Special Episode: Night Walk
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
The dog is trembling and trembling the whole drive to Ralph’s house. He left her in the dog crate thing Jamie gave him, and she’s jammed herself all the way into the farthest back corner of it, watching him anxiously.
Ralph is jammed all the way up into the front of the driver’s seat, glancing at her in the mirror the same way.
“Why the fuck did I say I’d watch you?” he asks the dog roughly, already deeply regretting this decision.
It was because he flinched in front of Jamie, and then he went too far trying to pretend like he didn’t.
“What the fuck is that?” he’d said sharply, as soon as he walked into the kitchen and saw Jamie holding her.
Jamie stared at him, obviously startled, then looked down at the terrified dog in his arms. “It’s - a puppy?”
“But why is it here?” Ralph had asked, his heart sinking. “Did you guys get - so that’s just gonna be running around here all the time, now?”
“No, a friend found her by the side of the highway. We’re trying to find a permanent home for her.” Jamie stared at Ralph with those Sharpshooter eyes narrowed, looking right through the obvious gap in the armor. “What’s wrong with you, dude? What’s this reaction? I was actually gonna ask if you could watch her for the weekend, or if you wanted to keep her, but - um…”
Ralph, realizing that he was standing there with all the color gone from his face and his jaw all tensed up in fear, overcompensated by saying yeah it’s fine, what the fuck ever, he can watch the dog for the weekend.
He leaves one hand on the wheel and pushes the other through his hair, closes his eyes for a second in self-directed frustration. Smart move, dumbass.
Although - it’s not completely about that, if he’s being honest with himself.
Calla hasn’t introduced him to her family yet, and Ralph has no way of knowing if she’ll ever want to. But if it happens, Ralph would rather not be trembling harder than the puppy in the backseat of his car is right now during the introductions. Not exactly the first impression he wants to make on Calla’s family.
No, he needs that impression to be good. And her family, they have dogs.
Ralph traces his fingertips over the two old fang scars in his shoulder, left there by his mom’s ex-boyfriend’s giant dog, the one that sank its teeth into Ralph when he was a little kid. The memory still makes Ralph shudder.
At least this dog is a puppy, and tiny. But that doesn’t change shit. Ralph knows she’s still got sharp teeth.
They’re hidden right now, though. Since she seems to be trying to make herself into the smallest and least noticeable ball of white and silver fur possible.
Ralph gets his eyes back on the road, cursing a little beneath his breath, but determined.
He’s had to face fears that run a lot deeper than this, lately. This isn’t shit compared to some of what he’s had to face down. This is literally a puppy.
He can get through one weekend with a goddamn puppy, and that’s all he has to do.
~~~~
The wind and rain are gusting in heavy, sporadic bursts when Ralph parks in front of his house.
He sits there holding the wheel tightly, then swiftly gets out and strides to the back door of the car, opens it before he can start overthinking.
The puppy, who had crammed herself like a cotton ball into the corner of the crate nearest to the car door, instantly scrambles to the far corner and stuffs herself into that one, instead.
Ralph had jolted backwards at her sudden movement. He presses a hand over his chest, and then, feeling stupid, quickly drags the crate out of the car. He shoulders the bag of stuff that Jamie gave him for the dog, which unaccountably reads BODY BAG BOOKS - WE’RE IN THE MURDER BUSINESS! on the side.
The puppy makes soft, thin, whimpering noises as Ralph carries her crate into the house. She keeps going for a moment after he sets it down on the floor, then stops.
Ralph leaves her in there for as long as he can, drawing out the process of taking off his boots and jacket. He sorts through the stuff in the bag, pulls out what it feels like he should leave out. There’s a bowl, which he fills up with water, and a few stuffed dog toys, which he drops onto the floor.
Then he turns uneasily to the crate.
Letting out a constant, quiet stream of violent curses, he goes down onto his knees to peer inside.
The dog is still crushing herself into the corner, pressed as far back as she can go, staring at Ralph with enormous, perfectly round eyes. Her pupils have taken over all the pale blue color of them, and her tiny body is shivering beneath the white and silver fur.
“Hey, I’m not happy about this, either,” Ralph blurts out defensively, then realizes just how pointless that was.
