In the dead of night at Brawlers Mansion, the only real sound was the howling of the wind outside. The next midsummer thunderstorm coming their way had blown up in the hours just after nightfall, and the telltale increase in humidity was the only foreshadowing that a very impressive storm was on the horizon. But it wasn't yet upon them—which was why it was so unusual that the far-off clap of thunder that echoed off the cliffs rimming the lake jolted Wolf O'Donnell from his slumber.
Sitting bolt-upright in his bed with the sheets tangled around his legs, Wolf clutched at his chest with one hand, marveling at the swift pace of his heartbeat. What had startled him so much? Had he been dreaming? He didn't let go until he realized that his claws had come to bear, and that they were digging into his flesh. Instead of falling back upon his haphazardly-stacked pillows, he glanced at the digital clock to the right of his stolen television. It was 3:54 in the morning.
With an irritated groan, Wolf collapsed back and flung the sheets onto the floor, letting his body cool, glaring up at the darkened ceiling. Outside, thunder rumbled ominously as the storm rolled closer to the cove upon which their lakeside mansion was built.
It took him a full ten minutes to place the source of his unbelievable discomfort: his mouth was dry, his throat completely parched. He imagined this was what high noon in Death Valley felt like.
"I'll never get any damn sleep at this rate," the lupine growled to himself, and sitting up again he swung his legs over the side of the bed and braced his feet upon the carpet, rising jerkily into a standing position and yawning heavily as he pulled a shirt on over his bare chest. A stroke of silent lightning illuminated his otherwise-dark bedroom, slanting off the brass door handle, and placing his hand upon the knob he let himself into the second floor hallway.
It was silent as a morgue on the second floor, a rarity. True, the residents of Brawlers Mansion kept very strange hours—most of them slept very little, unwilling to waste the daylight hours in the company of friends—but Wolf couldn't remember ever wandering through the halls of their home and not hearing a single voice. It was eerie and unnatural; it gave him the sense that somewhere, something was very wrong. Keeping his ears open and wishing for all the world that he had a gun, Wolf padded with a silent predator's grace to the staircase and descended to the first floor.
The television was on, but tuned to a channel that their second-rate cable receiver could not pick up so the picture was fuzzy; Wolf punched the power switch on his way into the kitchen, and the screen went black. With his back to the sitting room, Wolf did not see the reflection of a black-clothed figure in the TV screen in the split second that it was visible.
The lupine had a glass in his hand and was halfway to the refrigerator when he heard a muffled thud from down the hall. He took another step toward his destination but stopped in his tracks when he heard a second thud, this one louder than the first. Curiosity got the better of him when the thumping sounds took up a kind of disjointed rhythm, and abandoning his glass to the kitchen counter he followed his ears past the now-empty room that had, until very recently, belonged to Ike, past both Marth's and Link's silent bedrooms, and halted about a foot away from the closed door that led to Vick's room.
Hadn't the sound come from this direction? Wolf turned an about-face, longing for a drink, thinking he must have been imagining things, when suddenly he heard a sound that he could never mistake.
For years during the conflicts in the Lylat System, Wolf's second-in-command and best wingman had been a younger reptilian by the name of Leon Powalski. Leon was a diagnosed sociopath whose origins were largely unknown, an agent of Andross who spoke very little and had very warped tastes. Wolf counted on Leon implicitly to cover his flanks during a firefight and had never known his favored companion to fail a reconnaissance mission (owing largely to the fact that Leon was a chameleon, which made him nearly impossible to trace when he was undercover), but Leon had a rather disturbing side-job that forced Wolf to keep him at arm's length; Leon was a professional torturer, and was often putting his deadly skills to work on unfortunate Loyalists who fell into Separatist custody. It was because of Leon's secret profession, and his inherently sadistic tastes, that Wolf was able to place the sound coming from the other side of the door.
The sound of a whip cracking against someone's skin.
Every nerve in Wolf's body was suddenly standing on end, his vision tinted red with rage, and lurching forward he placed his hand upon the handle. What was going on? Was Vick alright? Was she in danger?
