Archive of Our Own

For the first time in a while, all was quiet in the car with the exception of the radio. The wolf pup tilted her head to the side to watch outside as more rows of snowy trees appeared out of the darkness ahead of them, fading in and out of view as they drove past them. It was the middle of night in the dead of winter, and a couple of hour before the big family gathering had broken up to all head home again - these were always the best parts of road trips for her, the going there and the coming back from a long week seeing her extended family. She loved her family, especially since there were so many of them and all very much adored her, but it was exhausting and overwhelming for such a sensitive little wolf and so she looked forward to the peaceful rides home so that she could recover and relax.

Her father John murmured something to her aunt, Zena, in the front seat about finding a pub or a service station along the way as a car in the distance drove past, the first one they had seen in the time since they had started driving, but she paid them no attention. The wolf girl was safely strapped into her seat and sat on her older sibling's lap, snuggled under a big coat that they had pulled over her as a blanket, and held close in a hug with their arms acting as an extra seatbelt of sorts. She rocked back and forth gently in time with the motion of the car as they passed through a tiny village, letting herself fall away mentally as the radio began playing a song she'd heard many times before and for the next few minutes she felt as though she was drifting through space.

A road sign snapped her out of her trance and she let out a huge yawn, getting more comfortable underneath the coat and becoming aware once again of her cousins travelling in the car on either side of her; Robin the fox cub 'denning up' with her under the coat and pressing his fluffy fur against her in a hug, Paint the bat (whose real name was Andromeda, or Andi for short, but she couldn’t pronounce the full version and ‘Andi sounds like a boy name’ so she introduced herself as the first thing that came to mind and sounded good) doodling in a colouring book while simultaneously reading about dinosaurs on the seat next to her with a plushie alien under her wing, and her older sibling Riley wearing their earbuds and listening to their Walkman - a hand-me-down from the siblings' dad - while keeping an eye on the two younger kids on either side of them and their little sister.

Robin growled softly under his breath as he rest his head against Maddie, nuzzling her gently like a cat, and clung to her like a cuddly toy. He'd had a long and tiring day running around barking and chasing the others, and the motion of the car moving down the road along with the white noise of the country lanes were only adding to his sleepiness. Riley had a pile of CDs next to them and was reading through the liner notes with the dim light from a tiny portable reading lamp, occasionally swinging their feet or tapping on the cushioned seat in time with whatever song they were listening to and glancing over at the kids on either side, beaming affectionately at seeing how tired they were and resting their muzzle on top of Maddie's head between her ears.

Paint, who was usually full of boundless energy but was also very much exhausted and a little fussy from how long the week had been, was entirely swept up in her own thing as they pulled into a petrol station momentarily to refill the car. Riley glanced up and took their earbuds out to whisper a request for snacks to Zena, and Robin poked his head out of the coat while still asleep, but Paint kept colouring intently and doing little doodles of her own in the margins. "Can we have some snacks please?" asked Riley. "What would you like, sweetheart?" "Um, I'd like some crisps and a strawberry milkshake if there's one there but I'm happy with anything but chocolate if not...Robbie, you want anything?" A gentle touch on the cub's shoulder and a light shake, enough to cause him to let out a loud yawn and whimper quietly when he realised he was awake.

"Mmmnn, wanna sleeeep..." "You wanna drink? Some snacks?" "Wan' some fruit..." mumbled Robin. "Can we have some fruit too, please?" The fox cuddled in closer to his cousin after delivering his reply, trying to get in under her little arms for extra warmth on the winter night. "We there yet?" piped up Paint, managing to keep her volume at a reasonable level for once. "Not for like...lots of hours yet," said Riley in response. The wolves' dad leaned back in through the open driver door to announce that they'd be home by dawn, and that everyone could nap when they finally got in too, before shutting it again to fill the car up.

~

When the car finally took off again, Zena sitting back down in the passenger seat with a bag loaded with snacks, drinks, and sweets for the kids and for the two adults in the front, the snow outside had picked up somewhat. Paint snatched at Riley's lamp to try and point it at her own drawing, causing a slight scuffle between the two as Riley tried to wrench it back from her as quietly as they could before John noticed the two in the rear-view mirror and whispered at them both to knock it off. The radio at this point had shifted to a song that took Maddie far back, a long and percolating groove with an almost lullaby-like hook drifting through it. "If you make sure you're connected, the writing's on the wall, but if your mind's neglected, stumble you might fall, stumble you might fall..."