He lets out a heavy sigh, then does what he always does when he just needs to get through something that scares him. Make the move before the fear can realize what he’s doing and catch up with him.
He opens the crate door, then snaps to his feet and rushes a few steps back.
The puppy fires out like a torpedo and shoots directly under the couch, sending up a chaotic storm of tiny clicking sounds as her scrambling paws cross the wooden floor.
Ralph lets out a huge breath as soon as she vanishes into the darkness, immensely relieved.
“Works for me,” he tells the dog, shifting from foot to foot nervously. “Stay under there all weekend, if you want.”
There’s a silence, and then soft, terrified little whining sounds come out from under the couch.
Ralph blinks at it, then haltingly gets down to his knees again. He can just barely make her out under there, since she’s hiding in the shadows, but he can tell that she’s still trembling all over.
“Fuck,” he says softly, then gets back to his feet.
Those sad sounds are too much. Ralph needs to put a stop to that shit right now.
He goes back to the weird murder bag and finds the package of dog treats. He takes one out, then crouches down in front of the couch and looks beneath it at the puppy.
“Hey,” Ralph tries, speaking quietly. What was the dog’s name, again? He wasn’t really listening when Jamie said it, since it didn’t particularly matter to him, but sometimes his brain notes things down for him without him asking it to… it was… “Tycho, right? I’m not here to hurt you. Here, you want this? Would that - make you feel better?”
Ralph sets the treat down on the floor, then hastily retracts his hand.
Tycho doesn’t move, but she stops whining. There’s a silence, and then Ralph hears the fast snuffing sounds of her little nose as she tries to sniff at the treat from all the way across the width of the couch.
But she doesn’t move. Ralph can feel her terrified eyes on his face, even though he can only see the tiniest glint of light off of them in the shadows.
Ralph sits back, sighs heavily again, and gets up, leaving the treat on the floor.
This is what he gets for randomly deciding to go see if Jamie felt like hanging out. Great idea that was.
Ralph stands there in silence for a minute, restrategizing.
He was planning on getting some work done, but he moved his work stuff upstairs, and he can’t leave Tycho down here alone. She might come out from under the couch and knock over his plant.
“Guess you’re forcing me to take a night off,” Ralph tells Tycho, who remains silent beneath the couch. “Calla says I need more of those, so maybe that’s okay.”
He hesitates, then rushes for the couch, gets up onto it, hastily pulls his feet up out of Tycho’s reach. Then he snatches up his Xbox controller and pushes himself back into the deepest corner of the couch, where he’ll be able to see her coming from any angle.
Some time passes with Ralph sitting there tense and on edge. But after a while, he slowly starts to relax.
Night is beginning to fall outside. A cool spring night, so still that Ralph can hear the sound of the falling raindrops with perfect clarity through the open window.
He bought the blankets to make the couch cozier for Calla, but now he likes having them, too. He leans back against them, tucked into the soft corner of the couch, nice and warm even with the chilly outside air pushing through his hair.
He smokes a little bit of a joint. Playing in silence, the soft clicking of his controller and the music from the game joining in with the rain.
Ralph was so used to having Noah around whenever he felt like firing up the Xbox. He had to find a whole bunch of new one-player games after Noah moved out. But he’s found that there are serious perks to that situation. Noah was never big on strategy games. Now Ralph is free to play them for hours, if he wants, and on max difficulty.
He’s so wrapped up in forming a plan of attack in Rogue Lords that he’s completely forgotten about Tycho by the time he hears her move under the couch.
He pauses the game immediately, listening hard. He thought he heard a soft scuffling sound, like Tycho is slowly edging her way somewhere.
Ralph cautiously leans over the edge of the couch. He looks down just in time to see a tiny white muzzle venture out, then instantly disappear again, taking the treat with it.
Ralph watches for a minute, but nothing else happens.
“Alright,” he mutters beneath his breath, sitting back on the couch.
His attention goes back to the game. He plays until he catches a flash of silver from the corner of his eye.
Startled as hell, he pauses the game again, then sits frozen, watching Tycho.
Ralph didn’t hear her come out from under the couch. She must have been roaming around for a minute already, because she’s all the way over by the door, sniffing around his shoes.
