Chapter Text
“Sir… excuse me, sir?”
I bolt on my feet, the feverish weakness in my legs protesting the sudden grip on my gun.
The stench of sweat and alcohol bites my poor nostrils, tearing my mind back to oh-so-sweet real life sooner than I appreciate. The eyes of some of the most curious of drunkards are stuck like glue to the blaster on my hip, their unshaved faces looking even more suspicious behind the wall of smoke lit at every table like dozens of bonfires, second-hand smoke be damned.
The only well-dressed person in sight clears her throat, recalling my crazed gaze upon her brown, baggy eyes.
“Sorry for wakin’ you out of the blue, sir. You ready to order yet?”
The middle-aged hen asks, pencil already on paper.
I look down at my table, my brain still trying to turn on the engine and recall what the hell am I doing here of all places.
“Haven’t decided.”
“Sir, gonna have to ask you to leave if you don’t order,” she recites, each word shielding a rising annoyance, “it’s been two hours.”
“Wha- holy shit.”
I slide down the wall to sit, my body resigning any resistance as the worst of realizations comes back down my throat like a brick of shit: the post-nut clarity when you’re in the middle of going through with the stupidest decision you ever took.
“Gimme a beer,” I reply, imagining the waitress’ glance at the sky as I put an arm over my eyes.
“Think I’m gonna make that two,” she says, prompting me to open my eyes and see him.
“Hey,” Fox McCloud greets me, waiting for the hen to return to her deeds before he sits at the opposite end of the table.
“Hey,” I reply. I’ll take the fact that my heart’s pounding like crazy to my grave. I can feel tingling in my throat and hands as I straighten my black jacket out.
“Sorry for being late, for real… It was a real mess back home,” he says, some eyes turning to us as he seems to mimic my action.
The whiplash takes me a bit aback, what with still being half-asleep and… all of this. I muster up a response.
“And here I thought I was gonna be late,” the words get caught in my throat, watching him closely to figure him out all over again.
His green eyes meet mine after thousands of days once again before he throws a smirk.
“Man, with all the time we wasted waiting for you back in the day, we could’ve walked the entirety of Corneria two times over!”
My eyes open wide, and I feel the corners of my mouth turn upside down. He DOES NOT wanna play this game with me.
“We gonna talk about how long you took for your SkInCarE rOutInE before every briefing with the general? What were you hoping for, a promotion?”
“Oh, shuddup!”
He kicks me under the table, giggling. It’s only now, for whatever reason, that it strikes me just how much of him has changed; his yellow fur has turned paler and longer, slightly unkempt hair now sit where he once sported that spiky mess (that made him a way-too-easy target of my jokes,) the bags under his eyes darker than ever before, no doubt a testimony to similar battles I had faced over the years. The knot in my throat is back, stronger than ever before. Whatever.
“What kept ya busy on Corneria?” I ask, as I take the beer from the waitress’ hand. I’ll have to tip her real good…
“Corneria? Oh, no. Don’t live there anymore. I… I went back to Papetoon,” he admits, staring at his beer.
“What, you missed the sand in your eyes?”
“I missed mom.”
“…I see.”
We both take a long sip of this piss-tasting liquid as if it’s the best drink we’ve ever had.
He sighs, cleaning the foam off his mouth, “She ain’t around anymore. So yeah, sand’s the only company I have.”
I gulp.
“What about you? Still haven’t settled down?”
“Do I look like I have?”
He takes an uncomfortably long look at my rough-looking feathers, and I can just picture what’s on that little brain of his.
“You look like your ass hasn’t seen the shadow of a bed in years, dude.”
“Ya try sleeping in an Arwing, man…” I sigh, stroking my tensed-up head with my one free hand.
“Which you still owe to the Cornerian government back, heh,” he says, “so get ready to sleep on the floor.”
“What a snitch. Ain’t you retired anyways?”
“What, a little bird told you?” he throws a high-spirited challenging glance at me.
“Bet ya if ya went over to that drunk-ass pig there, he’d know,” I challenge back, “son of James McCloud retires AND with no heritage? Shit was tragic. And ya still haven’t told me why you were TWO HOURS late.”
