The Undesired Second Chance

Chapter 46: Reunions

When Axel woke up again, having apparently been tired enough to drift back off, he was still on his own bed in his own room. There was real, actual sunlight filtering through the window, bright and clear, as if the day itself was welcoming him back home.

It felt a little unreal.

He wondered how long he'd been away: a few days, certainly, but the specific timing had been lost in the unchanging gray room.

Everything felt heavy but weirdly fragile, like his arms were made of thick glass and he'd never find the energy to lift them up. Or, if he did find the strength, that they would shatter in the attempt. It was a... disconnect.

Axel flexed his hands and feet, and was relieved to find everything in order.

(It had become something of a habit, waking up and checking: ten fingers, ten toes.)

But he did notice an odd weight down by his feet. He propped himself up on his elbows, somewhat blearily looking down to the end of his bed, and found there the splayed-out flop of an exhausted dachshund.

"Aww..."

He'd tried to be quiet, quite willing to let his sleeping dog lie, but apparently that was still enough to rouse him. One dark ear twitched, his nose sniffed, and then Dach blinked his eyes open. His tail wagged, still tired.

"Goo' morning," he slurred out.

"Ja, guten Mor—"

His brain blue-screened partway through the word: a full stop and restart as he processed what he'd just heard, that he was giving a reply, and to whom he was replying. Then he was sputtering through half-started questions in German, at least until he could get Japanese to click back into place.

"You can talk?!"

"Uh..." The dachshund looked a lot more awake now, and he awkwardly glanced to the side. "Bark?"

That was quite possibly the least convincing faux-bark he had ever heard before, and it nearly had him break into a fit of shocked laughter. He didn't, but only because he noticed the flighty way Dach was eyeing the distance to the edge of the bed.

"Oh no you don't, you little... little roof-Wiesel." Axel scrambled to sit up, scooping the dog so they were nose-to-nose. "Speak."

"...Good morning," he repeated, clearly.

Okay, Axel hadn't expected that to actually work. Well, to be frank, he had no idea what he'd been expecting—nothing, probably. He had been kind of half-asleep still, so maybe it had all just been his imagination. Or the knock-out drug could have just made him hallucinate it, or something along those lines.

Apparently that wasn't the case.

"Heilige Scheiße," he breathed, that peculiar feeling of unreality returning in full force for an entirely different reason. "My dog can talk. How can— Have you been able to talk this whole time?"

"Yeah." Tail limp, Dach squirmed in place. It seemed kind of like he wanted to say more, maybe explain himself, but he just didn't have the right words.

(His dog had words. What was even—)

Axel thunked his head back against his headboard before his brain could spiral, tucking the dog more comfortably into his arms and scritching at his ears. "That is... a lot. I cannot believe my dog can talk."

There was a small twitch, perhaps the start of a hesitant wag. "Sorry."

"It's fine, you are fine." He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and re-centered. "I am just... very surprise. Surprised."