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"300", "submission_right_thumb_huge_noncustom_y": "300" } ], "description": "Colby encounters some unexpected faces from the past as he travels down the long and lonely road.\n(Also on AO3)\n\nEach chapter has its own \"soundtrack\"; these are completely optional to listen to, but I feel that these add to the experience as much of this story was partly inspired by music. Some songs are for specific scenes, and some are just there to add to the tone of the story. I claim no ownership of any of these songs.\n\nChapter 7, in order:\n\n‘Bus Station Blues’\n[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6G1uQdMYFA]Hell or High Water[/url] - The Neighbourhood\n\n‘Alone Forever?’\n[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhhPFJ7UVeA]Landslide[/url] - The Chicks\n\n'Little Lightning Bug’\n[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1xO9jUUFF8]Blowin’ In The Wind (Greco)(AVL Remix)[/url] - Power-Haus, Lloren, Christian Reindl, Jake Warren, Antonis Georgou, Josh Blake, Marietta Fafouti\n\n‘Serendipity’\n[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Ny5TfVYQ0]Forget It[/url] - Breaking Benjamin\n\n‘The Ol’ Yellers’\n[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obngne6Zf-4]You Left Me A Long, Long Time Ago[/url] - Willie Nelson\n\n‘The Pursuit of Happiness (Montage)’\n[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgQ5bIb1OV4]If I Didn’t Love You[/url] - Jason Aldean, Carrie Underwood\n\n‘Colby’s Song’\n[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS3bFJi6PgA]You Light Me Up[/url] - Hunter Hayes\n\n‘Smooch’s Song’\n[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZG9bcrMtYM]Lawless[/url] - Caroline Jones\n\n‘Screwed The Pooch’\n[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fFafrcmMPY]Black[/url] - Dierks Bentley\n", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Colby encounters some unexpected faces from the past as he travels down the long and lonely road.
(Also on AO3)

Each chapter has its own "soundtrack"; these are completely optional to listen to, but I feel that these add to the experience as much of this story was partly inspired by music. Some songs are for specific scenes, and some are just there to add to the tone of the story. I claim no ownership of any of these songs.

Chapter 7, in order:

‘Bus Station Blues’
Hell or High Water - The Neighbourhood

‘Alone Forever?’
Landslide - The Chicks

'Little Lightning Bug’
Blowin’ In The Wind (Greco)(AVL Remix) - Power-Haus, Lloren, Christian Reindl, Jake Warren, Antonis Georgou, Josh Blake, Marietta Fafouti

‘Serendipity’
Forget It - Breaking Benjamin

‘The Ol’ Yellers’
You Left Me A Long, Long Time Ago - Willie Nelson

‘The Pursuit of Happiness (Montage)’
If I Didn’t Love You - Jason Aldean, Carrie Underwood