I cross my arms instinctively as he keeps smiling tiredly at me. My heartbeat’s settled, finally.
“You still haven’t told me where the hell you’ve been.”
I grit my teeth, his gaze still intent on penetrating my eyes. When did he get this attitude, now?
“Around.”
“Falco…”
“This noise’s been killing my ears. Wanna grab a smoke?”
He stares at me, frowning.
“Yeah.”
“Man, that tip was HUGE.”
Fox lets me light up his Camel, trying his damn hardest to keep the cigarette in balance.
“Where do you get that kind of money, man…”
“By haunting fake-ass smokers like ya down, stupid,” I light my own, already regretting the warmth of the pub.
“I smoke… sometimes,” he says, only for him to immediately go for a puff and wheeze like a teapot.
I cackle, “Man’s drag was longer than his career!”
He punches my shoulder weakly, still folded on his knees coughing.
“Ya okay? Do I need to get water? Hahah!”
“Shuddup, jerk…”
We managed to find a quiet spot in some alley, the usually busy city of Macbeth replaced by the lonely, fluttering light of a half-broken streetlamp. The subtle humidity of an after rain is filling my lungs as much as the nicotine, and it isn’t much of a change from the pub’s air quality.
“Y’know…” he breaks the city noise, “Slippy opened an e-cig company. Amongst other things.”
“What the fuck? You’re serious.”
He looks at me dead in the eyes, his distant eyes betraying a smile, “Dead serious.”
“Wha- since when is that frog a business man? And e-cigs- really?” I take a long drag.
“Hahah… I knew you’d get like this.”
“Like how, now?”
“You always had a thing for Slippy.”
“Yeah,” I rest my back on the stone wall behind us, “if by that you mean that I still think he’s a loser!”
“You’re always on his mouth, y’know.”
My heart sinks a bit.
“Whenever I see the others, he is always the one that asks where you are. Always wonders how you’re doing. Always gets that look on his face when I shut him off—”
“Why did you ask to see me, Fox?”
I turn around to look at his gaze, staring in the distance, basking in this expected silence, the silence we were preparing since the moment he sat at our table.
He shrugs, unable to face me.
“Came to Macbeth to guilt trip me or something? To tell me I owe Corneria? To tell me that Slip misses a guy he used to work with twenty years ago?” I drop the cig butt on the ground, lifting from the wall to face the fox.
He finally looks at me, his muzzle muttering, “We- that’s it? We’re your old coworkers?”
His stance straightens, getting his nose closer to my beak, confusion turning to rage on his wizened face, “We were a FAMILY, for fuck’s sake.”
“Yeah? Who’s left of that?” I reply, that old, unbridled, buried rage coming back to my bones all at once, “Where’s your bitch?”
I can only see the fox’s eyes gaping before my vision flashes white and I find myself hugging Macbeth’s rocky floor, a pulsating pain lingering in my left cheek. I wipe the metallic taste off my mouth and spit a couple of times, listening to the shaky breath of Fox McCloud above me.
“I don’t- I really don’t BELIEVE you… fuck…”
My mind is racing as I watch him walk in place nervously.
“What the hell did she do to you?!”
I get up with the help of the wall, shivering with anger, unable to say anything.
He looks miserable, his eyes glassy and his face corrugated in a dejected mask.
“Fuck, man… the only way I could know you were even ALIVE was asking Katt… do you have any idea how it felt? Twenty years… Twenty years with my last memory of you being that fucking buffet…”
He drops his body weight on the wall ugly crying, the alcohol in his body making him retch, a hand on his stomach.
“…Why did you want to see me?” I ask, sitting on the ground, hand on the ever-so-painful bump that’s taking shape on my face.
For an eternal moment, only the sound of our bodies is filling the air, a dance of breath and squirming.
“You wanna know why?” He manages, through his drunken gasps.
“Because despite your hardheaded, grudge-holding, prickly ass, we still love you.”
I grit my teeth, “It’s ALWAYS a ‘we’ with you, isn’t it?!”
“Hey, hey, hey, what are we doing here?” A different voice speaks out of the blue, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say the squeaking, high-pitched voice could never fit the face of the boar in front of me, the long, unwashed hair under his hat gifting him a strong boor aura.
