Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

            It was a lovely, sunny day, a pleasant span of daylight hours at the end of Spring. Out here in the industrial district, completely beyond any spillover influence from the city’s two artificial climate extremes, the natural seasons of their temperate climate latitude had full hold. And that meant late Spring and early Summer were made up of days like this, temperatures just approaching seventy Fahrenheit, a perfectly neutral feeling, accompanied by a pleasant warmth when one stepped into the sun. And, while a hot day might have been more favorable for an ice cream freezer snack like a popsicle or a rainbow slider, it was mild and pleasant days like today that were perfect for enjoying proper ice cream.

            Fittingly then, it just so happened that proper ice cream was being enjoyed by a number of mammals seated around a number of small tables outside of Mill Lane Sundaes. The tabletops were made of that weird, bumpy restaurant glass, purely for the sake of it being designed to have anything and everything easily wash off it. Each table also had its own old tradition red and white patterned umbrella set over it, its stand rising up through the middle. The establishment itself stood on the northwest corner of the Mill Lane and Nuclear Avenue intersection, one leading from the nearby brass milling plant all the way down to the steel mill, and the other running from the Nuclear Power Station all the way over to the bridge across the harbor to Savanna Central. And it was a perfectly situated place for a particular group of friends who happened to be there on this particular day.

            Fenneko, for once, was the one being shown something on a phone by someone else, instead of the other way around. She and a white wolf police officer, Emily, were sitting with a mutual friend, who was showing them a fascinating image. The vixen of violet eyes and a lovely orange fur held her phone out towards the center so the two of them could each see, the three of them seated around the table in a triangle.

            “Wow,” Fenneko remarked in her . . . Fenneko voice, “that’s brutal.”

            Emily meanwhile blinked a number of times before starting into a snicker.

            “It’s the first time I’ve ever actually painted a guy’s claws.” Vixey spilled the story behind the image they were seeing. “It was supposed to be revenge for something about her grandma making her give him cookies or whatever. But she still told him she’d be his girlfriend if he actually went through with it.”

            The picture was of some poor wolf cringing in a chair that was too small for him, looking on as the claws of one paw were being redecorated a wonderfully-blended, and glittery orange-pink. Meanwhile, standing off on one side was a plainly dressed, yet quite pretty and very amused female coyote.

            “She sent me this one the next day.” Vixey added, sliding over to another photo.

            The next was of the same wolf, this time reaching out from a mail truck placing envelopes in the units of a multiplex box, still looking embarrassed but at least with a nervous smile this time.

            Emily couldn’t avoid giggling a bit more before raising a question. “How long did she say he has to keep them for?”

            While Vixey provided an answer, at the table next to theirs sat a rather distinguishable trio: three corsac foxes, quite similar in shared appearance, bar the differing odd alignment of each’s ears. All three sported a pair of shades, and wore t-shirts bearing the image of a grey-dyed, mocking fox face.

            “What are they even doing?” One with downward-bent ears asked.

            “It’s usually called girl talk.” Another with side-aimed ears answered.

            “It is unnatural.” The third, with the most normal ears of the three said.

            “So is passing sentences around in a circle.” The one with sideways ears broke said circle, drawing mixed looks of both violation at the action, and also so briefly visible embarrassment at the truth of his words.

            Back at the table their boss shared with her friends, the conversation shifted to them as Fenneko couldn’t help but ask Vixey a question of her own.

            “You’ve never made Mr Thousand-Syllables paint his?” She asked, with her usual ever-present mischief.

            “What?” Vixey came off surprised at even the idea. “No! How could I do that to poor Styllianmichalocolos?”

Her words shifted the prior looks of embarrassment from two corsacs over to one, as the one with sideways ears now received mocking stares from both his brothers.

            Emily was left stunned for a second. “Do you actually say their entire names every single time?” She asked.

            It ended up being the corsac with upward ears that answered her from the neighboring table. “Almost never, actually.”

            “Some of us aren’t even lucky enough to have her try.” His ear-downed brother followed up.

            “Excuse me!” Vixey addressed them. “I know how to say your names too!”

            The two unnamed of the three looked to each other with impending amusement, while their brother glanced over at their boss . . . and his unofficial girlfriend.

“Really?” The upward ears spoke. “This should be entertaining.”

            “Indeed.” The downward eared corsac agreed. “Let’s hear it.”

            Their brother did add his own sentence to the circle this time. “Is it really necessary though?”

            “She said she could.” Down broke the cycle with his response this time.

            “YES, I did,” Vixey addressed him directly “Dorilim—a—lila . . .” her brain stalled while the corsac in question just let an eyebrow slide up. “SHUT UP!” She inevitably yelled once she had given up.

            “As expected, Doriliasmetrius.” Up said his brother’s name for her.

            “Of course, Usarionos.” Down did the same with Up’s own name.

            Sideways had nothing to say, merely looking like a poor refugee caught between two sides of a battle.

            Vixey stayed wordless for a few more seconds under the other two brother’s unimpressed expressions, which seemed to be the one expression most amplified by their dead-black sunglasses. “UGH, look! Fine, okay? I’ll learn how to say yours too if it means THAT much!”

            That apparently caught them off guard to some extent, as both of them drew back slightly and their faces actually relented. Even their brother seemed surprised, though he turned back to speak to them again. “There, you two have your victory now.”

            Vixey, meanwhile, turned her attention back to the other two mammals at her own table only to find Emily releasing a pent-up round of snickering she’d been desperately holding back, and Fenneko just staring with an amused Fenneko face, which to the untrained eye looked exactly like her normal expression. It left Vixey in a fluttering panic and she started yipping out. “Stop it! Just—change the subject or, whatever! Talk about something!” She demanded, only remembering to add a necessary specification afterward. “But not me!”

            Emily managed to bring her giggling to a stop and looked over at Fenneko, hopefully. The smallest member of the table just stared back silently with her beady little eyes, with no apparent change of expression.

            “I hear that kid over there’s pretty good at art.” The fennec did at least redirect attention, sort of.

            They all looked over to a different neighboring table, where a highschool-age panther and sloth bear were sitting. The panther had indeed been in the midst of drawing something, however Vixey’s fit had apparently drawn both his and his friend’s attention as well.

            “What are you looking at!?” Vixey demanded of them.

            Shock came over both teens immediately, and they both threw their gazes somewhere else. The bear turned his head away, choosing even to do a stereotypical non-attentive whistle as he did. The panther meanwhile just tossed his eyes up to the sky and forced himself to mindlessly look from cloud to cloud.

            “Ooo, hey,” Emily said, looking at the piece of in-progress work resting on the table in front of the feline, “that does look really good!”

            “Huh?” The panther seemed surprised to be addressed again, but it only lasted a second until what was actually said was processed. Then the boy’s face brightened up quite a bit. “Oh, you think so?” He asked, picking it up.

            The work in question was a rather detailed sketch, detailed very accurately at that. He seemed to have just begun filling in colours with coloured pencil. The subject matter of the piece in particular appeared quite . . . resembling. It showed three corsac foxes seated around a circular table, all wearing blackout shades and each having uniquely positioned ears. It was such a near-photorealistic copy of Vixey’s three guards, minus only a difference in apparel. Instead of what the actual corsacs sitting nearby were wearing, the young panther had apparently depicted them in thug-looking suits, ones surprisingly close to those they normally did wear.

            “Damn,” Vixey remarked, once she actually took notice of it herself, “he really got you guys.” She said to the neighboring three.

            “Yeah,” Sideways agreed with her, “the kid really got our likeness down.”

            “A little too well.” Up said, with a much more suspicious tone. “And very quickly.”

            Down followed up. “Without us noticing, and he even depicted us in our standard attire.” He stood up and stared right at the kid with tangible accusation. “Who are you working for?”

            “Uuhhh . . .” The panther teen shrunk back a bit.

            “UGH! Shut up both of you!” Vixey found herself back to embarrassed anger once again. “And sit down, DOWN!” She ordered the one standing corsac.

            Down looked to her and then back to the panther, seemingly uncertain.

            Vixey interpreted the hesitation differently, however. “Fine! Dorili—whatever! I told you I’d learn it later, ok!? Just sit down!”

            His boss’s new words actually drew a further pause from Down, this time from surprise. But, after another couple seconds it resulted in obedience.

            “Ey, Eeyyy, no need to fuss over nothin, animals.” A much lazier, laid-back voice came suddenly from the panther’s sloth bear friend. He turned to speak specifically to Vixey. “Baggy just though your boyfriend and his bros looked like they could be mob thugs, so he put’em in suits.”

            Vixey’s eyes widened by a fair bit for a moment, and her frustrated face was replaced with one of someone who’d just been caught. The actual red on her face was concealed by her orange fur, but some degree of the red in Sideway’s cheeks was able to come through the beige. The other two corsacs bore an incredibly visible embarrassment of their own, or perhaps a much better term would be alarmed. In fact, their sunglasses had even slid some way down their snouts from shock and revealed their eyes.

            The only one of the three who still had his shades in-place spoke up, while his brothers re-adjusted theirs. “How did—”

            “—What?” Bagheera, or Baggy, the panther, seemed to have overcome his prior fright and now instead leaned forward with an almost obnoxiously teasing demeanor instead. “You didn’t think anybody saw you holding onto his arm with both paws, or dragging him lock-step alongside you?”

            His bear friend added his own bit also. “Or the part where you was telling him to sit at the other table but make sure he was still the closest one to you?” His own sluggishly humorous enjoyment of the present situation turned out to be enough to overpower the perpetual about to take a nap expression that his species usually bore. “Just cause I was snoozin don’t mean I wasn’t listenin.”

            “Kids have a point.” Fenneko suddenly chimed in again, though her attention was now back to where it almost eternally was: The Phone. “For someone who acts like she doesn’t want anyone to know, you sure go out of your way to not hide it.”

            “Wh—agh—fffpp,” Vixey just sort of sputtered at first, until she could at least blurt something, “You’re not helping!”

            Now, apparently, it was Up and Down’s turn.

            “She really makes no effort at concealment.” Up said.

            Followed by Down. “Next to none, though our brother always goes along with everything, despite knowing as much.”

            They both stared sideways at Sideways.

            “Hey!” Sideways protested. “I can’t just correct a girl, you know. That’s like suicide!”

            Up’s eyes glanced over at Vixey from behind the black squares in front of them. “A fair enough point. Perhaps extra so in your particular case.”

            Vixey wasn’t so daft as to not know what he’d meant . . . but she might have been just enough to unwittingly play into it. “Shut up, UP!” She watched an eyebrow rise on the particular corsac’s face for a second before managing to realize she had in fact acted in line with how he’d implied. “UGGGHHHH.” She tossed her head up and dragged her paws over it from her forehead back, until she ended up letting herself into a controlled faceplant on the table.

            Everyone stared, slowly gathering a more shared look of guilt between themselves, though Sideways himself actually leaned over and reached a cautious paw out towards her.

            “Vixey?” He asked.

            In response, Vixey’s own arm shot out towards his, while she kept her face pressed down to the table. Her arm flailed around haplessly and even swatted his a couple times before she managed to find his paw with her own. Once she had found his outreached paw she took a firm grim to it, and then gave a deceptively strong jerk to pull him over closer. The sudden yanking caught the corsac off guard and almost pulled him off his seat. He only just managed to avoid such by grabbing ahold of his seat’s other side edge with his free paw at the last instant, dragging it along with him as he then went on to willingly scoot the remaining distance closer. Once he was completely within range, Vixey pulled his paw and arm the rest of the way to tuck against herself.

            Before the silence ended, Sideways caught Up and Down looking at he and Vixey with the faintest of smiles fronted on actually softened expressions. Though of course, the instant his brothers realized as much, their faces flattened out back to normal.

            Young Bagheera’s voice ended up being the first to speak again. “Hey, aahh-I’m,” audible regret caused his voice to quake a bit, “sorry for talking like that and starting that all up.”

            Vixey lifted her head up from the table so she was resting her jaw on her paws, and Sideways’s. “It’s fine, kid.” She told him. “I’m not your fault.”

            “You’re not a problem either.” Sideways insisted to her.

            “No,” Up agreed, “we’re the ones at fault for your upset.”

            “Yes,” Down also agreed, “we’re responsible for you becoming downcast.”

            That actually made Vixey look back over at them, with a clear case of dumbfounding. It was a stunned sense she shared with their brother, albeit his not being as extreme or as visible. They found Up and Down with the nearest expression to regret Vixey thought she had ever actually seen on them, and what Sideways knew was the most regret he had seen from them in a very long time . . . not since before . . .

            “You’ve never done anything to or against us.” Up spoke further.

            “We should act at least far more considerate.” Down followed.

            “Even if you had,” Up went on, “for our brother’s sake we still should act this way towards you.”

            “But you haven’t.” Down reiterated.

            “So this remains entirely on us.” Up finished.

            Slowly, Vixey began to look as if she were almost trying to snarl, but her words ended up indicating against as much, or at least against the notion she would have been snarling at them. “I’m just as bad to both of you.” She muttered against herself, while the one corsac sitting right beside her caught sight of a thin bit of water in her eyes.

            “Much less than our part.” Up corrected her.

            “And almost always on our provocation.” Down admitted for them both.

            Vixey looked over to them, still seeing what she accepted as regret. Their eyes even seemed to have become shamefully visible through their shades somehow. It quickly drove her, her mind absent of the fact everyone else was still present, to start snapping her fingers and demanding. “Get over here! Now!”

            Up and Down looked between each other, and across to Sideways as well, trading shared confusion. They did obey, sliding back and standing up from their seats to walk over to her. And once they had reached her, they were thrown into much greater shock than they might have ever expected . . .

            She hugged them. Vixey dragged them together and hugged both of them at once.

            One blinked after the other, back and forth on a trading pattern, eventually looking over to their brother, who gave them his own version of the same softened face and smile they had given earlier.    

            Vixey’s ears flicked and her eyes shot open with sudden realization. She let them go and spun back around in her seat. But she didn’t find everyone staring at them, however. Instead, Fenneko was on her phone, that bear kid was either napping or more likely pretending to, and his panther friend was focused on completed the artwork he’d started. Only Emily was actually looking at her, and assumably had been the whole time. Of course, the wolf looked like she had just witnessed a sweet and heartfelt moment, which she had, but knowing someone had been watching still left Vixey uncomfortable, even if it was one of her friends.

            “Oh! Sorry!” Emily realized as much almost immediately, apologizing and looking away.

            “Don’t look at me.” Fenneko then spoke for herself as well. “I was playing chess.”

            Vixey was able to settle back down, with her most cherished corsac sitting right beside her, albeit facing the other direction, and his two brothers now still lingering awkwardly behind her seat with uncertainty.

            “Um, Lady Vexey?” Up began a question.

            “Do we return to our seats?” Down asked the remaining portion.

            Vixey looked back up over her shoulder at the two. “You—yes, obviously!” She had a minor snap, only to then realize she had. “I mean sorry! I mean . . .” she stopped for a second, fighting through the fluster and forcing the words to settle back into her calmer voice, “Yes, please sit back down. And you can slide back over there with them.” She told her unofficial boyfriend as well.

            They each gave a simultaneous single nod in response, but before either they or their seated brother could move, everyone’s attention was suddenly drawn away to the sidewalk just off the property.

            “Hey!” A teenage wolf yelled from the middle of the sidewalk group. “Tomega!”

            The word sent a spiking ripple throughout Emily’s fur, right before a rainbow slider popsicle came flying towards her.

            It was caught by the handle before it reached her, Down lunging to catch it midway over the table, just after it had flown above Fenneko’s head.

            The corsac reflexively sent it flying back the same way it had come, the young wolf who’d originally thrown it only just ducking in time.

            “BARK THE PO-LICE!” A different wolf teen shouted next to the first, then grabbing ahold of the big scoop of vanilla ice cream from his cone and chucking it in Emily’s direction also.

            Down was too agile for it again, catching the flying ice cream blob as well. Though when it slapped into his paw, the inertia caused some drops from the edges to detach and keep going, some landing on the table and some . . . landing on Fenneko’s phone screen.

            The smallest fox ceased all movement, and just stared blankly at the screen with a hollow gaze.

            Down immediately threw the fistful of ice cream back with a better deal of intensity than it had initially come with. The wolf who’d thrown this one wasn’t as lucky as the first, and the vanilla blob struck him hard on the side of his snoot, enough to turn his head to the side by some bit.

            Up in the meantime had positioned himself to the side behind Emily, while Sideways had stepped in front of Vixey.

            “I feel our preferred attire would be more thematically fitting for a violent situation.” Up remarked.

            “I have to agree.” Down said. “Though I doubt this qualifies as violence.”

            “Even if it did,” Sideways finalized the speaking circle, “they’re kids, and she’s a cop, which means they’re untouchable.”

            Vixey seemed surprised by the words. “What? No they’re not!” She spilled her immediate thoughts out, before actually asking Emily. “Are they?”

            A new chunk of ice cream came hurtling towards them, this time strawberry. It was just far enough to the side beyond Down’s reach, so it looked to actually hit. That was until it was struck out of the air, even before Up could make an attempt to catch it from beside Emily.

            It was the panther kid!

            Bagheera had batted the thing away with his sketchbook. Granted, the blob of pink ice cream only went about ten feet just to fall and splatter on the concrete, but still.

            “Hohooo boy, score one Baggy!” The sloth bear student cheered on his friend with a lazy volume. “Hey Packmutts!” He called out a term that would have been unacceptable under most other circumstances. “Strike one!”

            The insult seemed to bring the lupine street crew’s efforts to a halt, long enough to get a good stare in at the bear in question at least. And then the whole tone shifted as one of them actually began taking a few steps forward. “I don’t think you’ll like how this game ends.” The one wolf threatened.

            “Nah,” the lazy bear agreed, but while leaning back in his chair and resting his hands back behind his head, “but I bet’cha Khani does.” He suggested with a still-lackadaisical smile.

            “Who?” The street punk asked.

            “That’d be, me, dumbwoof.” The arrival of a new voice, and the highschool tiger it came from drew the wolf crew’s attention, and everyone else’s. His was a strangely hushed voice, almost like a really loud whisper, one with a notably menacing air to it at that.

            “Oh look,” the lead wolf remarked then, “an even bigger pussycat.”

            “That’s right.” Khani, the apparent friend of the panther and bear smiled as he stepped up to the canine cluster. The difference in species size was clearly coming through, as even though he and his two friends came off more like highschool freshman, and the wolves as either seniors or recent graduates, or dropouts, the tigercub was still already taller and larger than them despite the four year difference. “I was coming to have another boring afternoon, but it looks like everybody’s about to have my kind of fun.” He remarked with an anticipating smirk.

            Some of the wolf crew started to laugh a bit, and their leader of sorts now stepped over to Khani instead. “I don’t think you know what you’re asking for, junglecub.” The wolf tried to threaten him.

            The supposed threat had less than no effect, however. In fact, it only amplified the younger tiger teen’s grin of anticipation. “Oh? Is that a fact?” He more mocked, rather than asked. “Actually, I don’t really think you fleabags get it.” He drew growls from every member of the delinquent group. “There’s a bit more than just a species difference here.”

            “Yeah,” a different wolf from the group snickered, “there’s five of us and only one’a you.”

            How the tiger kid’s smile kept growing, nobody knew, but its continuation was becoming quite unnerving. Even the faces of the corsac brothers were starting to grow uncertain.

            “No,” Khani corrected them, “what makes us different here, is you packmutts clearly rely on everyone being too intimidated to do anything so you don’t actually have to fight.” He smiled with his teeth this time as he assumed a ready position. “I don’t.”

            One of the wolves quickly pulled out a switchblade and retorted. “You sure, pussycat?”

            “Um! I think that’s enough, all of you!” Emily actually stood up from her seat. It felt, at least, like she was trying to convey police mode. But, whether it was because of her being so new and inexperienced, or because the wolf teens just didn’t care, it had no effect.

            “Shut up!” One of them dismissed her. “I’ll shank you and your stupid little lice pelts too!”

            The . . . socially unacceptable fox insult caused three pairs of sunglasses to slide down the snoots of the corsacs who wore them, and every pair of eyes short of the tiger’s to expand.

            “Cute.” The tiger teen pulled the wolves’ attention back to himself, indicating the knife now in one of their paws. “I’ve got a couple of those too.” And to the dead-shock of every mammal present, he lifted his right paw and blatantly extended his claws out to full.

            Everyone at what might as well have been the adults’ table exchanged a rapid, shared glance of disbelief. The three corsacs’ eyes even became visible through their re-adjusted shades, the sheer shock lending transparency. Even the aggressing wolves looked close to being dumbfounded at the action.

            That was . . . no . . . you just don’t do that . . .

            “Alright no!” Emily apparently decided that was enough. The white wolf pulled out her phone and went quickly through the two-touch dispatch app.

            “Dispatch response line, identify yourself and code your situation.” A voice responded on speaker from the other end.

            Some of the wolves’ heads snapped over in her direction.

            “It’s Officer Timber,” Emily answered, “developing 10 – 53 at corner of Mill Lane and Nuclear Avenue—”

            “Jake, they’re coming for real!” One of the subordinate wolves yelled at their leader.

            The apparent Jake’s head swung from Khani, to the off-duty Emily and back again, while Khani’s smile faded into an expression of aggravated disappointment as he himself looked over at Emily and back.

            “Howlit!” Jake ordered, and the wolf street crew proceeded to remove themselves from the area.

            With the wolves on their way to being gone, Khani turned his own attention to Emily once again, with a harshly disappointed scowl. “BORING!” He shouted towards her, taking a moment afterwards to glance about, seeing if all the wolves were in fact gone. Once they were for sure, the tiger student proceeded to walk over to his friends’ table, joining the bear and Bagheera, who’d returned to his own seat.

            “. . . 10 – 22,” Emily spoke to dispatch through her phone, though keeping a pair of wary eyes on the young tiger now, “subjects dispersed.”

            While dispatch asked Emily to confirm, everyone else began to re-normalize as much as they immediately could. Fenneko’s eyes had previously un-hollowed, and she now began to thoroughly clean off her phone screen. The bear kid was making some remark to his tiger friend at the table nearby, while Bagheera was tearing out the ice cream-stained pages from his sketchbook. The three corsacs meanwhile, made to return to their original table and seats, though they stopped to question their boss first.

            “Did you still want us to return to our seats?” Up asked.

            “It may be advantageous to have us remain about.” Down offered.

            “And I can still stay over here, if you want?” Sideways finalized the three.

            “No, it’s ok.” She responded to him specifically first, and then answered them collectively. “And you guys can walk around if you want.” She was automatically in a regular, level voice on part of the sheer shock from the prior event. “Just,” she glanced over at the three early highschool kids at the neighboring table, “keep a lookout or something. Watchout to see if those guys come back.” All three of them nodded in unison during her pause. “Make sure those kids get on their schoolbus safely or whatever.”

            Up and Down looked at each other to share a blink, and then looked to their brother, who briefly put a nervous paw behind his head. The action turned out to be enough to draw an inquiry from his girlfriend.

            “Styllian?” Vixey asked.

            Not wanting to let their brother bare the responsibility of letting her know about her misplaced time, Up and Down told her instead.

            “Uh, Lady Vexey?” Up drew her attention to them.

            “It’s Saturday afternoon.” Down gave her the correction.

            Vixey froze up for just a second, before she overcompensated. “I—I knew that! Whatever,” she made herself level her voice out, “just keep a lookout.” She told them, to which they nodded and were about to turn away, before she added one last bit. “Thanks, you two. Usari . . . Dorili?” It drew another surprised glance from them. “Those are the only parts I can remember right now!” She insisted.

            The two vertically-directional corsacs looked at each other, and then also to their brother, who gave them another faint smile. They both dipped their heads briefly in unspoken thanks, before they and their brother began to wander and lurk about, keeping watch.

            When Vixey finally returned her attention completely to the rest of the ice cream establishment around her, she found Emily attempting to lecture the highschool kids about their use of certain words, and that tiger kid’s taboo action as well. She decided to let her wolf friend continue to get nowhere with that for the moment, and turned over to Fenneko instead. There was the shorter fox, now resuming the usage of her phone.

            “Got it clean enough?” Vixey asked.

            “Huh? Yeah.” Fenneko answered her. “That whole thing threw off my chess game though. I went ahead and just gave them the match.”

            Vixey had to feel at least a bit of surprise. “That’s a bit generous for you.” She remarked. “I thought you were all about no mercy?”

            “Not mercy by choice.” Fenneko assured her that she was mostly right.

            “Mercy by ice cream?” Vixey asked instead.

            “They don’t need to know.” Fenneko decreed.

            Vixey managed to giggle just a little bit at that one, though of course it brought the soul-piercing stare of those beady little black eyes onto her. At least, that was, until they went right back to the phone that was Fenneko’s eternal target lock-on.

            “How high up are you now?” Vixey went on to ask.

            “Third ranked on the Zootopia board.” The smaller fox answered.

            Vixey had to blink a couple times before asking more. “Like, Zootopia Zootopia or like, just the city?”

            “Nope.” Fenneko answered again. “The whole region.”

            There was more than a small bit of disbelief to be found on the larger fox’s face now. “What seriously?! Even with like whatever stupid number of bunnies from the burrows are on there?” She had to ask.

            “Yup.” Fenneko confirmed. “Not as many play as you might think though. Site only has thirteen-thousand registered from the city; close to thirty-thousand across the whole Zootopia region. Even then, only about twenty percent actually play for rank.”

            “Okay,” Vixey retroactively downgraded her reaction, “so maybe not like stupid crazy, but even out of . . .” Her words stalled as her math failed her. “Whatever that comes out to, number three is still insane!”

            “Eh, I’ll settle when I’m in single digits on the global scene.” Feneko said.

            Vixey was just left to blink again, and . . . for some reason almost felt afraid? “Uh, you’re really not stopping are you?” She asked.

            “Guess we’ll find out.” The way Fenneko responded sounded almost ominous, somehow.

            Vixey decided maybe it was time to shift over to their first-year-cop friend now. Emily was, apparently, still trying to get somewhere with the three highschool kids, the tiger specifically it seemed. Said tiger, at that moment, was right in the middle of rolling his unimpressed eyes.

            “So what is the problem then?” He was asking, rather snarkily at that. “Am I allowed to threaten my attackers in self-defense or not?”

            “It’s not about that!” Emily was insisting. “I said it was about your attitude while you were doing it. You were literally smiling. You were enjoying it!”

            “Ugh, yeah, I tend to enjoy making thugs backoff.” The tiger teen wasn’t hiding anything.

            “Threatening!” Emily corrected him with some amplitude. “You know the moment you do that to any mammal who isn’t threatening or attacking you or your friends, that’s menacing! That’s a crime.”

            “And when did I ever do it to anyone other than animals who put themselves into that category?” He snapped back.

            “Khan only ever hurts bullies.” The panther decided to add in on his friend’s behalf.

            “He shouldn’t be hurting anyone! Or threatening anyone!” Emily wasn’t exactly swayed to their side.

            “And that’s why they’re always staying in control.” The tiger remarked.

            “What?” Emily couldn’t do anything other that ask what he meant.

