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The night was getting miserable and she wanted to be home. Most of her new companions had dissipated to their homes or the places they were crashing.
“Kug, where are you sleeping tonight?”
His fur was drenched, clumping together. “Tunnels,” he answered shortly.
“You should come home with me, sleep some place nice.” Sofia said.
“My guys don’t get to sleep somewhere nice.”
“Are you going to do anything for them tonight?”
“No,” he mumbled, “Maybe tomorrow morning,”
“Then staying the night with me won’t hurt them.”
“What about the morning?” He was swaying forward and back and uncontrollably shaking from the cold. The words twisted into confusing little things in his chattering, slurring mouth.
“We’ll do something then.”
Kugrash blinked blearily, whiskers twitching.
“Come on, I’ll clean up your cut.”
Kugrash had been bound tight by a wire in the fight earlier. It had cut deep across his stomach and one of his arms. There was dried blood caked in the fur around it.
“You’re tired, Kug. Can I pick you up?”
He slouched down, rat hands hitting the pavement. “Okay.”
Sofia bent down and scooped him into her arms, supporting him at his legs and at his neck. He went limp after a moment of tension. She knew his joints and muscles must be aching like hers were, probably more. She held him firm against her chest. She liked that she could do that, hold him in his entirety. She massaged his shoulders with one hand and he groaned in relief.
On the ferry, Kugrash ended up slumped against Sofia, trying hard to not fall asleep. He jerked half awake every few moments, his snout pressing into her side. Sofia tugged her jacket out from being caught under him and laid it around him.
So small and animal, she thought, and at the same time, a man a generation older than her. His nose twitched and he made tiny snorting sounds in his sleep.
In the house, Sofia laid him down in a nice towel on her couch and cast a concerned glance at him from the bathroom while digging for supplies. He had to lie belly-up to let her help him. She got to work dabbing blood out of his thin stomach fur with a wet towel and cleaning the gash. She had to move his rags out of the way to do it. He looked at her with cloudy eyes still full of sleep.
“Do you think this stuff is safe for you?” She held up a spray antiseptic.
“My wounds are usually treated with subway grime.”
“Alright, then,” she sprayed it across the gash, getting the whole thing in one go.
Kugrash’s head reared up with pain and he sought her palm with his snout, nuzzling into it.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Sofia put pressure on his skin beside the wound, trying to ease the pain, rubbing Kugrash’s cheek with her other hand.
“Not that bad.” He murmured.
They stayed in that moment together. Kugrash, with his eyes shut, face pressed into her hand, wet teeth touching skin, rolled onto his side for the sense of safety. Sofia, stroking his back, fingernails scratching his skin in a way she hoped was soothing. Both tired, achy, lonely.
“Your fur’s so matted again,” she crooned.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Isn’t it uncomfortable? I had an old cat whose fur got matted and it was really painful for her.”
“‘S alright, Sof. I told you.” Kugrash’s voice was garbled through the towel his face was pressed in.
Now more awake, he pulled himself upright and away from her. He had a heavy look in his eyes, head bowed but looking up at her.
“I want a drink.”
Kugrash’s claws scratched against the hardwood as they walked to the kitchen. Sofia lifted him onto one of the stools by the island and pulled liquor down from her shelves. They drank in silence, staring into their glasses, the nebulous liquid inside.
Sofia thought about Dale, who she had been thinking about all day; who she now knew was dead, who she now knew loved her truly.
“I spent the whole time.” Sofia’s voice warbled with emotion and drunkenness, “Thinking he did something to hurt me.”
“You were never angry,” Kugrash said.
“No, I couldn’t be.”
“Why not?”
“I guess I… even if he did something wrong, there wasn’t anything that made me not deserve it.”
“You don’t deserve being left, Sof.”
“He was so fucking good. Dale would’ve loved you. He loved tiny things. Tiny spoons, tiny animals, tiny little models of building in museums. Tiny men.”
It was silent. Sofia looked up and Kugrash was leaned forward on the counter, paws that barely reached over it holding him up and head hanging below. He was shaking slightly, his mouth twisted sorrowfully.
Very carefully, she took him again, and walked up the stairs. His legs were skinny and trembled, so she held them securely to his body to ease his joints.
They settled in her bed, Sofia’s hands folded protectively over his belly, the comforter pulled over their heads. She realized she was still in damp, dirty clothes from earlier and wriggled out of her pants and t-shirt. He curled around her hands. They both shivered, even under the blanket. Sofia couldn’t will herself to get up and find more. She just cuddled her friend and tried to fall asleep.
Kugrash was making tiny wheezing sounds. Sofia stroked his head in an attempt at comfort, but the sounds were getting louder, hoarser.
“Kug, you okay?”
He twisted and pushed the top of his head into her chest at her collarbone. His shoulders jerked and he made a more human sounding whimper.
He was crying.
“I’m sorry, Kug,” Sofia petted his head, and he looked up at her.
In the little light filtering through the curtains, she saw the most mournful rodent eyes she’d ever seen, shiny and leaking onto his cheeks.
Sofia started rubbing his shoulders and her fingers found clumps of greasy, matted fur. In the dark, she started pulling them apart, gentle as she could. Tufts of fur came out, getting all over her bed.
She reached into her bedside table drawer and took an old brush. She started working delicately at his fur, trying to be as comforting as she was productive. Kugrash started to wince at the tugging, so she went back to using her fingers. They found a dense mass of fur that didn’t let up across his legs. The deeper her fingers went, the wetter the fur still was from the rain.
She pulled a bit too hard and he thrashed and growled in pain.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Sofia said, pressing a hand to his thigh.
“Sof’.”
“C’mon, I’m helping you.” she crooned, and kept working at his fur.
“You’re not.”
“I’m just trying to make you look good.”
“You can’t, I’m too fucked.”
“I can get you cleaned up. I’ll give you a bath.”
“Sof’, Sof’, mmhhvmn,” Kugrash gave up on words and laid his face into the bedsheet.
Sofia’s hands stopped moving, and she closed her eyes.
-
Kugrash felt starkly out of place in Sofia’s big, beautiful house. He was damp, and grimy, and hadn’t had a shower in thirty years.
In the emptiness of the night, the reality of his life returned to him. He had a group who wanted him by their side, but that wasn’t going to last forever.
He thought about the bagel tucked away in his rags downstairs.
Maybe, there was a way he could fix things. New York could be saved, and Gabriela helped, and his kids free of him.
It was going to end somehow.
He wanted Sofia to hold him closer, tighter. Instead, he pulled away.
-
He was gone before she woke up.
He was gone and her bed smelled like him.
Like shit and trash.