Chapter Text
Beef did not know where he is.
The box jostled as Mecha Man carried him through unfamiliar hallways. New smells and sights swirled around him. His tail thumped against the cardboard sides despite his best efforts at tactical composure.
He had a mission after all.
But Mecha Man was here. Right here, carrying him instead of leaving him home alone for another stretch of forever. Beef's tail betrayed him with enthusiastic wagging.
The box settled onto a desk. Gray walls. Flickering lights. The distinct scent of a workplace where people forgot to go home. Beef almost growls at his surroundings.
"Hey, Chase, I need a favor,"
Another voice cut through the office ambient noise—older and rougher. "A favor? It's big enough of a favor gettin' you this job working with those stupid-ass pieces of shit—ooohhhh!"
Beef popped his head up from the box at the perfect moment, ears perked, tail wagging at maximum velocity. The tactical jiggle came next—a full-body wiggle that made his rotund corgi frame wobble in that specific way that humans found irresistible.
Cuteness Asset deployed. Estimated success rate: 100%.
The man approaching had a shock of white hair and the kind of face. The smell hit Beef immediately—scorched rubber, old cologne, something steady underneath stress-sweat.
Safe.
Beef committed it to memory as he watched his human relax around the man in a way Beef had never witnessed before. He will call this one “Safe”.
"Who's this, huh? Who's this little guy?" Safe scooped him up with practiced ease, and Beef went willingly, assessing. Strong grip. Kind features.
"His name's Beef," Mecha Man explained. "And he's the favor. You mind keeping an eye out? I feel bad leaving him at home, but I don't want anything happening to him."
Safe cradled Beef against his chest, rocking slightly. The rhythm was soothing. Instinctive. Beef filed that away too.
"Robert," Safe said, voice serious, "I would let literally everyone here melt into eternal hell—including you—before anything happens to this dog."
Beef's ears perked up at hearing "Robert." He had forgotten that was his human’s other designation. No on really called him that anymore. Just “Mecha Man” on the television, in the streets, sometimes shouted from far away.
Beef remembers that he likes the name Robert.
A flash of yellow and blue entered Beef's peripheral vision. New human. Female. She moved like energy and brightness, and immediately went for his belly. Beef flopped obligingly, panting his approval as she rubbed his jiggly form.
"Oh, what's your name, little guy?"
"My name's Beef," Mecha Man croaks in that silly voice he used when he wasn't sad, when he actually had energy to play. “and I'm naked."
The woman laughed. "Oh no. I refuse to believe that's what he sounds like."
Beef evaluated her from his vantage point.
Hard to know yet if she was also Safe—some humans smelled right but acted wrong.
But she made his human smile. Made him do the silly voices he only managed when things were good, when he'd had rest, when he held Beef close in the early morning and watched the sun rise like maybe today wouldn't be so bad after all.
Sun. That's what she reminded him of. That would be her name.
Sun kept rubbing his belly. Safe kept rocking him. Mecha Man—Robert—kept smiling.
Sun had called Robert away, and while it made Beef sad, he had his own reconnaissance to conduct.
Beef surveyed his new territory. Gray fabric walls divided the space into small sections where humans sat in front of glowing rectangles (TV?), fingers tapping on white squares that made clicking sounds. Some humans spoke into devices attached to their heads, voices tight with urgency. Others stared at their glowing televisions with the glazed expression of prey animals who'd forgotten how to run.
The air smelled like burned coffee and sweat. lights hummed overhead—the kind that made everything look slightly wrong, slightly too bright and too dim at the same time.
This was where Robert spent his days when he wasn't home. This gray, humming place.
Beef's ears flattened slightly.
A woman at a nearby station noticed him and gasped. "Oh fuck, is that a corgi?"
She approached with her strong red hands already reaching, and Beef assessed quickly: Pointy tail, Pointy Horns, red skin with yellow eyes and pointy claws. Chicken salad balanced in a container on one hand and something long and pointy strapped to her back. She offered him a piece without hesitation.
Beef was full, of course. Robert fed him well and often, like clockwork—one of the few things his human never forgot.
Still, a performance was a performance.
He accepted the chicken with delicate teeth, then flopped onto his back, paws curled, belly exposed in maximum vulnerability display. The woman - "Pointy" Beef decided, laughed in delight and immediately began rubbing his stomach with both hands.
He was doing excellent progress in assuming control of Robert's workplace.
But the chicken salad reminded him of something important.
Beef scrambled to his feet and ran toward Safe, barking sharply.
Safe pulled off his headpiece. "Stand by," he told whoever was on the other end, then looked down. "What is it, boy?"
Beef whined and pulled his ears down flat—the gesture Robert always understood.
The gesture was universal. Safe's eyes widened. "You want food?"
Beef barked approval.
Safe pulled out the bag of kibble Robert had packed for them and—
No. No, that wouldn't do.
Safe didn't know, of course. So Beef would have to teach him.
He took off at full speed, even as Safe yelled behind him in alarm. "Beef! Beef, get back here!"
But Beef trusted his superior nose and superior speed. He booked it toward the stairwell, past people who yelped in surprise as a rotund corgi bullet shot past their ankles. He heard Safe's footsteps pounding behind him—good, the man was keeping up.
Beef descended two floors, following the smell. Hearty. Warm. Exactly what he was looking for.
There. Silver gleaming stands lined up like monuments to food itself.
“Um, sir, we can't have dogs in the cafeteria—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Safe panted as he scooped Beef up mid-run. " He's just hungry."
