It was a cold night, even by Cornerian standards. Outside in the pitch black of winter, snow and storm howled through the empty streets and between the towering buildings, rattling windows in their frames and making any poor citizen unlucky enough to be caught outside at this hour seriously reconsider their life choices. It had been a brutal winter that made Fichina look reasonable by comparison, and even for all their technology, the weeklong blizzard had left huge swaths of the city snowed in. It was in this cold that Krystal snuggled in closer under her mountain of blankets, deep discontent carved into her cerulean features.
"This is dreadful," the blue vixen groused, voice muffled by pillows. Though she shuffled deeper into the couch cushions, Krystal just couldn't seem to keep the chill out of her bones. "I hate this stupid planet." A low laugh sounded from the kitchen behind her in response. The vixen heard the muted plodding of paws against wood as the deep, musical chuckle's owner returned back to the couch, gingerly sitting down next to her fortress, so gentle that she might not have even noticed him were she not so well attuned to his presence.
"You don't mean that," Fox McCloud said in his low register, leaning forward with a steaming mug, setting it down on the table in front of the blanket pile. He watched as the heap shifted in place, its occupant deciding whether she wanted the hot chocolate her fiancé had made for her more than she wanted to stay in her cocoon. Fox's lips twitched into a grin when he heard a quiet sniff from within. The scent of rich cocoa was heavy in the air, sugary and thick. Fox knew if there was one thing his wife-to-be loved more than she hated the cold… it was sweets.
Just as the tod predicted, it didn't take long for a grumpy, disheveled blue-furred head to emerge from her makeshift lair in a shuff of cotton and wool. Like a snake, a blue arm slithered out from another section of the heap, straining forward until her fingertips were just barely brushing against the handle of her mug, just out of reach. Fox used his toe to scoot it an inch forward, and the vixen's hand instantly snatched around it like fangs into prey. Her brow was still furrowed into a scowl hurled in the vulpine's direction, never faltering even as she brought the cup up to her lips and took a long draught of her cocoa. She wanted to be mad at the tod for the way his smile crinkled in his eyes at her foul mood and intense displeasure, but… her expression softened as the piping hot liquid settled in her stomach, warming her from the inside out. Her eyelids fluttered closed in relief and relaxation, body melting back against the seat. After another long swig of chocolate, she looked back up at the vulpine, disposition significantly improved, gratitude in her ocean blue eyes.
"No," she admitted with a sigh. "I don't. I love it here." Fox knew she was telling the truth. Their minds, so inextricably linked that it was sometimes difficult to tell where he ended and she began, were open books to each other. He knew how difficult it had been for the vixen to make herself vulnerable again. To call a place home again. The vixen was constantly plagued with the suspicion that everything was going to be ripped away from her again. Every time she'd fallen in love with Lylat a little more, it had just been a taller height from which she would inevitably fall. These days, though… Krystal snuck her feet out from under her blankets and wedged them beneath Fox's butt. She gave him a devilish smile as she wiggled them beneath his rump, feeling him up in the least efficient manner possible. These days, things felt a little more permanent. For the both of them.
Refocusing his eyes, Fox found himself leaning into his vixen, drawn towards her like a whirlpool dragging him into the deep. Krystal drifted forward towards him as well, their faces growing closer and closer. Fox could feel the warmth from her drink on her breath as it flitted across his cheeks and nose. The tod wasn't sure when they'd closed the distance, inching together until… His eyes fluttered shut as he pushed forward and brushed his muzzle up against hers. The moment her soft lips touched against his, an electric bolt struck his heart, halting his pulse, forcing a small gasp up from his lungs. Even after all these years, after so many kisses, Krystal still took his breath away. The blue fox shuddered as he pressed up against her harder, sliding his hands behind her back, wrapping himself around her waist and luring the vixen ever closer into himself. She giggled when she tasted the chocolate on his tongue, thinking to herself how sweet her man was in every sense of the word.
