Day: 0
The digital clock on the wall read 12:42 as Talikin lumbered through the door of the apartment which he shared with his mate, eyes already half closed, and cast his overcoat down onto the couch a haphazard manner that could signify only one thing: it was a Friday night, and the white arctic fox could finally sleep in that morning. The thought warmed him, despite the long, hard workday, both paid work for the military airport that he worked at, and unpaid work for all the friends that all expected things of him; hence his late hour. What he really needed was a vacation: a week of sandy beaches, nice hotels in a place whose name he couldn’t pronounce, and those silly little drinks that were mixed in a raw coconut. The fox wasn’t a direct government employee, the local UNA administration having opted to outsource to a private company to fix their jets to save money despite the law forbidding it, hence his absence of vacation time. Desperate times, he supposed, or maybe someone higher up just had to have another Mercedes Benz. But all of that didn’t matter to Talikin, who was even smiling as he walked into the bedroom, lit only by the streetlights from outside the window, and neatly took off and folded each piece of his dirty clothing into the hamper in the corner before stretching with a yawn, and crawling in bed next to his slumbering boyfriend. 
“Heya, hon,” Matt, Talikin’s boyfriend, said, not really waking up. The silver-white fox sighed deeply, yawning again, and pulled the heavy linen covers over him, snuggling up naked to the German Sheppard that he had been his signifigant other for the past four years, now, and let himself off to sleep. “Tal?” Matt said, turning his head to face the fox.
“Hmmm?” Talikin said, eyes fluttering open sleepily, “yeah?” 
The Shepard grinned, “wana be a dear and go make me a sandwich?” 
Talikin groaned rolling over to face away, his tail having doubled in size with frustration. “Go make your own sandwich, Matt,” the fox said, concealing almost all the irritation therein.
“Come one,” Matt prodded, poking his boyfriend, “you just got here, I’m already comfortable. Please?” As usual, Talikin bowed to other’s demands of him, despite the number of totally justified complaints that he could have leveled. Wanting nothing more than to curl up in a ball and sleep, Talikin stood up despite every groaning muscle in his body, and left the bedroom for the kitchen. There apartment wasn’t huge, but neither was it small. They had two bedrooms, one of which was converted into an office, in which Matt spent most of his days and nights. The German Sheppard was unemployed at the moment, but was looking for work, if only nominally. Talikin earned most of the pair’s income, and it was by no means modest, his lack of vacation days resulting mostly out of his necessity for the maintenance of the hangar’s aircraft. It took years to train an aerospace electrician, especially with the rigorous provincial standards that had been put in place regarding education, and, so far as he knew, Talikin could count the number of people province wide with his qualifications on one hand, and with fingers to spare. 
The fox, tail now thoroughly between his legs, began gathering the essentials for one of Matt’s special sandwiches, as he liked to call them. He considered the designer kitchen that he had built into the apartment one of the best investments he had ever made, given the frequency with which he cooked; pricy, but worth it. He didn’t resent the fact that Matt would starve without him to cook. Talikin was good at cooking, he was good at a lot of things, but for whatever reason that seemed to make everyone feel entitled to his services at no charge. The fox had picked up the habit of blind obedience years ago, back in his early days of public school as a means to make friends, and that trend had been impossible to break by the time he realized it had been stupid. 
The clock read 01:02 as Talikin started back tiredly towards his waiting, hungry boyfriend, and, in the light of a passing provincial police cruiser with their hi-beams on, saw the sandwich he had made. It was practically beautiful. A stunning piece of culinary prowess constructed by someone who worked with precision tools eight hours a day, where even thinking the words close enough is liable to get you fired. 
Talikin grinned, his stomach growling. When he got home, the first thing on his mind was sleep, and he had completely neglected the fact that he was hungry, himself. On a whim, Talikin V-lined for the nearest loveseat, and plopped down into it, picking up the sandwich he had made with one hand and tearing into half of it with the zeal of a starved beast, and that act of self-interest was like an ecstasy for the fox, so long imprisoned in the thought that, like a child, he had to be submissive to a fault, and take any order without question. 
“Nawd anymoww,” Talikin said, mouth full of bread and meat, then chewed and swallowed the last bite of his mate’s snack, then fall back into the soft cushioning of the armchair, nearly purring. Something had changed in him, years of straws having built up into a mound upon his back so vast that he had finally gone up in aggravation and thrown the whole great suppressing mass of expectation off of his shoulders to scatter to the four winds upon the earth below. He slept like that, curling up into a little fluffy ball on the piece of furniture, and let his mind slowly drift to sleep. Just as he left the waking world, a few words clicked seamlessly into his head, unlikely as they were: I won’t ever obey anyone again.