Collette, and Annette following him.

Fang growled.

"Hey, there, boy, how y'doin'?" Jim Dear said gently, softly, bending down with one hand outstretched to stroke Fang's back lightly.

Fang growled, letting out an ear-splitting bark of distress.

Jim Dear slowly drew his hand back, straightening up.

"What did the vet say?" Darling's voice was sugared.

"This poor dog'll be out of comission for a while," Jim Dear scratched the back of his neck, mustache twitching as he spoke. Fang curled one side of his upper lip, revealing the teeth he was named for.

"Look at that, Jim," Darling exclaimed fondly. "What a sharp set of Fangs on the poor dear."

Yeah, an' come a li'l closer, lady, an' then I'll show ya what these "poor dear's" fangs c'n do. Fang thought menacingly. He was seriously considering biting these humans, just to distract them enough to get out of here. His gang was waiting outside. Forget his leg, he wanted out!

"Slow down, champ," Tramp whispered. "They aren't gonna hurt you."

"Yeah," Fang snarled. He snapped his jaws as the word came out, saliva dangling a bit from the puppy's fangs. "An' I guess you're gonna tell me they'll take me home with 'em next."

"Actually, they will," Lady replied happily.

Fang froze, shooting a tortured look at Angel, then kept his eyes on Jim Dear distrustingly.

"It's a great home," Scamp said nervously.

Fang curled his lip, revealing rows of sharp, pointy teeth to the mutt-pup. "You stay outta this, House Pet!"

"You can't--" Scamp began angrily, eyebrows lowering.

"Calm down there, whirlwind," Tramp murmured to his son, cutting him off.

A man in a white, flowing coat came in then...

...with a carrier. A cage.

Fang took off towards the door--or tried to. His leg shot agonizing pain through him. His front end slumped to the ground, his eyes srunched, eyebrows down in anger, his nose pressed to the floor, honey-colored ears in a jumbled at the sides of his head.

 Jim Dear picked him up and set him in the carrier. Fang didn't struggle, he was in too much pain. He flopped down in the cage, whimpering pitifully. He could see the house dogs looking at him sympathetically--even Scamp--through the bars of the cage door.

"C'mon, boy," Jim Dear murmured. "Let's go home."

As they carried him out of the office, the cage swaying with Fang inside of it, the Golden Retriever's vision became blurry, darkness closing in along with nausea, he thought: Home? Pssht! Yeah, right. What a nightmare.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Fang opened his eyes. He was in the Darling house. The kitchen floor below him. The staircase. At the landing was a large stained-glass window looking down into the backyard. He was in a cushiony, comfy little dog bed on the kitchen floor. Fang curled his upper lip and immediately tried to stand, but a jolt of pain shot through his injured, bandaged paw, and he slumped down again. He couldn't yet walk.

Suddenly Scamp shot through the doorframe from the living room into the room Fang laid in. He had a dog food bowl in his jaws, or at least one end of it, making the other end hang down, letting the puppy-chow slop drop onto the floor a little as he swung his head from side to side, eyes wide with playfullness, a smile curling at the corners of his muzzle. His puff of a gnarled tail slung itself back and forth, exuding contentment with his situation, even happiness.

"Sca-amp! Come back here!" Angel's voice sounded from the living room with her breathy half-laugh. It made Fang's tail wag, but he quelled it quickly, irritated that he still felt a spark of affection for Angel. Couldn't he get the pomeranian out of his head? Look what she'd done to him! He was wearing that stupid red collar, and a cast. He was a Street Dog, and he'd show them that sooner or later--as soon as he could walk.

Scamp stopped a few feet from Fang, not noticing the Golden Retriever puppy. He laughed his Scamp laugh, shoulders moving up and down, eyes scrunched, mustache hairs quivering, half-snorting, "Hmmk-ha-ha!"

Angel bounded into the room prettily, her fluffy tail bouncing up and down as she did so, yellow collar jangling. Her one crooked ear fell over a cornflower-blue eye, and she blew it up again.  "Scamp! Gimme back my dinner!" She giggled. "I'm starving!"

Starvin'? Yeah, sure. She don't know the meanin' of the word, Fang thought annoyingly.