In the quiet of the blizzard the two foxes sat in their burning embrace, the soft sound of smacking lips and tiny giggles the only noise that broke the howling silence. In languid comfort the two sat for what felt like hours, days spent exploring the other, making their other half moan and shiver with molding lips and errant tongues. Bliss scrubbed away the stress and panic that stained Fox's soul, purifying sunshine radiating out from Krystal that healed, uplifted, comforted. The tod's fists wrapped up in her t-shirt, a shiver closing his claws into the fabric as it danced down his spine and into his grasping fingers, his curling toes. Fox pushed his muzzle up against hers more needily, pulling her chest up against his, squeezing his eyes as shudders of delight twisted up his stomach and melodic vixen whimpers filled his ears.
Eventually, with pounding hearts and heavy panting, the inseparable pair managed to pull apart, both blinking to try and refocus on a world that wasn't solely the other. It took a moment, but slowly, Fox's gaze sharpened from a blur, bringing the face of the most important person in the world back into view. His heart soared when he saw Krystal's smiling face looking back at him, more adoration than he'd ever received from everyone else in the galaxy combined in her giddy expression. Her deep blue eyes were watery and huge, her lips upturned in a wobbly smile, her hair disheveled from hiding under the covers for so long.
She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Love surged in Fox's heart, strangling out every other emotion in his mind the longer he stared at Krystal, his perfect vixen, wrapping its tendrils around his lungs and catching his breath in his throat. The longer he sat in reverence of her silken fur, her button nose, her unkempt locks, the stronger the feeling of devotion, of warmth grew in his chest until the feeling was so intense he was sure he was going to explode. Krystal broke their staring contest first, blushing like a schoolgirl and giggling like a madwoman under Fox's darling, radiant, burning love. A beaming smile bloomed across the tod's lips as he watched her shy and happy, cracking under the excitement of just being around him.
Fire raged higher and higher in Fox's soul until he just couldn't take it anymore. His heart was going to rip a hole in his chest, his brain combusting under its insatiable need for Krystal. He needed to do something… now. Desperate to vent the pressure bursting in his heart, the vulpine suddenly sprang forward on their couch with a pretend snarl, letting instinct hurl him towards his prey like a starving animal. With lightning speed and dexterity, Fox slipped beneath the dozen blankets covering the vixen. She shrieked with laughter as he burrowed through her domain until he located a splash of perfect blue fur against the covers. Fox dove for it headlong, immediately rewarded with a squealing vixen in his arms as he growled again, wrapping his arms around her like a leech.
"Fox!" Krystal cried out in equal parts delight and surprise, but she would not dissuade her fiancé. Renewing his love's elated laughter, the vulpine began planting kisses, rough and possessive on every inch of her body that he could find — her neck, her cheeks, her collar, her tummy, her arms. If it was blue, it needed a kiss right that moment or else the very world might end. Krystal wiggled and writhed in astonishment at the sudden onslaught, but Fox's steel arms kept her firmly pinned to the covers. The orange fox's smile grew huge and joyous as he showered her in an adoration he could never capture in words, showing the love of his life just how much he cherished every part of her with devout and zealous worship.
Not even their telepathic link was safe from his assault. Like a tidal wave, Fox crashed across their minds' bridge, a wall of honey and fire wrapping the vixen's brain up tight, drowning her every thought in a deluge of vulpine care and emotion. Altogether it was an overwhelming offensive launched by her tod, one she had no hope of and certainly no desire to fend off. Instead, she surrendered body and soul to her orange miracle, drowning and dying and being reborn in his bottomless wellspring of love.
Eventually, after enough kisses for Krystal to lose count five times over, Fox began to slow his blitz. A torrent weakened into a trickle, a kiss planted strategically every few seconds between provocative growls. Each one still earned a squeak out of their recipient, every landing of Fox's lips sending a fresh rush through Krystal's nerves, making her skin tingle and her tail wag madly. She found herself panting along with the tod, giggles and a racing heart straining her more than she realized. After another minute, Fox brought his muzzle up to hers, their hot and humid breaths intermingled in their private world. He set one more kiss right on her nose, the only spot that seemed to have escaped his bombardment until now. It was a whisper brush of his lips against her skin, a ghostly, eternal reminder of his love for her.
