Chapter Text
Gulls shrieked overhead and foamy waves crashed against the breakwater, the sounds of nature nearly loud enough to drown out the noisy chatter of hundreds of people crowding the boardwalk. Some like him watched the vivid colors of the sunset while others wandered idly, either alone or in tight-knit groups, and sought out whatever entertainment there was to find in the oceanside metropolis. It truly was impressive how rapidly Zoness had dug itself out of its literal shithole and built back up since the war, from toxic waste dump to hot tourist magnet in the time it took to blink. While the deepest depths of the ocean were still defiled in some places, there was no sign of it up on the surface where briny water reflected the clear cerulean of the sky, stunning and immaculate, the sort of natural beauty that was timeless and gave the impression of enduring splendor. As if nothing could sully it, not even the gritty touch of civilization.
And Wolf was glad of it. He leaned on the wooden rail and gazed out at the red sun and the gathering storm on the horizon, breathing deeply of an atmosphere no longer polluted. For once he didn't even want a cigarette because that would spoil the whole experience of being here again. The last time Wolf had come to Zoness, he had only been a child. Just a little pup kicking at the waves, feeling as though he could run forever on those white beaches and endless boardwalks, and he never tired of watching the moon rise over the water at night. Maybe it wasn't the usual thing for a lupine to enjoy the tropics so much when his species was more suited to temperate climates, but you know what, screw biology. Of all the planets and ecosystems that Lylat had to offer, Wolf would have gladly settled here if he could.
Sure, once I'm a retired billionaire without a bounty on my head, let's discuss it then, Wolf thought with a trace of cynicism. He tugged his windbreaker a little tighter as the breeze picked up. That squall would hit the shore soon and he didn't want to be caught in it. Wolf straightened and sauntered along the boardwalk, one hand brushing the rail as he stole glances at the ocean. He hadn't liked what Andross did to this place. He hadn't even known until near the end of the war when Star Fox made their stealth run to liberate the planet and—for propaganda reasons—allowed every single news channel to broadcast the footage shot from their Arwings. Not for the first time Wolf had been sickened at the things his side had done, nowhere near what he had signed up for. Overthrow the Cornerian ruling class and establish a new order? Sure, count him in. Take down Star Fox and any other mercenary or military squadron standing in the way? No objections there, as long as the money was good.
But...massacre countless aquatic civilians and destroy a perfectly good planet for no reason? That had been taking it a little far. That had been the breaking point. The person he had been back then—the troubled runaway turned revolutionary, so young and brash and brimming with anger at the universe—suddenly had his eyes opened and realized just how deep was the hole he had dug for himself. If Andrew hadn't been so loyal to his uncle and Pigma hadn't been such a fucking prick, Wolf would have taken his team and fled to the edge of the system until everything blew over.
The only thing that held him back had been a very reasonable fear of what Andross would do in retaliation. That, and...Wolf could admit he had selfishly yearned for another shot at the younger McCloud. The pup had put up a hell of a fight on Fichina, despite being forced to turn tail and run in the end, but that single skirmish hadn't been enough. Because as long as Fox was alive and flying, it meant Wolf still hadn't proven himself as the better pilot, and so he stayed on Venom to settle it once and for all. No matter the outcome of the war, Wolf had wanted the recognition, the notoriety, he wanted the universe to hold him up as the legendary pilot who rose above his crapsack life, clawed his way to the top of the food chain and crushed the McCloud legacy into dust.
Not that these things have a way of turning out as planned. The memory had haunted him for years. Waking up in a field hospital inside a Venomian-controlled base on Fortuna, bandaged all to hell and drugged up to his ears. Watching the award ceremony on the flickering holo in the corner, Fox and his team looking so tired but so proud, and barely resisting the urge to scream and chuck his food tray. Wolf had everything before that moment—rank, respect, money, the freedom to live and act as he pleased—and in one swoop it had all been taken away. It should have been him on that stage, humbly collecting his reward for liberating Lylat from an archaic regime. But instead he was a war criminal, a penniless drifter in a system that hated his guts. Absolutely nothing to show for all those years of hard work.
All because of Fox McCloud...
Someone bumped Wolf and jolted him from his thoughts. An adolescent leporid in swimming trunks and sandals wrenched his gaze from the comm in his hands, the tunnel vision of texting slow to leave his eyes. "Oh, sorry about that," he mumbled.
"No problem," Wolf said, not really meaning it, and brushed past the leporid without further comment. But he sensed eyes on him and glanced to the side where the window of a bar and grill offered a perfect reflection of the boardwalk. It also showed that the teen had frozen mid step and done a double take at Wolf's back, openly gawking. But the teen seemed to shake it off and went back to his comm. As his thumbs tapped away at the screen, Wolf could already guess at the text taking form. Dude! Just saw a guy on the boardwalk, looks like that one dude from Star Wolf! Should I get a pic? With any luck, his friends were sensible and would answer something along the lines of, Dude, are you crazy? Run the other way!
