#fancouple

A mutt—wearing a hat atop his head, a small pair of glasses set upon his muzzle and a rope wrapped around his neck, a sweater and a jacket, scrambled to the Underbone, his two-part bike. He hopped onto it, not even bothering to snatch his helmet that was sitting in the side car, and instead quickly revved his bike, ears flattening so as to get a better hear at what exactly those thugs were yelling at him. Upon hearing, he pouted to the insults, though regardless, he began to drive off just as the thugs were about to catch up to him on foot, lightening up and laughing as he heard them cursing. He didn’t see any bikes like his around, so the thought of them having vehicles to chase him down with escaped his mind for the moment, and he sped off, away from the spooky warehouse and thugs, and towards a city.

It was a bright morning, the sun high in the sky and hardly any clouds in the sky. In the city, during daytime, people were shuffling about to get to work or simple get around or find someone. The street, as usual, had its normal flow of cars and taxi’s going down the street—it wasn’t packed, but it certainly was a constant movement of vehicles. The street was lined with a bakery, art shop, small drive-thru places, and a clothing shop.

  A young skunk came out of the clothing shop holding a mannequin that was wearing a green, folded at the waist dress that had one sleeve. With effort, the skunk sat the mannequin down in front of the shop, heaving a sigh. “Goddamnit that thing was heavy…” She muttered, and wiped her forehead, leaning against the mannequin as she caught her breath, and then stood up straight. She let out a huff, blowing a stray strand of hair out of her face. She wasn’t in a good mood today. After breaking up with her boyfriend just a few months ago and having to work more often to keep her apartment, stress was taking its toll.

 She wore an almost black shirt with two holes at the chest (And a name tag slapped onto the shirt, which read ‘Carmen’ in capital letters), and it had short sleeves, each sleeve having three holes cut into them. Two red pins were in her white-and-black streaked hair, and she wore plaid red pants and roller skating shoes. She looked at a clock, visible from where she was standing that was inside of the store, and tilted her head, squinting a bit to see it—it was almost her breaktime, though she figured that it wouldn’t hurt to start a bit early.

     She began to trot off to get some food, until she heard the loud rev of an engine. She turned, and suddenly saw a bike go past her at a shocking speed—she barely had any time to see who was driving it! She stared, watching as whoever was on the bike had to slow down because of the cars that were currently in the street, blinking slowly.

“What the fuck…?” She mumbled quietly, and jumped as she saw a few others—who looked like bikers, on their own motorcycles—speed after the bike she just saw, and…Leave a rather terrible odor behind, making her scrunch her nose and twitch. She groaned, and rolled her eyes, shouting, “’EY, TAKE A BATH!!”

“…”

She then stood, growling and bristling her fur a bit. A final biker drove by, behind the others, and ran into a puddle…splashing dirty, mucky water all over the skunk. She twitched, hackles raised and stood for a few moments, hands clenched and teeth bared before she stormed down the street. “Alright, that’s it!” To hell if she was going to take having dirty water sprayed all over her and not do anything about it! Her angry stomping soon turned to her bursting into a sprint to catch up with the biker, watching as he turned and headed into an alleyway.

She couldn’t help but be curious though. What exactly was going on with those guys, anyways?

  The mutt soon screeched to a halt, cursing as he realized he had reached a dead end after a few more turns—he thought that going into the alley would be a better option so people wouldn’t get hurt, and he didn’t intend to bring the thugs to the city, they chased him in! Regardless, he turned, tense as he saw the thugs line up, one by one, a few feet away from him. He slowly got off of his bike, ears pricked. Eyes narrowing, he spoke.

“Now, look—sorry about what happened earlier…” As he said this, a wide grin spread across his features as he grew smug, his smart-assedness peeking through. He continued, sarcastic as he spoke. “…But you had poor little me frightened!” He jested, and then added with a bit of seriousness, “An’ what’s with driving me into the city? There’re witnesses all around to call th’police ‘r somethin’ an’ get you guys caught, or were you guys just born as dumbasses?”