Scamp was on the bottom step of the staircase now, setting the bowl down for a moment so he could answer, "You can have it--if you can catch me!"

"That's it!" Angel cackled, springing after him.

"Yipe!" Scamp cried, grinning and picking up her food bowl again, scrambling up the steps.

Angel caught up with him with all the skill of a Street Dog. She pinned him down as they reached the landing, the flat place where the stained-glass window was, then it turned to the right up another set of stairs. Angel panted, her collar's liscense almost touching Scamp's belly fur. "I win!"

Fang watched, heart wrestling with his pride.

"Hey, hey, hey, whirlwind," Tramp appeared, pale burgundy collar rumpling the gray-tan fur around his neck. "Look at the mess you've made, pal!"

Scamp winced. Puppy chow was littered throughout the bottom row of steps below them. He brightened almost instantly. "We can clean it up, Pop!"

Scamp darted a few steps down and began licking up the dog food. Angel, giggling, joined him. Tramp was joined by Lady. The two adult dogs smiled lovingly at the pups, unable to hide their contentment with their lives. Fang snorted.

The front door in the living room swung open, the sound echoing through Fang's long, golden ears. The three triplet Cocker Spaniels leapt towards him, their polite daintiness forgotten.

"You're awake! He's awake, Annette!" cried Danielle, tongue hanging from her mouth.

They proceeded to surround Fang's bed.

"Are you okay now?"

"Does it hurt?"

"You must've been so brave!"

"No Street Dog acts like that!"

"Can we see your leg?"

"Tell us how it happened!"

Fang lifted his head, smiling without showing his teeth, eyelids lowered, raising his chin so he could look at them out of the bottom of his scarlet eyes. "Ladies, ladies, c'mon. You're wearin' me down."

"Pleeeeaaase?" Collette went into the begging position, pale crimson collar dangling.

Fang, eyelids still lowered, cocked his head downward to the right, eyes looking down with the smile still on his muzzle. "Heh. Okay, girls, it was like this."

Annette laid down, trying to get comfortable on the kitchen floor in front of his basket-bed. Collette lay down beside her, head on her paws, huge brown eyes sparkling up at Fang. Danielle stayed sitting up, tails sweeping across the floor in anxious excitement, tongue still flopping out of her mouth, her eyes wide.

"Picture the scene." Fang swept his uninjured paw across their faces. "Shadowy alley, middle 'a the wrong side o' the tracks. Me an' the gang, y'know, Affy an' Skip and Rose, we come t'a dead end fence. We hear Miss Priss over there," he jerked his head toward Angel, still with Scamp on the steps--Danielle snickered--and Fang continued, "we heard her barkin' it up on the other side. The gang's all tripping, not knowin' what t'do. So I give 'em a little pep-talk. Then I climb to the roof of one of the buildings. I look down, an' there's dollface," again he gestured to Angel, "cornered by the ugliest mutts you ever saw."

Collette gasped. Annette's eyes widened.

"So I jump down there t'save 'er, y'know, an' I get 'er outta the way while me and the brutes go head-t'head, bitin', snarlin' rippin' at each other. I saved the gal, kicked those fleabags clear outta the alley, but they left me a little gift for my heroics." Fang lifted his injured leg.

The Cocker Spaniel triplets sighed dreamily in unison. 

"You were so brave!" Collette exclaimed.

"How big were they?" Danielle asked, ears jumping.

"Big enough t'leave me like this." Fang hid the pain when he set his bandaged-up paw down. "Next thing I know, I'm in that vet building, wearin' this," he lifted his chin to show them the red collar around his neck, "an' my paw's casted up so's I can't get out."
 

He caught sight of Angel watching his stories with a bemused smile on her muzzle while she licked up the mess on the stairs.

"Alright, you three," Tramp said, padding up with Lady beside him. "Time for bed. You too, whirlwind," he winked at Scamp. Scamp rolled his eyes and groaned, but Lady trotted over and nudged him toward his bed.

"You can talk to Fang in the morning, girls," Lady said in her sweet, honey-coated voice. The girls brightened and trotted daintily to bed.

Fang watched them go, grinning.

"You got them hooked, huh, champ?" Tramp passed by