Roswell Ficlet: 4 Places Alex’s Beagle Sleeps
Alex's beagle loves to sleep in four places: her blanket, her bed, dad’s bed and on the curly haired one’s chest.
Her blanket's fuzzy and comforting, she's had it since she was a puppy and when she's really sleepy she'll carry it around the house until she finds a patch of sunlight and curl up on top of it to snooze. She's always easily roused from there, though, because it's not her favourite spot. Her bed's a little better: it's squishy and she can dig and dig and dig and get comfortable, make the pillow sit just right. It's hard and has high edges and when things are noisy and scary she can sit there and watch with huge brown eyes until everything's okay and until the curly haired one comes and everything goes still. Or until dad comes and hugs the curly haired one and then everything goes still.
Dad's bed is even better: it smells like him and it's cuddly and sometimes he's even there and she can rest her head on his neck and listen to him breathe and lick his face when he has a bad dream. She can wake him up and tell him she loves him with a wiggling tail and a happy yip and when he smiles and cuddles her she settles down again. Sometimes the curly haired one is there too and he grumbles but he fusses her and scritches her belly as she lies between them on her back, tucked up in their scent.
Dad's curly haired friend is the best though. He's warm and he smells nice, sometimes he smells like cars and dirt and salt and sometimes he smells like dad (which is her favourite). He sits - or lies if she pesters him enough - on the couch and she can walk in circles on his lap or his tummy or his chest and he'll wait until she gets settled and push his fingers through her fur and rub underneath her ears and when his hand hurts him - she knows it does sometimes - she licks it until he tells her it's all better even though it's not true. And he's warmer than her blanket and softer than her bed and he hugs her and tells her she's a good girl and when she sleeps on him she feels safe