‘Colby’s Song’
You Light Me Up - Hunter Hayes

‘Smooch’s Song’
Lawless - Caroline Jones

‘Screwed The Pooch’
Black - Dierks Bentley
", "writing": " [i][b]“Attention, passengers: Bus 380 to Chew York City is now boarding at platform 3.”[/b][/i]\n Colby stood in the center of the bustling bus station as dogs of all breeds, sizes, and colors passed him by, looking up at the departure schedule with a quiet yawn. He hadn’t slept all night; after what had happened between him and Smooch, he couldn’t. And for over three and a half hours, the heartbroken yellow Lab had been standing in this exact spot without even moving barely an inch as he wallowed in his own self-destructive apathy. \n [i][b]“If you have lost an item during your journey, please proceed to the Lost and Found office located near the main entrance.\"[/b][/i]\n Nothing mattered to him anymore. He’d already lost everything. Again. Without the Pooches in his life, Colby had completely given up on ever trying to find happiness at this point. Just when he thought he’d found it for good this time - a new life, a fresh start in a new world - he had still found a way to mess everything up.\n Just as he’d always done. \n [b][i]“Bus 194 to Paws Angeles has been temporarily rerouted due to a road closure. Please check the information board for details on the new estimated arrival time.\"[/i][/b]\n He was destined to be alone forever, he thought. This lonely road Colby had found himself on was one that would simply never end. No matter what he did, each and every road always seemed to lead to the same place anyway. \n If this was his destiny, perhaps it was for the best.\n “I guess… this one.”\n Rather than making a decision of where to go next, Colby made the decision [i]not[/i] to decide, opting instead to head for any one of the identical buses completely at random without even paying any attention to the route number. It wasn’t like it mattered where it took him… right?\n\n Meanwhile, back in Pawston, Smooch was listlessly looking out at the window of the Big Bowl Diner as she sat with her closest friend Maw Barker for one of their usual lunch break get-togethers. \n “So then, Paw says-” Maw stopped herself when she noticed the sulking blue terrier across from her had stopped paying attention. “Hey, everything okay?”\n No response. Nothing except for a quivering sigh.\n “Smooch? Talk to me, please.”\n “...I never should’a listened to you,” Smooch whispered, though Maw’s sensitive ears were keen enough to pick up every word. \n “What? Did I say something wrong?” she scowled, wondering where this sudden remark had come from.\n “It’s… nothin’. Just forget I said anythin’.” Smooch shook her head, pretending - poorly, at that - that everything was just fine.\n “Smooch, if there’s something I said to upset you, then I want to know what it is.” Maw gave her a sympathetic look. “You can be honest with me.”\n [i]“Honest,”[/i] Smooch scoffed under her breath. “Honestly, Maw, I wish you’d’ve just left well enough alone.”\n “What are you talking about?” Maw was getting more frustrated and confused as to why Smooch was upset with her in the first place. “Is this about the time when Scooch was over for a sleepover and I gave him chicken nuggets for dinner? Because-”\n “Pushin’ me to ‘just go for it’ with Colby. What was it you said, you needed some ‘spicy excitement in your life’?” Smooch scoffed, shaking her head as she looked out the window to avoid eye-contact. “Well I hope my love-life’s been a good ‘nuff soap opera for you.”\n “I… still don’t know what’s going on. Did something happen?”\n Smooch’s expression of swelling anger and resentment quickly fell into one of sorrow, her lower lip trembling as tears fell down her cheeks. \n “I broke up with Colby.”\n “What?!” Maw blurted out loud enough for the rest of the diner patrons to hear, then lowered her voice back down to a reasonable volume. “What happened? Everything looked like it was going so well just last night, what could he have done that was so bad that it made you break up with him? And on his [i]birthday?[/i]”\n The more Smooch thought about it, the more she second-guessed herself. Last night already felt like a loud and messy blur of anger to her; it all started when Colby confessed to her that he was essentially an [i]alien,[/i] more or less. That he’d had this whole secret life he’d lived before meeting her - one apparently involving superpowers and fighting some kind of world-ending evil. In fact, his story almost seemed like the kind one might find in those superhero comics Scooch would often read - only much, much darker, and more grim. He told her he had a wife and kids before. That they were all gone. She said some things, he said some things, and then…\n He broke the picture of her and Kernel.\n But as she recalled, he did seem genuinely remorseful afterward. That he hadn’t meant to. After all, it was a lightning bolt of [i]plasma[/i] that came out of his finger. Could it have really just been an accident?\n “I… I don’t wanna talk about it!” Smooch got up from the table and left the diner in a hurry, leaving Maw behind as she ran down the street away from the situation. Away from her own conflicting feelings. \n Since she still had twenty minutes left of her lunch break before she was on-duty again, Smooch wiped her tears and continued walking down the street to try to clear her head. She had made the right decision to make Colby leave. She was sure of it. \n That was, until she wasn’t.\n With nearly every place she passed, she couldn’t help but associate each of them with that yellow Labrador she had once loved so much. There was Pothole Road, where she’d first met him. The pizza pawlor. The hedge maze. Lydia’s hat store. \n Even her favorite spot in town, the windmill museum, only made her even sadder than before. Only made her miss him more. \n Smooch eventually arrived at the Amusement Bark, taking a seat on a bench to rest her aching legs. She looked back at the rovercoaster - a memory she’d sooner rather forget. \n She turned her head around again, jumping slightly in her seat in surprise to find Cheddar Biscuit standing directly in front of her. \n “Oh, Cheddar! You were so quiet, you startled me a bit! That isn’t much like you at all, is it, sugar?” Smooch feigned a chuckle, met with one equally half-hearted in return from the little clown dog.\n “Haha, yeah…” Cheddar Biscuit rubbed her arm awkwardly. “Do you… mind if I sit with you for a little bit? I could really use some company that doesn’t just respond with nose-honks.”\n “S-sure thing, hun. Feel free.” Smooch inched over to the edge of the bench, and Cheddar took the seat next to her. \n “Do you ever feel… empty, and you’re not really sure why?” Cheddar Biscuit gently swung her legs back and forth idly on the bench. “Like… you’re missing something in your life that you don’t even know you need?” \n “I guess I know the feeling. That’s what I was like for a while before I met-” Smooch stopped herself, clearing her throat. “But what’s brought this up? I know we’ve never really interacted much, but as the police chief- no, as your mom’s friend, I’m always here if you need support. Somethin’ troublin’ you?”\n “Um…” Cheddar twiddled her thumbs nervously, as though she were a little intimidated by the terrier. “Well, my [i]friend,[/i] she really likes this guy, and thinks about him all the time. Like, kinda [i]obsessed[/i] with him. But the thing is, she’s only ever met him once. He barely even knows she exists. And he’s also… with someone.”\n “Ah, well… that [i]is[/i] quite a problem.” Smooch was quick to understand that Cheddar was in fact [i]not[/i] talking about some nameless friend of hers, but was actually talking about herself. “I’d tell your friend that it’s important to respect their relationship, and that sometimes… things don’t always work out the way we want them to.”\n Smooch’s head lowered a little, feeling a sting of sadness in her heart before she continued. \n “There’s someone out there for everyone. So if it’s meant to happen… it’ll happen.”\n “But how can she make the empty feeling go away? What if she never finds the right dog?” Cheddar sighed, looking up at the sky as the clouds approached “What if… it’s [i]never[/i] meant to happen? Is she just supposed to be alone forever?”\n “I’m wonderin’ the same thing, Cheddar…” Smooch softly sighed, looking up at the clouds as well. It looked like a rainstorm might be coming, the first one in Pawston in quite a while.\n “...I’m wonderin’ the same thing.”\n\n Over two whole days had eventually passed, and Colby was now hundreds of miles away, struggling to keep his eyes open as he sat in the back of the bus on the long and lonely road to nowhere. He hadn’t slept a wink since his departure from Pawston, and his body was really beginning to feel it. Colby dreaded sleep, for fear that he’d experience yet another horrible nightmare. He leaned his head back into the chair and focused, determined to stay awake for as long as he could.\n\n With a blink of Colby’s eyes, the lights above suddenly flickered before going completely black. The bus began to swerve back and forth between the lanes as though it were sliding on slick ice.\n [i]‘Hey driver, slow down!’[/i] Colby shouted - or at least, it’s what he [i]would[/i] have shouted, if he could. As he opened his mouth with great effort, the only noise he could actually make was a quiet and unintelligible groan through his teeth. He tried to stand up, but his body was glued firmly to his seat.\n “Hhuhh drhh, sluh duhh.”\n The bus did stop, however, as its front collided hard and loud against something. Colby felt an icy cold chill wash over him when he saw a pair of large red glowing eyes glaring at him through the windshield, followed by a pair of thin black hands punching through the fiberglass and ripping open a hole into it with ease. \n [i]‘No… not you…’[/i] Colby thought as a tall and black wasp-like creature crawled through the windshield, quickly flickering her long and shiny ebony wings in vengeful fury. Its thin and somewhat feminine humanoid metal frame was all too familiar as she approached him with heavy footsteps, a raspy buzz in her voice as she spoke slowly with a sound like scraping rusted nails. \n [b]“Your past will [/b][i][b]consume[/b][/i][b] you.”[/b]\n [i]‘You’re not real… you’re dead…’[/i] Colby thought as he bared his teeth, his memories of her making his blood boil. [i]‘I made sure of it.’[/i]\n [b]“I’m going to enjoy [/b][i][b]every moment[/b][/i][b] of this,”[/b] the biomechanical wasp hissed as she crawled up onto the seat and grabbed Colby’s head, squeezing his skull between her cold, bony hands and forcing his head to look up at her. [b]“I can finally squish you like the [i]pathetic[/i] little lightning bug you are. And this time, [/b][i][b]NO ONE will miss you.[/b][/i][b]”[/b]\n As the wasp dug her jagged claws deeper into his temples and raised her stinger, Colby’s heart was pounding harder than ever before as he weakly struggled to free himself. Never before had he felt so physically-weak. But as she swung her stinger into his stomach, she seemed to freeze in place just before it pierced his skin. \n He looked at her in confusion as her two glowing red compound eyes began mysteriously winking back and forth like the lights of a railroad crossing.\n\n Colby’s eyes shot open as he sharply inhaled, finding himself back in the waking world as the nightmarish creature vanished from his sight. Nearly his entire body was covered in goosebumps as he vividly recalled that horrid buzz of her voice, the fur on his neck standing straighter than ever before. The bus was stopped at a railroad crossing, the bright red lights flashing alternatively as the train cars slowly passed. Having regained his composure and a bit of rest, Colby leaned his head against the window’s condensation as he waited for the train to clear. \n However, that apparently wouldn’t be happening anytime soon, as the train slowed down to a complete stop. And of course, it had to be as the last car still just barely blocked the road. \n “Well, nuts. Looks like we might be here a while, bud,” the bus driver dog looked back to his lone passenger and chuckled half-heartedly before taking out a crossword puzzle. “Now, what’s an 11-letter word for, ‘a happy coincidence’?”\n Colby, not bothering to respond, leaned his head against the window and looked out at the town he’s awoken in. Everything a normal town would have - a post-office, a hardware store, and…\n Colby blinked when he saw a lit sign advertising an event happening at the local tavern.\n\n [b]‘LIVE TONIGHT, 9:00 - THE Ol’ YELLERS’[/b]\n\n “Hey, uh… driver, w-where are we?” Colby asked, not taking his eyes off the sign as it flickered.\n “Oh, I do believe somewhere in Barkansas. Why?”\n Colby continued to look at the sign, hardly believing his own eyes. \n [i]‘Forget it, forget it, forget it…’[/i] his inner voice insisted repeatedly as he tapped his foot, reminding him that it was pointless to hope that things might actually get better. To hope that he might be able to fix things for once instead of breaking them. To hope that he could dare have another chance at happiness. \n But Colby couldn’t just forget it. Not when such a clear sign of fate was laid out right in front of him. Could this really be the same Ol’ Yellers from Smooch’s past?\n He suddenly remembered something, reaching behind his back and pulling out the doorbell he’d received from Paw Barker.\n A [i]guitar[/i]-shaped doorbell.\n [i]‘Not every doorbell is for a house, but all doorbells are for a home,’ [/i]Colby remembered Paw’s voice telling him, ‘[i]You’ll know what yours means when the time comes.’[/i]\n “...Let me off here.” Colby said as he got up and made his way to the front of the bus. \n “Well, okay, but if this here train start’s movin’ again, I ain’t waitin’ for ya.” The driver replied.\n “That’s fine.”\n The bus door swung open with a metallic hiss, and Colby stepped out onto the damp pavement below. And as luck would have it, as soon as the door closed behind him, the train’s horn blared as it finally started moving along the tracks once again.\n Colby didn’t take one look back at the bus crossing the tracks behind him as he walked to the tavern, taking a slow and deep breath before crossing the threshold. He opened the door… and made his way inside. \n The smell of stale onion rings and sadness permeated the air as Colby entered the dimly-lit tavern, seeing a few lethargic-looking dogs seated the tables with cold glass mugs in their paws.\n [i]‘Root beer,’[/i] he thought to himself, picking up the distinct smell of soda with his sensitive canine nose. [i]‘...figures.’[/i]\n He turned his attention to the small stage on the other side of the bar, spotting several familiar old dogs from a particular photo he remembered seeing back in Smooch’s living room.\n\n [i]“Yer tellin’ me today… that you're leavin’…[/i]\n [i]But just [/i][i]think a while[/i][i]… I'm sure that you must [/i][i]knooow[/i][i]…[/i]\n [i]Today might be the [/i][i]daaay[/i][i]… that you walk [/i][i]awaaay[/i][i]…[/i]\n [i]But you left [/i][i]meee[/i][i]… [/i][i]a long[/i][i], [/i][i]looong[/i][i] time [/i][i]agooo[/i][i].”[/i]\n\n Several dogs at their tables howled in a cacophonous off-key harmony. And if Colby was being honest, the lead singer left something to be desired as well. His pitch was half-decent at best, and he didn’t have any kind of energy or life in him - neither did the rest of the band, for that matter. To Colby, the whole scene was a rather depressing affair. \n\n [i]“Please don't say yer sorry, don't say [/i][i]anythin[/i][i]’…[/i]\n [i]Don't say why you must leave, just [/i][i]gooo[/i][i]…[/i]\n [i]Today might be the [/i][i]daaay[/i][i]… that you walk [/i][i]awaaay[/i][i]…[/i]\n [i]But you left [/i][i]meee[/i][i]… [/i][i]a long[/i][i], [/i][i]looong[/i][i] time [/i][i]agooo[/i][i].”[/i]\n\n\n\n “C’mon, Scooch, up and at ‘em.” Smooch gently shook her son’s little shoulder as he laid awake in his bed, facing away from her. “Tag’s at the door practically [i]beggin’[/i] to play with you,” \n “...Why did Colby have to leave, mom?” he sniffled, burying his snout under his blanket.\n “Oh, Scooch…” Smooch sighed, petting his back. “I already told you, it’s… complicated grown-up stuff. You shouldn’t be worryin’ about all that, just go and have some fun with Tag.”\n “But he was gonna be my new step-dad, mom. You were soulmates.”\n “Did Colby tell you that?” Smooch felt her anger rising at the thought of that lying dog filling her son’s head with idealistic promises that he couldn’t keep. \n “Well, no…” Scooch turned around, finally facing his mom with a look of dejection in his watery eyes. “But I just knew that you made each other really happy. I saw it. Didn’t he make you happy, mom?”\n “He… he did…” Smooch sighed bitterly, her anger quickly receding as she pulled out her cell-bone. No new messages. She hadn’t seen Colby for days now, ever since he’d left. Or rather, ever since she [i]made[/i] him leave. But now she was secretly finding herself hoping that he’d be the one to text her. To reach out to her. To at least try. But maybe… that might be expecting too much.\n “He really, really did.”\n\n “Hey, could I have a word with you guys?” Colby asked as he approached the four band members after their last song of the night had finally ended.\n “You a talent scout, or the media?” The lead singer, an old and grizzled black bloodhound, replied as he led the others down the steps and made their way to the root beer bar area without giving Colby so much as a second glance. “‘Cause we ain’t got no fans, that’s fer dang sure.”\n “N-neither,” Colby stuttered as he followed them. “Look, maybe it’s just a coincidence that I’m here, or maybe you’re not even the dogs I’m thinking of, but… you wouldn’t happen to know a ‘Smooch Pooch’, would you? Blue terrier?”\n “Nope, ain’t never heard o’ her.” The bloodhound gestured over to the bartender as he and the rest of his band took a seat at a table. “Five mugs over here, Rover. And some of those beefy biscuits, when ya have the time.”\n “Well, we did know a Smooch Snickerdoodle back in the day, and she was a blue terrier. Wasn’t she, Gus?” the stocky gray bulldog sitting beside the disgruntled old hound spoke up. “Boy, that gal could sing like a swan, she could.”\n [i]‘Snickerdoodle?’[/i] Colby thought as his eyebrows raised in surprise, having realized he never actually knew that Pooch wasn’t Smooch’s maiden-name until now. \n “Hush yer mouth, Buck.” The brown bloodhound shot him a scornful look. “We could’a made it big, if it wasn’t fer her leavin’ us an’ gettin’ hitched.”\n “So you [i]do[/i] know who I’m talking about, then.” Colby collected his thoughts as he planned his words carefully. This conversation had to go smoothly if he stood any chance of fixing things. “Please hear me out, I need to-”\n “Now hold on, youngin’.” The bloodhound known as Gus held up his paw as the bartender brought their table five ice-cold glasses of frothy root beer. “Introductions are good manners, y’know.”\n “Right, sorry.” Colby replied as he raised his paw in a quick greeting. “Hi, my name’s Colby. It’s an honor to meet you all.”\n “Like the cheese?” the short brown Basset Hound on the other side of the table asked with a snicker. \n “...Yes, like the cheese,” Colby grumbled a little sourly in offense, crossing his arms. \n “This here’s Buckaroo Barkley. Buck fer short.” Gus reached over and pulled the wide-brimmed cowboy hat over the Basset Hound’s eyes. “He thinks he’s so funny, but don’t pay him no mind. It’ll only encourage him.”\n Colby nodded politely.\n “That there’s Lazy Bones, he don’t talk much.” Gus gestured over to a tall white Great Dane, who was slouched back in his chair with his black bolero hat tilted over his eyes as well. It sounded like he was quietly snoring. “Well actually, he don’t talk [i]ever.[/i]”\n He appeared to be sound-asleep, but to Colby’s surprise, he held up two fingers in a peace-sign of acknowledgement.\n “Heh, that means he likes ya,” the gray bulldog said with a shameless burp as he set his empty glass mug down on the table, having already chugged the entire thing in one go.\n “Fer Dog’s sake, Mud, we ain’t even toasted yet.” Gus shook his head with a sigh.\n “Your name is ‘Mud’?” Colby asked, turning to the bulldog as he discreetly held his nose, his sensitive canine nostrils picking up the smell of the bulldog’s breath.\n “Yup. Just Mud,” the bulldog replied as he reached his arms behind his head, stretching back in his chair and cracking a few bones in his spine. “Looong story.”\n “And I’m Gus Rawhide.” Gus gestured to his fellow band members. “Welcome to the dogshit-show. Pardon my French-Poodlese.”\n Just then, the bartender returned with four baskets of bone-shaped biscuits for his most loyal customers, setting them all on the table in front of the band members before returning back to the bar table. \n “Much-appreciated, Rover.” Gus nodded, the four of them each taking a biscuit and snapping a chunk off in their mouth and beginning to chew. “So tell us, whelp. Just how do [i]you[/i] know Smooch, and what the dickens brings you all the way out here to come lookin’ fer us? We ain’t heard from her in, shoot, almost ten years now.”\n Colby cleared his throat.\n “W-well, the thing is, I wasn’t really [i]looking[/i] for you. I just sort of… ended up here. But Smooch is… [i]was[/i]… really close to me. She’s been through a lot since she left.”\n He caught them up to speed on Smooch’s life over the past decade - at least, as far as he knew it. How Smooch was a mother now, and how great of a pup her son Scooch was. He told them that after having tragically lost her husband to illness, she eventually had to leave their farm with her son and move to Pawston to become a police officer. He told them about their relationship, and the bad terms of which they’d left things.\n “-But most importantly, she really, really misses all of you dogs. She misses being a singer. She misses the Ol’ Yellers. I mean, she even still has a photo of all of you together framed in her living room. This band was her life, and she’s told me herself that she would give [b]anything[/b] to perform with all of you again. Even just one last time.”\n “...So what exactly are you gettin’ at, son?” Gus leaned forward after an uncomfortable pause after Colby’s story had finished, raising one of his thick bushy eyebrows.\n “I think… the reason I ended up here is to reunite you. To make her wish come true. I…” Colby sniffled, lowering his head in shame. “I owe her that much.”\n “Yee-haw! Count me in!” Mud howled with joy, being the first immediately on-board as he raised his empty glass. \n “Ah, what the heck. It ain’t like we got anythin’ else to do,” Buckaroo added as he shrugged with a smile.\n Lazy Bones simply gave an approving thumbs-up, his eyes still completely obscured by his hat.\n All that was left was Gus Rawhide himself, who was completely silent with a discouraging expression glued on his face. \n “...Why the heck should I help her after the way she left us all behind? If she’d’a cared about any of us, she would’a stayed in touch. How do I know you’re not just full of it?”\n “Please, Gus.” Colby gave him his best attempt at puppy-dog eyes. “It has to be all of you. She didn’t reach out to you guys because she felt ashamed. That you might hate her. She’s wanted to for so long, but she felt like it was too late for her.”\n Gus shrugged dismissively, taking a drink of his root beer.\n Colby had to make this work. Whatever it took. He closed his eyes and took a breath.\n\n [i]“Love’s funny that waaay… no matter who you aaare…[/i]\n [i]‘Cause it can shake your faaaith… and it can break your heaaart.”[/i]\n\n Gus’s droopy ears perked up. After a moment of silence from Colby, Gus finally gave in and picked up where the young Labrador had left off.\n\n [i]“You live, you laugh, you say… love’s funny that way.”[/i]\n\n “...That was her favorite one of our songs… consarnit, fine. Let’s go get our favorite gal back,” Gus conceded with a humbled smile. “But lemme ask you somethin’, Colby. What’s in it fer you? What do you stand to gain from this?”\n Everyone else at the table turned their attention to him. Even Lazy Bones finally tilted his hat up slightly.\n “I… I don’t know. Maybe nothing… maybe [i]everything.” [/i]Colby sighed. “Either way, I just… want to do this one thing right. For her sake.”\n Gus took another bite of a beef biscuit.\n “Well if I know anythin’ about Smooch, if you really wanna make things right, you’re gonna have to put in a little hard work yerself. We’ll go to Pawston and put on a show, but [i]yer[/i] gonna sing the openin’ number.”\n “Wha- b-but I’m not a part of the band-” Colby interjected.\n [i]“-And,[/i] yer gonna write yer own song. And play the guitar, too.”\n Colby looked to the other members, who all seemed to be in agreement.\n “I don’t even know how to play! And I’ve never written a song before-” \n “Do you wanna win her back or not?” Gus asked, crossing his arms. For Colby, it was an easy answer.\n “...Yes. More than anything.”\n “Then those are my conditions.” Gus stretched in his chair, cracking a few old bones in his back. “Yer draggin us old dogs all the way up to Pawston, so yer gonna have to carry yer own weight too. You’ll teach us the song you write, and I’ll teach ya to play the guitar. It really ain’t as hard as it looks. You can at least strum up a couple chords in a few days, can’t ya?”\n “I… I guess I’ll give it my best shot.” Colby sighed. It seemed he had no other choice.\n “Atta boy.” Gus raised his mug of root beer, and the others followed suit as he slid his basket of biscuits over to the Labrador. “Welcome to the Ol’ Yellers, Colby.”\n “Now we do the toast, right, Gus?” Mud asked as he panted with his tongue out, drooling on the table as Gus rolled his eyes.\n “Yes, Mud, [i]now[/i] we toast. And clean yer slobber, fer Dog’s sake.”\n “Whoops, my bad.” The old bulldog wiped the puddle with his napkin, only adding more saliva to the top of it.\n \"May our harmonies be neat, our solos be sweet, and our encores always be louder!\" The band members toasted in unison as they welcomed their temporary fifth.\n Colby raised his mug, clinking it against theirs with a hopeful smile.\n Maybe there was still hope for him to have a happy ending, after all.\n\n The next morning, Colby joined the band on their RV, and together they set out on the long and winding road to Pawston. Gus tossed Colby a spare guitar.\n “We got ‘bout a three-days journey ‘til we get there, give or take. So you got ‘til then to come up with somethin’ to show her how ya feel.”\n “But I really don’t know how to write sheet-music…” Colby looked down at the guitar in his paws, already feeling a bit overwhelmed. Three days was not much time at all.