Being Together

[Patch]

((Sept 5th; during lunchtime. Closed to Patch and Angel))


It felt good to get away from it all, even if it was for just a few minutes.

It was by design more than accident that Patch had wondered out onto the school playing fields. The little dalmatian had begun to feel just a bit overwhelmed by the classes and work and all the human-like things he was expected to do, and so he had taken advantage of the lunch break to seek some space to himself. While there were a few other students about - those, he assumed, who like him hadn't been picked for the fights today and so had no pressing concerns to speak of - running or kicking balls about or play-wrestling, Patch avoided them until he found a spot that was free of anyone else.

Settling himself down on his rear, the dalmatian raised a hind leg and gave himself a good, thorough scratch that, besides feeling good, succeeded in rumpling his shirt, rucking up one side of his collar, and pushing his tie askew before he set the leg back down on the ground again. Ignoring the fact that he had to look a bit of a mess now, Patch lay down in the grass and rolled onto his back, just enjoying the freedom from the crush of other students - which was better than the sea of spots back home, though not by much. He'd fix his uniform before heading in for the afternoon's classes, of course; now, however, there wasn't anyone about to worry about it.

Or... that might not be strictly true. After their sparring class of the day before, Patch had suggested to Angel that she meet him out here one day, so there was always the chance she might stumble across him; and Patch would be embarrassed for her to catch him looking less-than-neat. But... he didn't genuinely expect her to show. He wasn't exactly the height of ideal companionship for a pretty girl like her, anyway; or at least, he didn't think he was.

[Angel]

"That was smooth."

Surprise, surprise, Angel had actually decided to take Patch up on his offer. While she could have easily gone to enjoy lunch with Vanellope, there was just a certain sort of... Charm to the dalmatian that made her want to spend time with him. Besides, he was rather cute. Not that she'd admit that out loud, but still it was a good factor. The sight Angel had been greeted with was that of Patch in his rumpled uniform. Hopefully he wouldn't ask her for help in fixing it. Fixing ties was one thing, but whole rumpled uniforms? That was another thing entirely.

Angel trotted closer to Patch and shook her head at the sight of his uniform. She couldn't exactly blame him for how he looked; she'd fallen victim to a similar situation. The only difference was that Angel had been alone when it happened, and Patch had been in plain sight. Of course she would notice his rumpled appearance. The stray allowed herself to sit beside him and smirked a bit soon after.

"Couldn't resist getting that scratch, huh?" she asked.

[Patch]

"Oh! Angel! I... ah..." The dalmatian hastily pawed at his collar and tie, trying to smooth the former down and straighten the latter, without having much real success at either due to how flustered he was at having been caught. A crimson flush spread its way across Patch's cheeks as he only succeeded in skewing his tie still further, and the dalmatian lowered his forepaws to the ground rather than risk messing himself up even more.

Brilliant, Patch, really brilliant. You really know how to make a good impression.

"I- I- I-" he spluttered for a moment, feeling particularly hot under the collar, before he managed to form a coherent sentence. "I didn't think you were going to see," he mumbled, staring at his paws and wishing he'd been more optimistic about her showing up. He might still have gone for the scratch, but at least he would have had chance to fix his uniform before she'd shown up. It was far too late to worry about that now, though; she was right there, laughing at how badly he'd mucked up his tie and collar.

As much as he might have liked to muster a retort to her teasing, Patch really couldn't think of anything to counter it with. If anyone else had found him like this, he could probably have shrugged it off momentarily; Angel, however, he wanted to make a good impression on, and so the spotted male felt incredibly stupid for her having come across him like this.

"I didn't expect you to come," he confessed sheepishly, finally chancing a look back up at Angel. She looked as stunningly pretty as the day before; even more so, in fact, now that she'd had the chance to straighten out her tie after her own slight mishap in the library. The fact that she was still paying attention to him was more than Patch had bargained for; never mind the fact that she'd actually sought him out.

Did she maybe... like him?

In spite of himself, Patch's tail gave a little twitch at that thought.

[Angel]

A shrug followed Patch's last statement.