Now that she doesn’t look purely like a ball of trembling fur, Ralph takes a better look at her. She has pointed ears, both upright, but one folded forward halfway down, marked by a nick in the side. She has a short white tail, probably only about the length of Ralph’s hand, but it’s long for her little body. Big paws, too, which she’s clumsy on. A sleek wolfy muzzle, but so tiny, and with a soft pink nose scattered with black speckles.
Ralph watches as she goes on exploring, until she turns around and sees him looking at her.
Startled, she sits down abruptly, then stares at him, her enormous eyes swimming with anxiety.
“Okay…” Ralph quickly breaks his eyes away and gets them back on the game. “Do whatever, I’ll leave you alone. You can leave me alone, too.”
Tycho watches him suspiciously for a moment, but he steadily keeps his eyes on what he’s doing. She gets up and begins trotting around the living room again, exploring, her bent ear bouncing with her curious little movements.
Ralph tries to force himself to ignore her, to forget about her again. That system was clearly working for both of them.
But Ralph keeps catching himself watching Tycho as she wanders around, a smile slowly turning up his mouth. Something is funny about the situation, he’s just not sure what.
It dawns on him after a minute. He’s playing on the side of evil in the video game he’s got up on the TV. Dramatic, evil-sounding music is playing from the speakers, accompanying his dark disciples into battle.
It pairs in comical opposition with the sight of the furry little puppy nosing her way around the living room, startling herself by tripping on her own tail.
Ralph can suddenly lowkey kind of see why people think dogs are cute. Sort of.
“Just don’t knock over my plant,” he calls softly.
Tycho stops by the fireplace and immediately sits down again, staring at Ralph nervously. He breathes out a startled laugh. Funny how she keeps doing that, sitting down the instant she realizes he’s looking at her.
She’s starting to look tired, her big eyes blinking slowly. A giant puppy-yawn briefly closes them, but she quickly gets them back on Ralph, watching him uncertainly.
Ralph has a feeling she’s just gonna sit there staring at him until he stops looking at her, so he turns back to Rogue Lords.
“What do you think, dog?” he asks quietly, keeping his eyes on the TV. “Should we go visit the Grim Reaper, or should we go to the sacrificial altar? We have a terror bonus in both zones. Could harvest a lot of souls if we go to the altar. But we could get a new skill from the Reaper.”
Ralph freezes as Tycho barks at him. It was a tiny, sharp, squeaky little sound.
“Oh, you’ve got opinions, huh?” he laughs, caught by surprise.
She’s gotten back up again. Ralph experimentally turns his eyes to her, then lets out another soft laugh when she instantly sits right back down.
“Oh, my god. Alright. I’m not looking at you. Suit yourself.”
Ralph goes on playing, every now and then checking on Tycho. She’s stretched out on the floor across the living room from him, as far away as possible.
As time passes, nothing breaks the silence but the rainfall and the sounds of the game, but - Ralph could swear that Tycho has been covertly moving around. Matter of fact, she’s a little bit closer to him every time his eyes flit to her. Even though she’s always laying down all innocent, like she didn’t move at all.
It goes on like that until Ralph looks down and doesn’t see Tycho on the living room floor, then nearly throws the fucking controller across the room when he realizes she’s up on the couch with him.
“What the fuck-?” He freezes to the couch, his hands tightening around the controller, his eyes wide with alarm. “Jesus Christ! When did you get there?”
Tycho sat down again as soon as Ralph looked at her, but she had been in the process of slowly nosing her way closer. She tilts her head to the side anxiously, then quickly lays down where she is, at the far end of the couch from him.
She puts her nose between her paws and looks up at Ralph from the tops of her eyes. Her long, furry tail gives one uncertain wag, then stops.
She and Ralph watch each other uneasily for a second or two. Then he turns back to the game, and she closes her eyes, lets out a sleepy sigh.
Tycho is silent and peaceful after a while, and Ralph is, too. He actually doesn’t mind having her there when she’s asleep. He doesn’t have to worry about what she’s gonna do, and - it’s cute, how she sleeps.
Her little puppy exhaustion looks so dramatically profound and deep. She’s so totally passed out on the couch, her muzzle smooshed on the cushion and her paws stretched out in front of her.
But when Ralph eventually tosses his controller aside, gets up, and stretches, Tycho’s eyes instantly flutter open. She gets up too, gives her tiny body a shake that flaps her ears and jingles her collar.
