Fukuda didn't often wake up to something slobbering all over his face.

He didn't like it. He groaned and pushed the dog off of the bed. Shimazaki had teleported into his house last night and told him to watch the dog until he came back. Fukuda had been about the put the damn thing out on the street but, of course, Sho would have had a problem with that. Being a friend to all animals…and Shimazaki

So for as much as Fukuda hated it the dog stayed…for the night, anyway.

"For the love of God." Muttered Fukuda as he sat up. The dog was on the ground whining. He reached over and felt the side of the bed…no cat. Of course that cat wasn't in his usual spot, there was a dog around. How anyone could have liked these things Fukuda would never know. They were just so…annoying.

Needy.

And slobbery. He wiped his face with his shirt sleeve. Disgusting. Worse than when he'd picked up Sho too fast after a feeding that one time, he must have been about six months old, and Sho had thrown up all over his face and into his mouth. He could forgive Sho for that, of course, being a baby at the time. The dog, on the other hand, did not have an excuse.

So yes, he was not a dog person.

"No, you're not getting back up into this bed. It's not happening." Said Fukuda as the dog stood on it's hind legs and attempted to pull it's self onto the bed. He pushed the dog's paws off the bed and let him sit there with that hang dog expression…that poor, pathetic, hand dog expression.

"No, knock it off, I'm not your owner. I don't give into these tricks." Said Fukuda. He wasn't Shimazaki and…and he had no idea how Shimazaki even read expressions but that wasn't something that he needed to contemplate right now…or ever now that he thought about it. Thinking about Shimazaki was a waste of his time, time that he needed for precious sleep. He could see the sun peaking in through his curtains, annoying as it was, and he knew that he didn't have much time to get back to sleep before another long day of putting out fires.

No time at all, actually.

His alarm went off. He picked up his phone and, without thinking, threw it across the room…where it was promptly caught by the dog and brought back to him. Well, at least it had saved him a shattered screen and a trip to the phone store…though he could have done without the slobber.

How people could have dealt with these things on a daily basis he could never understand.

He wiped his phone off with his shirt and then, since it was thoroughly saturated with dog slobber, pulled it over his head and tossed it off he bed. The dog, being man's ever loyal best friend, caught it and returned it…alright, it was kind of cute and all, but there was no way that this thing was staying! That was how it had started with the cat, someone had been impulsive and gotten a pet they couldn't take care of, so it was 'temporarily' left at Fukuda's…

And now here he was.

"You keep it." Said Fukuda as he took the shirt and tossed it into the hallway. Not one he really cared about, just one of the endless number of shirts he'd managed to pick up at Disneyland back when Suzuki used to abandon his kids there. God, it felt like a lifetime ago. It couldn't have been, though, since he was still here. Still here and ready to start another day in what could have been hell, might have been purgatory, but certainly wasn't the life he had planned for himself.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

He was supposed to have lived a normal life, the kind of life his father had lived, the soul crushing life of a middle manager in a faceless company. The kind of man who spent twenty two hours a day chained to a desk and then came home to a family he didn't know, a house he didn't live in, and a life that had passed him by. It had seemed like a prison back then, back when he had been young enough not to see the big picture, not to see that within that crushing existence there was stability. The kind that you didn't get when you helped your best friend take over the world. The kind that you didn't get you kept a game up for decades after it should have ended.

This was not what his life was supposed to be…but this was what his life was whether he liked it or not.

"Really, I don't want it. You just gnaw on that until your owner comes back for you…or I sell you to a shady restaurant. Whichever comes first." Said Fukuda as the dog brought him back his shirt. He tossed it into the hall again and checked his phone…nothing from Sho. They had all gone somewhere last night, probably an arcade or something Sho centric like that, and left him with this thing. He would have thought that someone would have come back for it…but that would have required that those morons have the capacity for rational thought.

He was asking too much.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see you. Now how about you go some other place and leave me be?" asked Fukuda as he kicked that dog away. It barked at him, it almost sounded like he was being laughed at. He couldn't wait for someone to come and take this dog…or maybe this was one of those things he was just going to have to handle himself. This, like most things, looked like it fell on him. He got out of bed and go dressed, kicking that dog away every so often. This was not looking like much of a day, one day just like the one before. There was a surprising amount of boredom that came with taking over the world, he noticed, a lot of paperwork and a lot of logistics, a lot on his plate.

A lot that no one else could deal with.

"Come on, you stupid thing. Let's get you home to your master." Said Fukuda as he picked up the tiny, slobbering, beast. This early at least Shibata was bound to be awake. The others would probably be sleeping in but that didn't matter, he just needed someone to take this thing before he had to go into work and, once again, keep this thing from crashing and burning. Someone had to hold this madhouse together and, clearly, it had to be him. Suzuki was, thankfully, finally building some kind of a personal life for himself. Shigeko was too young and Hatori…well, Fukuda wouldn't have even trusted him to run a bath let alone the biggest cult/criminal enterprise in the world.

What Suzuki saw in that little weirdo Fukuda would never know.

