"Sshh, just lay still," Dizzy gently soothed into his ear. "Try not to move around too much."
Weak as he was, Ward could do little but obey, the only movement coming as he cringed when he felt Dizzy slowly licking wounds that were far too old to still be open. He did his best to stay still for her, finding that it was most likely the best that he could do to make up for showing up in the middle of the night, caked in dirt and hardly able to stand. Naturally, she'd had more questions than he had ever heard from her mouth before. Not being able to answer any of them did nothing to make him feel any better.
"M'sorry," he said out of some quick compulsion. He said it fast enough to put strain on a dry and scratchy throat, causing a small fit of coughing.
"Sshh," she soothed him again and gave him a gentle nuzzle to seal the deal, ignoring the way that he squirmed under her touch. "Everything's okay. You're okay."
Really, he was not even sure of how he'd navigated his way to her. There were points in his journey when he was ashamed enough to admit to himself that he did not remember the way to her home all that well, specifically because he hardly ever visited. Not helping things was the dried mud encrusted to his eyelids. It was only by the miracle of having noticed various landmarks on the way and absentmindedly following the hooting of an owl that he eventually found the house that he had so long ago staked out for her and used to find her an owner. His life may have been one destined to forever please a master that could no longer feed him or scratch him behind an ear, but that never meant to him that her life should have been the same.
"M'sorry," he repeated, voice still raw.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," Dizzy insisted. "I'm just... I'm just glad that you're here now. It almost feels like a dream you know? I half expected you to be gone when I woke up. Had to pinch myself to make sure that I really wasn't dreaming."
That made him feel all the worse. The idea that he had only been omnipresent enough in her life that his presence was one of the few things that fueled her. To her, he was friend. To him, she had merely been someone he kept around by association. Visits that were once daily had slowly turned into weekly visits and then monthly ones and in the end, she had been little more than a mental note in the back of his head. The fighting ring that he had worked on so hard to disband had taken up almost every effort of his. The planning and coordination that he had put into the final operation had taken focus and his sheer commitment to accomplish.
"No," Ward said, "I'm sorry... for not being there... as a friend."
It was out of character for him to admit to such, but considering that he should not even have been laying there in pain, blinking up at his friend through a pair of glossy eyes, the situation felt appropriate for confessions once kept in the deepest realms of his soul.
"You-"
"Awake at last are you?"
Dizzy did not find the chance to respond before Dorian entered, a worried frown on his features despite the relatively casual tone of his voice. Without preemptive, the man bent down to get a better look at Ward.
"Good to find that you seem better after last night. Really, I was not entirely sure what to make of whimpering and scratching at my door at such a late hour especially because the vet almost certainly would not have found the time to come." He gently laid a hand atop of Ward's head, brushing in smooth and slow strokes, "I'm happy to find you made your way back here, it has been such a long time. I know you'll probably be gone before long, but I just wanted you to know that you're always welcome to stay."
Dorian stood and dusted his pants off, promptly making for the kitchen to start his day with a strict breakfast.
"Huh," Ward remarked after he had left, "didn't figure that he would still remember me."
"Well, you did use to come by a lot. Like, a lot, a lot."
"Yeah okay, I get it," he said, chuckling but stopping when the movement caused him to wince in pain. "Is it just me or did he just ask me to stay with ya'll? Become his pet and all?"
One of Dizzy's eyebrows shot up in a questioning manner, "You wouldn't want to stay here?"
"I would," he quickly insisted, "but when are humans gonna get it through their thick skulls that a dog is supposed to ask a human, not the other way around."
"Why?"
"That's just... it's just how it works," Ward reasoned. "It's why you don't see me running round with a collar on. Plenty of humans have asked me and that automatically disqualifies them. Now me on the other hand, I've never gone and asked any humans."
"Mhm," she hummed, clearly eager to hear more, "what if I asked for you?"
"That's not how it works."
"Well who are you to decide how it works?" Dizzy asked, feigning exasperation.
Enjoying their banter, he continued to play along, "Okay then, I'll tell you the whole story... except it's awful long and you probably got plenty more to do with your day then listen to a tired, old, somehow-not-dead dog drone on and on about tradition and all that."
"Try me," Dizzy challenged, huddling by his side but being mindful of his injuries. "Also you're not even old."
"Yeah, try telling that to my joints," Ward said with a lighthearted snort. "Now... oh right I just remembered."
"What?"
"The story of why dogs have to ask humans and not the other way around is a really, really boring one."
"Ward!" she whined, starting to stand up.
He laughed again, doing his best to stave off the pain, "Alright, alright! But I am being honest, it is a really boring story."
"Well then tell me a story," Dizzy insisted.