\n “Don’t worry ‘bout all that, you just feel the song in your heart and we’ll play it by ear once you find the words. But first, let’s get those paws warmed up.” Gus took a seat and rested his guitar on his knee, prompting Colby to do the same. “Now follow my lead.”\n Colby held the guitar in his paws, keeping his eyes on Gus’s furry fingers as he strummed.\n\n C-chord.\n\n “Hello! Do you like my hat?” Lady Lydia asked, wearing an orange traffic cone on her head as she passed by Smooch on the street.\n “O-oh, yes, very nice, Lydia,” the blue terrier lied as she gave a fake smile.\n “Thank you, and how has Colby been lately? I do believe I haven’t seen him around for a few days. Has he caught a cold or something?” the pink poodle asked curiously.\n “Well, uh… yeah. A cold, or somethin’.” Smooch found her smile harder and harder to maintain, subtly turning away to continue walking. “Sorry, Lydia, gotta get goin’.”\n “Ah, off to get some chicken noodle soup for the poor dear, no doubt.” Lydia gave her a tip of her traffic cone hat as she went on her way. “Well tell him I said ‘hello’! And ‘get well soon’! Oh, and I do have some fun new hats in stock that I think he’d just [i]love[/i], so tell him not to be a stranger!”\n Smooch nodded, turning away with a sniffle and wiping her eyes. \n\n D-chord.\n\n Colby looked out the dark window of the moving RV as he tapped the pencil against the paper, unable to sleep as he tried to find the words to the song for Smooch in his heart. He couldn’t stop thinking about that look on her face the last time he saw her. He pulled out his phone, looking at her name in his contacts. His [i]only[/i] contact. How could he ever expect Smooch to forgive him for what he did? This wouldn’t work. This idea he could regain her love and trust back was just arrogant. Selfish. \n Pathetic. \n But regardless of whether he could win her back or not, this was about simply doing the right thing. Righting a wrong. Even if she still rejected him, all he wanted was to do something good for once. To grant her wish of being a singer again with her old friends. To make her dreams come true. Smooch had brought the light back into his life, and the softness of her sweet kiss was like a lightning even hotter than the lightning in his veins. He had to show her what she meant to him. \n Colby picked up his pencil, and finally began to write.\n\n E-minor.\n\n The next day, Smooch stood in her kitchen, drinking her morning cup of corn coffee as she looked out the kitchen window with a vacant stare. She took out her cell-bone and stared at the screen until her coffee got cold, her thumb hovering over a name in her contacts for a moment. That name… it wasn’t even really his name. Two small buttons were below his photo, taunting her with their opposing choices like a tiny angel and devil on her shoulders.\n Call… Delete Contact.\n Call… Delete Contact.\n\n G-chord.\n\n “Alright, now this is what’s called a power-stance.” Gus struck the guitar strings firmly as the bus slowly passed through bustling streets of Chew York City, raising his fist into the air as Colby watched. “This is what a guitarist does to show he means business. But you gotta save it for the end, like a declaration of victory. Now you try.”\n Colby copied Gus’s move, raising his clenched paw in just the same way. \n “Alright, perfect. I think you got the chords yer gonna need down, so there ain’t nothing more I can teach ya. Now…” \n Gus finally smiled for the first time Colby had seen since he’d met him. \n “Let’s see this song of yers.” \n\n C-chord.\n\n That night, Smooch was driving her son home when Scooch suddenly spoke up from the backseat. \n “Hey mom, I think there’s something going on at the park over there. It looks like a big stage, are the Barkapellas having another concert tonight?”\n “Huh, not that I know of…” Smooch glanced over at it disinterestedly, but continued driving.\n “If it is, can we go? Please?” Scooch leaned forward in his seat, using his cuteness to his advantage as he gave her his puppy-dog eyes. \n “Well… ah, what the heck, sure, why not?” \n As a police officer, it was probably a good idea to check out what this commotion was all about, anyway. And it might even help take her mind off… [i]him[/i], at least for a bit. \n\n Colby’s paws trembled as he held his guitar, now standing just behind the curtain of the stage they had set up in Pawston’s public park once they’d finally arrived. A large number of dogs were already gathering in front of their setup, wondering what it was all for. \n He peeked out of a thin slit in the curtain to see if a particular dog was in the audience; sure enough, such a large and unexpected gathering of dogs around a mysterious stage at the park had caught a certain pair of blue terriers’ attention as well.\n Everything was set. Now all he could do was his best. \n\n “I wish we could’ve taken Colby to see the Barkapellas. He would’ve loved it,” Scooch said with a broken-hearted sigh to his mother standing beside him as he held her hand.\n “Scooch, can we not talk about him any more please?” she growled under her breath. “He’s gone, and he ain’t ever comin’ back.”\n “Do you even [i]want[/i] Colby to come back?” Scooch snapped as he let go of her hand, looking up at her defiantly with glossy eyes and a crack in his voice. “Because [i]I do![/i]”\n “I-I…”\n Smooch looked down at her son and was about to say something when the curtain on the stage suddenly raised, revealing five mysterious dogs obscured in darkness. The one in front and center spoke, causing the microphone to give a little feedback.\n “Hi- uh, hello, e-everyone. It’s nice to see you all out here tonight.”\n “Wait a minute… who [i]are[/i] you?!” One random dog in the back of the audience shouted, expecting the Barkapellas as most of them did.\n “R-right, um, we’re… you know what? It doesn’t really matter who I am. All that matters is who we’re here for. You.”\n Smooch gulped as she could’ve sworn that the dark figure looked directly at her.\n “I love you. I can’t [i]not[/i] love you. I know things would probably be easier if I didn’t, but… all I want is you to have a happy life. And whether or not that life includes me… well, that’s for you to decide. This is for you.”\n The lights suddenly lit the stage, revealing the identities of the dogs on it. Smooch couldn't believe her own eyes as the familiar Labrador on stage started playing his guitar and singing from the heart, accompanied by other familiar dogs she’d never thought possible. \n\n [i]“I was an old windmill, in an empty field, where nobody goes.[/i]\n [i]Had all the curtains closed, sittin’ all alone, someone no one knows.[/i]\n [i]I was a [/i][i]broke-down[/i][i] heartache, badly in need of a little of love's electricity.[/i]\n [i]Just when the light in me died, in the middle of the night,[/i]\n [i]Then you flipped the switch, you turned on the show,[/i]\n [i]You light me up! Like a firework flyin’ in the darkest of skies,[/i]\n [i]Yeah, you light me up! Like the sunshine blazin’ in the summertime, oh, every time. [/i]\n [i]You light me up!”[/i]\n\n Smooch and Scooch’s jaws were both hanging in disbelief as Colby played on stage, pouring his heart out through his voice and paws. She had no idea how Colby had managed to find her old band mates, but sure enough, they were all accounted for. Lazy Bones, Mud, Buckaroo, and Gus, they were all there on stage before her very eyes, right here in Pawston. Making music together. And with [i]Colby,[/i] of all dogs. \n\n [i]“Like Chew York City on New Year's Eve,[/i]\n [i]You light me up![/i]\n [i]All the dark days left when you came to me.”[/i]\n\n The air pressure around the stage increased as Colby began levitating several inches off the stage floor, passionately jerking his guitar upwards and causing it to glow a vibrant neon green that lit up the whole stage. Tiny bolts of harmless green electricity crackled and zapped out of the strings as he played. \n\n [i]“Honey, you light me up! Like a firework flyin’ in the darkest of skies![/i]\n [i]You light me up! Like the sunshine blazin’ in the summertime, oh, every time![/i]\n [i]You light me up! You light me up…”[/i]\n\n Colby’s feet returned to the floor as the song ended, the strange neon glow from the guitar dissipating into nothingness as he held his fist proudly in the air, just like Gus had taught him.\n There was a moment of complete silence across the audience, followed immediately by woofs and barks of uproarious applause. \n With no further words to the crowd, Colby picked up the microphone from the stand and approached the edge of the stage closest to Smooch. He knelt down and held out the microphone with the handle facing her, with a hopeful look on his face that told her,\n “Now is your moment.”\n\n Smooch looked up at Colby with an expression that was difficult to place. She looked down at the microphone. Back up to Colby. Then down at the microphone again. She finally turned aside, slipping through the other dogs as she made her way out of the audience. \n Colby could feel his devastated heart breaking into pieces all over again. Of course this wouldn’t work. It was stupid to have ever thought it might from the very beginning. In the end, all he’d really succeeded in doing was making a complete ass of himself. He looked back at the other band members, wondering what the plan was now. \n But to his surprise, Gus nodded over to stage left with a warm smile on his face.\n When Colby looked to where the old bloodhound was gesturing, his heart leapt as he saw Smooch now standing there.\n “Smooch…” Colby stood, approaching her hesitantly with the microphone still in hand. “I-”\n Smooch held up her paw, stopping him without a word. She gently took the microphone from his paw, slowly making her way to the front as he looked on from offstage. The crowd was dead-silent as she nodded to each of her fellow band members. Lazy Bones. Mud. Buckaroo Barkley. Gus Rawhide. The dogs who she once considered her best friends, now back in her life once again. \n And she had Colby to thank for that.\n The blue terrier looked out at the silent crowd of dogs, taking her back to her fondest memories. Memories that she had once thought were destined to remain memories forever, becoming more and more distant until they would eventually fade away entirely. But here she was, standing on stage for all to see. For all to hear. She would show Pawston a side of her that no one had ever seen, not even her own son.\n And she had Colby to thank for that. \n Gus began playing a soft and light tune on the upper strings of his guitar, followed shortly by Mud on the drums. Lazy Bones on the bass. Buck on the banjo. \n Smooch lifted the microphone to her muzzle. \n A breath in. A breath out. \n\n [i]“Caught between forever and a wasteland…[/i]\n [i]Reckless desire goes wild…[/i]\n [i]Uncharted… no sense of direction…[/i]\n [i]Just chasin’, a feelin’, for miles, and miles, and miles!”[/i]\n\n Smooch couldn’t contain the tears of joy running down her face as her dream had finally come true. This feeling in her heart as she sang. There was no other feeling in the world quite like it. \n And she had Colby to thank for that.\n\n [i]“When your heartbeat’s beatin’, out of your chest, what’cha do next is anyone's guess![/i]\n [i]Break your own rules, make your own mess![/i]\n [i]Care so damn much, you couldn't care less![/i]\n [i]Whoa, it's a high-speed chase on the edge, all or [/i][i]nothin[/i][i]’. [/i]\n [i]Whoa, find yourself in the wild, wild west, [/i]\n [i]'Cause love is lawless!”[/i]\n\n Scooch, who was still in the audience, was nothing less than completely star-struck by his mother as the golden spotlight shone on her like a beautiful halo. His jaw felt like it was going to fall to the floor. Never in a million years did he ever expect his own mom to be such a talented singer, but that photo in the living room of her and these other dogs finally made perfect sense now. \n Smooch looked over to Colby, standing alone in the darkness as he watched her performance from behind the stage curtain.\n\n [i]“Anythin’ goes, stay on your toes[/i]\n [i]You might catch a thorn, or you might catch a rose[/i]\n [i]It's a treacherous road, littered in bones,[/i]\n [i]We’ll run from the law, 'cause love is lawless!”[/i]\n\n She approached him, grabbing his paw and pulling him back on stage to join her. \n\n [i]“Whoa, it's a high-speed chase on the edge, all or [/i][i]nothin[/i][i]’. [/i]\n [i]Whoa, find yourself in the wild, wild west…[/i]\n [i]'Cause love is lawless…”[/i]\n\n Smooch pulled Colby in close as the audience cheered even louder than before, dropping the microphone and standing on her tiptoes as she planted a firm and passionate kiss on his lips. \n “Wooo! [i]Yeeeah!”[/i] The same random dog from the back of the audience cheered on with extra enthusiasm. Maybe a little [i]too[/i] much.\n “Whatever your secrets, I wanna be the one who keeps ‘em,” Smooch whispered when their lips finally parted. \n “I promise, Smooch. No more secrets.” Colby softly brushed her cheek with his palm. “I’m really sorry about what happened before. Your photo…”\n “It was an accident,” Smooch replied. She was admittedly still a little torn-up over the photo, but was willing to put it in the past. After all, losing a photo couldn’t take away the memories of Kernel that meant so much to her, nor could it love her the way Colby did now. “I’m sorry too. I said a lotta things I didn’t mean. I… I love you, Colby.”\n Colby’s heart was filled to the brim as he heard her say those words to him for the first time. \n “I love you too, Smooch,” Colby replied, leaning in and holding her close as he reunited their lips again for another kiss while the crowd was practically deafening. Despite all the odds, and without any doubts, they were finally once again where they belonged.\n Together.\n\n Later that night, after the entire concert had ended, Smooch tucked her son into his bed as he gave out an exhausted yawn. \n “I’m glad Colby’s back,” Scooch said sleepily, hugging his plush chicken as he got comfortable.\n “So am I, Scooch,” Smooch whispered with a motherly smile before giving him a kiss on the forehead. \n “And it’s for good this time, right?” Scooch grumbled as he closed his eyes, already drifting off to sleep. “For keeps? Happily ever after?”\n “Forever and for always. Sleep tight, Scooch. I love you.” Smooch gently pet his head before leaving his side, quietly tiptoeing down the stairs as she let him sleep. When she reached the bottom, she watched Colby from around the corner as he sat on the couch and scrolled through his cell-bone. \n “Hey,” she said softly, approaching him.\n “Hey,” Colby replied, feeling just a little awkward now that it was the two of them completely alone together again. The last time they were alone in this living room, things hadn’t exactly turned out so great. “By the way, I was just thinking, uh… did you want my number again? After what happened, I… I would understand if you deleted it.”\n Smooch took her phone out, pressing a button.\n Colby’s cell-bone vibrated. \n “I’d be lyin’ if I said I hadn’t [i]thought[/i] about it, but no. I never deleted it.\" Smooch replied with a smile as she put it away. \"Truth is, I… I really missed you, Colby. More than I wanted to admit.”\n “I really missed you too, Smooch.” Colby stood up and gave her a kiss on her furry cheek before looking around the living room with a quiet sigh. “Now, where’s that sleeping bag…”\n Smooch hummed happily and took his paw in hers, leading him down the hall.\n “Follow me.”\n When they reached the end of the hallway, she pulled him into her bedroom and closed the door behind them. As the lights were still off, it was completely black. Colby was about to feel around for the light-switch when he suddenly heard a click of a lock, followed by the sensation of a soft pair of lips aggressively pressing into his. Before he even had time to process what was happening, he felt himself being forced to walk backwards and falling back onto a soft mattress as Smooch’s warm, furry body pressed down against his. \n The sounds of soft, breathy moans filled the room as their tongues swirled longingly around each other, fully appreciating every second of the others’ flavor. Smooch and Colby savored every drop of their lovers’ delicious saliva, finding themselves more aroused with each swallow. For quite some time, the two lost themselves entirely in the blissful sensations of one another’s delicate tongues. \n But it could only last for so long before they began to want more. \n Colby’s paws slowly found their way to Smooch’s waist… down to her hips… and finally, cupping her rear. Although they were a little shaky with nervous tension, his fingers massaged and pressed into her thick haunches as his eyes finally began to adjust slightly to the darkness, allowing him to gaze upon her beauty as their kiss continued. \n Colby felt a shiver of euphoria run up his spine as Smooch finally parted their lips, hungrily dragging her wet tongue up his mouth in repeated licks. After having lived through eons alone without experiencing any form of carnal pleasure, it drove him insane in the best possible way. He wanted more. Needed more. More. [i]More.[/i]\n In the heat of the moment, Colby raised his paw, suddenly bringing it back down onto Smooch’s rear with a firm and loud smack. She deeply grunted in approval, grinding her hips needily against his in return. He smacked the other one, slightly harder than the first. No complaints. He tightly gripped and spread her tempting backside as he began gently thrusting his pelvis into her, his body silently pleading for Smooch’s permission to take things a bit further. \n She got the message, her paws reaching up and removing Colby’s collar from around his neck before tossing it on the floor. Colby retreated his paws from Smooch’s rump to remove her collar as well - though it took some clumsy fidgeting with the buckle - tossing it on the floor next to his own. For some strange reason he couldn’t explain, something about just seeing her without a collar on made her appear more ‘naked’ somehow. \n With that out of the way, Colby and Smooch could finally take the next step. Colby leaned into Smooch’s neck, gently kissing and biting her as his paw reached down between her thighs. His finger soon found its goal, delicately swirling and rubbing at her warm and puffy entrance before it was finally slick enough to invite him in. Smooch returned the favor, lowering her paw down to his masculine eagerness and gently squeezing it at the same tempo as his finger. \n Their hot breaths brushed against each others’ faces as Smooch pressed his sensitive tip into her lower abdomen, letting him know just how badly she wanted him. Colby quickened the pace of his curled finger inside her as he slid it in down to the knuckle, wordlessly returning her sentiment. \n “I love you,” Smooch whispered into Colby’s ear as he gave her neck a lick, her paw guiding his member down to her waiting folds. She was more than ready now to take the final plunge.\n “I l-love you too,” he whispered back, removing his finger from her and tenderly holding her waist. \n Smooch lowered herself down onto Colby, a sharp gasp of overwhelming love piercing the air as they were finally made whole. \n Colby held the back of her head, bringing her in for another deep and passionate kiss as their bodies pushed and pulled against one another. No further words were said, but their fervent moans into each others’ lungs said everything they needed to. Smooch chuckled softly as she dug her furry fingers into Colby’s brown hair, practically feeling him melting beneath her from her mere touch. She never could have expected on that fateful morning when she’d first met him that this was where her life would be now. That she would ever be able to love again. \n Her rocking pace steadily increased as she fixated on expressing the love she felt for Colby, and Colby happily picked up his pace to match. But then, he felt a strange feeling as he was reminded of his canine anatomy, like he was suddenly locked in place. \n “Smooch, I… I think I’m s-stuck…” Colby huffed as he slowed down, barely able to speak as his mind felt like a thick hazy fog of lust. \n “No worries, hun, just… let me know when you’re close… and I’ll get off,” Smooch replied through heavy breaths, taking a brief moment to rest. “Now’s not a safe time for me.”\n Colby nodded, and they picked up their speed again. Although he understood perfectly well why a puppy wouldn’t be a good idea this early into their relationship, it was something he wouldn’t be against at all if it were to eventually happen.\n Someday.\n It wasn’t much longer until the lingering intrusive thought of Smooch bearing his future child brought Colby to the edge, clenching his eyes tightly as he felt a pressuring building deep within him.\n “I-I’m almost there…” He grunted with a shudder, prompting Smooch to get off of him and remove his length from within her. Although it took a little effort, it was painless for both of them since Smooch, being a mother, was not narrow by any means. Without hesitation, she lowered herself down to bring her face directly to his groin, immediately wrapping her lips around his circumference and engulfing his member.\n “Whoa, Smooch… oh, [i]fffuck…”[/i] Colby arched his back slightly, petting the top of Smooch’s furry blue head as it bobbed up and down. The skilled licks of her tongue on the underside of his bone was what finally drove Colby to the breaking point, whining quietly into the night as he rocked his hips into her inviting muzzle. \n\n Awash in an intense wave of pure unadulterated bliss, Colby surrendered himself entirely to Smooch’s loving care as he achieved climax. \n\n “...I’ve been wantin’ to taste that for a long time…” Smooch laughed softly after she swallowed, licking her lips as she snuggled up against Colby. \n But Colby wasn’t done. Not yet.\n “Your turn,” he huffed, shimmying down the bedsheets and holding Smooch’s legs open before she could even have a chance to say anything. \n “Colby, wha- [i]ah!”[/i] \n Her words were immediately halted by the sensation of his long canine tongue on her nether regions, making cute whimpers and moans as he returned the favor. Colby made sure to taste as much of her flavor as he could, giving plenty of attention to both of her sensitive entrances equally. Alternating his tongue up and down between one area to another, Colby was more than happy to continue this for as long as Smooch would allow. \n “Th-this is so embarrassing…” Smooch whined softly as she leaned into her pillow, feeling tears building up in her eyes from the sheer pleasure.\n “Why? Do you want me to stop?” Colby asked as he pulled away for a second, wondering if this didn’t feel as good for her as he’d hoped. \n “N-no, it’s not that… it’s just- [i]ah!”[/i]\n Before Smooch could finish her sentence, Colby resumed his oral service to her, nearly causing her brain to turn to mush with pure ecstasy. He slid his tongue deep into her wet feminine tunnel as though he were dying of thirst, his lips pressed firmly against her swollen canine mound. \n “D-don’t stop, Colby… just like that, please, keep goin’…” Smooch surrendered herself to Colby’s loving care as well, running her fingers through his hair as he treated her like a queen.\n Before long, she felt an unmistakable sensation bubbling up from deep within her.\n “Almost there… I’m gonna-!”\n Hearing those words only made Colby lick more enthusiastically than ever, eager to be rewarded with Smooch’s sweet nectar as her hips quivered and her legs buckled. \n\n With a squeeze of Colby’s head firmly between her thighs, Smooch was hit with wave after wave of mind-melting pleasure as she reached her climax. \n\n With both of them now fully satisfied to their hearts’ content, Colby smiled as he made his way back up the bed and tightly held Smooch in his arms. \n “So now that that’s done, about that sleeping bag…”\n “Are you serious?” Smooch scoffed, giving him a light and playful slap on the chest before giving him a kiss on the cheek. \n “Kidding, I’m kidding,” Colby chuckled, giving her cheek a kiss in return. “But, uh… I'll admit, this bed is a little… small, for two. I don’t want to accidentally elbow you in my sleep or anything.”\n “I think I’ll manage for a night, we’ll go out lookin’ for a bigger bed tomorrow.” Smooch sighed, nuzzling against Colby’s chest as she slowly drifted off to sleep. “But not [i]too[/i] big, ‘cause… I like bein’ close to you like this… y’know?”\n Colby kissed the top of her head, closing his eyes as he felt her comforting warmth in his arms. As long as she was with him, and as long as he was with her, he knew that everything would be okay from now on. \n “Yeah… me too. Good night, Smooch. I love you.”\n Smooch replied only with a light snore. \n\n But Colby knew what she really meant to say.", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "            “Attention, passengers: Bus 380 to Chew York City is now boarding at platform 3.”
            Colby stood in the center of the bustling bus station as dogs of all breeds, sizes, and colors passed him by, looking up at the departure schedule with a quiet yawn. He hadn’t slept all night; after what had happened between him and Smooch, he couldn’t. And for over three and a half hours, the heartbroken yellow Lab had been standing in this exact spot without even moving barely an inch as he wallowed in his own self-destructive apathy.
            “If you have lost an item during your journey, please proceed to the Lost and Found office located near the main entrance."
            Nothing mattered to him anymore. He’d already lost everything. Again. Without the Pooches in his life, Colby had completely given up on ever trying to find happiness at this point. Just when he thought he’d found it for good this time - a new life, a fresh start in a new world - he had still found a way to mess everything up.
            Just as he’d always done.
            “Bus 194 to Paws Angeles has been temporarily rerouted due to a road closure. Please check the information board for details on the new estimated arrival time."
            He was destined to be alone forever, he thought. This lonely road Colby had found himself on was one that would simply never end. No matter what he did, each and every road always seemed to lead to the same place anyway.
            If this was his destiny, perhaps it was for the best.
            “I guess… this one.”
            Rather than making a decision of where to go next, Colby made the decision not to decide, opting instead to head for any one of the identical buses completely at random without even paying any attention to the route number. It wasn’t like it mattered where it took him… right?