"It's not like I'm the busiest dog in the world," she confessed. "Besides, I haven't got a lot of friends here yet. You're one of the only ones I know here so far, and I wanted to spend time with you again."

Him and Vanellope, really, were the only ones Angel had gotten an opportunity to speak to. The latter she had met in the cafeteria, and the former she had met by accident in the library. Both were decent enough, and Patch was as sweet as they came. It wasn't as if she was going to forget him any time soon. Her last statement was true enough. Patch was just pleasant to be around, even if Angel did envy him for having a home while she didn't, and that wasn't about to change unless he found some way to muck it up. She doubted that he would, though. Patch didn't seem like the kind of dog that could royally screw things over like others she knew.

"So, how've you been holding up? This place isn't kicking your tail too badly, is it?" Angel asked. She didn't think it would... Unless he was having a hard time with the human tasks like she was. Doing homework, in particular, was proving to be a difficult task to accomplish every night. She hadn't tried using pens, though. Angel didn't think she was that daring; pencils were more her speed.

[Patch]

"Really?" Though he could hardly believe that any girl as pretty as Angel would want anything to do with him, a grin stretched its way across Patch's maw as she confirmed that she had, indeed, wanted to spend time with him. Not only that, but she seemed to be implying that she thought - or could think - of him as a friend. The dalmatian's tail began to wag in earnest as he smiled at her, completely forgotting about his messed-up uniform for the present. Possibly if she drew attention to it again, he'd try and sort the thing; as it was, though, he wasn't sure if it really mattered all that much to her.

"I haven't had friends outside of my family before. This is champion!" he enthused happily. It was just a bonus that his new friend was undeniably good-looking; though Patch very much doubted that anything would happen beyond friendship, since she was the first girl dog outside of his family to pay any attention to him, Patch felt he was entitled to dream, if nothing else.

He titled his head slightly at her question. "No, I've been doing well. Well, I haven't been picked for the fights yet, at any rate." Patch could well imagine why that was; he would be a pretty pathetic opponent, all told, to anyone bigger than Angel's size; he supposed whoever was in charge was looking for a bit more sport than a small puppy getting flattened. He had been relieved to note that Angel's name hadn't come up on the lists either; though he didn't know the girl that well yet, Patch didn't want to see anything happen to her.

"Though the human things are hard," he added at length. Angel could probably tell well enough that he was having trouble adjusting to the uniform side of things; but that was far from the only thing causing him problems. "I'm not really used to writing, or clothes, or any of this. Dad's pets make it look easy, but..." He gave a tiny exhalation of air, not really enough to even be called a sigh, raised a paw as if to scratch again - and then quickly thought better of it.

Angel would really laugh at him if he did the exact same thing a second time.

[Angel]

It was true, Angel did consider Patch to be a friend of hers. That thought alone was a strange one, now that she had an opportunity to really think about it. Back home she never would have considered any of the other dogs she lived with her friends. Especially not Buster. Here, though, everything was different. Angel actually had met people and animals she wanted to see again and again, not just individuals that she could tolerate the existence of and pretend to enjoy the company of. The way Patch was enthusing over this fact made Angel smile brightly. Patch really was cute, she admitted to herself. She'd hate to see what he would have ended up like if he'd been forced to live the same life she had. The streets would be no place for a dalmatian like him.

"Champion, huh?" Angel asked. That was a new one. She'd never heard anyone make use of 'champion' the way he had, and it just made him more adorable. She wasn't about to say that much out loud, though. Angel didn't think it wise to make Patch flustered all over again... Not just yet, anyway. A soft little laugh escaped her and she decided to carry on from there. She did rather like the sound of 'champion'. It sounded a lot better than the standard 'great'.

"That's a good way of putting it. I like it," Angel said. When Patch went on to answer her question, Angel nodded once. She could understand the frustrations of doing human things. Wearing clothes had been a strange enough thing for her. Having to learn to write like humans did was something entirely different, though. At the very least, she could say she was cheating the system of life by wearing her tie and call it a collar. Doing homework was the most challenging part, to be certain.

