Chapter Ten

Rahul saw Tucker frown, but his posture was indicating confusion rather than displeasure.Leif, meanwhile, moved across the couch to sit next to him, grabbing his hand in his.

For his own part, Rahul felt a sudden thrill as several pieces of information came together.

"We may not have read through them all, yet," Rahul interjected. "But I"ll bet I can guess. It"s been over a year, but some of the documents I"ve been looking over are just a little different than before. Just a few sentences here and there that aren"t redacted anymore. You did that, too?"

Fang nodded. "Last weekend. I changed the papers out with the original versions so that Johnson could have the full story."

"What full story?" Tucker barked, then sighed, visibly trying to relax. "Sorry, I"m sorry. Everyone"s starting to smell tense, and I don"t like it."

Alyssa stood up and set her hands softly on either of Fang"s shoulders, but didn"t say anything, just slowly and insistently pulled her back against herself.

He noticed Leif fighting against giggles, most probably from the sight of Alyssa"s ponderous breasts resting on the top of the director"s head, then moved a hand to catch Fang"s eye.He nodded his head towards Alyssa, raising an eyebrow questioningly. Fang nodded, giving him permission to talk.

"Puppy, you remember the final attempt to bring Germaine in, right?"

"Yeah. Been kind of reliving it the last week or so."

Rahul nodded his head, then continued calmly. "And you remember that you found Germaine up against a far ward, and you were waiting for Maxim to arrive with his sleep song and warding cuffs? Or for Deimos and Angie?"

"Except that they never showed up."

"They didn"t show because they"d been reassigned to new positions."

"Wait, what? Weren"t you in charge of operations?"

"Subordinate only to Director Wu. But I was probably more than a bit distracted with following you on a drone camera, especially once you engaged and began hounding him into the right position. And that"s what happened, isn"t it, Fang. You gave orders behind my back to the other three operatives on site, so that they were too far away to respond in time."

"I did. I called them off."

Rahul ran his hands together gleefully, his satisfaction momentarily overriding the feeling of betrayal. "I reread the after-action summary. Tucker and I were understandably distracted last time from handling the fallout, but there were hints that Deimos and Angie and Maxim had moved positions. The different times they talked about. But the full information would have been in the individual after-action reports that we requested yesterday. I"m betting if I read them now, I"d see that each of the agents would have received a private communication from you to redeploy. Or if I just read your own report, yes?"

"Yes."

"Why, Director?" Tucker asked, sounding a bit heartbroken.

Fang lifted her chin, which had an unfortunate positioning effect. "I"m sorry, Johnson, I—"

Leif"s laughter interrupted the conversation. "I"m sorry, I"m so sorry! But Alyssa"s boobs, they"re…"

"Mister Becken! This is an incredibly serious matter—"

Alyssa leaned forward, her breasts sliding down to nearly cover Fang"s eyes. "Does it have to be? Should it be? Fang, dear. You"ve been drinking. Maybe this should wait until everyone"s sober? I don"t want anyone to say or do something they"ll regret in the morning."

Fang crossed her arms stiffly, her cheeks reddening, but didn"t make a move. Rahul guessed that she knew exactly how ridiculous she looked, but there probably wasn"t a graceful way to brush your girlfriend"s ample chest out of your face as if they were mere bangs. Eventually, Fang"s posture relaxed.

"Thank you, but no. I need to say it, it"s been eating away at me for two years. Detective Johnson... Tucker. And you, too, Rahul."

Tucker stood up from the couch, slightly crouched as if he were getting ready to shift.Rahul did a quick read of Tucker"s body language, and noticed Leif doing the same.He wasn"t worried about him becoming violent, definitely not Tucker, but if he started crying, or shifted into a beagle and ran off, he wanted to be ready with a hug.

Fang moved forward "I did you both wrong. I—"

"I don"t care," Tucker said.

Fang stiffened, biting back her words, then dropped her head a fraction.

"Sorry, sorry. I mean, it ain"t an issue. I trust you now, just like I"ve always trusted you all these years," Tucker continued. "Of course I want to hear the reasons behind it, but if you went behind Rahul"s back, you wouldn"t have done it without a damn good reason. Why do you think he"s grinning and sitting on the edge of the couch?"

"Pup"s right. I am dying to hear the full story, though."

