Dogs
The man doesn’t understand.
He keeps whistling to the dogs, tapping his feet, trying to get their attention. He’s got that half-frantic look in his eye, toes tapping, wrists twisting in their bonds, as he murmurs, “Down, boy. C’mere, lemme give you a pet.”
None of them move. Good. Just the way they were taught.
The man though. The man still doesn’t understand, and he lets off a high pitched squeak of a laugh that makes one of them, one of the bigger ones with a hint of German Shepherd about his jaws, shift just slightly. The man starts crying, suddenly, inexplicably, and this is the most important time to pay attention.
He makes one last desperate call, a whistle broken halfway through by a sob and… there. One of the dogs begins to rise, his tail twitches, he licks his lips. There’s something sympathetic in his eyes, though it’s that sort of animal sympathy that seems to escape most people.
Two-Face sees it though.
And he breaks from the shadows like a nightmare, his hand coming down clawed on the dog’s shoulder. Both the man and the dog yelp in surprise, but the man keeps on sniveling while the animal peers up at him, understanding. Understanding the way the man doesn’t. The dog plants himself, a certain weight suddenly carried on the square of his shoulders. He won’t slip again.
The man though. The man doesn’t understand. He needs to be broken, and men are so much harder to break then dogs. Two-Face flips his knife open, gliding towards the man with a slow, easy smirk. He’ll learn. The man will learn…
He keeps whistling to the dogs, tapping his feet, trying to get their attention. He’s got that half-frantic look in his eye, toes tapping, wrists twisting in their bonds, as he murmurs, “Down, boy. C’mere, lemme give you a pet.”
None of them move. Good. Just the way they were taught.
The man though. The man still doesn’t understand, and he lets off a high pitched squeak of a laugh that makes one of them, one of the bigger ones with a hint of German Shepherd about his jaws, shift just slightly. The man starts crying, suddenly, inexplicably, and this is the most important time to pay attention.
He makes one last desperate call, a whistle broken halfway through by a sob and… there. One of the dogs begins to rise, his tail twitches, he licks his lips. There’s something sympathetic in his eyes, though it’s that sort of animal sympathy that seems to escape most people.
Two-Face sees it though.
And he breaks from the shadows like a nightmare, his hand coming down clawed on the dog’s shoulder. Both the man and the dog yelp in surprise, but the man keeps on sniveling while the animal peers up at him, understanding. Understanding the way the man doesn’t. The dog plants himself, a certain weight suddenly carried on the square of his shoulders. He won’t slip again.
The man though. The man doesn’t understand. He needs to be broken, and men are so much harder to break then dogs. Two-Face flips his knife open, gliding towards the man with a slow, easy smirk. He’ll learn. The man will learn…