Ralph glances at her uneasily, then sets off for the kitchen. Tycho topples down from the couch after him, tumbling onto the rug. It’s not an insignificant distance to fall, considering her size, and she lands mostly on her front, her entire furry self scrunching up like an accordion for a split second.
Ralph lets out a gasp of laughter, then quickly presses his hands over his mouth in alarm.
But Tycho recovers right away, then comes scampering after him, panting softly from the effort.
Ralph’s heart starts to pick up anxiously as she runs right for him, but it steadies out after a moment. The little sounds Tycho’s clumsy feet make are hard to connect in any way with the two scars on Ralph’s shoulder.
He finds himself looking down at the way her broken ear bounces with her trotting footsteps.
Ralph pushes open the back kitchen door, then freezes in horror when Tycho instantly goes bounding outside.
“Hey, not too far!” he calls sharply, realizing with icy dismay that he should have grabbed a leash. “Come here, Tycho!”
She comes right back to him and sits down in front of him, panting from the exertion of her tear around the backyard. Ralph lets out a huge exhale as his racing heart slows up with relief.
“Good thing you’re a good girl,” he stammers, lighting his cigarette. “You’re fine, then. Do your thing, just stay close.”
Tycho noses around freely in the rainy flowers and trees. Ralph keeps a close eye on her, but it’s surprisingly difficult. She seems to stick to the shadows instead of the moonlight. Every now and then, he can only see her by the silver glow reflected in her eyes.
She bounds after Ralph again when he puts out his cigarette and goes back inside. She’s sticking close to his heels, like she was when they came out.
Ralph tests out stopping, and Tycho instantly stops, too. She sits down and looks up at him curiously, like - where are we going?
Ralph stares down at her with his eyebrows knitted, then shakes his head and sets off for the stairs.
He only makes it about halfway up before he whips around sharply, startled by a sudden burst of noise in his otherwise silent house.
Tycho is still at the bottom of the stairs. Her two front paws are perched on the first step, her little back legs frantically struggling to push her the rest of the way up. She’s letting out short, high-pitched cries of distress, her enormous eyes fixed pleadingly on Ralph.
“Oh, Jesus-” Ralph darts back down the stairs and picks her up before he can think about it. “Hey, it’s fine! Not so good at stairs yet, huh? Is that - something you have to practice, I guess?”
She begins trembling anxiously again now that he’s holding her, but the panicked noises have stopped, and Ralph decides that’s better. He’ll just carry her up.
God, she’s so small, it’s ridiculous. He doesn’t even really need two hands to hold her. She folds her oversized paws over his arms as he carries her up the stairs, her little self warm against his chest.
He sets her down in the upstairs hallway, and she gives herself a shake, then sits down and looks up at him again.
“Okay, yeah, we’re gonna have to practice that, because I’m not carrying you up and down every time.” Ralph considers for a second, his eyes on the stairs. “Might be easier to practice going down, first? Here, c’mon, girl.”
He takes a step onto the stairs, then gasps as Tycho - without any fear whatsoever - dashes right out onto them with way too much momentum, instantly sending herself cartwheeling down two of the carpeted steps, paws and ears flying.
She somehow lands upright, but clearly wildly bewildered. She stares at Ralph, panting, her eyes very wide and blinking very fast.
He stares back at her, then lets out a sharp laugh and clasps his hands over his mouth.
“Oh, shit,” he manages, still half-laughing. “You did a whole entire front-flip! Are you okay?”
He reaches for Tycho, and she surges forward like she’s going to come to him, then starts whimpering helplessly again when she realizes she has to go up the stairs.
“Okay, I see - it’s only up that you’re afraid of? And down, you’re - not afraid enough? For some reason?”
She begins earnestly trying to push herself up the step, her tiny little body getting nowhere, but struggling with all its might to get to him.
Something constricts in Ralph’s heart, so suddenly and sharply that it almost hurts, but it feels warm, too.
He quickly goes down the stairs and picks up Tycho again, hugs her to his chest.
“We’ll - we’ll try that again later,” he tells her, gently setting her down in the upstairs hallway. “One fall is enough for one night.”
Tycho was trembling again when he held her, but she recovers more quickly this time. The small explorer sniffs her way into his office, nose to the ground.
