PA 3.5: End of a Tail

Chapter XIX Part I

There was a knock at the door, almost breaking the cat's concentration and disrupting the flow of the winding cloth. Coco ignored the sound, desperately trying to keep her attention on the-

"Coco?" Brownie said from the other side of the door.

The bombay started sweating, and the fabric began to furl and come apart as each thread became less distinct. She grumbled, staring needles at the material.

"Coco!"

The cat flailed her wand around as the door cracked open, halting the spell and muttering curses to herself.

"Coco, you okay?" Brownie asked, peeking her obnoxious little head through the door and looking at the cat.

"What?!" Coco demanded, looking at the corgi with bared teeth and bloodshot eyes.

"Oh- n-nevermind," Brownie muttered, slowly starting to close the door, the hurt evident in her voice.

Coco's face faded from anger quickly into exhaustion. "Wait," she said, using the power of her wand to keep the door held open. "You can come in, Brownie. I'm just being rude," she sighed.

Brownie frowned, then swung open the door, revealing herself and the dog next to her - Cujo - the golden retriever who had proved essential in the capturing of Patches' accomplice, someone who was supposedly that dog's friend. Coco was going to mention the dog's presence, but Brownie cut her off first.

"Oh. Did you need your concentration for that?" Brownie said, pointing towards the half-furled bedding sprawled out on the floor. The cat had formed a surprising amount of blankets from the small amount of fabric that was compressed into Angel's desk drawer.

"Yes," Coco began, "but it's fine... what did you want to say?"

"Oh! I just wanted to know... uh... where you'd be sleeping tonight?" Brownie asked, a blush forming on her cheeks as she crossed her arms and looked away from the cat.

Coco immediately got the message, suddenly realizing how she had kind-of not considered Brownie specifically in the overall plan. "Well, I don't know," Coco said, bringing a paw up to her mouth and scratching at a dark-furred cheek, "I'm not a very heavy sleeper. I don't know if I'd be alright with sleeping outside of my bed-" Coco stopped her thought, closing her eyes and waving her paw about to stop Brownie's inevitable puppy eyes. "Agh, fiiine, I'll sleep downstairs with the rest of you. Olive can take my bed, or something."

Brownie hissed out a "yessss" before chuckling and looking at Coco with a deep longing. "Hey, Coco? Thanks for being so cool."

Coco looked away from the dog, getting flustered at the compliment. "Haha, yeah, well..."

"Not to interrupt your moment," Cujo interjected, "but can I talk to her now?" The dog's appearance belayed his nausea; his shoulders were slouched to an almost impressive degree, and every part of him sagged with the same lead that weighed down his stomach. Despite his state, Cujo forced himself to act as lively as he could, though the stress was evident in his weary tone.

"Oh, right..." Brownie said, curling her smile into a more professional glower. "Coco, would you be alright with talking to this guy for a bit?"

Coco grimaced. "Uhh..."

"Say no more!" Brownie exclaimed, looking over to the golden with a smirk. "You heard the lady, out!" she demanded.

Coco wanted to interject, but Brownie wasn't wrong. Coco didn't want to speak to Rover, Cujo or nearly any other dog right now. The anxiety welling up in her chest was telling her to avoid everyone that might cause stress, simply for the fact that she didn't know how she would handle it.

"Waitwaitwait!" Cujo exclaimed, his floppy ears jumping alongside his loose bandana as he scowled at Brownie. "Mitt said I should speak to you. They- They said it was important? I mean, we spoke before but you were uh..."

Coco sighed, "Preoccupied. Honestly I'm surprised you're not more angry at me or Mitt for accosting you like how we did." Coco put her wand-wielding paw up to her muzzle, grinding her soft paw pads against the polished material as she realized what Mitt might have wanted the dog to talk about.

"Wh- eh, really? I completely understand why you did what you did, no hard feelings there." Cujo raised his paw up, scratching the back of his head and displacing the messy, dirty blonde hair. "I mean honestly I'm just kinda glad Mitt didn't do anything... extreme."

"Mitt?" Coco asked, cocking her brow.

"Yeah, they're kinda scary," Cujo replied.

Brownie shrugged. "Yeah, I get a weird vibe from them too. Always feels like they're one step away from going on a rampage."

Cujo looked to the side, sweat running down his brow. "Ehe, well, I wouldn't exactly say that, but they're just... scary, yaknow?"

When Cujo looked back at Coco, he realized she wasn't looking entirely confident in herself, but still looked at Cujo while she bent over and grabbed another quarter dozen blankets to hand over to Brownie. "I get it, what did you want to ask?"

"Well- uh, Mitt just said to talk to you."

Coco let her arms slump and eyes shut at the exhaustive conversation. "Okay, what did they want you to ask me?"

Cujo dug his claws deeper into the back of his head, letting them comb through the thick fur on his neck. "Uh... I don't knowww?"

"Wow," Brownie remarked, "this is really dumb."

Cujo let his paw fall to his side, then shrugged. "Look man I feel like I'm about to fall over. Mitt just said I needed to talk to you. When I prodded, they just said it was 'Coco's decision to tell you or not.'" He gestured around with his hands, "I'm paraphrasing but you get the idea."

She was looking at the bundle of vestigial yarn and rolls of cloth with apprehension, looking over their details as she thought about the implications.

"... You alright?" Cujo asked.

"Here, Brownie," Coco said, handing off the trio of thin blankets to the corgi, "just give us a few minutes."

Brownie took the blankets into her grasp, briefly relishing her proximity to Coco. Before she could walk away from the cat, she grabbed Brownie's paw in her own and fumbled around with the digits, feeling the paw pads warmly pressing up against her own.

Immediately, Brownie's blush intensified and she went wide-eyed at the bombay, initially afraid to reciprocate the gesture both out of fear of doing something wrong and of also dropping the blankets which hid the exchange underneath themselves.

Coco was nothing but contemplative, and it filled Brownie with both worry and happiness- she was going to start tearing up any second now but held back for the bombay's sake.

"C-Coco, are you alright?" Brownie asked, a rampant mixture of emotions flooding her body. She had never felt so flushed, nor so apprehensive in her whole life. She so desperately wanted to make the blankets and Cujo disappear, then tackle Coco to the ground and hold her.

As much as Brownie wanted to stay in the room and comfort the person who had nearly murdered her a week ago, she was too concerned about what she might think or feel if she didn't have her space. She was so worried that the cat would think it'd be a step too far- why else would she have asked for privacy just now if not to deal with this insecurity of hers alone? Coco probably thought she needed to have space, or-

'Oh screw it.'