            Khan, or Khani, as he was apparently called, rolled his eyes over again. “Bullies. Thugs. Abusers. Take your pick, it’s all the same.” He switched then into a very mocking voice. “Weeehh, be nice to them, show them kiiiiindness, violence only makes more violence, mehmuhmehmuhmehmuhmeeehhh. Give it a REST!”

            The poor wolf was just left blinking for a decent moment before she could finally get any words out. “What are you?”

            The answer to that came from the grey bear instead, leaning back in his seat with a renewed lazy smile and his hands behind his head. “Basically a sociopath.”

            Vixey saw the words cause an abrupt change on the tiger’s face. It only lasted a second; a single blink would have missed it. But, it was such a volatile flip from the face of . . . the incarnation of unimpressed, cocky superiority, over to . . . a vulnerable, uncertain child. A sensitive kid? Maybe Vixey didn’t exactly imagine it in those or any particular words, but that was at least what she thought she saw. But, after she did blink, it was gone, and the boy’s prior face had returned.

            “But like,” the bear went on, “you know, the good kinda sociopath.” He took a second to look over at his tiger friend, who was near the line of glowering at him. The bear patted his friend’s shoulder a couple times while he added one last bit. “Our Khani’s a real complex kinda guy. Not all that easy ta understand unless you know him.”

            “Thanks for the wonderful explanation, Baloo.” Khan, or Khani, issued more of a chide than anything else.

            The bear only smirked in response. And it actually ended up being Vixey who spoke next, feeling almost a compulsive urge to ask a very specific question.

            “Baloo?” She asked about the name, her head even tilting to the side a little.

            “Middle name.” Baloo answered.

            “Ch’yeah,” Khan picked up, “Baloo’s got a stupid fixation with being unique. His first name’s just too ordinary for him. Isn’t that right, Timmy?” He ended by throwing out Baloo’s actual name, and drawing a slightly-irritated eyebrow raise from the bear in return.

            “I mean seriously Baloo,” the panther jumped in again, “you’re a sloth bear. Literally the only one in the whole school. Everyone’s already always gonna know it’s you no matter what.”

            “Excuse me?” Emily attempted to resume the original conversation, if it could be called that.

            “Emms,” Fenneko ended up being the one who responded to her, and actually lifting her face up from her phone to do so, “you’re not gonna get anywhere you wanna go with them.”

            Emily stared at her smaller friend for a moment, then looked back over to Khan, and then finally looked nowhere specific and shut her eyes. She took in a long breath, then released it steadily over almost as much time. When she’d finally opened her eyes again, and unclenched the fists she had formed at her sides, she turned back to her and her friends’ table and sat back down in her seat once again.

            “Are you alright?” Vixey asked. It was honestly the first time she’d ever seen their friend get that worked up.

            The white wolf rested her head in her paws for a few seconds before any sound came out of her. “Yeah.” She answered through another exhale, lifting her face up from her paws to rest her chin on them instead. “I shouldn’t have let myself keep getting carried on like that.”

            To Vixey, she really sounded more disappointed in herself than anything else. “Hey,” Vixey tried to assure her, “you only thought you were trying to help the kids.”

            “Yeah, I know.” Emily responded, now lifting her head off of her paws completely and sitting up. “But we’re supposed to maintain our composure. I know I wasn’t on the job, but still.” She referred to the expectations of an officer.

            “What? No!” Vixey insisted. “You can’t pull that on yourself when you’re off duty.”

            The wolf just looked back at her like she knew she was right, but . . .

            “What about a nice relaxing fur-defrazzle session to unwind everything?” Vixey inevitably suggested.

            The prospect actually drew Emily’s eyes over, though she didn’t say anything right away.

            Fenneko then drew both of their eyes over to herself. “Sure, don’t invite me or anything.” She put forward a very blatant request in the form of a dismissal.

            It made Emily giggle a bit as an unintended side effect. Or maybe it was intended, who knew? “I think you know you’re always invited.” She told the smaller fox.

            “Oh?” Fenneko directed the amused question at Vixey for a confirmation. She did know, but she also still enjoyed pursuing her own amusement.

            “Of cooourse!” Vixey readily confirmed. Fenneko was her favorite client anyways, or at least she had been, but she’d crossed the line over to becoming a friend since then.

            “Well since they’re always lurking around,” Emily now motioned with her nose in the direction of one of the three triplets that worked for her friend, “don’t you mean: of course-ac?” She couldn’t resist punning.

            It left a certain orange fox to groan and let her head drop backwards as far as it would go. It had been a while since she’d heard something that bad. “Just go get your car.” She begged.

            The wolf gave a toothy smile as she stood up. “Happy to heeeelp.” She teased in an almost giddy fashion.

            Vixey brought her head back forward to a normal position as Emily walked away. She was just going to stare blankly at the table, until she found herself being spoken to from the teenagers’ table once again.

            “Uh, hey,” it was Bagheera, the panther, leaning over towards her and apparently trying to keep his voice a bit hushed, “I—I’m really sorry about getting your friend upset, specially after earlier. Uh, Khan’s sorry too.” At the panther’s mentioning, even under a hushed voice, his tiger friend still heard, his ears giving a twitch and him looking away. “I thought I could at least let you keep this, if you want?” The panther teen handed her the highly-detailed and now-coloured sketch of the three corsac brothers.

            Vixey took it, and had a good look at the truly incredible piece of work. This kid really was awesome.

            “Do you think I could do something for your friend too, if she wants?” Bagheera asked.

            “Huh? What? No, you don’t need to do anything, kid. It’s fine.” Vixey tried to assure him. Although, recent events did suddenly spring something into her mind. She looked around, spying her three guards, or employees, or friends and boyfriend, whatever. Her eyes went from one shades-wearing corsac to another. Well, she had to agree with the complaint they’d made on the way over here, actually; they really did look out of place when they weren’t in suits. But that aside, something had come to her mind. “You don’t do like, commissions or anything, do you?” She asked.

            The panther was left to blink and show a kind of out-of-left-field surprise as if the fox in front of him had just spoken in a foreign language. “Ah—uh, I mean, I can?” He answered. “I haven’t really done any before, but I guess I could? Did you want something?” He asked.

            Vixey smiled as she glanced around at the three scattered corsacs again. “Yeah, I had an idea.” She reached into her small purse and fished around for however much she had on her. “Is this enough?” She asked, as she produced three twenty-dollar bills in her paw.

            For the panther who was probably fourteen, maybe fifteen at most, the sight practically looked like a lottery payout. In fact, he almost looked like he doubted it was real for a second. “Aahhh sure?” He very cautiously reached out and took the cash he was being offered, almost seeming like he was expecting some kind of trap to spring. “What did you have in mind?”

            Vixey took a third and final look at the would-be subjects. “Something special, for some special mammals who deserve it.”

.

.

Later on...

Chapter Text

            A corsac fox shot upright, flooding his lungs with a desperate, hurricane gasp of air. His paws lunged up to either side of his face, grabbing furiously through his fur to try and pry the unimaginable, searing pain from himself.

            But . . . he found the pain was no longer there. Nothing was beneath his paws but his own head tilting back and forth with each pounding breath he took.

            He spun around looking for the animal he had found clinging to his back just a moment before, finding himself twisting in bedsheets as he did. There was nothing there on the bathroom floor now, because there was no bathroom floor. Instead of fallen in a manor bathroom, he found himself sitting on a small bed. It took until then even for him to realize that there weren’t even any lights on, just the skyglow of a nearing dawn coming in through a wide window just beside him.

            One way or another, at least, there was no sign of that bat. He was alone . . . or not?

            “Styllianmichalocolos?” One of two voices he knew better than any other spoke, asking if the panting corsac was really who he was.

            “Brother?” The other of the two came to his side-bent ears.

            Usarionos and Doriliasmetrius; Up and Down, his brothers.

            “You’re alive?” Up asked with greater volume, both he and Down hopping off of their own beds in sync.

            Sideways couldn’t exactly answer, trying now just to calm his breathing while feeling his heart almost blowing itself apart three times every second.

            Was he? Had that only been . . . no, his brothers wouldn’t be surprised he was alive if that had only been a dream. Or was this supposed to be the dream? Was this a near death experience? It didn’t really seem to fit—his senses snapped to full alert when he felt paws and claws on him. Two paws had reached out to him, one placed each shoulder. His own arms shot up in between them and forced them apart. He hopped back the instant they were off him, only to find that part of the window was directly behind him. His head thunked hard against the glass, bringing it right back into pain again, just not of the same kind nor anything remotely near the severity he’d escaped only a moment ago.

            “Brother!” Up had apparently been the one to grab his shoulders.

            “It’s us!” Down insisted.

            Sideways found himself breathing rapidly again, and one of his own paws now migrating to the back of his head as the pain from the impact really set in.

            “And our fur . . .” Up suddenly remarked, looking at the arm he’d extended in his brother’s direction.

            “We still have it?” Down asked, looking himself over quickly before they both returned their attention to Sideways again.

            Sideways fought to reign in his breathing speed again. It took a moment before he’d done so enough to be able to finally speak himself. Now he had his own questions to ask.

            “Where—” He broke off both to take in a bigger breath and to change words. “What happened?” He grabbed another quick breath. “This isn’t—”

            “—the Manor, no.” Up went ahead and finished the sentence to relieve their brother of the effort speaking was requiring from him right then.

            “Neither is it our cell . . .” Down then remarked, actually looking around the room for the first time.

            “A cell?” Sideways asked, managing to draw his breathing out to longer than a single second for each breath.

            Both his brothers resumed looking at him, and their faces tried to change. The reflexive direction towards grim regret was there, but it seemed like it couldn’t make it all the way through. Maybe it was the sight of him actually alive in front of them that prevented it, who would know?

            “We were arrested when the manor fell.” Up said.

            Down followed up, after a clear pause. “Nothing well ever occurred again after you were gone . . .”

            Sideways had no direction to go in, no proper way in his right mind to take it. He’d just had his head shoved into that sink, but they were speaking as if . . .

            He had to ask it in some way. “I was dead?” It didn’t mean it had to be conceivable.

            Silence went by.

            “For months.” Down finally answered when Up said nothing.

            It wasn’t the easiest thing to believe, obviously. But the emptiness and pain Sideways could still see behind their window-lit eyes spoke at least to the fact they weren’t lying. Neither was he though, so what . . .

            “Then how can I just be here now?” He asked.

            The other two were blatantly lost for any actual answer, and after a moment they had to admit as much.

            “It’s doubtful that’s an answer we possess.” Up said.

            “Neither for the question of where here is.” Down added.

            All three of them took a look around the place again. It was not any place they had been or stayed before, and the most they could attain at a glance was that it appeared to be a large room of an apartment. There were two visible doors at the opposite end; one was open, leading to a bathroom and shower, the mere sight of the sink inside cold-rushing Sidways’ entire spine, and the other was closed, offering no immediate clues. The bed he sat on was backed against the same wall that bore the window, and the two others from which Up and Down had come were located further down. There was a reasonably-sized tv screen on a stand midway along one of the lengthwise walls, with a gaming console connected to it and small stack of game cases beside it.

            “Perhaps we should investigate.” Up suggested the obvious, while taking a clear look out the window, his gaze joined by that of the others.

            “Zootopia?” Down asked, though more of a surprise than a question.

            They could see the skyline out of their window, and it wasn’t exactly hard to recognize.

            “We’ve misplaced two-hundred miles . . .” Was all Sideways could think to say.

            “Two-hundred and seven.” Up specified.

            “But how—” Down started to say something, but their collective thought assembly was suddenly interrupted.

            A loud set of knocks, or rather bangs sounded against the unopened door. It brought them all into full alert, and even drew Sideways off of his seated position.

            “Hello?! Can you three shut up!?” A very, very familiar female voice asked through the barrier of wood. “I want the rest of my sleep! I don’t care if you’re awake just BE QUIET!” Vexey demanded, then to their surprise adding an apparent last-minute sprinkle of what was maybe politeness to it. “Please!?”

            The three brothers looked to each other, and then the door, which they could now see light coming from underneath.

            Apart from the fact that someone likely had to answer her, a recollection from what had to him been only been several minutes ago drove Sideways towards the door. Both his brothers followed, suspicion still high at the current situation.

            “Lady Reynard?” He asked as he opened the door.

            It took a second, but he and the two fellow corsacs behind him realized that the vixen standing outside the room’s door wasn’t the same Lady Reynard they were accustomed to seeing. She was . . . normal. There was no dyed grey to be seen. Her fur was just a natural palette of orange. And, albeit it may have merely been due to the present time, there was a complete absence of goth, emo or punk scene items or attire. Instead, she stood in classical, almost cartoon-reminiscent full pajama suit, even complete with the longsock hat and fluffy pom tip.

            “What?” She asked, after having been apparently brain-stalled for a second or two. “Wh—you . . . don’t call me that!” She shouted.

            The two seconds of no response drew a further declaration.

            “I told you I don’t want his stupid name anymore!” She bitterly reminded them of what they didn’t know.

            “Forgive me, Lady Reynar—not!” Sideways attempted to apologize, and almost immediately slipped in the middle of it. “Um—Miss Vexey.” He offered.

            It altered the expression on the vixen’s face from one of just irritation to one that now had a fair deal of confusion blended in as well.

            In the moment while their brother and Vexey had been and were speaking, Up and Down glanced around at what little they could see outside of the door. It opened out to a very short, shared hallway, which it stood on one side of the end of, with another door standing directly opposite it. The other door appeared to open into a another room of the same fair size and arrangement as the one they’d awoken in, from what they could see. The shared hallway, if it could even be called a hallway, went a few feet off to the left until it ended at the top landing of a set of stairs, which looked to lead down to a mid-landing where one would round the corner to continue down.

            “Just be quiet.” Vexey told them again, though no longer yelling. “I want to sleep until I have to get up.” She turned and traversed the whole two steps back to what had to be assumed as her room.

            “Wait, La—Miss Vexey,” Sideways asked, causing her to turn around in her doorway, “are you alright?” He asked.

            Now, the irritation seemed almost entirely replaced by confusion. “What?” She asked.

            “You were crying earlier, but you wanted to be left alone.” He thought he was reminding her.

            The statement caused a shared look of confusion between Up and Down, and brief, but visible shocked look on Vexey’s face.

            “How did—no I wasn’t!” She flipped mid-sentence. “J-just shut up and be quiet! Let me sleep.” She repeated her original demands before retreating completely into her section of the apartment and shutting the door.

            “We’ve found one familiar element.” Up remarked.

            “But not much else.” Down followed up.

            “I said be quiet!” Vexey’s voice came through from behind her door. “Please, okay? PLEASE be quiet!?”

            “Sorry, Miss Vexey.” Sideways said, speaking at a lower volume but retaining just as much as he thought it would take for her to still hear. When nothing else came about from it, he stepped back from the doorway and slowly shut the door with as little sound as possible. “We should continue investigating quietly.” He advised at a much more hushed level, now turning around.

            Up and Down were there, right where they had been, only now giving him odd looks.

            “What?” He asked.

            Up responded, in just as hushed of a voice. “Why were you asking about her crying?”

            “I was concerned. I just saw her crying in front of the topiary.” Sideways answered.

            “But why were you concerned?” Down asked, keeping a low volume as well.

            “Because she was crying . . .” Sideways answered, looking between the two of them. The question had felt odd, or rather, maybe, cold? “Why would I not be?” He asked.

            There wasn’t any actual answer from the other two, only an initial stare before their eyes seemed to weaken and set back, even if ever so slightly. They both looked away with their eyes while still facing him. Inevitably they looked to each other once more before attempting to properly respond.

            “You were gone . . .” Up told him.

            “We’ve been left in an ill state of mind for a long time.” Said Down.

            That much, Sideways could easily comprehend. They were all directions, triplets, brothers, The Three Corsacs. They’d never even been more than half a kilometer from each other. Even absent of experiencing the loss they had himself, the very idea of the trio arrangement they shared being shattered was . . .

            “Perhaps this warrants a hugging situation.” Sideways suggested.

            There was a pause, but the inevitable came.

            “It seems the most appropriate response.” Up agreed.

            As did Down. “Indeed, it does.”

            And thus it was so: a brief, but no less sentimental hug of three corsac brothers, momentary arms around each other. An embracing of the familiar in an unfamiliar place, where they had all just woken from a long and cruel, shared nightmare.

            It ended up being the equally shared noticing of a sudden light that drew them to release each other. It was from the screen of a phone, apparently half-protruding from under the pillow of the bed Up had originated from. Of course, it wasn’t what he knew as his bed, nor any of theirs, so none of them immediately reached for it.

            “This is where you awoke, Usarionos.” Down gave a hushed reminder.

            “So it should be yours.” Sideways agreed.

            Up picked up the phone just as the screen automatically turned back off. He instinctively activated it again, revealing the original source of it lighting up: a service continuity notification. It was the usual automated service provider text informing him that his monthly payment had gone through and his service would be continued. That particular aspect of it didn’t hold onto his attention for long however, nor that of the other two corsacs now also looking. What did catch all three pairs of eyes was the attached date: March 14, 0261.

            “We seem to have misplaced time as well.” Up quietly noted.

            “Backwards, in this case.” Down added the specification.

            “A whole year.” Sideways first remarked, then feeling a renewed dark chill as he remembered the differing experience between them.

            “Two for the two of us.” Said Up.

            “But where did we misplace them?” Down asked.

            The unanswerable question brought about a new silence between them. Although, their thoughts may as well have been shared, as they were all but the same.

            There was no way everything had been a dream; it had been far too real, and for two of them it had also gone on for more than far too long. How could they have all dreamed the same thing anyway, and with two of them continuing to dream the same story forward? And for literal months of experiences? But, it was quite evidently also not real either, was it? They were right here, right now, and this was more than blatantly real. So . . . what had all of that been?

            “Is this all supposed to be one of his gags?” Up finally asked something.

            The other two looked at him, and then each other, before Down suggested something. “Search him up.”

            “What?” Sideways asked.

            Up, however, understood. “What he was doing should have made headlines.”

            The corsac holding the phone went to Zoogle and searched: Count Reynard. It brought up results instantly, they just . . . weren’t the ones the three of them might have expected. There on the results page in front of them was a face they all immediately recognized, one of them with indifference, and the other two with buried hatred. A picture, much akin to a movie poster, showed a dapper attired red fox resting both paws on a cane and grinning in the most maddened, insane, and self-satisfactory way possible. In the meanwhile, a collection of other characters looked from the background with varying expressions of either fear or annoyance. Beneath the image was the apparent series title: A Wilde Time. The caption beneath then reading: An Amazoo Streaming Original miniseries.

            “What unhinged reality is this?” Up asked.

            “One I would prefer over what I woke up from.” Sideways jumped ahead of the usual order, with his particular answer drawing renewed silence from his brothers.

            In the brief passing quiet, all three did take notice of a small green checkmark that also appeared underneath the miniseries image, accompanied by a tiny label informing them that they’d recently watched it.

            “Search for news results.” Down suddenly added on, wanting just to make sure.

            Up entered the name again, with the spelling they knew, and specified the filter for news results only. Some articles did appear, but they were also not what was expected. There was nothing about a mafia, a raided mansion, a police shootout or anything of the sort. There were however, articles from a couple years ago all telling the same story. They all also held an image of another fox they easily recognized, one whom they had just dealt with only a few moments ago.

            Foxden Millionaire Wills all to Estranged Son, leaves Adopted Daughter Nothing

            Was this really . . .

            “Are we still the same as we believe ourselves to be?” Up asked.

            “We should easily be able to discern.” Down answered, looking over to the bed he had awoken on.

            The other two watched their brother walk over and lift the mattress just enough to slide his paw under. He found what he was looking for, in the same location it would normally be found. Granted this wasn’t the same mattress he was used to having it under, and he also hadn’t had anything to keep anywhere for what, to he and Up, had been several weeks. It was a wallet, inside of which was . . . less cash than each of them was normally used to having, but more importantly Down’s ID.

            Doriliasmetrius Corsica

            DOB : 06/06/0237

            “Everything otherwise appears the same.” He remarked.

            Up and Sideways each found and checked their own as well.

            Usarionos Corsica

            DOB : 06/06/0237

            “It does.” Up confirmed.

            Styllianmichalocolos Corsica

            DOB : 06/06/0237

            For no particular reason, Sideways felt his heartrate begin to pick up again, and the pace of his breathing quicken. Why? Was it just from seeing a picture of himself, just knowing that he was alive?

            “Brother?” Down brought Sideway’s attention back up, finding both his brothers looking at him with concern.

            “I’m fine.” He lied, and left his wallet on his bed to go investigate something else while he tried to calm his heart and lungs again.

            Up and Down glanced at each other, knowing their brother was lying, and that he knew that they would know. They decided to join him over where had stopped, in front of the tv screen and console.

            Sideways knelt down to look at the small pile of games that were there. The very first one on top of the pile was an immediate source of a memory flood, but not the bad kind this time.

            “Toy War 2.” He said the title aloud, still keeping his voice suppressed.

            That drew closer attention from the other two as well.

            “The second one?” Up asked.

            “With the refrigerator level?” Down asked as well.

            “The best level.” Up again.

            “And the castle of plastic zombies.” Down again.

            Sideways stared at the game cover; little green plastic army mammals firing weapons in various off-screen directions. It was an old game, one the three of them used to play all the time, in the old days, back when Foxden was still . . .

            A saying had grown in Foxden over time, after Reynard had established himself. All the good foxes left a long time ago. But, that had never been entirely true. Not all of the good foxes had left. Some couldn’t leave, and those that weren’t able to leave . . . well at least in the case of a certain three, they hadn’t exactly remained good.

            “Flood Rebellion.” Sideways spoke again, picking up a second game, one with a cover showing a determined but desperate otter half-transparent to the side while a submarine fired a torpedo towards the viewer.

            “The one we could never beat?” Up again asked what wasn’t a question.

            “Where the final boss was a giant evil pyramid?” Down did the same.

            “But it was still so much fun.” Sideways reminded them.

            That brought silence, but only for a few seconds.

            “Of course it was.” Up agreed, regret airing into his voice.

            “Everything then was.” Down aired even more so.

            They lingered there for another few minutes, looking through and growing reminiscent over each game in the pile, Sideways only standing back up after they had seen everything.

            “All that remains missing are our pogo sticks.” Up said.

            “And our skateboards and scooters.” Down added.

            “Maybe they’re somewhere else.” Sideways even suggested, honestly at that point believing to be a legitimate possibility. Not that their childhood pogo sticks could likely hold their adult weight, but that wouldn’t really be the point anyways.

            “Perhaps there’s food somewhere else also.” Up then suggested, drawing a more-than-agreeing look from Down. Both of them were hungry, and due to where they had been, or either dreamed or believed they had been, a bit flavor-deprived.

            “Should we see?” Down then asked.

            “Quietly.” Sideways agreed, not necessarily hungry himself, but going along for their sake and wanting to find out more about where they were. He supposed that they could ask Vexey, at least once she was willingly awake. But, at the same time, if they began asking her so many things they should already know, chances were pretty high that she would assume something was mentally wrong with them. Of course though, maybe something was?

            The three of them slipped out of the large room, or apartment half, whatever it was. They went quietly down the stairway, rounding the corner on the mid-landing and continuing down the second part. The stairs ended on the ground floor in a similar arrangement as they did on the upper one, in a non-hallway with a door on either side. The only difference here being an additional door straight ahead opposite the stairs. It caused them to pause for a second, a shared, unspoken consideration as to whether each should open one door or to collectively check each one together. Instinctive caution from their guarding occupation made them select the latter.

            They started with the left, finding that the door opened into a supply room, that also appeared to be a laundry room. There were some shelves stacked with generic cleaning supplies, plus a vacuum, broom, mop and mop bucket on the floor beside them. Across from the supplies, against the opposite wall, were a pair of old-looking clothes washers and dryers of the stacked kind. One of the pairs of machines had a simple sheet of paper taped to each one’s door labeled: Shop Only. And then, on another wall, they took notice of an additional set of shelves, these holding a plethora of . . . stuff: fur shampoos, conditioners, de-frazzle formulas, dyes, bleaching mix, combs, brushes, thinning razors, along with claw polishes, cleaners, buffers, paints, glitters, and a fair deal else they couldn’t even identify.

            The sight caused them to pass looks of confusion between each other over the inexplicable. Nevertheless, they brought the door closed without a sound, and went on to open the second.

            The second door led into a large, open space; a single room running from the wall bearing the door to the street-facing wall of the building. Which, in this case, had its lower half or so composed of brick, while the upper half appeared to be a shop window, the whole façade only broken in the center by a door that would open out to the sidewalk. What was in the open space brought quick sense to what they had just seen in the supply and laundry room. There were a couple tables with a rotatable, floor-anchored chair on either side. Each had some claw-decorating and treating supplies already present. Across from them on the other side were a pair of slightly larger seats in front of counter spaces arranged with fur-treating supplies and tools. Finally, off to the immediate side of the door were another pair of seats leaned back against specialized rinsing sinks.

            “A salon?” Sideways spoke first.

            “For fur.” Up went next.

            “And claws.” Down completed everything.

            “She runs this?” It was more of a remark from Sideways.

            “One might hope better than she ran the Count’s enterprise.” Down broke the triangle.

            His response caused Sideways to look back at him in surprise. “He had her take over?” He asked, only remembering Reynard having arranged to test her.

            “Not for the better.” Up answered.

            “Though the destruction of everything he built wasn’t exactly going to cause us any regret.” Down remarked.

            Sideways could hear the dark in their voices again, and it wasn’t exactly the most settling thing. “It doesn’t look like he ever did build anything, if one of him is dead and the other is a fictional character.” He reminded them of their waking discoveries, and with some actual trepidation, added on. “I hope you prefer this version over the other as much as I do.”

            That, posing that near to an actual question at least, injected some rare fragility into both of their expressions.

            “Yes.” Up managed to say.

            “Beyond all else.” Down said also.

            Up added one last bit. “Even if it ends with the three of us committed to an asylum.”

            That resulted in more silence and serious existence for a moment, until they finally shut that door and opened the third.

            Here, they found what they had come for. It was a kitchen; fridge, stove, oven, microwave, sink and all.

            “Finally.” Up was the only one who spoke as the three of them proceeded to go in.

            While the two vertically-nicknamed corsacs went straight to the fridge, Sideways spied something else on the counterspace while he was looking everything over: a toaster. Two corsacs continued in motion, while the furthest one from the freezer froze.

            Whether some inherent triplet connection or not, Up and Down felt driven to turn around, looking to find their brother lingering by the door with his eyes fixed in a single direction. Their eyes followed his, seeing what he saw, and the connection snapped in both of their minds immediately. Up was on the nearer side, so it was him who rushed over to it, and with the determined absolution of a defensive brother, the small food-heating appliance was relocated into the trashcan, harshly.

            They both looked over to him again afterward, while he stood by the door still staring at where the toaster had previously been, hearing his every amplified heartbeat as the blood blasted through the vessels in his ears.

            “It’s been removed.” Down assured him.

            It did little in the way of returning his heartrate to normal, but it did free him to move. Keeping a wary eye on where the appliance had been, and even on the trashcan it had vanished into, Sideways cautiously moved up to join his brothers in examining what was available to eat.

