AN: I've said more than I should have already, at this point. I've complained and I've whined and I've cried out—sometimes for attention, sometimes for company, and sometimes because there's just nothing else to be done.
At this point, I think I'll just let a Jew from 2500+ years ago complain for me. He does a way better job of it:
Vanity of vanities, says the teacher, all is vanity!
What does man gain by all the work at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and it returns to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and in its circles the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is never filled; to the place where the streams flow, they flow there yet again.
All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing.
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done.
There is nothing new under the sun.
So yeah. I can't write a fanfic I'm happy with, and I even can't write a complaint worth posting.
There's going to be one more chapter/post of this fic. I was considering going back and editing the chapters one by one when I finished this fic, but I don't give a fuck if it's flawed at this point. If this fic made a difference to you in any significant way, then you're who I wrote it for, and I wish I had it in me to do better for your sake.
Otherwise, have a nice day and thanks for humoring me.
EDIT:
For those of you who've been wondering, no. I'm NOT ignorant as to how to use a hyphen. I just tend to use double hyphens in place of an em dash, and this site somehow doesn't let two hyphens exist in succession. I'm trying to copy/paste an actual em dash from outside, because I'm getting really sick of this site's auto formatting. Apologizes to any fellow grammar Nazis I've irked.
Wolf dried him with a towel after the bath, but Fox's clothes were still damp and his fur was definitely still wet with the rubbing alcohol. The whole thing was a wordless blur where Wolf seemed to be thinking, and almost afraid to talk.
Afterward, Fox was set on his bed, untied, and told to holler for company when he was able to.
It seemed like a really, really long time, even though only an hour passed on the clock before Fox became capable of some sort of movement.
The first thing Fox managed to do was raise his arms. Fifteen more minutes, and he could also curl his fingers, but by the time he managed that, he'd mentally exhausted himself with the effort, and he willed his eyes shut.
Closing his eyes, it turned out, felt great. They stayed closed for an unexpectedly long period of time. After the nap, about an hour and a half later, it was far easier to open his eyes than it had been to close them, though Fox wondered to himself how he was so pathetic even hours after being pricked.
His voice still wouldn't work at all, but the rest of him had improved. His arms were far more mobile than they'd been before he closed his eyes, and he could move his legs enough to where he was almost tempted to try to stand. Remembering what had happened when he tried to overexert before, he really didn't want to attempt to stand up and take the risk of succeeding for just a moment, then losing his energy and passing right out.
Instead, Fox realized that he was on his bed, and his phone was over on the nightstand.
He tried to reach over for it and managed to do so with surprising ease. Fox almost smirked, except that his face wasn't as compliant as his arms were. His hands even obeyed him without a fuss when he told them to grab his phone and unlock it, and if it hadn't been for being manhandled in particularly exhilarating ways by Wolf several times over the past few days, the success would've made for the best feeling he'd had all week. He still couldn't holler for company, even if he called by phone to summon someone, but he had enough dexterity to at least text something to Falco… and not to Wolf.
Maybe he should've gotten Wolf's number from him, way back when Wolf suggested swimming? Would that have been too forward?
The texting effort was halted pretty quickly by the revelation that he'd missed ten calls from Falco over the last day and a half, and the bird had left a fair share of voice messages.
Fox hesitated. Did these voicemails really want to be heard?
"Fox," the voicemail said before Fox could think about it too hard. It was the same voice that had drilled into Fox's head that he had to move on—distant, and with a frosty tone. "I'm sorry for being an ass and probably making you cry. Might just be the booze in my head, but I've been really fucked up to you and it's not your fault. If I know you, you're asleep right now and you've felt like shit since we hung up. I've felt like shit too, and it's my own fault. Dunno what I can say besides that, but when we meet again in person, we'll talk and maybe I can do a better job explaining myself once I've thought things through. Later."
That was the first message of four—no doubt, the next messages would apologize for this one's rudeness, if Falco's words to Wolf were anything to go off of.
Fox realized that this first message had been left while he'd been in Wolf's room. If he'd just spent a little longer by his phone, and hadn't gone to Wolf, then maybe… things could've been different somehow?