            Meanwhile, back in Pawston, Smooch was listlessly looking out at the window of the Big Bowl Diner as she sat with her closest friend Maw Barker for one of their usual lunch break get-togethers.
            “So then, Paw says-” Maw stopped herself when she noticed the sulking blue terrier across from her had stopped paying attention. “Hey, everything okay?”
            No response. Nothing except for a quivering sigh.
            “Smooch? Talk to me, please.”
            “...I never should’a listened to you,” Smooch whispered, though Maw’s sensitive ears were keen enough to pick up every word.
            “What? Did I say something wrong?” she scowled, wondering where this sudden remark had come from.
            “It’s… nothin’. Just forget I said anythin’.” Smooch shook her head, pretending - poorly, at that - that everything was just fine.
            “Smooch, if there’s something I said to upset you, then I want to know what it is.” Maw gave her a sympathetic look. “You can be honest with me.”
            “Honest,” Smooch scoffed under her breath. “Honestly, Maw, I wish you’d’ve just left well enough alone.”
            “What are you talking about?” Maw was getting more frustrated and confused as to why Smooch was upset with her in the first place. “Is this about the time when Scooch was over for a sleepover and I gave him chicken nuggets for dinner? Because-”
            “Pushin’ me to ‘just go for it’ with Colby. What was it you said, you needed some ‘spicy excitement in your life’?” Smooch scoffed, shaking her head as she looked out the window to avoid eye-contact. “Well I hope my love-life’s been a good ‘nuff soap opera for you.”
            “I… still don’t know what’s going on. Did something happen?”
            Smooch’s expression of swelling anger and resentment quickly fell into one of sorrow, her lower lip trembling as tears fell down her cheeks.
            “I broke up with Colby.”
            “What?!” Maw blurted out loud enough for the rest of the diner patrons to hear, then lowered her voice back down to a reasonable volume. “What happened? Everything looked like it was going so well just last night, what could he have done that was so bad that it made you break up with him? And on his birthday?”
            The more Smooch thought about it, the more she second-guessed herself. Last night already felt like a loud and messy blur of anger to her; it all started when Colby confessed to her that he was essentially an alien, more or less. That he’d had this whole secret life he’d lived before meeting her - one apparently involving superpowers and fighting some kind of world-ending evil. In fact, his story almost seemed like the kind one might find in those superhero comics Scooch would often read - only much, much darker, and more grim. He told her he had a wife and kids before. That they were all gone. She said some things, he said some things, and then…
            He broke the picture of her and Kernel.
            But as she recalled, he did seem genuinely remorseful afterward. That he hadn’t meant to. After all, it was a lightning bolt of plasma that came out of his finger. Could it have really just been an accident?
            “I… I don’t wanna talk about it!” Smooch got up from the table and left the diner in a hurry, leaving Maw behind as she ran down the street away from the situation. Away from her own conflicting feelings.  
            Since she still had twenty minutes left of her lunch break before she was on-duty again, Smooch wiped her tears and continued walking down the street to try to clear her head. She had made the right decision to make Colby leave. She was sure of it.
            That was, until she wasn’t.
            With nearly every place she passed, she couldn’t help but associate each of them with that yellow Labrador she had once loved so much. There was Pothole Road, where she’d first met him. The pizza pawlor. The hedge maze. Lydia’s hat store.
            Even her favorite spot in town, the windmill museum, only made her even sadder than before. Only made her miss him more.
            Smooch eventually arrived at the Amusement Bark, taking a seat on a bench to rest her aching legs. She looked back at the rovercoaster - a memory she’d sooner rather forget.
            She turned her head around again, jumping slightly in her seat in surprise to find Cheddar Biscuit standing directly in front of her.
            “Oh, Cheddar! You were so quiet, you startled me a bit! That isn’t much like you at all, is it, sugar?” Smooch feigned a chuckle, met with one equally half-hearted in return from the little clown dog.
            “Haha, yeah…” Cheddar Biscuit rubbed her arm awkwardly. “Do you… mind if I sit with you for a little bit? I could really use some company that doesn’t just respond with nose-honks.”
            “S-sure thing, hun. Feel free.” Smooch inched over to the edge of the bench, and Cheddar took the seat next to her.
            “Do you ever feel… empty, and you’re not really sure why?” Cheddar Biscuit gently swung her legs back and forth idly on the bench. “Like… you’re missing something in your life that you don’t even know you need?”
            “I guess I know the feeling. That’s what I was like for a while before I met-” Smooch stopped herself, clearing her throat. “But what’s brought this up? I know we’ve never really interacted much, but as the police chief- no, as your mom’s friend, I’m always here if you need support. Somethin’ troublin’ you?”
            “Um…” Cheddar twiddled her thumbs nervously, as though she were a little intimidated by the terrier. “Well, my friend, she really likes this guy, and thinks about him all the time. Like, kinda obsessed with him. But the thing is, she’s only ever met him once. He barely even knows she exists. And he’s also… with someone.”
            “Ah, well… that is quite a problem.” Smooch was quick to understand that Cheddar was in fact not talking about some nameless friend of hers, but was actually talking about herself. “I’d tell your friend that it’s important to respect their relationship, and that sometimes… things don’t always work out the way we want them to.”
            Smooch’s head lowered a little, feeling a sting of sadness in her heart before she continued.
            “There’s someone out there for everyone. So if it’s meant to happen… it’ll happen.”
            “But how can she make the empty feeling go away? What if she never finds the right dog?” Cheddar sighed, looking up at the sky as the clouds approached “What if… it’s never meant to happen? Is she just supposed to be alone forever?”
            “I’m wonderin’ the same thing, Cheddar…” Smooch softly sighed, looking up at the clouds as well. It looked like a rainstorm might be coming, the first one in Pawston in quite a while.
            “...I’m wonderin’ the same thing.”

