Chapter Seventy-Eight
Drawing Breath
A small smile was upon the fox's muzzle, as Chief Bogo wandered back into his living room — the front door swinging closed behind him and the lock clicking automatically into place. The buffalo paced round the side of the sofa and looked down with concern to the fox, having been weary as to his mood upon his return. "Wilde?" he said, cautiously.
It took the fox a moment to register Bogo'd spoken, but when he did, his gaze shifted upwards towards the Chief, his smile growing a twitch more, as he held his phone a little closer to himself. "Adorable, ain't she?" Bogo stepped closer, leaning down towards the fox's height, as Nick opened his phone out towards him, turning it and showing him the photo of the two of them, of Hopps and Wilde. The fox was stood with a light smirk on his muzzle, and the rabbit with a bashful little smile as she was held, her feet dangling in the air, by the scruff of her collar by Nick.
"Such a wonderful day," he said, distantly. "Carrots... she was just out of hospital with her injured ankle. We took a walk down to the park together. There was a fare on at the time. We did a couple of rides, tried out a few parlor games… Then on the way out, she told me to head into a little photo booth. Every time the photo was about to go off, she'd leap in." He chuckled, warmly. "Until I grabbed her and just held her up off the ground, that is. Weren't a lot she could do after that."
The Chief looked on with partial interest. He was more concerned about the fox's mental condition and the prospect of getting to bed, sometime that week, than to really care about the romantic antics of a year ago. When he saw Nick's eyes glaze over, and his muzzle beginning to open out into a yawn, he saw the opportunity he'd be waiting for and took it.
"Time for bed now, Wilde. It's been a long day. We both need our rest." Turning up towards him with a raised brow, the fox dropped his phone down on the settee, pushing himself off the large piece of furniture, with his legs swinging down towards the floor.
Checking the fox was following, the Chief paced to a door and swung it open. The bedroom inside was a simple one, with a single bed and dull wallpaper. It wasn't unpleasant or cheap-looking, but decorated only sparsely and simply, with nothing over-embellished or unnecessary. Nick walked in quietly, his mind and body focused on the bed and the suggestion of sleep. He came to the edge of the piece of furniture, which towered above him, raised his paws and made to clamber up the side.
His strength failing, he began to slip down, but then a firm weight gripped him by the scruff of his collar and, just as Nick had done to Judy those many months ago, the buffalo raised the fox off the ground, his limbs dangling as he slowly swung around, hanging from his shirt. "What next," Nick said, his joking tones turned to a mutter by fatigue, and his grin fading to the point of being almost invisible, "get a pair of pawcuffs and chain me up to the bed?"
Bogo grunted and dropped the fox down onto the sheets. "Night, Wilde," he said, turning swiftly and pacing from the room. He paused in the doorway, and turned back to the fox, as Nick adjusted his posture on the top of the oversized bed. "Get some sleep, Nick. I'll be in just the other room if you need me. I'll keep the door open. I'll hear you if you call out."
Nick nodded, the only part of his body showing definition, in the dark blurriness of the room, being the glint of his emerald eyes that reflected off the living room light.
His face impassive, Bogo pulled the door almost closed.
...
Beneath the cold and concrete earth, below the ice and snow and the gray light of the moon, an onager — a donkey — whistled to himself tunelessly, as he dabbed around the last of the bullet holes to be cleared with an antiseptic cloth; with a scalpel, needle and thread; tweezers and other assorted medical tools awaiting close by. Taking back the bloodied wipe, he shuffled slowly sideways to drop it into a bin, shuffling in a turn towards the table to pick up the tweezers and then turning back to the wolf once again — his movements slowed by the thick garments wrapped tight around him.
"Such a state you put yourself in," he said quietly as he leaned towards the wound. "I guess that's what Boss keep you around for." Probing at the wound cautiously, the onager inserted the stainless steel tweezers inside the puncture in the wolf's body. "Hm, wound seems shallow for normal bullet hole. Wonder why its so not deep…"
Pulling gently, the piece of metal inside Wulf's chest came loose, and Slvelt looked closely at the bullet — flatter-headed and wider than most bullets he had seen, but not that he was an expert on munitions or anything. The onager held the strange bullet carefully in his tweezers, as he moved to a microscope at the side of the room. Pausing for a moment, he held the small object up to the light. An impatient beeping rang out through the small room, the orient donkey jolting at the sudden sound. The bullet pinged from the tweezers, as he looked around at the noise, and swore in a foreign tongue when he looked back, glimpsing at the bullet as it rolled at speed beneath a crack below the cabinet.
