It was a quiet night in Camden, which was a rare occurence on Dalmatian Street. Inside the home of Doug and Delilha, the pups were strewn throughout the house, sleeping peacefully in random piles. Dylan, one of the oldest of the pups, shifted in his spot on the floor as the pups nearest to him rolled away, leaving him cold. He opened his weary eyes and surveyed the room, automatically going into protection mode and making sure everyone was alright. He subconsciously counted all the pups around him, making sure it was the same amount as before he went to sleep.
Movement in the darkest corner caught his attention. He watched as his brother Dante shook himself off and quietly slipped out of the room. Clearly his gothic sibling hadn't noticed that Dylan was awake, if he had he probably would've made some ominous proclamation about impending doom before making his exit. Usually, a pup getting up and wandering off for a drink of water or something wasn't a cause for concern, but for some reason Dylan's interest peaked. He made sure everyone was still okay before sneaking out after Dante.
Dante climbed the stairs silently, his ears in front of his face as usual. Dante's tail never wagged, but Dylan noted that it seemed to sag behind him more than it normally did. Up the stairs on the third floor, Dante turned and entered their parents bedroom. Dylan paused for a moment, taken aback. Even the youngest pups knew not to go into their parents bedroom without permission. He couldn't remember anyone even daring to go in uninvited at night whilst their mum and dad slept. Even little Dorthy knew to howl out for them if she needed someone during the night. He shook himself off and lowered himself to the floor, creeping to the door to peek inside. He watched and Dante nudged their mother awake. Delilah yawned, and without a word, made room for Dante next to her on their bed. Dylan was more confused and interested than ever. Delilha clearly knew exactly what her pup was there for and accommodated. Dante must do this way more often than Dylan realized. Why? Was it for warmth? Dylan had always known that Dante never slept in a dog pile like the rest, but if he was cold wouldn't he just curl up next to his siblings? Why climb two flights of stairs and wake their resting parents? This was a mystery that Dylan couldn't leave unsolved, he went back downstairs to sleep for now, but he'd be talking to Dawkins about this first thing in the morning.
"Come to think of it, I've seen Dante get up a few times at night as well." Dawkins admitted to Dylan the next day.
"I never questioned it before."
"Dante is the oldest besides Dolly and I." Dylan said, pacing back and forth in the empty kitchen while Dawkins repaired the bowl flinger.
"He should know better than to wake mum up like that."
"Well, you know how he is." Dawkins shrugged.
"He's always been… Quirky, for lack of a better word."
"Quirky is one thing, but disturbing our parents is another." Dylan huffed.
At that moment, Dolly bounded in, ears flapping and tail wagging. She stopped in front of her twin, smiling mischievously.
"Oh no, I hear someone's grumpy voice!" She mocked.
"Did someone forget to put your Poodlewoof comic books back in chronological order again?"
"Poodlewolf!" Dylan growled angrily.
"And no! This is bigger than that."
"Dylan saw Dante go into mum and dad's room and lay in their bed last night." Dawkins explained.
"So?" Dolly asked, raising an eyebrow.
"So!" Dylan barked,
"Isn't that weird? No one messes with mum and dad when they're sleeping! Dante should know better than to wake them."
He turned around to continue pacing. Dolly turned to Dawkins who just shook his head and went back to working on the bowl flinger.
"Maybe he had a good reason." Dolly suggested.
"Have you asked him about it?"
"Ugh, yeah right. Like I'd ever get any kind of logical answer from Dante." Dylan rolled his eyes.
"He'd probably blame it on the end times or something like that."
He thought over his options, his eyes darting back and forth as if he was reading out an invisible list in front of him.
"I'll have to stay awake for a few nights and document what Dante does. See if this is a regular thing. Once I find out what he's up to, I'll confront him about it." He said mostly to himself.
"You're so smart that you're dumb." Dolly said, plopping onto the tile floor. "Just ask Dante or mum what's going on, avoid all the unnecessary spy stuff, and get the right answer instead of jumping to conclusions."