At this point, different wasn't something that Fox wanted. He'd learned a lot about Wolf and come to terms with their past, and Wolf was interested in him in spite of it all. Wolf took the rush of flying in a cockpit and brought it to the ground, always keeping Fox on his toes, dangerously perceptive, harsh at times, but also persistently interested even when Fox made some terrible mistake like getting his hand nearly skewered by some alien monster.
Wolf apparently loved Fox, and Fox just about believed it. He couldn't say the same about his own feelings toward Wolf, but between his strong lust toward the older pilot and the strength of Wolf's own attraction to him, Fox felt he earned a chance.
He'd also thought enough about Falco to throw out a lot of his baggage from their flings. His bitterness was gone, especially after Falco earned some extra points really quickly by coming all the way out from Corneria, looking hungover and worn out, just because he thought Fox might need him. Despite a rocky start, he and Wolf had made their peace, and things felt like they'd fall into place pretty well. If things stayed as they were—if Fox just deleted the voicemails and nothing changed from here, it could all stay that way.
Fox's finger hovered over the delete button, but he thought about it some more. Falco had been his best friend for the better part of a decade. He owed the bird better than ignoring him for the sake of convenience… or at least, that's how he justified it to himself as he pressed play.
"It's me again. Bet you thought I was done with you, but now I'm drunk as fuck and you're probably in Wolf's bed, having the brains fucked out of you tonight if he doesn't kill you yet like you know he will."
Fox pressed pause and thought about whether or not he wanted to hear the rest of the message. Falco had that same whining voice that he used back when girls broke up with him—a worse tone than the last message, for certain. He would always get drunk and vent out to Fox, and every time he'd pound the table like a child throwing a tantrum, beer bottles would bounce and clank against it. He never said anything good when he got like this.
Fox braced himself and pressed play to resume the message. If he was really okay with where he and the bird stood, then this wouldn't hurt too badly. And with two rougher personalities like Wolf and Falco around him for the foreseeable future, he'd need to toughen up a lot.
"You probably think you're hot stuff, seducing me and then moving on as soon as you caught my heart. Moving on ain't ever a problem with Fox McCloud, so why wouldn't you go get fucked by the guy who killed your dad, huh?"
Falco stopped to take a couple of heavy, loud breaths into the phone. Fox wondered what he'd been doing to get so out of breath in the first place, and hoped that the next voicemail wasn't going to come from a police station. It wouldn't be the first time Falco had gotten himself into drunken trouble.
"Fine by me. You're bad news and you know it. Go break his heart instead. I'm gonna go off and fuck my way out of this slump. I'll have sex with every bitch I find, all weekend long, and by the time I'm done, I won't even want you anymore. How's it feel to be gotten over, huh? Now go on. Break your precious little Wolf's heart too."
Two harsh taps against the phone screen, where Falco's fingers missed the obnoxiously tiny end call button, and then the message was over.
Fox wasn't sure what to think of that; Falco had just rejected him on that same night, and now he was acting like he was the victim of rejection himself. He definitely didn't sound happy, and Fox didn't understand why.
It was better not to think about it. Fox started the next message.
"The booze is wearing off. I'm alone in my hotel bed and I can't sleep. I wish I could delete both my drunk messages. I miss you a lot right now and I wish I weren't so fucked up in the head. If you don't know what I'm talking about yet, I want you to delete the other two messages I left right now and pretend this is all I left. You can probably guess what the other two were about, and I ain't said shit worth hearing so far anyway."
Fox tried his hardest not to scream in frustration. If he'd just deleted the prior two messages, he could've spared himself a lot with Falco's blessing. But how the fuck was he supposed to know to listen to the most recent message first? What if the recent message had been the only one he didn't want to hear?
There was no winning with these things. Fox only succeeded at staying silent because his throat still refused to produce the scream he intended.
"Damn it, though, Fox! I really fucked a lot up, didn't I? Dunno what I'm gonna do, besides just sit here and keep crying. Something in my head just ain't right, and tomorrow I'll be too hungover to figure out what. I don't get why I can't say to your face that I love you too, and I don't know why something feels fucked up every time I try to. And believe me, Fox, I tried my hardest to believe it, and to say it, but that just ain't something I can do even when I'm with my best friend. I fucked up, and it's because something's fucked up deep down in my head. It gets worse every time I think about it, and it sucks for me, and it's not fair to you. I wish… look, I'm hanging up. I've done enough damage by now."
Enough damage? At least he realized it.
