Accidental Don

Episode one, part one

His breath came in shallow puffs as he almost fell through the door into the darkness, eager to be out of the rain. No voice of greeting met his ears and, with no sympathetic ears to hear his voice, he said nothing.
The ill fitting door rattled in the frame as he closed it behind him, a dim orange glow from the street lights seeping through the gaps that ran along the top and bottom of the wooden portal whilst the wicked wind whistled a macabre tune through a space where a letterbox should be.
Heavy drops of rain collected and fell from the brim of the cap he wore as he unfastened his inappropriate coat and stooped to remove the heavy chain from around his sodden dog's neck. The sodden dog repaid his owner for liberating him by vigorously shaking the water from his own, more appropriate, coat. The owner spluttered and squinted, a smile creeping across his lips.
"Oh, you little bastard." He exclaimed as laughter broke through the splutter. "Right, kitchen..."
The dog swung around, tail wagging furiously, as he obediantly bounded away along the hallway that was only slightly larger than himself and through the second door he came to. His owner dropped his own wet coat and hat onto the floor and followed, though far less energetically. He flicked the switch by the door as he entered, an automatic action that was today, as it was at least for a couple of days every fortnight, pointless. But tomorrow was 'money day'. In a few hours time he could queue up behind the other benefit claimants at the ATM on the petrol station forecourt, all waiting for midnight when their money would magically appear in their accounts and they could begin spending most of it in the petrol station's twenty-four hour convenience store.
The dog's tail continued to wag as he stood before the redundant washing machine, waiting. The man removed an old towel, once blue but now grey, from within the drum before throwing it over the dog and sinking to his knees to administer the spirited drying that would bring those appreciative moans and growls from his best friend.
His only friend.
Once the drying was over the dog sat, tail still swiping left to right and back again. His owner admired him as he removed a biscuit from the pocket on the front of his hoody. He was certainly a fine beast. A German Shepherd. An expensive dog, far too expensive for a man on benefits. The dog was all that remained of the days before the man had become the man he now was. The days when the dog hadn't been the most important thing in the world to him.
"Be nice." He placed the biscuit between his lips as the big, fearsome beast gently rose up on his hind legs to take it from him.
The man was fortunate enough to have a gas cooker and eighty-six pence on the gas meter, so he filled the ancient, whistling kettle and began the process of brewing up. He held his hands, purple and swollen from the rain and the Raynaud's, above the kettle on the hob.

He couldn't have the heating on. The boiler, although gas powered, annoyingly required electricity to run and his inefficient, electric fire was as redundant as the lightswitches.
As his fingers thawed he tried to count his blessings...
...and wept.