Chapter Text
“S-Selene?” Wolf picks himself up and dusts himself off. He walks up to the door while Barry and Simon hide behind him. She makes an uncomfortable frown as she pulls out a pen. “You need to trim up and clean your Poarch and backyard, and everything else should be fine.” She takes a step back while staring at Wolf, then she composes herself and walks off. Fox closes the door. “Wolf, how do you know that lovely lady?” Wolf stares at the door. Simon and Barry stare at him, then at each other, and back away. “We’ll be outside again,” Simon yells as they leave through the back door. Wolf doesn’t reply, and Fox comes to his aid.
Barry and Simon look over their gate and see Lucy pacing with her little notebook. “Hi again, Lucy! What are you working on?” Barry says, trying to peek at what she's writing. Lucy comes up to the gate. “I don’t know what to make for the party tonight ! Was I thinking about making macarons? Or should I make pasta? Or a cake! Oh, I want to make something to impress all of our new neighbors... and the ones I embarrassed.” She goes back to pacing. Barry and Simon jump over the fence. “If you need it, we can help.” Lucy stops and smiles at Barry. “Really! alrighty, come inside.”
They run inside and find Terrapin at the table, where he’s making some form of pudding. “Oh, hello, kids? Do you need something?” Terrapin puts the last banana slice on the pudding. “We wanted to use the kitchen so we can make our dishes for the party,” Lucy starts taking out pans while Simon and Barry look in the fridge. “Alrighty, I need to get home before that H.O.A. lady comes knocking on my house.” Terrapin puts foil on top of his pudding and runs out the back door.
The slamming door shook the house enough to make the attic hood come crashing down. “When did we get attics?” Barry looks up the chute. “Do you think that my dad has put things in there?” Lucy slowly starts to climb up and look around. A few chests and boxes are covered in dust. “There is!” She starts to look around while Barry peeks in. “Did you find anything?” Lucy opens the boxes and finds nothing but a few photos, documents, letters, and a purse. It was white with a golden strap. “Barry, come look at this! It must have been my mom’s!” Lucy picked up all the other stuff and put it in her purse. “Wait, I’ll be right back.” Lucy threw the purse into her closet and then walked back. The boys helped set the ladder back as if it was never opened.
Next door, Wolf is absolutely freaking out while walking circles around the couch. “Fox, do you know how terrible this is?” Fox nods his head dismissively as he pours himself some wine. Wolf walks faster. “What do I say to her? I haven’t seen her in 6 years, and neither have the boys! I- I-.” Fox stands up from the couch, puts his wine down, and holds his shoulders in place. “Your concern is warranted; however, you are overly stressing yourself. You guys got divorced a long time ago. I vow that all she's going to do is show off how splendid her life is to spite you. You're behaving as if she's going to butcher you.”
Fox sits back down and takes a sip of his wine. “I mean, what could you have possibly done to drive her to divorce you? Maybe your adequate stupidity,” he chuckles to himself as Wolf's ears point up and turn downwards and looks at Fox, “She found me with another man…” Fox’s eyes widen as he spits out his wine. “Look, I wasn’t happy with our marriage. I decided to experiment a little bit.” Fox stares at him with his mouth open. “Dear God, Wolf, she is going to eradicate you. Although I was right, it was because you’re an idiot”
Later that afternoon, after the kids finished baking, they decided to go back to their spot. “We did good work today, guys; now let's go back to the tree house and finish up our game!” As they ran through the forest, Lucy tripped, but the boys kept going. “Wait up!” She shouted and looked back at what she had tripped on. It was caution tape. It surrounded a small area where a tree was blocked off. She stepped back and ran back to the boys.
Eventually reached the tree house; two other kids were observing their hangout. Without looking, Lucy bumped into one of them, sending her to the floor. “Hey! What are you doing here-” She looks up and sees the wolf girl that she called out in the morning. In fear, Lucy starts scooting back. “I- I’m so sorry for embarrassing you; please don’t hurt me. I promise to leave you alone!” Lucy covers her face in fear, expecting the worst; instead, the other girl helps her up. “Hurt you? Why would I do that?” Lucy stares at her. “Because I said those awful things to you.” Lucy takes a step back and rubs her elbow while looking at the ground. “Forget about it; let's start over. My name is Riley.” She reaches her hand out. Lucy looks up and shakes her hand. “I’m Lucy.” Then she looks around. “Where did the boys go?”
