis moaned, hugging the ground when Doc set him on the grassy lawn. “Ah, solid ground. How I’ve missed you!”
Doc snorted and shifted back into a man. “Just because you dislike flying, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to go without.”
He rummaged through Marcie’s wriggling blanket lump for his clothes.
Ottis’ heart skipped. Don’t look.
Doc was naked right now. Most importantly, his face was uncovered.
Ottis couldn’t help remembering the flash of mottled scar tissue, the deep ridges and whorls like the aerial view of a craggy canyon.
“Hey, give that back,” Doc rumbled.
“Wa buh goo,” Marcie said.
Doc huffed. “C’mon, give it. That’s mine.”
Ottis stiffened. Was Marcie refusing to release Doc’s clothes? Worse, were her little fists clenched around Doc’s mask? “Marcie, hon, give it back to the nice man,” Ottis groaned into the grass. “You don’t want to get into trouble, do you?”
Some tiny thuds, like Marcie was kicking her feet.
Doc huffed quietly. “Apparently, my mask is worth getting into trouble for.”
“Oh gods.” Ottis cringed. “Of all the things she could steal... Here, let me.” He shielded his eyes with one hand and reached over with the other, trying to wriggle free the scrap of fabric.
Apparently, Marcie thought they were playing. She giggled and tugged harder on the mask’s fragile ear loop; Ottis had to release it so it wouldn’t snap.
“Hon,” he groaned, fumbling for a stuffed animal to distract her. Marcie ignored the fluffy duck’s squeaking, instead waving around Doc’s mask.
“This isn’t your fault,” Doc said with a small laugh. “Don’t worry. I’ll have Hijinks bring a spare.”
It was as though the butler had been waiting by the door for this moment. He burst out of the mansion and sprinted over, waving two things in the air. “Probe Master of the Butts and the Carts! Oh, Probe Master! I have gotten you a new face condom.”
With his hand still shielding his eyes, Ottis turned to look.
Hijinks held two different masks in the air. The first was a scrap of see-through lace shaped like a mask, and the other was made of opaque fabric, with words printed across the front of it.
“Did you make that out of a... bra?” Ottis blurted.
Hijinks beamed. “Yes! Lace masks are all the rage these days. Movie princesses wear them.”
Doc sighed deeply. “I could just use a shirt.”
In Ottis’ limited field of vision, he saw Doc’s hands picking up the other pieces of his outfit, his bare feet stepping into his pants.
“Ah, but now your shirt is on your chest,” Hijinks said slyly.
Doc’s hand came back down, trying to retrieve his mask from Marcie.
Marcie held on tight, smiling gummily.
Marcie: 1, Doc: 0.
Grass rustled, accompanied by heavy footsteps. Hijinks gave a scandalized gasp. “You took both!”
When Doc spoke again, his voice was slightly muffled, the way it did when he was wearing a mask. “How about this?”
Ottis lowered the hand shielding his eyes.
Doc was wearing... what looked like the lacy red cup of a bra, stretched over a second mask. Across the second mask was a sentence printed in bold.
Come closer, and we can touch the tips of our wriggly love tentacles.
Ottis couldn’t help it. He burst out giggling. “L-love tentacles?”
Doc sighed. “I don’t want to know. I couldn’t turn the mask inside-out, because there’s an even worse line in there.”
“What is it?” Ottis perked up.
“You really want to know?” Doc squinted.
“Um, yes!”
“Well, give me a second.”
Doc began fiddling with his two masks; Ottis checked on Marcie. “Hey, hon. What are you doing with your stolen mask?”
She had one corner stuffed in her mouth, chewing and drooling all over it.
Ottis sighed. “I hope you don’t want your mask back right now. It’s covered in drool.”
“I’m fine with drool.” Doc laughed, low and rich. Ottis’ spine tingled.
Then a mask dangled in front of Ottis’ face, the opaque one. True to Doc’s word, there was a pickup line printed on the inside, an even longer one.
Our love rods should wrap around each other and do the thrusting snake dance. They will kiss each other on the tip and when the dance is over, they will shoot sperm confetti everywhere. Like wedding rice.
Ottis stared in horror. “What.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Doc huffed, reaching down to take the mask back.
Ottis couldn’t help it. He looked up.
Doc was still wearing the lacy red mask. It allowed a glimpse of his face, showing Ottis that same flash of mottled, craggy scar tissue, half-hidden under swirls of embroidered flowers. Doc froze.
“Wow, you’re pretty like that. Wearing a bra, I mean,” Ottis said, and cringed. “I mean, wearing a bra on your face. No, that doesn’t sound any better. But you’re still pretty.”
Doc gaped. Mortified, Ottis buried his face in his hands, but that didn’t feel like enough. Instead, he threw himself onto the grass and rolled around, hoping to distract Doc from the things that fell out of his mouth. “Why, oh why does my mouth do this to me?”