Fox checked the next voicemail, and saw that it was about six hours removed from the prior one. He wasted no time in pressing play, figuring it was probably best to just get it over with already.
"Alright. Slept, and my mind's clearer now," Falco said. The edge was off of his voice, and Fox already felt relieved that the worst-case scenario wasn't unfolding. "Canning the vacation a little early. Hope you don't mind that I followed your Arwing's trace to the border of the planet. I got this weird sixth sense sorta thing telling me that maybe you need me, but don't look for me on the surface if you get this and haven't found me yet. I'm boarding Wolf's ship and I sure as fuck ain't landing down there. Hell if I'm parking my ass feathers on some alien planet I have no intel on."
He'd degenerated into his complaining voice, with a harshness and the typical refusal to imply that anything he referred to might not actually be the worst thing in the whole universe.
Falco cleared his throat and spoke a little more gently after a pause.
"But hey, that all aside, I'm figuring things out, and it's been some good thinking. These last few hours have done me a lot of good, and I'm settled on saying there's still just too much I don't know. I've been unfair to you, and I think it's just cuz I'm just confused, projecting blame at you and whatnot. I don't know what I'm gonna do about it all, but I hope you can forgive me for what I've said lately. I think I know why I've pushed you away so much, even if I ain't got a good answer for it. Y'know, there's a lot wrong in my head that I should've been more open about. I seriously can't tell whether I'm into girls, or into guys, or both. I keep looking at you and wondering why I ain't more like mister Lylat Hero. I can't accept my flaws, and I can't make myself believe someone else is gonna accept my flaws like I wish I could. It's hard for me to accept that I might be put up with. I don't wanna go into sappy shit, but because I can't accept myself, it's harder for me to actually believe I can be someone who's worth putting up with. You and I didn't work out together, and I'm sorry for that, but now I've got a clue or two as to why, even if those clues make me think everything sucks. Thinkin' about it, I almost wanna say that there's too much wrong in my head for us to ever work out, cuz as soon as I'm in good standing with you and don't have to work for it, I'll just remind myself that I'm unhappy about being me, and I'll make problems to throw on you. Might also think that should make me say we'll never work, but I ain't thinkin' in terms of never anymore, so here's what I'll say instead. I'm not going to be good for you, or for me, or for anyone, until I fix my perspective and get some forgiveness from myself."
Falco took a deep breath into the mic. It crackled and complained in response, muffling the start of his next sentence just a bit.
"Things coulda been different. Woulda, even, if I'd communicated, or you'd been psychic, or even if I'd just been able to put our us thing higher on my priority list than my dumb insecurities. I'm gonna need time, and I want you to give dating Wolf a chance while I figure out what's wrong with Falco. Someday, you and Wolf might not work out, and maybe I'll be better by then," Falco said, and then he snorted. "Ain't something I'd count on, though, and I won't bank on it. Us being friends who work together—that's the part that matters and the part that's gonna last a lifetime. If you and Wolf are happy together 'til you die and we work as a mercenary trio through to retirement, then great. And if it doesn't, and you hate each other by the end of it, then that's fine too. I'll be around. I'm Team Star Fox for life, and I want you to know it."
Fox breathed a huge sigh of relief. Everything Falco had just said made things much, much easier.
"Haven't heard from you in over a day, though. I'm a little worried, so I'm probably gonna give Wolf a rough time once I see him until I'm sure you're okay. Gonna have to stick around after, too, cuz I'm way too tired to fly back to Corneria in the loaner tin can we got. Might be a little awkward having me around, but it's worth making sure you're alright. I'll see you in a few hours, and… well, I really hope you call me before I get there, just to ease my mind. See ya soon."
Fox turned the phone's screen off and sat it back down on his nightstand.
That had been a lot better than he'd expected.
His mind felt a little hazy, to his annoyance. He shut his eyes again. This wasn't the kind of fatigue that had taken him into a long nap earlier, but rather, it was the kind that a nap could probably cure. His body didn't really want to sleep, and he did want to talk to Falco or Wolf, or preferably both, whenever he got the chance, but he still couldn't talk, and he wanted the haze out of his mind.
Fox closed his eyes, irritated by his physical condition, glad to feel as though it wouldn't endure beyond this next nap. It took a while, but he drifted off to sleep.