            Over two whole days had eventually passed, and Colby was now hundreds of miles away, struggling to keep his eyes open as he sat in the back of the bus on the long and lonely road to nowhere. He hadn’t slept a wink since his departure from Pawston, and his body was really beginning to feel it. Colby dreaded sleep, for fear that he’d experience yet another horrible nightmare. He leaned his head back into the chair and focused, determined to stay awake for as long as he could.

            With a blink of Colby’s eyes, the lights above suddenly flickered before going completely black. The bus began to swerve back and forth between the lanes as though it were sliding on slick ice.
            ‘Hey driver, slow down!’ Colby shouted - or at least, it’s what he would have shouted, if he could. As he opened his mouth with great effort, the only noise he could actually make was a quiet and unintelligible groan through his teeth. He tried to stand up, but his body was glued firmly to his seat.
            “Hhuhh drhh, sluh duhh.”
            The bus did stop, however, as its front collided hard and loud against something. Colby felt an icy cold chill wash over him when he saw a pair of large red glowing eyes glaring at him through the windshield, followed by a pair of thin black hands punching through the fiberglass and ripping open a hole into it with ease.
            ‘No… not you…’ Colby thought as a tall and black wasp-like creature crawled through the windshield, quickly flickering her long and shiny ebony wings in vengeful fury. Its thin and somewhat feminine humanoid metal frame was all too familiar as she approached him with heavy footsteps, a raspy buzz in her voice as she spoke slowly with a sound like scraping rusted nails.
            “Your past will consume you.”
            ‘You’re not real… you’re dead…’ Colby thought as he bared his teeth, his memories of her making his blood boil. ‘I made sure of it.’
            “I’m going to enjoy every moment of this,” the biomechanical wasp hissed as she crawled up onto the seat and grabbed Colby’s head, squeezing his skull between her cold, bony hands and forcing his head to look up at her. “I can finally squish you like the pathetic little lightning bug you are. And this time, NO ONE will miss you.”
            As the wasp dug her jagged claws deeper into his temples and raised her stinger, Colby’s heart was pounding harder than ever before as he weakly struggled to free himself. Never before had he felt so physically-weak. But as she swung her stinger into his stomach, she seemed to freeze in place just before it pierced his skin.
            He looked at her in confusion as her two glowing red compound eyes began mysteriously winking back and forth like the lights of a railroad crossing.

