The Good Life

AN: *sigh* RIP consistent update schedule, thou shalt be missed.

On a serious note, though, I had to skip a week of uploads because I had family from out of state visiting and didn't have the time to get these done. And I was busier this weekend than I expected, so I was going to finish them up yesterday, but I wasn't feeling good and didn't. I'm also going on a trip for a week, so I won't be able to post on the weekend after Easter, either. My solution to this is to post a chapter for all four of my concurrent fics on Easter. After my trip, things should be back to normal.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Bad Guys or Zootopia.

Chapter Seven:

"Whaddaya mean you're stayin'!?" Wolf sighed, having expected such a reaction from Snake. The reptile was understandably angry, and one only had to see his expression or hear his raised voice to figure that out. A short flashback of them standing on a beach after escaping prison sprung to mind, but Wolf quickly vanquished such thoughts. This time wouldn't be nearly as bad...probably. "First ya don't even want ta come here, and now ya don't want ta leave! I'm getting' mixed signals here, Wolf!"

"I know...but do you at least understand why?" He'd already told Snake what he'd told Diane over the phone, about how he was better off here since he had a job and stable income. Whether Snake heard it or it just went in one ear and out the other in favor of yelling at Wolf for his latest decision, he couldn't say.

"Yeah, I understand why..." Oh, good. At least that's that question answered. "What I'm havin' trouble with is when! When exactly did you decide to stay here because I know that's not the kind of decision you'd make on the fly!"

Well, he had him there. "I've been toying with the idea for two, three weeks now. Today just...sold me on it." In all honesty, he still didn't like the idea of staying here. It was only a matter of time before someone who knew him from before ended up confronting him, whether they be friend or foe. No matter his personal feelings on staying, however, he knew it was best for his friends. They could chase their dreams, and he could provide them with the money to do that. "I know LA's your home, so—"

"Ya ain't sendin' me away that easily, Wolf," Snake interrupted him, taking Wolf by surprise. "I may be from LA, but it only became home once I met you and the rest of the gang." He looked away with a small frown. "Ahh...that sounded cheesy, didn't it? What I'm tryin' ta say here is..." He sighed, his anger completely gone. "Home's wherever you are, Wolf. We're partners, remember?"

Wolf gave the serpent a genuine smile, once again reminded that he had the greatest friends in the world. "Never thought I'd hear something so sweet coming from you, Snake." The reptile just scoffed and looked away, trying and failing to act like his normal, tough self. "That means a lot, buddy...thank you."

"Ah, don't mention it. I—heheh..." Snake chuckled a bit when Wolf gave him a hug, and he started patting the canine's back with his tail for reassurance. "You've always looked out for us, Wolf, but I already promised that I'd watch out for ya while we're here. So if you're stayin', I am." And if all that hadn't been enough to bring a happy smile to Wolf's face and a wag to his tail, what Snake said next definitely was. "Love ya, buddy."

Snake didn't say that a lot. In fact, Wolf could count on one hand how many times Snake had said that to him, and all of them had been just in the past year or so. Before Marmalade, Snake never would have admitted that, but now he was slowly opening up and mellowing out. Still, every time Snake told Wolf that, it was special. Special enough to choke Wolf up a bit and make him hug his friend even tighter for a moment before pulling away with a genuine smile. "Love you, too, Snake." Then, he held up a fist. "Stick together?"

Snake grinned and gave Wolf's fist a headbutt. "Always." Their old motto of 'go bad or go home' didn't really fit anymore, and they hadn't come up with a new one yet. Then again, that little exchange they just did seemed good enough to Wolf. Maybe that would be their new motto. "That our new thing?" Snake asked, as if he had just read Wolf's mind.

"Yeah...yeah, I think so." Snake nodded, and things started cooling down from then on out. Wolf went ahead to bed not long after their conversation. It was nearing midnight, and Wolf still had to work tomorrow. Snake stayed up longer, but Wolf let him do his own thing. As long as the tv wasn't loud enough to wake him, Wolf didn't care.

The next day started out normal enough. Snake was still asleep on the couch and snoring up a storm when Wolf left for work. Speaking of which, there was a surprise waiting for him when he arrived at Viktor's garage that morning. The small side lot where Viktor's old wrecker always sat was basically for employee parking. Normally, the only vehicles there were Viktor's wrecker, his personal truck, and one or two project cars. Today, however, there was a new vehicle here that Wolf didn't recognize.

It was a baby blue pickup, but it was a lot smaller than his car, which meant it belonged to a smaller animal. On the side, the faded words 'Hopps Family Farm' were barely visible. "What the heck is a farm truck doing here?" he wondered aloud. Viktor's garage didn't tailor to smaller vehicles, so it wasn't here to be repaired. And Hopps? As in Judy Hopps the bunny cop? Was she here? Or was this some other member of her family?

He didn't really care if the bunny cop herself was here. He'd committed no crimes and had a presidential pardon. Even if she'd heard of him and had some grudge against him like Chief Luggins had, she couldn't do anything about it.

