Rags-to-Decidedly-Not-Riches
It had not been Ragamuffin’s day.
Granted, few days were Ragamuffin’s day. If any. He was struggling to recall any of late that could qualify. Quite literally so, as he had recently been dealt a head injury.
Still, crawling along the dank, filthy, and vile-smelling side of a sewer tunnel had to be among the absolute worst. Even the time he was transmuted into the body of a donkey and trekked through an alien world with high school students seemed preferable at the moment.
Regardless, he had to press on. It was necessary, and he wasn’t giving up. That wasn’t Ol’ Papa Scamp’s way, and it wouldn’t be Ragamuffin’s way either.
There was enough light coming in from the grates above to see in front of him, with patches of further light in the distance. Every place he set his hand down had a repulsive texture, and the stench around him was worse than even the most befouled toilet he’d had to clean aboard the cruise ship, but he didn’t focus on it. He was keeping up with the sound of a pitter-patter in front of him, and as it grew closer, he felt powerful, emboldened.
Finally, he saw it. Waiting in the shadows, with its ill-gotten prize between its teeth.
The biggest rat he’d ever laid eyes on. Bigger than his foot, as long as the distance between his hand and his elbow, tail as thick as a decent-sized garden snake.
And it was carrying the bouquet he’d bought.
“Alrighty now, little bugger,” Ragamuffin declared, confident enough to crack a grin. “Y’see them pretty flowers y’got between your teeth there? Them’s mine. I bought ‘em. If you thought slinkin’ down to your little hidey-hole here would be enough to keep me from gettin’ em back, then you thought wrong, didn’t cha?”
Now, Ragamuffin could understand the impulse one might have to think opening a drain cover and slipping down into the sewers to chase down a rat over a bouquet might have been something of a bad idea. Especially since it had led to him falling headfirst onto a slimy-yet-hard surface, leaving him dazed. But the flower vendor only took cash, and he hadn’t brought enough to buy two bundles of roses. And furthermore, if one rat had managed to make off with his arrangement when he’d let his guard down, there was hardly a guarantee another wouldn’t do the same.
Ragamuffin wasn’t about to let vermin boss him around. The only practical solution was to teach the rats a lesson. If that meant defeating what looked like a contender for the king of all rats, so be it.
He waited, locking eyes with the foul creature. Exhaling, he steeled his mind, readying himself to do battle. The rat stared back at him with fierce, hungry eyes, but he was not cowed.
Then, he lunged.
As Ragamuffin seized the flowers by the bulbs with one hand, he went for the paper they were wrapped in with the other. Unfortunately, he did so too fast – the rat hadn’t been fully distracted by the first hand when the second came in, and it immediately retaliated. Immediately, Ragamuffin felt sharp teeth sinking into his flesh, and warm blood beginning to run over his fingers.
“Blimey!” he cried, frantically shaking his hand to fling the creature free of it. “Get off, you li’l blackguard!”
With the rat focused on mauling him, the bouquet was free of its grasp, but Ragamuffin quickly tossed it aside so that he could pull the disgusting thing off him. As soon as he dropped it, however, the rat released itself and darted for the roses. Ragamuffin redirected his undamaged hand and went for another lunge, trying to grab it by the tail and fling it into the sewage current beside them.
He succeeded at the first part. Unfortunately, that led to not only more biting, but scratching as well, both to the hand and face.
Yelping, he withdrew, but was horrified to find the rat suddenly seemed to have lost all interest in the flowers. Instead, it was hooked in by the smell of blood. Ragamuffin scrambled backwards, trying desperately to keep his injuries from contacting the surface that would be certain to infect him even more than he already likely was, but came too perilously close to the edge, only narrowly stopping himself from going over into the vile river below.
He was trapped like an ironic turn of phrase.
As it quickly advanced toward him, Ragamuffin aimed a panicked kick, and the creature was big enough for him to land it. Only aggravated further, it lunged and sank its incisors into his shoe – he quickly curled his toes, and the teeth narrowly missed them. He could feel them pressed against him. He hurriedly swung his body around, dangling his foot over the side so that it was now the monster that was perilously positioned above the sludge.