"You do have a reason, right ma"am?"

"Y-yes.Of course."

"Well, there we are, then," Tucker said, nodding decisively and putting his hands on his hips, then ambled his way to sit next to Rahul, dragging Leif with him. Leif gave Tucker a fierce hug, then settled into a comfortable grouping."Alright, we"re listening."

Alyssa guided Fang back to her own seat, sitting behind her again and rocking her back and forth.

"Story time, yay!" Leif said brightly, at the same time that Alyssa said something similar.

Fang closed her mouth, looked at Leif, then addressed Tucker. "Yours does that, too?"

Tucker nodded while Leif and Alyssa shared a laugh and a thumbs up. "I reckon it"s a meme thing we"re too old to understand."

Fang rolled her eyes. "It"s a very short story. Rahul and I were both at Operations, monitoring the events through comms and a pair of drones. When the mission reached the point where Tucker was chasing Germaine towards Julia"s trap ward, my ESP went haywire. It was a sick feeling, a loud static in my head that grew rapidly worse by the second. I considered a couple dozen different actions, including pulling the plug on the entire mission, but each idea made the static worse until I considered comms.

"The ESP noise, if you want to think of it that way, it quieted at that point. I trusted my instinct and gave the other three field operatives their orders, moving their positions. Tucker didn"t have comms, so I couldn"t reach him. I was still fine tuning it, trying to find ways to still help Tucker, when he caught up to Germaine."

"And then the hidden explosions went off," Rahul finished. "But why didn"t you tell anyone?"

"I did. I told Executive Director Clairmont, and he ordered me not to say anything to either of you. Then there were all the debriefings, and then all the shit that fell on our heads, if you remember. By the time the dust settled, you were already gone, Rahul." Fang regained her poise, but Rahul could tell it was mostly fake, which was kind of unnerving to see in someone he generally considered unshakable. "I wanted to tell you after, Tucker, but I still had my orders. At the time, I didn"t see what it would change, and by the time I realized my error…"

As Fang trailed off, Leif began running his fingers through Tucker"s hair. Their boyfriend looked up at her, speaking quietly. "You know, I spent a lot of time blaming myself for everything that happened. Told myself that I was too slow, that I wasn"t clever enough, that I was too gullible to be a detective. I wasn"t happy, and not being able to reconcile with my shifter side left me pretty confused. It led to outbursts, and to Rahul and I breaking up. But…"

Tucker looked to Rahul first, then over at Leif, reaching up to hold the hand that he was using to pet him.

"The other three agents were injured, I remember. Did you go back and check where they were supposed to be stationed?"

"I did."

"And?"

"The explosions were buried either close to where they would have been, or along the path from there to where you"d wrangled Germaine."

Tucker nodded. "So I reckon your redeployment saved their lives. Yeah? You think so too, babe?"

"Abso-fucking-lutely, pup. Just the kind of performance I would expect from the director when she"s in the field."

"...thanks," Fang said, a little huskily. Alyssa made a faint cheering sound, accompanied by grabbing Fang"s hands and waving them limply in the air.

"So!" Rahul slapped his hands to his knees. "Now that that"s out of the way, let"s—"

"Almost," Tucker said, then began taking his shirt off. "Still one more thing to do, I think."

Tossing his shirt aside, Tucker stood up and started working at the front of his jeans. Rahul heard Alyssa giggle, and saw her move Fang"s hands so that they were covering her own eyes.

"As much as the rest of us love to see your ass, puppy," he joked, "I think these two fine ladies aren"t as interested in the sausage platter."

"Bringing out your shifter perspective, Tucker? Alright. And thank you. I know it"s impossible for you to disassemble when you"re shifted, so it lends veracity to what you"re saying now."

"I don"t lie, regardless." Tucker swept his jeans off, and Leif immediately reached out to grab both cheeks. Rahul couldn"t blame him, Tucker had a nice ass. "And Alyssa, just a heads up, I"m about to shift into my large weredog form, okay?"

Growling, there was the distinctive sound of bones cracking as Tucker made his change, getting decidedly larger and hairier. Leif pulled his hands back during the change, but returned them immediately after to grab a handful of canine pound cake, which earned him a few tail wags.