            There were a number of things to be found in the refrigerator, though the degree of variety on the first shelf was not as high as the number of items. At first sight there was a store-bought blackberry pie, a blackberry turnover, a package of blackberry turnover minies, a few blackberry muffins and couple other similar items. If nothing else, it was at least clearly Vexey’s shelf. The others held differing things, including a simple package of cheese, a container of eggs, a pack of store cupcakes, a bottle of ketchup, milk, apple juice, butter, cream cheese for bagels, a tub of cookie dough, and a pack of Red Replica salmon-turkey hotdogs. The freezer was where another surprise from their childhood was waiting, however. Aside from the box of eggo waffles, small tub of ice cream and bag of break’n bake cheesy breadsticks, there were a few other packages; blue packages.

            TV dinners.

            “Are those?” Up asked.

            “With the round chicken nuggets.” Down answered.

            “And the macaroni and the hardtop brownie.” Sideways added, reaching in to pick one of the boxes up and feeling an excitement return to the surface that had formerly drowned long ago. It seemed so suddenly incomprehensible. Why would they feel any excitement over something so simple, when it wasn’t even something they had been deprived of? It wasn’t as if these things weren’t available, or the remastered copies of those games couldn’t be found. Yet they had . . . they had been gone from them for so long. Once they had started working for Reynard, his dealings had just seemed to absorb everybody’s lives. They weren’t unable to get the things they might have wanted, yet they still never really did anymore.

            “I can’t even remember what the last thing I remember eating was.” Sideways admitted to part of his thought process.

            “We almost can’t really recall anything from after you were gone.” Up spoke for his and Down’s experience.

            “All the days just blur together.” Down added also. “Only the final events remain clear.”

            “It is almost identical to trying to remember a dream.” Sideways doubled his part of the triangle.

            They all shared an uncertain, contemplating gaze with each other for a moment, one that ended when Down reached over to activate the oven. Each opened his TV dinner package afterward, placing all three trays on a cooking sheet Sideways found in a neighboring drawer, and sliding them into the oven once its temperature was high enough. They all sat at the table, one on each end of one side and one in the middle of the other, always forming the usual triangle. 

            “Do you think that’s really what it was?” Sideways inevitably asked after a moment.

            “How should either of us know?” Up asked back.

            “Any of us.” Down corrected. “We’re no longer cut apart.”

            Up was quiet for just a second at what was said. “No. Nor shall we ever be again.”

            “Never.” Down agreed.

            Sideways could see the now-overt defensivity replacing the initial cold, hollowness he’d first found on their faces after their initial shock at seeing him alive. And they had by all means already begun acting on it; the swift garbage funeral of the toaster had demonstrated as much. Even now, he realized, they had seated themselves on the side of the table behind which the trashcan stood, placing themselves between him the now-removed device that had . . . not caused his death.

            “I’ll be alright.” He tried to assure them.

            “Yes.” Up did agree. “We will make sure of it.”

            “No matter what we find out to be real or false,” Down followed, “we will not be separated.”

            It was only because of the enormity of the guilt they clearly felt that Sideways didn’t just immediately agree as well. He agreed absolutely. That had already for the most part been their operating procedure for life as it was. He just really didn’t sit with the idea of his brothers still weighting themselves because of him, since what happened must really not have happened.

            Up soon pulled out his phone and began looking at something, drawing Down and Sideways’s attention. He answered the expected question without it being asked. “I’m seeing what else is real and what isn’t.”

            “A productive use of our waiting time.” Down replied.

            “Let’s join him.” Sideways agreed, pulling out his own phone as well.

            The needed half hour for their meals to cook passed, and some additional information was found. Vexey’s adoptive dad in reality, or, this version of reality? Whatever was truly occurring, he had apparently been just a generic rich guy, with a net worth of seventeen million. All of which he had left to his estranged biological son when he died, as they had seen from the article title earlier. He had legitimately left Vexey nothing. Yet she had somehow managed to open this place. There wasn’t any kind of information about her in particular after the lone set of articles about Reynard’s death, the non-fictional Reynard that was. They’d found the fandom page of that streaming show, A Wilde Time, containing the fictional character that much more resembled the Count Reynard they thought they had previously known. It turned out that the plotline of the show was, well, essentially the entire reality they thought they had been a part of up until they suddenly woke up little more than an hour ago. And they had apparently watched the entire show just recently, at least according to their streaming account. So could that have . . .

            There was no certainty at the moment, and all three of them felt to the same degree that there might not ever be. The only certainty that did exist right then and there however, were the now-ready TV dinners they had begun to enjoy. And whether their perception of taste was skewed by old childhood reminiscence or not, everything was better than they even believed they could remember.

            Up enjoyed his plainly, as the box instructed, or so was the reasoning he used to give back when they were kits, even opening the tiny frosting and sprinkles pouch that came with the tray and spreading them across the top of the brownie. Down had ketchup for his chicken nuggets, and a glass of milk to go with the entire thing. And Sideways, never the most ordinary, did exactly what he used to do. Enjoying everything the same as Down, but also dipping the hardtop brownie in ketchup as well as the nuggets. It brought about the same cringing look from the other two it always used to, at least for a second. He found their expressions very quickly relenting from it to something a deal softer, however.

            “Everything is as it should be again.” Up said.

            Down followed. “And how it always should have remained.”

            “I told you I was still trying to sleep!” Vexey attempted berating as she suddenly appeared just inside the kitchen door. It didn’t come across with any true intensity; she never really had, at least her as they thought they had known her, until they woke up. Still, however different the apparent real Vexey was, she came across just as much the same. It all seemed like more of a fit than anything else.

            “We made sure to keep quiet.” Sideways assured her.

            “Any and all possible sound was avoi—” Up began to follow, but he was cut off.

            “I mean that!” Vexey threw a pointing finger at their food. “I couldn’t get back to sleep once I started smelling those! Now I’m not gonna be able to go back at all.” Her fitting almost fell into a mope by her third sentence. She stood there giving off a mix of anger and frustrated pouting, full pajama suit and all, even including a set of fuzzy slippers on her feet.

            It was only then, this second time, that Sideways took notice of the particular design pattern on her lullaby-cartoon-esque sleeping attire. Normally, most depictions of full pajama outfits had the pants and longsleeve as striped and the longsock hat plain, while in reality they usually bore shape patterns such as stars, hearts, silhouettes of different mammals, sometimes even rubber ducks. But the ones Vexey wore were patterned with a repeating scene depiction: a simply-designed pair of vulpine parents hugging their child.

            That, well, he supposed for either version her it would have made sense, though the Vexey they had known up until they woke up had acted out on her lack of legitimate family treatment by more edgy means.

            “Did you want us to make you one?” Sideways found himself asking, pertaining to their meals that had prevented her return to sleep.

            “No.” She responded. “I can make my own breakfast.” Whether intentional or not, her words came across like she was trying to prove a point. She proceeded to walk over to the freezer herself afterward, pulling out the box of eggo waffles and then turning to the counter, only to be left blinking in confusion. “Where’s the toaster?” She asked.

            The three corsacs traded looks with each other, Sideways unable to keep guilt from showing on his face and even finding Up and Down unable to keep some level of embarrassment off of theirs.

            “We,” Up started to explain, having to pause for a second to decide how to properly phrase things, “removed it.”

            “It was an emergency relocation to the trash can.” Down specified.

            Whether because of the phrasing or just the reality itself, it took a few seconds for Vexey to actually process the particular words that were said. “You—wha . . . what!?” She couldn’t withhold her incredulity. Despite the volume and her fit-flustered expression, it was still pretty evident that she was more dumbfounded than pissed off in the immediate moment.

            “It’s my fault.” Sideways confessed.

            “Why did you throw away my toaster!?” She demanded of him.

            “He didn’t.” Up corrected.

            “We did.” Down added.

            “But it was because of me.” Sideways explained.

            Vexey’s eye’s narrowed, but surprisingly not in anger, or at least not entirely. She still didn’t get it. “Wha—That doesn’t explain anything!” She protested.

            “He was overwhelmed upon seeing it.” Up said.

            “It had to removed from sight so he could calm down.” Down added again.

            More incredulity poured out through the vixen’s mentally gear-shifting expression. “Then you could have just . . .” She stopped mid-sentence as the further dumbfounding realization dawned on her. “He was afraid of a toaster?”

            All three corsacs had to glance between each other again, sharing the unspoken uncertainty of how exactly to go about any kind of explanation, or even whether to offer one at all.

            “I’m sorry, Miss Vexey.” Sideways apologized, standing up from the table. “I can just step out and it won’t be a problem.”

            “And why are you all using my last name?” She asked a different question. “Why are you three being so WEIRD?”

            A couple seconds passed after the question was asked, the absolute limit before the three of them knew they couldn’t take any longer to respond, lest they appear more weird than they clearly already seemed.

            “A very poor night of sleep.” Up offered an explanation.

            If she was anything like the Vexey they had known, she should easily buy it, even if it was only a few inches inside the bubble of believability.

            She did, in fact, buy it, after blinking a few times. “What, you mean like nightmares?” She asked.

            Down replied, after a second. “That would be a manner of describing it, yes.”

            “Ok fine,” she gave, “but you better be normal again later.” She demanded, before looking back to the counter and remembering what she had forgotten over the last minute. “And can one of you get my toaster back out? And clean it . . . please?”

            Up and Down glanced at each other, not at all used to hearing that last word from her, while Sideways quietly slid back and exited the kitchen.

***

            Up and Down later joined Sideways back upstairs, where they were all then examining their apparent wardrobe. While, true to who they were, each had the exact same collection of clothing as the others, something wasn’t quite right. Their standard attire was seemingly absent. No suits, ties, or even blackout shade sunglasses. Now reality felt truly warped. But, if that was their only problem, then perhaps it really wasn’t so.

            “This deprivation feels unnatural.” Down still chose to voice.

            “We should go and acquire our normal apparel at some later time.” Up, keeping with the unnatural feeling, jumped Sideways’ position in the speaking arrangement.

            “Let’s at least choose something fitting enough for now.” Sideways followed up, just as out of order.

            They ended up settling on black, collared polo shirts, and cargo shorts. It wasn’t exactly the most intimidating appearance they could achieve, but it seemed the best of what was available. At least it seemed to bring about a positive response when they were first seen.

            “Huh?” Vexey, or Vixey, maybe, took a notice of surprise when they emerged into the fur & claw salon below. “You guys are actually gonna dress nice today?”

            The three quickly shared a glance, not exactly expecting that particular reaction.

            Vixey herself, now no longer in pajamas, was still not in any way the Vexey they had awoken from working for. Aside from being in her natural fur colour instead of her edgy, protesting grey dye, her current clothing had no chains, no spikes, no rebellious imagery or anything of the sort. Instead, she simply wore a pair of black jeans, and a black t-shirt with white rims around its base, neck and sleeve ends. Although, there was one unique portion to it all: an image of a grey fur-dyed vixen’s face in the center of her shirt, seemingly mocking whoever looked at it. It bore quite an overt resemblance to the apparently not-real Vexey they had thought to have known.

            “We were actually intending to acquire a different clothing selection.” Up eventually said.

            “Is there a particular time we will be off duty we could make use off?” Down asked.

            They wanted to avoid continuing to act weird, but in some regards they were essentially backed into a corner with no choice.

            It drew the expected initial confusion from her, which was followed by an explanation, and an accusation. “Wh—yeah, when I close from noon to one like we do literally every day. Or after I—you said you were gonna stop being weird!”

            “We never actually said as much.” Up corrected.

            “You presumed we would.” Down reminded her.

            Vixey tried to say something back, but ended up just biting the inside of her lips and flattening down her ears until she had to vent. “UGGGHHH!” She walked over and rested on her knees in one of the swivel chairs next to a claw treatment table, turning back and forth.

            “Uh, forgive us,” Sideways attempted to apologize for them, “Miss—” He stopped short, recalling her complaint from earlier. He assumed her name was Vixey, as her real name had been in whatever they had awoken from. Though if Vexey was her last name, then he wasn’t entirely sure. But, he had to address her as something, and two different forms had already upset her. “—Vixey.”

            Since no response came from her, the three corsacs went as far as assuming that was in fact still her name.

            “Why don’t you just go out now.” Vixey muttered, leaning over the top of the swivel chair, still swinging it back and forth. “It’s not like I ever actually get anyone anyway.” Defeat crept its way out of her with very little effort.

            “We don’t abandon our posts.” Sideways responded.

            It took a moment for Up and Down to agree with him, as much time as it took for them to forcibly remind themselves all that had happened . . . didn’t happen? Afterall, their brother was standing right there with them now. But all the ill sentiment that built up after what they thought they had experienced wasn’t a swift thing to suppress.

            “No.” Up agreed.

            “We do not.” Down as well.

            Vixey seemed slightly surprised, though whether it was because she was only a minor bit surprised, or whether the sudden defeated demeanor that had come over her was overpowering it was uncertain. She turned herself about, shifting to sit properly in the chair now, and leaning back. “Thanks.” She actually said.

            All four foxes were quiet for a moment, until the corsacs found themselves asking another question.

            “Um, Miss Vixey,” Sideways was the one to ask, “what do you require us to do?”

            Vixey was again taken by surprise at their asking something they should know the answer to, but at the same time the mope she had slipped into caused her to rather quickly give up on incredulity. “Nothing.” She answered through a sigh. “Unless the window smashers show up,” she told them, causing them to notice that one of the shop windows was in fact massively cracked, “or the Gnu News Gang comes back, or the guy who tried to jack my last customer’s car, or the highschool kid who spray painted the other customer’s windshield, or any of the creeper pervs . . .” There seemed to be more to the list, but she still just let it stop.

            Learning that their apparent real occupation was similar to the one they had never actually had, the three brothers looked to each other with a collective nod and made their way over to the entrance.

            “Leaving anyway?” Vixey asked, still defeated, as they were about to open the salon door.

            All three glanced back at her, showing minor surprise on their own part.

            “We’re going to stand guard.” Up answered.

            “In case any of the mammals you listed come within the establishment’s proximity.” Down explained.

            It left Vixey surprised herself, enough that it actually appeared to force some of her moping demeanor away. Meanwhile, as those three began to step out, Up and Down turned to stop Sideways before he could exit with them. He knew why very quickly; it wasn’t hard to deduce the obvious.

            “I’ll be alright.” He tried to tell them.

            “Yes. Inside.” Up agreed in a different manner.

            After a second, Down spoke as well. “Please.”

            “Even if only for now.” Up again.

            “Not again.” Down finalized the interaction.

            The rare vulnerability he heard in both voices was enough to compel Sideways to agree. Even though he, and in truth likely them as well, doubted these threats were remotely on par with what they would have to convince themselves they hadn’t dealt with in the past. They were still wary over the chance of any danger to him. So, the two of them stood in front of the window façade outside, while he lingered back and stood by the door on the inside.

            “Why are you guys trying to call me Lady and Miss?” Vixey asked him not long afterwards, still twirling back and forth in the same chair, just more slowly now.

            Sideways attempted to explain without giving the actual explanation. “Because it’s polite, and a deserving title?” He did his best to avoid it sounding like he was unsure of the answer he was giving.

            She looked away while she dismissed it. “All I have to do is not be married. It’s not much of title.”

            “Would you prefer us to only use your name?” He asked.

            “That’s what you’ve always been doing.” She thought she was reminding him.

            “If that’s not what you want though—” He began saying, before she spoke up instead.

            “It doesn’t matter.” She was almost back to muttering. “I’m not worth the effort for anything anyways.”

            Sideways wanted to say something, he really did, but he was coming up pretty empty as to what.

            Vixey ended up speaking again anyways. “I never even tried to say any of your names.” She admitted to a fact that was in line with what they had previously thought reality to be. “All I even know is just that you’re the S one.”

            Sideways waited a second, wondering if he should at first, but decided to in the end. “Styllianmichalocolos.”

            Though at least not looking right at him when she did, Vixey’s eyes had the reaction one might usually see from a college student finding out their exam is five-hundred questions long.

            “You don’t have to try.” He told her. “Our names have always been burdensome to everyone.”

            “Still-i-ma . . . no, Styllini . . .” Vixey actually made a few attempts, to Sideway’s surprise.

            “It might be easier to simply say Styllian.” He offered.

            She looked over at him for a second, and then tried. “Styllian?” She asked as much as she said.

            He found himself oddly smiling at her success, a sign which she interpreted as her success indeed being just that.

            Meanwhile, outside, a small motorcycle was casually cruising by; its vulpine rider looking from side to side at the business labels on each windowfront. She brought the bike to stop as soon as she saw the salon, and went on to quickly pull her racer over to the curb. The removal of her helmet revealed her to be an arctic fox, probably just a few years older than Vixey and her corsac associates. She looked rather happy to find the place, at least until she was overcome by a weird look as she spotted the two near-identical foxes standing on either side of the door.

            “Um,” she asked as she came up, “this is a fur and claw salon, right?”

            “A well-secured one, yes.” Up answered her.

            “Do you—” Down just started to speak before the door flew open.

            “Hi!” Vixey interrupted them, trying to not to sound desperate, but not really succeeding in the attempt. “Ignore them. Please, how can I help you?”

            “Uh,” the other vixen shifted her eyes from one corsac to the other for another second before actually speaking to Vixey, “I’ve been trying to a place that was actually this far out here. I just wanted a claw clean?”

            It was a common thing for predators with rough-surfaced claws like foxes, wolves, and hyenas. Their claws tended to accrue a number of cracks, divets and split lines that dirt could easily collect in over time.

            “Sure!” Vixey piped up instantly. “I can do it right now! Or, did you want an appointment for another time?”

            “I was actually hoping for right now.” The other vixen answered.

            “Perfect! Go ahead, right over here.” Vixey directed her inside to the first of the only two claw treatment tables.

            The customer stepped in and walked over, still casting an odd look back at the two door guards as she did. She took the customer seat at the first table, while Vixey sat down in the same chair she had just been in.

            “Just claw cleaning?” Vixey asked to be sure.

            “Yeah,” the customer answered, “it’s a bit too much for me to do myself as often as I have to.”

            “You have to claw clean a lot?” Vixey asked, taking the customer’s first paw as she held it out. When she separated her fingers to have a look at the claws, she found it wasn’t the usual dirt and grime that filled the cracked and split spaces, but instead it looked like . . . oil, and mechanical grease, and even tiny bits of paint. “Oh damn.” She remarked without thinking.

            “Yeeaah,” her customer didn’t seem bothered, “sorry, I’m an aviation mechanic.”

            “For real?” Vixey asked, genuinely surprised, and impressed.

            The customer nodded, going on while Vixey was getting everything ready. “They’re gonna get like this again pretty quick, so I’ll probably be coming back a lot. I was pretty sure there weren’t even any places in the Industrial District until I saw yours. But this works out great now, cause I don’t wanna keep having to do it myself, but I also really don’t wanna have to go all the way over to Savanna just to find a place.”

            “Oh, uh, yeah I think I’m the only one over here.” Vixey said a bit nervously. While her position over on this side of the harbor might work out well for her new customer, it hadn’t exactly worked all that well for Vixey herself. But, maybe that would change? If she could get even one recurring client now.

            “That makes you the best one then!” Her customer encouraged her. “My boyfriend was trying to convince me I don’t have to get them taken care of as often, but—”

            “Ugh,” Vixey immediately dismissed it, “no, don’t listen to the uneducated.” She spoke in reference to guys in general.

            Her response actually made the customer giggle for moment, which lifted Vixey’s own mood up a fair bit.

            With an smile now, she grabbed the primary claw-cleaning tool: a small device that honestly resembled a dentist’s paw-held mouth rinser, only even smaller and with a much more narrow spray nozzle. It had a spiraling path inside that the water would follow before reaching the nozzle, being heated quickly by an electric coil the spiral wrapped itself around within. Warm, high-speed water always cleared a mammal’s claws of almost everything. Though sometimes, one of which Vixey suspected would be this customer’s case, some soaps and surfactants were needed.

            “Are any of them uneducated?” The customer asked.

            “Huh?” Vixey looked over at Sideways, now leaning against the wall, and Up and Down standing beside the door outside. “What do you mean?” She asked when she turned to face her client again.

            “I think she’s asking if one of us is your boyfriend.” Sideways was the one who answered.

            “Wht—what? Ah, n-no,” Vixey stabilized her words as she settled back down, “I don’t have one.” She was . . . a bit more sad about it than she would have liked to believe. Great, she didn’t exactly want to be thinking about that now too. She’d somehow managed to avoid mulling over as much for a fair deal of time, but maybe that somehow also had something to do with almost never having any customers talking to her about stuff. But whatever! She needed to focus here.

            Meanwhile, outside, Up and Down stood on either side of Vixey’s fur and claw salon entrance, vigilantly keeping watch for any potential threat. And in the midst of doing so, an inevitable question had to present itself.

            “Doriliasmetrius,” Up addressed his brother by name, “are we guarding a salon?”

            “Yes, Usarionos,” Down replied, “it would seem we are.”

Chapter Text

            “Are you absolutely sure?” Vixey asked the maned wolf sitting in the first fur treatment chair.

            The mammal was too tall for it, but it wasn’t like Vixey had any others. He was here to get his hyena-like mane dyed, with his fiancé watching, though not technically, from one of the claw treatment tables across the room. His mane was currently the dark brown that was natural for most of his species, standing out against his orange fur. However, he was about to have it changed to a navy blue. He seemed like a chill, flow-going guy for the most part. And potentially because of that, it had apparently only taken a single bout of encouragement from his fiancé to convince him. It was his idea, but she had picked the colour.

            “Sure. Let’s go for it.” Ookami answered her.

            He was a friend of Haida and Fenneko, and Fenneko was both a friend and repeating client. So when their friend had expressed his mane-dying intentions, the phone fennec had referred him to Vixey. And his fiancé had come along as well to have her claws done while he would be waiting for both the bleach and then the dye to set in.

            “So uh, why blue?” Vixey was kind of nervous to ask. Ookami’s fiancé was a blind wolf named Daria, so natural curiosity arose as to why she had any particular favoring for a given colour.

            “It sounds the nicest to say.” Daria answered, with something of an evercalm happiness. “It always has to me.” She was looking right over at Ookami, regardless of not truly looking at him.

            “Really?” Vixey didn’t exactly mean it as a question, and the two other mammals were able to pick up as much by her immediately saying it to herself a few times right afterwards. “Blue. Blue.”

            She went about mixing the hair bleaching compound together while she contemplated the concept. The strong scent of the substance flooded the whole room immediately. Vixey herself had no real reaction to it, but it must have been her client couple’s first time encountering it.

            “Dang, ha’that stuff’s got a kick.” Ookami remarked almost instantly.

            Daria even caressed her own nose for a moment.

            “You alright over there?” The maned wolf asked her.

            “I’m ok.” Daria promised with a smile. “I just wasn’t expecting that.”

            “Sorry.” Vixey apologized.

            “Nah, it’s fine.” Ookami promised. “It’s nothing bad, or good, kinda in between. It’s just strong.”

            “If it was really too bad I could just step outside.” Daria assured her.

            “If you do, just ignore anything The Corsasstic Trio says while you’re out there.” Vixey told her.

            “That’s what you call them?” Ookami asked with some amusement.

            “I thought they were pretty nice when we were coming in.” Daria said.

            Vixey had to give a minor eye roll at that. Not that her three guards, employees, boyfriend and his two brothers, however she would classify them; not that they weren’t nice, more so than they once had been, but specifically just with her they could get a bit . . . “I guess the sass part of it really is only reserved for me.” She remarked just as she got ready to start applying the bleach. “Alright,” she switched to warning Ookami, “I always do my best to make sure it stays in the mane, but some of it’s still probably gonna get down and it might burn.”

            “Yeah, everybody already warned me about that.” He replied. “It’s fine. I’ll just take it.”

            “I’m sure they save it all for you because you’re really special to them.” Daria commented warmly.

            “Huh?” It took Vixey’s brain an extra second to click, like it usually did, but she still got the wolf was referring to her prior corsac comments. She answered while she began working the bleach into Ookami’s mane. “Well, yeah, one of them really does.” She couldn’t keep a smile away as she mentioned Sideways. “I guess I have to admit Up and Down care about me too, or else they really should’ve left a long time ago, back when I could barely pay them.” She admitted, but went on to doubt. “But I kinda know they wouldn’t leave anyways because of Sideways and me. They got really protective over him a couple years ago, so they’d never leave him behind.”

            “The little brother that needs to be protected?” Daria asked, coming off like it was something she was very familiar with.

            “No, they’re all the same.” Vixey told her. “They’ve just been like that with him since they woke up acting weird that one time.”

            “What?” Ookami asked as bleach continued to get worked through his wolf mane. “Was it like some giga-level nightmare or something?”

            It took her a second to respond. She had never grown entirely used to bypassing what the three-directional brothers had actually told her. They had eventually told her the truth of their experiences, expecting full-well that the only honest conclusion she should have come to was that they were insane. Yet, even knowing as much, they still chose to tell her anyway, with even the two lesser-inclined of them saying they believed she deserved to know. And no matter what, she would never betray their trust.

            “Something like that.” Was the simple, off-waving response she gave to her seated client. Which, in its own right was true, perhaps just with the wrong vocabulary. “I kind of owe them everything for that, which kind of feels bad, and weird.”

            “Huh?” Ookami asked, while his fiancé also appeared just as curious. “Ah, not sure I follow?”

            “They woke me up really early that one day,” she explained, “not on purpose, just—and I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got everything ready and ended up opening early. That’s the first time Skye came in. She said she’d been trying to find a place closer than Savanna, and I was finally her break.” Vixey paused for a second as the other side of the memory came through as well. “I was really close to just shutting down and going broke . . . but them waking me up early that one day spun everything around. I opened up early, and was actually able to take Skye. Skye started coming all the time, and then she told Jamie. Jamie started coming, and then she told Anga. Skye told Felicity; Felicity started coming. Then Felicity told Emily, and Emily started coming. And then when Fenneko moved here they told her, and she started literally coming all the time. And now she told you,” Vixey indicated Ookami, and then ended with Daria, “and you told her. And now I’m not broke and about to shut down.”

            “Wow, that was a pretty neat zig-zag.” Ookami remarked over the whole verbal journey, just as Vixey seemed to be done working the bleach into his mane. “Sure we got everybody?”

            “That’s everyone who comes back all the time.” She confirmed.

            “Well,” Daria spoke up again, still carrying the same pleasantry, “I can’t speak for my gentle sweetheart and his color-changing mane, but I’ll come back here from now on.”

            “I mean if Fenneko recommends someone, it’s pretty smart of you to listen.” Her tall sweetheart then added.

            “Oh, thanks.” Vixey had to at least say as much, though she felt embarrassed by some bit. “But I haven’t even taken care of your claws yet?”

            “You’ll do them just fine though.” The wolf assured her.

            Vixey blinked once or twice, surprised by the apparent confidence she had in her. “But, like there’s nothing for you to check the quality of yet. Wait, how do you—” She froze herself guilty upon the realization of the sensitivity of what she was about to ask. Although Daria really, really didn’t seem like she minded such things at all, Vixey still didn’t want to take the risk of it, or just come across a bit dimwittedly blunt like she used to.

            Regardless, Daria knew exactly what the question would have been, as it was blatantly obvious. And true to Vixey’s hope, she wasn’t the slightest bothered by it. Though the answer Daria gave also wasn’t what Vixey would have thought to hear. “I can’t. I just like to enjoy the gentle soothing of it.”