Before the leporid could get any ideas about taking a closer look, Wolf ducked quickly through the narrow space between the bar and its neighbor, a frozen yogurt shop, then flagged down a taxi on the first street he came to—a streetcar, not a hovercar, Zoness being very strict about air traffic. The squat amphibian behind the wheel waited for him to settle comfortably in the backseat and honked his horn multiple times to scatter the pedestrians in his path.
"Where to?"
"The Catstail," Wolf said with a mental snort at the name. The amphibian made no comment and drove while Wolf adjusted the sunglasses on his face. A pitiful disguise for his scars and missing eye, but his options were few out in the open like this. Somehow it never failed that whenever he wanted most to be incognito, those were the times when he was most likely to be recognized. And inevitably, on those few occasions when Wolf wanted to be acknowledged for who and what he was, those were the times when nobody looked at him twice.
Fox was probably one of the few in the universe who understood the irony.
"Gonna be about twenty minutes with this traffic," the driver informed him and waved at the congested intersection ahead, which had slowed the taxi to a crawl.
"That's fine," Wolf replied. The driver nodded and went back to ignoring him, which was fine with Wolf. He had no idea where this nightclub was exactly and was in no mood to wander the streets and possibly be recognized again. He checked the time on his comm and grimaced when it read 02:35 local time. 02:35. In the morning.
Something in his expression drew the attention of the driver in the rear view mirror. "Visiting from off planet?"
"Yeah," Wolf admitted. Polite small talk, unlike rude silence, was always the best way to make himself forgettable. "Can't get used to the circadian cycle here, it's completely fucked up."
The amphibian grunted. "That's Zoness. Twenty-eight hours of daylight, four hours of nightlife, and if you're lucky you can catch a nap with the next solar eclipse. Takes some getting used to."
"You're a local?"
"Nah, retired," the amphibian told him. "The wife and I, we thought a warmer climate would agree with us, so here we are with all the traffic and the parties and youngsters keeping things rowdy at all hours of the day and night...not to mention the kids and grandkids popping in and out every other weekend just for a visit. Not that I mind having the tads underfoot, their cute little buggers and my wife spoils them rotten, but one of these days I swear I'm cashing out and buying one of those private islands on Aquas just for some peace and quiet..."
Wolf made a noise of agreement and let him ramble on unchecked, chin propped in his hand, gaze roving absently over the crowds and shops as they crawled through the downtown. Depending on the drive and how long Wolf spent waiting in line, he might be quite a bit late. But whatever. Fox would wait, like it or not, and bitch at him like he tended to once Wolf finally did show up, but that was nothing to end the world over.
Wolf allowed himself a pleased grin, the urge to chuckle bubbling up from nowhere, caught in one of those rare moods when he could step outside his own thoughts and appreciate the incongruity of it all. He was on his way to a nightclub to meet with Fox McCloud. He was looking forward to being with Fox McCloud. His adversary, the one who shot him down in a fiery wreck on Venom, then proceeded to steal every shred of glory that should have belonged to Wolf. His rival, the one pilot alive who could match him in a dogfight. His antithesis in every way imaginable, a man that Wolf had every reason to hate and who had once hated him in turn.
And two months ago, Wolf had woken up to a strange hotel room, a massive hangover, and that very same Fox McCloud hogging half the mattress as his side.
Wolf bit his knuckle to keep from howling in laughter. At the time he'd had no clear memory of what happened to put them in that position. Alcoholic blackout had a way of doing that. But judging by the wrecked linens, the lack of clothes and weapons, and the lingering reek of sweat and sex in the air, it had been a wild night indeed. Being a man accustomed to dealing with unexpected and stressful situations, Wolf had done the only thing that made sense at the time. He freaked the hell out, swearing at the top of his lungs and shoving Fox out of his arms and right off the bed. Fox told him later it had been the rudest wake-up call he ever received, including the one time he woke in his academy dorm with twin fennecs sprawled on top of him while his roommate, Bill Grey, gleefully snapped pics.
Angry words and accusations had been hurled back and forth, once they both recovered from the shock and realized they could not deny the facts and the damning evidence written all over their bodies. Fox had been more ferocious than Wolf had ever seen, fists raised and tail fluffed out, the look in his eyes cycling rapidly from rage to fear and back again, convinced that Wolf had drugged him and seduced him for reasons unknown while Wolf had blindly accused Fox of the exact same thing. They nearly came to blows right there in the room, Fox armed with a lamp and Wolf with a pillow, poised to beat the ever-living crap out of each other...until someone knocked on the door and a cheerful maid walked in wheeling a trolley with a sumptuous breakfast laid out. The poor enhydra had taken one look at the two unclothed men and retreated with a mortified cry, babbling nervously that she would make sure they weren't disturbed again. In the awkward moment following, the two mercenaries had stared blankly from the food to each other, and the strained silence was broken by Fox blurting out the morning's most pointless question.