She felt her thumb slip into her maw without realising it at first, gently suckling on it as she let her eyelids droop and watched the lights of other cars go by out of the window, head resting on Riley's chest. The indicators clicked softly as they came up to a roundabout, the feeling of the car banking around the turn causing Robin to jolt slightly and Riley to also stumble into him, crashing bodily into the fox boy and causing him to wake up to the wolf's snout stubbing into the top of his head - and for Maddie to crash into him as well. The cub's yelp of surprise was muffled by her thumb being in her mouth, and she turned her head slightly to shoot her older sibling an angry look before tugging more of the coat over herself and pointedly facing away from them both.

"Aurw!" yipped Robin, startled by the sudden wake-up and poking his head out from the coat to blearily look around at where he was. "Who did 'at?" "Wasn't me!" whispered Riley, quickly getting back to their original position and ignoring Paint picking her crayons back off of their lap. "Fanks for holdin' dese for me!" she babbled, seemingly oblivious to what had happened but the mischievous twinkle in her eyes giving away the amusement at her cousin doing something they might get told off for. Riley turned and bared their teeth at her, getting a big beaming grin back in response, before turning back to Robin and seeing an even toothier snarl than their own. Their cousin bared his little - but pin-sharp - fangs at them and tried to growl as softly as possible so as not to be reprimanded by his aunt and uncle, eyes rolling and lids sagging as he attempted to look menacing while falling asleep on the spot. Riley reached out to ruffle his headfur and scratch gently behind his ears, which caused Robin to rest his head on their hand for a moment before waking up a little more and trying to peer around the car seat.

"Issat fruit?" he slurred sleepily, noticing the bag at Zena's feet. "Oh! I almost forgot, here you go kiddos," came the reply from the hyena, reaching in and producing a see-through plastic container full of fruit slices for Robin and a bottle of strawberry milkshake and a packet of cheese and onion crisps for Riley. "An' ME?" squeaked Paint from the seat next to them, scandalised that the others got something and she didn't. "Obviously, squirt!" said Zena, reaching around with a chocolate pudding. The bat kit kicked her feet with excitement, taking it happily and giving her sister a huge grateful smile in response. "Say 'thanks', Paint!" chided Riley. "...fankyu, sis," she eventually said, after having shoved in several mouthfuls of chocolate first.

Having noticed that Maddie had her eyes shut again, the hyena put a finger to her lips and handed Riley a chicken sandwich to pass on to the wolf cub when she was more awake. The pup quietly put it in Robin's paws so that they could eat their food, who was happily munching on some banana, who in turn poked her with one of the edges of it. "Mmhh?" grunted the dark-furred wolf, a little annoyed about being pulled out of her rest and rubbing her eyes before letting out a muffled squeak of surprise at the sandwich in front of her.

Outside, almost everything was a flurry of white from the snowfall, which caused the car to become almost entirely pitch black inside with the exception of the weird artificial light from the radio and Riley's reading light, which they moved slightly in order to cover both Alicia and themself in order to prevent another fight. As the radio announced the name of the station quietly - some presumably local one that they didn't get on their side of the country - and started playing some eerie synthpop song that Maddie's ears perked up at when she recognised it, the kids huddled closer in the darkness.

"Hold on, there's a blanket down here..." whispered Riley, keeping their voice down both because everyone else was being quiet and because the darkness around them all seemed to make their drive feel like some secret silent run through the night back down to their home again. The older wolf cub pulled a rough woollen blanket over the four's legs, covering most of Robin and completely burying Paint and her drawings under it which caused the kit to squeak and flap at it until Riley reached over and gently tugged it off of her. They shot a cheeky grin back at her as revenge for being cheeky to them, and in the darkness all they could see were a pair of dark brown eyes glaring back at them as if to say "I'm not gonna forget that". Paint huffed and wrapped herself in her wings due to not being able to draw any more, slamming a paw down on her drawings as the car reached another roundabout and caused the others to lean gently away from her.