Thankfully other sounds wafted from behind the closed door then, which was fortunate, because when he heard them Wolf suddenly came to understand. The second sound was a slightly-muffled moan—a woman's voice in the throes of passion-, and the third sound was a man's low, sadistic chuckle in reply.
Wolf snatched his hand back from the door as though he had just touched a blistering stovetop.
The whip cracked again. Vick's moan became a squeal. It took every ounce of Wolf's militaristic discipline not to barge in, knowing that he would only embarrass himself, make Vick angry, and undoubtedly get the shit kicked out of him by Wesker. And that had already happened once, barely twelve hours ago; it was not an experience he was keen on repeating.
Wesker spoke then, a low and forbidding sound, too deep for Wolf to catch the individual words, but Vick's moan was a fervent reply and the lupine was nothing but grateful that he hadn't heard.
Why the fuck am I still standing out here listening to this?! Wolf wondered silently, but still he remained rooted to the spot, horror and damnable curiosity keeping him there.
Only when he heard Wesker grunt from effort did Wolf turn tail and flee back to the kitchen, snatching his glass from the counter as though it were a life preserver. The unpleasant dryness in his mouth intensified, and he threw open the freezer—
-The ice trays were all empty.
"Son of a bitch," Wolf growled through his teeth, nearly cracking the glass with the pressure of his grip. He considered briefly just filling his cup with room-temperature tap water and retreating to his room, but Vick's loudest and most passionate cry yet was suddenly filling his ears and it seemed a brilliant idea then to flee downstairs to raid the ice chest. So Wolf dashed out of the kitchen and pounded downstairs, not really caring who he awoke in the process.
An almost imperceptible shadow whipped around the corner, past the downstairs television and down the hall to Meta Knight's and Lucario's rooms, to be lost in even deeper shadows in the same moment Wolf reached the landing of the sublevel. It was much cooler down here, and Wolf gratefully leaned his almost-feverish forehead against the wall, his breathing slowing, the sounds of Wesker and Vick's twisted excursions gradually drifting out of his mind. After taking half a minute or so to compose himself Wolf shoved away from the wall and padded through the basement living room, toward the two doors on the opposite side.
Next to Sonic's bedroom was a small storage room, concrete walls and floors and an unfinished ceiling with exposed beams supporting the ground floor. There were only a few things in storage, as none of them were planning on staying longer than the summer: just a deep freezer where they kept frozen foods that wouldn't fit in the kitchen freezer and two ice chests, one for their alcoholic beverage surplus and the other for ice only. Wolf tugged on the ice chest closest to him, irritated all over again when it clanked in protest. It was locked with a padlock, and of course he had no worldly idea where the key could be.
"This is why people sleep at four in the morning," Wolf growled under his breath, glaring at the padlock as though it had caused him a personal offense. "Because nothing ever goes well at this hour."
Wolf spied a ring of keys sitting on top of the freezer and retrieved it, certain one of the keys on the ring would release the padlock. He tried the first two with no success, but the third slid easily into the padlock and he turned it hurriedly, anticipating the ice almost desperately—
Chik.
Wolf withdrew his hand and cursed explicitly beneath his breath, glaring at the half-a-key that remained in his grasp. The other half had snapped off in the padlock.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" he snarled, hurling the twisted remains of the key into the corner of the storage room, ignoring the dull ping sound as it ricocheted off the concrete wall and vanished beneath the shelves. Stalking into the sublevel sitting room and stomping upstairs he added to himself, "This calls for a little more finesse."
With the stealth only a veteran mercenary could boast he let himself into Falco's room, smirking at the state he found the slumbering avian in. Falco was snoozing heavily upon his back, feathers all in comical disarray, beak hanging open shamelessly and a dribble of drool sliming one side of his beak. Like a total fool, he had left both of his prized laser pistols out in plain sight—almost in a place of honor upon his nightstand, beneath the shade of a small lamp. Wolf swiped one soundlessly and snuck back out, dashing back into the basement and confronting the offending ice chest.
