Dell woke up to find Duchess meowing in his face. He groaned before sitting up, carefully moving the cat onto his lap as he glanced around the bedroom. He spotted Rick in his usual spot in the corner of his room nearest to the window. It had been five days since Dell had brought Rick home, and he was still in the debating phase if he should keep Rick or give him to a good home. Having more than one pet can get expensive if something were to happen, not only that but food in general wasn't exactly cheap. Dell shook his head as he got out of bed and started to get ready for work, pulling on his work outfit before heading down the hall to the kitchen.

He brewed his normal coffee before putting it into a mug and finally feeding Rick a scoop of food. He went through a quick checklist as he walked to the coffee table to grab his keys. He picked them up swiftly, his eyes glancing toward the aviators that were placed upon the stained wood table. His eyes shifted back toward his room as he decided to go say 'goodbye' to Rick before he left. He entered the room to see the wolf still curled up. He wandered over with a soft smile, kneeling next to him and gently petting his head, as he thought Rick wasn't asleep.

Rick's eyes opened to look at him for a moment before Dell stood up with a grunt.

"Be a good boy till I get back." He muttered before he finally leaving the house. He walked to his beaten old truck and got in, starting it and driving off to work. As Dell pulled out of the tree shrouded driveway, the morning sun cast long shadows across the road, the mist in the air nearly visible in the bright light that bathed the world. His mind was still on Rick and what he should be doing with the dog, after all Duchess seemed to like him and he was a very smart dog.

His question was why was he left out in the woods? He couldn't be a full-blooded wolf. Wolves don't act like Rick. They don't follow commands, hell there wasn't even anything about wolves in this area! He sighed after a moment of thinking and took his turn to get onto the highway and drove a bit out of town before he came upon his current construction sight.

Upon arrival, he pulled off into a mostly dirt parking lot next to a temporary office. He hopped out and entered the office right on time, as per usual. He got to his desk and sat himself in a rolling chair, not two seconds later an overly angry and loud voice called from the far end of the room. Dell jumped, the limited number of other people in the room doing the same. Almost everyone either glanced toward the noise or turned around in their chairs to look at a man who labelled themselves as the boss.

A woman turned back around to look at Dell with sympathy as he stood up. He made his way to the back office and the door was closed after him. Inside the room was the boss who was sitting behind his desk, to his side was an informally dressed young adult. "Dell, you have been working here for a while." The man said as Dell stood in front of the desk.

He had the feeling he knew why he was being called in, and it probably had something to do with the youngest adult in the room. "You used to be the best and brightest on the team, though lately my son has informed me that you have been slacking off." Dell called it. "I have several days' worth of incomplete and incorrect documents," Papers were set on the desk. "Can you please explain?" the boss asked leaning on the dark wood surface of his desk.

Dell walked closer, looking over the papers before nodding "Those weren't assigned to me, sir. They were assigned to Joshua." He said plainly before the youngest male chimed in.
"Actually they were, I assigned them to you. Obviously, I shouldn't have trusted you to be able to handle that much." Joshua said with a tone that made Dell obviously upset.
"Son, I haven't seen these papers except for just now. You never even spoke to me about the paperwork." He mentioned before being silenced by the man behind the desk, who stood up from his chair.

"That is enough, from both of you. I will situate it myself. Joshua, go back to work." With that Joshua nodded and headed out of the room. "Dell, I don't want it to come down to me having to firing you. You're supposed to be one of the most diligent workers we have, please make sure it doesn't happen again or I will have to take action." The man walked out from behind the desk, placing the papers in Dell's hands and sending him back out to redo them all, all the papers Joshua was supposed to do but blamed Dell for.

Behind him, a male wheeled his chair over to Dell who was typing on the computer. He picked up some of Dell's papers and scoffed, "Don't tell me that brat is getting you to do more of his work." He muttered, only receiving a nod from Dell. "Dell, come on, they're overworking you. That damn kid doesn't do any of his work for shit, they could at least give you a raise." He muttered as Dell just nodded again. This work would follow him home for sure because he was needed outside in only an hour.

Said hour passed by and he had only made it through half the packet before setting off to getting dressed for outside work. He pulled on several safety items, including gloves and a safety hat. He waited for a fellow worker to finish and they walked out together to supervise and aid the workers on the design.

Hours passed before Joshua finally decided to show back up to haunt Dell while he worked; by taking certain things off his desk while his back was turned. several important things. The little shit had hatred for Dell, for some reason, and the best way to show it was to slowly create tension and eventually get Dell fired. Another word for this is sabotage.

Nearing the end of the day Dell packed away his items, though he paused when he saw some schematics were missing. He stopped, knowing he didn't pack them away already. His attention was turned to Joshua who was currently talking to a construction worker about something.

Dell headed over to Joshua, the construction worker excusing himself when Dell arrived up. As obvious as it should have been, Joshua had been talking about sports. "Alright, son. Just hand over what you took." Dell said in a calm voice as he held out a gloved hand.

"What exactly did I take?" Joshua asked, blatantly playing dumb. Dell took a moment to just stare at him in disbelief before sighing.
"The Schematics, you can mess with me all you want but don't create trouble for everyone else." He said simply before Joshua tried to pass him. He grabbed Joshua's arm to get him to stop but he just started yelling, falling to the ground and confusing the hell out of Dell for a few moments until he realized what he was trying to do.

People rushed out of the office to see what was going on, most were confused since Dell wasn't known for being the fighting type. Soon enough Dell was met with the big bad boss who took his spoiled son's side and passed the situation off, sending Dell home for the day and on suspension for the week.

Feeling utter rage at the nonsense this kid was spouting Dell felt so mad...he began to laugh, to the bewilderment of his co-workers. "Alright." He muttered before shrugging "Alright." He said once more before walking off, at this moment he could not deal with this situation. He had worked there for years, and this kid was going to get him fired just two months after he started to work there.

He made his way to the beaten-up truck and sat inside for a few moments, any longer and he would have beaten up his car in place of Joshua. He started his truck and left back for home, refusing to acknowledge what just happened. Along the way Dell made a pitstop at the store to pick up dinner supplies before finally heading home. He let his truck die once in his driveway, grabbing the groceries and heading indoors.

Duchess, usually being on the couch when he was home, was not in her spot. He hummed as he set down the groceries, and let out a whistle to see if any of the animals responded "Ricky? Duchess?" he called as he walked around the house. When he finally entered his bedroom to see if they were there he paused, the sight he was met with was possibly the most precious he had seen for a while.

In the corner of the room Rick was in his usual spot, curled up in a ball on top of a few blankets that dell had placed down for him. Under Rick's chin, Duchess lay sprawled out comfortably, paws outstretched over his fur as though she was hugging him. What peeked Dell's curiosity was Duchess' white fur. It looked rather dirty for a housecat. For now, he passed it off and decided to just get a beer and relax on the couch. He could think later.