The road at this point began to get more rural again, Maddie peeking out over the door out of the window and only being able to see a wall of snow and the car in front of them moving away faster and faster. She started to feel a little anxious at all the night around them - she was a wolf, yes, but at the same time she liked nighttime when she could actually make things out in the dark instead of a blizzard that made her wonder if her aunt and dad really knew where they were going.

Leaning forward to get a better look, and causing her older sibling to gasp quietly and try to keep her upright so she didn't fall off the seat, she peered at the dashboard. The map was still leaning up against it and managing to stay upright despite all the turns and curves in the country roads, and despite nothing but the catseyes on the road and the cars up ahead to indicate that they were actually going towards home, they seemed to know what they were doing. The wolf pup let out a quiet sigh of relief and snuggled up under the blanket some more, leaning to the side so that she was pressed up against Robin and feeling better about things.

In the darkness she glanced towards the other three in the backseat with her as a car went past with its floodlights on, illuminating everyone inside for a moment and letting her see what was going on. Paint had gotten excited about the sudden light and quickly grabbed her crayons before making a disgusted noise when the light vanished again, Riley was completely lost in whatever music they were listening to and stimming by kicking their feet in time with it, and Robin was poking her with the sandwich again now that he noticed she was fully awake again. "Mhm?" she mumbled. "Eat it!" replied the fox cub, wiggling it in front of her face now. "You gotta eat it or I'm gonna 'cuz it's chikkin."

"Don't eat Maddie's sandwich, Robbie," came John's voice from the front of the car in a quiet but stern tone. "I won't! But she's gotta." "When she wants to, and when she's properly awake." Maddie went to speak but found that the words wouldn't come out, catching in her throat before she could. She always got non-verbal when she got tired enough, and despite being more awake being unable to fully relax and not have to deal with her cousins talking and bumping into her was keeping her in that space mentally. She reached forward and gently tapped Zena on the shoulder, causing her to turn her head to look at her, and put her hand to her chin before moving it away again - 'thank you'. "You're welcome, my darling!" came the response, the hyena having understood immediately why Maddie was signing instead of speaking and reaching back to ruffle her headfur.

The pup smiled and made a heart with her paws, sitting back in her seat again and taking a small bite of the sandwich. "You want some music while you eat, Maddie?" said Riley, taking out one of their earphones and offering it to her. The wolf moved back away from Robin to listen, drawing a groan of annoyance from the fox as he slumped against Riley's side and a light snap of his teeth aimed at their forearm, and put her ear against it to hear what it was first.

The music that came through was...very Riley. Quirky, dorky, and some type of indie pop - the kind of music that their cousin Alicia would always write off as 'boring nerd stuff' and make fun of Riley for - but before they could explain who it was the car suddenly came to a stop. The kids all stopped what they were doing and leaned into the centre between the seats for a moment to try and get a better look at what was going on outside, noticing that they'd hit a red light at last, and Riley hit the pause button on their Walkman for a moment. Even the radio seemed to go silent briefly due to the song playing ending and going to an advert, adding to the eerie atmosphere, and as things got moving again the four collectively breathed out again before settling back into place. John seemed to have noticed the mini-commotion in the back, since with a glance in the rear-view mirror he quietly rumbled "don't worry, that probably won't happen again".

The wolf cub went to hit play on the song again but Maddie had already gone back to her original place gazing out of the window, still trying to get some space and be able to talk again, her sandwich having dropped into her lap. Riley tapped Robin on the shoulder and pointed at it instead of reaching across him to pick it up, and the fox responded in kind by lifting it up and placing it in her paws which she took gently and silently. "Now we dere yet?" squeaked Paint, causing the other three to shoot her an annoyed look since they clearly weren't anywhere near home yet and still going down miles of anonymous country roads. "No, and it won't be for a couple of hours yet," said John.