"Humans have always been weird, but I never thought I would be doing the things they do. Especially not writing," she said. "The dogs back home would never believe me if I told them what all I was doing. I'd probably be laughed right into the streets or called a wannabe human."

[Patch]

Patch turned slightly crimson again as Angel called attention to his use of the word 'champion'; however the blush died away some when she actually complimented the word choice, and he gave a little bit of a grin instead. His tail continued to wag gently as they sat there, side by side; the pretty and smartly-dressed pomeranian alongside the somewhat scruffy dalmatian. The thought prompted Patch to try and see what he could do about his appearance again; and less flustered as he was now, the patched male managed to succeed in pushing his tie straight again with his paw.

He imagined it still didn't look... quite perfect - and Patch seemed to have completely missed that the left side of his collar was still sticking up - but he figured it was at least an improvement. He glanced back at Angel again, finding himself wondering if she even cared how neat or not he looked, just in time for her to start talking again.

His smile died some as the female spoke about how the dogs back home would laugh at her. While he would freely acknowledge that trying to act like a human was weird - Lucky and Penny and the rest would probably laugh at his own attempts (and failures) if they ever found out - the idea of someone mocking Angel didn't really sit right with Patch. She was too pretty and too nice to deserve that sort of treatment.

"It... sounds like they're pretty mean," he voiced at length, regarding her with sincere brown eyes. "Are they your siblings?" Perhaps the pup was oblivious; so far, however, he hadn't caught on to the fact that Angel came from the streets. He figured she'd lived a harder life than him, but that was the extent of what he'd worked out; Patch's assumption was that she'd simply had a rough home. "I know mine would laugh at me if they saw me here."

[Angel]

"No, they're not," Angel answered. "I actually don't have any siblings. The other dogs back where I'm from are more part of a... Pack."

That was the best way of putting it, she supposed. Angel didn't really want to tell Patch that she didn't have a home, but her lack of a collar might have made that much obvious. On the other hand... Patch was someone she felt like she could trust. It wasn't as though he knew who Buster was or could tell the other dogs she lived with that she was doing these things. Maybe she could actually tell him a bit about her 'home' life. He'd just told her that he had siblings, so... It made sense that she could tell him something of her own life, too. With that reasoning, she felt like she could move forward. That wasn't to say she was happy about telling him, though. It was almost kind of shameful.

"We're just a bunch of dogs that happen to live together in one place. A junkyard, to be exact. The others I live with don't really like humans that much. If they found out I was here, I could only imagine the taunting I'd get," Angel explained. Mooch may have not taunted her without influence of the other dogs, for he was too stupid, but the others? She knew for a fact that they would. Especially Buster. In spite of all she'd said, Angel gave her head a light toss and let her ears flap briefly as a little smile traced its way back across her mouth.

"But they don't know I'm here. The less they know, the better. ...I guess it must be pretty crazy where you're from, though. having siblings to worry about, I mean."

[Patch]

She was a stray? Patch's already wide eyes widened a little further, and for a moment he didn't seem to even know what to say. All the dogs he'd ever met before had homes and pets; he knew there existed those who didn't, of course, but he hadn't really expected to meet one here, of all places.

He certainly hadn't expected them to be anything like Angel.

He suddenly felt awkward.

"I... I'm sorry." He lowered his gaze to his paws, and to the tip of his tie dangling between them. He really, sincerely was. Angel was, at least in Patch's mind, way too nice a girl to have to live rough, with no friends or family or... anything; and looking at her, he could hardly imagine that she had lived her whole life without ever knowing any of the comforts he so easily took for granted. Patch scratched at his sleeve with his opposite forepaw, abruptly feeling uncomfortable. What could he even say? He wanted to... try and comfort her, he guessed? But he had no clue if she'd appreciate something like that.

"I didn't realise..." Way to state the obvious; but Patch felt unbelievably awkward. He didn't think any less of his new friend for her background, of course; but it was still quite the shock, and the dalmatian had no idea how to handle it. He didn't really see Angel any differently for it; but he felt as though he should, and it was this that was making Patch feel particularly awkward.