This earned a few low growls, and the mix snickered in response, waving them off—he was growing concerned, though, in his own mind, knowing that if police got involved he might be screwed as well if they asked why he was being attacked by thugs in the first place. Regardless, it was a shot and he had to escape without being beaten into a pulp. Because, y’know, he liked his face the way it was.

With his little comment, a thug began to step forward, grinding his teeth together, and knife at the ready to stab the dog. Carmen screeched to a halt as she appeared in the alleyway, panting, though still growling. She was tense, and layed her ears back, glaring. “OI!!”

The thugs quickly reeled around, glaring. The mutt gave the skunk a bit of a hard stare—Yelling at thugs wasn’t the best idea, even if they were idiots. And by the looks of it, the skunk didn’t look all that powerful at all.

Carmen tensed, flicking her ears and lowering them further, cooling off a bit and somewhat put off by the thugs, though was still upset and snorted. “What the hell’re you doing?! I have a bone to pick with you guys, one of you got me soaked and you were driving around like drunk monkey’s on crack!”  She then noticed the mutt, and stared, slowly frowning. She noticed one of the thugs waving a knife at the dog. She began to grow concerned and a bit suspicious as to what was going on, and narrowed her eyes. “What’s going on here, anyways?!” She repeated, “I wanna know, now!”

A few thugs glanced between one another, and one snorted, not answering the skunk. “Get outta here, girlie!” He then grinned somewhat and raised a pistol, “…’Lest you want to get shot, I suggest you take your fine ass outta here. Got it?” He said the last bit slowly, as if mocking her. Her fur bristled and she snarled, now taking steps towards the thug.

She snarled, “Are you mocking me?!”

He said with an amused grin, “Wow, she’s dumber than she looks!” A few of the other thugs laughed. The one that mocked Carmen stepped forward, gesturing for her to try to fight him. The skunk paused, looking unsure, though narrowed her eyes and stepped forward, cracking her knuckles. First, she was generally pissed off…That alone, she thought at the back of her mind, wouldn’t cause her to fight, but she didn’t like the look of the thugs gaining up on the dog. With all of this in mind, she then thought how she would fight a thug who had a knife when she had no weapons. She glanced about the alley and snatched a rusty metal pipe, gripping it tightly where it was the least rusted. A dozen thoughts slowly began to run through her mind, and the tense moment made her freeze up as the thug lunged at her.

She lunged out of the way in a somewhat awkward fashion, smacking into the ground hands-first, hissing in pain at the hard ground smacking against her palms. She was on her hands and knees now, and had the pipe still clenched in one of her hands, not even bothering to begin to check if the thug would lunge again—she had never really fought before, so she was mainly concerned with instincts of not getting hit that she forgot to try and swing the pipe and hit someone herself.

A few of the other thugs watched, not seeming to be taking anything at all seriously, before some turned back to the dog, weapons in hand. He growled lowly, ears laying back. He attempted to think of what to do about the situation—the skunk was sure to get hurt if he didn’t think of someway to help her, but he hardly had a weapon himself. Regardless, he scanned the thugs that were closing in on him, and snatched his helmet in his hand, running at one of the less-armed thugs and whacking the mobian as hard as he could in the face with the helmet before slamming the top of the helmet onto the thugs head, watching him slink down and groan. He yelped suddenly and sharply as he was stabbed in the side, and grinded his teeth together, turning. One eye was squeezed shut in pain, and he smacked the thug now infront of him with the helmet before stumbling backwards, gripping his side as he hissed in pain.

There were several more thugs left…The most he bothered to count was six, though he was sure that he would need to be prepared for more. He felt blood seep out and bleed through his clothing, though ignored it, twitching a bit as he removed his bloodied hand from his side and shake it off. Blood felt disgusting when it was mangled in his fur! He grunted and, with effort, went off to fight the rest of the thugs.