Fox swung the door open and stepped forward.
"You're up."
It had been another long nap, despite Fox's initial guess. He wasn't especially pleased with how long he'd been out, but he'd at least woken up feeling almost like the paralysis had never happened.
"Yeah," Fox said, closing Wolf's door behind him. "Not quite perfect yet, but my body's started listening to me again."
Wolf sat on his bed. As per usual, he wore his underwear, but he didn't so much as look at Fox while reading through something on his laptop. He hardly even stole an aside glance as Fox approached, and his face bore the hint of a scowl.
"Should clear up real quick now that you can talk again," Wolf said in an empty, matter-of-fact voice. "At least, the hazy feeling left pretty quickly for me once my throat finally started getting better."
"Good to know," Fox replied.
Wolf still didn't look away from his computer, which had Fox peeved after a few moments of expectant silence. That wasn't a good sign. Fox took a deep breath and took the plunge.
"So what are you up to?"
Wolf sighed.
"Thinking about everything that could go wrong from here," he replied before scrolling down the trackpad, still staring at the screen as though Fox weren't standing right there at the foot of his bed.
The answer sort of amused Fox, to the point that the vulpine snorted at it.
"Like what?" Fox said. "Trying to pay off your thirty-thousand-credit bounty with one tiny little bag of alien gold?"
From where they stood, that was the only major obstacle left to them. It amazed Fox that Wolf seemed so unconcerned with how the one thing they'd initially planned to fix was still not at all accounted for. Yet somehow, he seemed profoundly concerned with something else entirely.
"I told you. The bounty won't be a problem anymore," Wolf assured him.
Fox didn't quite have the gall to ask Wolf how he intended to pay his bounty off just yet—not given the circumstances. He held the very real fear of biting off more than he could chew. If he had to, he could probably take out a loan as the leader of Team Star Fox, and then let the Cornerian officials bitch at him later for using it to pay off Wolf's bounty. He'd be glad to, even, as long as Wolf didn't start second-guessing his decision to join before Fox could take that course.
"Alright," Fox said, and he cursed himself for not knowing how to bait Wolf out just yet. "Then what's got you looking so down? And what the hell are you reading?"
"Too much, and pulp trash, respectively," Wolf replied. Fox growled something beneath his breath, and at the sound of it, the faintest hint of a smile came to Wolf's face.
"Too much, huh? Did Falco piss you off already?" Fox asked. "Wondering what you got yourself into? Is that why you're upset? Is that why I can't pry your attention from a computer screen full of what you call pulp trash?"
To Fox's surprise, Wolf shut the computer down in an instant and set it under his bed, sighing.
"Fine," Wolf said, scooting to the other side of his bed and leaving a conspicuous space in front of Fox. He crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back against the wall behind his bed. His head faced about thirty degrees off away from Fox, the back of his head obscuring most of his face from Fox's angle. "I'd have preferred to put this off another day, but that's starting to look like a bad idea. You can stand there, or you can take a seat beside me here on the bed, but I'm trying something different. No contact. Not eyes, not hands, and nothing else. We're settling thing with words, and I'm going to know where you stand. Any questions?"
Fox wasn't sure what to say to that, and then he realized that his eyes were fixed on Wolf, and that without a laptop covering the pair of tight black briefs, his focus would be elsewhere if he didn't take Wolf's approach and look away as well.
He took his place beside Wolf and mimicked the pose Wolf too, facing the other way so that only the wall met his gaze.
"Plenty," Fox said.
"Good."
Fox cleared his throat. Phrasing and tone were everything here, and he knew it.
"First, are we cool?" Fox asked. "Are you upset at me? Are you upset at Falco? You said you'd join Star Fox if I helped you here with paying off your bounty, which you say won't be a problem, and that means I've lived up to my half of the deal. Is something going to keep you from living up to that promise?"
"Join Star Fox? Funny choice of words. I promised I'd be on a team with you and Falco," Wolf corrected. "But that aside, yeah, we're cool. And no, nothing's stopping me from joining your crew. I'm far more committed now than I was when I made that promise. I never even thought to hope for a chance like this."
Fox cleared his throat, closed his eyes, took a deep breath. He steeled his resolve as fully as he could before he opened his eyes again.
"Good," Fox said. "Then I'll even the playing field."