I follow the gaze of the fox next to me, suddenly noticing something: this guy has a gun in his right hand, pointed right at Fox’s hip.
“Let’s make this easy for everyone, McCloud.”
Without a word, we raise our hands. This used to be routine back in the days, for fuck’s sake.
“The hell you want?” I ask. The boar’s eyes widen on me, his pupils seem to be working overtime to be able to even focus on me.
“The fuck? Didn’t ya die or somethin’, Star Falco?”
I feel the eyes of the fox on me as I challenge this geezer’s look of pity. I can feel my legs shake, having to bite my beak real hard not to blast a hole through his eye.
I see Fox play with his pocket for an instant, but the boar beats me to it, holding the gun out even more now, freezing Fox with the motion.
“Look,” he sighs, “just take my wallet and go, man.”
I squeeze my eyes at him, “The hell you talking about?”
“Shut up, birdie. Now, slowly…”
The thug goes for the aforementioned pocket, looking like a kid trying to catch a bug.
I’ve had enough.
Abruptly, I run at the boar, tackling his plumpy body as a bang perforates both my left ear and the silent alleyway. Our bodies dance on the ground as he tries to squirm his way out of my hold and I attempt to grab the weapon out of his grip, a rush in my head that seems to slow the time. I don’t even notice him pointing the barrel directly at my stomach.
A kick behind me sends the bastard’s handgun flying in the air, as he lets out a falsetto scream that sounds more like an alarm in my still-ringing left ear.
I start punching the shitstain.
Hit after hit, I feel his face more and more tender under my feathered knuckles, now red in color.
Punch after punch, I listen to the gurgles coming out his throat.
Fist after fist… a hand tugs my shoulder violently, pulling me back as the muffled sounds take shape.
“STOP IT, FALCO!” Fox screams in my face, my eyes shaky. Concentration escapes me.
I break down sobbing.
Fox’s Arwing’s just as freezing as I remember. ‘It saves energy’, the fucker used to say as my teeth clattered with two blankets on me. Never was much of a fan.
“You want some music?” He asks, scrolling through those fancy cockpit buttons, handing me some records. I cringe as I try to take them; my body’s NOT intent on letting me forget that fight anytime soon. Even ended up calling medics on that filth.
“Oh- can you manage?”
“Anything but letting you choose.”
“Hehe.”
I scroll through the CDs. It’s crazy how much Country this guy has. Now, this is a new low to hit.
“Think I’d like it better if my ear went back to ringing.”
“Don’t make me punch the wounded,” he says, half a smile on his face, quickly returning to Arwing pre-flight maintenance.
Scrolling through the discs, one of them catches my eye.
“No way you still have it!” I exclaim, pointing to ‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries.
“No way… Where did that jump out from?!?” He takes it from my hands, dramatically analyzing it as if it was some kind of holy item.
“Man, Peppy was always calling us emos back then,” I giggle, feeling my eyes still puffed, “now ya look like him, with all this Country.”
He still looks absorbed, unraveling the CD from its cover and stuffing the radio with it.
The first chords play. The nostalgia hits like a truck. Feels like I can’t even remember how it goes, even (embarrassingly) aware of the fact that I know it by heart.
Fox sneaks close to me, his fluffy tail between his legs as we squeeze into the seat, his head resting on my shoulder as Dolores’s ethereal yodel soothes the dull pain in our bodies, as it does to the pulsating throb in my head.
“I did something stupid, Falco,” he comes out of the blue, clenching my shirt with his hand.
The chorus goes on, as I silently wait him to.
“It was last minute, too… I thought about that buffet. Y’know…” His voice is now reduced to a whisper.
“I paid Corneria what you owed. Even promised Peppy I’d convince you to come back.”
I nod in silence, my stare into the night of Macbeth.
“Falco, I… I just don’t get why it had to be you. I don’t understand why I didn’t get to have this… This banter thing we have going on with anyone else. It’s not fair.”
He takes a breath and continues, “What’s worse is that I like it. And I hate- I despise the fact we lost twenty years. And I hate that it’s like it didn’t even happen.”
“Where’s Krystal?” I ask, biting my tongue.