"Hours?!" Paint screeched. "Shhh, car voice!" growled Robin, finally taking his turn at invading someone else's personal space by leaning directly across the wolves and shoving his muzzle into hers. "Whassa car voice? Is just my regular voice," Paint shot back, waving a crayon towards the fox. Riley quickly moved their Walkman out of the way seeing the two of them suddenly get lairy with each other right above their lap, starting to worry a little about things escalating while they were trapped between them, and shot a look down at Maddie in an attempt to get her to help. Maddie started to growl softly at the pair of them, her expression darkening as she glared at them both and her hackles started to go up. "Oh great, thanks sis..." they muttered.

"Car voice means you can't be loud an' shouty!" said Robin. "I'm not bein' LOUD and SHOUTY," Paint growled back in a stage whisper as she leaned forward into the cub's face, "RO-BIN!" "...help?!" hissed Riley, glancing at the mirror in the hope that one of the two adults would notice. "Robin, settle down." John rumbled. "Be nice, both of you..." came Zena's voice, her voice hardening and lowering slightly to show she was serious. "...sorry. Car voice now," Paint said, without a hint of actual sorriness in her voice. "Sorry, Unka John..." said Robin, who still sounded more than a little annoyed at the bat. The indicators started clicking as the car reached a fork in the road, the car in front of them having turned and driven off already, and with a right turn it set off down a road by itself.

~

The wolf girl wrapped the coat around her tighter and stared out of the window as the car moved on to a motorway and into a patch where the snow wasn't falling as quickly, quietly counting the reflections along the side of the road as it carried on through the night and trying to ignore her cousins getting more irritated with each other. Her mind slowly drifted between different things in order to try and get herself back to sleep and get her to calm down, since she was now coming close to snapping at one of them or bursting into tears - the warmth of the big, heavy coat around her that smelt faintly of her big sister's perfume, the lights from the road of cars going by and being passed, and her sibling holding her close and rubbing her shoulder gently to help soothe her, not noticing them shooting an angry 'responsible big kid' look at both Robin and Paint who continued to not be sorry in the least for their fight.

Paint rolled her eyes and set about scribbling on her drawing pad a little more aggressively than before, sticking a crayon into her mouth and going ‘mmm’ thoughtfully as she pondered if sky blue or lemon yellow looked better on the dinosaur she was trying to trace from the cover of one of her books. Glancing over at the little wolf, who was staring above her head out of the window, the bat kit leaned in slightly and began staring intently at Maddie with big wide eyes until she realised she was being watched and looked down at her cousin. “Can you help me pick a colour please?” Paint whispered gently in a softer voice than before, keeping her voice down so as to not annoy the adults any more and to make sure Maddie wasn’t any more overwhelmed than she already was.

The wolf cub’s ear twitched a little and the dark look on her face eased up slightly, the coat shuffling and wriggling about until she got a paw free and set it down on the yellow crayon. “Thanks, Maddie,” said the little bat, tail stub wagging gently and giving the blue crayon to the wolf so that she could help colour in the picture. Maddie looked down at it for a moment, tugging the coat around herself a little more defensively, and then decided to start drawing in a bright blue sky behind the dinosaur that Paint had started worked on, which was currently a mixture of different clashing colours.

At the same time, even more tired from the burst of energy that had been the fight with Paint, Robin’s eyes slid shut again and he tilted to the side to grab his younger cousin in a hug but ended up latching on to Riley’s arm instead. “Ah!” went the older wolf, realising that their music player was now trapped under the full weight of a sleepy fox kit who had seemingly gone from falling asleep to a deep sleep in a matter of seconds. Robin’s eyes fluttered open again briefly, noticing that he’d gotten the wrong wolf, and he smiled up at his cousin before nuzzling in closer and resting his head on their side. Riley let out a quiet frustrated huff in response, trying to peer around Robin’s head and ears to see what was happening with the music player, and saw that the song they were on – the last song on an album with nothing queued up afterwards – was almost about to end. The wolf slowly rest their head back against the headrest, closed their eyes, and sighed as deeply as they could manage without disturbing the fox kit’s sleep.