When did we order room service?
The inquiry had gone unanswered, but the interruption had the effect of calling them back to reality, all thoughts of violence wheezing away like a punctured balloon. Wolf put down the pillow, Fox returned the lamp to the nightstand, and meekly they gathered their clothes and dressed with their backs to each other. A few terse words were exchanged, remarkably polite all things considered, and a shaky agreement was reached to never speak of this again. Fox even made the diffident offer to let him borrow the shower before he left, which Wolf declined and he fled like a thief in the night. Running as soon as his feet hit the pavement outside, not stopping until he reached the city limits where his Wolfen waited, and almost within the hour he was back on Sargasso where Wolf snapped at his concerned teammates to leave him alone before locking himself in his quarters and taking the longest, hottest, soapiest shower of his life.
It was over, Wolf had told himself again and again. A mistake he could put behind him, a story for the grandpups if he ever got to that age. It never occurred to him to tell Panther and Leon what had happened. The former would have been delighted and bragged endlessly about his leader's bedroom prowess, while the latter would have urged him to use it as some kind of blackmail against Star Fox, neither of which Wolf had wanted. All he wanted at the time was to forget it ever happened and move on with his life.
"That's the place up ahead."
Wolf stirred and leaned forward to look where the taxi driver was pointing. A long line of young people was the first thing he spotted, extending for half a block and originating at a pair of doors roped off and guarded by bouncers. The neon sign above the doors scrawled Catstail in such overly lurid, curlicue writing that it was nearly illegible.
"Thanks," Wolf said, digging out his wallet and paying with cash, which must have puzzled the driver since most customers found it easier to swipe a credit chip instead. He stepped into the open and strode to the head of the line, noting as he did so that many of the hopeful clubbers he bypassed were dressed to impress...or at least to get attention. The heels were strappy and sky high, the skirts mini enough to be illegal, and the males were all identical in their half-buttoned shirts and snug-fitting leather. Wolf glanced down at his own apparel—worn slacks and boots, sleeveless black shirt, the gray windbreaker over it—and mentally shrugged. If anyone had a problem with his fashion sense, they could take it up with his middle finger.
Nearer the doors, the press of the mob became too much to fight, and Wolf observed the bouncers with some consternation. Pushing past or bullying his way around would make the kind of scene he was trying to avoid, but he could be standing here all night if he didn't make a move. But the decision was taken from his hands almost at once. One of the bouncers, an ape with half his head shaved to display an impressive tattoo, caught his eye and crooked a finger. Wolf raised his eyebrows, but stepped closer anyway and waited with hands in his pockets while the ape consulted a tablet.
"Name?"
"O'Donnell."
The ape nodded and stepped aside. "Go on in. You're on the VIP list."
"No shit?" Wolf said in mild surprise. Not about to question his good fortune—though he was fairly sure he knew who to thank for it—he slipped by the bouncers and ducked through the doors being held open for him, ears swiveled back at the raised, indignant voices from the crowd.
"Are you serious, George? That guy literally just got here, we've been in line for over an hour!"
"And you'll be at the back of the line for three more if you say another word to me!"
"Come on, let us in! We want to see Marc! We heard he's playing tonight!"
The voices were cut off when the doors snapped shut, leaving Wolf to traverse a darkened hallway with branching doors on both sides and a beaded curtain at the far end. The walls shuddered from a powerful bass, the clamor raised to earth-shaking levels of intensity, and Wolf relaxed. He had been in places like this before and had expected some kind of techno or electronic crap, the kind of music that gave him a headache after awhile. But instead when he passed through the glittering beads into the club itself, he was nearly bowled over by a welcome blast of live rock music, the vocalist a female jaguar with spiky black hair, exultant beneath the spotlight with her bandmates occasionally illuminated by dizzying multicolored lights strobing overhead.
"Daaaylight, spent the night without youuu... But I've been dreaming 'bout the lovin' you do! I'm over being angry 'bout the HELL you put me through! Heeeey, man! Betcha can treat me right..."
Wolf took off his sunglasses, trusting in the darkness of the club to make the eyepatch less noticeable, and scanned the throngs of people crowding the tables and the bar, though the majority were swarming the dance floor in one amorphous mass. He hadn't known what to think when Fox suggested they meet here and was somehow taken aback to discover the pup had decent taste. The whole place had the feel of a concert more than a nightclub, the air thick with sweat and pheromones and cheap alcohol, a seductive taste that made him lick his lips with anticipation.
That said...
Wolf surveyed what he could see of the dance floor, frowned and squeezed his way toward the bar where he could grab a drink, keeping his eye peeled in all directions. A vulpine here or there caught his eye, but at a closer glance neither was the elusive one he was looking for. To avoid becoming lost in the masses, Wolf took his beer up a flight of cramped stairs to a second seating area on the next level up and soon found an open spot where he could lean on the railing that overlooked the stage, shoulder to shoulder with dozens of others who had the same idea. The song reached its apex almost the moment he arrived, and Wolf was nearly jostled out of place by his overenthusiastic neighbors.