"I hate to admit it, but I agree with Dolly on this one." Dawkins said in an uneasy tone.
"Dante may be eccentric but you should probably just talk to him before going through all of this trouble."
"I'll start tonight!" Dylan proclaimed, clearly having ignored his siblings' suggestions.
Dolly and Dawkins just sighed and went back to their own business, knowing better than to try and talk Dylan out of his plans now.
Over the course of the next couple days, Dylan would keep himself awake at night and quietly observe Dante. When Dante eventually woke up and left the room, he'd follow him. He'd almost always go straight into their parents room without a single word. After getting the information he'd wanted, Dylan would head back downstairs and get some sleep. There were a few nights when Dante didn't wake up and didn't go into his parents room. Those nights were tough for Dylan, because he wouldn't allow himself to go to sleep, worried he'd miss something. Staying awake was tough when it was quiet and dark. No noise to distract him and nothing to do, he managed though. It was for an important cause after all. Finally, about a week after his investigation had started, Dylan was confident that he was prepared to confront Dante. He just had to pick the right moment to do it.
The right moment came in the late afternoon. The pups were all playing throughout the house, their mum and dad were still out at work, and Dylan had gotten all of the cleaning done earlier that day. He noticed Dante walking through the hall, shrouded in shadows as usual. No other pups were around, so this was the perfect opportunity. He sprinted after the black dalmation.
"Dante!" He called, stopping behind his brother and standing tall, making himself feel more confident. He imagined himself as Poodlewolf, about to confront one of his sidekicks for their lackluster behavior during their mission.
"Yeah?" Dante turned to look at him, unphased by his "intimidating" posture.
"You and I need to talk." Dylan said, forcing his voice to sound deeper.
"What about?" Dante tilted his head. His ears raised ever so slightly in a small glimmer of excitement before lowering again. "The upcoming apocalypse? Do you finally see the signs?" He asked.
"No, it's about you sneaking into mum and dad's room at night." Dylan said.
Dante drew himself back in the dark hall, swallowing nervously. "You know about that?" He asked, his voice quieter than usual.
"Yes, and it's time you stop it." Dylan nodded, marching closer to his slightly shorter brother.
"Mum and dad work all day and come home to take care of ninety nine wild puppies. The last thing they need is for you, one of their oldest children, to barge into their space at night and ruin the only freetime they have."
"I-I don't mean to ruin anything." Dante stuttered.
"I'm sure you don't mean to." Dylan shook his head, narrowing his eyes at Dante.
"You need to start thinking of others instead of just yourself."
Dante looked around nervously, slumping his shoulders. "I'm sorry, Dylan." He whimpered.
"Sorry isn't going to cut it." Dylan huffed
"It's time you start pulling your weight around here, Dante. You've got to stop being so irresponsible."
"Is… Is mum mad at me?" Dante asked, shrinking down, afraid of the answer.
"She probably isn't mad at you." Dylan shrugged, "But I'm sure she doesn't want you constantly in her room at night."
"She doesn't want m-"
"Exactly." Dylan interrupted.
"Now, I'm aware that breaking a habit takes time and hard work, but luckily I've been researching coping mechanisms. I'm more than willing to help you learn from your-"
Dylan turned to see if Dante was still paying attention, but the dark pup wasn't there anymore.
"...Mistakes." He finished anyway.
Dylan shook himself off and turned his nose upward.
"Fine." He said, "If he doesn't want my help he won't get it. There was no need to be so rude about it."
Dolly was prancing through the house, looking for her skateboard, when she noticed her younger brother Diesel moping down the hall past her.
"Yo, what's wrong bro?" She asked, turning to follow him. "You look like someone filled in all your tunnels."
"They might as well have." Diesel groaned. "Dante's in my favorite digging spot under the house and he won't come out. He's taking up all the space, I just can't work in these conditions." The dirty pup huffed and marched away grumpily.
Dolly narrowed her eyes as he walked away. Had she heard him correctly? She knew Dante liked to be alone in the dark, but usually his sulking spot of choice was the elevator or an empty cabinet. She decided to figure out what was going on, maybe this had something to do with a hole related end of the world prediction.