            Colby’s eyes shot open as he sharply inhaled, finding himself back in the waking world as the nightmarish creature vanished from his sight. Nearly his entire body was covered in goosebumps as he vividly recalled that horrid buzz of her voice, the fur on his neck standing straighter than ever before. The bus was stopped at a railroad crossing, the bright red lights flashing alternatively as the train cars slowly passed. Having regained his composure and a bit of rest, Colby leaned his head against the window’s condensation as he waited for the train to clear.
            However, that apparently wouldn’t be happening anytime soon, as the train slowed down to a complete stop. And of course, it had to be as the last car still just barely blocked the road.
            “Well, nuts. Looks like we might be here a while, bud,” the bus driver dog looked back to his lone passenger and chuckled half-heartedly before taking out a crossword puzzle. “Now, what’s an 11-letter word for, ‘a happy coincidence’?”
            Colby, not bothering to respond, leaned his head against the window and looked out at the town he’s awoken in. Everything a normal town would have - a post-office, a hardware store, and…
            Colby blinked when he saw a lit sign advertising an event happening at the local tavern.

            ‘LIVE TONIGHT, 9:00 - THE Ol’ YELLERS’

            “Hey, uh… driver, w-where are we?” Colby asked, not taking his eyes off the sign as it flickered.
            “Oh, I do believe somewhere in Barkansas. Why?”
            Colby continued to look at the sign, hardly believing his own eyes.
            ‘Forget it, forget it, forget it…’ his inner voice insisted repeatedly as he tapped his foot, reminding him that it was pointless to hope that things might actually get better. To hope that he might be able to fix things for once instead of breaking them. To hope that he could dare have another chance at happiness.
            But Colby couldn’t just forget it. Not when such a clear sign of fate was laid out right in front of him. Could this really be the same Ol’ Yellers from Smooch’s past?
            He suddenly remembered something, reaching behind his back and pulling out the doorbell he’d received from Paw Barker.
            A guitar-shaped doorbell.
            ‘Not every doorbell is for a house, but all doorbells are for a home,’ Colby remembered Paw’s voice telling him, ‘You’ll know what yours means when the time comes.’
            “...Let me off here.” Colby said as he got up and made his way to the front of the bus.
            “Well, okay, but if this here train start’s movin’ again, I ain’t waitin’ for ya.” The driver replied.
            “That’s fine.”
            The bus door swung open with a metallic hiss, and Colby stepped out onto the damp pavement below. And as luck would have it, as soon as the door closed behind him, the train’s horn blared as it finally started moving along the tracks once again.
            Colby didn’t take one look back at the bus crossing the tracks behind him as he walked to the tavern, taking a slow and deep breath before crossing the threshold. He opened the door… and made his way inside.
            The smell of stale onion rings and sadness permeated the air as Colby entered the dimly-lit tavern, seeing a few lethargic-looking dogs seated the tables with cold glass mugs in their paws.
            ‘Root beer,’ he thought to himself, picking up the distinct smell of soda with his sensitive canine nose. ‘...figures.’
            He turned his attention to the small stage on the other side of the bar, spotting several familiar old dogs from a particular photo he remembered seeing back in Smooch’s living room.

            “Yer tellin’ me today… that you're leavin’…
            But just think a while… I'm sure that you must knooow…
            Today might be the daaay… that you walk awaaay…
            But you left meee… a long, looong time agooo.”

            Several dogs at their tables howled in a cacophonous off-key harmony. And if Colby was being honest, the lead singer left something to be desired as well. His pitch was half-decent at best, and he didn’t have any kind of energy or life in him - neither did the rest of the band, for that matter. To Colby, the whole scene was a rather depressing affair.

            “Please don't say yer sorry, don't say anythin’…
            Don't say why you must leave, just gooo…
            Today might be the daaay… that you walk awaaay…
            But you left meee… a long, looong time agooo.”



            “C’mon, Scooch, up and at ‘em.” Smooch gently shook her son’s little shoulder as he laid awake in his bed, facing away from her. “Tag’s at the door practically beggin’ to play with you,”
            “...Why did Colby have to leave, mom?” he sniffled, burying his snout under his blanket.
            “Oh, Scooch…” Smooch sighed, petting his back. “I already told you, it’s… complicated grown-up stuff. You shouldn’t be worryin’ about all that, just go and have some fun with Tag.”
            “But he was gonna be my new step-dad, mom. You were soulmates.”
            “Did Colby tell you that?” Smooch felt her anger rising at the thought of that lying dog filling her son’s head with idealistic promises that he couldn’t keep.
            “Well, no…” Scooch turned around, finally facing his mom with a look of dejection in his watery eyes. “But I just knew that you made each other really happy. I saw it. Didn’t he make you happy, mom?”
            “He… he did…” Smooch sighed bitterly, her anger quickly receding as she pulled out her cell-bone. No new messages. She hadn’t seen Colby for days now, ever since he’d left. Or rather, ever since she made him leave. But now she was secretly finding herself hoping that he’d be the one to text her. To reach out to her. To at least try. But maybe… that might be expecting too much.
            “He really, really did.”

            “Hey, could I have a word with you guys?” Colby asked as he approached the four band members after their last song of the night had finally ended.
            “You a talent scout, or the media?” The lead singer, an old and grizzled black bloodhound, replied as he led the others down the steps and made their way to the root beer bar area without giving Colby so much as a second glance. “‘Cause we ain’t got no fans, that’s fer dang sure.”
            “N-neither,” Colby stuttered as he followed them. “Look, maybe it’s just a coincidence that I’m here, or maybe you’re not even the dogs I’m thinking of, but… you wouldn’t happen to know a ‘Smooch Pooch’, would you? Blue terrier?”
            “Nope, ain’t never heard o’ her.” The bloodhound gestured over to the bartender as he and the rest of his band took a seat at a table. “Five mugs over here, Rover. And some of those beefy biscuits, when ya have the time.”
            “Well, we did know a Smooch Snickerdoodle back in the day, and she was a blue terrier. Wasn’t she, Gus?” the stocky gray bulldog sitting beside the disgruntled old hound spoke up. “Boy, that gal could sing like a swan, she could.”
            ‘Snickerdoodle?’ Colby thought as his eyebrows raised in surprise, having realized he never actually knew that Pooch wasn’t Smooch’s maiden-name until now.
            “Hush yer mouth, Buck.” The brown bloodhound shot him a scornful look. “We could’a made it big, if it wasn’t fer her leavin’ us an’ gettin’ hitched.”
            “So you do know who I’m talking about, then.” Colby collected his thoughts as he planned his words carefully. This conversation had to go smoothly if he stood any chance of fixing things. “Please hear me out, I need to-”
            “Now hold on, youngin’.” The bloodhound known as Gus held up his paw as the bartender brought their table five ice-cold glasses of frothy root beer. “Introductions are good manners, y’know.”
            “Right, sorry.” Colby replied as he raised his paw in a quick greeting. “Hi, my name’s Colby. It’s an honor to meet you all.”
            “Like the cheese?” the short brown Basset Hound on the other side of the table asked with a snicker.
            “...Yes, like the cheese,” Colby grumbled a little sourly in offense, crossing his arms.
            “This here’s Buckaroo Barkley. Buck fer short.” Gus reached over and pulled the wide-brimmed cowboy hat over the Basset Hound’s eyes. “He thinks he’s so funny, but don’t pay him no mind. It’ll only encourage him.”
            Colby nodded politely.
            “That there’s Lazy Bones, he don’t talk much.” Gus gestured over to a tall white Great Dane, who was slouched back in his chair with his black bolero hat tilted over his eyes as well. It sounded like he was quietly snoring. “Well actually, he don’t talk ever.”
            He appeared to be sound-asleep, but to Colby’s surprise, he held up two fingers in a peace-sign of acknowledgement.
            “Heh, that means he likes ya,” the gray bulldog said with a shameless burp as he set his empty glass mug down on the table, having already chugged the entire thing in one go.
            “Fer Dog’s sake, Mud, we ain’t even toasted yet.” Gus shook his head with a sigh.
            “Your name is ‘Mud’?” Colby asked, turning to the bulldog as he discreetly held his nose, his sensitive canine nostrils picking up the smell of the bulldog’s breath.
            “Yup. Just Mud,” the bulldog replied as he reached his arms behind his head, stretching back in his chair and cracking a few bones in his spine. “Looong story.”
            “And I’m Gus Rawhide.” Gus gestured to his fellow band members. “Welcome to the dogshit-show. Pardon my French-Poodlese.”
            Just then, the bartender returned with four baskets of bone-shaped biscuits for his most loyal customers, setting them all on the table in front of the band members before returning back to the bar table.
            “Much-appreciated, Rover.” Gus nodded, the four of them each taking a biscuit and snapping a chunk off in their mouth and beginning to chew. “So tell us, whelp. Just how do you know Smooch, and what the dickens brings you all the way out here to come lookin’ fer us? We ain’t heard from her in, shoot, almost ten years now.”
            Colby cleared his throat.
            “W-well, the thing is, I wasn’t really looking for you. I just sort of… ended up here. But Smooch is… was… really close to me. She’s been through a lot since she left.”
            He caught them up to speed on Smooch’s life over the past decade - at least, as far as he knew it. How Smooch was a mother now, and how great of a pup her son Scooch was. He told them that after having tragically lost her husband to illness, she eventually had to leave their farm with her son and move to Pawston to become a police officer. He told them about their relationship, and the bad terms of which they’d left things.
            “-But most importantly, she really, really misses all of you dogs. She misses being a singer. She misses the Ol’ Yellers. I mean, she even still has a photo of all of you together framed in her living room. This band was her life, and she’s told me herself that she would give anything to perform with all of you again. Even just one last time.”
            “...So what exactly are you gettin’ at, son?” Gus leaned forward after an uncomfortable pause after Colby’s story had finished, raising one of his thick bushy eyebrows.
            “I think… the reason I ended up here is to reunite you. To make her wish come true. I…” Colby sniffled, lowering his head in shame. “I owe her that much.”
            “Yee-haw! Count me in!” Mud howled with joy, being the first immediately on-board as he raised his empty glass.
            “Ah, what the heck. It ain’t like we got anythin’ else to do,” Buckaroo added as he shrugged with a smile.
            Lazy Bones simply gave an approving thumbs-up, his eyes still completely obscured by his hat.
            All that was left was Gus Rawhide himself, who was completely silent with a discouraging expression glued on his face.
            “...Why the heck should I help her after the way she left us all behind? If she’d’a cared about any of us, she would’a stayed in touch. How do I know you’re not just full of it?”
            “Please, Gus.” Colby gave him his best attempt at puppy-dog eyes. “It has to be all of you. She didn’t reach out to you guys because she felt ashamed. That you might hate her. She’s wanted to for so long, but she felt like it was too late for her.”
            Gus shrugged dismissively, taking a drink of his root beer.
            Colby had to make this work. Whatever it took. He closed his eyes and took a breath.

            “Love’s funny that waaay… no matter who you aaare…
            ‘Cause it can shake your faaaith… and it can break your heaaart.”

            Gus’s droopy ears perked up. After a moment of silence from Colby, Gus finally gave in and picked up where the young Labrador had left off.

            “You live, you laugh, you say… love’s funny that way.”