"Watch it!"
The black-plumed avian who had bumped him scowled. "Watch it yourself!" he snapped. He leaned over the railing to whistle loudly. "It's fucking Marc, man! Haven't you heard him?"
Wolf rolled his eye. He had no clue who Marc was and couldn't care less, nor was he impressed by the frenzied reaction toward what he assumed was an amateur band. Although...now that he was listening, he could admit they were pretty good. The vocalist had an impressive set of pipes and hadn't dropped a sour note yet, though even she in all her glam-punk glory seemed to accept that she wasn't the main attraction and readily made room in the spotlight to stand back to back with the lead guitarist. Much to the approval of the nearest group of dancers who immediately swarmed the stage, clapping their hands and stamping their feet and screaming their heads off, reaching for the vulpine who was bringing down the house with his talented fingers.
Wolf caught his breath. For the first time that night he had spotted the object of his search, but not in the place he expected. Fox hadn't been lost in the shadows or among the other clubbers, but right there in plain sight. He was on the stage. Dressed almost as casually as Wolf in a graphic T-shirt and dark jeans, he was even wearing those damn sunglasses his father had been famous for, yet in that moment Fox McCloud was almost unrecognizable as the hero of Lylat. And he was absolutely shredding that guitar. With all the aptitude and easy confidence of a master pilot at the controls of his ship, Fox coaxed the notes from that instrument without appearing to try, the look on his face lax and euphoric and fully enthralled in the music. Strutting around in the spotlight and so full of swagger, there was no question he belonged at the center of the adoring masses.
The club had been overheated before with so many warm bodies, but now it had reached unbearable levels. Wolf found himself panting without meaning to, hot under the collar and no longer comfortable in his slacks, riveted by the performance he hadn't expected. "I'm taking that home tonight," he whispered.
The avian beside him laughed in a way that grated on his nerves. "Yeah, right. You and everyone else in this club, good luck with that. I've never seen Marc go home with anyone. Hell, I'd say I stand a better chance than the rest of these idiots. He's never said no to me buying him a drink..."
Wolf curled his lips back over his teeth, annoyance and a brief stab of something more seething and covetous slithering in his chest. It took all the self-restraint he had not to break the bottle open on the avian's head, retaining the outward appearance of cool authority as his lips twitched with secret amusement. "Marc, huh? That's what he goes by here?"
"You know him?" the avian blurted out, all traces of conceit now gone. "You're a friend of his?"
"Something like that."
The avian was silent for a moment before he snorted and turned away. "No way. You're not his type."
Wolf smirked and refocused all his attention on Fox, who had just skidded to his knees at the edge of the stage and launched into an ear-bleeding solo that threatened to blast the speakers from the walls. He seemed unconcerned with all the hands attempting to grab at his legs, cool as a cucumber despite the sweat pouring down his muzzle and causing the fur on his neck to glisten beneath the blaring lights. But if Fox was tired or overwhelmed by the attention, it never showed. An instant later he had brought the solo to its glorious conclusion and leapt back to his feet with a flourish and a swish of his tail, one finger pressing the sunglasses further up his face, flashing the crowd a cocky grin.
God, how does he do it? Wolf thought with a fleeting rush of helpless longing, claws digging into the railing and scraping at the paint. The primal urge to charge onto that stage and throw the enticing young vulpine over his shoulder was almost more than he could take, and he had to remind himself to be patient. Fox wasn't going anywhere. Wolf had every confidence the night would end exactly where he wanted it to, with Fox warm and willing in his arms while the rest of the world looked on with absolutely no say in the matter.
Such a change from before...
Two Months Ago
Wolf inhaled sharply and jolted from sleep, the sheets drenched with sweat and twisted up all around him. He was disoriented for a moment, panting and shaking and so aroused that it hurt. A pained noise caught in his throat as he automatically slid a hand down his body beneath the blankets, but that was as far as he got before the unwanted image flashed in his head again.
Bright lights and the giddy sensation of flying upward, the taste of alcohol on his tongue. Trapped between the wall of an elevator and a lithe young body, the latter pressing close in a manner that was wanton in all the right ways. A hard kiss as demanding as it was desperately sloppy, teeth and tongue involved, and he couldn't let the unspoken challenge go unanswered...
No, damn it!
Wolf fisted both hands in the sheets and moaned his frustration into the pillow. He left fairly decent teeth impressions, adding to a growing collection, and he reminded himself to acquire a new pillow when he had the chance. That, and he needed to yell at the maintenance guys for screwing with the temperature again. It was way too hot in here. Shivering and leaving his bed behind, Wolf continued to fill his mind with the boring sundries of daily space station living, right up until he stumbled into the shower and twisted the knob for cold water. It hit him like a blast of Fichina wind, but he took the self-imposed punishment like a man and waited for his blood to cool. Only when he could take no more did Wolf twist a second knob and sigh as the water warmed, not about to let himself freeze to death because of this. Because of him.