"You deserve better than that," he mumbled softly, the only thing he could think of to say at all.

He gave a little nod as Angel stated that the less her pack knew, the better. He really didn't want to imagine her getting taunted and jeered by them for being here... or for hanging with him, he figured. If they disliked humans, wouldn't they dislike dogs who had human pets too? Yet in spite of him doubtlessly reminding Angel of all she didn't have, she still wanted to spend time with him anyway?

Again, Patch's tail gave a little twitch of a wag. That she had taken a shine to him regardless... it really did make him feel special.

He gave a shake of his head, ears flapping, as Angel returned the conversation to him. Not in order to disagree, but simply because she couldn't have the slightest clue just how crazy. "You have no idea; there's a ninety-nine of us. And we're all stuck in our pets' little house... it's hectic," he stated at length. Hectic hardly even began to cover it at times; with one hundred and one dalmatians, it was more like a massive sea of spots that Patch had always found it far too easy to get swept away in.

"Though next to your place, I don't have any reason to complain," he confessed.

[Angel]

It wasn't as if Angel had tried to make it obvious. She didn't have a collar, but now that she thought about it that much would be easy to miss. Her shirt collar and tie would hide that fact well, and she could only see Patch's own collar peeking out from his clothes. Well, the fact that his rumpled shirt made it more visible didn't help matters. Angel's expression softened and she moved her paw to touch against one of Patch's own. He didn't need to feel bad for her... It wasn't as if she had asked to live the life of a stray. Her luck was just... Terrible, she supposed. Five failed attempts at finding the thing that Patch had had his whole life? No one else could have as bad a streak of luck as she did. Angel just kind of took it in stride for the most part. There was, however, no denying that she longed for a home to call her own. A family would have been so lovely... But she'd have to wait to obtain it.

"It's not your fault. I didn't exactly put it on display for the world to see," Angel said. Really, she didn't want Patch to feel bad for her. She'd managed to learn how to survive, even with dogs who lived under a motto of not helping anyone but themselves, so she couldn't complain about her lot in life. Angel did, however, manage to catch Patch's murmured statement. This much surprised her. Did Patch... Did he really think she deserved better than what she had been dealt? Blue eyes briefly sparkled with wonder, and soon there was a soft smile on her face.

He really must have seen something good in her. Angel didn't exactly see herself as the best dog, as sometimes she did adhere to Buster's motto, but maybe there was good in her after all. Maybe. The streets could very well have beaten out whatever goodness there was in her. She didn't really have the opportunity to think about that much, though, because Patch had begun to answer her question from before. She was about to ask what he could have meant by hectic, but the answer came soon enough.

Ninety-eight siblings.

"Wow... That's got to be the biggest family I've ever heard of," Angel said. She felt herself grow a touch more envious of that much. Angel wasn't a fool, though. Having such a large family couldn't have been all fun and games. To someone who had never really had a family, it was kind of like a dream. Patch made it sound as though it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to deal with, though, and she could sympathize with that much. Especially living in a small house. That much was something she couldn't really comprehend, though. Why would humans have so many dogs in one place?

"I can't even begin to imagine how tough it would be to have that many siblings to compete with. But... Why a small house? There can't be that much space for all of you there, can there?" she asked.

[Patch]

Oh, yeah, his own collar was showing a little now, wasn't it? The slight glance he'd noticed from her reminded him that, where before it had sat nicely out of sight just low enough not to clash with the collar of his shirt, Patch gradually became aware that he'd managed to get part of it poking out obviously over the top - as well as his shirt collar still being rucked up too, he belatedly noticed.

He should probably fix that, right?

All thoughts of fixing it, however, went completely out the window at the touch of her paw against his own. Though he still flushed a little, Patch returned the gesture by slipping his other paw over to gently encircle her own. A small smile flickered across the dal's face when she didn't pull away, and he glanced up at Angel again.