But Suzuki was just that, a mystery. There had been a time when he thought that he understood him but that time ended years ago. Back when Suzuki got drunk and decided to try and use Fukuda to figure himself out…Fukuda shuddered at the memory. And now he needed a shower, great. It never did wash off, the feeling of it, but showering helped. Showering, staying away from Suzuki, not thinking about it even though it was always there at the corner of his mind…

The dog licked him. At least now he felt a little cleaner.

He held the dog in his arms like a baby and made his way to it's house. He knocked once, then twice, and finally thrice before he let himself in. The door swung opened. He braced himself, waiting for Mukai to launch herself into him, or for Shimazaki to teleport over and tell him off for something or other, or even just the sound of arguing or cooking or…or something.

There was nothing.

"Hello?" asked Fukuda as he stuck his head in the doorway. The genkan was empty, everyone's shoes were gone. They had been out all night…he felt around with what little aura he had. No one. No one was in the house, and no Shigeko either. She had the biggest aura, one that could overpower everyone else's. One that could easily have overpowered his…but no. She was gone, too, they were all gone.

She couldn't do this anymore.

He put the dog down. Instead of running away it stood on it's hindlegs and tried to climb him. They were all gone and he was stuck with this…and his cat…and all of Sho's hamsters, too. He checked his messages again. All Sho said was that he was going out and he needed Fukuda to feed his hamsters…he had assumed that it meant that he was going out for the night. Apparently, as usual, Shigeko had done something stupid without thinking and now even more fell onto Fukuda's shoulders.

She knew for a fact that she couldn't do this anymore.

She was succeeding Suzuki, that was what it looked like, anyway. With the acquisition of Hatori it was pretty clear that Suzuki didn't care about blood nearly as much as he used to. Sure, he said he wanted another biological child, but his girlfriend was nearly as old as he was. With a combined age of nearly a hundred those two probably weren't going to be having any children any time soon. That was for the best. He shuddered to think of what kind of child those two would make together. Sho was…mostly a good boy. That was the Masami in him and without her positive influence he didn't even want to think of what their child would grow up to be.

Thankfully he didn't have to worry about that now.

There were things he had to deal with immediately and things which could wait. It was important for his own sanity to take things as they came. That was how he kept this place running. The dog was jumping on him. It wanted to play…it was lonely…he needed to take it to work with him, didn't he? It was either that or let this thing run free in his house destroying his possessions and terrorizing his cat…

Not ideal at all.

There was a jingling as the dog jumped on him…oh. It had a license…of course this dog was stolen, it was Shimazaki's wasn't it? Of course that man hadn't gone and adopted this dog the right way. He sighed and checked the address. The right thing to do would have been to give this dog away. Shimazaki would have hated him for it, maybe even dropped him from some great height again, or even into the ocean. He would have been that upset…

He deserved to be that upset.

For ruining Sho, for being stupid enough to sleep with Shigeko, for proving to the world just how much power Shigeko even had…if he had been any other man Suzuki would killed him years ago, powerful esper or not. But no, he was Shigeko's lover so he got to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted to do it. Fukuda sighed, he was going to end up taking care of this dog all day. Dealing with the barling and the slobbering and…and…

This wasn't his dog.

He decided to the right thing. He'd give it back. This dog was loved and had a family, it was wrong to take it from it's home like that. Sho would have had him do the same thing if he had been around…or he might have taken some convincing but he was, ultimately, a good boy. He was, ultimately, Masami's after all. Masami would have been against any kind of dog stealing. She had devoted a portion of her life to volunteering at the animal shelter after all. She even used to take the kids there…back when they had been kids and life had been good…or better. Yes, better was a better word for it. Things had been a lot better when she had been around, when the kids had been kids, when life was close to what he had wanted it to be. When he could close his eyes and imagine that she was his wife, that those were his kids, that his life was…was everything that it should have been. Everything that Suzuki took for granted…

But those times were over now.

She may have been gone but she still lived on in spirit…or something, something that sounded less like she was dead. She was alive, she was just…somewhere where she couldn't be found. Somewhere far away, maybe, possibly even overseas. He hoped that wherever she was she was thinking of him, wondering what life could have been like if they'd met first, or how it would have been if she'd stayed or….or just wondering what had become on him over all these years. She probably did, he didn't know what had become of her but he couldn't imagine that it was any better than this. She might have even still been waiting for him to bring Sho, waiting for him to do the right thing, waiting for…for him to do the right thing.

He was doing the right thing.

In his own way. He might not have been able to deliver Sho back to his mother but he could deliver this dog back to it's owner. It was considerably easier, actually. The dog's address was right on the collar. All he had to do was get a car, drive the dog home, and return it to it's master. The whole thing did eat up some of his morning but he would rather have done something good with his life than sit behind his desk for another twenty two hours a da trying to keep Claw from crashing and burning while, paradoxically, also trying to undermine it from within for Sho's sake.

He'd done his good deed for the day, that was what mattered.