"McCloud," Wolf snarled hatefully and thumped his fist on the wall. He followed up with another curse and a much harder punch that bruised his knuckles. "Damn you, McCloud! Fuck you!"
You already did, Fox smirked in his mind. Somehow it was always so easy to picture the brat. Grinning cocksure from the relative safety of his Arwing, a youthful face filling up the screen on the Wolfen's console. Conceited little daddy's boy and academy dropout, daring to challenge him in the sky that was his domain, daring to defeat him and make a man eight years his senior look like a damn novice. Such a brilliant pilot, but so guileless and goody-goody that Wolf couldn't stand it. Fearless in the face of impossible odds, heroic even when no one was watching.
It seemed like a cruel joke that he could now add great in bed to the top of that list.
"I hate him," Wolf whispered. He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince, himself or the universe in general. "I hate him. I want him dead. I want..."
I want you...
Clumsy hands groping in the dark, frantically undressing, the anticipation almost more than he could take. Somewhere in it all they tripped and ended up sprawled on the rug by the bed. Fox snorted and burst into a fit of giggles, which Wolf took as the right moment to pounce and pin him, breathing the words in his ear while his hands snuck beneath hems and zippers, the giggles turned to groans and murmurs that begged him not to stop...
Wolf shut the water off and abandoned the shower. Hands braced on the grimy bathroom sink, he stared down his haggard expression in the mirror and knew he was in deep, deep trouble. This couldn't be happening. Not to him. He was Wolf O'Donnell, commander of Star Wolf and lord of Sargasso and all the space surrounding it. A man completely in control of himself, his domain and his impulses. He knew who he was just as he knew who he was not...and he was not attracted to Fox McCloud!
His expression crumpled, defeat etched into every line. Not even his reflection believed him. Wolf ducked his head, tail curling under and a faint whimper lodged in his throat. He had tried, damn it. All this time Wolf had done everything in his power not to think of that bizarre encounter. He hadn't even begun to remember the details until nearly a week after the fact. He would be doing the most ordinary things like flipping channels on the holo or flying in his Wolfen, and then he would hear the words 'Star Fox' mentioned in a broadcast or catch a lingering scent of vulpine in his cockpit...and without warning Wolf would flash back to that night in a random bar with Fox, both of them drunk off their asses and laughing like old friends at some inane joke. But even that had been fine. The flashes were startling and more than a bit entertaining, but nothing to lose any sleep over. Given time Wolf could have looked back on the whole thing with fond detachment and the lucid mindset of, What the hell were we thinking?
But then the dreams had started. Dreams that look what was left of his broken memory, those little snippets of sensation, and transformed them into very extensive, very detailed fantasies that threatened to break his mind and left his body weary and aching and wanting. Over and over Wolf dreamed of the stumbling journey from bar to hotel to bed, remembered the way Fox had arched and cried out beneath him, those green eyes hazy and lusting and locked onto his like there was nothing else he wanted in the universe...
The distant ringing of his comm jerked Wolf from the waking dream, breathing ragged, and he realized with annoyance that he had made himself hard all over again just by thinking about the pup. Ignoring the comm, Wolf jumped into the shower for another round of punishment and some minutes later staggered back to bed and curled up miserably with his eyes half open and itchy with exhaustion. It had been a long time—years, in fact—since he had been in this position, desperately wanting what he couldn't have. It shamed him, it embarrassed him, it wasn't meant to be this way. He never had to deal with this during the war, mostly because at the time he had still seen Fox as a child, never mind his skill and determination to do what no one else had the guts to try. It literally never occurred to Wolf there was a body and a sex drive beneath that flight suit, why would it? He'd had plenty of other things to worry about.
But one night had been all it took. One night to fling open a new door and bring all his expectations and preconceived notions crashing down around him. Wolf knew what it was like now. Knew the exact taste and scent of him, knew what he was missing out on, and that wasn't the kind of thing that could be chased away by cold showers and punching bag therapy. His work was beginning to suffer, Leon and Panther were starting to notice, and what could he tell them? That his long-standing obsession with Fox had now taken a turn for the erotic? That he woke up most mornings with bloodshot eyes and the name of his rival catching in his throat? In a twisted way it actually made him want to kill Fox even more, if only to rid himself of the temptation to hunt him down and do some very questionable acts involving cuffs and chloroform.
It's not rape if I like it, the imaginary Fox in his head suggested slyly.
"Shut it, you," Wolf grumbled.