He took his belt off first, then his pants, then his socks, and then his shirt until both canids were down to their underwear. He threw them over in a conspicuous ball, sending them over Wolf's head and through his field of vision so that Wolf would know full well what had happened.
The two sat there, neither one commenting on the gesture, or even acknowledging it. Wolf's scent filled Fox's nose from up close, though, and the softness of the sheets against his bare fur tempted him to roll over onto Wolf and cut this exchange of words short, just like Wolf had done to him a few too many times over the last few days.
He took a deep breath and shut his eyes, and convinced his body to lower his rising dick. If things went well, there would be time for that later, but Wolf was right. A words-only conversation wasn't what Fox had expected at first, but it was long overdue.
Finally, Wolf sighed heavily and broke the silence.
"You get what's got me worried, right?" Wolf said.
Fox had no idea. Maybe it was getting along with Falco. Maybe it was getting along with Fox, for that matter, considering that they had a habit of being at each other's throats. Maybe, beneath it all, he really was worried about the bounty, and he'd been in denial.
"Maybe?" Fox replied. "But you don't need to worry about Falco cutting out on us over a cock-measuring competition. He's used to playing rough, and it'd be that way even if he weren't loyal through and through."
"Getting along with Falco, huh? That's your best guess?" Wolf chuckled. "I ran Sargasso for a few years, and I've made peace with rougher-edged thugs. Try seeing this my way. You, my old rival Fox McCloud, come on board saying you want me to form a new group with you and the bird even though we supposedly hate each other and there hasn't been a word between us since I saved your ass from the Aparoids. It all sounds too good to be true, so I'm suspicious of your offer to help me out, but I humor you. Suddenly, I get you in a swimsuit, and you don't even resist when I get up in your personal space like I never dreamed I'd get to. Within a few days, you've let it slip that you're sexually attracted to other men, and that you might even date them if they're the right fit, and I exploit that, and it's easier than I would've thought. I've managed to very nearly get in your pants with no resistance or complaint, and you actually want me to fuck you by the time I've been at it for just a few days."
Fox couldn't see Wolf's face, and had to guess what was happening without his sight, easy as it was to do. Wolf took a pause to chuckle like a cartoon villain, acid in his words, and then he continued.
"So there has to be a catch, and I figure it's the bird who just broke your heart. I'm smarter with my heart than most fools, so I tell you to settle your score with him, and you do," Wolf said. "To my amazement, that works out. Finally, it seems like things just fell into place, and I tip my hand and make it fully clear that I'm crazy about you. Then I admit that I've been crazy about you since we met in the skies, because I'm fucked up in the head and want someone to compete endlessly with, who just might kill me someday and I wouldn't even complain. So now what happens, when we both survive a fucking alien fungus planet by some sort of divine intervention? That son of a feathered bitch comes back with no warning at all, and he does care about you after all, enough to ditch his vacation and his casanova time just to point a gun at me, and all he even wanted was to make sure you're okay, so he loves you after all, and you loved him first. How the hell am I supposed to feel stepping in between that, huh?"
It was Fox's turn to chuckle at Wolf for his naivete. Fox wondered how many times in the future he'd get the chance to wear these shoes.
"You're supposed to feel like I chose you, and like I want you the most," Fox replied. "And the choice gets easier the more I think it through. I mean, love is a strong word, and you tipped your hand back in the ruins, and I can't say I feel the same for you that you do for me. But while you've been sitting here moping, I've been thinking things over, and the more I think about it, the more I want you. Not Falco, and not any of my other exes. You."
Wolf snorted.
"Cute new tune," Wolf said. "Care to explain why you're singing it?"
"Because I've finally thought it over," Fox replied. "We're the rare case where two once-in-a-generation talents happen to be in the same generation by rare cosmic chance. Yeah, we've had bad blood, but we also love what we're the best at, and we compete, and we fight and scrap by default because that's how Fox McCloud and Wolf O'Donnell act when they find an equal. I think we might actually need each other, or just someone similar, because no one else I've met seems to even understand the kind of respect I have for you. Plus, we're not that different! We've both seen shitty times, borne the weight of the world, and honed a skill to the point where we're nearly unrivaled in all the universe, so who the hell else am I going to find that's going to keep me interested after I start feeling like good sex isn't enough anymore? Do you know how many girls, and even how many guys, I've gone through all because no one cares about the kind of things that are at the center of my world? You actually care about endless improvement, discipline, and pushing limits, and you know what makes me tick because it's what makes you tick too, and that's not even getting into how sexually attracted I am to you. I have faith that you and I can balance each other some, and we can become endlessly better together as pilots. I want that life more than I ever thought I would. That is, I want you. I hope I don't need to say it again for you to believe me."