            “...That was her favorite one of our songs… consarnit, fine. Let’s go get our favorite gal back,” Gus conceded with a humbled smile. “But lemme ask you somethin’, Colby. What’s in it fer you? What do you stand to gain from this?”
            Everyone else at the table turned their attention to him. Even Lazy Bones finally tilted his hat up slightly.
            “I… I don’t know. Maybe nothing… maybe everything.” Colby sighed. “Either way, I just… want to do this one thing right. For her sake.”
            Gus took another bite of a beef biscuit.
            “Well if I know anythin’ about Smooch, if you really wanna make things right, you’re gonna have to put in a little hard work yerself. We’ll go to Pawston and put on a show, but yer gonna sing the openin’ number.”
            “Wha- b-but I’m not a part of the band-” Colby interjected.
            “-And, yer gonna write yer own song. And play the guitar, too.”
            Colby looked to the other members, who all seemed to be in agreement.
            “I don’t even know how to play! And I’ve never written a song before-”
            “Do you wanna win her back or not?” Gus asked, crossing his arms. For Colby, it was an easy answer.
            “...Yes. More than anything.”
            “Then those are my conditions.” Gus stretched in his chair, cracking a few old bones in his back. “Yer draggin us old dogs all the way up to Pawston, so yer gonna have to carry yer own weight too. You’ll teach us the song you write, and I’ll teach ya to play the guitar. It really ain’t as hard as it looks. You can at least strum up a couple chords in a few days, can’t ya?”
            “I… I guess I’ll give it my best shot.” Colby sighed. It seemed he had no other choice.
            “Atta boy.” Gus raised his mug of root beer, and the others followed suit as he slid his basket of biscuits over to the Labrador. “Welcome to the Ol’ Yellers, Colby.”
            “Now we do the toast, right, Gus?” Mud asked as he panted with his tongue out, drooling on the table as Gus rolled his eyes.
            “Yes, Mud, now we toast. And clean yer slobber, fer Dog’s sake.”
            “Whoops, my bad.” The old bulldog wiped the puddle with his napkin, only adding more saliva to the top of it.
            "May our harmonies be neat, our solos be sweet, and our encores always be louder!" The band members toasted in unison as they welcomed their temporary fifth.
            Colby raised his mug, clinking it against theirs with a hopeful smile.
            Maybe there was still hope for him to have a happy ending, after all.

            The next morning, Colby joined the band on their RV, and together they set out on the long and winding road to Pawston. Gus tossed Colby a spare guitar.
            “We got ‘bout a three-days journey ‘til we get there, give or take. So you got ‘til then to come up with somethin’ to show her how ya feel.”
            “But I really don’t know how to write sheet-music…” Colby looked down at the guitar in his paws, already feeling a bit overwhelmed. Three days was not much time at all.
            “Don’t worry ‘bout all that, you just feel the song in your heart and we’ll play it by ear once you find the words. But first, let’s get those paws warmed up.” Gus took a seat and rested his guitar on his knee, prompting Colby to do the same. “Now follow my lead.”
            Colby held the guitar in his paws, keeping his eyes on Gus’s furry fingers as he strummed.

            C-chord.

            “Hello! Do you like my hat?” Lady Lydia asked, wearing an orange traffic cone on her head as she passed by Smooch on the street.
            “O-oh, yes, very nice, Lydia,” the blue terrier lied as she gave a fake smile.
            “Thank you, and how has Colby been lately? I do believe I haven’t seen him around for a few days. Has he caught a cold or something?” the pink poodle asked curiously.
            “Well, uh… yeah. A cold, or somethin’.” Smooch found her smile harder and harder to maintain, subtly turning away to continue walking. “Sorry, Lydia, gotta get goin’.”
            “Ah, off to get some chicken noodle soup for the poor dear, no doubt.” Lydia gave her a tip of her traffic cone hat as she went on her way. “Well tell him I said ‘hello’! And ‘get well soon’! Oh, and I do have some fun new hats in stock that I think he’d just love, so tell him not to be a stranger!”
            Smooch nodded, turning away with a sniffle and wiping her eyes.

            D-chord.

            Colby looked out the dark window of the moving RV as he tapped the pencil against the paper, unable to sleep as he tried to find the words to the song for Smooch in his heart. He couldn’t stop thinking about that look on her face the last time he saw her. He pulled out his phone, looking at her name in his contacts. His only contact. How could he ever expect Smooch to forgive him for what he did? This wouldn’t work. This idea he could regain her love and trust back was just arrogant. Selfish.
            Pathetic.
            But regardless of whether he could win her back or not, this was about simply doing the right thing. Righting a wrong. Even if she still rejected him, all he wanted was to do something good for once. To grant her wish of being a singer again with her old friends. To make her dreams come true. Smooch had brought the light back into his life, and the softness of her sweet kiss was like a lightning even hotter than the lightning in his veins. He had to show her what she meant to him.
            Colby picked up his pencil, and finally began to write.

            E-minor.

            The next day, Smooch stood in her kitchen, drinking her morning cup of corn coffee as she looked out the kitchen window with a vacant stare. She took out her cell-bone and stared at the screen until her coffee got cold, her thumb hovering over a name in her contacts for a moment. That name… it wasn’t even really his name. Two small buttons were below his photo, taunting her with their opposing choices like a tiny angel and devil on her shoulders.
            Call… Delete Contact.
            Call… Delete Contact.

            G-chord.

            “Alright, now this is what’s called a power-stance.” Gus struck the guitar strings firmly as the bus slowly passed through bustling streets of Chew York City, raising his fist into the air as Colby watched. “This is what a guitarist does to show he means business. But you gotta save it for the end, like a declaration of victory. Now you try.”
            Colby copied Gus’s move, raising his clenched paw in just the same way.
            “Alright, perfect. I think you got the chords yer gonna need down, so there ain’t nothing more I can teach ya. Now…”
            Gus finally smiled for the first time Colby had seen since he’d met him.
            “Let’s see this song of yers.”

            C-chord.

            That night, Smooch was driving her son home when Scooch suddenly spoke up from the backseat.
            “Hey mom, I think there’s something going on at the park over there. It looks like a big stage, are the Barkapellas having another concert tonight?”
            “Huh, not that I know of…” Smooch glanced over at it disinterestedly, but continued driving.
            “If it is, can we go? Please?” Scooch leaned forward in his seat, using his cuteness to his advantage as he gave her his puppy-dog eyes.
            “Well… ah, what the heck, sure, why not?”
            As a police officer, it was probably a good idea to check out what this commotion was all about, anyway. And it might even help take her mind off… him, at least for a bit.

            Colby’s paws trembled as he held his guitar, now standing just behind the curtain of the stage they had set up in Pawston’s public park once they’d finally arrived. A large number of dogs were already gathering in front of their setup, wondering what it was all for.  
            He peeked out of a thin slit in the curtain to see if a particular dog was in the audience; sure enough, such a large and unexpected gathering of dogs around a mysterious stage at the park had caught a certain pair of blue terriers’ attention as well.
            Everything was set. Now all he could do was his best.

            “I wish we could’ve taken Colby to see the Barkapellas. He would’ve loved it,” Scooch said with a broken-hearted sigh to his mother standing beside him as he held her hand.
            “Scooch, can we not talk about him any more please?” she growled under her breath.  “He’s gone, and he ain’t ever comin’ back.”
            “Do you even want Colby to come back?” Scooch snapped as he let go of her hand, looking up at her defiantly with glossy eyes and a crack in his voice. “Because I do!”
            “I-I…”
            Smooch looked down at her son and was about to say something when the curtain on the stage suddenly raised, revealing five mysterious dogs obscured in darkness. The one in front and center spoke, causing the microphone to give a little feedback.
            “Hi- uh, hello, e-everyone. It’s nice to see you all out here tonight.”
            “Wait a minute… who are you?!” One random dog in the back of the audience shouted, expecting the Barkapellas as most of them did.
            “R-right, um, we’re… you know what? It doesn’t really matter who I am. All that matters is who we’re here for. You.”
            Smooch gulped as she could’ve sworn that the dark figure looked directly at her.
            “I love you. I can’t not love you. I know things would probably be easier if I didn’t, but… all I want is you to have a happy life. And whether or not that life includes me… well, that’s for you to decide. This is for you.”
            The lights suddenly lit the stage, revealing the identities of the dogs on it. Smooch couldn't believe her own eyes as the familiar Labrador on stage started playing his guitar and singing from the heart, accompanied by other familiar dogs she’d never thought possible.

            “I was an old windmill, in an empty field, where nobody goes.
            Had all the curtains closed, sittin’ all alone, someone no one knows.
            I was a broke-down heartache, badly in need of a little of love's electricity.
            Just when the light in me died, in the middle of the night,
            Then you flipped the switch, you turned on the show,
            You light me up! Like a firework flyin’ in the darkest of skies,
            Yeah, you light me up! Like the sunshine blazin’ in the summertime, oh, every time.
            You light me up!”

            Smooch and Scooch’s jaws were both hanging in disbelief as Colby played on stage, pouring his heart out through his voice and paws. She had no idea how Colby had managed to find her old band mates, but sure enough, they were all accounted for. Lazy Bones, Mud, Buckaroo, and Gus, they were all there on stage before her very eyes, right here in Pawston. Making music together. And with Colby, of all dogs.

            “Like Chew York City on New Year's Eve,
            You light me up!
            All the dark days left when you came to me.”

            The air pressure around the stage increased as Colby began levitating several inches off the stage floor, passionately jerking his guitar upwards and causing it to glow a vibrant neon green that lit up the whole stage. Tiny bolts of harmless green electricity crackled and zapped out of the strings as he played.

            “Honey, you light me up! Like a firework flyin’ in the darkest of skies!
            You light me up! Like the sunshine blazin’ in the summertime, oh, every time!
            You light me up! You light me up…”

            Colby’s feet returned to the floor as the song ended, the strange neon glow from the guitar dissipating into nothingness as he held his fist proudly in the air, just like Gus had taught him.
            There was a moment of complete silence across the audience, followed immediately by woofs and barks of uproarious applause.
            With no further words to the crowd, Colby picked up the microphone from the stand and approached the edge of the stage closest to Smooch. He knelt down and held out the microphone with the handle facing her, with a hopeful look on his face that told her,
            “Now is your moment.”

            Smooch looked up at Colby with an expression that was difficult to place. She looked down at the microphone. Back up to Colby. Then down at the microphone again. She finally turned aside, slipping through the other dogs as she made her way out of the audience.
            Colby could feel his devastated heart breaking into pieces all over again. Of course this wouldn’t work. It was stupid to have ever thought it might from the very beginning. In the end, all he’d really succeeded in doing was making a complete ass of himself. He looked back at the other band members, wondering what the plan was now.
            But to his surprise, Gus nodded over to stage left with a warm smile on his face.
            When Colby looked to where the old bloodhound was gesturing, his heart leapt as he saw Smooch now standing there.
            “Smooch…” Colby stood, approaching her hesitantly with the microphone still in hand. “I-”
            Smooch held up her paw, stopping him without a word. She gently took the microphone from his paw, slowly making her way to the front as he looked on from offstage. The crowd was dead-silent as she nodded to each of her fellow band members. Lazy Bones. Mud. Buckaroo Barkley. Gus Rawhide. The dogs who she once considered her best friends, now back in her life once again.
            And she had Colby to thank for that.
            The blue terrier looked out at the silent crowd of dogs, taking her back to her fondest memories. Memories that she had once thought were destined to remain memories forever, becoming more and more distant until they would eventually fade away entirely. But here she was, standing on stage for all to see. For all to hear. She would show Pawston a side of her that no one had ever seen, not even her own son.
            And she had Colby to thank for that.
            Gus began playing a soft and light tune on the upper strings of his guitar, followed shortly by Mud on the drums. Lazy Bones on the bass. Buck on the banjo.
            Smooch lifted the microphone to her muzzle.
            A breath in. A breath out.

            “Caught between forever and a wasteland…
            Reckless desire goes wild…
            Uncharted… no sense of direction…
            Just chasin’, a feelin’, for miles, and miles, and miles!”

            Smooch couldn’t contain the tears of joy running down her face as her dream had finally come true. This feeling in her heart as she sang. There was no other feeling in the world quite like it.
            And she had Colby to thank for that.

            “When your heartbeat’s beatin’, out of your chest, what’cha do next is anyone's guess!
            Break your own rules, make your own mess!
            Care so damn much, you couldn't care less!
            Whoa, it's a high-speed chase on the edge, all or nothin’.
            Whoa, find yourself in the wild, wild west,
            'Cause love is lawless!”