Stepping out of his car with a soft 'huh...' as he studied the empty truck for a moment longer, Wolf eventually shut the door and locked his car. As he walked into the garage itself, there was no one in sight, but he heard voices coming from the office. The door was cracked open, but if Viktor was talking to someone, it wasn't any of his business.

The clock-in device was just a whiteboard on the wall. The top half was a chart with days of the week on top and employee names on the left. Each employee's square was halved, the top for clock-in times and the bottom for clock-out times. The bottom half of the whiteboard was a to-do list for the day. After checking his phone, Wolf wrote his arrival time on the board and went to grab his uniform.

As he left the back room and passed by the office, he heard a distinctly feminine voice ask, "And you're sure he won't be too underfoot here?"

Viktor's response? "No more than you do at the police department, I'm sure." There was a round of chuckles following that, but at least Wolf's earlier question was answered. Officer Hopps was here, and it sounded like she was asking about a job for someone else. A brother, maybe?

It still wasn't any of his business. Item one on today's agenda was finishing up a job he'd started last Friday but didn't quite finish. A one-ton truck came in that day, and it was originally supposed to just be an alignment job, but Wolf noticed that the front suspension was shot on one side, which is why the truck was pulling so bad. At that point, the relatively simple hour-long job became a lot more complicated. The owner had wanted to replace the one originally, but Wolf persuaded the guy to have both front springs replaced. The other one looked a few bad bumps away from breaking, too, so there'd be no point in fixing the one and doing an alignment if he'd be back in a few weeks to have the other replaced.

He'd finished the right side on Friday, so today's first job was doing the left side and then doing an alignment. At the very least, he already had the tools he needed gathered, so that saved some time.

As he got to work, Metallica playing on the radio for some background noise, Wolf paid no mind to any outside distractions. Once he started on a job, he had what Diane called 'laser focus'. He wasn't going to stop until he was done with his task or he needed to take a break for food, sleep, or some other reason.

It was several minutes later when he heard Viktor calling for him. "Wolf! Come here! Meet your new coworker!"

"Just a sec!" he called back. He was just about to get another bolt off, and once it was placed to the side where it wouldn't fall, Wolf grabbed a nearby, mostly clean, shop rag and started wiping his hands as he came around from the other side of the truck.

Three mammals stood near Viktor. Two were rabbits, one male and one female. The female was obviously Judy Hopps, though she didn't currently have a police uniform on. Based on her appraising look, as if determining whether he was a threat, and what he overheard earlier, there was no doubt of her identity. The other rabbit shared a similar fur color, though his eyes were brown instead of purple. Based on their similar appearances, Wolf figured his earlier guess was right and this probably was her brother.

The third mammal, however, made Wolf pause. His friendly, charismatic smile disappeared when he recognized who it was, and he blinked in genuine surprise, a hint of nervousness entering his expression. The fox, likewise, instantly recognized Wolf if the glare and carefully guarded expression was any indication. Wolf knew the fox was Judy's partner in the police, so the possibility he'd be here on what was clearly her day off hadn't even entered his mind.

The awkward pause had Viktor looking between the two canines in confusion. Always one for making friends, or so he'd heard, Judy spoke first, not even glancing at her partner. "Hi! I'm—"

Tearing his eyes away from the fox, Wolf interrupted with his signature charismatic grin. "Judy Hopps. Your reputation precedes you...and I gathered as much from the truck parked outside and how you were just Sherlock Holmes-ing me a second ago."

The other rabbit snickered as Judy studied him again with a faint smile. "Okay, smart guy. Then, who's this?" She ruffled the other rabbit's ears, making him swat at her hands and step away.

"I'm guessing brother," Wolf responded, still ignoring the fox's glare.

"Oh, you're good," she nodded in approval. "This is my brother, Jaime. He's going to be working here now."

"Not anymore, he isn't," the fox intervened, catching all of them off guard.

"Wha...Nick? What're you talking about?" It seemed that she was finally catching on to the air of hostility surrounding the fox. "Do you know him or something?"

"Unfortunately," he nodded.

"Unfortunately?" Wolf parroted. "You wound me, Nick. You truly do." In a bid to make things a bit lighter, he tried to act like nothing was wrong, even going so far as to cross his arms and lean against the rack's steel post nonchalantly. It was too bad, then, that Nick knew him better than that. "Where's the love for your old friend?"

"I don't know. Maybe the jail cell you left me to rot in for six months," was the rather venomous reply. Wolf frowned and looked away, knowing there really wasn't much to say to that.

Judy studied the two canines for a moment before turning to the bear. "Mr. Ursun, would you be so kind as to show my brother around. I need to talk with my partner and his...friend here."

The bear glanced between Wolf and Nick before nodding to Judy. "We shall start on the other side of the building, I think." As Viktor lumbered away, Jaime followed behind after a few seconds, sending his sister a worried glance as he left.

She gave her brother a reassuring smile until he turned away, and then she frowned and turned to Nick. "Alright, explain. Who is he?"