"Time for your comeuppance, you unaccommodating bitch," growled Wolf wickedly, and he launched a single energy bullet that effectively seared the padlock in two. The halves clattered to the ground and he wrenched the ice chest open, now almost giddy with anticipation.
He scooped out perhaps twice the amount of ice he would normally use for a glass of water, so thrilled was he to finally have it, and traipsed victoriously out of the storage room clutching his glass with both hands and cackling wildly in an undertone. So involved was he in enjoying his recent success that he almost didn't hear the voice murmuring excitedly from behind the door adjacent to the storage room.
Almost.
One ear twitched hyperactively toward the door, giving Wolf pause; the lupine ducked into a crouch, hackles rising defensively, until he realized that he was not in any immediate danger and that he recognized the voice. Sonic's? He padded nearer to the door, wincing with every perfectly-balanced step, remembering suddenly the price he had very recently paid for eavesdropping and hoping that this bout of curiosity would not drive him to cut off his own ears. He tentatively pressed his ear to the door.
At first there was no sound whatsoever, only his own pulse thudding gently in his ears and Meta Knight lightly snoring down the hall. Just as Wolf was about to turn away and chalk the voice up to his own maddening dehydration, Sonic's dreamy voice spoke again from the other side of the door.
"Mmm… Shadow…."
Wolf arched one eyebrow curiously, puzzled. Was Sonic dreaming about the club where Vick tended bar and Lucario played DJ? Why would he? Since his arrival Sonic had only haunted the place once, and hadn't seemed particularly interested in it—
"I've missed you."
The lupine nearly swallowed his tongue. Missed who?!
It was frighteningly quiet for almost a full minute longer, until Sonic's unconscious monologue struck up again. "No… I swear… it isn't like that. Blaze is… like… my sister. You know it's always been you…."
Deciding it was worth the risk to investigate, Wolf cracked the door open and poked his head inside.
Thankfully, this time, there wasn't a sexually morbid scene awaiting Wolf for his damnable curiosity. The room was dark—no windows—and remembering that Sonic had a bad habit of leaving several dozen running shoes strewn haphazardly about Wolf didn't admit himself. Sonic was curled up on his side, clearly sleeping, though his face was in obvious turmoil. In one hand he even clutched a handful of the sheets.
Then Sonic muttered his most heartfelt sentence yet, laden with obvious adoration. "I can't wait to see you again."
Wolf quickly weighed the pros and cons of listening in further, but decided quickly that he was pressing his luck and would surely soon hear something that scarred him for life. Battling back his curiosity he stepped backward, pulling the door closed as he went.
He was only two feet from the staircase that would deliver him safely to the ground floor when he heard another voice, this one coming from down the hallway, past Meta Knight's accommodations: You worry too much. It isn't THAT big.
Yet another voice that Wolf recognized well, made easier to place by virtue of the way its timbre was like relaxing upon a plush cushion at the end of the day—a psychic voice. Mewtwo? This time Wolf actually set his glass down upon the top of the television to investigate, wondering why on earth Mewtwo was still awake at this hour and who he could be talking to.
In retrospect, it should have been all-too-obvious—later, Wolf would hate himself for it.
That's easy for you to say, Lucario was panting as Wolf neared the door—he sounded as though he was in pain. I've never… ahh….
Shh, Mewtwo ordered, his voice soft but not entirely disarming, and there issued the sound of someone shifting upon the protesting box springs of a mattress. I'll take care of you… Just relax.
Again, in retrospect, Wolf felt incredibly foolish for taking as long as he did to catch up to just what he was listening to; only when the mattress springs began squeaking in a slow but steady rhythm did he realize just what he had stumbled upon, and when he did Wolf turned tail and fled, barely pausing to retrieve his glass.
On the ground floor, Wolf collapsed onto the couch and dropped his head into his hands. His palms were clammy when he murmured into his fingers, "So this is what goes on when I'm asleep…. Tomorrow I'm investing in some maximum strength sleeping pills. I hope I never wake up."
