Snakeskin

by RoxyNychus

Tags: #dom:female #f/f #Mechsploitation #petplay #post_brainwashing #sub:female #brainwashing #hound/handler #scifi #trauma

A few hours in the life of a (mostly) rehabilitated hound, years after the end of the war.

Pallas woke before Boss. There was an acrid scent in the air, something industrial. Engine oil. The specialized kind used in mechs. Probably just a clean up crew out on the prairie, working on moving one of the old hulks left to rust there after the war. Damaged metal gave and the engine sprung a leak.

But for the first moment of waking, before the groggy haze cleared from her mind, she was back in the kennels. Waiting for the click of sharp heels on concrete.

Sweeping shaggy brown hair out of her face, Pallas opened her eyes. No concrete. No steel walls draped in shadow. No red eye of a security camera staring at her. Just her crate, with its plush blankets, and Boss’s living room outside. Weathered red chesterfield in front of an old TV. Amber lines of early morning sunlight, falling across watercolors of pre-war city life on the walls. Last night’s chicken pie still lingering in the stuffy air.

She curled up, hugging her plush tortoise to her chest with muscular, scar-laden arms. Good thing Boss wasn’t up. She wasn’t ready to leave her little shelter just yet. An itch ran up the back of her skull, along the scar where a neural implant used to be. She knew not to pick at it. They’d had to put a cone of shame on her for the first couple weeks after the removal surgery.

After a comfortable still, she heard blankets rustle in the bedroom, then slow feet trudging across carpet. Pallas closed her eyes. Didn’t want Boss to feel bad about keeping her waiting. Finally the bedroom door opened and Boss crossed the living room to Pallas’s crate, keys jangling in her hand as she sorted through them.

“Rise and shine, darling,” said Boss as she unlocked the crate door, voice textured with age and a prairie twang. “Got a busy day ahead.”

Darling. Pallas liked that. Especially the way Boss said it. Darlin’, the word smoothed down by that easy drawl. Crawling out, she dipped down into a long stretch before rising to her knees. “Morning, Boss.”

It was like sitting on the porch to watch the sun rise, the way Boss grinned down at her. The older woman’s skin had turned to creased leather from decades on the prairie, and now that she’d slowed down a bit she’d filled out under her button-up t-shirt and jeans. Gods if she didn’t have the prettiest smile, though.

“Morning, Pallas.” Mornin’. Boss pulled out the collar sticking out from her jeans pocket, and Pallas lifted her hair to let her put it on. It was little more than a strip of red leather, like a choker any girl might wear. Just something to help Boss keep tabs on her, in case something happened. As she fastened it, Boss asked, “What’re we doin’ today?”

Pallas sat up, at attention. “Prescription, groceries, injection.”

Boss straightened, hands on her hips. “Anything else?”

A cold jolt shot up Pallas’s spine. She raked through her mind a moment more. “Tending the garden.”

“Atta girl.” Boss scratched Pallas behind her ear, and everything was okay again. Just a little early morning brain fog, all good. Pallas could let a little doggy grin span her face, simply glad to have been helpful. Not like before. Not like eyes the blue of lightning scrutinizing her under harsh colourless light. Not like the too-perfect marble face around those eyes, or the hands wrapped in black leather, promising love but giving mostly pain.

“C’mon,” said the Boss, heading to the kitchen. “Let’s get some breakfast.”

Pallas fried the bacon and eggs while Boss chopped up the leftover strawberries with an apple, the scent of fresh coffee brightening the air. The farms out here and orchards out on the west coast were starting to recover, now that there weren’t metal skyscrapers throwing around enough ordinance to level towns anymore, but it would be a while before they were eating good ripe oranges everyday. Only 8:10 AM, and it was already hot enough that they had to open some windows and crank on the air purifiers.

As it sizzled, the bacon spat a wad of grease onto the sleeve of Pallas’s pajama shirt, drawing her eye to the dim red splotches along her arm. Faded diamond patterns, like scales, were still visible through the irritation. Jaw tightening, she tugged the sleeve down over it.

Type B. That’s what the clinic stamped on Pallas’s discharge papers. Meant she’d been “rehabilitated, but cannot fully reintegrate”. She only knew how they found her because the rebels who’d picked her up kept tossing the story around their transport like an in-joke. A recon drone found her rig, Grizzly Foxtrot, stopped by an abandoned farmhouse. A patrol swept by and found Pallas inside, crammed up asleep on the sodden manger, half her limbs hanging off it and a wire muzzle on her face.

“All good, Pallas?”

It occurred to Pallas how tight she was holding the spatula. She let her shoulders loosen. “All good, Boss.”

After breakfast Pallas cleaned up, first the kitchen and then herself, and they piled into Boss’s old blue pick-up to set out onto the prairie. The two shared Boss’s modest house. It was a good arrangement. Boss was one of the rare rebel aces to make it through the war in one piece, and needed a hand now that she was getting older. Pallas was one of those who didn’t, and now needed someone to give a hand to. Both of them had done their time strapped into sixty feet of steel and ordinance, putting other pilots in fiery metal tombs. Some peace and quiet would do them both good.