Wolf breathed loudly through his nose a few times, and Fox's heart nearly sank for a moment as he almost assumed that he'd somehow made Wolf mad, or that he'd earned nothing more than an embittered chuckle; the breathing was sharp and sounded agitated.
"Is that so?" Wolf said. Fox still found himself just a little worried. It wasn't like Wolf to just sit there and listen for this long… or was this what happened when Fox finally decided to let loose and run his mouth? "You mean it? All of it? And you're not leaving out the caveats, or the buts?"
Or perhaps, was Wolf actually having trouble figuring out what to say?
Could that even happen?
"The buts?" Fox replied. "We were mortal enemies. We ruined each other's lives for years-long periods at a time. You're an ass and I'm a cautious prude who's fresh out of a breakup and can't help but be a hornball while you're around. Do I need to spell out every little reason we wouldn't work, and go through why I want to ignore the red flags to see if the pros really do outweigh the cons?"
The question hung in the air.
Not being able to see Wolf was starting to make Fox especially anxious. The contemplative pause made Fox regret asking such a heavy question; he hadn't thought through a list of cons, even if he'd thought through it all by now, and talking about why they shouldn't work just might make him lose heart.
"No," Wolf finally said. Fox's relief didn't last long. "You do need to address one more thing, though. You know the damage you caused to Sargasso? You know how you wrecked my hideout so badly that I had to fucking leave it after years of putting the stronghold together, just to have Corneria's fleet not run the place over and endanger the crew I'd worked so hard to stabilize?"
Fox rubbed his temples. The slow build in Wolf's speaking volume made him wonder how he could possibly convince Wolf that it's worth dropping after all.
"Yeah," Fox said.
He bit his tongue and thought instead of continuing, but to his surprise, Wolf didn't wait for more. He just snorted, bitter or amused or both, and carried on.
"Well, I'll tell you a secret," Wolf said. "Sargasso's not what you need to address here, and I was never really pissed off about it. Got a dogfight out of you from it, saved your ass not too long after, ended up getting some good time in the air, and the Sargasso gig had me feeling tied down by the time you showed up. What I need from you is assurance that you've thought it through, and that your mind is still made up. Tell me why you're willing to give me a chance after what happened between me and your dad."
Shit.
That was the question Fox really didn't want to hear. The topic just didn't sit well with him. He'd thought about it, and even with how things had played out years ago, and even with his father gone and Wolf being associated with it forever in his mind, he wanted to give Wolf a chance.
Not just a chance. He wanted things to work between them. He wanted to wake up every day and have the only pilot in the world who could rival him wake up a few feet away, and cuddle with him on weekends until it was time to get out of bed and think about flight sims, or going out on the town, or kicking each other's asses.
But his dad. How the hell was he supposed to just get over that?
"I don't want to talk about it," Fox admitted.
"I know," Wolf pressed. "For once, though, I'm not dropping it. I'm vulnerable here, damn it. Do you know how tough that is for a guy like me? You're either going to address the topic until it's resolved, or you're going to have to live with not getting another chance for a long fucking time. Got it?"
"Got it," Fox said quickly. "But not addressing it is the solution. The best thing I can do is think about it as little as I can. I've thought about it, Wolf, and that's what I decided. You and I just might work as a couple. I think you're interesting, capable, hot as hell, and more empathetic than you let on. I'm ready to commit, and ready to give you… well, you know. A different kind of peek into my mind than the one you already got, along with some other perks that would make me hard if I started talking about them, so don't get me started. I want you. But I'm not ready to reconcile falling for you with losing my dad. Can we both settle on that?"
Fox actually sat up and looked over at Wolf, who kept his eye shut and responded to Fox's movement by pressing his ears back closer to his head.
"Yes," Wolf replied. His good eye opened. "Kind of leaves me with another question, though."
Fox waited patiently for Wolf to gather his nerve.
"Now what?"