            Vixey guessed she was right, the smooth application of the polish or painting brush did feel nice, at least when she paid attention to it. She did her own claws most of the time though, so she was usually a bit too focused. Actually, she realized even when she had them done by someone else, she was still primarily focused on watching the application, or talking. But . . . she assumed having one those senses completely absent meant there was obviously no way to be focused on it, so Daria probably did often enjoy different things about stuff.

            The orange fox cleaned out the small mixing bowl that had held the bleach, and finally removed her gloves and washed off her own paws. The gloves were practically sock-length, so no bleach or dye ever actually got on her paws or arms, but it still just felt better after having them stuck inside of gloves for any length of time.

            Everything was already set at Daria’s table, so Vixey just walked right over after she was done and took the seat on her side.

            Daria looked past her, without sight, over to Ookami with a smile. “Are you alright Oki?” She asked.

            Vixey turned over her shoulder to see. He hadn’t said anything, at least that she had heard, and he still seemed to be sitting perfectly fine.

            “Haha, yeah.” His voice did prove just the slightest bit different though. “Everybody was right. It’s starting to burn.”

            “It’s only gonna be a little while.” Vixey reminded him.

            “Don’t worry, I’ll hold out.” He promised, seemingly back to his normal easy voice.

            Vixey turned back to Daria afterward. “Was it just polishing or did you want cleaning too?”

            “Both, please, if it’s no trouble.” Daria answered.

            “No no it’s fine.” Vixey assured her, grabbing the heated water minijet and turning it on. “I’m just gonna have to stop after one to go back to tall and lanky over there.”

            The mostly accurate descriptive designator for her fiancé left Daria having to giggle a little bit. Which, then drew a comment out of Ookami himself.

            “Back at the old office they usually said tall and scrawny.” He commented.

            “Huh?” Vixey looked back at him for a second, then getting the sudden realization. “Oh, crap, sorry, was that—”

            “No, it’s fine.” Daria was the one to answer, coinciding with a closed-eyes confirmation smile from the maned wolf across the room. “I think lanky is much better.”

            It gave Ookami a laugh, both relieving himself temporarily of the mild burning from the mane bleach, and relieving Vixey from her own brief worry.

            Vixey took one of Daria’s paws and held it over the small drainsink as she began washing it. The little tool, reminiscent of some mix between a tattoo needle and a dentist’s rinser. The water was heated by the miniature coils inside as it went through, not hot enough to be harmful, but enough to enhance its washing effect when combined with the speed at which it emerged. Basically it came out at the same general temperature that hot tubs usually maintained themselves at.

            One by one, Vixey rinsed down each of Daria’s claws from the base of each down to its point, keeping them aimed point-down so the water would run straight off into the drain. The wolf’s claws didn’t necessarily need all that much. Regardless of being unable to see, Daria apparently kept them very well cared for on her own. Of course, some part of guilt came over Vixey for a moment after thinking as much. She had to give some degree of respect, even if unspoken. Taking care of her own claws was clearly nothing, given Daria had succeeded at becoming a doctor.

            After a bit of time went by, not in silence by any means, it was time to wash the bleach out of Ookami’s mane. And, that was something he was more than ready to get around to.

            “Yeah, told you I could make it,” he was saying as he leaned back in one of the two fur and mane rinsing chairs, “but this still feels SO much better.”

            Vixey was in the midst of washing his mane clear of bleach, going through a second time with a specialized stylist shampoo now. Apart from the relieving feeling of the water itself blocking out the former burning sensation on his head, the shampoo this time had its own soothing effect. Of course, that was in fact something it was specifically designed to do. The first one had specifically been engineered as a bleach remover primarily. The one Vixey was using now on the second pass, since most of the bleach was gone, was a specialized as a scalp-soother.

            They moved on to the actual blue dye afterwards, once she’d dried off his mane, and she’d done about half of it when the door eventually opened.

            It wasn’t a client, however, it was Bagheera, the same highschool panther kid Vixey had met a few days ago at the ice cream place. And, he was carrying something with him.

            “H’whoa-hoa,” he remarked the moment he caught sight of Ookami’s in-progress mane dye, “looks like someone’s been watching too much anime.”

            Daria was instantly sent laughing for a moment, and Ookami had to at least chuckle a little bit himself.

            “Funny you should say that, actually.” Ookami responded with amusement.

            “Huh? Uh-what?” Bagheera asked.

            Daria had ceased laughing and was the one to answer. “He’s from what you might call the, anime homeland.”

            “Wait, really?” The teen was surprised for a second, but then a round of enthused curiosity seemed to come over him. “Oh! Are they really adding a second life-size Gundam to Onogoro park?”

            It was Ookami’s turn to be surprised this time. “Eh, I’m probably not the best guy to be asking. I was never really into that much. Didn’t really get the time for anything, got stuck with too much extra work stuff all the time.”

            “Hey!” Vixey suddenly voiced up, drawing all three’s attention. “Aren’t you supposed to be here to bring ME something?” She asked the kid.

            “Oh, yeah! Sorry.” Bagheera said, stepping up close to her, and Ookami by proxy. “Here it is. I hope it’s close enough to what you had in mind.” He said as he removed the covering from the large art piece.

            There it was: a fully-colored, exceptionally detailed scene depiction. It was an enormous explosion, grand in scale and utterly epic in proportion. What once had been there would never be known, but what was there now would be. Usarionos, Doriliasmetrius, and Styllianmichalocolos, The Three Corsacs. In their eternal attire of suits and shades, the three of them strode towards the viewer, away from the explosion erupting behind them. With their eyes behind their shades, and the faces of the fearless corsac heroes they were, everything behind them exploded into a massive blast of fire, and not a single one of them was looking at it.

.

***

.

            A bit later, outside, the three corsac subjects of that artwork Vixey had received were approaching a very different, less fiery scene.

            Up looked over his shoulder as they moved forward, checking the particular angle of a certain something and commenting on as much when he returned his attention to what was in front of them. “Completely within view.”

            Down’s words came immediately after. “Not a single thought given to caution.”

            “They might think it’s fake.” Sideways suggested, even knowing stupidity was the much more likely case.

            “Yes,” Up agreed to doubt, “perhaps.”

            Down ended up getting the last words in as they neared the mammals ahead, who were all still apparently oblivious to their approach. “Or perhaps we shouldn’t grant too much credit to their awareness.”

            They stopped just in front of the scene. A group of five recently familiar wolves were gathered together in the midst of scouring through a vehicle they’d just broken into. One of them had apparently just found forty bucks somewhere inside, while another took a pair of headphones out of the glovebox, and one more . . . was trying to start it with something. They weren’t just stealing whatever they could grab from inside, apparently if they could, they were just straight up going to steal the car itself too.

            Well, the five canines’ attention began to shift over the course of a few seconds as one finally did take notice of the three vulpines, and then the others followed his redirection. Five mammals stared at three, three who were half their size.

            “The same three lice pelts from the other day?” One of the wolves asked.

            “Looks like it.” Their leader, Jake, answered, stepping up in front of the car and putting on a street-menacing face, willfully unaware that the corsac trio was completely unintimidated.

            “And you’re the same five cowards.” Up said.

            “Who ran away at even the mere prospect of seeing the police.” Then Down.

            “And right before they were already about to get destroyed by a tiger cub.” And Sideways, before it began over.

            “Perhaps we may be wrong.” Up again.

            “But it looks like you’re trying to take something of high value.” Down again.

            “Something that doesn’t belong to you.” And off to the side.

            Jake didn’t seem particularly amused by the whole game. “Oooo, what? You gonna call the cops?” He pulled out a knife before going on. “If you even get the chance.” He went on to remind them that Emily wasn’t there with her direct line to dispatch this time, describing her with a number of female-derogatory terms that even most R-rated content usually avoided.

            His four subordinates, or followers or whatever they were, all got ready to fight as well. Two were apparently going paws and teeth only, and staying furthermost back likely because of it, while two others had weapons of their own, one pulling out a switchblade again and the other grabbing the same broken rod of rebar they’d used to smash the car’s windows initially.

            This time it was actually Sideways who started the words up. “That would be better for you. But it looks like you’re going to make us defend ourselves first.”

            “They even seem to think they’re going to win.” Up went then.

            “They do seem to enjoy making horrible choices.” Then Down.

            “It was really nice of you two to let me join you for their correction.” Sideways finalized, just as the wolves in front of them decided it was time to start.

            Jake went for Sideways, who immediately hopped back. Up and Down both leapt from the ground, one kicking out the wolf’s left knee and the other going higher for a harsher kick to his right side with both feet.  The loss of control and balance from the first hit left Jake to be sent rolling off to the side across the ground, with his knife sent clinking out of his paw.

            The two unarmed wolves froze up at the unexpected outcome, while the two who were armed cast each other a suddenly-uncertain glance before seemingly deciding they were still going for it.

            One swung his piece of rebar down at Up, who instantly dove under him, grabbing and pulling one of the wolf’s ankles off the ground and pulling it with him as he went. It sent the wolf stumble-hopping, and Sideways rushed in to capitalize. He grabbed ahold of the wolf’s arm and used it like a gymnastic bar to swing himself upward and turn the moment into an uppercut-kick, if there were such a thing, right into the clueless canine’s jaw.

            At the same time, the wolf with the switchblade attempted to slice up Down. The corsac dodged each swing with modest effort until his opponent tried for a stab instead. When the wolf lunged forward Down took to the side of it, dealt a quick and classic blow to the nuts while grabbing the arm. The damage froze the canine for a second, which was more than long enough. Down jumped up just enough to slam his feet back down on the mammal’s knee, sending that leg slipping back and leaving the fox to flip the unbalanced wolf up and over. His impact with the ground was apparently enough to make the wolf release his weapon just like the others.

            Jake, their high-IQ leader, did try to get up and reach for his knife again, only receive a knee to the face from Up instead.

            Three animals had lost, and not the three who the larger group had been expecting to lose. That group’s remaining two members decided that was an appropriate time to develop some brain capacity, and turned to run off.

            The corsacs did not pursue, instead lingering to guard the three less-intelligent subjects that had been dealt with. They adjusted their sunglasses, which had not even shifted in the slightest anyway, and stepped away to the sidewalk and nodded to each other.

            Up then proceeded to pull out his phone and make a call.

            “Emily?” He asked, as casually as anyone would were they about to speak of anything else.

            A question came, and he answered.

            “Usarionos.”

            Roughly the same question, which he answered differently, and with a bit of irritance.

            “UP.”

            Now the question changed.

            “Listen, we . . . have something for you. Or any of your colleagues”

            Then the more interesting and concerned questions started from the other end.

            “The same wolves from before. We saw them trying to steal a car by Vixey’s place and we advised them to stop.”

            More.

            “No, not at first. They have now that they’re mildly incapacitated. We ended up having to act in self-defense.”

            And more.

            “If we had to defend ourselves, then obviously yes, they did.”

            Even more.

            “No, we were not smiling.”

            Still more.

            “Yes, there are other witnesses, of the most reliable kind.”

            And yet more.

            “No, we’re not. We’ll be standing right here.”

            After a few more words came from the other side, he was able to hang up.

.

***

.

            It was a decently long, and tedious process. The three brothers had to spend several hours on the sidewalk under the watch of one pair of officers, while being taken one by one to give as thorough of an account as possible to the arriving sergeant. And, of course, hearing the wolves whining and crying about how it was the other way around, and the corsacs had just jumped them without reason. Unfortunately for the canids, however, there was in fact a fourth witness, and one with much greater believability than any mammal. It was one of the three cameras hanging just above the door of Vixey’s salon, one aimed in each principal direction: up one direction of the street, down the other direction, and sideways straight out in front of the salon. It was a trio of cameras that had been purchased and installed some time ago by the trio of corsac foxes, a little while after they had first woken up from their other lives. Other officers had viewed and made a copy of the relevant footage, before then going about contacting the window-busted vehicle’s owner. And then the entire responding group, after the sergeant overseeing the whole thing gave it a clear, finally told the three brothers they were free to go, and took the three wolves away.

            Now of course, the responding officers collecting that footage had required entering the salon, and thus bringing the surprise upon Vixey of all that was happening. Thankfully, at the very least, Vixey had just completed Daria’s claws and finished drying off Ookami’s now-blue mane after washing it. So, she hadn’t been in the middle of any work when they came inside. She had wanted to run over to the three brothers, once the officers first informed her of what had occurred, but even after having her provide them the required camera footage, they still made her stay back.

            Now, at least, those three were up and returning as the police vehicles were leaving. So she stood just outside the door, arms crossed, foot tapping, and trying to hold a furious face only for it to keep fluxing over to retroactive worry.

            “Vixey?” Sideways voiced immediate concern at the sight as they approached.

            “What was that!?” She demanded to know, arms immediately thrown back down with fist paws bending upwards.

            The three looked uncertainly around to each other, before a normal speaking triangle proceeded.

            “We were resolving a problem.” Up went.
            Then Down. “Several of the—”

            “I know WHAT you were doing!” She cut him off.

            “Then did you mean to ask why?” Down asked instead.

            “No!” Her answer was immediate, but then she double backtracked. “I mean yes! I—I mean—shut up!”

            Sideways was partly as confused as they were, but he still thought he might know . . . “Was it just—”

            A sudden, angry, hug from Vixey silenced him midway through. After the initial second of shock, a tiny smile did come over him, upon which he gently hugged her back. Apparently he had been correct.

            “I’m sorry we scared you.” He told her.

            “We assure you, Lady Vexey, we would not have come to harm.” Up spoke as well.

            “And we would take every—” Down began, but was stopped by Vixey.

            “I know you wouldn’t get hurt!” She asserted, keeping her paws on Sideways’s shoulders while thrusting him away a bit to clear space to turn her head between the others. “I thought you were getting arrested!”

            That caused another glance between the brothers.

            “It’s a relief then to know you don’t doubt our ability to win a confrontation.” Up said.

            “But rest assured there would not be any risk of other undesirable outcomes either.” Down followed.

            “They mean they’re sorry too.” Sideways translated for them.

            Up and Down just lightly looked away for a moment, which was the nearest to a yes that Vixey was going to get. Vixey herself knew as much, and so she reached out and grabbed each of them by the suit collar to drag them into part of the hug as well.

            “The fact that we’ve become used to these actions seems to carry a message.” Up decided to reflect.

            “The fact that we seem so willing to allow them potentially has more to say.” Down did the same.

            “And the reality of answering to someone who actually values our lives would seem to be the cause you’re looking for.” Sideways told them what they ultimately knew, but just wouldn’t say.

            A moment passed by before she suddenly let them all go, appearing with a look of sudden, excited recollection. “Oh! I got you something.”

            A mere moment later, they were upstairs above the salon. Vixey had dragged them behind her; her pulling Sideways, who in turn pulled Down, who in turn pulled Up, forming a four-fox running chain. She left them outside her door as she ran into her room, reemerging in a couple seconds with the large, epic, thug-suit corsacs explosion walkaway artwork she’d received from Bagheera earlier.

            “See?” She was quite happy to reveal it to them.

            It left them, for once, actually stunned. The transparency of their sunglasses even increased to allow their surprised eyes to be seen.

            In fact, the shock even caused Down to speak before Up. “You got us—"

            Skipping Sideways, Up ended up finishing the sentence. “—a hard-action film poster depiction of ourselves?”

            “As a gift.” Sideways more made sure they knew, rather than asked.

            “Yeah.” Vixey told them, with unconcealed regret appearing in her voice and expression for a moment. “I’ve felt bad cause I know you guys are really bored and don’t get to feel cool just standing around a salon all day. So I wanted to at least get you this.”

            The three subjects of the art piece gradually lessened the visibility of their shock as they examined it, but the utter surprise itself still remained.

            “The kid certainly captured our likeness again.” Up restored their normal speaking order.

            “Though something is different this time.” Down again.

            “You feel like it’s much more,” Sideways knew how his brothers preferred to view themselves, “in-character?”

            That caused a pause for thought, before the affirming responses came.

            “Yes.” From Up.

            “Very.” And Down.

            “It’s a perfect gift.” And a Sideways spin.

            “But one without occasion?” Up shifted down.

            “Was this really born from guilt?” Down brought the subject up.

            That . . . didn’t seem to be the direction Vixey had expected to be going. She looked a bit fruffled, to say the least, at having them suddenly focus in on it. Sideways threw a course-ac correcting look at Up, causing him to throw the same then to Down, and both of their expressions to correspondingly soften by whatever bit they would allow.

            “It’s . . . ok, Vixey.” Sideways promised, even partly reaching out an arm, just in case she wanted it. “We love it, they’re just—” He took a slower glance back at the other two, hoping they would express the concern he knew they had.

            “Lady Vexey,” Up chose to speak, sounding abnormally genuine, “you can speak to us about anything you wish.”

            Yes.” Down’s demeanor came across the same as Up’s now. “If we’re causing you—”

            “No.” Vixey spoke back up, having set the artwork down, and now looking away from them. “No, it’s me. I . . .” One her paws curled itself into an emotionally-confused fist. “I know I’m dragging you two down. I’m here, so he’s never gonna leave,” she took a rather firm grasp of Sideways’s offered paw, “and you stay here cause of him. So it’s my fault. You’re just stuck here, instead of . . . I don’t know, whatever better cool stuff you wanna be doing.”

            Sideways began to lift his other paw and take closer step to her, only for her to just pull him the rest of the way anyways.

            With an even tighter grip on her boyfriend’s paw, Vixey continued. “I love Styllianmichalocolos. But I’m also just too used to you three always being there, so I can’t handle thinking about any of you leaving.”

            There was silence, and completely transparent shades. And then . . . there was the removal of those shades; first by two, then by one, once Sideways saw that they had done so. Three pairs of eyes whose gentle brown was almost eternally concealed were now able to be seen, seen by the only mammal apart from each other whom they would ever allow.

            Up responded to Vixey’s fear. “And we never shall.”

            Down furthered things. “We’ve never been treated this way before.”

            They both shifted their eyes to their remaining brother, who ended up saying what they needed. “I believe it’s my part to let you two say what you need to say.”

            A brief pause followed, and then Up went on. “Forgive us, Lady Vexey, for our initial demeanor in the beginning.”

            “From our beginning two years ago.” Down specified.

            And then Up. “We bore a great deal of resentment toward someone who had been you to us, up to that point.”

            And Down. “Even though in that right, all of that resentment still should have been entirely directed at a particular someone else.”

            Up. “But that time is gone. And whether or not it was real should no longer matter.”

            Down. “This is our reality now. And it shall remain so.”

            Sideways then promised her. “It’s not just because of me. It might not be clearly expressed, but, they like being here.”

            Up spoke one more time. “Indeed. The three of us are now four.”

            And so did Down. “And the four of us shall not be separated.”

            Vixey was finally looking at them again, finding so much more believability in being met with actual, uncovered eyes. Of course, out of the three pairs, her eyes settled on those of Sideways. Auburn stared back at violet, while a paw of orange fur gripped another of browned beige.

            “They mean what they’re saying.” He told her. “I promise.”

            Vixey believed him, and thus them. And such became obvious when she suddenly hugged him with an even fiercer embrace than she had outside, tilting her face down to burying it against him, with the top her head still pressing his jaw upward from underneath because of their nearly even height. She let him hug her back for a few seconds first, before her voice, semi-muffled by his fur and collar bone, called out to the other two.

            “Usarionos, Doriliasmetrius.” For the first time, she successfully spoke their names as well. “Hug! Now!”

            The demand,, combined with the use of their actual names brought very, very rare smiles to the faces of those two. As small as said expressions were, invisible to the unfamiliar eye, they were there. And this time, they hugged of their own accord. While Vixey and Sideways held onto each other, Up and Down put their arms around both of them from either side.

            “This feels like some excessively awkward version of a found-family portrayal.” One of them eventually remarked.

            Whoever it was didn’t matter to Vixey in the moment. Her response would have been the same no matter what. “Shut up.”

Chapter Text

            He knew something was wrong, and he wanted to help. He wished he could help, but what could he do?

            Nothing.

            She ordered him to go back to work, so he had to leave her there crying. So he walked away, and around, like they always did. Doing nothing wrong, and nothing right. And then he was inside. He’d been bitten by a mosquito again, and he wanted to wash it’s remains off of himself.

            But then he saw that thing! And his face was in the sink! And it held him down with strength it shouldn’t have! And the thick splash came before the water started burning, burning—

            “AAAAHHHHH!” Sideways shot up from his bed again, screaming and gasping.

            It happened again. He went through it again. Not his entire life, just the last two minutes of it. Or, this time it had started to feel like he skipped forward every few seconds. He could no longer retain a count of what number time this was. It had been a week since they had, in the only words they could use, woken up from their other lives. Or their original lives. Whichever it was, had kept being thrust back into it, even if it was only for its final moments. Every time he fell asleep, no matter how many times he heaved himself awake in a single night, every time he fell back asleep he went right back to those moments.

            The particular time of night right then wasn’t certain. The only thing that was immediately certain, Sideways found, was that Up and Down were not asleep either. He could only imagine why. They weren’t even in their own beds, instead seated on the floor in front of the trio’s gaming console. He found them both staring back at him, Toy War 2 paused on the screen. They had given up trying to sleep because of him; there was nothing in the world more obvious. And, were he ANYONE else, they would have been filled with the most overwhelming of annoyance. But he wasn’t anyone else, he was Styllianmichalocolos, he was the brother they had only just gotten back.

            Up and Down, Usarionos and Doriliasmetrius, were staring back at him with whatever the closest they could come to a display of pained, anxious sympathy was. It was as far from something common to express as could be for them, but it was still so blatantly visible to him.

            After a number of forcibly-slowed deep breaths, Sideways managed to ask. “How many?”

            “This was the fifth time tonight.” Up answered him.

            “Perhaps it would be better if you joined us.” Down suggested.

            Sideways couldn’t dispute that. He didn’t want to keep experiencing his . . . not-death over and over again. But, he was also so absent of sleep already, after refusing it completely for as long as he could after they first awoke one week ago. He’d made it too far, nearly forty-six hours, and the only reason he knew exactly how long was because as his ability to keep his mind functioning and conscious had drifted further and further away, one of the few things he’d been able to do that forced it to keep bringing itself back for focus was to keep looking at his phone’s clock. Eventually he had lost, and slept, and awoke screaming, just like he’d awoken now. More sleep had come each night, with the accompanying interruptions, and tonight it appeared he had gotten some collective total of maybe five hours. And unfortunately he knew, because of him, his brothers had gotten even less.

            He slid out of bed and walked over to join them.

            “How little did I let you get?” Guilt drove him to ask.

            Up and Down looked at each other, and seemed to come to an agreement. Down skipped Up and gave their shared answer. “That doesn’t matter.”

            The guilt remained, but Sideways didn’t push it. He took his natural seat in the center, after an awkward pause came when it took Up and Down a few seconds to regain their old instincts and part a space for him. It was another reminder for all three of the year they’d had to endure without him. Even if it wasn’t real, the paining effects of it clearly were.

            “Usarionos already finished?” He asked, seeing the early-game refrigerator level on the screen.

            “Yes—” Down answered out of order.

            “—I did.” Up completed.

            “About an hour ago.” Down then reset their natural order.

            Sideways looked at the paused game screen while he let his breathing normalize. At least that part was better; everything was able to settle itself much quicker in the successive nights since the first. And looking at that display on the screen in front of him certainly helped, the peaceable, almost lulling sight of formerly-forgotten things from their pre-Count times.

            “Did you want to go instead?” Down broke their order again, Sideways finding him offering the controller.

            He looked at the thing, and then between both his vertically-designated brothers. This was . . . it was still so unreal to see them covered with such visible, almost tentative care and regret. So unreal, in fact, that it kept him full of his own.

            “No,” he had to say, “not right now like this. I won’t be able to play right, and I don’t want to make a fool of myself. And, my playing now would be out of our proper order.”

            There was a brief quiet, and then Up spoke. “Not very much has been in any proper order.”

            Sideways knew he wasn’t referring to their speaking pattern, as did Down. Anyway, he assured them of his choice. “I’d rather just watch, as I should be.”

            The other two looked at each other, and . . . yeah, they understood, and agreed.

            Toy War 2 unpaused, and Down resumed playing.

            A tiny plastic army mammal continued moving around the first shelf of the refrigerator, shooting at other plastic army mammals, each shot blasting off chips of said plastic until the target came apart. Eventually a hollow toy tank rolled with ominous slowness around the corner from behind a loaf of bread. Down switched to a bazooka, and the controller shook with intensity as he fired off a round. The tank exploded into plastic shards and chunks, and Down proceeded to climb up various food items to the next shelf in the fridge.

            As the faceless character climbed up at Down’s command, the sound of a real door flinging open could be heard outside their own, followed by the sound of stumping steps as the only other mammal in their odd building made her way down the stairs, unhappily. The three corsacs had all looked over to their own closed door, but when two of them turned their heads back to the screen, they found Sideways still staring the other way.

            “I’ve woken her up as well.” Regret wouldn’t let him avoid voicing.

            “Perhaps,” Up responded, “but you can’t continue to hold such things against yourself.”

            “No, but still . . .” They were surprised when after his three words, he stood up and walked over to the door.

            “Where are you going?” Down asked.

            “To apologize.” Sideways answered, before stepping out and going downstairs.

            Up and Down looked to each other again, now with mild confusion mixing in with their already-present, unexpressive regret. The game was paused, Down’s little plastic mammal frozen taking cover behind a stick of butter. And the two of them couldn’t avoid asking each other a few things.

            “He seems awfully concerned over her.” Up raised the subject.

            “Unusually so.” Down agreed. “It might be a psychological effect.”

            “Of her distraught state being one of his final memories before we awoke here?” Up assumed the same.

            “Perhaps,” Up considered, “but he also was concerned for her before as well.”

            “Is he more concerned than he should be?” Down asked.

            “Or are we less so?” Then Up.

            A few seconds of contemplation passed.

            “Everything changed us.” Up remarked.

            “How could it not?” Down asked rhetorically.

            A new second of silence passed, before a sudden realization came over them.

            “He’s gone downstairs!” Up stood up.

            “The toaster is there!” Down rose with the same alertness.

            The two corsacs then immediately left the room to follow downstairs as well.

            Already downstairs, Sideways had seen the door to the kitchen open and the light on inside. He’d entered to find Vixey sitting at and leaning onto the table, head resting down on her folded arms, with her face turned to the side to keep her snoot from being pressed onto the surface. Her long pajama hat hung down from her head, draped over her arms and resting its upper half on the table in front of her. It was a silly sight, for sure. And, Sideways had to think, a cute one. But, he didn’t allow that thought to persist for more than the second it took for her to notice him.

            Vixey lifted her head to see the side-eared steppe fox awkwardly standing just inside the doorway. Of course it was him. It seemed like it was impossible for her to just be grumpy or miserable without him showing up.

            “What?” She asked, through a tired groan.

            It took a second for him to speak, both from the guilt he felt over the week of sleeplessness he’d been causing, and from the new sight of her pajama longhat now draping down over one side of her face and snout. But eventually he did speak. “Forgive me, Lady Vexy. I’m sorry for waking you so many times.”

            “It’s fine.” Her response just groaned its way out again as she let her face fall back down into her arms. “And relax, I already put the stupid thing in the cupboard.”