“Ottis, sweetheart,” Doc said after a pause. “I don’t mind what you said.”
“Really?” Ottis stopped next to Marcie, who grabbed his hair and patted his face. “But I... I also accidentally looked at your face! I didn’t mean to!”
Doc drew a slow breath. Then he came closer, grass rustling under his feet.
He crouched in front of Ottis and caught his chin, tipping his face up with those warm, calloused fingers. “Look at me.”
His heart was thumping; both of theirs were. Carefully, Ottis lowered his hands from his face.
Doc was still wearing the lace mask, and only that mask. Now that Ottis was looking closer, he saw the shadows of unevenly healed skin, the vicious ropes of scars pushing against lace. Doc’s lips were pressed tightly together, but what stood out most was the look in his eyes.
It wasn’t a complete reveal, but it was very close, and Doc’s heart was pounding.
“Thank you,” Ottis murmured, gently cupping Doc’s cheeks through the mask. “This gives a whole new meaning to ‘lace kink’.”
Doc snorted, his mouth pulling into a tiny smile—the first that Ottis had seen. His heart leaped.
“Really?” Doc said.
“Face kink, lace kink, it’s all the same in this case,” Ottis said, gently smoothing his thumbs over the covered bumpy skin. He touched the other parts of Doc’s face too, the unblemished skin, and the parts with lighter scarring. “I think you look fine.”
Doc finally relaxed, his shoulders going loose. His eyes crinkled. “Does that mean you don’t want me wearing the pickup line mask?”
“You can wear anything you want,” Ottis said solemnly. “But you might get omegas flocking to you with those pickup lines. Actually, maybe not.”
Doc laughed. Ottis couldn’t stop staring. This was what Doc looked like, every time he had laughed with Ottis. He was amazing.
“You’re still looking?” Doc murmured, almost shy.
“Well, yeah. You haven’t scared me off.”
Another grin. Doc scooped Ottis into his arms, falling slowly onto the grass so they landed together with a small thump.
To Ottis’ delight, Marcie crawled over, yanking out pieces of grass. She dropped them on Doc’s face and ripped up more grass, holding some out to him.
“She’s going to destroy your lawn,” Ottis groaned.
“She’s too small to,” Doc said, accepting Marcie’s grassy gift.
“Famous last words.”
“Would you like to sleep out here tonight?” Doc said. “Under the stars. Granted, we won’t see many because of the city’s light pollution.”
Ottis flopped onto his back. Between Marcie dropping pieces of grass on his face, he spotted some stars through the wispy clouds. “I don’t mind. I used to do this with my pack, except there aren’t many great stargazing spots in the forest. Too many trees.”
Large fingers slipped between his own, holding his hand. “Yeah? Any good memories?”
Ottis snuggled closer to his alpha. They were both looking at the sky, but occasionally, Doc would turn and peek at him instead. “Some good memories with my pack. But you know, this might be my best memory yet.”
Doc grinned. Ottis couldn’t get enough of that smile.
Ottis woke to bits of something raining down on his face.
It smelled like the outdoors. It was grainy, too.
Dirt.
He shook it off, cracking his eyes open.
Fingers of sunlight reached across the sky, chasing away the velvety blues. When he turned his head, he found Doc next to him, sound asleep, the lace mask still covering half his face.
Another sound caught his attention. It sounded like paws scratching at earth, but... tiny paws.
Ottis looked the other way and caught a spray of dirt to his face. He gagged, spitting it out and sitting up. “Marcie?”
Then he saw the landscape around him.
On any other day, Doc’s back lawn was a picture-perfect place, every blade of grass cut to the exact same height, all of it an even shade of green.
But not today.
Today, Doc’s lawn was pockmarked with little holes everywhere.
Everywhere.
Ottis gaped at the mounds of earth surrounding him, some piled high, some scattered between blades of grass. When he reached out with his hearing, he found only one creature making that scratching sound.
“Hon?” he squeaked.
Marcie poked her furry head out of the nearest hole, covered in dirt.
“Oh gods,” Ottis whispered, his stomach twisting.
She barked at him and wriggled her furry little body. Then she dove back into her hole and kept on digging.
Ottis opened and closed his mouth. He stared at the holes. There were... maybe sixty of them.
How had he slept through Marcie digging them all? How was she still going?
... He had to patch them up. Was there enough time to fix the damage before Doc woke up?
The thought alone made him sag with exhaustion. “Oh, gods.”
“What’s wrong?” Doc slurred behind him.
Ottis squeaked. “Nothing! Go back to sleep!”
Doc turned onto his side, cracking his eyes open. “You sound panicked. Is there a threat?”
Then he inhaled deeply and sat up, blinking himself awake.
“Oh gods,” Ottis yelped, waving to try and cover Doc’s eyes. “Don’t look!”