Embrace (Rocky x Chase)

Chapter 15- A Painful Revelation

To stand before a wall plastered with his failures was the greatest insult Chase could ever endure. He sat in the darkness of his kennel, helplessly staring at the wall where all the evidence had been pinned up. He silently glanced over each picture, vision trailing along the red string that connected it all, a crimson spiderweb that all ended on one name.

Rocky.

"So how did the talk go?" Marshall spoke up, lounging on Chase's bed with an iced tea can. "What exactly happened that brought you to the conclusion of him being a murderer?" He crossed his paws politely, watching his friend carefully.

Shuffling his legs comfortably, Chase's attention was splitting to every inch of the wall, rapidly ticking over each piece. His body had a faint jitter, unable to keep still as caffiene supplements surfed his blood stream. "Well we... uhm," he stopped to scratch his cheek with his hind leg, sweating under his paws. "I guess we kissed a couple dozen times."

"Hmph-" Marshall jolted in surprise, accidentally inhaling a mouth full of tea into his airway. The gentle quiet was broken by an uproar of violent, bubbly coughs as the Dalmatian hacked up his drink.

"You alright back there?" Chase asked without even turning his head.

"F-fine," the spotted dog had to clear his throat a few times. "Sorry you just... really caught me off guard there. Did you really? You and Rocky?"

Chase nodded.

"So it's official then." Marshall said, half to himself. "You and him are..?"

"I guess so."

"You don't look very happy about it."

The shepherd shook his head, trying to steer away the blistering ache in his skull. "I'm not... or well, I am! But with this," he waved his paw in front of the wall. "What am I supposed to do?! It all leads to him, Marsh. It... can't... but it does. The way it all lines up like this, I can't be a coincidence! Hell, we found grey fur in Zuma's kennel, when have you ever known those two to even be within five feet of one another?"

"They used to be great friends." Marshall tilted his head back a little, "I remember it. We all used to be so happy together. Shame it had to come to this..."

Chase turned to leer at him. "Excuse me, you treated Rocky just like the others did you fucking hypocrite. How can you say even say that?"

"I know, I know, it was a shitty thing to do." Marshall looked away, nervous in his tone. "I guess I was just..." he hesitated, trying to find his words.

"Just what?"

The dalmatian was silent as he visibly deflated, slowly hanging his head in shame. "An asshole." He said in defeat. "I was an asshole."

"At least you admitted it." Chase sighed, "maybe Rocky would love to hear that. But we have... bigger things right now."

"You're sure he's the killer?"

"Not even close, I doubt he could even do the amount of damage we saw on the bodies." Chase was baffled on the words even coming out of his mouth, nothing was making sense yet it all lined up.

"What about that dog we saw in the restaurant?" The dalmatian brought up the strange encounter from the other day. "The one that looked like him?"

Chase looked back with a surprised expression. "That was real? I thought I was hallucinating."

"Dude, I'm not even gonna be nice about this. Stop taking the fuckin' pills. They're messing up your head."

"We don't even know who that dog is." The officer waved off the statement. "And I barely got a good look at him, we can only go off of what we know now."