The comm on his nightstand rang again and jolted him. Wolf fumbled for it, but the unknown number vanished before he could fully take it in, cut off on the second ring. Now doubly annoyed, he shoved the comm in a drawer, rolled onto his stomach and dragged the pillow over his head like a child trying to hide from monsters. He would get past this. He had to. For God's sake, he wasn't in love with the man. Wolf knew from experience that misplaced lust was only a temporary state of being. As long as he didn't give into it, as long as he avoided all contact with Fox in the near future, then the feeling would fade. Fox would never even know. Wolf bared his teeth. He would be damned if he let Fox find out about this and hold it over his head. Wolf wouldn't give him that satisfaction.
For a third time, the comm rang. It sounded even louder and more insistent this time as if to purposely spite him. Wolf ripped the pillow away and sent it flying across the room, then leaned over to wrench the drawer open with more violence than necessary. This time he didn't bother to check the number before he brought the comm straight to his ear and snarled in a voice roughened by sleep. "Whoever this is, you'd better have a death wish or a damn good reason for calling, because I'm not in the fucking mood."
Silence for a moment before he heard an indrawn breath. "...holy crap, this is your actual comm sig."
Wolf froze, tail going stiff and throat locking up. His body reacted instantly to that familiar voice and flushed with heat while his heart tripped over itself much like his tongue was doing. He moved to sit upright and it took a few tries before he could gather himself to speak in more than a hoarse whisper.
"McCloud..."
"Yeah," Fox said, then added lamely. "Hey."
"What...wh..." Wolf faltered. He scrubbed at his face and tried to make himself sound just a little less pathetic and a little more assertive. In the end it just came off as terse. "It's the middle of the night."
"Oh, sorry about that," Fox apologized. "Ah, it's noon here on Katina. I didn't even think about it, you must be on Cornerian standard..."
"Was that you calling the other two times?"
"Nope, don't know what you're talking about," Fox said too quickly.
Wolf could have very easily teased him about that. Maybe during daylight hours when he was actually dressed and not reeling from two cold showers and a very carnal dream, he could have come up with some lewd mocking jab without compromising himself in the process. But just now Wolf feared any allusion of that nature would backfire in the worst way. "Fine, whatever. How'd you get this number? I don't just hand it out to people at random."
Fox gave a rueful chuckle. "Oh, you know...the usual. Talked to some sketchy people, threw some money around. Asked Slippy to hack some satellites."
Wolf raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that borderline illegal?"
"I've got friends in high places," Fox assured him. "And the public comm sig registry wasn't working out for me. You're a hard man to get in contact with."
"Yeah, well...gotta avoid those damn sales calls," Wolf muttered, oddly pleased when that comment caused Fox to laugh outright. A sprightly, ingenuous sound that was exactly as Wolf remembered it.
"Oh God...the image you just put in my head! The great Wolf O'Donnell arguing with a telemarketer!"
Wolf grinned in spite of himself. He was beginning to piece together an image of his own, Fox lounging in some dusty backwater saloon with a beer in hand and his feet propped on the table, artless and laidback. Or maybe out on the tarmac where his Arwing was grounded, sprawled on the wing under the hot sun and surrounded by the vastness of the Katinan outback. And shirtless, of course, given how ungodly hot that planet could be...
He rapidly cut that train of thought. He was Wolf O'Donnell. He was goddamn Lord O'Donnell, not some soppy teenager in a romance novel. And Fox was his direst enemy, not his fantasy come to life. Not his to have or want or claim, only to kill. Wolf covered the mouthpiece of the comm, angrily shoving away the smile and clinging to that more brutal side of himself, the vicious spirit of survival and self-serving vice that had brought him this far in life. He reminded himself that he would never forgive Fox for Venom.
"So. You went through all this effort for a reason, I'm guessing?"
"Yeah, I did," Fox said, the tone of his voice altering subtly. To anyone else he might have sounded composed, but to Wolf who was accustomed to putting on a similar act for his subordinates, he could tell it was just a pretense to disguise nerves. "Look...can we talk on vid?"
Wolf hesitated and glanced down at his damp and rumpled fur, uneasy all of a sudden and wanting to cling to whatever feeble shield he had. "I'd rather not."
"O...kay," Fox said and seemed thrown off balance by the refusal. Wolf listened hard to the silence that followed, but couldn't read anything from it before Fox exhaled. "I kind of preferred to do this face to face..."
"Well, we don't always get what we want, do we?" Wolf retorted. "Look, if you're not gonna spit it out and tell me what this is about—"
"You know what it's about," Fox interrupted. "Don't play stupid, Wolf. You know exactly why I called."
It was so wrong and unfair that the sound of his name, spoken in that a stern brook-no-arguments way, could simultaneously turn him on and flood him with dread. And Wolf felt stupid for thinking he could avoid a confrontation like this. Fox wasn't the type to back down or let things lie, damn him, and the urge to just hang up and not deal with it was overwhelming. That should send the message more clearly than any words he could come up with.