Luckily for him, the knots in his shoelace had been coming undone through the whole ordeal, and it was loose enough for him to slide his sock-covered foot out of it. The shoe plunged into the flow of filthy liquid, rat still attached, and was carried away.
Exhaling, he looked back. The roses were there. And not even in half-bad shape, minus the muck and a few crushed bulbs.
Ragamuffin made his way over to the bouquet and picked it up. Now there was blood on the paper, too, but it didn’t matter. He’d won.
And as he crawled back toward the nearest grate he could exit from, the knowledge he had bested a rodent in combat filled him with endless pride.
“You idiot.”
Dirk Thistleweed stared at the absolute moron laying in the hospital bed, hands bandaged to the point of immobility, face covered in claw marks. He was loopy from the blood transfusion, and the shots and treatments the doctors had quickly given him to combat potential rabies and sepsis. Weakly, he raised his head from the pillow and gave a weak smile.
“I gotcha some flowers,” he said.
“Ah heard,” Dirk grumbled. “And ya made sure to prove you’re the dumbest fella Ah’ve ever met in all my life. Even Snails coulda told ya not to go chasin’ rats down sewers!”
Dirk stepped over to Ragamuffin’s bedside, then noticed the ruined flowers in the corner, thankfully out of Ragamuffin’s reach.
“Can’t believe they didn’t just toss the dang things.”
“I begged ‘em not to.”
Dirk sighed. He supposed it was pretty hard for the EMTs to resist that face and that accent. Even with those deep claw marks, he was too damned cute.
Reluctantly, he walked to the bouquet and picked it up by what seemed to be the cleanest portion of the fouled paper. Against his better judgment, he gave it a whiff. Against all odds, he could still smell a bit of the floral scent.
Really, Dirk didn’t even care much for roses. But he wasn’t about to let Ragamuffin know that. For all he knew, he’d leave the hospital only to learn shortly after that Ragamuffin escaped, went out to buy daffodils, and got in a fight with the howler monkeys at Canterlot Zoo.
He held them up for Ragamuffin to see. “Thanks for the thought, Rags.”
As much as it clearly pained his facial muscles, Ragamuffin grinned at the sight. “I hoped you’d find ‘em real special. Anythin' to make ya feel good, Dirk.”
Dirk shook his head. “You always know how to make me feel good. ‘Cept when you go and get yourself in the hospital like this.” He stepped over to the trash can and opened it. “And Ah’d sure rather have you here safe and sound 'stead of some flowers that weren’t gonna last anyway.”
He dropped the bouquet in, closed the lid, and then walked over to the sink by the cabinets to judiciously wash his hands. Afterwards, he stepped back over to the bedside, leaning down and kissing Ragamuffin on the forehead.
“Now Ah gotta get to a gig I got in just about an hour. Ah’ll be back to say goodnight, okay?”
“Sorry I can’t be there.”
“You’ve been to plenty.”
“But all of them are special!”
“No,” Dirk insisted, before giving Ragamuffin a soft, all-too-brief kiss on the lips. “You are special. And Ah love ya for it. So just let the doctors fix you up, all right?”
Now it was Ragamuffin’s turn to sigh. “Alright, Dirk. Anythin’ for you.”
Nodding, Dirk, somewhat painfully, dragged himself away from his beloved’s bedside. Grabbing his guitar case from beside the guest chair, he was just reaching out to grab the door handle when a thought occurred to him.
“Hey, Rags?” Dirk asked.
“...Yeah?”
“Next time you feel like ya need to get me something nice, maybe just get me a gift card.” Then another thought. “A digital card. Ah don’t need you chasin’ down any other critters, kay?”
“Righty-o, ol’ chap.”
Nodding, Dirk opened the door and stepped outside. He shook his head and smirked.
With a boyfriend like Ragamuffin, life was always going to be an adventure.