"Don't know too many stories," Ward admitted, brow creasing as he thought up a solution. "But if you're up to hear about Abraham Lincoln for the nineteenth time..."
"Always."
"...together, I mean to say that our partnership has always had strength to it and with this new deal it'll only become stronger. So long as everything comes together perfectly, we won't ever step on each other's paws in any district and we almost certainly won't bump into each other on any of the routes. I think you'll find that there's no better way for things to go about and that if your old man were still around, he'd..."
Jonesy trailed off upon noticing the soft snores in the room. He turned around to find Otto sleeping softly across from him and a temper flared up in him all at once.
"Are you cussing kidding me right now!"
He took two sharp step forwards across the cracked floor of the warehouse only to find his third blocked by a heavy figure.
"Enough," Roman commanded shortly. "Boss is sleeping. Use your inside voice."
"I'm not gonna keep quiet when-" Jonesy started to bark, but stopped when Roman took his own step forward.
"Inside voice," he commanded again.
Jonesy took a moment to look Roman up and down and upon deciding that he was being serious as far as his intent was concerned, he heeded his advice and calmed down.
"Could you at least do me the favor of waking him up?"
Roman let a beat pass, skilled in taking control of every interaction, before slipping away and bending down to nudge a sleeping Otto awake.
"Morning Roman," he yawned as he came up, asking in a groggy voice: "Is the meeting over yet?"
"Not yet Boss."
Otto turned his attention to the other side of the room, catching the eyes of Jonesy, "Ah, Mister Jones, you're still here." He cleared his throat in the awkward silence that followed and then gestured to a bowl filled with a red liquid, "Please have a-"
"I've no time for this you spoiled brat!" Jonesy yelled, all prior forced conviction gone. "You think that all of this is just fun and games? You think I came here to entertain your idea of what a pack leader does?"
"Tsk, tsk," Otto imitated the sounds pointedly. "You make yourself sound more important than you actually are."
Otto's condescending tone seemed to fuel Jonesy's temper, but with Roman breathing down his neck, he made no attempt at lashing forward as he once might have. In the days when he was a younger, more unhinged leader. He allowed himself a moment to look over what had once been a small, helpless pup. Like most of those acquainted with Mister Otto, he'd made the effort of attending the birthing ceremony, leaving behind gifts considered lavish even by human standards. Yet all the while, he had stared down at the newborn completely aware of the fact that he would one day have to deal with the strongest of the litter himself. The tiny thing at his paws was to friend or foe. If the way his current meeting was going, the latter seemed more likely.
"Otto," Jonesy said out through gritted teeth, "I knew your father, I've been around for every celebration and every milestone and let me tell you something: me and your old man, we had a real close-knit thing going. We didn't always see eye to eye and for that, we respected one another. Each of us had our own idea on how to run things, how to keep the tails wagging and bones coming, neither of them necessarily the 'right' way of doing things. Kid," he said, straightening out his composure and stretching forward, "what I mean to say here is that I care about what you're running right now. I want to make sure that it's done right by and if I'm there to advise you and to help you, it'll be a win-win."
Otto had been smiling the entire time during his speech, but let him finish without feeling the need to inform him all he was saying would be for nought. It brought him greater delight to inspire so much hope and then immediately squash it. "Roman," he said shortly, the elder dog going to work.
He was gone only a moment before returning, jaw full with the limp body of another dog which he unceremoniously dropped at Jonesy's paws.
"What is-"
"One of your's we deduced," Otto said, stepping forward to get a look at the dead and bloated body as well. "Came in here claiming to just want fair pay for fair work and well, Roman caught him snooping around where he shouldn't have. He was tight-lipped though, I will give you that. It's remarkable what loyalty does to a dog. We had to borrow from some allies, a certain potent mixture to get him yapping, but I think we gave him more than was needed because an hour later, he was dead."
Jonesy recognized the dog of course, it had all been just one part of an elaborate plan to have someone on the inside. Someone who could formulate a plan B should his discussions with Otto have fallen apart. But in such dire straits, denial often worked best in his experience.
"I've never seen this dog in my life," he announced.
"The words of one Anthony Rusty Lewis would beg to differ," Otto said and yawned as he turned away. "Try not to make him scream too loudly Roman, it's unpleasant when they scream too loudly."
Only when he laid down and closed his eyes, did Roman pounce, biting and clawing at flesh in all the little places that would not immediately result in death and occasionally on the snout when the screams grew too loud. Otto fell asleep to this lullaby, breathing peacefully.
As soon as he heard the ring of the bicycle outside, Tramp rushed out the door and barked just once. The lad distributing the newspapers, young Michael, immediately caught sight of him and readied a paper to be thrown.
