Chapter Text
“Artie, quit it.” Apollo swiveled his head around, leveling his best glare at the grumpy husky in the back seat of his car before refocusing on the road. “You know you’ve not been allowed shotgun since you chewed up the seatbelt. Yes, even though it was technically Skadj’s fault, for spilling food all over it….”
Sighing internally, Apollo wound down the window a sliver, inhaling the crisp, cold nighttime air. He took a hand off the wheel to rub the sleep out of his eyes.
“You’re sooo lucky I love you, Artie,” Apollo grumbled, not meaning it in the slightest. “If I wasn’t already wide awake for some inane reason at—” he glanced at the time— “three twenty-three AM on a Saturday night, by which I mean Sunday morning, there is zero chance that I would be driving you to the dog park because you have the zoomies.”
Artie, of course, said nothing, but continued pawing at the blankets underneath her. She merely stared up at him in the rearview mirror, and all of a sudden Apollo got the feeling that she was calling his bluff. Slightly sheepish, he mumbled, “And besides, I don’t stream Sundays. So I can just nap through the morning if I want, when we get back.”
———
Apollo didn’t believe in ghosts, so that left only one option.
There was someone else in the park at half past three in the morning.
“What the hell,” he whispered. Squinting, he could make out a figure, half in shadow, kneeling next to a tree. They were facing away, and hadn’t noticed him yet.
As Apollo stood still, Artie’s leash in hand, he mentally debated how likely it was that serial killers regularly brought their dogs to the dog park at ungodly hours of the night (because the last thing he needed was to get stabbed in the middle of the night with no one around), and whether or not he should turn around and leave right then and there. Preoccupied as he was, he hardly noticed that Artie had begun pulling him toward the figure until she let out a shrill bark.
Several things happened at once.
First, Apollo jumped, startling enough for Artie to pull the leash out of his hand and bound toward the figure and the tree.
Then, a blur of movement, and Apollo caught sight of a large, orange ball of fur rocketing up the side of the tree.
Lastly, the figure whirled around, revealing a guy with stupidly large tortoiseshell glasses and a perm so long it nearly covered his eyes, which widened comically as he lost his balance and fell backward, landing with an audible oomph in the dirt.
Apollo could only stare as the stranger muttered something that sounded a lot like, “Am I fucking dreaming?” as he lay prone in the grass. He was wearing the combination of a hideous neon green sweater and short black shorts (which did not appear to be capable of concealing any weapons, serial-killer-esque knives or otherwise). It gave him the appearance of a sort of lost and hapless fool, and Apollo decided he was probably safe.
Unfortunately, whatever had just run up that tree probably thought it was in some sort of mortal danger as Artie threw herself at the trunk, all the while barking far too loudly for three AM.
Before Apollo could take any action, though, the stranger blurted, “Are you checking me out, dude?”