            It took a second for him realize she was speaking about the toaster, at which he did still flush cold while his eyes shot over to and across the counter, scanning for the appliance. True to Vixey’s word, it was nowhere to be seen, and for the sake of his heartrate Sideways kept in mind not to open any cupboards then. But, still . . .

            It clenched his insides to offer, but he had to. “You don’t have to conceal it. You shouldn’t be made to inconvenience yourself just because of me.”

            That brought her head back up from her arms again. “What are you—it’s just in the cupboard! I can go get it if I wanna toast something. It’s not a big deal. If you’re really that freaked out about it I’m not gonna make you have to see it.”

            She really was a begrudgingly goodhearted fox, Sideways found himself seeing. Indeed it seemed much easier to see without the corrupting direction of her dad they been used to her receiving.

            “Thankyou, Lady Vexey.”

            Vixey gave him a new weird, but still groggy look. “Why can’t you just call me Vixey?”

            “Uh . . . because, that feels, personal?” He answered with the truth, just having it come out with uncertainty, since much of their reasoning for things had been based on the prior Vexey they had thought they knew.

            “Didn’t you already follow me down here by yourself just to see if I was okay, again?” She posed it as a rhetorical dismissal.

            “Well—” He began.

            “How did you know I was crying the other night?” She abruptly asked.

            It caught him off guard for a moment, not immediately sure how much of the real answer he wanted to give.

            “Hello?” She didn’t seem to be loaded with patience.

            “I, I had just found you crying before I woke up.” He explained, sort of.

            “From your toaster nightmare?” She asked.

            The memory still sent immediate fear pulsing through him, but Sideways guessed he still had to inevitably concede to how ridiculous the idea sounded to anyone other than he and his brothers.

            “Yes,” he admitted, “the toaster nightmare.”

            Vixey dropped her head back on top of her arms again, this time resting by her jaw so she was still looking forward in his direction.

            She let out a forced huff through her nose before asking another question. “What was I crying about there?”

            Sideways couldn’t help but think it sounded like she was mocking herself in a way. “Your dad.”

            Her eyes rolled about before her words did. “Of course. What else would it be?”

            All they knew about the real Vixey and her dad was that he had apparently died and willed nothing to her. But Sideways wondered if there was more than just that, even the fact that her dad would do such a thing seemed to imply there was. “. . . what was he like?”

            Vixey looked almost like she couldn’t comprehend the question. “What? Since when have any of you ever cared?”

            Sideways knew he probably shouldn’t have been too surprised to hear as much. But it still did keep him from saying anything back before Vixey spoke again.

            “He was a dick.” She ended up answering anyways. “When he was even around.” She let a brief pause go by while her eyes drifted away. “You can sit down you know.”

            Sideways did just as much, taking a seat across from her. This ultimately felt quite . . . outside of any familiar zone, but he still felt more than just a need to sit with her anyways.

            “Hey,” she looked at him again, “did you want some melatonin or something?”

            “Ah, what?” He asked.

            Vixey lifted her head back up from the table when she answered. “Melatonin? The stuff I used to take to actually get sleep whenever you guys were being loud with your obnoxious games. I never have any dreams when I take it. I don’t know maybe it’ll help you stop waking up screaming.”

            Sideways couldn’t avoid a regretful cringe again. “Sorry, Vixey.”

            Suddenly, she looked alarmed. “Wait—what no! That’s—that’s not what I meant!” She froze up for a second. “I mean it is! I mean it might help, but not in a mean way! I—wait, AAGGHH!” She flung her face down into her paws with a tired groan, and went on to drag her snoot through them when she lifted her head back up again.

            “Ah—it’s okay, Lady Vexey. Vixey!” He told her, catching himself at the last second. He also caught himself having cautiously reached out a paw about halfway, his uncertainty over realizing as much causing enough delay for Vixey to notice.

            Whether she was completely thinking or was still too tired was uncertain, but either way after a few seconds Vixey grabbed the side-eared corsac’s paw with her own, and then let her face drop once more, now into her single folded arm. Her other arm dropped to the table when her head did, taking Sideways’ paw down with it.

            Sideways himself was . . . not in possession of any right idea of how he was supposed to take that. The steppe beige fur of the paw he’d reflexively held out was now being brushed against the darkened-orange glove fur of the paw that had grabbed ahold of it. What, exactly, was he supposed to do?

Well, he didn’t have to do anything, as she eventually let go, then just letting her paw rest on its most distal finger joints. It freed him to cautiously pull his own back, and freed his mind to compose something else to say.

            “We’ve kept ourselves quiet when you’re asleep.” He promised. “Apart from my waking from the toaster nightmares.”

            “I know.” She said, picking her head up once more and sending the pom-tipped end of her pajama hat smacking against her shoulder. “Thanks. You guys have been really, I don’t know, different.”

            For some reason, that brought just the tiniest little smile to Sideways’ face.

            “Wait like, did you all have the same toaster nightmare?” Vixey only just thought to ask.

            “Uh—” Sideways decided to at least say a concealed version of the truth. “—something of the sort.” He did have some worry over whether or not she would question that concept further, but thankfully Vixey’s mind didn’t seem to carry out the suspicion that far.

            “Just, please try the melatonin or something?” She asked, and then sputtered a bit afterwards. “I mean—not just so I can sleep! Not—so maybe you won’t have toasters anymore! I mean nightmares about toasters! Or whatever!”

            “I’ll try it.” He said, to her relief. “I promise.”

            Meanwhile, Up and Down lurked just outside the kitchen door, listening and waiting just in case danger neared their brother in any form. They had initially intended to enter, but had wordlessly agreed to just let their brother and Vixey be. Instead, they lingered in the hall, stealthily pressed flat to the wall like the old depictions of figures in pyramids. It was only after this little while now that they suddenly found themselves needing to move. Not because Styllianmichalocolos was in danger, but because Vixey had just said she was coming out.

            There was no time to retreat up the stairs before she would see, and they didn’t particularly want to deal with her having a Vexey fit when she realized they’d been lurking and listening. Instead, they darted swiftly into the laundry and supply room. Of course, they then heard her saying something to herself about pulling her clothes out of the dryer. With no trouble seeing in the dark, they rushed across to the other side of the room. With Down hopping up onto his brother’s shoulders, they set their backs flat against the side of the second pair of stacked laundry machines, slipping as far back along it as they could.

            They were mostly out of her line of sight, but there were a number of times they felt Vixey should have been able to spot them. However, they had developed many skills in the life they and Sideways had woken up from. Thankfully, one of those skills was the art of standing so completely still, that they became invisible to the eye.

.

***

.

            “Ow! That’s bad.” Vixey remarked as she got a decent look at the various splits and cracks along the striped hyena claw she was examining.

            The claw belonged to Anga, whom Skye had directed to her for a regular treatment only a couple days ago. Now Anga was here to have Vixey take care of . . . this. She was part of Final Alliance, a hardcore security firm, the same one Jamie worked for, who Skye had also sent Vixey’s way. Anga was here in uniform this time, that old bdu woodland camo, having literally just come off the job where this had occurred. Apparently she had been covering an atm cash truck delivery, and some oryx had decided he wanted a to try for his share of it. The fight was entirely one-sided, although Anga had suffered the wrecked claw in the process.

            “Not as bad as his face ended up.” Anga said back.

            “And how bad was that?” Sideways asked from his position leaning against the nearby wall.

            “Bad enough.” The hyena’s answer was simple and plain.

            “But not fatal enough?” He asked.

            “He was too close for that.” She answered.

            Vixey had just plugged in a claw buffer, and was left blinking and glancing between the two of them. “Uh, what is any of that supposed to mean?”

            Sideways responded. “I believe it means she prefers firearms.”

            “Usually.” Anga confirmed as much.

            Vixey’s mouth drifted partway open for a second while her eyes remained still. “Damn, that’s kinda dark, isn’t it?” She still went right about beginning to smooth over Anga’s claw after she spoke.

            “Having a combat preference?” Sideways asked.

            “What? No, saying she was gonna blast that guy.” Vixey answered.

            In response, Anga briefly lifted a single, rather unimpressed eyebrow. “If he was far enough away to begin with and he still kept coming even when he saw it pointed him.”

            “Wha—aren’t you supposed to like, tase them first or something?” Vixey asked.

            The other eyebrow went up before Anga spoke this time. “We’re not the police.”

            Vixey looked at the military camo uniform before returning her eyes to her work. “Uh, yeah, I could tell?”

            “Nobody ever really starts stuff with us anyways.” Anga explained. “Everybody knows the cops. Being that used to a specific group of mammals being around makes anyone who wants to try something a lot more confident to push boundaries. We’re not something they’re used to seeing. Usually when criminals see us instead, their self-preservation instinct acts stronger than their stupidity.”

            “Huh? Wait for real?” Vixey asked.

            “Usually.” Anga emphasized.

            The psychological concept wasn’t unfamiliar to Sideways. “Quite similar to how most troublesome elements hesitate to confront suited mammals with katanas.”

            The very, very specifically odd remark caused Vixey’s work to pause and both girls’ eyes to turn over to the corsac, who quickly found himself heating up under his mafia-appearing thug suit.

            “In the toaster nightmare.” He managed to specify before too much time passed.

            That explanation still drew a continued stare from the hyena.

            “Don’t listen to any of those three,” Vixey told her, including the two corsacs outside as well, “they’re all weird.” She resumed managing Anga’s claw for a few seconds before suddenly turning over to Sideways again. “Wait, I—I mean you’re nice though! And weird! I mean you’re nice-weird!”

            “Please don’t worry about offending me.” Sideways mercifully stopped the fitting fox from going on.

            Vixey had just resumed smoothing down Anga’s claw when the hyena asked a new, unexpected question.

            “So what’s with the suited thugs?”

***

.

            Meanwhile, the other two corsacs of the trio stood at dutiful attention and alert outside. Also greatly enjoying their more natural suit-and-tie apparel they had re-acquired, or perhaps acquired for the first time in reality, during their apparent lunch break on that first day.

“Baldeer’s Gate 2 is better.” Up repeated his stance.

            “I’m not disputing that, merely—" Down went to clarify himself, but instead was stopped by the sight across the street.

            A young male wallaby had hop-stepped his way up to a parked vehicle. Most likely a teenager, given the backpack he carried and the notebooks that could be seen inside when he opened it. Resting it on the hood of the car, he opened it further to eventually reveal a can of black spray paint which he promptly took ahold of. And then, snickering before and while he began doing so, began spray painting . . . inappropriate symbols on the vehicle’s windshield.

            “I recall this being an issue Lady Vexey told us to be aware of.” Up remarked.

            “As do I. Shall we interrupt his efforts then?” Down agreed.

            “Of course.” Up answered.

            Both corsacs stepped forward, suits, shades and all.  Walking out from under the sidewalk’s awning and onto the little-driven street. The wallaby noticed them soon enough, and stopped what he was doing to give them a dirty look.

            “Whatta you shrimps want?” He demanded, although it was pretty clear whatever bravado he was attempting was fake.

            Up and Down, needless to say, were unimpressed.

            “For you to cease your present artistic endeavors.” Up answered.

            “And withhold yourself from anything else in the future.” Down added.

            “Flop off!” The wallaby dismissed them and turned right back to his artwork.

            With no hint of him stopping, the two corsacs stepped closer.

            His attention went back to them again, now appearing just a bit unnerved. “Hey! Back off!”

            “You already declined that option.” Up.

            “Now we’ll just remove your art tools from you instead.” And Down.

            The wallaby flicked his eyes from one fox to the other, his mind obviously tumbling about inside his head. It found an answer to his sudden problem, even if it was quite far from an intelligent one. He held up the spray paint can in their direction as if it were a bottle of mace, and let out a jet of black paint.

            Up and Down both leapt sideways in opposite directions, landing perfectly on their feet, clear of any new coloration and each letting a single eyebrow rise up from behind their shades.

            “A fascinating offensive tactic.” Up commented.

            “But also an ineffective one.” And Down.

            “Oh yeah?!” The wallaby teenager quickly chucked the bottle at Up, who promptly caught it with near-zero effort.

            The corsacs shared perhaps their millionth glance with each other, this one now being a rare one of incredulity. When they both looked back to the wallaby again, they found he’d taken off hopping. And with what might have otherwise been a look of pity, Up threw the teen’s spray paint can back at him. It conked the back of his head hard, tripping him up and bringing him to a halt. He turned his head back in their direction with a scrambled expression, uncertain of whether to be afraid, shocked or something else.

            “You shouldn’t throw things you’re not willing to have thrown back at you.” Down broke the norm to inform him.

            “He also may want to return for his backpack.” Up brought up a different subject, indicating with his head to direct the wallaby’s attention to the item he’d forgotten on the car’s hood.

            The wallaby was confused, to the say the least, darting his eyes between the backpack and the corsac brothers.

            After a few seconds passed, Up and Down each drew the same obvious conclusion.

            “It would appear he’s afraid of us.” First Up.

            “He would be wise to be so.” Then Down.

            “Perhaps some distance would assuage that fear?” And back Up.

            They both took a number of steps back, granting some distance between themselves and the car on which the backpack sat. The wallaby then took another second to consider, before quickly rushing to grab his pack of highschool items and taking off immediately afterward.

***

.

            “Wait, are you really—but it was just one claw!” Vixey was in the midst of surprise. “I shouldn’t even have charged you the whole price to begin with, you shouldn’t leave me that big of tip!”

            “I’ll leave whatever kind of tip I feel like leaving.” Anga’s response seemed almost on the verge of a threat, or at least it probably would if it had been in some other context.

            Either way, Vixey’s eyes were made to go wide, and a bit of transparency came to Sideway’s shades from the mild surprise.

            “Uh, yeah uh, ok.” Vixey just had to accept it then.

            The price was eighty dollars, but Anga paid one hundred. And as the hyena departed, Vixey had to contemplate this whole week that had just gone by.

            Skye had first come in, an arctic fox aviation mechanic of all things, whom Vixey had only been ready to take because her three weirdo security neighbor-roommates had woken her up early. Skye had left promising to tell others who lived in or frequented the industrial district about Vixey’s place. Then, later that same afternoon, a jackal named Jamie had come in, saying Skye had told her. The next day, Anga had come in the first time, just for a regular claw treatment. And then of course, Skye herself had already shown up again, that time with her boyfriend: a hare guy who wanted battle stripes dyed into his fur on both sides of his face. And then came another hyena, a spotted one this time, a Police Corporal named Maggie. Finally, now, she’d just had Anga in again.

            This had been more customers in a week than she was used to seeing in a month. And, as much money as she was used to needing two months to see. Five hundred and forty dollars in this one week so far.

            And apparently, that wasn’t yet going to be the end of it, as another new face walked in only a few minutes after Anga had left. She was another fox, a red fox like Vixey herself. The orange in her fur was noticeably paler than Vixey’s, and she had the had the more standard white on her neck and under her jaw. She looked, well, not old yet, Vixey thought, but she was probably around forty. Perhaps it was more that she just seemed tired, like she’d been stressed out ragged.

            “Hello,” the motherly fox greeted, “I was wondering if you had any time to see me? A friend referred me and said you do excellent work.”

            “Huh? Yeah. Of course. I don’t normally get anybody.” Vixey might have regretted adding that last bit.

            “Oh thank you,” the new fox said, “I was really hoping to just have someone revitalize my fur.” She lifted a paw to her face and let it slide through some of said fur. True to the implication, her fur seemed quite . . . thrown out.

            “Oh, stress?” Vixey asked.

            “Two children.” The other red fox answered.

            “I recall our mother frequently appearing so, dealing with the three of us.” Sideways even commented.

            “Well,” the fox went on, “in my case only one of them has the excuse of being an actual child. The other is just my husband.”

            That drew a brief snicker out of Vixey, and smile from the newcomer herself at being able to cause a laugh.

            “Ah, sure, I can do whatever you need.” Vixey assured her.

            “Thankyou dear, and I’m Felicity.”

            Felicity got the facial fur revitalization treatment she wanted. And after Vixey insisting that tipping her wasn’t necessary anyways, Felicity still offered the extra ten dollars as all she could manage to. It was a total of one hundred and ten, bringing Vixey’s grand weekly total to six hundred and fifty, more than she had ever seen in a single month up that point, let alone one single week. Her staring at the register for a few seconds was enough to draw Sideway’s verbal attention.

            “More than you were expecting?” He asked.

            “What—of course it is!” Vixey replied. “You know I’ve never even gotten more than two hundred in a single week before.”

            Well, he didn’t know, actually, but now he did. And now . . . now a more sympathetic regret made its way through him. This definitely wasn’t the same rich and spoiled Vexey they had known.

            “How much do you get from our rent?” He asked.

            The look on Vixey’s face let Sideways know he maybe shouldn’t have asked that. “Wha—you, did you guys forget your brains in the toaster nightmare?” She asked, though she didn’t actually care about an answer. “I’ve never charged you rent!”

            That was, certainly, even more of a shock. Though maybe, as he started to see more of who she was, it shouldn’t be.

            “Sorry, Vixey.”

            The apology reset Vixey’s expression, and then sent her paws up to flatten and pull on her ears. “No, no, I shouldn’t be snapping all the time.”

            “It’s no severe matter,” Sideways tried to assure her, “as I said before, you should not worry about offending or upsetting me.”

            Vixey set her paws back down on the small register counter in front of her to lean on. She seemed to just drift off for a moment, before suddenly becoming alert again. “Oh! Hey, here’s the part for you guys.” She said, reopening the drawer and pulling out two hundred and fifty dollars. “There’s some extra, since it’s been so long.”

            Sideways took it, on part of himself and his brothers. It was rolled up loosely, much in the same way their pay from Reynard used to be, but now there was no real danger to them, and no criminality committed on their part. They were being paid to . . . to lurk around a salon, really, and to talk to Vixey? Or at least the latter seemed to be becoming his part. What even was all of this?

            Well, whatever this arrangement was, it was clearly the one instance where reality was better than the dream.

.

***

.

            “There is no way we would have willingly watched this.” Up was remarking, looking at the advertising image for A Wilde Time on his phone while Down fired a third and final bazooka shot at a flame-throwing robot in Toy War 2.

            “And there is no way this toy would ever be legally sold.” Down said.

            Up looked up from his phone, seeing the now-destroyed Devastatortron robot depicted on the screen. He didn’t have a chance to comment back before they both had their attention turned to the opening bathroom door. Sideways was now re-emerging freshly dressed after a shower, casting a nervous glance back at the sink as he walked out.

            “Does the sink cause you equal trepidation as well?” Up asked with genuine concern.

            “Ceramic shall not be too difficult to shatter.” Down added the removal suggestion.

            Sideways made sure to stop them before they actually acted on their protective impulse. “It’s not necessary. And destroying a bathroom sink is far more than the mere inconvenience of concealing a toaster.”

            “It doesn’t need to be a problem.” Up promised him.

            “We can use the shower faucet for paw-washing in its absence.” Down agreed.

            “Please don’t.” Sideways insisted. “I’d much rather avoid causing such an awkward arrangement. And I truly want to avoid causing Vixey any more stress than she already bares.”

            A look was shared between Up and Down, one Sideways noticed this time.

            “I’ve been keeping her from sleeping just as much as I have you.” He decided to specify. “And she seems to be repeatedly overcome with bitter memories of her dad.”

            “Some additional parallels to what we once knew do exist then.” Up remarked at that.

            “However,” Down brought something else up, “that does raise another matter to mind.”

            “And what would that be?” Sideways asked as he eventually moved to take his seat with them in front of the tv.

            Out of order, and with more serious an air than the casual form of the question would have carried, Down asked a very legitimate question. “What do we want to do?”

            Silence came upon them all, as currents of thoughts began to churn. Up and Sideways both knew what Down really meant almost instantly, but that didn’t make any idea or answer come instantly. In truth, the more they thought, the more they came to realize they couldn’t find one.

            “What did we ever want to do before?” Sideways asked what all three of them were then wondering.

            “. . . we wanted revenge.” Up answered a few seconds later, some of his and Down’s cold apathy from a week ago seeping through.

            “But,” Down reminded him, and himself, “that is no longer a pursuit. Or perhaps it never was.”

            “Before I was gone,” Sideways altered things, “I don’t recall us ever really—”

            “—One day merely led to another.” Down broke his brother’s sentence with his own, before Up then restored their order.

            “Were we really nothing more than summonable pawns?”

            “We sought nothing.” Down spoke back in place.

            “I don’t particularly feel a desire to seek anything right now either,” Sideways spoke again, “apart from not dying again.”

            About that in particular, they were all in clear, unspoken agreement.

            “You wish to stay here then?” Up asked him, with Down looking to await an answer as well.

            Sideways wasn’t entirely sure how they meant it. “You desire to leave?”

            “Whether or not so is part of the broader question.” Down answered this time.

            “We remained in or former position for so long because it was all there was.” Up started again.

            “And there would most certainly have been consequences for our departure.” Down added.

            “But,” Up went again, “that isn’t the case here.”

            Sideways still couldn’t tell. Did they really want to go somewhere else, or were they just vocalizing realizations they all were only just now coming to?

            “Where were you two intending to go?” He had to ask.

            Up and Down shared an uncertain look before answering in order.

            “Perhaps, somewhere where me might earn a more manageable income.” Up.

            “Yes,” and Down, “what we’ve received for the week falls somewhat short of what was customary.”

            Sideways . . . understood, perhaps, but Vixey . . . “She gave us more than a third of her earnings.”

            The other two looked at each other again before another pair of responses followed.

            “An extremely gracious act.” Up first. “Especially if doing so is her standard practice.”

            “But even so,” Down second, “the amount itself . . . brother, we’ll likely only be able to afford whatever rent we owe and little else.”

            “She doesn’t charge us rent.” Sideways told them.

            That did give them a decent pause, one of visible surprise and the accompanying thought processes afterward. They didn’t really seem to want to leave because of Vixey, though there ultimately still may have been some tanslocated resentment they held against her former version, granted even they had admitted that was misdirected. Still though, he knew there was likely more than just their pay causing their desire to leave, just as feeling empathy for Vixey wasn’t the only thing driving him to want to remain.

            “I’m not dying again.” Sideways repeated himself from earlier, with greater weight of words this time.

            His brothers remained silent after hearing that. How couldn’t they? How was anyone supposed to respond to that?

            “I’m not certain what employment you wish to seek elsewhere with our . . . skillset,” he went on, “but I doubt it would be as mundane and, safe, as this arrangement.”

            The silence from his brothers continued for another moment, followed by an eventual shared glance once again.

            “We cannot dispute that.” Up finally said.

            “Nor can we allow ourselves to bring danger upon you in form.” As did Down.

            “Not again.” Up.

            “Never a—” Down just began.

            All three of their noses began going, drawing their attention towards the door just as they heard steps coming up. They thought they knew what it was, even if it had been a while since they’d had any. It smelled like something they once loved to enjoy.

            “Hey?” Vixey’s voice followed a brief series of knocks.

            The brothers looked amongst each other, with the vertical two answering, after what they had learned.

            “It’s your residence, Lady Vexey.” Up.

            “You can enter at will.” And Down.

            “What? Ugh.” The vixen’s voice came through the door once more before it then began to open. “Why are you guys still acting weird?”

            True to their expectations from the scent, she was carrying a recently delivered pizza from Papa Dingo’s.

            “I got a pizza.” She told them the obvious. “Spicy Salmon-Sausage; that’s the one you guys like, right?”

            No immediate response came from any of them. Sideways instead looked over to see a rather changed look on his brothers’ faces, one that told him, well . . .

            “Yes, it is.” He answered Vixey.

            . . . they were definitely staying.

Chapter Text

            Vixey focused on mini-buffering Skye’s claw. The arctic vixen had apparently cut it by some bit on a turbine blade while working in a helicopter engine. Not deep enough to reach the quick and cause medical damage, but enough to need some work on it to prevent it from becoming a problem.

            “So,” the red fox asked the arctic, indicating the ring now present on one of her fingers, “it finally happened?”

            Skye looked down at the little gold circle standing out against her white fur. “Yeah,” she answered, with an accomplished smile, “it only took him five years.”

            “Wait, five years from when you got together?” Vixey asked while she kept working. “Or from when you first met?”

            “I’m not that mean.” Skye insisted after a giggle. “Five years since he first made it obvious he liked me. We’ve known each other for almost eight.”

            Vixey was just a bit too focused smoothing down Skye’s claw to immediately respond, trying to be as careful as possible with one particularly deep split the turbine blade had apparently caused.

            “So when’s the least sassy of the three suits gonna get you one?” Skye asked teasingly.

            The mini-buffer slipped off the claw it was working on, taking a bit of white fur off the digit the claw belonged to.

            “Ah—uh, what, crap! Sorry!” Vixey apologized after the initial shock of the question. “Did I scrape it? Dammit dammit d—”

            “It’s fine, it’s fine!” Skye assured her. “It was just some fur.”

            “Are you sure?” Vixey put down the small cosmetic tool and briefly sifted through the fur of her client’s fingers to check for herself.

            “It’s ok.” Skye assured her again, as Vixey observed the lack of harm for herself. “Are you ok though?”

            Vixey wanted to pretend she didn’t know what Skye meant, but obviously that wouldn’t end any better. Instead, she bit down on her lip while nervously glancing over at the windowfront. All three corsacs were right out there, including the corsac in question, her sweet and faithful Styllianmichalocolos. She . . . had thought about that, a few times. But, as forward and demanding as she could often be, she had still actually been too nervous to ever mention the subject.

            “I—uh,” she tried one thought, but her mind switched to another as the sentence began, “I don’t know. I’d love it, but, I—I kind of make them put up with so much already, especially him, I just didn’t wanna push it.”

            “What, like, you were gonna ask him, not the other way around?” Skye asked.

            “What? No! I mean, I, I was gonna bring it up, but NO, he’s going to ask ME! Just like it’s supposed to be!” Vixey freaked out for a moment, providing an episode that ended with Skye unable to restrain a quick giggle.

            The arctic fox hastily stopped herself though. “Sorry.”

            Vixey had to sigh, and let her head hang down for a second. “Don’t,” she said, “if I want to make something happen I should at least try to make it.”

            “Even if it just means you need to make a forceful suggestion?” Skye asked as Vixey resumed her work.

            “Well,” Vixey answered, taking care of the claw as best she could, “I wasn’t gonna make it like that.”

            “Oops! Sorry,” Skye said back, “forgot Sideways doesn’t have the Ewe Cay thick-headedness that Jack did.”

            Now, to Skye’s relief, it was Vixey’s turn to snicker a little.

            They went on chatting while Skye’s claw was returned to as much of a reduced normal as possible. Regardless of some of their differences, having another girl fox to talk with was always a nice change of things. While Fenneko was a vixen as well, she was also . . . Fenneko, so it was primarily Skye who filled the fellow female niche. Not that Fenneko didn’t partake in such as well, but discussions with her often tended to trail into Fenneko things. Felicity should have counted as well, Vixey supposed, but Mrs Fox, being a mom, always tended to act and speak as a mother figure. Which . . . Vixey really didn’t mind that either. It wasn’t like she’d grown up with one of her own. Not that she’d really had an actual dad either.