And she was smiling. Smiling at his words, her face lit up in a manner that made her look even prettier than she had before - and given that he'd thought she was stunning from the moment he'd laid eyes on her, that was really something. Patch's tail gave another wag, and this time didn't seem to want to stop for as long as the smile remained on the young female's face.

Somehow, just seeing her happy was enough to make him happy.

He had to chuckle slightly at Angel's reaction to the number of his family. That was a ridiculously huge number, wasn't it? As Angel asked into the reason behind them all being crammed into a small house, Patch figured he'd better elaborate.

"Well, it started off as just the fifteen of us. Then we got captured by a devil woman who wanted to make coats out of us-" here, Patch still gave a slight shudder at the thought "-and put with a whole bunch of other pups. When Dad and Mother rescued us, they brought all of them home too, and our pets adopted them. They keep talking about getting a dalmatian plantation for us all to live on, but it hasn't happened yet."

It was only as he would down that Patch felt he could have kicked himself. Homes, parents, siblings, farms, pets... he'd mentioned all of them as if they were completely normal; when, of course, Angel couldn't know what it was like to have any of them. It must have felt like he was purposefully pointing out all the things that he had and she didn't; though that had never been his intention. Again, he glanced at her, a little bit nervous for her reaction.

[Angel]

Fifteen dalmatian puppies. That alone was mystifying to Angel, and as Patch went on to explain further the mystery became clearer. The other eighty-four puppies had come from elsewhere, apparently, and Patch's parents had saved them from a horrible fate. As for the small house, it was just a place they apparently were staying in until they got to a bigger plot to live on. Truth be told, Angel didn't mind hearing all of this. While she was envious to a degree, Angel couldn't exactly ask Patch to censor himself. It would be too ridiculous to ask for him to use different words from what he actually was using, anyway. All she could do was roll with it and try not to think too hard about what she didn't have. She should have been happy with what she did have.

"It sounds like it'll be pretty great once you have a bigger place," Angel said at length. But here, he didn't have to worry about a lack of space or getting lost in the crowd. Angel was sure to notice him no matter what. After all, he had that impossible to miss patch on his eye. No other dalmatian in the school had such a marking, and she'd spent enough time around him to recognize him at a glance. 

"It must be hard, though. I mean, you have all those siblings to compete with for space and everything. I don't know if I'd ever be able to handle that," Angel admitted. The most she had to struggle with was competing for food with the other dogs she lived with. They didn't get all that much food in the first place unless they got lucky with what they stole. Space wasn't a problem unless it came to dealing with more territorial strays... But Reggie was the least of their concerns if they avoided his alley. As long as Angel had the tricks of the trade, she'd be able to get by. As much as she wanted a family, she didn't really know if she'd be able to deal with having quite as many siblings as Patch did... As she'd said.

[Patch]

"Maybe you could visit sometime! Um, if you can without those guys finding out." Patch's tail, which had begun to wag again at the prospect of giving Angel at least a minor taste of what the better life that she deserved was like, abruptly slowed as he remembered what she'd said about the junkyard and her pack. They didn't like humans - or by extension, he assumed, dogs with human pets either - so to bring Angel to his home at any point might only be to invite disaster down upon her with them. He didn't need to give them any reason to make her already-awful life even harder.

Then again, she was here without the pack knowing, wasn't she?

Her mention that she wouldn't be able to handle so many dogs, however, effectively put paid to Patch's suggestion anyway. He glanced down at his paws - and hers between them, small and dainty in comparison to his own - feeling embarrassed that she'd probably reject his offer straight out on principle and not really knowing what else to say. Finally, he settled on addressing the first part of her second statement.

"Yes, it is. I mean, you sound like you have it a lot worse, but I always felt lost in a sea of spots. Like I'm just... one of a hundred and one. Nothing special." Without even really thinking about it, Patch finally raised a paw to smooth his rucked collar back into place. Even with his tie and collar fixed, he still probably didn't look as neat as he had started off before his scratch; but that was honestly the last concern on Patch's mind right now.