Ralph follows her in and goes around behind his desk. There are one or two things he really should get done for work.
He drops into his chair and drags the cash counting machine out. Then he takes the rubber band from around a stack of cash, feeds it into the machine.
Tycho was padding around the room with curious eyes, but she flinches and startles backwards when the machine makes its whirring noise. She lets out a sharp little bark, and then -
Scrambles over to Ralph, who hastily shoves his chair backwards in alarm.
But Tycho stops in front of him, and not facing him. When he drops his eyes to her, he finds her crouched low to the ground, poised between him and his desk. Growling softly, all of her fur bristled, fangs out.
She’s staring down the cash counting machine, her back to Ralph like - like she needs to protect him from it. She’s trembling from head to toe in terror, but apparently ready to go to war.
Ralph’s heart twists in that strange, sharp way again.
He’s seriously reluctant to touch her while her ears are put back and her fangs are out, but he slowly, haltingly reaches down and scratches her broken ear.
“Hey there, little fighter, it’s okay,” he murmurs, surprised to hear a thread of affection in his own voice. “Stand down, girl. It’s nothing.”
He blinks in surprise as Tycho sits up and turns her eyes to him. Shifting nervously on her too-big paws, but quiet. No longer growling, only trembling.
Ralph keeps scratching her ear as he feeds in the next wad of cash. Tycho flinches, lets out a soft, distrustful little whuff. But doesn’t bark again.
After a little bit she wanders away and starts exploring again, ignoring the sound.
Ralph goes on feeding stacks of bills into the machine, counting the take, then sorting out cuts, noting the numbers down neatly as he goes. Pausing every now and then to text back Calla.
He’s randomly kind of tempted to send her a picture of Tycho, but he hasn’t told her that he’s doing this. She’ll ask why, and then he’ll have to be honest, which would be embarrassing.
Still, the puppy is pretty fucking cute. Ralph kind of wants to tell Calla purely so that he can send her a picture. Just - someone else needs to see how cute the dog is. Maybe he’ll do it. But probably not. Stupid idea.
Ralph looks up from what he’s doing to see what Tycho is up to, and freezes when he doesn’t see her in the room.
A soft snore comes from beneath his desk. He quickly bends down to peer under it.
Tycho is laying sprawled out on her back at his feet, deeply asleep, her snowy white paws curled and resting on her soft, round puppy stomach. The black rim around her eyes is all he can see of them, like two stripes of charcoal in her white fur.
Ralph stares at her for a minute, then gets up quietly, hoping to get to his dad’s camera before she can move. But Tycho hears him and immediately gets up, too, shaking herself off.
She sits up and stares at Ralph. Waiting to follow him, he realizes.
He slowly sits back down, and she settles down, too, curling up at his feet.
Keeping one eye on Ralph, almost as if to make sure that he doesn’t go anywhere without her.
~~~~
When they stop at the top of the stairs again, Tycho hesitates, looking down at them distrustfully.
“At least you learn,” Ralph snickers, looking down at her troubled little face. “Hey, don’t be embarrassed. Noah’s fallen down these stairs like two hundred times.”
He hesitates, then bends down and taps his fingers on the first step. Tycho shifts anxiously, then carefully drops her front paws down onto it.
Ralph manages to lead her down three steps before she gives up in distress, but that’s still better than last time. He carries her the rest of the way, and she folds her paws over his arm again.
Ralph forgets to put her down at the bottom of the stairs, so he ends up carrying her all the way into the kitchen.
She follows him around the whole time as he makes himself dinner, then eats her dinner under the table while he has his. She follows him into the office when he goes back to put all the cash back into the safe. She follows him into the bathroom later when he goes to shower, waits for him on the bath mat with her chin resting on her paws.
It turns into a problem when Ralph gets into bed.
He hasn’t even pulled the covers over himself before Tycho has climbed out of the dog bed that he put in the corner. She’s pawing at his bed, trying to get up. She’s too little to do it on her own.
Ralph gets out of bed, catches her around her stomach, and deposits her back in her dog bed.
He turns around when he gets back to his bed, and finds her right behind him. She sits down when he looks at her, her ears perked up.
“Go back over there,” he tells her firmly, pointing to her bed. “It’s not happening. We’re not doing this, I mean it.”