The nearest town, Sandes, was about a twenty minute drive away, taking them over the flat grassy back of the prairie. Occasional craters and furrows broke up the sea of green. The sleek black carcass of an Imp mainline mech laid crumpled in the distance. Just as Pallas thought, a clean-up crew swarmed over it like ants on a picnic, breaking the machine down to finally get that eyesore off the plains.

Not that Sandes had fared much better. They rolled in to find a group of local men repairing a downed power line, a pair of officers in orange vests standing by to direct traffic around them. During the war, the whole town had been levelled. In the four years since the fighting ended, people with nowhere else to go found their way to the rubble and started restoring it. All of the workers and officers wore face masks. A necessity, as they’d be out in the hazy air all day. It still made Pallas’s cheek itch.

They started at the pharmacy to pick up Boss’s prescription. Estradiol injections. The cashier struck up small talk with Boss as she paid, but his eyes kept going to Pallas, looming over her shoulder. The collar seemed particularly eye-catching. Pallas glanced away. It wasn’t that she minded the attention. A tall, sturdy tower of a woman like her was going to get it no matter what, toned from years as a mech mechanic (so she’s heard) and then years more in the pilot seat herself- this, unfortunately, she remembers. It’s just that the collars the Partnership clinics gave their patients were meant to be subtle. The average person wasn’t supposed to know what that little strip meant.

They did, though. A lot of them had questions, too. Did they really plug things into your head? Was that stuff about muzzles true? Did She actually dress in leather all the time?

Thankfully, the cashier didn’t say a word to Pallas.

Next stop was the grocery store. The shelves were never more than half full and most of what there was came from local farms. The Partnership kept promising to restore the prairie highways to let trade make its way out here. In fairness, those roads had gone out under Imp rule. Maybe the Partnership just needed more time to establish itself before it could start making good on all those promises. But for now, specks on the map like Sandes were largely on their own.

Boss wanted to make sweet potato fries to go with the leftover pie tonight. Up at the front the clerk had a radio on, turned up over the duelling hums of the A/C unit and the air purifier. From it crackled a news broadcast. Something about the remnants of the old Imperial government meeting with the Partnership again, still locked in peace negotiations. They probably could have figured something out sooner if the Imps admitted the war was their fault, scraping all the meat they could get from everything and everyone to feed their own ambitions.

It might’ve helped if they’d admitted it was their own fault they’d lost, too. Stretching their armies too thin, overexploiting their workforces, in-fighting among the upper brass, disgruntled lower officials going double agent and helping their enemies under the table, so on. Everyone liked to prop the rebel groups up as big damn heroes now. Justifiably so, to an extent. But if one dug under the surface, they’d find the rebels were only a few of the thousand cuts that bled the Empire out.

Pallas distracted herself examining a sweet potato. Just feeling its heft and rough skin in her hand. She used to dig a lot, hoping to find peace. She didn’t.

“That one’ll do,” said Boss, patting her on the shoulder. “Y’see if they have any cumin?”

Before they paid Boss ran to the bathroom. Pallas waited nearby, leaning back against the unpainted wall. Moments like these felt like tests. Seeing how long she could wear the costume of “human” without someone there to hold her leash. She felt adrift, like a dinghy lost at sea, looking for land. It’d been a while since the last panic attack, at least. Boss did what she could, and the clinic had given her materials to help. She was an ex-pilot, though, not a shrink.

Outside, a van caught her eye. It must have pulled up while they were shopping. No insignia, but she knew that sleek black Imperial look.

“…with former Imperial territories,” continued the newscast. “Partnership officials demand these areas have their independence restored, but Imperial negotiators argue…”

A muffled bark caught Pallas’s ear. Anyone else who’d heard it would’ve taken it for a dog. Not wrong, not entirely. But Pallas knew that hoarse texture, that edge of pained resignation. That was the sound of an animal which had gotten everything scraped from its mind but the knowledge that it had failed.

That was the sound of a Mutt, coming from that Imperial van.

“…of allowing these areas to remain under Imperial control until a robust local government is established. While Partnership leaders are wary, the priority remains preventing…”

Another bark. Class D. That’s what the Mutts were labelled by default. Lost causes. She’d shared the kennels with a few of them. All they had to look forward to now was euthanasia. Not like they knew it was coming, at least, their frantic, glassy eyes understanding nothing. Mercy killings, or at least that’s what Pallas told herself. The Partnership had no time for them, more or less told the Imps, “That’s your mess. You clean it up.”

“Miss?” called the clerk from the front. “You alright?”

Pallas almost whimpered but caught herself. You’re a person again. Or close enough. “Y-Yeah.”

“…dissolution of the Empire. Protests have already begun in …”

Boss came out of the bathroom then. They paid and left.