Krystal whimpered under the magnificence of the tod and the enormity of his feelings for her. She was the luckiest fox in the entire world. The entire galaxy. She'd bet any amount of money on it, any precious gem or glittering crystal in her collection. She'd bet it all, because it was all dust and dirt compared to the unending worth of Fox's love. Her gaze softened as she tumbled into his eyes, the cold now the farthest thing from her mind as she basked in Fox's soft and singeing flames. Shuffling her hands out from underneath Fox's embrace and the weight of the blankets, Krystal carefully, gingerly placed her fingers on Fox's broad chest, moving so slowly that there was no chance she could burst this fragile, perfect moment. The cutest, most hushed moan escaped her tod's lips at the moment of contact, a vulnerable noise that made the vixen's head swim in glee as she began to take over. She knew it meant Fox felt safe. Happy. Once upon a time, making a noise like that would have been enough to send Fox rushing off out of embarrassment. Now… the vixen spread her fingers out across Fox's broad, ironclad chest, feeling the lines and cords of his toned physique through his thin shirt. Her fiancé leaned into her grabbing palms, ear flicking in want for more. Krystal nuzzled up against his cheek, letting her hands run errant down around his neck, hooking him in closer. The vixen felt him shiver underhand, a clear sign that she was doing good. She knew her fox.
Much more gradually than the brute had launched his preemptive strike, Krystal towed Fox down and down and down, until his head was settled in her lap. He didn't fight her, but his emerald eyes were cloudy with curiosity and blind obedience as he settled down under her watchful gaze. That quizzical expression was rapidly replaced with a lolled out tongue and blissed out eyes rolled up into his skull when Krystal took her dexterous fingers and began to run them through the vulpine's thick mane of hair. Fox whined as she brushed his locks back between his pinned down ears, tugging ever so gently before letting the strands slip back to where they were. The vixen hummed as she worked away, watching the tension bleed out of his brow, his jaw with every stroke of her expert digits. After a minute or two, she snaked one hand down to Fox's cheek ruff, sinking her fingers into his full and fluffy fur coat. She began to scratch and pet, combing through his fur one handful at a time as she groomed the fox in her care.
Krystal couldn't help but bite her lip to stifle a giggle at Fox's goofy, utterly lax expression. So rarely did she get to see this side of him, and it was always magical. At least it was easier to coax out these days, to give him a moment where, truly, he felt safe. No existential threats to their way of life, no megalomaniacal emperors, no villains-of-the-week. No loss. She ran a finger over his closed eye, wiping away the tiniest pool of moisture forming there. The hot tear disappeared quickly into his forest of fur. From the contentment, the vulnerability she could feel in his tired, crawling thoughts, she knew it was a happy tear. There was so much softness buried inside her Foxy. Closing her own eyes, she unfurled the tendrils of her mind out over their bond, floating into the familiar halls in his thoughts. She found that fragile kernel of his unending trust in her, sweet and kind, positively radiant with lapping, playful, cleansing fire. The vixen curled her thoughts around it, wrapping it up in the protective layers of her own devoted thoughts.
"My sweetest Fox…" Krystal murmured, the words falling from her mouth of their own accord, an audible worship to match her mental one. "My handsomest, most thoughtful, most ludicrously hung husband…" Fox's lips twitched upwards in amusement after the second or two it took him to process her words. "My everything." The vixen traced a spiral in his fur, fantasizing about what he was going to look like with her family symbol tattooed on him. "You are so important to me," she breathed, lacing as much meaning into the words as she possibly could. "You've given me everything I could ever want, and so much more." She thought for a moment about the dark years before she'd met him. The loneliness. The isolation. How close she'd been to the edge. Sensing the tinge of storm clouds in her thoughts, it was Fox's turn to reach out across their link, settling his mind close to hers, a perpetual reminder that she'd never be alone again. The memories abated quickly. "Once upon a time, I wanted to die for you," Krystal said, seriousness steeling her words. "But now…" she leaned down closer into Fox, lifting him up into her so their muzzles were a breath apart. "I think I'd much rather live for you."
Their second kiss was more desperate than the first, ravenous, two dying survivors clawing for life sustaining water only the other could provide. Their lips pressed together, rough, urgent, a sudden crush that left the both of them moaning in grave distress while they bonded together as tightly as they could, not leaving an atom of space between them. Fox's hands flung behind his vixen's head, tangling her hair up in unbreakable fists as he yanked her down into his kiss as hard as he could manage. Krystal did exactly the same, hurling both hands around his lower back and hoisting his entire body up to meet hers. Gasps and whimpers and cries broke the frantic smacking sound of molding lips, painfully loud in the quiet of winter but nowhere near loud enough to sate either of their their need for their partner.