            Whilst Vixey was checking over Skye’s claw to make sure she’d done everything she could, a car was pulling up along the curb across the street. There were a total of four mammals inside. Two of which, the driver and front passenger, got out while the two rear passengers remained. The words “Better Homes for Happy Howls” were emblemed onto the vehicle’s side, with a logo in the center consisting of basic figure art of a howling wolf head inside of a simple house. The same imagery was on the shirt of the emerging passenger, a rather tall, male wolf likely somewhere in his mid or later twenties. The driver, meanwhile, was a deal older and bore no logo or emblems on her clothing. Instead, she was extremely well-dressed with a maroon dress skirt reaching halfway down past her knees, and an open suit jacket of the same color with a lavender shirt underneath.

            While not yet noticed by the two foxes inside, the arrival was by all means under the watch of the three corsacs outside. The namesakes of all three directions watched the emerging wolves interact briefly before the older headed in their direction.

            “I would enjoy if I could give them the benefit of the doubt.” She spoke to her much younger companion. “But I’d rather have you stay to keep an eye on them, Felix.”

            “Of course, mother.” Her apparent son obediently agreed to her request, watching her walk over towards the salon while also throwing a constant eye to the two passengers in the back of the car.

            She smiled politely as she approached the three security-suit foxes, and asked as soon as she’d reached their side of the street. “Is this the fur and claw salon of Miss Vixey Vexey?”

            The three brothers each cast a glance between each other before an answering procession began.

            “Yes, it is.” Up.

            “Is there a reason you’ve sought Lady Vexey’s establishment specifically?” And Down.

            The wolf spoke again before Sideways said anything. “Lady Vexey?” She mused. “Interesting. A shining reputation of excellent work. And, in truth, I’m here to offer her an apology on behalf of two young members of my species who partook in some of her recent troubles.”

            The three looked around to each other again, before the usual silent agreement came across them all.

            With a nod between Up and Sideways, and then Sideways and Down, the side-eared of the three proceeded to open the door for the matronly wolf, who accepted the unspoken invitation and stepped inside. Sideways then followed her, just in case, as had also been part of the three’s shared, wordless conclusion.

            “Vixey?” He asked once they were inside, just to call for his girlfriend’s attention. His calling her by her first name did also draw a brief, curious glance down from the wolf he’d escorted in.

            “Huh?” Vixey looked up from Skye’s paw to see Sideways and the new arrival. “Hi, I’ll be right with you.”

            “Take your time.” The wolf assured her.

            The new client, or perhaps just guest, waited with perfect patience while Vixey finished everything and Skye paid for her treatment, twenty dollars more than was owed, as she frequently did. Once the arctic fox bade farewell and left the building, Vixey finally granted the new mammal her full attention.

            “Sorry, I can take you now. What did you wanna get?” She asked.

            “Perhaps while I’m already here, I may indulge myself anyways.” The wolf answered. “But first and foremost, my dear, I’m here to offer you a sincere apology.”

            Vixey’s not-so-clued-in face brought itself about. “Uh, what? Wait . . . no, what?”

            The wolf looked like she might have giggled, but clearly had way too much practiced regality to allow it to slip out. “My name is Annamarie, dear. I operate something of a behavioral modification program for young wolves, mostly. I do my best to help troubled lupine youth and remove them from destructive pathways before they reach potential points of no return. I’ve taken in two new ones recently,” she lightly gestured to her car outside, where the figures of two likely-teenaged wolves could be seen sitting in the back, “who were apparently part of some of you and your three companions’ recent troubles. They would like you to know that they are very sorry. Very Sorry.”

            Vixey wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the whole thing. Annamarie was perfectly pleasant, and seemed to carry distinctive mom vibes. But, she also kind of came off like a mafia boss just a little bit. “Um, thanks?” Vixey was equally uncertain of how to answer. “Wait, but, aren’t they in jail?”

            “Their three friends who decided to act on violent impulses were arrested that day, yes.” Annamarie confirmed. “But the two who decided not to step over the line of harming others are now under my corrective care and supervision.”

            “Oh,” Vixey still wasn’t exactly sure how to respond, “thanks?” She just repeated herself, only appearing slightly more confused this time.

            “I’d prefer them to apologize themselves, but I decided it should be up to you whether I make them or not.” Annamarie went on.

            “N—no? It’s fine, they can stay out there.” Vixey answered.

            “I’m sure they will be quite relieved.” The wolf responded, and then turned toward one of the fur treatment seats, running a paw through the fur on the side of her face as she walked. “And I absolutely would love to patron your business while I’m here. The fur on my cheeks and between my ears tends to tuft in little flames these days. Would you be able to fix that?”

            Vixey saw what the wolf was saying. The fur on her face and atop her head was in fact trying to collect in small flame-like tufts in places. “Yeah, sure, uh—” Vixey cast a glance back outside. “It might take a little while. Are they ok with waiting?”

            “They’ll be fine.” Annamarie smiled.

.

***

.

            Vixey wondered if they were right. Up, Down, and even Sideways were convinced Annamarie was a mob boss. Who else would give a two-hundred-dollar tip? Or so their logic went. She wasn’t sure, or at least she was sure her boyfriend and his brothers were just being paranoid and weird. She’d been dumbfounded, for sure, but that wolf was obviously just a very nice lady.

            Whatever.

            She let those three’s absurd suspicions slip out of mind as she stared out at the city. On the roof, resting with her arms on the parapet, Vixey could see almost everything. All the lights from every window and street lamp across the I.D. and the massive sea of them over the main city peninsula. The night-shining Grand Palm stood out alone in the night amongst the otherwise low buildings of the rest of Sahara, and some way off to the left of it the dim red glow of the enormous heating coils of the climate wall cast their own light into the dark as well. Far away to the right, off over a dozen miles, a timely pattern of ascending and descending pairs of lights gave away the massive ZTP airport. Off even further to the right, requiring a turn of the head to see, were the large illuminating lamps and rotating caution lights covering the steel mill. Some miles away to the left, massive lights on and around the port cranes gave sight the peacefully eternal process of shipping containers being lifted off of and onto cargo vessels.

            The door to small roof-access stair well could be heard opening behind her. She knew they’d come to check on her eventually.

            “Vixey?” Sideways asked.

            Well, at the very least she knew he would.

            “We could not locate you.” Up’s voice as well.

            “We grew concerned.” And Down.

            She couldn’t keep from a tiny smile. Of course they were all here.

            “I’m fine, guys.” She promised.

            Although Vixey couldn’t see it occur behind her, she could still detect their triplet gaze-sharing as they considered things.

            “Physically, yes.” Up spoke again.

            “Clearly.” Down agreed. “But—” He left it off for Sideways.

            “Vixey?” Her boyfriend asked again, taking a step forward. When no response came from her, he chose to walk the rest of the way, even removing his shades as he approached her.

            Vixey did turn just in time to see him arrive next to her. And . . . dammit why did those cold corsac eyes have to look so sweet? She wanted to actually avoid the whole thing now, but once she saw him, of course she couldn’t just push it off knowing he would still be so worried over her.

            “It’s nothing,” she started, and then course-corrected, “I mean it’s not! I mean, I’m just thinking about stuff . . .” She turned around completely, sliding down to sit with her back against the parapet and resting her arms on her knees.

            “Is this—” Up started.

            And Down completed. “—something we should leave the two of you alone for?”

            They asked with all sincerity, arms at rest with their wrists crossed in front of them.

            “No,” she answered, as Sideways lowered himself onto a single knee to level with her, “it involves you guys too.”

            “We’ve upset you today?” Sideways asked, lingering an extra second before asking a more feared set of words. “Or I did?”

            Her head snapped over to him with a near-horrified look. “No! No no! No, this is why I shouldn’t . . .” She stopped for a moment, turning her head back to her knees again. “It’s not about something bad. I’m just . . . afraid.”

            “Vixey, what is it?” Sideways asked, placing a paw on top of one of hers.

            “You need not fear anything.” Up added.

            “No form of harm can come to you in our presence.” As did Down.

            Vixey smiled, flipping her paw up to grab ahold of Sideways’. “I know.” She responded. “I’m not so dumb that I don’t know that. But, I don’t deserve to.”

            That statement caused an actual, genuinely shocked glance between the two vertical corsacs.

            Sideways was about to say something, but he was stopped by a sudden application of a death-grip on his paw from Vixey’s.

            “I was thinking about my name.” She spoke up again before they did. “I changed my last name just out of spite. Hearing you say Lady Vexey all the time,” she paused to exhale in quick huff, “I kinda realized Vexey was pretty dumb.”

            “Is this just about your name?” Sideways asked with some hope.

            “We can cease addressing you by such.” Up offered.

            “If it is stressing to you.” And Down.

            “It’s not just that!” She protested. “It’s . . . dammit! Just give me a second okay?”

            They did just that, not exactly having anything else inductive that they could even do, and not wanting to worsen whatever was going on.

            “Styllianmichalocolos . . . I love you.” Vixey managed to let the words come out. It wasn’t the first time, but, everyone still knew there was something more serious going on. “You really love me, right?” She asked, turning her head over to him.

            He had no idea what was going on with her, but he did know she was looking for an affirmation of the truth, no matter the reason she was doubting it. The corsac pulled her over closer, and, keeping her one paw already in his, he reached his free arm around her to grant a gentle hug.

            “With absolution.” He answered her.

            She let her head fall against him underneath his jaw for a moment. And when she spoke again, they could almost hear the mildly-annoyed sigh that would have come alongside were this any other situation.

            “Why do you guys always answer stuff so weird like that?” She asked, though they all knew she wasn’t seeking an answer to this one.

            Sideways couldn’t keep himself from smiling, looking down his snoot at the top of his girlfriend’s orange head. And before he said anything new himself, he felt her release his paw and wrap both arms around him tightly instead. She turned her head soon afterwards, her cheek now pressed against him while her face looking over to the other two.

            “Usarionos, Doriliasmetrius . . . you’re really never leaving, are you?” She asked them, speaking their names without error for the second time ever.

            “Never.” “Never.”  Both of them answered in unison, before separate, patterned words followed.

            “Why would we?” Up.

            “Where would we go?” And Down.

            “We’ve said before, we’ve never been treated this way.” Up again.

            “And as unnatural as it may sound to hear from us.” And Down again.

            “We’ve grown rather attached to this arrangement of life.” And Up.

            “And to the one who has provided such to us.” And finally Down.

            “They’re not going anywhere.” Sideways assured her as well.

            Vixey shut her eyes for a second. She had to finally just bring it up, but . . . no, she had to just finally get over it. She released Sideways, but took his paw back into hers again. Rising to stand back up, and pulling him with her, she forced her heart to stop squirming about, and just said what it was time to.

            “You love me.” Vixey squeezed Sideway’s paw again. “You two are staying forever.” She looked briefly at Up and Down, suited corsac figures standing out against the distant rising steam of the nuclear plant. “My last name is stupid.” Her eyes dropped down to the concrete rooftop in front of her. “And you’ve always been calling me Lady something. So . . .”

            The words stopped for a moment, as the vixen brought her boyfriend’s paw over against herself and hugged onto his forearm like it was a squeezable pillow.

            “. . . maybe . . . I should be Lady Corsica?” She finally let the words, the idea, the desire slip for all to hear.

            There were no following words.

            Two corsacs’ sunglasses went completely opaque. One other would have lost his if he was still wearing them.

            For a moment, there was nothing but the ambient roll of distant night traffic.

            And then there was a question.

            “You . . . want to marry?” Sideways had never before sounded as if he could not believe something, not that she had heard.

            “I just didn’t wanna be pushy like I always am.” Vixey admitted.

            New shock took over Sideways’ face at the tone of her words, speaking as if she felt guilty over this?

            “It shall be a lovely name.” Up suddenly spoke again.

            Vixey looked at the two of them again, finding even them without their eternal sunglasses now. And they . . . those two, were really smiling?

            “Such a magnificently fitting title.” Down agreed.

            They both agreed? But . . . did Sideways want to marry her though?

            “Vixey?” He brought her attention back to him. “Um, did, did you want me to propose—”

            “Yes! Obviously!” Vixey almost flipped like a switch, somehow. Maybe it was because of the positive reaction she’d received wiping away some of the fear, or maybe it was just because she was Vixey. But either way, she brought a new smile to Sideways as she began speaking in a very familiar manner. “You’re gonna ask me, and get the ring and the little black box JUST like you’re supposed to! AND it’s gonna be a surprise! I mean you—like you better do it when I’m not expecting it! Right?” Some of the nerves from before abruptly returned as she wondered if she was now overdoing things.

            An opportunistic look passed between Sideways and his two brothers, and the latter played their necessary part immediately.

            “To-be Lady Corsica,” Up drew her eyes over to them again, “if you would please—” He ended with a gestured paw to Down.

            Down carried the attention over to himself. “—momentarily redirect your attention.”

            Vixey blinked a bit, mentally un-clued as to what they were talking about. Until, that was, she suddenly felt Sideways squeezing back on her paw. She turned to find him now back down on one knee, and . . . and holding a little black box!

            But! But how!?

            “I don’t think there would be a more surprising opportunity than right now then.” He said.

            “Whr-wh—what are you doing!?” Vixey flipped.

            “Asking you to marry me?” Sideways answered.

            “Well! Well then do it right!” She couldn’t properly control herself.

            “Vixey—”

            “YES!” She never even let him ask it.

            And he had no complaints about such.

            She forcefully lifted him back upwards, though he willingly stood up the second half of the way on his own. He was going to place the ring on her finger, and that’s what he thought she was expecting. But he found out immediately that she had him stand back up so she could kiss him instead. That caught him off guard, and he fumbled the ring box for just a second because of it. But his corsuperior reflexes let him keep from actually dropping it.

            By the time the two fox snoots broke apart again, one pair of eyes was failing to resist forming tears. Tiny portions of orange fur just beneath them turned damp, as the vixen they belonged to gave a single sniffle before making one more demand.

            “Now give me the ring.” She still said with all impatient seriousness.

            The corsac fox who’d been waiting longer than just these few moments to do just as much gladly did so gladly, gently taking his now-fiance’s paw and sliding the engagement ring onto her finger. All while his brothers, still smiling, placed their shades back onto their eyes. And a red fox vixen who’d spent so much of her twenty-four-year life feeling lost and dejected, finally and completely felt like she was wanted in the lives of others.

            And she was.

***

.

            Vixey hummed and lulled “True Light” to herself as she went about setting up and replacing supplies for another new day. No new surprise customers today, or so she would take the risk of assuming. Just Skye and Anga, as far as she knew, and they should be arriving riiight—

            “They’re here.” Her fiancé let her know. He was inside today, leaning against the interior of the windowfront like he used to back at the beginning. And he had a would-be unusual brightness to him now.

            She looked up in her own amplified happiness as two of her most appreciated clients came in. Skye looked as free and ok with everything as ever, but Anga seemed a little . . . off, even by the striped hyena’s normal reserved standards.

            “Hey,” Vixey greeted both friends, “is, uh, something wrong?”

            Anga’s eyes rolled up while her head drifted slightly away.

            After glancing up at their friend and seeing as much, Skye decided it was her obligation to answer. “Yeah, mostly. I asked already and she tried to dodge it, but Ono told me he thinks she’s just a bit concerned.”

            The non-revelation that her husband had told Skye as much drew a brief eye dart, and then complete eye roll from Anga as she inevitably chose to just voice up what was going on.

            “My cousin wants to run for mayor.”

            “Oh?” Vixey was a bit confused. “That’s a . . . bad, thing?”

            “He’s going to get himself hurt.” Anga established the truth.

            Skye followed up with a bit of clarity. “She thinks he’s too happy-hearted to make it.”

            Anga gave no response to that, which Vixey took, from prior experience, as the statement being correct.

            “If your cousin desires,” Sideways spoke, briefly indicating his two brothers outside, “the three of us are likely the only ones of our kind in the city, so we could guarantee him the corsac vote.”

            Vixey smiled, Skye giggled, and Anga rolled her eyes before speaking. “I’ll let him know he has a whole three more votes already.”

            While Vixey was about to say she may as well be counted too, Skye beat her to the speaking role, raising a completely different subject. With her eyes pointed at the engagement ring on her fellow vixen’s finger, she asked the simple, innocent question.

            “Hm, did we miss something?”

.

***

.

            Elsewhere across the city, just outside a small recording studio in Sahara Square, a taxi pulled up beside a waiting mammal. That mammal was a red fox named Arthur, progressing through his middle-aged years. He carried a book with him, ironically of the same yellow and black coloration as the taxi that now pulled up to him.

            “Where to?” The camel driver asked, speaking in something that sounded like half of his voice was trying to be a Zoo York accent while the other half didn’t agree.

            “Cypress Grove Apartments.” Arthur answered.

            The response drew an odd look in the mirror from the driver, as it expectably would. The idea that someone working in any position at a film studio either lived in or wanted to go near someplace like Cypress Grove was usually a bit of a shocker. “O kay.” He got over it after about two seconds and started their drive.

            Nobody knew. Arthur had been pretty close to the financial edge most of the time. Getting cast for A Wilde Time was just a mind-numbingly lucky break, especially since it wasn’t even supposed to be. Amazoo originals didn’t have the best track record, usually eight strike outs for every hit. The show performing so well was seriously unexpected, but by all means it was welcome. He’d gotten almost fifty grand from it in the year it had been out for, though twenty of that he’d sunk into clearing off debt and old bills. Plus the odd amount he’d anonymously been dropping in the “fix it” box. As Cypress Grove wasn’t a high-revenue apartment complex, repairs and renovations were far from ever guaranteed; so the complex had a special mail slot that emptied into a drop box for residents, on the rare chance they had any, to drop extra cash into a collective pool to be used for maintenance and repair work whenever it amounted to enough. Arthur had been slipping a fair bit in there, now that he had plenty. But, his smallest, and most recent purchase was the book he had with him.

            As the cab rolled through Sahara towards Savanna, the fox in the back looked doubtingly at his reading material.

            How to be a Dad to a 20-something Daughter you just Found out you have – For Dumbies

            He wasn’t entirely positive how old she should be. When had Jannette dumped him? Twenty-three years ago? Twenty-four? His failure times, which he had to admit had taken up a decent part of his adult life, had long-since started to blur together in memory. Maybe if he’d known, he wouldn’t have so stupidly insisted on clinging to his hopes for his acting career.

            With some gathering nerves, he opened the book. He’d already looked, but he still had to give the first chapter its consideration.

            “Brace your heart to start, because at first she’s probably gonna hate your guts.”

            It read.

            Arthur let a slow, quiet breath out as he forced himself to see that inevitability. And it was understandable. Even if he hadn’t known she existed all this time, that still wasn’t a palatable excuse for not being there. If he would have just abandoned his stupid acting pursuit, maybe he and Jannette would have stayed together like John and Marian did. Their boy had grown up without his dad from age eight onward, but at least his old friend John had the excuse of being dead. What excuse did Arthur have?

            He didn’t.

            He rested a paw briefly on the open book before he took in a new breath and turned to chapter two.

            “Don’t set yourself up to fail with expectations. Every child’s relationship with their parent(s) is uniquely different, shaped by everything from factors as large as both of your personalities to as small as seemingly inconsequential daily decisions and conversations, no matter how late in life that relationship starts. You have no idea what this will be, just make sure you accept that much.

            Arthur looked up from the text, watching the passing buildings of the city for a moment. He did have to accept that much. He didn’t just not know her, he also knew almost nothing about her. All he did know, was that her name was Vixey, she apparently worked at a fur and claw salon, and she had a lovely singing voice. But, who was she? What did she like? Who were her friends? Did she have a boyfriend?

            Now that was a real dad question wasn’t it? He might have even laughed at himself under different circumstances.

            At least he’d read the article, so he had a general idea in the loosest sense of what things might have been like for her growing up. He at least hoped he could be a better dad than the neglecting guy who’d adopted her. But that wouldn’t really be too difficult, so Arthur wasn’t exactly setting himself a high bar now was he?

            Arthur let a long sigh out through his nose, eyes shutting for the moment again.

            Would he even be doing the right thing by introducing himself to her? Or would it be better to just leave her be?

            How was he supposed to know?

Chapter Text

            Up, Down, and Sideways were fascinated by what they were watching on the TV screen in front of them.

            “It’s over dad!” A bruised and battered red fox yelled down to another.

            The younger stood on a much higher point, while the older lay fallen on his back further below, beginning his struggle to pick himself back up. The aging vulpine never got the chance however, looking up only to find an enormous grinning replica of his own head breaking off from a massive statue of himself to fall towards him, as the pull of the very Earth itself finally proved to be the one thing that could overcome his ego.

            “Dying second-handedly to gravity?” His final words were first a question, and then a complaint. “This is worse than a cliché!”

            And with no more words, Count Renard Crazyfox was finally stopped once and for all, by a giant copy of his own obnoxious face. And after, his son left the scene behind to find and help as many mammals as he could who’d been brought to harm by his dad’s insanity.

            Outside of their television screen, Up commented on the entire thing. “Well, perhaps the appeal of the show is understandable.”

            Followed by Down. “Indeed. Even if he was never real after all, his demise is still just as satisfying to witness.”

            “I can’t exactly say the same.” Sideways spoke also.

            It had been over two months since they’d woken up from what they’d lived up to that point, and curiosity had inevitably driven them to view the miniseries they had to assume their minds had created The Count from. Granted, none of them were still entirely sure about anything. Now in the aftermath of watching it, Up and Down felt some satisfaction, but they saw Sideways just seemed to be . . .

            The two vertical-eared brothers looked at each other quickly before responding to the brother they had so recently regained.

            “This was likely a mistake on our part.” Up said.

            “Fear not, brother, none of us shall ever view it again.” Down added, taking the remote and erasing the show from their availability list.

            “That wasn’t necessary for you to do.” Sideways told them with some regret.

            “It quite was.” Up assured him.

            “We were only driven the lingering remains of that petty desire anyways.” Down did as well.

            The subject was brought to an end by a knock at their door. They knew who it was, as there was only one mammal it possibly could be. And, they had come to also know who would answer her.

            Sideways rose from his seated position and walked over to their room’s door. Surely enough, when he opened it, there was Vixey standing on the other side.

            “Yes Vixey?” He asked, using her first name, which triggered a new shared look between his two brothers. One that was first curious, then shifted to an unspoken acknowledgement of the obvious.

            “Hey,” Vixey greeted, “I came to give you guys your part.” She was holding a fair bit of cash, visibly more than the two-fifty or so she’d usually been giving them.

            Sideways took it, almost hesitantly upon seeing it was noticeably more than normal. And taking notice of the same, Up and Down stood up to come over as well.

            “Was this week that much higher in earnings?” Sideways asked.

            “No.” She answered. “Everything was the same as it’s been since it started picking up. I just . . . I was just gonna tank the bills like I always do. I mean, not the same this time! I mean I’m gonna spend the same amount out of savings but not cause I have to. I just wanted to give you guys more for once.”

            A different kind of cold, more pained in the heart than the kind he’d been getting from his fear, came over Sideways at her telling him she was screwing herself over just to give them a round of double pay.

            “I, I’d rather you not.” He responded.

            Her eyes went up and off at an angle for a second. “Yeah, of course you’d want me to keep it. But you know they might want some?”

            The vixen’s words caused him to turn back to his two brothers, whom he found a few feet behind him, observing and considering. A pang of guilt came over him then as well, and he ended up holding out the collection of cash to them.

            “Forgive me, please.” He said.

            More slowly and considerately than Sideways would have otherwise expected, one of them reached out and took the money. Down looked down at the five or so hundred dollars he’d taken, letting gravity rest his eyes on it briefly until he turned sideways to Up. The two vertical-eared of the brothers looked to each other for a decent few seconds, before they both turned their gazes to Vixey. Down halved the stack of cash and held out one half back to the vixen it had originated from.

            “We also would rather you not impair yourself just for the sake of providing us an unneeded bonus.” Up told her.

            “There is nothing we require that we cannot already afford with the standard pay you’ve been providing.” Down agreed.

            Sideways . . . was surprised. Happily surprised, but surprised still. And, also quickly some bit angry with himself for being so. His brothers had never been un-needingly self-centered, just after his not death and absence, they had been . . .

Vixey, meanwhile, was even more surprised, though in a more Vixey manner of things.

            “Wh—no you—you can’t just give it back!” She flipped.

            “We’re not.” Up corrected her.

            “We’re giving half of it back.” Down did also.

            “You can’t do that either!” She just reasserted herself.

            “You do not have to take it back.” Up confirmed.

            “But we can offer it back.” Down followed again.

            “And we are.” Sideways joined to make it three to one.

            Vixey looked from one to the next and back again, stopping on Sideways at the end.

            “Alright fine!” She gave up, finally snatching the cash that Down was offering back to her. Though she immediately spun herself to leave, she ended up turning back around to them again after a few seconds. “Ok, I’m sorry.”

            Up and Down had to glance at each other again, while Sideways voiced his concern and their confusion.

            “Vixey? Are you ok?”

            “I’m fine, Sideways.” She answered.

            The exact same response he’d gotten just before he . . .

            Sideways was washed over by flushing cold, and his face clearly showed it, more than enough for Vixey to notice. It was apparently enough to bring her fit-flustering to a halt, though he spoke again before she did.

            “I’m sorry Vixey—”

            “No I am!” She was immediately then sent back into her prior state, though at least in a different frame this time. “I . . .” She clenched a nervously not-angry fist around the cash she had taken back. “Look! I already feel guilty enough all the time for barely ever being able to pay you. But now you guys started being nice.”

            “Would you like us to not be?” Down broke the usual pattern.

            “No!” She immediately snapped. “Look-UGH, I just feel really bad, ok? I’m always rude, and mean to you guys . . .” She ended up just muttering at the end.

            “You’re not.” Sideways insisted, a single paw trepidatiously beginning to reach out.

            “Yes I am!” She tried insisting her own side.

            “Styllianmichalocolos is correct, Lady Vexey.” Up corrected now.

            “Yes.” Down agreed. “On what basis are you making this self-judgement?”

            Sideways glanced back in pleasant surprise again. Usarionos and Doriliasmetrius were . . . recovering, from what the year after his death had done to them.

            “What expenses do you even charge us with?” Up asked.

            “Aside from lurking, what work do you even ask us to do?” Down did as well.

            “You even panic anytime you think you have been inconsiderate.” Sideways added too.

            Vixey actually seemed to consider it for a moment, or at least looked like she really wanted to. But, there was something else . . .

            “Look I’m trying to feel BAD okay?” She was struggling, struggling with hearing the opposite from them all. In an awkward panic of sorts, she spun to leave again, but for a second time came right back around. “Thanks for giving half of it back.” One more turn, and one more reverse. “And I got you more melatonin,” she told Sideways specifically, “if you still need any.” And then a final turn, in which she shut their door for them as she actually left.

            They heard her door, immediately across from theirs, open and close right afterward. All three of them stared at the inside of their own, with Sideways’ outreached paw still lingering for a few seconds. He reluctantly brought it back, and turned around just a second after. When he did, he found the other two still standing right there, now with concerned faces of their own.

            The situation apparently caused Down to speak first. “Perhaps you should go and speak to her further.”

            “Yes,” Up agreed, “at least to properly ascertain her well-being?”

            Sideways glanced back at their room’s door again. He did want to, and likely would have at least tried even without their suggesting so, but their doing so was making him wonder . . .