The dog's family had been home and they had bought the whole 'found it wandering in the park' story. Apparently they had come home one day, saw it was missing, and assumed that they had left a door unlocked or a window opened. It had been even touching, a little bit, how devoted those people had been to their dog. How happy they had been to have their family complete again. It must have been a nice thing to have a family…an actual family…

Where in the hell was Sho?

Fukuda checked his phone on his way back to work…nothing. Nothing from Sho, anyway. Angry texts from Suzuki asking where everyone had gone, why nothing was getting done, and why he was being bothered during his very important time off. Fukuda would deal with these later. He would tell Suzuki that he had been busy putting out fires, his phone had been dead, or something to that end. Something to assuage this temper…that was always what it had been about, hadn't it? Keeping Suzuki from losing it? He thought back to all the time he had spent keeping his best friend calm…all those years wasted…

Thirty three years wasted.

Going on thirty four. Most of his life, gone, to Suzuki. Most of his life devoted to this place…this madhouse. That was what it was. The minute he stepped through the door he had people, many of which he had never seen before in his life, waving papers in his face. Papers, screens, someone had written something on a paper plate. Things that needed approval, his approval, or from someone higher ranked…but there wasn't anyone else more highly ranked than him. The people in charge, the children in charge, were nowhere to be seen.

So it looked like he was in the man in charge.

He just approved everything right on the spot. He didn't care what it did to the budget, or the personnel, or the careful dance of logistics that kept this place in homeostasis. He really didn't care anymore. He loved Sho and Sho wanted this place gone so, yes, he was going to undermine it. Not enough for it to completely fall apart, all those untethered rouge espers would just wind up destroying the world on their own, but he did hurt it a little.

Sho would have been proud.

He checked his phone as soon as he made it to his office and…more angry messages. Suzuki first. He was demanding some kind of explanation and threatening to come back….he ignored that. He would take his power where he could get it. He knew that he was just prolonging the inevitable but he would rather Suzuki hit him than fuck him. Maybe this would even be better. Maybe if he just pissed Suzuki off enough he would completely forget about everything that had happened between them. Be it the sex or all the little things, the little worrying things, that had been happening since their first kiss all those years ago.

Or maybe he would just get him so pissed off that he'd beat him up, then fuck him, and then beat him up again.

Either way he would deal with Suzuki later. Sho had, finally, gotten back to him. He was just happy that he was alright. He didn't care if they had taken a plane and gone off to Disneyland or some other Shigeko place again. He was just happy that Sho…oh. He skimmed the message. Everyone had forgotten to bring their chargers. He was fine, they had saved Shigeko…Fukuda stopped skimming and started actually reading. She had gone after that spirit Suzuki had been sending people through a meatgrinder for. She had won…lost. She had lost and that was terrifying. There was something out there that even Shigeko couldn't handle. He was happy that she had probably gained some humility for this but…but that thing was out there and if she couldn't handle then it fell to Suzuki and if he couldn't handle it…

Fukuda didn't want to think about it.

So he didn't. He read the rest of the messages. Sho always broke his messages up into smaller pieces for some reason. No punctuation either. Sho, of course, had said that it was weird that Fukuda used punctuation but texting was just writing and, yes, you were supposed to use punctuation. Sho had seen monkeys, cute, and they were at some inn and…oh.

Oh God.

'Big Sis says that she'll help us save the world!'

Sho's message along with a picture of Shigeko…Shigeko ever the unreadable, stone faced person, was just sitting there. Serizawa was beside her looking like he wanted to run away and the others…they were out of frame. Good? Was that good or…or had Sho told them? Who had he told and…and why. They had a plan, they had been working on a plan, and they were…most likely going to lose, having only two other people on their side…but still! Shigeko…this was bad. She was going to take this to Suzuki, he just knew it, and he just…he just…

He put his phone down.

It vibrated. He turned it over. He didn't want to deal with this, not now, not ever. This was…this was bad. He was going to die. Suzuki didn't let traitors live. He had to…he had to fix this somehow. Bribe Shigeko? With what? She already had everything she ever could have wanted. Convince her that Sho was just playing? Convince her to keep her mouth shut…threaten her? He'd die. No, he had to avoid her completely and go above her head.

There was still someone above her.

She didn't have complete power over all of them. She wasn't…she wasn't the final word in all of Claw. She could run to her father, of course, but Fukuda could get to him first. Fukuda could stop this before it even got to the traitor hole point. Fukuda…he and Suzuki may have been on the outs but it wasn't like Suzuki hated him…not like he would have when he heard what he and Sho had been planning behind his back…he wasn't going to die here. He wasn't going to die end of discission.

Suzuki wouldn't kill him.

Suzuki…he was going to have to get to Suzuki before she could. He was going to have to figure out how to get to Suzuki. He was going to have to figure out how to….he knew how to get to Suzuki. He knew what he was going to have to do. He was going to have to do…things he would rather not have done. He was going to have to debase himself. He was going to have to…he closed his eyes.

He was going to have to wake up beside Suzuki again, wasn't he?

The dog would have been better.