chapter four
"You know you're worse than my sister at taking forever to get ready!"
The noise of voices brought me back to consciousness, but before I was fully awake a coat was dumped on top of me. The dog and even the human in me a little bit were sent into panic mode. I shot awake and started squirming around until I managed to kick the polyester cover off me. I looked up to see Eric Weiss looking down at me with an amused expression.
"Hey boy, what's wrong with you?" he asked and reached down to stroke my ears, "Hey Mike, what's the matter with your stupid dog?"
"I don't know," Vaughn answered as he walked into the room to shove some papers into his brief case, "He's been acting weird, and he didn't eat yesterday."
"Maybe living with you is finally catching up with him," Weiss joked.
"Haha, very funny," He said. attaching a leash to my collar. He then leaned down and lifted me up off the couch.
"Whoa! Okay, so.....Vaughn just lifted me into his arms." He stepped away from the couch and set me down on the floor, a little too quickly for my taste.
I stood there for a moment trying to shake the remains of sleep from my eyes when I felt a tug at the leash. Obviously wherever they were going they were planning for me to go along. I followed along in stride between them.
We walked a couple of blocks before stopping in front of a sweet smelling place. Dogs have an excellent scent of smell, so standing outside this place was torture. The scents of coffee, frosting, bagels, fresh bread, even sprinkles. I bet you thought sprinkles didn't even have a scent.
Well, obviously you've never been a dog.
The combined aroma was driving both the dog and the human in me completely insane. My stomach churned and growled with emptiness. I was damn hungry!
"Here get me a sesame seed bagel and a small latte," Vaughn said reaching into his pocket to take out some money.
"You got it," Weiss said taking the money and going inside. Meanwhile, Vaughn led me in the opposite direction to the park across the street.
I didn't know the park was so close to where he lived. I wonder if Weiss lives around here to.
Weiss caught up with us a couple minutes later. We strolled around the park as the two of them sipped their coffee.
"So any news about Sydney?" Vaughn asked.
"No," Weiss responded as he feed me a piece of jelly donut. Normally I would have felt weird about that but at that moment I was too hungry to really care, "No one's heard from her."
Vaughn sighed and shook his head, "I have a bad feeling about this Weiss."
Weiss nodded sympathetically. "Me too, Mike."
They kept walking, and I trotted slowly behind, amazed at the concern they were showing. I never realized how important my safety was to them, and if I were human I probably would have gone misty eyed.
As Vaughn reached down and handed me another little bit of donut, I realized that this must be a regular thing. Vaughn, Weiss, and Donovan all going out to the little donut shop in the morning and then strolling in the park. It was really nice.
And yet a little part of me was frustrated by the thought. Why didn't I know these casual little rituals of Vaughn's life? Why should I have to turn into his dog to find them out?
It was right then that I decided that if I ever got out of this, I was going to find out as much about him as I could.
Suddenly, his quiet voice broke into my thoughts. "I hope she's alright."
"Don't worry. I'm sure she's... fine. We'll find her," Weiss promised.
Vaughn didn't look all too convinced.
"We will," Weiss repeated firmly.
"Thanks, man," Vaughn replied.
Suddenly, Weiss stopped walking. He turned to Vaughn. Vaughn came to a stop as well to listen to whatever Weiss needed to say. "Look, Mike... I've known you a while. I'd say you're my best friend. I know you pretty well. And I know you have feelings for Sydney that you shouldn't have--"
"Eric, please don't--"
"Wait, let me finish. At first I was kind of hesitant about this whole thing. I knew you cared about her, at least as a good friend. That was still going too far where agent-handler relationships are concerned. And it bothered me that you might be putting yourself and your feelings on the line. But after the countless successes and times you saved her, I realized that it wasn't hurting either one of you. If anything, it was a stronger way of helping than any senior officer could provide. I felt terrible for betraying you about it."
"Eric, you already apologized," Vaughn sighed.
Weiss continued anyway. "I know. And I still have more to say. As time went on, it became apparent to me. Your feelings go beyond caring and beyond friendship. You're in love with her, man."
At this point, I could have dropped unconscious right there. Love... in love? Did Weiss just insinuate that Michael Vaughn, me handler, was in love with me? Couldn't be true.
Vaughn retaliated. "In love? What are you talking about?"
I knew it was too good to be true.
Weiss looked like he was about to say something else, but just then their pagers both went off. They looked down.
"It's Devlin," Weiss spoke for both of them. "Hey, maybe they got something on Sydney!"
Vaughn smiled a little. "Maybe."
I felt touched by how hopeful he sounded but unless Devlin was paging them to tell them that Intel indicated that I was currently on a mission to remove a colony of fleas from my left ear, I doubted their information would prove to be very useful.
But what could I do? So I followed them home and wished I could reach up to scratch my left ear.