Suddenly, Simon takes out a foam sword as Milo, the fox boy, pulls Riley up the tree house. He stares down at Lucy and shouts at her, “If you ever want to see the princesses again, you’ll need to fight us!” Barry squints at Riley. “I’m the pink princess-you can be the purple one.” Simon and Milo jump down, almost missing his landing. Lucy picks up another foam sword at her. “It's not like you’ll win against two!” Simon starts by running straight towards Lucy without warning, yet she dodges. Then Milo strikes; she falls back, and before he can hit Lucy, a water balloon knocks the sword out of her hand. Lucy looks up to find Riley with a slingshot. She giggles as she says, "We will not let you fight alone!” While Milo is distracted, Lucy can deliver the final blow.
Milo falls to the floor. “Where did you get water balloons from?” he says, fake coughing. Without answering, a ton of water balloons come raining down. “They found the stash!” Simon starts running, yet he’s hit on the back of the head. Milo laughs at him, then a balloon splashes him straight on the face. The princesses come down to help Lucy, hiding behind the tree; they start giggling at their exciting game.
Fox ties a bow around Wolf's neck, “We're going to wipe that smug smile off of your ex’s face, and show that you are now a proud, independent man!” Wolf still looks down. “Isn’t that rude? I don’t want to start a new drama. I want her to forgive me, and maybe she can visit the kids again.” Fox sighs and drops his shoulders. “I guess that is better for the kids, I guess.” Fox rolls his eyes. “Well, still, we need to look presentable for our new neighbors." Fox looks down at himself still in sweatpants. “I need a bit of pampering myself? You go get the boys.”
When Fox leaves for the bathroom, Wolf goes to his closet and takes out a box. It’s filled with old family photos. They remind Wolf of everything that he lost. He takes out a ring that has Selene's initials engraved inside. It was meant that they would have each other no matter how far apart. Although Wolf fell out of love with Selene romantically, he still loved her as a person, nevertheless. He presses the ring to his lips, closing his eyes as he composes himself.
“This was so much fun!” Milo jumps around. “Will you guys also be attending the party? We can meet up there!” Riley looks over at Lucy. “Yeah, we’ll be alright. Barry, Simon, and I baked pies right before strolling here. Actually, talking about the potluck, it should be starting soon; we should really be getting home.” The sun slowly sets as they walk through the woods. Once they get to the neighborhood, they find people setting up for the potluck. They cross the road over to their home. “See you guys soon, and don’t be late.” Lucy waves and walks into her house as the boys enter theirs.
Entering, Simon and Barry were met by Wolf, who grabbed them by their collars. “Wow, Dad, you’re wearing a button-up,” Barry chuckles, and Simon adds, “That’s the fanciest we’ve ever seen you.” Wolf shakes his head and sighs, “Go get ready, and make sure you look presentable." He places them in their room as Fox calls out for Wolf, “Where’s my vest? I told you not to move my stuff!”
Once the sun has completely set, the streetlights turn on, illuminating the road covered with tables and chairs. Guests start arriving in their Sunday's best as they leave the food they prepared. Lucy, Barry, and Simon lay down their pies and run off. While Wolf, Fox, Terrapin, and Rabbit take a table, the kids go running off to place their pies. “Would it have killed you to wear something nicer, Rabbit?” Fox grumbles at Rabbit's T-shirt and jeans. “No thank you. Once I get home, I’m hitting the hay,” Rabbit remarks as he stands up. “Let's hurry up and go get food- I’m starving.”
Rabbit walks over while the other 3 tag along. The tables are filled with typical foods. Whereas the one next to it was food they had never seen before. “What in the world is this? Is this some Kind of joke?” Rabbit looks weirded out by the dishes in front of him. A bowl filled with stuffed beige paper. “Well, we don't know if it's bad if we haven’t tried it.”
Wolf picks up one, but before he can take a bite, a Ram comes up to him. “Wait! You must take off the shell’ He takes off the corn husk and gives it back to him. Wolf is a little shocked when he takes a bite and finds the dough and meat inside. “This is wonderful. Did you make these? What meat did you use?” Wolf grabs more for his plate. The sheep chuckles. “That isn’t meat? It’s a fruit!” Wolf stops and stares at him. “I use jackfruit, so herbivores, like me, can enjoy these dishes.
“Im Ace, and this is my husband, Kingsly. By the way, we're your front door neighbour.” He shakes all of their hands firmly. Kingsly speaks up, “I hope you don't mind us barging in? Trying to talk to all of the new neighbours.” Rabbit, Fox, and Terapin awkwardly give them a smile and start to back away slowly. “Wait! Is that the Raven Lauren?” Rabbit and terrapin have already made it back to the table. Before Fox could leave, Kingsly points out Fox’s vest. “Yes, it is… It's from their latest drop.” Fox looks Kingsly up and down. “Are thoes shoes John Lobbster? They haven't made a style like that in years. Very impressive.” They start a conversation while Ace approaches Wolf. “I’ve heard you have a bike? One day could I come over and look at it?” Wolf’s eyes lightened up. Finally he found some one to talk too other than Fox.