But Wolf had never run from anything in his life. He would not be the coward in this or show such weakness before his enemy.
"We need to talk about...what happened between us," Fox went on with admirable composure and only the slightest break in his words.
Wolf stood and paced around his cramped quarters, accompanied by the quiet creak of metal and humming air circulation. The rest of Sargasso was asleep aside from the night shift. The room was as soundproof as he could possibly make it, and Wolf regularly swept every nook for signs that his personal space had been bugged. It should be safe...assuming the comm itself hadn't been hacked, but it was a little late to worry now.
"There's nothing to talk about. We got drunk, we fucked, we went home. End of story. Happens all the time."
"Not to us, it doesn't," Fox pointed out. "Look, Wolf..."
"I said there's nothing to talk about," Wolf snarled. He whirled to face the window and the stars outside, wishing he could fly across that void to wherever Fox was and throttle him. "I've got nothing to say to you, and there's nothing you've got to say that I want to hear."
"But I just..."
Wolf slammed his palm to the glass and raised his voice. "We agreed, remember? We take this to our graves, we act like it never happened! Unless you want me to go running to the tabloids, tell them all about how I made you my bitch for a night, and send your precious reputation down in flames?"
"Don't even try that bluff on me," Fox retorted, but Wolf thought he also sounded nervous. Good, he had him on the run. "It would ruin you just as much as it would me."
"You push me too far and it might be a price I'm willing to pay," Wolf lied through his teeth. He thought for a moment and settled on a different tactic, sneering and injecting as much ridicule as he could. "No wait, don't tell me...you liked it so much you're calling to see if I'm up for a second round? Flattered, but not interested. Unlike some people, I don't have an issue with getting laid any time I..."
"Oh my God, will you stop talking for two seconds and listen to me?" Fox shouted. He made an irritated noise. "You talk too much, you know that? I swear the only time you ever shut your mouth is when you're fighting or—"
Fox faltered, and Wolf was eternally grateful he never finished the sentence. Partly because he doubted he could have come up with a coherent reply, but mostly because the words had given him a sense of déjà vu. As if he had heard them before, slurred huskily in his ear as they half wrestled in the gutter outside the bar...
You talk too much. Every time we fight, all you do is talk and TALK about what you're gonna do when you get your hands on me. And the whole time I'm standing around waiting for you to just shut up and DO it...
"Shit," Wolf muttered. He remembered that clearly now. His blood had been up, his temper riled from the fight and petty argument preceding, and he had grabbed Fox by the jacket with the full intention of killing him. Or scaring him or breaking his face, one of those three, his intoxicated brain hadn't been thinking that far ahead. And it certainly changed its mind real quick when Fox used the opening to his advantage and, of all the stupid things, went for his lips instead of his throat...
"What?"
"I said you piece of shit," Wolf said heatedly. "What do you want from me, huh? You want me to promise I won't tell anyone? Because that should be a given."
"No, I know that..."
"Then what? You want an explanation? An apology? Well, I've got nothing for you, because as far as I can see it's your fault we ended up that way! You made the first move, not me!"
"...oh yeah," Fox mumbled in contrition. "I did do that, didn't I? Fine, that's on me, but what's your excuse? You could have walked away...you could have stopped me right at the beginning, but you didn't. Why not?"
"I was drunk! You were drunk! A lot of things seem like a good idea when you're drunk!"
"Then why am I still alive?" Fox demanded, and that question left Wolf so perplexed that he let Fox ramble on without interruption. "I kept going over it in my mind again and again...you had so many chances. You had me alone and at your mercy for almost the entire night. At some point it should have occurred to you to slit my throat, like you've threatened to do so many times. So why didn't you?"
"I...I was drunk," Wolf croaked. He couldn't explain it either. He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment his thoughts switched from I want to kill him dead to I want to fuck him senseless. It seemed to happen all at once, like the prologue and epilogue mashed together with no substance in the middle.
"There's only so many times you can use that excuse," Fox murmured.
"Yeah, so what's your excuse?" Wolf said, again blindly throwing himself on the offensive. "You...you were all over me, you wanted it more than I did! If anyone here has a right to ask 'what the fuck?'it should be me!"
"At least my excuse makes perfect sense!" Fox snapped. "I've been attracted to you ever since goddamn Fichina!"
Say what? Wolf thought and could have sworn Sargasso stopped in its rotation for a full five seconds. At least that was how it felt to him, the same sensation of giddy displacement.
"...okay, pretend I didn't say that," Fox stammered. "Look, I'm not asking you for anything, alright? I don't want anything from you. It's just...this whole thing has got me thinking. We've been fighting off and on and trying to kill each other for, what, five years? And what are we basing it on? The fact that we were on different sides of a war? That happens all the time for mercenaries, that's no excuse for the way we've been acting."
Wolf held his silence, deathly frightened of where he was going with this.