            Scooch, who was still in the audience, was nothing less than completely star-struck by his mother as the golden spotlight shone on her like a beautiful halo. His jaw felt like it was going to fall to the floor. Never in a million years did he ever expect his own mom to be such a talented singer, but that photo in the living room of her and these other dogs finally made perfect sense now.
            Smooch looked over to Colby, standing alone in the darkness as he watched her performance from behind the stage curtain.

            “Anythin’ goes, stay on your toes
            You might catch a thorn, or you might catch a rose
            It's a treacherous road, littered in bones,
            We’ll run from the law, 'cause love is lawless!”

            She approached him, grabbing his paw and pulling him back on stage to join her.

            “Whoa, it's a high-speed chase on the edge, all or nothin’.
            Whoa, find yourself in the wild, wild west…
            'Cause love is lawless…”

            Smooch pulled Colby in close as the audience cheered even louder than before, dropping the microphone and standing on her tiptoes as she planted a firm and passionate kiss on his lips.
            “Wooo! Yeeeah!” The same random dog from the back of the audience cheered on with extra enthusiasm. Maybe a little too much.
            “Whatever your secrets, I wanna be the one who keeps ‘em,” Smooch whispered when their lips finally parted.
            “I promise, Smooch. No more secrets.” Colby softly brushed her cheek with his palm. “I’m really sorry about what happened before. Your photo…”
            “It was an accident,” Smooch replied. She was admittedly still a little torn-up over the photo, but was willing to put it in the past. After all, losing a photo couldn’t take away the memories of Kernel that meant so much to her, nor could it love her the way Colby did now. “I’m sorry too. I said a lotta things I didn’t mean. I… I love you, Colby.”
            Colby’s heart was filled to the brim as he heard her say those words to him for the first time.
            “I love you too, Smooch,” Colby replied, leaning in and holding her close as he reunited their lips again for another kiss while the crowd was practically deafening. Despite all the odds, and without any doubts, they were finally once again where they belonged.
            Together.

            Later that night, after the entire concert had ended, Smooch tucked her son into his bed as he gave out an exhausted yawn.
            “I’m glad Colby’s back,” Scooch said sleepily, hugging his plush chicken as he got comfortable.
            “So am I, Scooch,” Smooch whispered with a motherly smile before giving him a kiss on the forehead.
            “And it’s for good this time, right?” Scooch grumbled as he closed his eyes, already drifting off to sleep. “For keeps? Happily ever after?”
            “Forever and for always. Sleep tight, Scooch. I love you.” Smooch gently pet his head before leaving his side, quietly tiptoeing down the stairs as she let him sleep. When she reached the bottom, she watched Colby from around the corner as he sat on the couch and scrolled through his cell-bone.
            “Hey,” she said softly, approaching him.
            “Hey,” Colby replied, feeling just a little awkward now that it was the two of them completely alone together again. The last time they were alone in this living room, things hadn’t exactly turned out so great. “By the way, I was just thinking, uh… did you want my number again? After what happened, I… I would understand if you deleted it.”
            Smooch took her phone out, pressing a button.
            Colby’s cell-bone vibrated.
            “I’d be lyin’ if I said I hadn’t thought about it, but no. I never deleted it." Smooch replied with a smile as she put it away. "Truth is, I… I really missed you, Colby. More than I wanted to admit.”
            “I really missed you too, Smooch.” Colby stood up and gave her a kiss on her furry cheek before looking around the living room with a quiet sigh. “Now, where’s that sleeping bag…”
            Smooch hummed happily and took his paw in hers, leading him down the hall.
            “Follow me.”
            When they reached the end of the hallway, she pulled him into her bedroom and closed the door behind them. As the lights were still off, it was completely black. Colby was about to feel around for the light-switch when he suddenly heard a click of a lock, followed by the sensation of a soft pair of lips aggressively pressing into his. Before he even had time to process what was happening, he felt himself being forced to walk backwards and falling back onto a soft mattress as Smooch’s warm, furry body pressed down against his.
            The sounds of soft, breathy moans filled the room as their tongues swirled longingly around each other, fully appreciating every second of the others’ flavor. Smooch and Colby savored every drop of their lovers’ delicious saliva, finding themselves more aroused with each swallow. For quite some time, the two lost themselves entirely in the blissful sensations of one another’s delicate tongues.
            But it could only last for so long before they began to want more.
            Colby’s paws slowly found their way to Smooch’s waist… down to her hips… and finally, cupping her rear. Although they were a little shaky with nervous tension, his fingers massaged and pressed into her thick haunches as his eyes finally began to adjust slightly to the darkness, allowing him to gaze upon her beauty as their kiss continued.
            Colby felt a shiver of euphoria run up his spine as Smooch finally parted their lips, hungrily dragging her wet tongue up his mouth in repeated licks. After having lived through eons alone without experiencing any form of carnal pleasure, it drove him insane in the best possible way. He wanted more. Needed more. More. More.
            In the heat of the moment, Colby raised his paw, suddenly bringing it back down onto Smooch’s rear with a firm and loud smack. She deeply grunted in approval, grinding her hips needily against his in return. He smacked the other one, slightly harder than the first. No complaints. He tightly gripped and spread her tempting backside as he began gently thrusting his pelvis into her, his body silently pleading for Smooch’s permission to take things a bit further.
            She got the message, her paws reaching up and removing Colby’s collar from around his neck before tossing it on the floor. Colby retreated his paws from Smooch’s rump to remove her collar as well - though it took some clumsy fidgeting with the buckle - tossing it on the floor next to his own. For some strange reason he couldn’t explain, something about just seeing her without a collar on made her appear more ‘naked’ somehow.
            With that out of the way, Colby and Smooch could finally take the next step. Colby leaned into Smooch’s neck, gently kissing and biting her as his paw reached down between her thighs. His finger soon found its goal, delicately swirling and rubbing at her warm and puffy entrance before it was finally slick enough to invite him in.  Smooch returned the favor, lowering her paw down to his masculine eagerness and gently squeezing it at the same tempo as his finger.
            Their hot breaths brushed against each others’ faces as Smooch pressed his sensitive tip into her lower abdomen, letting him know just how badly she wanted him. Colby quickened the pace of his curled finger inside her as he slid it in down to the knuckle, wordlessly returning her sentiment.
            “I love you,” Smooch whispered into Colby’s ear as he gave her neck a lick, her paw guiding his member down to her waiting folds. She was more than ready now to take the final plunge.
            “I l-love you too,” he whispered back, removing his finger from her and tenderly holding her waist.
            Smooch lowered herself down onto Colby, a sharp gasp of overwhelming love piercing the air as they were finally made whole.
            Colby held the back of her head, bringing her in for another deep and passionate kiss as their bodies pushed and pulled against one another. No further words were said, but their fervent moans into each others’ lungs said everything they needed to. Smooch chuckled softly as she dug her furry fingers into Colby’s brown hair, practically feeling him melting beneath her from her mere touch. She never could have expected on that fateful morning when she’d first met him that this was where her life would be now. That she would ever be able to love again.
            Her rocking pace steadily increased as she fixated on expressing the love she felt for Colby, and Colby happily picked up his pace to match. But then, he felt a strange feeling as he was reminded of his canine anatomy, like he was suddenly locked in place.
            “Smooch, I… I think I’m s-stuck…” Colby huffed as he slowed down, barely able to speak as his mind felt like a thick hazy fog of lust.
            “No worries, hun, just… let me know when you’re close… and I’ll get off,” Smooch replied through heavy breaths, taking a brief moment to rest. “Now’s not a safe time for me.”
            Colby nodded, and they picked up their speed again. Although he understood perfectly well why a puppy wouldn’t be a good idea this early into their relationship, it was something he wouldn’t be against at all if it were to eventually happen.
            Someday.
            It wasn’t much longer until the lingering intrusive thought of Smooch bearing his future child brought Colby to the edge, clenching his eyes tightly as he felt a pressuring building deep within him.
            “I-I’m almost there…” He grunted with a shudder, prompting Smooch to get off of him and remove his length from within her. Although it took a little effort, it was painless for both of them since Smooch, being a mother, was not narrow by any means. Without hesitation, she lowered herself down to bring her face directly to his groin, immediately wrapping her lips around his circumference and engulfing his member.
            “Whoa, Smooch… oh, fffuck…” Colby arched his back slightly, petting the top of Smooch’s furry blue head as it bobbed up and down. The skilled licks of her tongue on the underside of his bone was what finally drove Colby to the breaking point, whining quietly into the night as he rocked his hips into her inviting muzzle.

            Awash in an intense wave of pure unadulterated bliss, Colby surrendered himself entirely to Smooch’s loving care as he achieved climax.

            “...I’ve been wantin’ to taste that for a long time…” Smooch laughed softly after she swallowed, licking her lips as she snuggled up against Colby.
            But Colby wasn’t done. Not yet.
            “Your turn,” he huffed, shimmying down the bedsheets and holding Smooch’s legs open before she could even have a chance to say anything.
            “Colby, wha- ah!”
            Her words were immediately halted by the sensation of his long canine tongue on her nether regions, making cute whimpers and moans as he returned the favor. Colby made sure to taste as much of her flavor as he could, giving plenty of attention to both of her sensitive entrances equally. Alternating his tongue up and down between one area to another, Colby was more than happy to continue this for as long as Smooch would allow.
            “Th-this is so embarrassing…” Smooch whined softly as she leaned into her pillow, feeling tears building up in her eyes from the sheer pleasure.
            “Why? Do you want me to stop?” Colby asked as he pulled away for a second, wondering if this didn’t feel as good for her as he’d hoped.
            “N-no, it’s not that… it’s just- ah!”
            Before Smooch could finish her sentence, Colby resumed his oral service to her, nearly causing her brain to turn to mush with pure ecstasy. He slid his tongue deep into her wet feminine tunnel as though he were dying of thirst, his lips pressed firmly against her swollen canine mound.
            “D-don’t stop, Colby… just like that, please, keep goin’…” Smooch surrendered herself to Colby’s loving care as well, running her fingers through his hair as he treated her like a queen.
            Before long, she felt an unmistakable sensation bubbling up from deep within her.
            “Almost there… I’m gonna-!”
            Hearing those words only made Colby lick more enthusiastically than ever, eager to be rewarded with Smooch’s sweet nectar as her hips quivered and her legs buckled.

            With a squeeze of Colby’s head firmly between her thighs, Smooch was hit with wave after wave of mind-melting pleasure as she reached her climax.

            With both of them now fully satisfied to their hearts’ content, Colby smiled as he made his way back up the bed and tightly held Smooch in his arms.
            “So now that that’s done, about that sleeping bag…”
            “Are you serious?” Smooch scoffed, giving him a light and playful slap on the chest before giving him a kiss on the cheek.
            “Kidding, I’m kidding,” Colby chuckled, giving her cheek a kiss in return. “But, uh… I'll admit, this bed is a little… small, for two. I don’t want to accidentally elbow you in my sleep or anything.”
            “I think I’ll manage for a night, we’ll go out lookin’ for a bigger bed tomorrow.” Smooch sighed, nuzzling against Colby’s chest as she slowly drifted off to sleep. “But not too big, ‘cause… I like bein’ close to you like this… y’know?”
            Colby kissed the top of her head, closing his eyes as he felt her comforting warmth in his arms. As long as she was with him, and as long as he was with her, he knew that everything would be okay from now on.
            “Yeah… me too. Good night, Smooch. I love you.”
            Smooch replied only with a light snore.

            But Colby knew what she really meant to say.", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Love is Lawless - Chapter 7 - Encore", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "image/png", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "2", "rating_name": "Adult", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "4", "name": "Sexual Themes", "description": "Erotic imagery, sexual activity or arousal", "rating_id": "2" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "f", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "0", "views": "148" }