From this higher vantage point, Beef saw his prize.
Chicken. In a shiny orange sauce. The same kind Robert brought home in small white boxes and shared with Beef on the couch while they watched the television together.
Beef barked enthusiastically at the sight and wiggled for maximum emphasis.
Safe sighed. "I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to just feed you the kibble, but—"
Beef whined, pulling out the full arsenal: dropped ears, wide eyes, the slight head tilt that made his face look impossibly sad.
"You're just like your dickhead owner," Safe muttered, but his voice was fond. "I remember when he was scrawny and had those same puppy dog eyes."
Beef licked his face as the humans in white handed Safe a box of the desired chicken. Safe shook his head, smiling. "Spoiled. You're absolutely spoiled."
Upstairs, Safe set the box on his desk, transferring a few bites of hot chicken onto a small paper plate.
"Here you go." Safe placed it on the floor. "You better not shit anywhere."
Beef whined, flattening his ears.
"What?" Safe threw his hands up in exasperation. "You're hungry, aren't you? Eat!"
Beef continued to whine, and thought hard about how to convey— Oh, yes!
He grabbed the edge of the plate carefully in his teeth and dragged it toward Robert's desk. Safe's eyes tracked him the entire way as Beef nudged the plate against his human's empty chair. He looked at the food, then back at Safe, and whined again.
"You want Robert here?" Safe asked slowly. "Or... you want him to eat with you?"
The words "Robert" and "eat" made Beef spring up in delight, tail wagging so hard his entire backend shook. Yes! He'd gotten through!
Safe sighed, but a small smile tugged at his mouth. He knelt down. "Robert's not gonna be back for another hour. Why don't you start eating?"
He tried to hand-feed Beef a piece of chicken.
Beef turned his face away and whined. He was full, after all.
Safe's smile widened. He put the plate back on Robert's desk and picked Beef up, settling him in his arms.
"Okay, okay. We'll wait for him. Deal?"
Safe settled back in his chair, Beef still cradled in his arms. His hand stroked absently along Beef's back.
"You know, he was a stubborn little shit growing up too," Safe murmured. His eyes went distant, looking at something Beef couldn't see. "Wouldn't eat his vegetables. Wouldn't sleep when he was supposed to. Thought he could take on the world at eleven years old and snuck aboard the Crimson flight because he thought he could help."
Beef's ears swiveled toward the sound, he did't really understand.
"His dad used to make me check on him during missions. 'Chase, make sure the kid eats. Chase, make sure he's not up at three in the morning.' Like I was the damn babysitter." Safe's thumb rubbed circles between Beef's shoulder blades. "The kid was smart. Too good. Always thinking he had to prove something."
Safe's hand stilled for a moment.
"After he put on that damn suit, I just didn't..." His voice went quiet. He closed his eyes. "Too many things happened. His dad was gone. The world needed Mecha Man. And I didn't know how to—"
He stopped. Swallowed hard.
Beef didn't understand the words, but he knew sad. Knew the way humans' voices changed pitch, went thin and tight. Knew the particular smell of regret—sour and heavy, settling in around Safe like fog just as it would his human.
Beef pressed his cold nose against Safe's chest, right over where the heartbeat was.
Safe's breath hitched. He opened his eyes and smiled down at Beef.
"But it seems like you took care of him when I couldn't." His voice cracked just slightly on the last word. "Made sure he wasn't alone. Made sure somebody gave a damn whether he ate."
Beef's tail gave a single, solid thump against Safe's arm.
"Yeah. Good boy. You're a good boy."
That he did understand and he barked. Safe scratched behind Beef's ears—the good spot, the one Robert always found—and Beef leaned into it.
"Woah, whose birthday is it?"
Beef jerked awake from his nap, ears perking immediately. Robert!
He scrambled up, tail wagging so hard he nearly fell off Safe's lap. Robert leaned down and scooped him up, and they pressed their faces together—Beef's cold nose against Robert's warm cheek, the familiar smell of his human surrounding him like home.
When Beef looked around, he saw not only the box of chicken but several other containers spread across the desk, steam still rising from them.
"Your damn dog didn't want to eat without you, so I got us lunch," Safe grumbled, gesturing at the spread. "Figured if I'm waiting on one stubborn Robertson, might as well feed both of you."
"Chase, you don't have to do that." Robert shifted Beef in his arms, petting him with his free hand. "Beef just likes eating off my plate. When I don't do that, he turns into a gigantic baby."
"And he didn't eat off your plate during breakfast?"
Robert's hand paused mid-pet. "Oh. I think I forgot this morning."
Safe gave him a look—flat, unimpressed, the kind that could strip paint.
"Hey, I'm not a jackass," Robert protested. "I feed him first thing in the morning—"
"That's not the—" Safe groaned and pointed at the chair. "Boy, sit your ass down."
Robert sat immediately, something almost reflexive in the movement. A little afraid.
Safe wheeled his chair closer and started making himself a plate. "Grab something now. I'm not making you a plate like you're eleven again."
"I can pay you back—"
"Shut the fuck up before I shove that schezuan shit down your throat." Safe stabbed a piece of chicken with a plastic fork and pointed it at Robert like a weapon. "Eat."
Beef watched as his human finally ate for the day. Safe and Robert talked, voices rising and falling. They argued about something. Then they laughed.
Beef took a performative nibble of his own chicken—just enough to satisfy the mission parameters—and curled up on Robert's lap.
Robert’s hand rested warm on his back as Beef nuzzled his human's no longer grumbling tummy.