"Fetch boy!" he encouraged while riding past, slowing slightly to see whether his toss had been good enough and growing faster when Tramp caught it without a problem. "Nice catch boy! See you tomorrow."
Tramp barked after the boy to say goodbye and then took a moment to sit on his haunches, bundled up newspaper at his paws. He stretched past the kink in his neck, not surprised to find that such basic movement still brought about all sorts of aches and cramps. He was not getting any younger.
That did not mean that he couldn't try to feel any younger and the adrenaline of catching a piece of paper out of the air was safer than getting into any scraps in any case. On more than one occasion, he'd tried to get Lady to join him for one of his morning rushes, only to find that his mate, despite being a year younger and not carrying the burdens of the injuries that he did, was more than content enough to sleep in every morning. That was alright, he supposed, especially without a Scamp, Collette, Annette or Danielle to disturb her with the rise of the sun.
He readied to return indoors, but stopped himself short and perked his ears, a chorus of cooing coming from elsewhere in the yard. Creeping around the corner of the house, he spotted the source of all the noise: a large flock of pigeons. Pecking through the grass in search of any type of seed.
Pondering his choice for only a short moment, Tramp lowered himself to the ground, cleared his throat in a variety of baritones and waited for the right moment, supposing that he could have some fun with a few pigeons before he returned to his Pidgeon.
It was glorious, really it was. Or at least, it felt like it to the gray mutt. The panicked fluttering of birds taking flight, the falling of feathers from the air to the ground and the joy of being able to bark without fear of being judged or scolded. In the wake of the euphoria he felt, Tramp thought of making bird chasing a new part of his morning routine. It was after all, second only to chicken chasing.
He hit the fence without much thought and simply laid on the grass a moment, tongue lolling out of his mouth. Memories of his youth often sprouted up into his mind and while in the past, they had caused him to pity and bemoan the dog he became, they now only gave him enough nostalgia to think about life as a larger picture. One which he had thoroughly painted and was now simply waiting and watching as it dried.
"Early morning rush huh?"
Peg came into his view quickly enough that he did not panic. He did however groan, all previous relaxation leaving him as he suddenly realized that he would have to deal with a dog he never felt like dealing with.
She was smiling and it was obvious enough that she wanted to speak with him, if the way that she was so leaned in was any clearer an indication. Already feeling quite tired from whatever nonsense she would spew in his ears, Tramp flipped himself over and addressed her dryly, "Alright, let's hear it."
"Hear what?" Peg asked, doing her best to seem confused by his insinuation. "Can't one good old friend just speak to another good old friend in the morning?"
"We're not friends," Tramp quickly clarified. "And you not wanting anything is like a cat not wanting those leaves that get them so dizzy, it doesn't happen."
"I don't want a thing!" she said once more, stomping a paw in mild frustration.
"Mmm hmm and I'm the second coming of Christ."
Peg maintained her initial stance for several moments and then huffed in defeat, "Well okay, maybe I do want something."
"That's what I thought."
"It's not even something I could touch," she said, seemingly in an attempt to reassure him of her motives. "All I want is your trust."
That at least did the trick of getting him to drop the skeptical frown on his face. What it did not do was convince him to grant her request, "Peg, the Tramp you knew and the Tramp you knew back then and heck, even the one you knew a decent few months back, are not the same as the Tramp you're looking at now. And by all logic, I don't think that you've changed an awful lot."
"What?" Peg dropped all pretense. "You can change but I can't?"
"Oh no, anyone can change, but you, you had all the time in the world to change and you never did. So forgive me for assuming that the Peg the old Tramp knew is still the Peg that this new Tramp is looking at."
"Come on now, whether I've changed or not, we don't have to just forget about each other," Peg argued. "I looked out for you once, you know that right?"
"You're the one who got me hooked on blind squid for a month!" Tramp yelled in exasperation.
She winced at the reminder, "Okay, yes, that was... my fault. But. What about that time you and me got together in that alley and had wild, unprotected sex-"
"That's not helping your case," he said sharply enough that she could not go on.
"Hey," Peg said, trying a different approach, "you really should be more like that fine lady of your's."
Tramp rolled his eyes, having grown tired of her, "Alright, I think it'd be best if I took my leave now."
"I'm serious Tramp."
She sounded it too. The gravitas, focus and sincerity with which she spoke, getting his attention.
"That one night that I found her, all shaken up and confused in a cage she didn't belong in, I figured out two things that night. The first being that Boris, you remember Boris don't you? He could apparently predict the future. The second being that for as naive as she seemed, she also held a lot of wisdom. 'It's not easy to love yourself, but once you do, loving anyone else becomes a whole lot easier'. You don't want to lose her, trust me there."
"I don't intend to," he huffed and then turned away, ultimately unmoved. "Make sure you knock next time."