It was almost 11 when they got home. Pallas put away the groceries, they took a short break for more coffee and half-melted nutrient bars, and then got on chores. Boss had a garden in the backyard. Just a small plot but vibrant with white crocuses and bright red woodlillies. Flowers suited to the open spaces of the prairie, though the smoggy heat of the post-war world was rough on them. They needed watering, and the weeds starting to push up through the dirt needed removal. Pallas grabbed what she needed from the shed and got started, knelt on the damp soil.

As she dug up the weeds, the wind blew that engine oil stink through the fence into Pallas’s nose again. She clenched her jaw. It wasn’t that she lived in terror of her past. She had good days and bad days, more of the former now that she was with Boss, giving her something to do. Stimulating that part of her brain that now needed, and would always need, a Boss. No, the thing that really tormented Pallas was that sometimes, if she let her mind wander just a step too far, she missed it.

She missed her old mech, Grizzly Foxtrot. It had been a civilian lumber rig, a chainsaw on one arm and a massive grasping claw on the other for felling the gargantuan redwoods on the west coast. She’d slapped some black market rocket pods onto its shoulder, welded some extra armor plating onto the body, and went to war in it. She no longer remembered what first got her into the pilot’s seat.

Because then came the next thing she missed: the emptiness. Those brainless, strung out dog years, when her world was as simple as earning a single person’s approval. When all she had to think about was pleasing Her. Pallas had pleased Her more often than not, too. The black scales tattooed along her arms and upper back attested to that. Snakeskin, to match Her boots.

Pallas sat back on her heels. Gods, it really had been easy, hadn’t it? At least once She’d gotten you on Her leash good and tight. Once you’d accepted Hers as the voice of the heavens. Every syllable painfully precise, every order piercingly clear. Stripping all uncertainty from your mind like clothes from a doll, leaving you a piece of exposed, pliable meat. “You are to intercept an insurgent patrol. I expect no survivors. Good hound. I think you’ve earned a treat.”

Treat. Absently, Pallas lowered the trowel between her legs. If she let her mind keep drifting, she could imagine the mask she wore to keep the pollution out of her lungs was a muzzle, wires trussed with drool. She could imagine the sun beaming down was one of the shockingly bright interrogation lights. She could go into the shed and find the rake and let her mind loosen and warp around it until it became a tall snakeskin boot. The ridges and bumps worked into the old wood could be tightly bound laces. One side of the head could be a foot, ready to kick her off once time was up, to bruise her ribs and stomach as she writhed whining and yelping on the floor if she took too long to let go—

And then Pallas was back in the garden. Then she remembered all the hate and guilt and impotent rage, simmering deep down in her guts but refusing to boil over for fear of Her disapproval. The opening the Imps had cracked in her skull and the shit they’d crammed inside to make her a better pilot- a better Hound- had left holes in her memory, like someone had taken an autocannon to her brain. She knew terrible things lurked in those gaps. She still felt them as wounds that would never quite stop bleeding. Back then, she knew not to dwell on it like she knew not to stick a fork in a power outlet. Just do as She says.

Yes, it had been easy, in a way.

And she wasn’t out. Not fully. She could tell herself it was over, but every so often her mind would drift back to some of the other rescue dogs she’d met at the Partnership clinic. Most of them had been Class Cs. The “partially rehabilitated”, who’d likely spend the rest of their lives adrift in a system that didn’t know what to do with them, and couldn’t be bothered to figure it out. And here she was, sleeping in a crate because a bed felt wrong now and daydreaming of fucking a rake, needing someone to serve like a damn animal so she didn’t fall apart, knowing she was one of the lucky ones.

Releasing a long, heavy breath, Pallas finished weeding.

It was around noon by the time she finished. Only one task left before lunch. Boss hated needles. Whenever she needed her injection, she’d get Pallas to do it. Boss sat on the edge of her bed with the bottom half of her shirt unbuttoned, head turned away while Pallas zigzagged an alcohol swab over a section of her lower belly. Then Pallas uncapped the needle and gently pinched the cleaned area.

The older woman flinched a little as the point went in. As she worked Pallas lowered her head, trying to hide her smile. Boss had spent years staring down the black eyes of death, downing more Imp rigs than she could remember, yet she was afraid of needles.

“Shee-it,” Boss muttered under her breath as Pallas slid the syringe out. She turned back a little sooner than Pallas expected, caught her grinning as she applied gauze to the site. “What’re you so happy about?”

Another cold shot up Pallas’s back. “Sorry, Boss.” Her smile faltered. “Just think it’s a little funny you hate getting jabbed so much.”

Boss cocked an eyebrow. “Glad one of us is havin’ fun.” She ruffled Pallas’s hair. “You’re good, girl.”

The cold dissipated, replaced with the pleasant heat of the bedroom, coffee still tinging the air. Soft bedsheets under her, Boss’s fingers gently scruffing up her hair. Pallas let herself feel a semblance of that dumb dog bliss again, the fear of a dead woman’s wrath passing. That was over. Pallas wasn’t out. Not all the way, because that wasn’t how this worked. But this was pretty easy, too.

Thank you for reading my little slice of post-war mechsplo, I'm super proud of this story and hope you enjoyed!

You must be logged-in to give a snap.
register or log in

Age verification required