Fox chuckled. This was, at least in theory, the easy part. The grilling, the uncertainty, and the threats were all out of the way.
He leaned his head on Wolf's chest first and found it even firmer than he'd expected beneath the thick gray fur. Then the rest of his body inched closer to Wolf, until he'd cuddled up to the unresponsive lupine with his head reaching just up to the larger canid's jaw, his back against Wolf's belly.
"Do I need to say it?"
Just in case he hadn't been perfectly clear already, Fox pressed himself against Wolf, closing any gaps between them.
Wolf sighed.
"Hate to say it, but if this is going where I think it's going, this isn't the time," Wolf said. At the same time, his arms placed themselves on Fox's shoulders. They twisted Fox around so that Wolf's body spooned him, and Wolf pulled Fox in and squeezed him tight. Things were calm and warm and nice for a moment, and then Wolf squeezed harder, less comfortably. "And don't you dare get the idea that not fucking you now means I'm not interested. Any other time, I'll fuck you to tears. Expect it. I might sneak into your room, might ambush you on your way back from the shower, and I'll dare you to tell me to stop. I'll dare you to pretend you don't want it, and you won't even be able to fake it. So don't think for a second that I'm not interested. This just isn't the time. I need to think."
For a moment, Fox had his doubts, but then there it was. That weird warm, fuzzy feeling that came from being manhandled and kind of even threatened by someone he respected.
Wolf was brash, irreverent, and abrasive even in declaring his affection. Somehow, though, that felt like exactly what Fox wanted. There might never be closure between them over the wrongs of the past, but there didn't need to be. Dwelling on that would only make it impossible for him to capitalize on what was available to him—someone who was both attracted to him, and attractive to him, and could rival him both in skill as a pilot and in the intensity of his competitive spirit.
As Wolf held Fox close, breath tickling his neck, Fox could feel the sincerity of Wolf's words. At any point in the future, this scene of a fox in the arms of a larger, stronger canid could escalate into a session that neither one would ever forget.
That wasn't going to happen here, but Fox knew it awaited him somewhere out in the future. And for the moment, he could just enjoy Wolf's body heat, and the earthy scent that he'd never have expected to know so well.
"I might hold you to those threats," Fox warned.
"And I might make you regret it if you make me prove myself," Wolf replied.
Seconds passed, and then minutes. Wolf slowly loosened his hold on Fox, and they repositioned a few times, neither canid bothering to suppress the growing bulges that stretched what little covering they wore. Fox turned back and forth a few times as they adjusted their places, allowing Wolf to run his hands through his fur, grabbing Wolf's ass in turn, tempting Wolf to go back on his decision not to fuck him now while knowing full well what the limits had been set.
They sat still for a while before Wolf finally said it.
"You should go."
So Fox nodded, got out of the bed, and left.
It was a strange feeling, knowing that all that had come of the meeting was the promise that something would happen in the future. But still, he took the promise at face value—Fox fully believed that before long, their inhibitions would be stored away in the recesses of their minds for the sake of a relationship rooted in rivalry and mutual admiration.
Beyond that, he knew that the ball was in his court. Wolf was seriously, hopelessly smitten with him, and while he'd probably continue to keep his cool as much as he could, there would be more nights like this, where Fox could see just how affected Wolf could get over his feelings toward the only other pilot out there who'd ever posed a real threat.
Time would tell how things went when the dust of their recent adventure settled. Admiration and lust might make Fox really love Wolf back someday, or perhaps they'd be at each other's throats again before long. For that matter, both might come to pass.
That was the kind of thing Fox would have to deal with one day at a time, though. He went back to his room, only realizing he'd forgotten his clothes as he closed the door behind him, and abandoned the thought with a shrug.
There were some arrangements to be made, some phone conversations to be had, and some acquisitions to look into.
Team Star Fox wasn't just a two-member crew anymore, and with at least some clarity on where he stood with his team, it was time to look ahead.
AN: Again, there's going to be one more chapter after this, in which a few more loose ends (not many) are resolved. As of posting this chapter, I've written a bit of a sequel to this fic as well, but it's extremely adult in needlessly explicit ways, and I'm neither sure whether or not to post it here, nor whether or not I'll write it to the level of completion that might allow for posting.
So yeah. Thanks again for reading, and I hope to post the final part soon.
P.S. I didn't edit punctuation