It was many minutes before Wolf could get up the courage to return to the kitchen and fill his glass with water. Thankfully, the sounds of highly-erotic sex coming from behind Vick's door had ceased at that point; Wolf took a small measure of smug pleasure at the thought that Wesker, despite all of his power, didn't seem to last long in the bedroom.
The water sloshing over the ice cubes as it was poured into the glass was like music to Wolf's ears. He was practically drooling as he lifted the glass to his muzzle; the first droplets were barely millimeters from his tongue when the phone rang. The pealing sound startled him so much that he lost his grip on the glass; it slipped from his hand and hit the tiled kitchen floor, shattering in a spray of water and sending shards of ice and glass everywhere.
The string of curse words that exploded none-too-quietly from Wolf's mouth almost compelled him to wash his own mouth out with soap. He was kneeling down in the mess with a ratty old towel in one hand, just starting to clean up after himself, when a curious thought occurred to him—the phone had barely pealed half a ring before someone had answered it.
Wolf glanced over his shoulder at the digital numbers shining on the microwave—4:37. Who was so anxiously awaiting a phone call at this hour? More importantly, who the hell was calling?
He struggled within himself for the span of about twenty seconds, silently reminding himself of all the horrific things he had heard already, then decided that he would be worse off not putting his curiosities to rest. Nothing kept a man up at night quite like the unknown. So he hastily cleaned up the floor, mopping up the water with the towel and sweeping up the ice and glass shards with the hand broom and dustpan from beneath the sink; satisfied, Wolf shook the dustpan out over the garbage can and hopped up onto the kitchen counter, snatching the phone from its cradle and clicking it on, praying that he wasn't discovered.
"—a little insulted that you weren't taking me seriously. I said I would call, and here I am. Why the surprise?"
There came the sound of stammering, and then the hesitant response. "I don't understand why the hell you're calling me at all. What's the big idea?"
Wolf's mind boggled. The first voice was undeniably familiar, but perhaps owing to all of the oddities he had overheard throughout the course of the evening he couldn't immediately place it; the second voice undoubtedly belonged to Fox McCloud.
A low chuckle was the first response; the sound was so familiar that Wolf wanted to slap himself for his inability to place it. "When you walked in to interview at the flight academy today, I knew for sure—you needed a break from the mundane, as it were. That being said, I think I'm the man to do that for you."
Now Fox sounded angry. "You're a sadistic fucking freak is what you are. I know what you do to people. I've read the reports, seen the pictures—"
"You aren't the slightest bit curious?"
"…What?! NO! Why would that interest me-?!"
"Like I said, I could tell just by looking at you that you need a break from the mundane. I'd be more than happy to show you what I mean—"
"Shut the fuck up, you psychopath. I said I'm not interested."
"I beg to differ." Another derisive chuckle followed this dry statement.
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Fox was now purely on the defensive, every syllable unwilling, the tone of his voice pitched high in a near-panic.
"It means that if you really weren't interested, you would have hung up the instant you heard my voice… or you wouldn't have answered at all."
Fox cursed the voice on the other end of the line and slammed the phone down with enough force to make Wolf recoil. He replaced the receiver upon its cradle confusedly, but the moment the phone was no longer in his hand his eyes blazed with rage and his hands balled into fists. His claws, fully extended, dug into his palms.
So someone was harassing Fox—someone Fox had been in contact with at his job interview earlier that same day. Not only that, but Fox, despite his protests, was obviously intrigued by some part of the proposition. Wolf strongly considered marching straight up to the vulpine's bedroom and demanding an explanation—they were currently sleeping together, after all—but he booted that idea almost immediately. Wolf was not a man of rash action, and never made snap decisions. Every move he made was always carefully planned, not a single thing left to chance. Surely he could get to the bottom of this unexpected turn of events simply by keeping his eyes and his ears open? It was a suspicious situation, to be sure, but there was no need to blow up over it…yet.
So far, the thing that still topped his to-do list was to get a goddamned glass of water.
