SURPRISE POST OF DOLLFACE STORY

I watched him working magic with the tools and his slight little hands, the unnatural green eyes like little lasers of concentration. The world went away for Glow when he was doing his thing. There was nothing but him and the gears.
I loved him.
I loved him with that horrible, awful, sick, twisting-in-your-gut kind of love. That kind of love that was a rose when it was sunny and all thornbush when it went cold. And right now we were in winter.
I hated loving him. I loved him and I knew there wasn't any going back, that even if he looked me in the eye and said he hated me and always had and walked out right in front of me I wouldn't stop loving him. I couldn't. And I hated not having control over how I felt like that. I almost wanted to hate him for taking that away from me.
"Sil?"
"What."
"You're doing that creepy thing you do where you stare at nothing like a serial killer and scare our customers away."
"Our kind of customers don't /get/ scared away by that, Julian."
"Well you're scaring the shit out of me, so please stop?"
I wanted to hold him and tell him how sorry I was about all the times I vacked everything up again. I wanted to tell him I was bad for him and he should just go away again. I wanted to tell him to go be safe again. But I couldn't do any of that because I was too selfish and I was scared that if I did he'd listen this time.
"Sil?"
"Go get me a beer, will you?"
Julian made a face and sauntered off, waggling his little ass like he did. There was a time when I would have taken that alone as invitation and followed him and done something about it.
I couldn't hardly see anything about Glow when he wore his black overalls. That was torturous and a good thing at the same time. If I could see him I'd probably be saying stupid things all the time instead of just most of it.
The bell rang while Julian was off and I looked up.
"Yeah?"
"Uhhh..." Some kid was standing in front of me, holding something wrapped up and looking like she wasn't supposed to be here and knew she wasn't supposed to be here. I narrowed my eyes. She had short brown hair that hung in her eyes a bit and was dressed in baggy, loose clothes. Boys' clothes. She was wearing a pair of sneakers that looked like they had traveled for miles. The whites of her eyes were grey, but not as dark as mine--mine were almost black. I'd lived in lower levels most my life. She lived in the middle-class regions.
She looked nervous, which was a good thing. Mascs and fems weren't well-liked in my area. Partially because of the gang, mostly because of shitforbrains genderists that thought they had a right to tell other people how to live when there was nothing wrong with how they dressed and acted other than it was different than what most people did.
You didn't see mascs getting vanished off the street and turning up raped and dead, or fems turning up just dead, nearly as often as you used to since Duke and us had come to town in this level. But it still happened, and it was best for this kid to be on her guard.
"You need something?" I asked, nodding my head at the long, narrow something she held in her arms, some kind of dirty tattered bathtowl wrapped around it.
"Um. Well, I...I heard you do all kinds of mechanics?"
"Some kinds," I corrected.
"Um, right. More than one, I mean. Do you do...prosthetics? Like, animal prosthetics?"
"Uh...no," I said slowly, raising an eyebrow. "They do have professionals for that, you know." And I am obviously not one of them. Vack off, kid.
"Yeah, but, they're...really expensive," she mumbled. I could barely hear her.
"Speak up, kid."
"They're really expens--"
"I heard you. Look, kid, I don't do prosthetics and I definitely don't do animal prosthetics. Sucks if you're hard for money, but a lot of us are nowadays. Save up and go to a professional." Nice and final. Now tie it off, turn away--
"Can you just--"
"No." Walk into the back---
"I just need someone to replace the part," she said quickly, all in one mouthful. "It's just...it's a really expensive part, and...can you just look at it? Please? I'll pay you for it."
I turned back and saw she'd unwrapped the towel. At first I didn't recognize what it was.
"...Is that a prosthetic raptor leg?" I asked, in something like disbelief. "You have a one-legged raptor?"
"Yeah," she mumbled. I guess my face made her think I needed more of an explanation, because she quickly added, again all in one mouthful: "I got him from a breeder, one of the ones who breeds Fancy raptors, but he was born with one leg and I heard she didn't want him and couldn't sell him and was just going to dump him, so I..." Apparently that was explanation enough. Instead of a period she ended the sentence with a shrug.
She still hadn't looked me in the eye. Not this whole time. Not really in the eye, just glancing at my face now and then, like she was making sure I was actually paying attention.
"Sssooooo yooou...don't have faith in our city's animal shelter system?" I asked, trying to pick up where she left off. She looked confused.
"Huh?"
"You didn't want to let the breeder dump him?"
She blinked at me, then her eyes went dark.
"Out of her car. Down an open Bowel shaft.
"
"No shit?" I asked, a little stunned. I heard about people doin' shit like drowning kittens in the old days, but I didn't think they still did it nowadays. And not just because animals could get lawyers.
"Yeah." Her voice was heavy, like she'd like to throw the breeder down that shaft. I didn't blame her a whole lot. Someone who takes the time to raise an animal, then commits to arranging for that animal to have babies and then means to kill one of them for no real good reason doesn't really deserve a lot of respect in my book.
And when you own an animal that you love and you hear about someone doing something like that, you tend to wonder, "what if that'd been my girl?"
I glanced at Dewey sleeping in the corner. She'd just had a full breakfast and always needed to sleep it off or she got an upset stomach. The vet called it a tender belly. Someone coulda dumped my girl down a shaft right when she was born and I never would've known she'd been alive. That was some painful thinking. I didn't like thinking about that.
That almost had been this kid's girl. Or boy. Whichever it was.
"So you have a one-legged raptor," I said slowly.
"Yeah. He can get around on one leg for a little while, I mean I worked with him when he was younger to build up the muscle, and he can keep his balance, but he just can't keep it up. He needs the prosthetic."
I looked at it. It looked expensive.
"Looks pretty expensive."
"It was...yeah."
"Couple hundred?"
"Little over a thousand."
"Damn." My eyes got kind of wide. Now, see, some people might think that's too much to spend on one little deinonychus. I'm not one of them. If someone loves their pet enough to put down over a thousand dollars just to help it get around the house, they've got a good mark in my book.
I rubbed my head, roughing up my hair a bit while I looked at the leg. I couldn't see it proper without cracking it open and seeing the guts. But I didn't think I wanted to take the kid's money just for that, either.
I let out a long sigh.
"Alright. Take it back with me and I'll look at it." She started fishing around in her pocket.
"How much do you--"
"Keep your money, kid, I'm not gonna take it for just lookin' at the thing."
"Oh. Uh, great. Thanks." She sounded pretty happy about that. She was grinning. I pushed the curtain aside that lead to the back room, the tool room.
"Yeah. No problem. ...What's your name?"
"Sonny. You?"
"Huh?"
"What's your name?"
"...Sil."
"Thanks for helping me out."
"Yeah, don't mention it. Ever. To anyone. Even looking at prosthetics without a license isn't on the right side of legal, got it?"
"Yeah. I know."
"You could probably even get arrested too, y'know."
"Yeah. I know."
"Love your raptor, huh?"
She went pretty quiet as I pulled the curtain back behind us.
"...He's kind of my only friend." She sounded embarassed, putting it like that. I chuckled a little.
"Yeah. I've been there."

I used the back room for keeping tools and other random shit. It was connected to the kitchen, which led to the stairs that went up to the apartment. It was also connected to the garage. I could see Sonny behind me, peeking in as we passed. I wondered if she saw Glow. I wondered if she was seeing my very nice car that was obviously not bought on a mechanic's salary, even if that mechanic ran the garage.
"Put it here," I said, pointing at my workbench. She looked at it. I looked at it.
I cleared off enough space for her to actually put the thing down.