Swallowing nervously, not sure whether what he was about to do would be appreciated or earn him another bash to the muzzle after yesterday's, Patch raised his other paw from its position alongside hers and placed it on top instead. Ever so gently, he gave her paw a little squeeze, the same way he'd seen Roger and Anita do occasionally. Just a tiny gesture of reassurance; as much as he might have liked to, he didn't feel brave enough to do any more than that.

"You at least stand out. You- I- I- I think you're really pretty." the crimson flush that took Patch's face as he said the words was literally impossible to miss; even from beneath his fur, it burned hot enough to be obvious.

[Angel]

Truth be told, Angel would have liked to visit Patch's home a lot. It wasn't as if she was stuck with Buster and the other junkyard dogs for the rest of her life, after all. The only reason she'd stayed as long as she had was because the junkyard provided shelter. All it really was was a pseudo home. So, with that being put into consideration, it would be easy for her to just walk away from that life. She'd only be at risk of being kicked out of the group if she voiced her desire to be a pet. Besides... Buster never really cared about what happened to the others, and that included her. With his present motto, it would be easy for her to slip away unnoticed.

"I'd like that," Angel said. "Buster probably would never notice if I left. He may call me his girl, but he cares about me about as much as he cares about the others. As far as he knows, I probably got caught by the dog catcher or something."

Sad, but it was completely true. Buster would have cared very little if the dogs in his group got caught. As long as he kept his own skin in tact, he hardly cared if the other dogs wound up in trouble. Hell, if Angel herself ended up in trouble he probably wouldn't have raised a claw to help her.

...Why was she thinking about him so much? Angel loathed Buster with every fiber of her being, even if there was something attractive about him, and so she should have pushed him from her thoughts fairly easily. In spite of that, she continued to think about the doberman like no other. She really ought to have stopped doing that. Patch didn't need to hear about him every few seconds.

"...Not that I am his girl. I'm not," Angel said belatedly. The last thing she wanted was for Patch to assume she was already someone's girlfriend. Inwardly, she kicked herself. She really, really needed to stop talking about him.

Thankfully, Patch had begun to talk about how difficult it was to stand out in a sea of spots. Sympathy flickered in Angel's gaze for a moment as she caught his last statement. It was true that she stood out, what with her fluffy tail and weird ears, but Patch stood out to her too. That was likely due to the fact that she'd had yet to actually meet any other dalmatians in the school. She had to let him know that he wasn't just an average, ordinary dalmatian.

"I think you stand out plenty," Angel said. "I noticed you, didn't I?"

[Patch]

Well, she hadn't turned his offer down straight away, and she didn't complain about the placement of his paw atop hers; that was something, at least. Patch turned to look at Angel again, a smile forming on his maw - a smile that abruptly seemed a touch forced as Angel mentioned already being someone else's girl. Patch wasn't sure why this felt like such a kick to the gut. It wasn't as if he thought he and Angel could ever... well, okay, he had to confess he wouldn't mind at all if something were to happen between them, but the dal figured it was as unlikely as could be. It wasn't even as though he shouldn't have expected this, given how pretty she was...

The smile collapsed completely as Angel spoke of how little this other dog - this Buster - actually cared for her. Why would she be with a dog like that when she deserved so much better? She was special, he could tell that already; she deserved someone who would love and cherish her, not who would discard her as soon as something went wrong. He didn't want to say someone like him, but... well, he could dream, at least.

And then she answered his question without prompting. She wasn't actually Buster's girl at all; as silly as it was, Patch's tail began to twitch hopefully at the thought. Maybe... he'd never really dreamt of ever finding himself a girl, never figured he was special enough to attract any of them, but just maybe he stood a chance with Angel? Was that likely? Was that even possible?

Apparently it was, as she pointed out that she'd noticed him and thought he stood out plenty. For a long moment, Patch could only stare at her; his jaw hung ajar, its corners pulling upwards in a rather stupid smile; his face burned crimson through his fur; and his tail just simply wouldn't stop wagging - it lashed from side to side as fast is if it was trying to stir up a hurricane all by itself.

"I-I-I- you-" he floundered for something to say, came up with nothing other than a squeaked "you really think so?"