"Dante?" She called as she squeezed her way under the floorboards, crawling through the dirt on her stomach until she reached Diesel's favorite hole. Dante was curled up in front of it, his back to her. She could see why Diesel had been so upset, Dante was blocking the path to the hole without leaving much room to wiggle around him.
"Leave me alone." Dante sighed.
Dolly thought she heard a quiver in his voice. Was Dante crying?
"Dante, dude, what are you doing down here?" She asked. "Is there some kind of dirt apocalypse I should be preparing for?" She smiled, hoping the joke would lighten the mood, but Dante didn't respond.
Concerned, she pulled herself forward even more, placing a paw on the black dalmations back. "Hey, is something wrong?" She asked quietly.
"Mum doesn't want me." Dante sniffed in response.
"What!?" Dolly bumped her head on the wood above her from shock. She grumpily rubbed her sore head before returning her attention to Dante. "What makes you think that?"
"Dylan told me I'm ruining her and dad's freetime. He says I only think of myself and I need to stop being so irresponsible." Dante replied, curling up tighter in his ball of fluff in the dirt.
"Dylan said that?" Dolly asked in disbelief. She knew Dylan had some trouble showing empathy to others but she couldn't picture him being so harsh towards Dante. She remembered his plans to figure out why Dante went into their parents room at night and let out a sigh.
"Look, Dante. Dylan doesn't know what he's talking about. Mom loves you and all the rest of us, she'll always want you. And you're not ruining anyones freetime, if mum didn't want you around she'd tell you." Dolly said assuringly.
Dante didn't reply.
Dolly's ears pricked up when she heard the front door opening a few feet away. "I bet that's mom now." She said, backing out of the small space. "I'll be right back."
She climbed out from under the floor and rushed towards the front door. Her siblings had beat her to it, swarming to their mother to welcome her home. She cleverly avoided their dog pile hug, but was saying hello to each of them and listening to the barrage of news and questions they had for her.
Dolly noticed Dylan padded up behind a few of the other pups, smiling. She frowned and marched over to him angrily. "You are a real jerk sometimes!" She barked.
"Good to see you too." Dylan sighed, rolling his eyes.
"Why in the world did you tell Dante that mom didn't want him?" Dolly continued.
"What?" Dylan asked. "I never told him that!"
"Well you told him something that upset him." Dolly argued. "He's hiding under the house, torn up because he thinks he's unwanted."
"Who thinks they're unwanted?" Delilah asked, appearing before her oldest son and step daughter. A concerned look was on her tired face. She could sense that something was wrong, and that this was more than just another one of Dolly and Dylan's squabbles.
"Dante." Dolly answered. "Apparently he had some kind of argument with Dylan and now he thinks you don't want him for some reason."
"Where is he?" Delilah asked, urgency in her voice.
Dolly led her and Dylan to the hole in the floor. A few of the other pups had wandered after them but weren't paying attention to the matter at hand and were instead chasing their tails or playing with each other. Delilah couldn't fit in the hole herself, but she was calling into it trying to get Dante's attention.
"Dante, sweetheart. It's mum." She called. After a few moments of silence she continued. "Come out here, honey. I need to talk to you."
Dolly could hear shuffling under the floorboards and soon Dante's dark furry face appeared before them. He stared up at the for a moment before crawling out of the hole. He held himself low for a moment, staring at their mother nervously. Delilah didn't say anything, but sat on her hind legs and outstretched her front paws. Dante whimpered a bit before rushing towards her and wrapping his arms around her neck. She hugged him tightly and closed her eyes.
"What's wrong Dante?" She asked in a quiet tone, aware that they'd attracted a few of the pups' attention.
"I'm sorry!" Dante cried, practically trembling in her embrace. "I'm sorry I ruined your freetime! I'm sorry I'm irresponsible and that I'm a waste of space."