It took what seemed to the mutt hours, but in reality it was only ten minutes of fighting, maybe less. He had injuries all over, cuts, bruises, and even a bullet wound in his shoulder. He breathed heavily, ears flattened against his skull. He winced as he was shoved to the ground by a thug, the same one he had whacked with the helmet twice. The thug had blood dripping down the side of his head from other injuries, and placed his foot down on the dog’s side, pressing down painfully and giving a small grin of satisfaction as the dog let out a grunt of pain, yet still had the energy to spit blood on the thug’s shoe. The mobian twitched, and knelt down to pistol whip the mutt before grabbing him by the neck.

“Now, ya little smartass, you’ll learn why you don’t mess with the baddest mercenaries alive!”

Techno gazed up at him, vision blurry. His glasses had been broken and were somewhere on the ground. He replied slowly, “Sorry…But I don’t see any mercenaries here. Just a couple of guys who can’t admit their love for me, but are so distraught that I said “no” to hanging out with them because they have small—“ Before he could finished, he was pistol whipped again and knocked to the ground. He began to waver in and out of consciousness, letting out a small, yet mildly suppressed whine of pain. He glanced over to Carmen, watching in a daze as she was badly hurt as well, and being pushed against the alley wall and pinned against it by one of the thugs.

The skunk cursed quietly, wincing as she was pressed against the wall by the thug, too weak to even bother attempting to push him off, though that didn’t stop her from curling her lip up in disgust. What a creep.

She growled quietly. She had scars along her arms and bruises all over.  Carmen’s eyes traveled over to the mutt, and her ears swept back to the sides of her head as she saw how beaten and bruised he was—poor guy.

…Though then she realized something.

At the moment Carmen couldn’t remember all of the details, but she did remember that Techno was the only one there when she arrived that was against the thugs…And him being beaten down meant that nobody was there to fight them off besides her!

‘Fat chance’, she thought bitterly. Regardless, fueled by her annoyance and despair that all of this had even happened, she kicked, struggling to get away from the thug. He turned to her, having been distracted for a few moments by the mutt being beaten down, and glared at Carmen, giving a smug grin.

“Haha! Sweet. You think you can get away.” He pulled her close, and the skunk twitched with disgust at the smell of drugs as she was pulled closer. She was thrown to the ground, however. The thug walked over, pressing his foot down onto her back. She yelped and grinded her teeth together, struggling.

“Now…Here’s what’s going t’go down, sweetheart—We’ll toy with you two for a bit longer, an’ then book. Normally we would give more time for you, but, seeing as how we weren’t given any direct orders…” He took a moment to glance at Techno before fixing his gaze upon the skunk, “…We don’t want t’get in trouble with our boss. So we’ll be a bit lenient with you guys…” He kicked her in the side, “…But not by much.”

Upon saying that, he laughed, signaling the other thugs with a snap of his fingers, and the skunk and dog were beaten down even more—neither knew how long it had been until the thugs stopped and left, though the crooks must’ve heard something because they had glanced between each other and then booked it on their bikes.

Carmen was passed out—not at all used to being so roughed up— and the dog had slipped in and out of consciousness a few times, though now he was barely awake, and beside the skunk, letting out a soft groan. He muttered bitterly and spit out some blood onto the ground. His ears fell, and he stared at her for a few moments, seeming a bit alarmed—though then he heaved a heavy sigh. Good, she was still breathing…He took a few moments to turn his head, staring at his bike, frowning as he realized it had been completely totaled. On top of that, someone else had gotten hurt, and he had had his face smashed in anyways, even with his efforts.

He lay for another long few moments, panting. Everything hurt and his muscles burned whenever he moved. Maybe it would be a good idea to lie down for a while. He felt even less like moving than usual…He closed his eyes and drifted off.

When he awoke, it was awfully bright. He winced and shut his eyes tightly, letting out a soft groan...Everything still hurt, but it was numbed down. He attempted to open his eyes once more, finally adjusting to the light. He stared up at a blurry white ceiling. His head spun, and he tried to focus on one thing: how did he get there, and where exactly was he, anyways?