Krystal didn't realize she was crying until she felt a trickle of salty tears fall from her eyes, landing softly on Fox's face. She reached to try to clear them, soon realizing that the tod was crying as well, pools of need and love and sorrow and joy dripping down into the blankets around them. Their minds were a mess. The borders between their thoughts were fragmented, shattered, leaving emotions and addiction to swim freely between both of their minds, belonging to both of them equally. It was a venting of something neither of them had known was welling inside of them, building pressure for weeks, months, years until they just couldn't take it anymore. Though tears fell between them, they were smiling. Bright, beaming smiles in their embrace, sincere and unsteady and powerful. It was in that moment that the two of them finally realized that they didn't have to die for each other.
They could live.
The two foxes reveled in that unthinkable thought for an eon. An entire lifetime, spent with the other. No more danger. No more dying. They could choose to live for each other. It would have seemed so obvious if it wasn't so foreign. What good was a Lylat without the other? A home with the other in the grave? A safe universe alone was hell. They could lay their swords and blasters down for good. Let someone else save the day for a change. Their frenetic kiss continued as the idea sank in. Was Star Fox really more important than their love? Really?
Of course it wasn't.
Fox and Krystal didn't worry about how they were going to break the news to the others. To the public. Their friends would be relieved and Lylat was impossible to satisfy anyway. They didn't worry about the money or the logistics or the business. It would all sort itself out. The only thing that mattered was the other.
It took a long time for the two of them to finally pull apart. It almost felt dangerous to do so, like ending their embrace might pulverize this new direction for their lives together. As they finally, hesitantly separated though, the idea remained. They would live. Krystal's eyes were massive orbs of light in his vision, casting beautiful blue nighttime down into his very soul. He reached up with a shaky hand to wipe away the tears that had made a mess of her face, only to have them land on his face among the mess he'd made of his own. The two laughed, a sobbed, relieved noise shared between them. Fox had never seen Krystal this happy in her entire life. Maybe when they had first confessed their love to each other. Maybe when he had proposed. But the tod had a feeling that this was the most important moment of their lives. Fox reached up and planted one more soft kiss on the side of the vixen's muzzle, earning a giggle out of the blue fox for it.
"There's a problem with what you said, though," Fox said, his voice hoarse. Krystal looked down, cocking her head at him just a bit.
"What's that, love?" she asked curiously.
"I'm not your husband… yet."
He'd expected to earn another light laugh from her lips, the kind that fueled his dreams at night. Instead, Krystal looked from side to side for a minute, thinking. Now it was Fox's turn to peer up at her curiously. Eventually Krystal looked down at him, mischief returning so naturally to her face.
"…We could change that," she said, seriously. "Tonight, I mean." The concept struck Fox like an arrow to the chest. The vixen was right. Why wait? Why wait to start the rest of their lives together? Fox's heart began to race at the idea, of Krystal actually being his wife, not just his wife-to-be. They could go to the courthouse. Do it tonight. It was still open, probably.
"What about the wedding?" Fox asked, pretty sure the two of them had already made up their minds anyway.
"I don't want to wait for some ceremony a million weeks off," she stated, firm in her conviction. "I want you. Now." Fox shuddered with delight at her words. His smile was toothy and sideways, so huge that it could stretch across the room. In a flurry of color and cloth, the couple tossed the covers off of themselves, revealing the apartment still standing around them, unchanged, if a little darker. Both of their eyes flicked immediately towards the window, with snow and wind hurtling past. Fox looked at the vixen skeptically.
"Are you sure? I thought you hated the cold."
Krystal shook her head. She pounced on him this time, shoving her lips rough up against his. When she pulled back, the vixen told him a few last words before they would haphazardly throw their coats on and hurry out the door.
"You've always kept me safe and warm, love. Tonight is no different."
/
A/N: I'm not dead! I just haven't been posting on FF very much lately. I'm much more active over on my AO3 account. It's under the same name as this one. Fair warning though, it's mostly 18+ stuff! Hope you like this one. Only a little late for Valentines...