Dolly looked at Dylan who seemed just as shocked and confused as she was. She could imagine her brother telling Dante that he was irresponsible, but she wasn't sure where he'd come up with thinking he was a waste of space. Dylan looked back at her, ears hanging low. Clearly he knew he'd messed up somehow and wasn't sure how to fix it.
"You are not a waste of anything, Dante." Delilah said, pulling away to look him in the eyes. "I love you. Your siblings love you, and you are always wanted here. You have never ruined anything for me, and you are not irresponsible."
"I need to grow up." Dante sniffed. "I need to start pulling my weight."
"You've done more growing up in your little lifetime than any dog twice your age." Delilah replied, licking a few tears from his face. She looked around at her other puppies who were starting to gain interest in the scene. "Come on, let's go get all this straightened out." She said.
Dolly and Dylan quietly followed Dante and their mother up the stairs and into her bedroom, stopping at the door as the other two went in. They watched as Delilah calmed Dante down, constantly assuring him that he was loved and appreciated. Eventually she allowed him to curl up under a blanket on her bed. She pressed her forehead against his for a moment before licking a few more tears away and leaving him to rest.
"Dylan. If I could have a word with you on the roof." Delilah said. Her voice was serious. Not angry, but not quite happy either. "Dolly, you can come. I feel you both deserve an explanation."
Their mother led them up the stairs and onto the roof of their London home, looking out over the city scape and into the park across the street. Delilah sat down, looking out into the park, and her oldest pups sat next to her, looking at her face to try to determine her mood.
"Do you two remember when we adopted Dante?" She asked finally, ears flapping in the cool breeze.
"Vaguely." Dylan shrugged.
They'd been pretty young when Dante was brought into their lives. And regrettably, they didn't spend a lot of time getting to know him or the other adopted pups. Their parents had just gotten married and had a litter of fifteen dalmatian puppies. They had lots of new siblings to get used to in a short amount of time.
"I remember thinking it was weird that you were bringing home more puppies when you already had forty five." Dolly said nervously.
"Yes, it was weird I suppose." Delilah sighed. "I did it because my family has always helped pups in need. I wanted to make sure every puppy had a good and loving family like I had. So Doug and I found all the dalmatian puppies in need of homes in all the shelters throughout london. Dante was one of those puppies that needed a home."
Dylan and Dolly had the same thought process. They'd never known what it was like to be in a shelter. To be taken away from your loved ones. To be alone.
"Dante wasn't adopted with his siblings like most of the other puppies were." Delilah continued. "Because he didn't have any."
Dylan's brain filled with questions, he decided to just pick one for now. "Don't dalmatians usually have at least six puppies per litter?" He asked, "Why would Dante's family give him up without the others?"
"Did a human adopt his siblings and leave him?" Dolly asked, following up her brother's question.
Delilah closed her eyes and let out a sad sigh. "He didn't have any siblings, because they all died."
Dylan and Dolly were frozen in their places, finding it difficult to draw in each breath. "H…How?" Dylan swallowed.
"They were born very unhealthy." Delilah explained. They lived for a few weeks, but soon they started to get sick and one by one, his mother lost them. All but Dante."
"That must've been horrible." Dolly said sadly.
"That wasn't the worst of it." Delilah said sadly, looking back out at the park. "After losing all her pups, his birth mother became very depressed. She shut herself out from the world, and she stopped taking care of Dante." Their mother turned to look at them, wiping the back of her paw over her eyes to stop the tears that threatened to roll down her snout. "Dante was too young to be away from his mother, and their human tried to take care of him on their own but it just wasn't working. His mother wasn't coming around so they decided it would be better to leave him at a shelter than to try and help him on their own."
"How do you know all of this?" Dylan asked.
"Doug was friends with Dante's father." Dalilah explained. "After their human dropped Dante off, his father couldn't stand the thought of leaving him there alone. He'd heard we were adopting, so he came to us and told us what had happened."
"So…, If you knew Dante's father, why don't we ever see him?" Dolly tilted her head, trying to fully understand.