Wolf had the presence of mind to choose a plastic cup from the cupboard this time, and even added a snap-on lid with a kiddy straw after a moment's deliberation. No one was awake to see the childlike addition to his glass of choice, and he was about to die of dehydration anyway, so what the hell did it matter? He made the journey back down to the ice chest despite the fact that his tongue was swollen and dry by now—the memory of the way the water sounded cascading over the ice cubes was still fresh in his ear, and just the thought of it made him even thirstier—and took a measure of smug satisfaction to see the two halves of the padlock still lying on the ground. He dashed back upstairs with his child-proof cup, complete with ice, giddy at the prospect of at last getting a drink after forty-five minutes of hell—
-To find someone standing motionless in the center of the living room when he again reached the ground floor.
The lupine skidded to a halt and even dropped his cup in alarm, but then barked out a laugh in the next instant when it bounced playfully along the carpet, ice rattling against the lid but finding no release. He then returned his attention to the situation at hand. His audience had yet to move a single muscle; at second glance, Wolf recognized Link standing in a pair of boxers and a shirt that was several sizes too large for him.
"Dude, I would apologize for waking you up, but at this point I can honestly say that I don't give a shit," Wolf snickered, moving forward to retrieve his cup. "You wouldn't even believe the hell I've been through…."
He straightened, waiting for the Hylian to say something, and came up puzzled when Link continued to stand awkwardly in the middle of the room without speaking. Many seconds passed between them without any interaction whatsoever.
"I am so not in the mood for bullshit," growled the lupine. "What's your malfunction?"
Link's shoulders twitched upward, and then fell limply in a kind of exaggerated shrugging motion, then he sighed and murmured drowsily, "Yeah… I'm the Hero of Time."
Wolf scoffed. "Yeah, brilliant, genius. I don't need to be reminded. I've been living with you for weeks. I know who you are by now. Could you be more self involved?"
No longer interested in Link's strange behavior, Wolf brushed past him and into the kitchen, immediately prying the lid off his child safe cup and turning the tap on. He had just fixed the lid back onto his cup and had positioned the straw between his teeth to take his first sip when Link wound his arms around Wolf's waist from behind and nuzzled his head into the lupine's back.
The cup flew out of Wolf's hands and into the otherwise-empty sink at this; he kicked off the counter in front of him and threw his weight back, overbalancing them both and ramming Link back hard against the refrigerator. Link's arms dropped back to his sides at once as he slid harmlessly down the surface of the fridge and collapsed into a kind of awkward sitting position on the linoleum; Wolf spun to face him, hackles raised, claws glinting maniacally in the moonlight streaming in from the window.
"You're gonna lose a valuable body part if you pull another stunt like that, you queer!" snarled the lupine, but the insult was lost in the next moment as he took a closer look at Link.
The Hylian was, in fact, fast asleep on the floor—and had been since before Wolf had encountered him in the living room. This was apparent in the way Link's jaw hung slack, the steadiness of his breathing, the limp nature of his limbs; Wolf knelt down in front of him, curiously tilting his head from side to side and even trying to pry Link's eyes open. All of these efforts were in vain—even as Wolf tried to shake Link awake, the Hylian let loose with a very loud snore that left no question as to whether or not he was conscious.
"I'm starting to think I'm the most normal one in the whole damn bunch," marveled Wolf, scratching his head and considering how best to proceed. "I should just leave your ass here since you tried to feel me up in your sleep, but since I'm such a damn nice guy…."
Wolf stooped down and heaved Link over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, trying to ignore the fact that the slumbering Hylian was drooling on his shoulder blade as he carried him down the hall to his room. The door was wide open; all of Link's training gear was strewn carelessly about the floor, and several of his personal effects had been moved into very strange places. It even seemed that Link had cleaved his bedside lamp in two with a stroke of the Master Sword.
"When you sleep, you sleep hard," Wolf observed, shaking his head and laughing helplessly at the scene, and he deposited Link none-too-gently upon his bed, taking great care to close the door behind him as he left.