Tucker stepped towards Fang, kneeling his bulk down beside her. He kept his gaze averted, moving slowly, starting with just one hand placed on the couch. Rahul frowned, then reassessed, looking closely at Fang and Alyssa to see which one was probably smelling nervous and causing Tucker to behave delicately.

Still wrapped in her girlfriend"s arms, Fang finally reached out with a hand and awkwardly laid it on Tucker"s head.

"Hiii," he said, drawing the word out, then, still moving at a glacial pace, spread his arms out wide and began leaning in towards Fang.

"Um, hi. What are you doing?"

"I"m about to hug you," Tucker whispered, his tail wagging in fits.

"What? No. There"s absolutely no need for that."

"There is," Tucker insisted. It looked like Fang tried to sit further back, but with a dimpled grin on her face, Alyssa simply stretched out her torso, acting as a physical barrier to prevent her girlfriend"s retreat. Like one of those arcade claw machines, Tucker"s paws relentlessly closed in until he had her secured between his arms.

Fang sighed, then twirled her hands about, since Tucker had her arms completely pinned otherwise. "Yes. Okay. This is… fine. Is that all?"

Watching the slight swiveling of Tucker"s ears, then the lowering of the tail, Rahul shook his head. "Looks like he"s just getting started."

"I"m so sorry!" Tucker wailed, then began rocking Fang back and forth on the couch. "You"ve been feeling sad-guilty for two whole entire super long years, and you didn"t need to!"

Rahul kissed Leif on the side of his cheek, then stood up from the couch.

"Hitting the head!" he said over the sounds of Tucker whining and him telling Fang that everything is okay now, and she can cry if she wants to, and it"s okay to be sad sometimes.

When he returned a few minutes later, he found Tucker and Fang standing up, though Fang still had her arms pinned in the hug, while Alyssa was helping Leif to clear away the remainder of the drinks.

"Okay, fine, yes!" Fang said. "I super-duper promise that the next time I super-duper betray you or Rahul or Leif or Alyssa that I won"t bottle it up inside, and yes, I super-duper-mega promise to cry if I need to. Is that it? Is the hug over now?"

"Hmm…"

"Oh dear," Rahul said.

The slight ducking of the head, the frozen posture, the tail falling still before breaking forth into uncontrollable wagging…

"Rahul, I don"t like the sound of your tone."

Before Rahul could warn her of Tucker"s mischievous streak, Tucker was nodding his head.

"Yes! Just one more teeny-tiny thing. You did do a good thing, back then, but it was still a very hurting thing which made me and Roo also feel bad for a long time." Swiftly, Tucker repositioned his arms until he had the director carried in a cradle. "So you need to learn a lesson!"

Spinning on his paws, Tucker thundered through the open living room and dining room to the patio door. Standing on one leg, he used a foot paw to slide the door open, letting in an immediate wave of cold air. Fang"s swears and protests cut off abruptly a second later, replaced by a loud splash from their in-ground pool.

Alyssa gasped, bringing her hands up to her mouth, while Leif looked on wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

"Rahul, did he just—"

"Come one, let"s go get them a couple of towels from the linen closet."

A minute later, Leif and Alyssa were using towels to wipe away water, while Rahul concentrated on heating the air in the area with his fire magic. Tucker"s tail was wagging hard, while Fang seemed shocked into silence, shivering as she patted dry her arms.

"I guess that"s one way to sober up, right?" Leif asked, kneeling down to work on one of Tucker"s legs. Rahul saw him lick his lips as his towel passed over Tucker"s balls and sheath, but his eyes glanced over at Fang and Alyssa and he moved on quickly.

"I was already sober, but yes!" Tucker said, patting his own chest.

"Little beet? How are you feeling?"

Fang scowled, then looked over at where Leif was trying desperately to convince Tucker to resist the canine urge to shake himself dry.

"Acceptable. But it"s been a long day, and it"s about time we headed home."

As Fang turned towards him, whatever she"d been about say was interrupted by a distinctive classical tune playing from her phone back over on the coffee table, and Tucker"s began chiming a moment later. Dropping her towel and brushing past Rahul, Fang took long strides to the table to answer her phone.

"This is Director Wu," she said, her hair dripping water on the floor.

Tucker was already in his human form, naked as he read his own messages. He looked up at Fang, then back at Rahul and Leif.

"It"s Germaine. He"s hit the museum."