By late morning - possibly lunch, possibly some morally ambiguous hour in between - Dean had reached a state that could loosely be described as alive.
Which, given the rut, the mark on his neck, the very real soreness in places he preferred not to think about too hard, and Arion's continued existence in his immediate orbit, already felt like a respectable achievement.
He had been properly bathed.
Properly this time, meaning he had insisted on it with all the authority of a man clinging to the last scraps of personal agency, and Arion, smug, patient, and offensively competent, had actually behaved. More or less. There had been assistance, because standing too long had still felt like an act of betrayal by his own body, but there had been no new crimes, no seduction, and no second round of pheromonal warfare in the shower.
Dean had counted that as a victory.