Tycho hesitates, then lays down where she is, looking up at him with pleading eyes.
“Back in your bed, Tycho,” Ralph tries again, pointing at it.
Tycho hesitates again, then dejectedly heads back towards her bed, going deliberately and dramatically slow, turning to look back at him with a deeply wounded expression before she gets in.
Ralph stretches out in his bed and turns off the lights. He closes his eyes to try to relax, and, as usual, sinks deep into thought instead.
He’s running through the numbers he took in for the business today, what they mean, where he’s taking losses and seeing unexpected gains. Standout performers that he should move up as he rearranges things. Whether it’s too risky to invest in a big product intake that could pay off nice, but only if he really bides his time and plays every card right.
He thinks about what he’s done lately that might have been a mistake. He gave Shawn a hefty bonus when he moved him up, which caught Shawn by obvious surprise. It wasn’t exactly typical Warlord behavior.
But he’s been with Ralph for a long time, and Ralph has learned that loyalty needs to be rewarded. And Shawn said something about his little brother needing surgery soon, so the bonus could make a difference there…
Ralph winces at himself. Too goddamn soft, that’s what giving out that bonus was.
But Shawn was pretty clearly thrilled about it, and happy people are loyal, right? Nobody who works for Ralph should have a hard time supporting their families, even if some big expense suddenly comes up. That’s not the kind of business he runs.
Yes, it was soft, but it’s all about the business. Nothing to do with anything personal. So there.
Ralph lets out a tired sigh, then turns over in his bed, thinking to himself how much easier it is to sleep when Calla’s here. She takes him out of all of this, so simply and so sweetly. He can lose himself and everything he’s got to worry about, when she sleeps here with him.
But tonight - as is the case on a lot of nights he spends alone - Ralph’s mind is keeping him up.
In the midst of the thoughts swirling around his head, he hears a soft, sad sound. Insistent little cries.
Broken out of his thoughts, Ralph sits up and looks over at the dog bed. Tycho is staring at him with giant, begging eyes, her ears perked towards him.
“No,” he tells her firmly. “I’m not waking up to a dog biting me, alright? You’ve got your own bed.”
Tycho lowers her head to rest on her paws, falls silent.
A few seconds after Ralph lays down, the whimpering starts again. Ralph lets out a heavy, aggrieved sigh, rubbing his eyes.
He manages to ignore it for about a minute or so, but it’s too fucking sad of a sound, and eventually he sits up again, gets out of bed.
“You’re not sleeping in my bed,” he tells Tycho, stepping back into his jeans. “So we’re just gonna have to tire you out until I can put you in your own bed and you’ll fall asleep.”
She makes it down the stairs on her own this time, he notices with an unexpected flash of pride.
Ralph shrugs on a jacket over his worn sweater and pushes open the back door. Tycho trots along at his heels as he sets out into the woods.
It’s a very still, very silent moonlit night. The only sound comes from the soft rainfall.
Ralph glances down at Tycho, but she doesn’t seem to mind the rain. More excited about the new adventure.
She sticks to his heels, panting eagerly, her pink tongue lolling from her mouth. She stops to sniff at things, and stands at alert whenever there’s an unexpected sound from the forest, but she doesn’t wander off.
The rain falls through the hush around them. The sky is a deep, bluish purple, heavy with stars, and with a huge round moon. Every now and then the clouds pass over it, hiding it, but on the whole it gives off plenty enough light for Ralph and Tycho to walk through the forest by. The lacework of moonlight and shadow slide over the two of them as they go, the soft spring earth exhaling green breaths around their feet.
The evergreens hold very still, too, their only movements and sound coming when the bursts of soft rain break over them. Sometimes other noises come and fade away. The faint whisper of the creek, the scuffle of some nocturnal animal rushing away, the distant call of an owl.
As he walks, Ralph’s mind gradually goes quiet with a gentle, relieved sigh.
Slowly, everything around him seems to move in to take the place of his thoughts. It’s like the soft nighttime mist is rolling through him, the rain falling right into his head, the big breaths of green air flooding his veins. Everything comes down to the sound of the rainfall, his steps, and Tycho’s as she pads along at his feet.
He realizes that he’s been letting Tycho choose their path. He meant to stick to a route he knows by heart, but she led him some way he never went before. Her path eventually leads them out into a clearing on a hill, and from there, they can see all of Ketterbridge.