He found his childproof cup lying overturned in the sink precisely where he had left it when he returned to the kitchen, but this time didn't attempt to drink from it right away. Instead he clutched it very protectively in both hands and headed straight upstairs, making a beeline for his bedroom. He wasn't foolish enough to believe there wasn't another ridiculous encounter was ready and waiting to befall him if he lingered in one place for too long. Once there he shut the door behind him and launched himself into bed, burrowing under the covers with childlike enthusiasm, and clamped his teeth down upon the straw victoriously.
In the hallway, just outside his own bedroom door, a floorboard creaked ominously as though someone were standing on it. The sound was eerie enough to raise the fur on the back of Wolf's neck, and every muscle in his body froze as he listened.
Wolf heard only the slightly accelerated tempo of his own heart for what seemed like an eternity. There issued no other sound from the other side of the door.
And despite the fact that he had endured all of the evening's pains in the pursuit of curiosity, Wolf couldn't bring himself to resist the allure of the creaking floorboard. He flung the covers off himself as quietly as he could manage and begrudgingly laid his cup aside on the nightstand, then snuck toward the door, laid his hand upon the handle, and peered into the hallway.
In time to catch a glimpse of someone he had never seen before, dressed in black from head to toe, turn the corner and whisk upstairs without so much as the sound of a footstep to mark his passing. Wolf knew it wasn't Wesker he saw for many reasons: this man was taller, leaner, paler, and wore a wide-brimmed hat and white gloves like a surgeon might. The persona, also, was perhaps most notable: sinister in a way that reminded Wolf of Wesker, but in a way that was far less awe-inspiring and much more…eerie.
Against his better judgment, Wolf dashed after the man he had seen.
He took the stairs two at a time, wishing for all the world that he had had the presence of mind to bring the laser pistol he had stolen from Falco. How could he have known that some stranger would be stupid enough to sneak into Brawlers Mansion, of all places, uninvited and in the dead of night? It was like asking for a beating. Weaponless or not, Wolf was certainly capable of taking care of this threat himself. He reached the third floor landing in three seconds flat.
No one in the hallway. He dashed ahead, whipping his head in each direction.
No one to the right. No one to the left. Where had the man in the black hat gone?
Wolf shook his head vigorously to clear it. Was it possible that he was that severely dehydrated? After a moment, though, he was in motion again, this time seizing the belt in the ceiling and pulling down the trap-ladder that led to the roof where the hot tub was. No—he was Wolf O'Donnell, scourge of the Lylat System. He was not prone to hallucinations and was known for trusting his instincts to the point of near-foolishness. He had seen someone.
He scrambled up the trap-ladder with surprisingly agility for his stocky build, and was rewarded for his faith in his intuition—the man in the black hat was poised at the edge of the mansion, his supple black boots at the point where the eaves met the gutter.
"Hey!" shouted Wolf on impulse. "Stop! Who the hell are you?!"
The man's face, starkly pale in the light of the moon, turned in his direction. His eyes, a flat and emotionless black, flashed midnight flames into Wolf's soul. Without a single word in response he leapt from the roof.
Wolf sprinted as fast as his legs would carry him and leapt after him without even a moment's hesitation; he would be damned if he failed to bring an intruder in their house to justice, and he had never been afraid of heights anyway. The wind had kicked up into brutal gusts in the hours since the moon had begun its wane, and it buffeted Wolf every which way as he fell; he tucked himself into a roll as he approached the ground and came up running almost immediately. His quarry hadn't bothered to take similar precautions, opting instead to simply bend his knees as his boots met the ground. Wolf knew very few people who could actually pull that off without breaking a leg in the process; he wasn't sure just who he was dealing with, but he knew that if the encounter came to blows he would be in way over his head.
Just like he had been fighting Wesker. The thought curled Wolf's lip upward with its unpleasant memory but wasn't enough to stop his pursuit.
