Love Drug [ Bear & Legion ]

[HeyThereLittleBear]

Love, like any emotion, was merely a series of chemicals released in the brain. The brain was the organ that stated that your heart clenched and your palms got sweaty. It gave your stomach butterflies and made you feel like you were knocking at the knees. It was something proven by science that could be measured and seen on charts. But it could not be made. Yet.

For the past five years, the team had been working on manufacturing what they called the "love drug". It would release all the same feelings for someone that you had if you developed a relationship over a series of years, but instead would only take minutes. In theory, it was all so easy to quantify and explain, to write out all the compounds that came to play. But practice was far more difficult.

Applications had gone exceedingly well in the field of animal trials. They had successfully used the drug to mate together pairs of animals that would otherwise have gone extinct, and had even managed to tone down the effects enough to get a pair to bond less than mate. It had been listed as a total success with flying colors. Now they had been tasked with the application on their target audience - humans.

The trials had begun and at first it seemed that the serum used on animals would work just as well, but it seems people were so tricky to work on. And they were getting pressed for time to get the serum sales ready by the end of the year. Alyssa blamed all of her exhaustion on the work load she was currently under for her lab accident. It all happened in an instant - one slip of the hand and she was covered in the reeking mess.

Though the drug was supposed to give good feelings, all she felt like was needing a shower. If it hadn't been for the already tough enough with her work load as is, she would have gone home. Instead, she forced herself to finish her day out before heading home, reeking of the serum still and exhausted beyond words.

Her home was a welcome sight as she pulled into her long driveway, feeling more relaxed the closer she got to her quaint house. It was a one story cottage style home away from the hustle and bustle of the city and well out of city limits so that she could own the animals she wasn't permitted as a child - dogs, horses, you name it. Her family lovingly called her home 'the zoo'.

Alyssa was thankful for the company as she came through the door, a smile on her face to see all the happy pets that were glad to see her. "Hey, guys," She offered a weak greeting as she shrugged off her coat and made a trail of dropped items.

"I'll feed you guys when I get clean." She explained as she worked her way towards the bathroom, stripping the last of her clothes off and tugging her strawberry hair from the tight bun it had been in to keep it out of her face. There was literal physical relief to step into the hot shower, muscles relaxing and stress easing away as the majority of the smell went down the drain.

By the time she stepped back out, she felt like a new woman, pale cheeks rosy and eyes a bit brighter. She wrapped herself in a towel before leaving the bathroom, content to let her hair dry naturally before she clothed herself. With a sigh, she plopped down onto the floor in her living room and gave her lap a gentle pat. "Come here guys. I've had a hard day and need some happy."

 

[Legion]

You had to wonder what your pets got up to during the day while you were gone. Especially when they were allowed to roam the house fairly freely. They were all fairly well trained, so they didn't destroy anything that wasn't meant for them while she was gone, after all the puppy years had been well past for the pups.

There was Gunner, Jett, Cooper, and Duke, all roughly around similar ages and rescues. There was mostly sleeping first thing in the morning after they were all let out with their doggy door left open as Alyssa went to work. Each had their own bed they'd lounge around on in the living room, sometimes opting to huddle up in a four dog pile once in a while. As the need came up they'd wander about the house or go back outside, often accompanied later by one of their brothers, or all of them. Chasing, running, biting, wrestling, eating, more sleeping, and annoying one another were all past times the pups used to entertain themselves.

This went on throughout the day until about thirty minutes before their owner came home. They had run each other to death, come in and hydrated, and then passed out sprawled on the floor as they recouped their energy up until they heard the key hitting the tumblers of the front door lock. Their heads were up and waiting before that handle even turned. They got up, their nails tapping against wood, collars jangling as they came around the corner practically trying to climb over one another as she walked it. She told them to sit, and they sat. They smelled something, something new and interesting.

They hadn't smelled anything quite like it as she walked into the bathroom, and they were busy sniffing at the air, the bottom of the bathroom door, and where she stepped. They had nothing to compare it to, but the smell alone started to bring up something primal as if lighting a long dimmed ember. Her shower took a while and their interest in the smell waned as they went back to the living room, hopping up onto chairs and sofa's where they lounged waiting for her to return.

When she did, the smell was there even if she couldn't tell it anymore. For them it was still bright as day even through her fruit scented body wash and her fresh shampoo. It was her scent, but as if it had been magnified exponentially. If a human could smell the way they could, you might not describe it as a scent but as an experience, a trip. She called them and all four large pets bounded for her mouthing off to one another as they each one tried to beat the other, Gunner was the first right up to her after bullying his way past his brothers, then came the others flanking and surrounding her. There was licking, and playful jumping abound on their mum, for her it was a few hours of work, for them it was practically an eternity.

Though there was still that primal part of their long since domesticated ancestry that got riled up by that smell, no longer a dim glowing ember, but now burning bright waiting for the moment to burst into a flame.