The phone continued ringing. The onager picked up the device, and the impatient beeping abated. Clearing his throat, he put the receiver against his ear and held it to his head with his shoulder, pacing back to the white wolf, who turned towards him with a raised ear, as he listened for what voice would come from the other end.
"Hello?" Slvelt said, picking up his tools and setting back to work on the un-anesthetized mammal. The room wasn't clean, and the tools weren't sterile. It was a messy and unorthodox version of what would usually be a place of sterile condition, with a team of people keeping careful watch of every move made. This room would've gotten him kicked out of any professional hospital. But yet, there was expertise in his fingers and a strange, clumsy perfection in his work.
He continued fixing up the wolf's body — in his disconcerting, body-snatcher-esque way, even as he spoke on the phone. "Yes-yes, Wulfey is in quite the good health. A few bullet holes, some little cuts, but nothing too bad. His jaw is broken though. Going to take some time before his nice teeth are biting down on rabbit neck again."
"I would not be at all surprised, Mister Slvelt, if the wolf's services will cease to be required."
"Ooh, Boss unhappy with Wulfey again is He? Let me speak with Him. I make Him see weason."
"My Master is... unavailable at this time. I will do that which I can to see him fully seized by the need to have Wulf's resources available. But I fear this failure may be enough for Him to see his 'dubious opinion' on the wolf as justifiable."
"Buh-buw, my life's work is—!"
"I contacted you only to ensure the wolf's arrival, Mister Slvelt. I have many duties to attend to. Especially in the wake of my Master's 'reduced capacity' to run the city. And I have not the time to—"
"He ill?"
"In a sense, yes. Now, if you will excuse me, I really must be getting on."
"Okhay. Goodbye Appleby."
"Slvelt."
With a click, the line went dead. The onager put the phone back on the table and turned up to meet the wolf's pale voids. "Oh, Wulfey," he said, quietly, "whatever Boss do to you, you'll always be my little pup." Taking up a small splint and some pieces of string, Slvelt moved closer to Wulf's head, reaching out towards his dangling jaw and preparing to set it back in place. "Now keep still. This won't hurt at all. Not for one like you, at least."
The work went on for a long time still. The snow began falling outside, and the electric heater in the corner of the room buzzed on — the amount of heat it put out negligible when compared with the icy cold that surrounded it. Even left on full power all day and all night, it produced only just enough warmth to keep itself working.
And under a cabinet, forgotten, stuck within the thin slither of darkness it had rolled under, between the concrete floor and the piece of small furniture, the small, strange bullet — the device launched by Judy into the wolf from Jack's tracking-device launcher — remained silent and motionless on the floor. Silent, motionless... yet all the while sending out a signal to only those who were looking for it, to those only who could see and hear.
...
Sir Appleby set the bakelite down on the stand, his paw resting on the phone a few moments longer as he thought. He lifted the receiver again and extended a delicate finger to the turnstile dial, and began to enter a number.
"Royston, are you receiving me? Put me through to the embassies. Our Master requires a meeting of the Heads. Our plans require revising; it is of the utmost importance we use this lull in activity to formulate the most efficacious retaliation formulatable."
...
The face of Chief Bogo appeared silently from around the door — the Chief peering in on the fox, who lain motionless and peaceful upon the bed, the sheets already twisted and matted about him. It wasn't a deep sleep, it appeared, but it was sleep, nonetheless. Grunting, the buffalo turned and paced into his office and settled down into the wide, re-enforced office chair that faced a tall, solid and wooden desk. Grunting, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the recording he had taken from the interview room earlier, reaching for the player and loading the recording inside.
He fiddled with the boxy computer for a few moments; then the image of a fox sat upon a table flicked into view. A few moments of silence passed, and the Chief rested his back, with his paw hovering over the volume control. The video showed the door opening and swinging in, the figure of Nick Wilde slipping inside, glancing over his shoulder and pulling the door closed.
Bogo started slowly increasing the volume, as the two foxes spoke, his fingers tapping lightly on the tabletop impatiently. Listening carefully to the words exchanged between them, his brow furrowed, his jaw clenched and the soft tapping of his hoofs faltered to a stop.
Author's notes:
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Grooms decision thus chosen blind.
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