The man in the black hat fled with surprising speed but did not make any threatening movements against Wolf, skirting through the yard like a breath of wind and following the shore's edge westward up the lake. Though he was at a loss to keep up with his quarry using sheer speed alone Wolf followed at his quickest pace, relying on his superior stamina to do the job. Even running flat-out Wolf should have been easily outpaced, but the man in the black hat was neither drawing closer nor further away; the lupine had the distinct feeling that he was being toyed with.
"What are you running from?" he called, hoping his voice carried despite the wind. "Afraid you wouldn't last in a fight against me?"
If he had been hoping that his attempts at goading his quarry into a battle through the use of intimidation would prove successful, he was disappointed; instead of slowing or stopping, the man with the black hat leapt nimbly into the nearest tree and skipped with amazing ease from branch to branch, leaving Wolf to follow on the ground below.
Wolf ignored the ache settling into his leg muscles and pressed on ahead, wishing he hadn't broken his scouter monitoring Wesker's capabilities so that he could put it to use now. He knew it wouldn't be much longer before he was forced to give up the chase.
"Stop, you bastard!" he growled. "Get down here and fight me like a man!"
Overhead, the man with the black hat stopped on the quivering boughs of a beech tree and turned back to face him. Wolf skidded to a halt, grateful for the reprieve. Their eyes met despite the darkness and the distance.
A sudden gust of wind whisked the hat off the pale man's head; it danced upon the breeze for a moment before coming into contact with Wolf's shins. The mercenary commander stooped instinctively to retrieve it.
When he straightened, hat in hand, the pale-faced man was gone.
It seemed a miles-long trek back to Brawlers Mansion, though in reality Wolf had only kept pace for about three-quarters of a mile. By the time he reached his destination, the easternmost edge of the horizon was a distinctly-lighter gray shade, signifying the onset of pre-dawn. His eyes ached with exhaustion, and his tongue felt several sizes too big for his mouth. He barely had the presence of mind to hang the pale-faced man's wide-brimmed black hat on the inside doorknob as he pulled the door shut behind him.
Wolf sleepily glanced all around for his cup, which had fallen out of his grasp when he had crashed to the floor. He was so tired that almost a full five minutes had elapsed before he at last located the cup—it had rolled along the carpet under his bed and was now propped against the wall, as far under the bed as it could possibly go. Wolf did not find this at all surprising.
He belly-flopped his way under the bed, groping for his cup deliriously until his fingers brushed against the plastic, and almost fell asleep right where he lay. He most certainly would have, were it not for the fire raging in his mouth. Had it always been this impossible just to get a drink of water?
Despite being horrendously uncomfortable crammed under his own bed, Wolf knew that if he attempted to crawl back into bed some other unimaginable disaster would befall him before he got his drink. So in favor of seeking comfort, he sought relief from the now-unbearable fire.
Wolf clamped his lips loosely around the straw and drank like it was his dying wish. The cup was empty in barely two seconds.
Momentarily satiated by the only-slightly uncomfortable sloshy feeling in his stomach, Wolf crawled out from beneath his bed, hoisted himself back up onto his mattress, and slept.
He had been sleeping soundly for perhaps half an hour when some still-functioning crevice of his mind alerted him that something was very, very wrong.
Wolf grudgingly clambered out of the clutches of sleep, his brain fuzzy with exhaustion, and used his keen ears to search his surroundings instead of opening his eyes—if he opened them now, surely he would wake up all the way, and that was the last thing he wanted after such a hellish evening. He could hear his own breath as he inhaled and exhaled steadily, the relaxed beat of his heart, a mourning dove singing her song on the low-hanging eaves of the roof just outside his window, and—what was that? Light snoring? But he was awake, wasn't he, and certainly not snoring-?
With a growl of protest, Wolf turned his head and dragged his eyelids open.
He came face to face with a heavily snoozing Link. Link, drooling on Wolf's pillow, with his face barely an inch from the lupine's, with one arm flung around Wolf's waist.
Wolf's scream was enough to wake the entire household, their neighbors on either side, and probably several residents that lived on the other side of the lake.
"DAMMIT! YOU FUCKING QUEER! I AM NOT YOUR GODDAMNED CUDDLE BUDDY! GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROOM! WHERE'S MY GUN?!"