            “It would only be most appropriate for you to do so.” Up and Down already knew what he was thinking, as all of them always had for each other.

            “You do hold quite a high degree of affection toward her.” Down furthered what they were saying.

            For who he was supposed to be, Sideways felt an awfully great amount of nerves. The instinct to protest was there, but, the inescapable truth was also. So, without saying anything of it, Sideways turned about to face the door again, opening it to walk the single step across the hallway to Vixey’s.

            Some silence and stillness did pass while he stood in the space between the doors of the two apartment halves, but eventually some sound did arise. It wasn’t a beige-furred paw knocking against a cheap wooden door, however.

            “Leg-ends ne-ver die . . .”

It was Vixey’s voice, somewhat dampened from behind the door and walls, but . . . she was singing?

“Leg-ends ne-ver die.” She was singing.

            He had never heard singing. Or at least, he never recalled hearing the version of her they’d thought they knew singing. But, however real he and his brothers’ prior experiences had or had not been aside, her voice was . . . rather well.

            Although, Sideways couldn’t just stand outside the door eavesdropping. Well, he could, but he wasn’t going to, he had his concern for her to act on. So he finally knocked.

            Nothing came of it at first, so Sideways tried again just a little louder, along with adding his voice this time. “Vixey?”

            Some noise actually resulted then, quickly distinguishing itself into footsteps and ending with Vixey’s own voice. “What?” She asked as she opened her door.

            Sideways knew any approach was unlikely to be well received no matter what, but he still spoke anyways. “I, I just wanted to see if you were really ok.” He paused when she rolled her eyes, and took notice of the tiny spots of damp fur just beneath them. “You’ve—”

            “Of course you did.” Vixey remarked at what she should have known would be inevitable.

            Unexpectedly, instead of saying anything else, she turned about and walked back into her room. She sat back down on the foot edge of her bed where, from the crumpled blankets, Sideways assumed she been sitting just prior. Maybe she actually did want to tell him what was wrong, or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she just didn’t want to stand. Either way, she’d left the door completely open. So, with more than just some hesitancy, Sideways stepped inside.

            Although he didn’t linger long on them, he did notice a few things. Vixey’s stereotypical, lullaby-esque pajamas and night cap sat on top of a dresser nearby to her bathroom door, alongside a folded towel with a classic rubber duck resting atop it. On the nightstand next to her bed sat a teddy bear. It wasn’t of any particular design, just the most normal, generic model you would see in films, art or what have you. Sitting beside it also was a little snowglobe, inside of which were generic little figures of a happy fox family, two kids and two parents, and not a speck of abandonment to be found.

            The sight that mattered most was Vixey herself though, sitting on the edge of her bed staring blankly, like she was bitterly looking into a mirror.

            “Vixey?” Sideways could only hope asking as much again wouldn’t make the obvious worse. “You’re not alright?”

            “No.” She answered, forcefully gripping sections of the blanket into the fists she rested on it. The bitterness carried into her voice as well now, but even so, Sideways could still easily tell it was self-directed.

            “Did we upset you that badly by not taking everything?” It was the only initial thing he could think to ask.

            “It’s never anything you guys did.” She responded, just staring blankly at where the wall met the floor. “It’s just me.”

            “I’m not sure I understand?” He really didn’t. Actually he might have in a way, but he absolutely did not understand what he should say or do about it.

            She gave no answer, only momentary silence. And in the midst of it, her nose cringed for a couple of seconds as a new pair of tears slipped down from her eyes into the fur beneath them. Only after they had just enough time to expand the damp patches did their owner speak up again. “I already failed everything.” She almost sniffled out. “I finally would’ve just gone broke if everything kept going. But then you guys woke up freaking out, and . . .” Her eyes narrowed as they watered some more, while she continued to not look at him. “I only made it now because somebody else saved everything, again!”

            Now it was much clearer, though Sideways could never say he entirely understood. But either way, he still didn’t know what to—

            “I can’t do anything.” Vixey said.

            “No, Vixey,” some words finally did escape from the corsac fox, “all we did was accidentally wake you early. You’re still the one who’s done everything.”

            “It doesn’t matter!” She was telling herself as much as him.

            Sideways’ paw started to extend forward, stopping when Vixey spoke again.

            “I didn’t have enough to pay you forever. I knew you guys would end up leaving eventually.” She finally took her eyes away from the floor, just in time to notice the corsac paw reaching out toward her. “But now you guys keep saying you won’t. And you just had to start . . .” She wasn’t able to finish, instead only feeling her muzzle trying to go into a snarling motion even though her mouth remained closed. She stood up from her seat abruptly, staying in-place for just a moment after, before for the first time in years, she hugged someone.

            That particular someone was absolutely not expecting it, and thus froze during the instant it occurred. But after that, after the first few seconds of her arms encircling him and her orange face pressing against the pure black of his suit, it was all he could do to at least place his own arms around her as well. Not long after, he felt her clenching parts of his suit jacket in her paws just as she had done to the blanket she’d been sitting on a moment before.

            “None of us are leaving.” He finally managed to say what they had first promised two months ago, along with something more he really wanted to. “And I’m always here if you need.”

            A still few seconds passed before Vixey responded.

            “I know I’m not smart.” She couldn’t entirely keep those words free of self-directed bitterness. “But I’m not that dumb.” A brief pause followed while she made sure to hide her face, turning her head to partly bury it against him. “I know you like me.”

            And in an instant, Sideway’s temperature regulation was gone.

            She had . . . she was right.

His brothers were right.

            But, he didn’t know what she thought.

            “That, makes you uncomfortable?” He had to consider that the most likely possibility, and reflexively began to let her go. “Or—” And he was wrong.

            “WhatNO!” She actually pushed herself away so she could look at him. “No, no one’s ever liked me.” She went on to let herself mildly faceplant against his chest and neck, with the top of her head brushing across the bottom of his jaw. “I can’t imagine why.” She mocked herself, with his body now serving to partly muffle her voice.

            “Vixey,” he found himself compelled to say, “there’s nothing wrong with you.”

            “Yeah, I know you think that, but . . .” She gave her face enough space to unmuffle her voice, and remained so for a moment, until she inevitably hugged him again. This time at least, she turned her head to the side to speak. “Are you really always gonna be there?”

            Sideways let his arms come back around her once more as well. “However you need me to be.”

            She all but cringed from apprehension as she asked. “Do you really wanna be MY boyfriend though?” And then she waited, still hiding her face and tightly gripping bunches of his suit jacket.

            Well he didn’t see that coming. He probably should of, and he knew it, but regardless. Yes, he did want to.

            “. . . Is, that what you want, Vixey?” Sideways really was absent of any right clue as to what the proper way was to respond or ask.

            “What kind of stupid question is that!?” She demanded, pushing herself back again.

            Sideways knew what he thought the answer was, but still. He didn’t know how he was supposed to respond, and thus found himself unable to.

            “Yes!” She practically screamed. “It’s the kind of stupid question where it’s YES!”

            Perhaps it was odd, or perhaps it wasn’t. Maybe it was appropriate, or maybe it wasn’t. But, Sideways couldn’t avoid an amused appearance to the smile that came over him.

            “That sounds pleasant then.”

            He left Vixey in unanticipated disbelief. It was her turn to have no idea this time, and as always when she was clueless, it was visible. It was so visible in fact, that Sideways began to wonder whether he had made an error in his answering. And then his sense of balance briefly disappeared.

            She kissed him.

            Vixey had wrapped her arms around him for the third time, and in the midst of doing so, she lifted her snoot to kiss him on the side of his muzzle. And for a moment, Sideways could not tell up from down.

            And at that same time, Up and Down had just peered in to see whether all was well of sort. They were just in time to see, and to lower their shades just to make sure they were in fact seeing what they were seeing.

            Vixey kissed Styllianmichalocolos!

            They were right!

            After making him hold onto her for another several minutes, Vixey finally began to let Sideways go. She looked straight at him for a second, violet eyes staring across in his rarely seen auburn pair, with the tips of their noses almost touching. She felt for just that moment, out of her whole life, like she had finally calmed down. And to her, at least, he looked like he wasn’t being haunted by toaster nightmares anymore. Was she really that significant to someone now?

            Without real warning to either of them, Vixey grabbed both sides of Sideway’s muzzle and yanked it forward to kiss him completely, almost then throwing him back afterwards.

            The corsac was left blinking for a moment, and had his sunglasses still been on, they would have slipped away at some off-angle. “Um—”

            “Shut up!” Vixey didn’t let him say anything. “Na—now get out! Go back and play video games with Up and Down or something.”

            Sideways was just as much confused by the new verbal response, but even through his own flustered state, he could see that she was much more so. So, he started to leave at her command, only to turn around at the door to bring something up.

            Vixey,” he asked, getting her to look over at him, now with some calm brought back to her face, “have you ever thought about singing?”

***

            Sideways entered the designated corsac room again. His brothers were playing Baldeer’s Gate 2, no evidence of their earlier spying present in their expressions. Their corsibling perception told them both simultaneously that he had returned. Both heads turned to him, waiting . . .

            “It appears I am Vixey’s boyfriend now.” He said.

            Up and Down both looked to each other with a rare, amused eyebrow raise.

            “So it would seem.” Went Up.

            “Indeed it would.” And Down.

            Sideways wasn’t exactly expecting them to know, so the shades he’d only just placed back on now slipped down somewhat. “You were, already aware?”

            “Aware of the inevitably obvious.” Up responded.

            “Too much so to be surprised.” And Down.

            Sideways considered their comments from earlier as well. He’d denied as much then, just because it was any mammal’s reflexive instinct to do so, but . . .

            “Had I unknowingly become that obvious?” He asked.

            “It was becoming a wonder that she didn’t notice.” Up answered.

            Sideways broke the speech circle. “She did.”

            “Then she is smarter than perceived.” Down restored it.

            That remark though, it made one of Vixey’s own stand out from several minutes ago. “She doesn’t believe herself to be.” He told them, with some regretful reluctance.

             Their mood was lowered with his, though curiosity also took to them as well. They both wondered the same things as he rejoined them, taking his seat between the two.

            “In . . .” Down started first, hesitating in the proper definition of the entire life they had experienced up until a couple months ago. “Our collective nightmare, her insecurities were primarily his fault.”

            “Yes,” Up agreed, “but this her wasn’t being raised in isolation as the mafia tool of a deluded psychopath.”

            “Her dad treated her the same.” Sideways told him. “Not in the same manner, but, she told me about how much he didn’t care.”

            “If she has indeed been confiding things in you,” Up remarked on one aspect, “your affections may be well reflected.”

            “Though one might have been to much greater extremes,” Down did on another, “she seems to have suffered a parenting parallel.”

            “Instead of pressing her toward a deluded path and downplacing her for her inability to follow,” Sideways furthered what he’d been told, “he didn’t encourage her toward anything. Nor help her with anything. Nor pay attention to anything she said or did. Apparently he wasn’t even present the more measurable part of the time.”

            “Then why did he adopt her?” Up asked.

            “If it clearly seems he did not want to?” Down added.

            The reason had been just as inconceivably mindless to Sideways when he heard it from Vixey as it was for his brothers when they now heard it from him. “He didn’t want a child. He just wanted to adopt a child. Adopting her was just an act of spite against his former wife for taking his son.”

            Now there was quite a share of silence, to the point of Sideways beginning to grow unsure of how they actually felt. Until they did respond, that is.

            “If only he were still alive.” Up remarked rather . . . well Sideways knew what he meant.

            “Yes,” Down agreed, “perhaps we could have had a pleasant meeting.”

            Up resumed. “Unlike his natural causes—”

            Down carried the remainder of the sentence. “—we would allow him an appropriate few moments to at least prepare himself for his ending.”

            Sideways tried not to smile, even biting onto the inside of his lower lip. At least speaking back provided some cover to it, but what he said and realized only added further reasoning. “It means some more now, to know you two both actually do care about her. Even if you assert that it’s only somewhat.”

            Neither of his brothers immediately said anything, until both spoke at the same time, in unison.

            “Somewhat.”

.

***

.

            “Just like, like just barely even say it or something.” Vixey told them. “Or like, I don’t know, breathe the words out or whatever.”

            The vixen was standing in front of an amateur studio mic, with the three corsacs sitting in front of a trio of more generic recording ones set up on one of her claw treatment tables. She had in fact, albeit tentatively, and somewhat secretly at first, tried singing like her now-boyfriend had suggested. It had taken a few . . . dozen, attempts at recording her first cover before she felt remotely comfortable posting it, and comfortable was being generous. Two more had come, and then the corsasstic trio found out. But, there’d been no sass. Well she hadn’t expected any from Sideways, of course, but the other two had also been . . . approving, too.

            Now, for what she was doing right now, she actually needed their help. Mortals had very few lines in it to begin with, but a few of those normally had faint male background voices. Fortunately for her neighbors-guards-friends or however she categorized them, plus boyfriend, said male voices essentially just sort of breathed out the words in unison with the singer, rather than singing themselves.

            So of course, they were here to help her, just as in all else, just as they always would be.

Chapter Text

            What was he really even doing here? He couldn’t possibly have thought this was a good idea. How was this even supposed to go?

            Arthur walked as slowly as he reasoned he could without looking off or creepy. Granted, he was a fox to begin with anyways, but still. He’d had himself dropped off a couple blocks away from his daughter’s business, out of some pre-emptive cowardice, so he’d had some extra time while walking to potentially back out. But, that distance was almost covered, and that time was almost up. He could see his destination right up ahead, marked apart from all the surrounding small business windowfronts by the two suited thugs that stood outside on either side of its entrance. That was the way he knew to recognize it. He’d seen the three corsac foxes in his daughter’s pictures.

            Though it wasn’t because of them, his blood was beginning to ice through with apprehension. The ill-advised moment was only seconds away, maybe minutes at most. Actually, maybe some of it was because of them now, with the realization that he might also have an unintended audience to be afraid of also, apart from just his daughter’s reaction to his existence.

            This was his last chance.

            Every step.

            No matter how slow he took it . . .

            It still brought it closer.

            They saw him. His steps resumed enough speed for a normal appearance, and deadlocked him into what he had set out to do. Though perhaps his steps hadn’t normalized quick enough, or maybe they had already noticed him earlier than he realized, as the two corsacs suddenly appeared very . . . off-put by him. Actually they looked completely unnerved. Even with their eyes hidden behind the most opaque pairs of shades, the demeanor change was still visible in every other way. As they quickly spoke to each other before he was near enough to hear, Arthur began to wonder if this wasn’t going to happen after all.

            By the time he was right there, they had apparently agreed on something. Their demeanor had returned much closer to their original hollow stoicism, but some clear bit of edge-teetering was still there.

            “Hey.” He so desperately hoped his voice was free of the trepidation he felt. “This is Vixey’s business right?”

            Restrained tension began creeping back into both corsacs’ faces.

            “And why are you seeking out her business?” One of them with upward ears asked.

            “You’re not within her normal clientele.” The other asked as well, his ears bent back and downward.

            Now Arthur knew his pulse had to be decently slower than what it should be. He had no earthly idea what he did to set them on such an edge, but he could see it, even if they were suppressing it like a mammal pressing their thumb into the nozzle of a running garden hose.

            “Um, I was just looking to speak to her.” He hoped phrasing his awkwardness in a professional sounding way might at least de-tense the two door guards somewhat. “It’s about something important.” Well, that sounded a little less so.

            Neither corsac moved, but their eyes narrowed, and even from behind their shades Arthur could still feel as much.

            “Of what importance?” The one with upward ears asked.

            “Yes, let us judge its severity.” The other followed.

            They were both suspicious of him, highly. And Arthur had a feeling whatever answer he gave wasn’t going to help him in any way.

            “It’s a . . . personal matter.” Well, there went any chance he might have had. Maybe he was subconsciously trying to back out of it after all.

            The two steppe foxes glared narrowly back at him, with eyes ever concealed. Eventually, with their fur still visibly wanting to bristle, they gave each other a brief, deciding glance. The result of which, was one of them warily opening the door and stepping inside, while the other remained outside with Arthur, positioned to make it clear the red fox wasn’t allowed to follow.

            Arthur tried not to look in through the windowfront. He didn’t want to do even the slightest thing that might set the corsacs off, given how he already seemed to have done so. Although, he suspected he was going to set them off no matter what when she inevitably freaked out. And that wasn’t just because of what that book said, he did actually have some common sense of his own.

            It was a horrifically awkward wait. The lone corsac remained there staring Arthur down the entire time, as if he were expecting him to suddenly pull something. It really made the red fox wonder if something had happened before.

                The door opened, and the other corsac emerged again, still appearing just as rigidly apprehensive as before. But, he gave the other a wary nod, after which, with even further narrowed eyes, the one in front of him stepped aside.

            Arthur was allowed to walk in, with one of them holding the door and the other stepping back from him as he entered. The first then followed him inside, and both maneuvered to be on either side of him, as well as a few steps ahead.

            Were they . . . readying themselves to jump in between him and her? He really didn’t understand. Was it just him, or were they like this with everyone?

            Arthur saw the third finally, the one with side-aimed ears. He knew he was the one he had seen. He had a pair of the same blackout shades as the others, but he wasn’t wearing them. Instead they were sticking out of his suit’s chest pocket. He was the only one of the three whose eyes Arthur could actually see.

            “Hi.” Vixey then took everyone’s attention, providing a fleeting break form the narrowed glares Arthur had been enduring. She had just come out of the laundry room, taking a pair of fresh towels to the head and fur tail treatment seats. “Sorry about the whole suspicious intimidation wait time.” She walked over after setting them down. “They really don’t trust anybody but apparently you look like a guy from a bad dream they all had.”

            Needless to say, Arthur was completely unaware of the true context and magnitude behind what she was saying, nor the actual truth of it that she would never say, just as she’d promised not to. But, the would-be strangeness of the explanation didn’t really register in any meaningful way, because of the much greater issue now completely stalling his bloodflow and overwhelming his mind.

            “They said you wanted to ask about something?” Vixey prompted.

            “Ah, yeah.” Arthur really had to force himself to speak, feeling at that point as if there might as well have been a deadweight tied around his larynx. “Uh . . .” Oh come on! How was he even supposed to do this? “Hi!” He found himself tossing up his arms in a “surprise!” motion. “I’m your dad.”

            Without fail, there was absolute stillness . . . for a second.

            But upon that lone second’s end, the three corsacs swept to Vixey’s defense in a blur like anime ninjas! Two stood side-by-side in front of her, and one directly beside her, each with an arm cast out like bars across any path to her. Pairs of shades slipped down the snoots of the two that wore them, and their own eyes now showed along with their brother’s.

            The whole thing made Arthur slip a couple steps back. This was more wrong than even he’d expected it to go.

            “We should’ve known!” The up-eared corsac bitterly remarked.

            “He couldn’t keep from revealing the ruse eventually!” The down-eared one followed.

            A narrow gap of silence came afterward, where it looked like . . . were they waiting for the third one to add something as well?

            “HEY!” It was Vixey who ended up saying something. “What do you think you’re doing!?” She even tried to force their arms out of the way, while they strained to keep them in place.

            “He’s come back!” The up-eared one tried to warn and explain to her at the same time.

            “He’s been playing all four us—”

            The second was stopped by the third. “He. Isn’t. HIM.” It had taken a moment for him to get grip over himself, after which he’d placed an actual, physical grip on one shoulder of each brother.

            It . . . seemed to get to them? They both looked back to him, and her, and slowly, as slowly as a mere few seconds could seem to last at least, their deathfox modes seemed to dial down. Granted, that dialing down was only from ten down to maybe an eight.

            It turned out to be at least enough for Vixey to shove her way past them. “This isn’t your toaster nightmare!” She chided on her way past, before . . . none of her irritation seemed to leave when she faced Arthur. “And get lost, dad.”

            The oldest fox out of the five had nothing to say back. Even if that unique situation hadn’t just occurred, he doubted he would have anyways. He guessed her reaction fit with what he’d been told to expect, but—

            “What?” She asked, appearing rather unimpressed. “You’re not the first awkward creep to show up after all the plays my song covers got. Hi I’m your dad’s a new one though. But I don’t care, get out!”

            “No! Wai—I’m not here because of that!” Arthur tried to break through the social barrier of everything he’d just caused, his words coming out faster than they otherwise would have. “I really am your—your mom’s name was Jannette.” He watched her roll her eyes in between his sentences. “We split up over twenty years ago because I was dumb and I didn’t know she was having you. I-it was just around the start of social media, you should be able to find a picture of us together on the Wild Times ferris wheel while it was snowing and—”

            The rolling eyes of the twenty-something vixen in front of him suddenly stopped and shot wide, and she froze for a lengthy moment.

            “GET OUT!” She only shouted again, just more . . . panicked this time. “I SAID GET OUT!”

            Everyone stayed frozen for a new moment, and then the first two corsacs eventually moved between him and her again, and ultimately he had no choice. While Vixey abruptly dashed off upstairs, followed immediately by the side-eared fox, Arthur left.

***

            Why did he have to do that?

            He faintly kicked his apartment door shut behind himself.

            Why didn’t he just avoid it and leave her alone?

            He didn’t even bother to turn the lights on.

            That was so much more horrible than he’d ever imagined he could have made it.

            He eventually dragged himself over to the small desk he had in the corner of his confined and combined living room and kitchen.

            In what deluded world did he ever think that would have gone well?

            As he finally pulled out his desk chair and slumped down in it, leaning himself on the desk, he pulled out his phone. There were images he went to, pictures he’d saved. One was his, from so long ago. And the other was Vixey’s. He supposed saving it to his phone was wise in retrospect, since she’d probably look him up to block him now.

            It was the second picture he lingered on, one of the most recent on his daughter’s page. She looked so happy, so obsessively thrilled showing off the engagement ring on her finger to the two other girls with her. A female white wolf police officer sat on one side of her, and an every-so-slightly amused, beady-eyed fennec sat on the other. He’d read and seen other posts that let him know it was the side-eared corsac she was engaged to. He’d wondered what he was like, what Vixey’s friends were like . . . and he even still didn’t know what Vixey herself was like either.

            Maybe that would’ve been different if . . .

            Arthur switched to the one other picture he had.

            There he was, over two decades ago, with Jannette. They were sitting together, both in winter coats and fuzzy hats, in a ferris wheel cart passing over the top.

            If only . . .

***

            Elsewhere across the city, that same image was being searched for by another mammal. At the behest of a certain red fox vixen, fennec fingers rapidly worked away, diving back into the earliest years, the dawn of social media. She found it for her eventually, alongside a small few similar ones of those two, on the account of Arthur Robinfox.

            Vixey had dismissively spat some air out when she’d first seen his last name. Even if it was just something he’d been given from birth, it was still an of course moment. He was certainly old enough to meet his claims, apparently fifty-four, and his account did go all the way back to just a few years after FaceBark first began. Back when, in Fenneko’s words, the internet had really just become the internet as they would recognize it.

            “Yup.” Fenneko said. “There he is.” She flipped her little laptop around for Vixey to see.

            It had been found: the proof she didn’t want to see. There he was, with the mother she couldn’t remember, in the exact same picture she’d seen before.

            Vixey could stop it. She couldn’t keep her teeth from showing and pressing together, and her fists from clenching hard enough to crack rocks.

            “NO!” She yelled. “It’s NOT FAIR!”

            Everyone either looked at her with sympathy, or kept their eyes away with regret. Sideways stood nearest, but he still kept a step away, knowing she would grab ahold him herself if she needed to.

            “He doesn’t get to just suddenly EXIST like that!” She screamed at no one again.

            There was some silence further, while they all let her breathe through it.

            “I really don’t think he knew.” Fenneko commented.

            “I don’t care!” Vixey fought back, spinning around and slapping her paws down onto the kitchen counter, wanting . . . wanting to break something, but not really able to go through with anything.

            “Vixey.” Sideways’s voice caused her to spin around again.

            “Don’t—” Vixey stopped when she realized it was him. She snarl-glared for a second, but she inevitably just threw herself against him.

            Each wrapped their arms around the other, and the fur below her eyes began to dampen from the tears that were finally being released. He felt her sobbing while she held onto him, and he just hugged her back, as long as she needed him to.

            While Vixey was letting the overflowing portion of her confused emotions get held away, Fenneko turned the laptop back to herself. She searched and perused some more, investigating through additional items. She had her suspicions, and they weren’t difficult to confirm. Most social media sites never actually deleted the accounts of deceased mammals. With user numbers in the hundreds of millions, even a billion or two depending on how widespread any particular site was, the rate of users they’d have to clear was just too much work. Vixey’s mother’s account was still there, and with it, everything she had once posted. Even the chatlogs of comments and replies on those ancient posts were still there.

            The fennec eventually found what she was looking for: confirmation.

            There was a post of Jannette with a little baby Vixey. And beneath said post were comments and replies. A back and forth between Jannette and some friends of hers. They asked if Arthur knew. She told them he’d already left to stick with his desperate acting dreams, so obviously he wouldn’t want to know. Among other things, there was enough for Fenneko to confirm the truth.

            Arthur Robinfox was Vixey’s dad alright.

            “He’s legit.” Fenneko inevitably said.

            “I GOT that part!” Vixey snapped back.

            Fenneko was unphased, partly because she knew what she should expect, but mostly because she was Fenneko. She was already busying herself looking at the guy’s IMBD page. Turned out Vixey’s mom’s comments about his career had mostly held true even for the two decades that had passed since then.

            The two non-hugging corsacs had made their way over to the table in the meantime.

            “Who even is he?” Up asked, trying to keep his voice just low enough. But, it proved to be fruitless.

“I can hear you, you know.” Vixey told him.

            Both Up and Down looked regretfully over to her for a second before turning back to the fennec.

            “Well?” Vixey asked, looking to her as well.

            “Not much.” Fenneko answered everyone. “Most of his record’s just really minor roles in some Star Trek movies and a few endworld disaster flicks. Other than that it’s just voices in some video games. He didn’t really catch anything worthwhile until he played that psycho guy a couple years ago in that show they hate.” She indicated the three corsac brothers at the end of it.

            “Which games?” Down asked, on part of both his and Up’s interest.

            It resulted in something just on the verge of a growl from Vixey, and the two of them relinquished any further questions of their own that came to mind.

            “Vixey.” Sideways placed a gentle paw on her arm, drawing her attention back to him again. “What do you want to do?”

.

***

            Arthur removed the booth headphones and hung them on their placer. With multiple eyes on him from the other side of the studio glass, he just walked out of the session.

            “I can’t.” He told the VA director before they even could ask. “I just can’t keep going today. Sorry.”

            Even as questions were actually being asked, he still kept walking. He’d managed a whole hour, but hadn’t gotten that many lines down in that time. After yesterday, he just couldn’t. It wasn’t in him. Nothing was. No more recording. He was just going home to depress. Whether he chose to stare at the ceiling or the underside of a pillow once he did backfall onto his bed, it would accomplish the same thing.

            Why?

            Why did he have to blow it? He’d had one shot with the daughter he just found out existed. And now he had nothing.

In actuality, he was surprised at just how instantly he’d wanted to be her dad when he’d found out. Was it just the whole male red fox instinct thing, or what? He wondered if it would have been like this at the beginning too, had he actually known and been there at the beginning.

