so you can throw me to the wolves

Dammit, when was she going to stop shaking? Cypress balled her hands into fists at her side, deliberately not looking at either of the boys as she limped quietly around the kennel, cleaning what little mess there was. It gave her an excuse to hang her head, to hide the tears of impotent anger and pained annoyance in her eyes. Why did Thoth, of all people, have to see it? It was bad enough he saw the bruises, bad enough he knew what was going on, but now he'd seen it. Her stomach twisted, an oily gross feeling rising in her throat. Something about the way the kennel master had looked, the way he'd been so... smug... just bothered her on some instinctive level. Her skin crawled every time his face came to mind, and the tone of his voice when he'd thought Danny and she... had... She shuddered. At least Thoth had kept his cool. He hadn't tried to attack the kennel master or-

"Fuck him," said a very familiar voice.

The blood drained out of Danny's face as he and Cypress turned as one towards Thoth, who was very much a fairy again. And not even a disguised fairy. The outlaw stood fully visible, in all his glory, just outside of the kennel. And then he was gone, striding down the kennel block as if he had every right to be there. Danny was dumbfounded, almost green in the face under the white of his shock, and Cypress could see he wasn't going to be of any help at all. She limped after Thoth as fast as she could manage, ignoring the throbbing in her knees as she did. She had to get to him before...

She collided with his back as he came to an abrupt halt, breathing a sigh of relief as she wrapped her arms around him in a hug from behind. The large glob of fast-spinning water was rather close to her head, but she chose to ignore it for the moment. She'd consider the level of power one had to have to summon such a thing so quickly and so fiercely later - preferably once Thoth was no longer quite so obvious. She rolled her head to the side, meeting Luke's mismatched gaze over the kennel door.

"Don't you dare tell anyone about this, Luke," she growled. She hooked her hand around Thoth's midsection and tugged gently, trying to get him to walk backwards with her into the cover of another kennel. "Don't forget you owe me."

"B-b-but that's-"

"Nobody. You didn't see anything," Cypress said again. A small dribble of blood escaped from the outer edge of her lips, adding to the intimidating effect more than she intended. "Or do you want me to tell-?" Luke gulped audibly.

"R-right. Well, I'm just going to... clean this kennel. Yep... that's... that's what I'm doing," he said, ducking his head again.

"What were you thinking?!" Danny asked, moving around to Thoth's front as if he could somehow block anyone else from seeing him. At least he could block the door so Thoth didn't go charging right out. He was quite a bit taller than Thoth these days, even if Thoth was older, so...

"Don't yell at him, Danny," Cypress, still clinging to Thoth, said reproachfully.

Cypress;