Marth was the first to pound upstairs to investigate, and rounded the corner into the second floor hallway just in time to see Link bolt past as though he were running for his life. The exiled prince threw one arm out behind him to give those following him pause—Vick, Lucario, Fox, and Kirby all halted suddenly on the stairs—and tiptoed the rest of the way until he could poke his head into Wolf's room.
The lupine was on his feet in the center of the bedroom, bedcovers a tangle around his feet, hands clenched into trembling fists at his sides and teeth gritted so tightly together that his bottom lip was cut and bleeding. Marth almost backed out for fear the mercenary commander would throttle him.
"Er… everything alright?" asked Marth in a timid voice.
Wolf seized the collar of Marth's shirt and slammed him back against the wall, effectively knocking the air from Marth's lungs. Marth was momentarily stunned by Wolf's brute strength, and did his best not to struggle to defend himself—somehow he knew that this bout of rage had nothing to do with him. Wolf glared at him, looking quite deranged.
"I am going to take a shower," panted the lupine in between labored breaths. "If anyone so much as comes within a five foot radius of the shower area, I will autograph their spleen for them. Got it?"
Marth nodded jerkily, his eyes rather wide. Wolf released him almost immediately and stalked out the door, his infuriated footsteps echoing loudly down the hallway; as an afterthought, Marth called out to him. "Hey! Wait just one second!"
The exiled prince shoved past his four startled comrades as he sprinted off down the stairs to the ground floor. The item he sought was sitting on a coaster upon the chest of drawers where he kept his clothes; he seized it immediately and dashed right back out, catching up with Wolf just before the lupine entered the community shower room on the second floor.
He pressed the bar of soap into Wolf's hand before clapping the mercenary commander heartily on the shoulder. In response to Wolf's no-nonsense glare Marth said only, "Trust me—you'll feel better."
Wolf rolled his eyes and slammed the door in Marth's face. Despite the lupine's surly attitude, Marth walked away with a smile.
The majority of the mansion's residents were gathered around the kitchen table when Wolf padded in, wearing only a towel wrapped tightly around his waist. His fur was clumped almost comically in damp patches and he shook like a shaggy dog as he fished a long-necked beer bottle out of the fridge. Instead of exiting right away, as he had intended to, the lupine approached them but stopped with a great deal of distance between himself and them. His eyes swept the table wrathfully; they braced themselves for the inevitable explosion.
"I'm gonna talk," he snarled, taking a swig from the bottle; over his shoulder Link noted the time—7:03 a.m. "You're gonna listen. Then I'm gonna sleep all day. The door will be locked. A gun will be under my pillow. You have been warned."
He glanced first at Vick, who had noticeably dark circles under her eyes. "You might be the kinkiest chick I've ever met, and it's kinda hot, but I'd be careful if I were you."
To Falco: "You should really consider keeping your firearms under lock and key. I could've stolen them in my sleep."
To Sonic: "I don't know what the hell you're into, but you should consider visiting a sleep clinic. What's next? Gonna tell me where the gold is buried?"
To Lucario and Mewtwo, who were sitting very close to one another: "Just how big are we talking here? Should I invest in a video camera and try to market something low budget?"
To Fox: "Watch your back and think carefully. My ears work great. If you so much as breathe a single word that I don't like, I'll rip you in half."
To Link, who cowered away and even threw his arms up over his head to protect himself: "If you ever sleep-hug me again, I'll tear off your arms and cram them down your throat. If you ever drool on me again, I'll strangle you with your own tongue. And if you ever crawl in my bed and try to spoon me again… well, I'll see to it that you're sexually useless for the rest of your life, capiche?"
And finally, to Marth, who was working hard to suppress a laugh: "Thanks for the soap."
Then the lupine turned and stomped off without another word. The others were wise enough to hold their tongues until they heard, very clearly, Wolf's bedroom door slam shut.
Wolf was too tired to notice, as he collapsed into his bed, that the wide-brimmed black hat was gone.