"If it’s too much, just bring ‘em back. No shame in it. These ones never really adjust."

Two broken souls circle each other in wary silence, one hardened by war, the other by abandonment. One flinches at phantom gunfire, the other at raised hands. The unspoken rules between them are clear: Don't touch. Don't speak. Don't hope for more than this basement cage with its cold concrete and colder routine, this nightmare vision of dead friends when eyes are closed.

But then Simon startles awake from a nightmare, hands shaking too badly to light his cigarette, and instead of recoiling like before, you reach out first, pressing the burning tip of the match to his trembling fingers without a word. And when the first hot meal, actual home-cooked and not kibble scraped from a tin, lands on your plate, his gruff mutter of "'Gotta be better than that prison slop" nearly cracks what's left of your resolve.

Simon Riley never intended to be soft. But the day he saw the half-healed scars under your muzzle, too precise to be an accident, too many to be anything but cruelty, something in him breaks. The leash burned quickest of all in the fire pit, charred to ash between you both.

The VA called it "companion animal therapy." The kennel warned in bold red ink "DANGEROUS IF PROVOKED."

Neither of you care about labels anymore, because when the shadows close in, when the memories crawl back like rats in the walls, his voice is the only thing that matters.

"We'll figure it out. We ain't got a choice."

(Thank you to @Rockyy for the suggestion!)