From the front seats, Zena let out a huge yawn and stretched as best as she could in the cramped space before wrapping her hands around the back of her headrest and closing her eyes to sleep. The yawn passed around the passengers in the car, leaping to John first who managed to cover his mouth before unleashing an even louder one than Zena before bouncing backwards to Maddie, who leaned in with the force of the yawn and into Paint’s face. The bat kit looked up just in time to see her carnivorous cousin’s fangs coming at her and squeaked in fright as she threw her hands up to push her back, sending the majority of her crayons flying off the seats and down the side of them and rolling away out of her reach. As Maddie got shoved back against Riley the little bat watched as her lemon yellow crayon vanished out of view underneath the driver’s seat, and she slowly turned back to her cousin with a look that was somewhere between annoyance and disgust at the situation.

“Why'd you do that for?!” she whispered. “Scarin’ me with your teeth like that!” The wolf cub gave a slightly insincere shrug and sleepily signed ‘sorry’ in response as Paint grumbled and reached down the side of her seat to try and recover one of her crayons, shaking her head the entire time and occasionally looking back at Maddie to make sure she knew just how disappointed with the whole ordeal the little bat was. None of which inspired her to feel guilty or as though she should help in any way, and she watched Paint through tired eyes as she pulled out a light red crayon, looked back at her drawing pad, and rolled her eyes angrily at the realisation that the one colour she had to draw with didn’t fit with her vision.

Paint threw herself back against her seat and crossed her arms, still clutching the crayon tightly since she didn’t want to lose any more, and shut her eyes so she didn’t have to look at her unfinished drawing and get even more wound up about it. Before long, the rocking of the car and her eyes being shut worked to lull the little bat to sleep, her head softly tilting to the side and body relaxing from her tense posture as she slipped into slumber with the crayon still in hand. Maddie let herself smile a little as the last of her family in the back with her finally fell asleep and left her to her own devices, raising the sandwich she had been putting off to her mouth and taking big bites of it now that she didn’t have any more interruptions or things pricking at her senses around her.

The wolf pup finished her food and pulled the blanket up over herself a little more, the cold creeping in despite the car windows being shut, and rest her head against her sibling’s chest as she slipped her thumb back into her mouth and got comfortable. The radio continued to quietly play in the background as the little wolf found herself being gently rocked to sleep by the motion of the car much like Paint had been, and she looked down at Robin’s sleeping form before resting her muzzle on top of his to snuggle in close with both canines at once. The last thing that she took in before sleep overcame her were the lyrics to the song quietly playing on the radio, something solemn and hushed that also had an air of being something Riley would love were they awake to hear it. “Why are we still out here? Holding our coats, we look like children...goodbyes always take us half an hour, can’t we just go home?”

~

With a slight jolt from the car hitting a rocky part of the road, Maddie came to again as a bright light flickered against her eyes. Rubbing them lazily and ruffling the fur around them a little in the process, the wolf girl suddenly realise that the inside of the car was bathed in a golden glow from outside and gasped quietly. The snowclouds had disappeared and left behind an entirely clear sky just before dawn broke, allowing the sunrise to shine through and cause the snow on the ground to look as though it was glowing. Looking around the car she could see that everyone was still fast asleep but her and her father; Robin had cuddled in even closer to Riley’s arm and was kicking his foot slightly in his sleep, Riley’s mouth had hung open and they were drooling against the headrest, Paint had slumped forward against her seatbelt with the crayon still somehow clutched tightly in her paw, and Zena was lightly snoring in the passenger seat with her head bouncing gently against the window to the rhythm of the uneven road beneath the car.

Her gaze sliding upwards towards the rear mirror, watching as John’s eyes remained fully focused on the road ahead, Maddie cleared her throat quietly to catch her father’s attention. His eyes shifted from the road to the mirror briefly, noticing the cub staring up at him through it, and a smile broke across his face. “G’morning, starshine,” he said quietly as not to wake anyone else up. “Feeling better now you’ve had some peace and quiet?” The pup nodded her head gently and quickly. Glancing out of the window one more time, looking across the fields of golden glowing snow as they passed road signs that she didn’t fully understand but recognised enough to know that they were much closer to home than they were when she fell asleep, she let her tail wag a little against her sleeping sibling. Clearing her throat again, having gotten used to not speaking or making much noise at all since she had been put in the car hours ago, Maddie took a breath and glanced back up at her father’s eyes in the mirror before opening her mouth to speak.