He charged at the glass, and as soon as he burst through it, sending a rain of shards to the ground, he spread his wings and beat the air with them to gain height.
The ground below erupted in screams, but with two flaps of his wings he was gone, ducking between the thick trees where he couldn’t be spotted. Still in the air, he saw bright lights blinking on the road to the clubhouse. Help was coming at last.
With his arms protectively closed around Gray, he landed in untouched snow. Rev shrieked as he rolled off, unable to hold on to Jake’s back any longer, but the moment he was on the ground, he rose to his feet, pulling his son out of Jake’s arms.
“Come on, Gray, come on. Don’t you bleed out on your old man!”
He spared Jake one more glance. “I will never forget this, Jake.”
Jake exhaled and nudged Rev to go with Gray, because speaking wasn’t possible anymore. He was becoming lethargic already, his mind dazed and blurry with images from his past. The time when he became a prospect, accepted to be a part of something greater than himself, the time when Gray took him under his wing to train, even though Jake hadn’t even been patched in yet.
And then there was the day he met Vars.
His path as a prospect led him to that moment when he had no idea he’d met the love of his life, a man who would show him what he really needed and give it to him in spades. A man whose soft beard made falling asleep so easy, and whose strong arms could make Jake feel at home wherever they went.
Jake hated that he would be a disappointment to the one man who wanted everything Jake was willing to give.
Snow crunched so loudly Jake could hear it over the alarming sirens of the emergency services, and when he looked back, Vars watched him from between the thick evergreen bushes.
Jake couldn’t speak anymore, couldn’t explain or apologize. Couldn’t say ‘I had to!’. So instead, he let out a whine communicating all the pain in his heart. His home was burning down, and so was his heart.
He watched Vars pull through the barrier of plants and approach him step by step. His jaw was set, and he said nothing to scold Jake for making the choice he had, but the sheer pain in his eyes was already slicing Jake’s chest open.
They stared at one another in silence, just the two of them beyond the chaos of death and fire. It was Vars who broke the silence first, opening his arms to welcome Jake back, even in this monstrous form.
“Come here.”
It was all he needed to say for Jake to rush over on all fours so that he could press his head against Vars’s. He hated with all his heart that this would be Vars’s last memory of him. A hideous monster who disobeyed the word of his master. But what else could Jake have done when Gray was dying?
He whimpered again, fearing there wasn’t much time left for him with Vars. If he got locked inside of Azog forever, he wanted to hold the memory of Vars close, so that he could always dream of it.
Vars squeezed his arms around Jake’s head and pulled it close to his chest, ear to his rib cage so Jake could hear every hurried beat of Vars’s heart. It was such a steady, wonderful rhythm, and even though Jake could no longer tell Vars how much he appreciated his care, how thankful he was for those few weeks they’d had together, deep down he knew Vars understood.
“The ambulance is here. They can still save him. It was brave of you,” Vars said softly, but there was a strain to his voice that made Jake deeply sorrowful despite succeeding at saving his friends.
Jake hadn’t known before that he could cry in this form, but a sob tore out of his throat, raspy and strange, followed by black tears staining Vars’s clothes. He nuzzled that beloved chest, already struggling to remember their time together, his mind getting muddled and fuzzy. His whole being was slowly but surely melting away, like a stick of butter in blood soup. He tried to grab Vars’s hand with his paw as gently as he could, and guided it to his collar.
Would Vars understand he still owned Jake? That he should keep Azog if he couldn’t have Jake? The pathetic noise coming out of his mouth sounded nothing like what he wanted to communicate.
The handsome man blinked repeatedly, but his eyes were welling up. His serious face, with his beard still reddish from blood, twisted, and tears spilled down his cheeks. He didn’t bother to hide them. Jake had known him—he realized that much—but it was all dispersing in the darkness of Azog’s mind.