Ralph stops with his hands in his pockets, staring out at the town. Tycho sits at his feet, her ears perked up, her silver and white fur almost glowing in the moonlight. He lights a cigarette, smokes it slowly in the rain, watching the warm, distant glimmer of the lights below.
As Ralph gazes out at Ketterbridge, a strange sensation slowly dawns on him. The unmistakable feeling that this is his town. For the first time since his family moved here, he honestly, really feels like this is his hometown.
Maybe it’s because it finally feels like it wants him. That there’s a place for him here.
One of those glimmers of light must be Noah, Raj, and Mel’s house. One of the ones on the fringe must be Aiden and Jamie’s. Ripley, more towards the center. And - too close to see from here - one of those is Ralph’s house, where his girl comes to see him and be with him. To stay the weekend with him, even.
He takes a drag of his cigarette and slowly breathes out the smoke, stunned to find himself smiling out at Ketterbridge.
Tycho suddenly straightens up, her ears turning out to the town, her eyes intently fixed on it.
Ralph stares at her in total confusion as she tips her head back and lets out a drawn-out barking sound, then another, then a few short and fast ones.
She’s trying to howl, Ralph realizes. And as he watches, she kind of gets there. It’s a puppy howl, so small, and she has to stop to catch her breath over and over again, but she’s howling.
Ralph twists around, hearing the faint sound of a siren in the distance, some cop car moving through Ketterbridge. Tycho’s ears picked it up way before Ralph’s did, and she’s howling along with it.
“Oh, that’s handy, isn’t it?” he says, slowly and thoughtfully, dropping his eyes back to her. “Good girl, Tycho.”
She wags her tail, pants in a few breaths, then tips her head back and howls again.
Ralph lets out a soft laugh, glances out at Ketterbridge one more time, then beckons with his head for Tycho. She trots after him as he leaves the lights of the town behind, heading back the way they came.
He forgot that all of this was to tire her out, but it worked. She starts losing speed as they walk back, yawning deeply and stumbling over her paws, barely able to keep her eyes open. And the rain is starting to come down harder.
Ralph hesitates, then scoops her up. He looks up at the rain, then tucks Tycho against his chest and zips up his jacket, careful not to snag her fur.
She trembles anxiously for a minute at the contact, but that gradually slows to a stop as Ralph keeps walking.
She snuggles her face into his chest, stops moving around. He hears something like a quiet snore.
He folds his arms around her, walking slowly through the silent, moonlit woods so he doesn’t wake her up. He can feel her deep, slow breathing, the ridiculous round softness of her little belly.
Tycho is a bundle of pure warmth by the time they get back to the house, and Ralph is almost sorry to wake her up and let her down from his jacket.
He gets one of Noah’s old towels from the hallway closet and starts drying Tycho off with it. He flinches sharply when she suddenly snaps her little jaws at him, but he realizes that she was going for the towel, not his hands.
“What are you-? Hold still.”
Ralph tries to dry her off again, and she starts rolling around wildly in the towel, panting, a big puppy smile on her face as she tries to seize it out of Ralph’s hands. He lets out a surprised laugh, snatching it away from her, then laughs again as she rolls off of the towel and lands flat on the floor, all four legs spread out.
She springs back to her feet and tries to tug the towel from his hands again, then stops and yawns sleepily, clumsily falls back to sit down. Suddenly she looks like she’s going to pass out right then and there, just drop to the floor.
Ralph switches off the lights, slips out of his rain-wet clothes and gets back down to his boxer briefs again. He’s exhausted, too, actually. His brain feels pleasantly heavy and slow and empty. Filled up with rain and leaves and moonlight.
He scoops the half-asleep puppy off of the floor, then drops down into bed. Both he and Tycho yawn deeply at the same time.
Ralph sets Tycho down beside him. She curls into a tight ball, nestles herself down against his ribs. She’s still warm from being in his jacket, but he can feel one cold spot where her tiny pink nose is pressed against him.
“Don’t get used to it,” he murmurs drowsily, scratching her ears. “S’only for one night.”
But it didn’t sound that convincing even to him, and Tycho wasn’t listening. She’s already fast asleep, snuggled up close at his side.
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