"I don't know you, Wolf," Fox went on more softly. "I don't know anything about you, other than what I've learned from dogfighting. We've never tried to get to know each other or have a civil conversation, and until that night I'd never even met you face to face. That doesn't seem right to me, and I want to change it. So...can we...give it a try? Can we meet somewhere and talk things over? Pretend for a little while that we're not enemies?"
Meet somewhere. Talk things over. Pretend for a little while. Deafening alarm bells went off in Wolf's head, curiosity and temptation warring with panicky misgiving. Fox was out of his little altruistic mind if he thought they could be in the same room without something happening, which could have been anything from mutual molestation to outright murder. And Wolf didn't believe for a second Fox had no other agenda than to extend a long overdue olive branch.
"We don't have to keep doing this," Fox added with a tinge of desperation. "We don't have to hate each other anymore."
"Yes, we do," Wolf whispered, the regret so thick that he had to clear his throat and stoke his anger anew. "Or did you forget I was on the losing side of that war? You forget I lost everything, nearly lost my life, because of what you did to me on Venom?"
"But that's over now. We can put it behind us—"
"I'll never put that behind me!" Wolf roared. "And you're a fucking moron if you think otherwise! We're not all heroes like you, McCloud, I don't have the luxury of picking who my enemies are. And you've been number one on my list since the day we met! I've got better things to do with my life than try and make nice with Corneria's little pet mercenary!"
"You don't think I have better things I could be doing right now?" Fox demanded. "Believe me, I don't make a habit of ruining my one weekend of shore leave just to call up a homicidal maniac who used to kiss the ground Andross walked on!"
"Then hang up! Do us both the favor and let me get some sleep!"
"You," Fox hissed, perhaps struggling for something worse to say, but he gave up. "Fine. If that's the way you want this to end, then fine. I don't know why I bothered!"
The line clicked as Fox hung up, the screen of his comm irrevocably blank. Wolf stared at it for a moment and snorted. "Bitch," he uttered, carelessly tossing the comm on the nightstand before throwing himself back into bed. Only to realize the pillow was still on the other side of the room where he had thrown it. Wolf punched the mattress, went to get the pillow and made every effort to fall back asleep. He had a full agenda tomorrow, a team to keep employed and a base full of idiotic criminals to manage. He had system full of enemies and potential employers to keep appeased and a life that was taxing enough without the added difficulty of lusting after his rival.
Who apparently lusted after him just the same. If not more. Ever since Fichina. But that couldn't be right. It made no sense. When he thought back to the war and the dogfights they had been in, the threats and vile taunts Wolf had shouted in the heat of the moment, he couldn't reconcile it with what Fox had told him. Though he had a point about the mercenary thing. Relationships in their profession were...complicated, but as a whole it was understood that what happened on the job was always professional, never personal.
But it had never been that way with him and Fox. It never had the chance to be, not with the ghost of James hanging between them. That unspoken code had been broken long before they met. Fox should have hated him. Should still hate him.
Homicidal maniac...is that really what he thinks of me? Was that all he saw every time we fought? Not a worthy opponent, not an equal, just a rabid beast to be put down?
Slowly, Wolf turned his head toward the nightstand, eying his comm like it had teeth before he reached out an unsteady hand to pick it up. The screen glowed at his touch and his thumb hovered over Fox's comm sig. But he swallowed and forced himself to put it down again. No. He could not be considering this. They had both said all that needed to be said. Let Fox keep on despising him for the rest of their lives, let him go on believing that Wolf despised him in turn. It just meant all was right with the universe. Nothing good could come of trying to flip the status quo on its head.
Besides...if Wolf dared to take that treacherous first step, there was no telling what could happen next. Where would it lead? Where did Wolf want it to lead?
He rolled on his back to stare at the ceiling and knuckled his eyes. Two weeks ago, if someone had asked him what might happen if he and Fox got drunk together, Wolf would have said with perfect confidence that one of them would be dead in a back alley by dawn. Now the thought of standing face to face with Fox, nothing between them but their own throttled inhibitions, inspired a whole slew of conflicting emotions, most of which had nothing to do with violence.
But he couldn't avoid it forever. The universe was vast and unpredictable, yet it had a funny way of trolling the two of them and contriving to throw them together on a regular basis. Like it or not, Wolf would see Fox again, most likely on the job under opposing contracts, and what was worse? Facing this tangled web on neutral ground under temporary ceasefire, or in the middle of a dogfight when a split second of hesitation might cost him everything?
Wolf sucked in a breath and snatched up the comm, quickly punching in the command before he could let himself think better. It rang a total of six times before Fox answered, sounding prickly like a teenager with a bruised ego. "WHAT, Wolf?"
"Fine, let's meet," Wolf said curtly. "But let me make one thing very clear. This is a business meeting, nothing more. And I pick the place."
"...fine," Fox said after an agonizing pause. "Tell me where and when."