Disclaimer: No filthy lucre changed hands

Summary: A Porthos stream-of-consciousness story. He senses all is not well in The Expanse.

Cheese and Other Interesting Smells

By Bineshii

Cheese, cheese, cheese. YES! Read my mind. I can smell that it is much less in quantity and that it is getting old. So please give it to me now before it goes green all through. There used to be so much more of it. All is not well when the supply of cheese gets low.

There are other smells when I put my nose to that grill on the wall under the bed. Yes, I used to have to inhale deeply to catch some of these bad smells: the burning stuff and the stuff that makes the inside of my nose hurt. But now the bad smells are so strong I don't often go to the grill anymore. And the feel of the deck beneath my paws is often different. Then there are the times these waves pass through our den, distorting what my eyes see. The walls of our den waver. All is not well; all is not like it used to be.

My human companion shows signs of stress. Perhaps the cheese hunts are not going well? He used to consistently make new cheese kills every seven lights-out periods and store it in that lower drawer. Lights-out periods are at strange intervals now, and the lights flicker often without going out. I can no longer be sure of the passage of time.

My human is the alpha male but he has no alpha female. I was expecting HER of the copper smell to become the alpha female and start living in the den I share with my human. I did not like her at first because she did not like me. She gave off the fear/aggression smell when I first gave her a welcoming sniffing and investigated her copper scent. But she is nice to me now, and will touch me timidly on the head. I have even gotten used to her strange scent and do not bother trying to clear my nose of it anymore. She has started to smell different however. It is the smell of a mated female but not of a mating with my human. I am not entirely sure of that though, because I never witnessed her mating with anyone. Matings should be public so everyone knows the hierarchy, but humans and human-like creatures do not have the same polite manners we dogs have. They hold many secrets.

The beta human who always smells like machine oil was here today talking to my human. He also smelled strongly of the burning that I have been detecting from the grill under the bed. He smells also of having taken a mate. He smells of the female who my human did not take as a mate. But the smell has faded on both of them; so I think it may have been one of those random matings, perhaps just a dominance-establishing act? The female does not smell of puppies growing within her.

I sense high tension in my pack. I think my pack is involved in a territorial fight with another pack. There have been injuries and deaths by the smell of things. My human keeps me away from these things, which is too bad because I am good at licking wounds. My kind has the gift-of-the-healing-tongue. I can fight too. He should let me help.

My human needs to take a mate to keep his alpha status secure. He should not have let pack members of inferior status mate. If he will take me on walks like we used to have, I could help him choose a mate from among the pack members who are left. One good sniff of the crotch of a female is all I need to decide if they are suitable for my human. The lost pack members need to be replaced by the mating of the alpha male and alpha female and the rearing of puppies.

All is not well with the pack. I long for a return to the smell of freshly killed cheese.

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