            Why didn’t he just listen to Jannette?

            He could have been—

            His phone buzzed once. Just a message. Even in his mood, it was still a reflex to check it. What he saw on the screen stopped him in his place, however. It was from Vixey? It was her face in the icon picture. Granted, whenever she had taken whatever picture that was, she looked much happier than he had left her yesterday.

            Her message just said, “7pm. Show up.”

            Did he . . . not blow everything?

***

            He was here, again. Arthur had come to Vixey’s business for a second day, a second . . . chance?

            The vertical-eared corsacs had been outside once more. And even in the failing light of the beginning evening, they still wore shades. But, this time they didn’t shift into on-edge ptsd when he showed up, even with him just stepping out of the taxi right in front of them. Instead, they just looked at each other, making some unspoken decision as to who would hold the door and who would monitor Arthur.

            Vixey was waiting inside, seated and scowling with her arms crossed at one of the tables. The one corsac he knew to be her fiancé, and whose name he had no idea how to say sat near her, just close enough to be within her reach. Her fiancé at least seemed far less agitated than she did. But Arthur had no idea whether that was really a point in his favor or not.

            “Hi.” He managed to force an awkward word out.

            “Well are you gonna sit or not?” Vixey’s voice held the same bitterness her face clearly showed.

            “Ah . . .” Arthur hesitated to do anything for a second.

            “She’s not comfortable with you standing.” The side-eared corsac clarified.

            “Sorry.” The word almost came in a gasp, or half of one. Arthur sat himself in the one seat on his side across from them.

            None of them said anything immediately. Arthur didn’t want to ruin everything again, plus he assumed she was going to say something first since she was the one who initiated contact this time. It turned out he was right, just . . .

            “So?” Embitterment still carried her words. “Whatta you want?”

            That, wait, what? Arthur maybe didn’t expect that as a question. But then again, what was he expecting?

            “I want to be your dad.” Arthur sounded genuine, which he knew also probably sounded cringey.

            Sure enough, it resulted in Vixey appearing even less impressed. “Oh yeah? Who says I even want a dad, huh?”

            Well.

            That hurt.

            But it also . . . Arthur’s eyes did catch something. It looked like Vixey’s fiancé didn’t really believe her.

            “I’ve already gone through one dad who didn’t give a damn, thanks.” She furthered her attempt at bitterly rejecting the whole turn of events.

            The pain that would otherwise have appeared in Vixey’s eyes showed in her fiancé’s instead.

            Arthur could see it, and feel it. And he could tell well enough that it was true regarding whoever she had been raised by. Just, it wasn’t true about him, was it? He hadn’t known. He felt so compelled to reiterate that fact, but . . . no. No, he couldn’t. His mouth even slipped open for a second, but there was nothing there. It was true about him too. It had to be. If he did care, then he wouldn’t have not known all this time. Him and Jannette never would have parted to begin with.

            Suddenly, he felt himself standing up from his seat. And to the surprise of everyone, his legs just started carrying him away.

            “Wha—HEY!” Vixey shouted, freezing him.

            He turned back to find her having jumped up from her own chair, paws slammed down onto the table and her expression now appearing much more confused and flustered than bitter and scowly. Granted, the latter two were still there.

            “Where do you think you’re going!?” She demanded to know.

            “I . . .” He still couldn’t speak.

            “You’re not supposed to leave!” Vixey spoke from a very different emotional place this time.

            The blatantly obvious came to everyone, that it was from outside of just the current situation.

            Arthur didn’t leave.

            No, he came back to his seat. He had to.

            After he had sat back down, eventually Vixey slipped back into her own seat also. And with that one corsac always keeping his eyes on her, never even turning in Arthur’s direction.

            After at least a few seconds went by, Arthur set himself up for beratement. “I didn’t know.”

            “That’s NOT an excuse!” His daughter screamed back at him.

            “. . . I know.” His admission didn’t seem to calm her at all. But at least telling her he felt the same way about his total failure was something. Right?

            Vixey didn’t say anything, she just glared, and looked like she really, really wanted to growl or snarl at him. But then, why wasn’t she?

            “I’m here now.” Arthur tried saying. He knew it wasn’t going to fix anything. It couldn’t. But it wouldn’t have felt right to not say it either.

            All she did at first was take a few very heavy breaths, before her face started to contort. She was trying to keep herself a certain way, but she so obviously couldn’t. “NO! You can’t just—”

It only lasted one more second before the crying started, crying that she still tried to repress even as it was happening. Her face came down to the table, and her paws reached to grab ahold of her ears. She might as well have been trying to rip them off with how hard she pulled forward on them for as long she could.

            In the end, she twisted herself in her fiancé’s direction and slammed her head against his torso. It forced a puff of air out of him, but brought about the end result of him placing his arms around her just as she did the same.

            There was nothing for Arthur to say, nothing for him to do, other than watch what he had caused. He saw the daughter he had never known about cling to the quiet corsac fox she was going to marry, and the two brothers of said corsac slipping closer to them both in case she required them. At least Arthur could know Vixey had the three of them.

            Arthur didn’t move, just as she’d told him not to, even though he still felt compelled to leave again, believing by now that he was only causing emotional harm by being here. But at least he could so clearly see she was in truly caring company without him. At least he could know she was far from alone.

            Vixey eventually did drag the other two in, grabbing ahold of each’s suit jacket to pull them over to either side of her and the first.

            Arthur waited. He waited for the inevitable further downfall when their moment ended and they realized he was still there. He really shouldn’t be there. But, at least he was doing what she’d asked, or demanded. Maybe that counted for something.

            Vixey let those two go, and eventually released herself from her fiancé’s embrace also. She looked over at Arthur, sobbing once or twice before yelling at him again.

            “GET UP!”

            Arthur, well, obeyed, after a second or two. It was a sluggish response, in the uncertainty of what she was going to scream next.

            “Get him!” She didn’t yell at him, but instead ordered the two standing corsacs.

            Arthur . . . didn’t . . .

            They became suited thugs once again as they moved around the table to either side of him. His blood rushed and stalled, and rushed and stalled as they seized him by each arm and hauled him over in front of her.

            What now?

            Was this . . . was this going to be the end for him?

            Did he deserve this?

            . . .

            Probably.

            With her two thugs holding Arthur before her, and her fiancé looking on from just behind her, Vixey sniffled a couple times as she tried to maintain her bitter glare. He could see the expression on her fiancé’s face lightening ever-so-slight, just before—

            Arthur had NO functioning mind to respond or process the fact that she had suddenly hugged him now.

            Vixey . . . had grabbed ahold of him.

            His daughter was hugging her dad.

            She was still sniffing and sobbing harshly as she did, but she was squeezing him nonetheless. And the words, they eventually did blunder their way out.

            “I want my dad.”

            . . .

            This was, also not how Arthur thought anything would go.

            But, he was being hugged by his daughter regardless, and now, he found his arms being moved outside of his own will. One being moved by each of the two shade-wearing corsacs. They were placing his arms around her.

            “Nwmtmndnn.” The same words came from Vixey again, only this time mumbled, and compressed together.

            Arthur left his arms around her after the two corsacs had placed them there.

            How? How could he possibly let go when she clearly needed him not to?

            Maybe she would want something to do with him after all. Everything was still probably going to be really awkward. Actually there was no doubt it would be. But that was fine, Arthur supposed. And from the approvingly unexpressive faces of the two standing corsacs, and the happy-to-see look in the eyes of Vixey’s fiancé, Arthur supposed they all felt so too.

Chapter Text

Some years later . . .




            “Nah, come on,” an ever-smug raccoon was replying to his stream’s chat, “just because they’re in full-piece suits doesn’t automatically make them better dressed.”

            “We are inclined to take chat’s side in your disagreement.” A suited corsac fox replied, dressed in the aforementioned full-piece suit.

            “Indeed,” another, sitting near the first and dressed just the same, “your attire has always been the real game where you were most lacking.”

            “Ouch.” The raccoon mocked a response, seated in a gaming chair and dressed in fancy-enough blue button-down dress shirt with a yellow shirt underneath.

            They were three members of a little streaming group they’d created, the self-adorned: Sharp-dressed Gaming Brigade. Up and Down, or SuitThugUp and SuitThugDown, the two corsacs, were the sharper dressed, but their raccoon friend Stephen, or SlyRingtail, had the more fancy-looking streamer equipment and screen setup. The three of them were in the middle of an all bosses race, seeing who could speedrun Bark Souls the fastest.

            “You know I have worn a bowtie before.” Stephen bragged.

            A much smaller fox, a little girl of contrasting bright and exceptionally dark orange colours suddenly entered into frame in both corsac’s cameras. She walked over to Up, because his setup was closer to the door she’d entered through. “Uncle Uswanarimos?” Her little six-year-old voice butchered his name in the most adorable and precious way.

            Up and Down both turned around to see her, the younger of the two sisters Vixey and their brother had adopted. Stephen withheld his laughter behind a growing smirk, and all three chats flooded with emote representations of “Awww”, “So Precious”, and the simple fox face emoji as well.

            “Can I have ice cream?” Angel asked, with such a sickeningly-fitting name.

            It took no more than two seconds for the subscriber donation alert messages to start pouring in. One by one, that awkward, stilted female Twitch A.I voice started reading things out to them, its unpredictable breaks and random enunciations actually managing to add some endearment of their own.

            $15 – KarateKrisSFox  “The mOst . Precious thINg ever deserves . someice cream.”

            $10 – JimmyWhimmyWallace  “Sweet . HeartED little sweet tooth.”

            $10 – NoMoreCackles_OR_Laughs  “I can’t believe . My . Partner’s wAtching this whileon duty.”

            $25 – BlueFoxWildeCop  “Using cute KIDS for your benefit? For shame! Get the LIttle . sweet fluffsome ice cream.”

            The two corsac brothers looked at each other, then flicked their eyes to the game for a microsecond, and then finally kept their gaze on their smaller niece.

            “Certainly.” Uncle Up answered her.

            “Let us venture down to the kitchen.” Uncle Down agreed.

            They and their niece left for the moment, leaving Stephen by himself with all three of their chats. He just casually spun a few degrees in his chair one way and then the other, while running his character in circles on the screen. A surrendering smile, one that was still somehow smug at the same time, mind you, inevitably came over him. He ran up to a point where he needed to make a jump and blatantly just rolled off the edge to his character’s death.

            “Oh nooooo.” He feigned, with very intentionally bad acting. “I missed the jump guys. Gonna have to run all the back up there now.”

            The chat flooded with “XD” and various “sly guy” type emotes.

            In the kitchen of The Corsica Place, two corsac brothers stepped in, one with a small cross fox half on his shoulders and half leaning forward over the top of his head.

            “I want mint and strawberry.” Little Angel told them.

            Her uncles shared an amused glance over the whole thing. Down broke off to grab a bowl and spoon for her, while Up continued to carry her over to the freezer. He let her open it herself, but took care of the ice cream tub retrieval, not wanting to have her resting one of the freezing things on top of his head. They scooped her out some of each, just like she wanted, and walked back upstairs with Down carrying her bowl of ice cream, Up carrying her, and her leaning over his head from his shoulders, reaching out eagerly towards the ice cream in her other uncle’s paws.

            They made it back to find a few dozen more subscriber donation messages about how Angel was such a sweet and adorable little angel.

            “Well,” Uncle Up remarked as he lowered her down off his shoulders, “it seems everyone has much greater admiration for you than for any other group members.”

            Angel looked partly confused, in the normal manner of a young child, and her focus quickly shifted to the ice cream bowl her other uncle was then handing her.

            Uncle Down added the suggestion as she shoved the first spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “I’m certain everyone will be extra happy if you gave them a greeting.”

            Angel paused with the spoon still in her mouth. While her two uncles spoke fancy and funny a lot of the time, she thought she understood them. She followed Uncle Down this time, over to his gaming desk and stood up on her tippy toes to make sure her head came up past the bottom of the desk. She knew the bottom of the camera stopped there.

            “Hiiiii chaaaat.” She said to them all, even waving with her ice cream spoon in-paw.

            All three chats, even Stephens, were immediately overwhelmed with “my heart!” emotes, alongside “paws together adorable eyes” and “smiling angle”.

            “You guys try to use cute kids to trip up opponents now?” Stephen asked, his voice returning over their Swype call.

            “Hi mister ring tail!” Angel said to him as well when she recognized his voice.

            Stephen’s grin lost its smugness for once, and he had to let out a faint groan while he threw his head back over the top of his gaming chair. “Heeeehhh alright, a’right, fine, you got it.” He conceded, bringing his face back to level with his cam and restoring some of his naturally confident expression. “I’ll give you guys a free minute.” He promised, placing his controller down and holding his spindly raccoon paws up in view of the camera.

            “How kind.” Up remarked, and then Angel spoke up before Down could follow.

            “I only have a minit to eat my ice cream?” She asked Uncle Down.

            Down looked over and down at the suddenly heart-trodden little cross fox. “No. He was addressing us, Angel. Do not worry.” He softly patted the child on her head, possibly the most gentle thing either he or Up had ever done.

            “Yes,” Up assured her as well from across the room, “enjoy your ice cream however long you wish.”

            “Stephen.” A dual-accented voice came from the Raccoon’s side of the call, belonging to a female raccoon peering in judgmentally through a doorway in the background. “Nothing will make me End You any faster than if you make that little sweetheart cry.”

            “Come on Carmi,” he looked over his shoulder to her, “you know I could never do anything that cold when I have you keeping my heart so warm.”

            Carmi looked . . . unimpressed. “Sweet romantic words can be coughed up by anybody. Being a decent mammal is harder to find.”

            Stephen took the hint, even though he legitimately was going to apologize anyways regardless of his fiancé’s intervention. He leaned closer to the camera and switched out the perpetual smugness on his face for the considerate mammal who always existed underneath it. “Hey.” He waited just a second to make sure Angel was looking back at him. “Sorry kid. I wasn’t supposed to scare you.”

            The little cross fox looked more confused than anything else, but she responded anyways. “It’s ok mister Ring Tail.” She then noticed the other raccoon on the screen. “Hi missuss Ring Tail!”

            Carmi, in reality Carmelita, or Mrs. Ringtail, smiled back immediately. “Hello Angel! How are you and Ginger feeling?” She placed a pawhand over her fiancé’s controller just as he was about to pick it back up, to both his and his chat’s amusement.

            “Mommy and daddy took her to git a new vwiolin.” Angel answered with more of a what than a how.

            But, the happy demeanor of the child and how naturally she called Vixey and Sideways her parents told Carmelita all she needed to know, and solidified the smile on her face all the more. “Oh, that sounds wonderful sweetie. Make sure your uncles don’t let Mr Ringtail say any other mean things.”

            “No harm will ever come to her under our care.” Up promised.

            “Emotional or otherwise.” Down confirmed.

            In the meantime, Stephen had given his fiancé an oh come on look, and chat was still responding to Angel’s comment about Ginger’s violin with music notes and “fox face” emojis.

            “It’s ok.” Angel herself spoke up. “He didunt mean it.”

            The utter smarm that overcame Stephen’s face when he looked to Carmelita once again almost made her nose wrinkle, no matter how charming he tried to make it for her. “Aghck!” She turned to walk out of the room. “Wonderful. You’ve even managed to convince her of your innocence.”

            Chat was filled with everyone typing the word innocent next to “raccoon face” emotes.

            “Hey, I don’t even think give any of your defendants this much of hard time.” Stephen remarked.

            “With them I don’t know for sure whether or not their guilt is deserved.” Carmelitta countered, exited Stephen’s streaming room.

            “I’ll meet you at Hooven Garden on your break.” He called out after her to promise. She was off to the courthouse to do prosecutor things, meanwhile he was getting back to this all bosses race. A race in which his two opponents now had a tiny bit of a content lead on him.

            “Are you sure you’ll be able to finish this race in time for that?” Down asked from their end, with Angel sitting on the floor beside him enjoying her ice cream.

            “Yes,” Up added, “chat says you missed the archives jump.”

            “I don’t know what you’re enunciating that for.” Stephen said back. “It’s not like I land that skip every time.” Except he might as well have.

            Both corsacs cast a gratefully-amused glance at little Angel, who remained all the more oblivious.

            “Hey,” Stephen suddenly asked, “you guys are all cool with Vixey’s dad. Soooo,” he made a not-so-Sly prying attempt, “what’s the latest bit on the movies?”

            Amidst the occasional clinks from Angel’s spoon against the inside of her ice cream bowl, the two corsacs gave their raccoon friend a stonewalling response. Not that Arthur had actually told them anything about the games’ coming films, but toying with SmugLifeRacc was always fun.

            “That would not be a subject we’re at any liberty to discuss.” Up answered.

            “You know there quite sizeable legal consequences for revealing secrets to the unworthy.” Down added.

            “Oh come on!” Stephen was still smiling as he mocked them back. “You didn’t sign any NDA.”

            “Perhaps not, but the source of our information most certainly would have.” Up responded again.

            “And were any consequences to befall her lone parent, our sister-in-law would become quite upset.” And Down.

            Then Up again. “And by extension, both Angel and Ginger would likely become so as well.”

            And Down again. “And that would certainly be an undesirable turn of events. Let alone one you would prefer your fiancé to discover your guilt in.”

            While Angel looked to her uncles for a second, just making neither of them were speaking directly to her after saying her name. Stephen leaned his chair back for a moment, the natural smarminess being heavily drained from his remaining grin by their weaponization of the adorably precious fox children. He inevitably lifted his little spindly raccoon paws in surrender, controller still gripped in one.

            “Yeah,” he gave, “you guys can keep pinning me over the fire by my stripey tail with that one.”

            “I’m done uncle Dortralametris.” Angel preciously, so preciously destroyed her uncle Down’s name this time.

            Down gave her the same look of caring amusement Up had before. “Well then,” he said, making sure his brother had also heard as well, “it’s time for you to wash your bowl.”

            “I can’t reach the sink.” She told him. It was so adorably genuine, in that it was clear she wasn’t saying it to try and get out of washing her bowl and spoon.

            “We’ll provide you with additional height.” Up promised her.

            The two corsacs rose from their seats, and this time Angel rode on Down’s shoulders down the stairs. And after they had left, when it was just Stephen alone with all three chats once again, his eyes shifted way then the other, all too conspicuously. He was running through the crystal caves, nearing one of the pairs of invisible bridges.

            “Wait, which one is it again?” Asked the raccoon who’d speedrun the game hundreds of times and knew exactly which one it was. “It’s the one on the left, right guys?” He essentially just mocked his chat with his normal smirk returning. The character went running across thin air, only to suddenly be struck by a massive magic laser beam from somewhere off-screen. “Right. Nope. That’s the,” he switched over to fake-mocking himself, “that’s the one where the guy’s waiting to ka-may-ha-may-ha you from outside the map. Well, guess there’s no getting ahead of Up and Down now.”

            His chat once again filled up with “XD”, alongside “nice acting” placed next to raccoon face emojis. And then, it was his turn for a subscriber donation storm.

            $15 – ChubSqueeCheetah  “Smug Racc is . a good . hearted Racc.”

            $5 – LuchaLion3P  “Nice to see THE . ring tail CAbal doing SOMEgood.”

            $30 – Masked_JusticeHammer  “Keep repREsenting for Raccs all around.”

            Downstairs in the kitchen, Down knelt down in front of the sink, and little Angel leaned forth from her uncle’s shoulders, doing her best to wash her bowl and spoon. She’d been a bit splashy about it, but thankfully any soapy water had been flung to the sides and not toward the corsac uncle providing her height boost. At least, that was, until just now.

            “It’s done!” She said, pulling her paws out and brushing her uncle’s nose with one as she did, leaving Down with a blob of soap-sud bubbles on the end of his snoot. It left all three of them quiet for a whole second, until Angel started giggling.

            “Cute.” Up couldn’t resist mocking his brother.

            “Yes.” Down agreed.

            “Do you wanna a bubble nose uncle Usinarmos?” Angel asked.

            “A wonderful idea.” Down barely refrained from a smirk. “Perhaps you would enjoy a bubble nose as well, Usarionos?”

            “He wants bubble ears.” Angel apparently decided for him.

            Down could no longer restrain his mocking grin, as he knew, just as much so as he himself wouldn’t, his brother was not going to refuse the precious orange thing sitting on his shoulders.

            “A fashionable proposal.” Up gladly agreed with his niece’s idea, but made sure through his eyes alone that Down knew he would pay him back eventually.

            The sound of the front door being opened was heard, followed quickly by Vixey announcing. “We’re back.” And then her appearing in the doorway of the kitchen, stopping completely to take in what she was seeing.

            There was her younger adopted daughter, sitting atop her uncle Down’s shoulders, with said uncle having a blob of dish soap bubbles stuck on the end of his snoot, and her other uncle with nearly spherical collections of soap bubbles stuck like poms on the tip of each ear. It was a . . . a sight. Certainly not anything she ever would have imagined she’d see from her two brother-in-laws back before they became such. And then their brother, her husband, came in to see what she was looking at.

            “Heartwarming.” He commented to the two of them.

            While those two immediately wiped away their soap fashion, Angel slid herself down her uncle’s back and went running over to her parents. “Uncle Usamoronos and Doralimatis gave me ice cream.” She told them happily just before trying to hug both of them at once.

            Vixey hugged her back first, and then turned her over to Sideways while she went over to her now soap-sudless brother-in-laws. “You gave her ice cream?” She asked both of them, appearing incredulous about it.

            “At her request, yes.” Up answered.

            “You can’t just give kids whatever they want whenever they ask you know!” She seemed as if she were on the verge of one of her old Vexey freak outs . . . but then she flipped completely, dropping her intensity and abruptly hugging both of them. “I can’t believe you gave her ice cream you guys are the best!”

            Both corsacs’ shades would have slid off-kilter had they still worn them. Instead, they were just left with completely visible, moderately confused eyes. Theirs met their brother’s as he looked on entertained from the kitchen doorway.

            “But no, don’t give her too much!” Vixey both released and whisper-scolded them.

            Then it was their turn to share a glance with each other, of shared amusement at the obvious.

            “Yes.” Up agreed.

            “Of that much we’re reasonably aware.” Down assured.

            They both saw then, as did she when she turned around, little Angel pulling on Sideways’ shirt for his attention. “Come look ind listen.” She told him and called out the same message to her mother and uncles as well, even bouncing up and down in doing so. “Come ind see!”

            Well, how could any of them possibly refuse?

            “We’re coming sweetheart.” Vixey promised, walking back over with Up and Down following.

            Sideways couldn’t help but whisper to his two brothers once they were close enough. “Rather endearing activities for you two to have partaken in.”

            “Silence would be in your better interest.” Down semi-whispered back.

            “Shhhh!” Vixey shushed them all the instant they stepped out.

            They all looked toward the middle of the room, where Ginger, the nearly nine-year-old cross fox stood trying to ready her violin. Her little sister Angel was waiting eagerly nearby for her to start, lightly twisting and twirling in place one way then the other as she did. Ginger’s violin was both an early gift from their now mom and dad, and unfortunately also a necessary measure for her to be able to play as she wished. The ultimate happychild face on the older of the two sisters they all got to see now was one of the most welcomed contrasts ever, compared to the crying despondency last week. Normally her school, like most others, let students use school instruments to practice at home; rent them, so to speak. But it . . . hadn’t gone that way. She’d been prevented. Not by the school, but by other kids, yelling around her that she was a fox and so she was going to steal it. Staff had supposedly dealt with the students involved, but the emotional damage to Ginger was already done, and she refused to even go to music classes at school anymore.

            Now, however, she looked so much the opposite. With her little sister watching admirably from her side, and her parents and uncles looking on as well, Ginger started to play. And while Angel looked just as amazed as she would have with any other musical piece, the four adults in the room were surprised by the arrangement of notes that proceeded to come from Ginger’s instrument. It was a simpler performance of it, as she didn’t yet have the skill for solo complexity, but even in simplicity it still came out as a pleasant rendition. It was something she knew her dad and uncles listened to, and also something not originally composed with a violin in mind. It was “Floods Across”, by that Linkin Paw group, although because of the historical event it was referentially about, it sometimes bore the alternative title “The Fall of Corsicea”. It was in a similar vein to how they’d written “In the Silence” about The Fall of Halifox.

            Even as sad of a song as it was meant to be, Ginger still enjoyed her spontaneous performance of it. Her little eyes stayed shut half the time, and her face was kept lit with a belonging smile. She even tossed and swung her head gently this way and that with each major note.

            Ginger looked amazing to her little sister, and so sweet and purehearted to her adoptive parents. Her uncles Up and Down thought just as much as well, no matter how well reserved they kept their faces about it.

            Inevitably it came to an end, upon which Vixey and Sideways both clapped and smiled, while Angel told Ginger she was the best and hugged her.

            “Masterful.” Up complimented.

            “A meritorious display.” Down did as well.

            Angel put herself up next. “I don’t know any big words to use.”

            “It’s ok.” Ginger promised.

            “Of course it’s ok.” Vixey insisted, rushing in to hug them both.

            “Moooom, my violin!” Ginger had to wriggle her instrument free, after Vixey had stranded it between her and her sister.

            “Here,” Sideways offered his daughter, “I’ll rescue it.”

            They both smiled at each other as she handed it off to him, and he went ahead and took it to safety on one of the tables nearby.

            “She played the special corsac song.” Angel informed her mother of what she thought she may not know.

            “That’s what it’s called then?” Sideways asked as he came back over.

            Little Angel gave a few big happy nods in response. She was still a bit too young to really understand, or by her mother’s decree, to be told, the tone of the song or what it was actually about. Her big sister knew, but even her understanding would probably take a few more years before it could sink deep enough. Either way, to different degrees, they were both little and innocent, and happy, so sweet and happy. And their happy, poisoning sweetness was such a wonderful heart-filling thing for the vixen who was now their mom, the side-eared corsac who was now their dad, and discretely the two corsacs who were now their uncles also.

            The Corsica family was a perfect one, even if they were still keeping Mr Ringtail waiting.

***

            Some time later, after Vixey had given them a special message from her dad, the three corsac brothers sat with Stephen, or Mr Ringtail, or SmugLifeRacc, waiting to watch something. Vixey’s dad had somehow managed to get them permission, provided they signed the NDA agreement, to see some footage from the Bark Souls film. He’d told them it was less than a minute, but “it should be enough.”

            There they sat, watching as it began. They saw a male jaguar and female deer lying on an ashen ground, appearing desperate and injured, with the Darksign in place of the sun in the sky, and the Soul of Cinder stepping towards them. Only then for the final boss’s attention, and the camera to cut to someone else. It panned its way upward from the golden-armoured feet to the fierce, ancient helm a mammal wielding a regal swordspear.

            “Wait?” Stephen couldn’t keep his mouth from blurting out what they were all now assuming. “No way, they cast him—” He was quickly silenced by numerous corsac paws placing themselves just over various vital spots.

            The footage went on to show the obvious Ornstein remove his helm to reveal the face of a fox underneath it. It was Arthur playing him! And with such better acting talent than he had ever been given credit for until a mere few years ago, Vixey’s dad displayed the face of an ancient hero: resolute, worn and tired from the age of millennia, and knowing one way or another, this was going to be the end.

IMBD

“Bark Souls: The End of Fire”

Character – Ornstein

Played by – Arthur Robinfox