puppy - part one: he's just a puppy

She hears the lopsided running before the eager bark and Roman raises an eyebrow as a small fuzzy thing slams into her ankles. She looks down, and it looks up. There’s a small pink tongue lolling out of the animal’s mouth, and she smiles despite herself. She’s always liked dogs.

Roman reaches down to scratch the puppy behind its ears, and it whines happily, rubbing up against her before sitting and rolling around, and she laughs, tucking some hair behind her ear as she scratches its belly. Oh. His belly.

"Where did you come from little buddy?" she asked softly, as he sniffed her hand, licking it enthusiastically. Roman gently picked him up in her arms, petting his ears gently as he snuggled against her. "No collar huh?" she said, frowning. No one she knew had a chocolate lab, so unless one of the residents of Cherry had an escapee puppy, the little guy remained a mystery.

He whined softly, licking her jaw and she smiled, shaking her head. “Come on, you can have some water in my room,” she said quietly. Carefully, Roman hid the puppy in her jacket, his head resting against her breasts. She swore she heard it whine happily and wondered what was wrong with this dog.

Finally, they made it to her room, which, was thankfully empty. No sign of Marilyn, or any of her boytoys. “There you go bud,” she said, setting him down on the floor and closing the door. She took a bowl off a shelf and set it on the ground, pouring some water from their pitcher into it for him.

Roman sat back on her bed, pulling her computer up and opening Netflix. The puppy whined from the floor, standing up on his hind legs, pawing at the blanket. She raised an eyebrow at him before leaning over and scooping him up.

"I should figure out what to call you, huh?" she said, scratching him behind the ears. His tail began to wag as he walked around in a circle on her stomach, before promptly lying down with his head on her chest, tongue lolling out happily.

Roman laughed softly and petted his head. “Maybe I should just call you Buddy. Then I won’t get too attached.” she added thoughtfully, and the puppy whined, reaching out a paw to bat at her nose. She raised an eyebrow, shaking her head. “Not Buddy then.”

She ran through a list of classic dog names before shaking her head. “This is ridiculous. I’m going to call you Batman, and that’s that,” she announced, and the puppy looked oddly pleased, settling down more comfortably on her, closing his eyes.

Roman laughed softly before opening up a movie on Netflix, leaning back to watch. As she fell asleep, she didn’t notice the puppy shifting in form, until Dash Knight was spread out naked on top of her, head comfortably resting in her cleavage.