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As far as abandoned Blackwatch safehouses go, McCree’s pretty sure he’s picked the best of them all. It’s quiet, it’s isolated, and there’s no better view out the back window than the Smokies in autumn. Every morning, he gets to sit out on the front porch in a rocking chair just too small for his big frame and sip his coffee while he watches the sun rise through the mist that hangs over the mountains.
Best of all, he doesn’t have to deal with a single person if he doesn’t want to.
Doesn’t mean he doesn’t deal with the things they leave behind. There’s a narrow mountain road that winds its way around the front part of the property, and even as far back as the house is set, he still finds himself picking up more litter flung from the windows of moving cars shamefully often. McCree doesn’t understand what makes people driving through beautiful country want to ruin its untouched nature as they pass through, but he’s sure to pick it up whenever he hauls the trash and recycling bins up to the road every week. If even the omnics didn’t manage to destroy this place, he’s sure as hell gonna do his part to not let humans do it, either.
He’s standing next to the open passenger door of the beat-up pickup truck that came with the place, trying to fit six overstuffed bags of groceries on his arms, when he abruptly hears some snuffling and the crunching of gravel from behind him. The groceries scatter on the ground as he drops them, whirling and dropping a hand to his holster in one smooth motion, not sure if it’s an overly-friendly neighbor or an assassin.
It’s neither.
It’s...a dog, trotting happily up to him, tongue out and flopping to the side. Its tail wags in time with the impacts of its paws on the gravel.
McCree’s seen dogs out here before, the isolated woods popular for dumping hunting dogs that never showed any talent, but this one’s got a blocky head and stocky body instead of the long, lean limbs of the hounds he’s come across before. Another poor unwanted thing, left to fend for itself. “Hey there,” he says cautiously, but the dog approaches politely, briefly sniffs the shrink-wrapped package of sausages by the toe of his boot and then dances endearingly in front of him.
He’s never been around dogs very much, other than the working ones that both Deadlock and Blackwatch kept for security purposes, but this one’s loads friendlier than that bunch. He sticks out a hand, ready to snap it back as soon as the dog shows any indication that
it
might snap, but it shuts its eyes and tucks the top of its head underneath his hand, leaning into McCree’s awkward pats as its body wiggles even harder.
McCree sighs. “Alright, let me get these put away and then we’ll getcha somewhere safe. Sound good?”
The dog dutifully snuffles each item McCree picks off the ground to put back in the canvas bags. “Wait here,” he reminds the dog again before he shuts the front door behind him.
He unloads the groceries in record time, shoving the cold stuff into the fridge and leaving the rest on the counter to put away later. He’s afraid if he takes too long, the dog might wander off where he can’t find it, and no animal deserves to get lost in those woods.
To his relief, when he emerges from the house, the dog still sits patiently next to the truck. From here, he can see the skin of its abdomen drooping pitifully low. Answers that, then.
“Come on, li’l miss, let’s get you to animal control,” he says, opening the passenger door. Thankfully, she seems to know what to do and hops up under his own power rather than making him pick her up. By the time he makes it around to the driver’s side of the vehicle, she’s laying down across most of the bench seat, leaving him only just enough room to sit in front of the wheel.
“You’re lucky you’re cute,” he grumbles, but he has to admit the weight of her head against his leg as he drives is sorta comforting after rattling around in that whole house by his lonesome for two years.
He knows his way to animal control by now, after the first few times he had to drop off abandoned dogs. It’s a short enough trip, as rural as the area is — but when he pulls up in front of the building, he finds the parking lot tellingly empty. “Aw, hell,” he says, squinting to make out the hours printed on the door. Open 9-5 daily, every day but Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Aw,
hell
. That’s why the grocery store was so busy.
The first, second, and third vet offices he drives by are similarly closed. The fourth has a big sign out front saying EMERGENCY and a bunch of cars in the lot, so he parks and turns to the dog. “I’ll be back with a leash, alright?” He pets her head again, gently, and she braces her back legs against the seat to push further into his hand.
McCree makes the mistake of looking back at the truck before he opens the door to the reception area, and sees her chunky little head staring mournfully through the window at him. Jesus. Did he look that hangdog when Reyes picked him up, too?
Inside, the receptionist is awful kind about walking him through his options. “If you leave your phone number with us, we can take a picture of her and give it to animal control. Technically they don’t need to wait out their stray hold at the shelter, so they can call to let you know if her family arrives or if her stray hold expires and you can keep her. It’s—”
“Oh, I don’t want her,” McCree says, then cringes at how it sounds. “I mean, she’s nice and all, but I can’t exactly afford a dog right now.”
“You probably can leave her here with us, if you need to. I’ll just have to check if we have the cage space, and then we’ll have someone from animal control pick her up tomorrow when they open again.”
It would probably be better for her to stay here, get fixed up a bit — her coat looks awfully patchy, and she’s in desperate need of a nail trim. But something inside McCree twists at the thought of a perfectly nice dog who didn’t do anything wrong sitting in a cage on Thanksgiving while he heads home to an empty house, and he finds himself saying, “I guess she can stay with me til they find her owner.”
The receptionist smiles knowingly at him. “Let me see if we have anything to help tide you both over.”
It isn’t until the receptionist’s handing him the deeply discounted bill and a paper listing resources for low-income pet owners, after having dug up an old vaccination voucher, treated the dog for the fleas and ticks all over her, and set him up with a bag of dog food, a leash, and a collar, that McCree realizes she probably misunderstood his meaning earlier.
Well. He
really
can’t afford to have a dog tagging along, in case someone stumbles across the safehouse and he needs to beat feet to another one, but he supposes he isn’t terribly flush with cash after living for so long off his savings, either. He folds both papers and slips them into the pocket of his flannel to look over later.
For all that they’ve spent less than an hour on the road between his house and the vet’s office, the dog pulls him along on the back of the leash and leads him to his own truck as if he might’ve forgotten which one it was. “Think we both need some dinner, how’s that sound?”
It’s only after they’ve both eaten their dinner and he’s let her lick the plate to ensure that all traces of the omelette he made are cleaned off that McCree realizes how far gone he is. He looks down to where she’s wriggled across the worn-out couch to sleep with her head resting on his leg and sighs, stroking her ears.
“Guess we’ll see if anyone comes looking for you and take it from there,” he murmurs. She whuffs out a sigh of her own in response.
She’s still there three days later when her stray hold expires. She’s still there eight months later when McCree answers a comm he never thought would ring again, with Winston on the other end offering a second chance.
He looks over at the patch of sunlight under the back window, where his dog’s laid out on her side, snorting occasionally in her sleep. “Alright if I bring a friend?”