"He was ashamed to come around after that." Delilah sighed. "He brought us some kibble a few times but he never really had the heart to face Dante after what happened. They moved out of London soon after that and we never heard from them again."
The three of them sat on the roof in silence together, watching the sun as it began to sink beyond the horizon.
"Dante was very young when all of this happened, but he had fragments of memories." Delilah said after what felt like ages. "He has bad dreams about his siblings and his mother often. Sometimes he even dreams that he never got adopted and that he's still alone in the shelter. When he wakes up, he comes looking for me."
A guilty look fell on Dylan's face as he sunk down, avoiding eye contact.
"He worries that I'm going to leave him and shut him out like his own mother did, so I let him stay with Doug and I some nights."
Delilah took Dylan's face in her paw and turned him to look at her. "I know your heart was in the right place when you confronted Dante, but you should've come to me about this first, love." She said softly.
"I'm sorry, mum." Dylan said, ears sagging.
"It's not me you should apologize to, son." Delilah said, sitting up straight again.
"You're right. I need to talk to Dante. He probably doesn't even want to look at me right now." Dylan growled, mentally berating himself for how dumb he'd been.
"He bounces back quicker than you think." Delilah half smiled. "I'll get the pups ready for bed by myself tonight, you can bring Dante back up here and apologize."
"I'll help you." Dolly said, putting a paw on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.
"Thanks." Dylan forced himself to smile a bit before looking back down at his paws. He'd really messed up this time.
That evening, just as Delilah had planned, she started getting ninety six of her pups ready for bed. Dante had calmed down and had been bribed to meet Dolly and Dylan on the roof. He sat in between his two oldest siblings, his nose in a bag of chewy snacks.
Dylan peered around his brother and looked into Dolly's eyes. She gave him an annoyed eye roll and nodded her head back towards Dante, urging him to get on with it.
"Dante, look. I'm sorry about earlier. I… I didn't know- I mean, I wasn't…" Dylan bit his tongue to keep from saying anything stupid and covered his eyes with his paws.
"It's okay." Dante said. He took a deep breath in and let it out again. "I guess Mum… Er, Delilah, told you about my family?"
"Sorta." Dolly replied.
"I'm really sorry Dante, I should've just asked you what was going on instead of assuming I understood." Dylan said. "I just have a hard time communicating with you sometimes."
"That's fine." Dante glanced down at his empty bag of chewy snacks. "I can be a little weird sometimes. It's just… I have ninety eight siblings." He sighed.
"Well I mean technically we all have ninety eight siblings." Dolly shrugged.
"I know, but I went from having five siblings to no siblings to nearly a hundred in a matter of days." Dante's eyes glazed over with nervousness. "And all I can think about is how one day I'm going to have to say ninety eight goodbyes."
Dolly and Dylan looked at each other, unsure of what to say.
Dante didn't give them time to figure it out. "I guess that's why I'm always looking forward to the end of the world. Not because I want to witness pain and suffering or anything. I just know that if the world ends together, we all go together and I don't have to say goodbye to any of you. There's no mourning because there's no time."
It all clicked. Why Dante spent most of his time alone. Why he acted like he was excited for the end of the world. He didn't want to get close to his new siblings because he was afraid of losing them as suddenly as he'd lost his original siblings.
"Sorry, I get that that's depressing. I just thought someone should know." Dante shrugged.
Dolly couldn't hold herself back. She lurched forward and gave Dante a hug. He allowed himself to smile a little before hugging her back.
"Dante, if you keep dwelling on the future you won't be able to enjoy the present." Dylan said sadly. "You can't just worry about saying goodbye to everyone all the time."
"I know." Dante admitted, squirming out of Dolly's hold. "Mum and dad tell me that a lot. It's just hard not to think about when it's become second nature at this point. I'm working on it though."
"We'll help you work on it." Dylan said assuringly.
"Yeah, we're here for you bro." Dolly added.
They each embraced him from either side and though he was uncomfortable for a moment, he soon sunk into their arms and allowed himself to feel something. Something he'd been afraid of feeling for a long time.
He felt loved.