Nick sighed, but Wolf just glanced down at his claws as he wiped them on his uniform, making sure to appear as unperturbed as possible. Inside, however, his thoughts were whirling. Just last night he'd been thinking about this sort of scenario. He'd been dreading running into someone who recognized him, and lo and behold, Nick Wilde of all mammals shows up at his work the next morning. "He was my partner before Finnick."

Judy just crossed her arms expectantly. "And?"

"I...wasn't just a popsicle hustler back then. Well, I was, but...Wolf here tried to convince me to go big time, and when I refused, the cops just so happened to arrive during our next little heist." Wolf actually growled at the insinuation.

"Hey, I already told you I had nothing to do with that. Things...happened, and the cops were looking for me. I panicked, alright. I didn't mean to leave you behind, but I couldn't stay in the city after...never mind after what." Nick scoffed, clearly not buying it.

"So you're a criminal," Judy accused him, making Wolf's ears lay flat against his head.

"You ever hear of the Bad Guys?" He saw recognition enter her eyes. "Yeah, that was my gang. But I did my time, and I got pardoned. I'm not a criminal anymore."

"You got a year in minimum security and a slap on the wrist!" Nick snapped. "And that's because you got friendly with the governor of California. Not much of a punishment if you ask me."

"You been keeping tabs on me, Wilde?" Wolf shot back, making the fox grind his teeth in anger. Wolf just scoffed and went around the truck to start working again. "And I don't particularly care what you think of me anymore. You moved on. I moved on. No sense wallowing in the past. You don't like me? Fine. You know where I work now, so just stay the hell away, and we'll be just fine." And then, as an afterthought, "And Hopps? I've got no problem with you or your brother. As long as you keep that fox away from me, I'm sure we'll all become fast friends."

There was a long silence, but Wolf had already moved on and gotten back into his work. "Jaime!" he heard Hopps call. "Come on, we're leaving. We'll find you somewhere else to work." Wolf just growled to himself at hearing that. Leave it to Nick Wilde to ruin his life again.

"But this place is awesome, Judy! I want to work here! I'm not going to leave just because your fox boyfriend says so." Wolf broke out into unrestrained laughter at that.

He turned to see both the rabbit and fox glaring at him. "You and her?" He pointed between the two before laughing again. "Oh, that's too funny! Nick Wilde ended up dating a rabbit!" He hadn't smelled any scent marks on either of them, so he wondered how many people actually knew about their relationship. He doubted it was public knowledge since he'd heard nothing about it in the news.

"Why don't you mind your damn business, Mason!" Wolf froze, the wrench he'd been using falling from his hand. He blinked twice before the name registered, and then a rage unlike any Wolf had felt in a long time began to bubble up to the surface. He turned with a growl, bearing his teeth threateningly as his glare locked onto the fox. Nick's expression went from smug to regretful in the blink of an eye, knowing he'd just crossed a line that never should have been. "I-I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought that up."

Wolf didn't care for the apology. To anyone who didn't know Wolf's past, they wouldn't understand the significance of that name. To those who did, and there were precious few of those, it was such a sensitive subject that anyone who broached it in his presence usually ended up in the hospital. That had happened once, and no one had brought it up again in the years leading to him leaving Zootopia.

The fact Nick was a cop didn't even register when he was seeing red. He took a single step towards them, uncaring of how the fox stepped back or how Officer Hops stepped between him and her partner. And then, "WOLF!" His gaze snapped to the bear, who was rapidly approaching him. Viktor put a paw on his shoulder and looked him in the eye. "I may not know what just happened, but I know exactly what will happen if you do what I think you are about to." Viktor turned to the two smaller mammals. "You two should leave before I file a harassment report! Keep away from my employee!"

"Come on, Nick," Judy gestured for the fox to take the lead. "And Jaime, you call me if something happens."

"Nothing is going to happen! Now scram! We have work to do!" Judy glared at the bear but left without a word. Once they were gone, Viktor snorted and turned to Wolf. "As for you..." Viktor studied him for a moment before gently pushing him towards the Ferrari. "Work on your car for an hour. Clear your head. I'll finish this."

"Thanks..." Wolf muttered quietly, walking away. Rather than get to work, Wolf just sat in the car, shut the door, laid his head on the dash, and cried. Not because of Nick or how his old friend seemed to hate him now. No, he couldn't care less about what the fox thought of him. Rather, he cried because of what he'd been about to do. He would've attacked Nick, a police officer, if Viktor hadn't stopped him. That would've been his life over.

But mostly, he cried because of the memories that name dredged up. Memories of his parents and the darkest night of his life. Memories of the night he saw them die...and the sound of the gunshots that killed them.

AN: A new piece to the puzzle emerges. Wolf's parents were murdered, but by whom? And why exactly was he so upset at Nick calling him 'Mason'? Answers will come in time, obviously.

But Nick and Judy have finally arrived! Neither of them had the greatest first impressions, but they'll be back...eventually. Sooner than you think, perhaps?

Until Next Time

AdmiralCole22