It was then that he noted he no longer had his glasses, and frowned, weakly raising his arm and feeling around for them—it was then that he felt a small tug, and he took the effort to glance at his arm. A needle…? He felt his shoulder, hissing in pain. It had a bandage around it, and the rest of his wounds were wrapped as well. He felt groggy, which he thought would be normal after being beaten to a pulp, though what he didn’t realize was that he was drugged so he wouldn’t feel any sharp pains, so long as he didn’t move.

“Hello, I’m glad to see that you’re awake!” A male voice chirped, making the dog leap. He stared, shocked at the sudden appearance of the other male. His vision was blurry, but he could…Sorta tell that it was a striped cat of some kind. The cat walked over, holding a clipboard and pen, smiling.

“We thought that you were a goner!” He said, continuing to speak about how he thought for sure that the dog was a goner as he checked the mutt over. He wore plastic gloves on his hands and wore a light blue coat, so the other male assumed that he was a doctor of some kind—too tired to think, he muttered.

“Hospital…” That was all he said. The mutt was damn close to wanting to simply roll over and fall asleep, but forced out that word, which was meant as a guess as to where he was. The cat blinked, though nodded.

“Yeah!” He smiled, giving a tilt of the head. “You should rest, man! You look like shit.” With that, he patted the dog’s head, walking away.

Within a few moments and with knowledge of where he was, the mutt had slipped into sleep once more.

When he awoke the second time, his body ached, but felt much better than when he first awoke. He looked down onto his lap to find a tray of food, mostly soft things, and began to eat, albeit slowly.

When he was finished with his food, he sat, bored out of his mind. A curtain separated him from two other beds, one of the left, one on the right, so he couldn’t be assed to try and converse with anyone who might be on the other side. He was about to fall asleep again, when the same cat from his previous awakening walked in.

“Hello!” He smiled. “You’ve been asleep for a while, huh? Been about a day since we brought you and her in here.”

The dog stared, slowly frowning. “Wah…?” He thought hard for a few moments, before it hit him. “Oh, yeah, that girl…Is she alright?”

“Yep! Totally fine, a-okay! Though she did make a fuss, she’s fine now, I think. If you want to, then she’ll be ready to talk to you tomorrow morning. Which is…” The doctor glanced at a clock inside the room, hanging on the wall, “…About twelve hours away!” He laughed. “You sure did wake up late, huh? But by the way, I don’t know if you can read the clock, but in twelve hours it’ll be eight a.m.. I’ll wake you when it’s time, okay? So just sleep for now.”

The mix nodded slowly, sighing as he flopped his head down onto his pillow. He lay in the bed, letting out a small cough. He couldn’t wait to leave this hospital.

Morning came, and along with the mix’s awakening, the familiar ache of his body. It was numbed down each time he woke up, but he would prefer it if his body would just stop aching so he could leave this place.

It was a few minutes before the cat would enter the room once more, and so he waited, twiddling his thumbs. He took a bag of crackers that had been set down beside him, and opened them, having the small snack as a result of boredom and hunger. He flicked his ears as he heard the door open, and watched as the cat, not alone this time, wheeled the skunk into the room via a wheelchair.

“Hey, ‘bout time,” He said, giving a slight wave to the two. The cat waved back enthusiastically, giving a goofy grin, as the skunk, looking irritated, huffed and gave a wave of her hand.

“Well, aren’t you miss sunshine!” The mutt raised a brow and grinned, amused as the skunk glared at him, though he noted a small giggle that escaped her.

Carmen may have been cranky, but the mutt’s small joke lifted her spirits a bit. It annoyed her, yes, but it was sort of a nice break from being stuck in bed for a long while.

The cat glanced between the two, and let go of the handles of the skunk’s wheelchair, walking so both could see him and smiling, hands placed behind his back and tail swishing about eagerly.

“Just let me know when you’re done talking, kids!~ Carmen, press that blue button on your wheelchair when you need me, and I’ll come running!” He winked, leaving the room.

A few moments passed, and the skunk and dog met eye-to-eye.

“So, what’s your name?” Carmen asked, tilting her head. “An’ why were those thugs chasin’ you?”