Noticing everyone else had a talking partner, Selene was feeling nervous, watching as everyone started to pour in. To relieve herself, she decided to talk to a neighbour. Luckily, Dave had just sat down, hyping herself up; she decided to introduce herself. “Hello neighbour, your name is Dave, right? Did you bring anything to share?” Dave didn't respond. His face didn’t sit right. His eyes were sunken as he stared at her. As he tilted his head, his nose became off-center; his mouth was slightly open but didn’t close completely. ” Well, hope you have fun, goodbye.” She hurriedly stated before walking away.
Milo waved them over. “Hey guys!” he had a big grin as he waved around his red cup. “Are you guys having fun? Have y'all tried our dads' Tamales and Brigadeiros?” Milo jumped around, spilling a bit of his drink. They looked confused but followed Milo over to where his sister was enjoying their pie. “This is wonderful. I’m proud to say im a fan.” She continued to dig but noticed something. “Hey, where's Barry?”
Before they could start looking, the atmosphere was disrupted by the sound of tapping glass. “Welcome all of the old and new residents.” Selene was standing on a wooden box. She was in a form-fitting red dress. “Thank you to everyone who showed up, and an extra thank you to the ones who were kind enough to bring food to share.” She stepped down and bumped into Barry. The crowd continued to watch, including Wolf, who almost got out of his seat. Barry looked up at her; he hadn’t seen her in years.
He looked down and started to walk away slowly. Wolf finally got up; by that time, Simon was next to him. Before they could get to Barry's aid, Selene grabbed his arm and brought him back to look at her. Selene knelt slowly and stared into his eyes. They were in the same shape as hers. He started to shake; what else could he do? He never truly got over her. Slowly moving her hand up to gently caress his cheek, “My Barrytart,” her kind whisper made his ear perk up. He then closed the gap and hugged her tight. She was shocked for a moment, then picked him up and swung him around.
Everyone cheered as the DJ started to blast. Simon ran up and hugged her as well. All of them were crying in a huddle. They had been reunited after 6 years. “My sweet boys, oh how I've missed you. I've written many letters to you, but I would have never known you had moved all the way out here. She kisses both of their heads. “I promise we can make up all the time we missed”
Lucy watches them with a grin, but then she watches as her dad looks into his hand. He brings out the locket with her mother on it. im sorry He stared at it longingly, then he closed it with shaky hands. She looks ahead and finds Dave looking at him as well, then they both make eye contact. Lucy tries to look away, but Dave keeps staring.
Wolf stared at them, getting along. Selene looks up at him; she reaches out her hand to him. He steps back to look her in the eyes, then away out of regret. Fox pushes his way in front of Wolf, “Well, I’m not going to let her stand there.” He pulls her aside to dance. “You’re the Miss Selene I’ve heard nothing about? It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance!” He spins her around; she chuckles and responds, “You were the fox at their house; how do you know Mr. Wolf?” Fox holds up his hand to reveal his ring. “Why, we're partners in crime.” She smiles and rolls his eyes, “I’m surprised anyone else could stand him.” They both laugh.
Wolf watches them. He tries to force himself to join, but he can't move forward, so he steps back. He runs back into his home. He falls to the floor, freaking out. Why can’t he forgive himself? His body jolts with guilt. He never confronted her about all of the terrible things he did to her. Was he truly an awful dad for letting his heart get the better of him? Then the door slowly opens.
Selene slowly approaches Wolf. She tries to look him in the eyes, but he looks away. “Wolf, I want to forget the past. I've let go of whatever resentment I had for you.” He steps away from her. “Our marriage was forced upon us; you were still discovering yourself and I-” Before she could speak, he started yelling. “GO AWAY.” Selene was taken aback. She had never seen Wolf act like this, so she slowly retreated. Leaving Wolf in the dark.
Selene sits down and covers her head. She looks up and finds Lucy sitting in front of her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to take your spot.” Before Selene could get up, a newspaper floats onto their table. They both take notice and skim through the first article. Then stop to look at each other. The first image is of a crime scene and a photo of Dave. He was murdered yesterday. Together, they ran to where he was sitting. They discover wool leading into the forest.
After the party ended, someone stayed behind for another meal. They slowly carved themselves a serving of tender lamb and chewed it with sharp, deliberate bites. The room was silent except for the scrape of cutlery against the plate. When they finished, they stared ahead without moving. Suddenly, they grabbed a fork and hurled it across the room. It pierced a photograph of Rabbit. Dozens of photographs of every other member of the neighborhood covered the walls.
“Rabbit meat was always her favorite.”