Chapter Text
Avoiding Wolf ended up being far more difficult than Fox could have imagined, in no small part because he had been drinking against his psychiatrist's wishes.
So while he couldn't be sure all the faces outside didn't belong to Wolf, his neighbour had certainly spent no small amount of time mowing the lawn and (entirely plausibly) glancing in Fox's direction.
Inside his house was a different beast altogether. Mother was rather talkative of late, which was not always a good thing. Her decapitated head sat upon his counter, animatedly pestering him about his attempts in preserves. It had been going on for a while and made even starting the jam-making process very difficult.
"Lingonberry? I'd say this is almost as bad as your blackberry idea. Not even blueberry. What will the judges think."
"They're perfectly respectable fox-ly berries," he said indignantly, tail twitching back and forth in his eratic agitation. All he'd done so far was rinse them, but if he had to make a whole batch with her pestering him the whole time he was sure he'd snap.
"They're sheep. I'd rather think such a complex palate is beyond them. Stick with the strawberry, dear."
"There won't be any strawberry for miles—"
"Exactly. That's what cost you the last five years. Too proud to admit you have to cater to their simple tastes!"
Nothing was good enough. He huffed, finding no simple resolution that didn't involve acquiescence to his mother talking down to him. Rage boiled from the inside out, and he slammed his spatula down with a crack. "Oh, is that what you called sleeping with Wooliam? Catering to his simple taste?"
Fox regretted it as soon as the words left him, but the horrendous screach mother started was punishment enough. He plugged his ears, despite knowing it wouldn't help. And of course, she didn't let up. She never seemed to have to breathe when she got like this, she would just reach that horrible splitting pitch and stay on it.
"Dear GOD, you cow! Stop screaming!"
In an effort to push her screaming head away, so too went his limited supply of lingonberries across the counter, a great deal wetly plummeting into the sink drain.
There was no proper way he could think of to convey his immediate dismay.
"Bugger all!" He shouted, snatching open the freezer and ignoring the faces inside as he shoved mother back in. He could still hear her screaming. He needed to get out of the house.
"You're not coming out til you can act civil!" Fox said with an air of authority but no small amount of despair. He hated when she got like this. His eyes kept shut and his ears lowered, futilely attempting anything to keep the screaming away. Fine. That was it. He would simply have to occupy someone else's kitchen.
Wolf had been sorting laundry on the sofa (the drawback of running everyone's clothes in one load) when he heard that familiar knock on the door. His body froze for a moment, unsure of how to react. He stood. He looked at the state of his house and imagined how disappointed Fox would be in his lackluster command as a single father. Hoping to avoid such a conversation by tactically avoiding the living room, Wolf instead stumbled over the basket on the way to the door, landing in a heap of clothes.
And then Fox entered.
Almost too-bright daylight poured in from behind him (Barry and Simon kept closing the blinds to get a better view of the TV), lighting up red fur until it glowed firey orange against little ribbons of purple on the sides of a very nice silk apron. Wolf's leather jacket casually thrown over his shoulder. They stared at eachother for a moment. He didn't usually see Fox from this angle. He looked perfectly fine when Wolf was upright but something about this particular angle made Wolf think about accidentally almost-eating him and ruining that stark-white tuft of fur his chest.
And that made him embarrassed all over again. He noticed the very level ears atop Fox's head, that down-turned irritation in the normally curved brow.
"Oh. H-hey, Fox. About... the other day..."
"I need to use your kitchen," Fox interrupted, not at all interested in what he had to say.
"Okay?" Wolf was under the impression he had very little say in the matter. He would have let Fox do as he wished, anyways. It was the neighborly thing to do. And also he had done enough to offend the other.
"...good. I'm making jam."
Wolf staggered to his feet, scooping up the laundry he had dropped in front of the door. "Anything I can do to help?" he offered, in case his kitchen wasn't assistance enough.
And that was how they ended up in the market together, Wolf pushing a cart and Fox tutting about an argument that he'd had with his late mother.
"The nerve she had! To call me vain. Me!"
"That's rough," Wolf said, looking through cuts of red meat. It had been a mortifying week and he had completely devoured his fridge as a result. "And I mean no disrespect to you or your mother. I just know it can feel so disappointing to try and live by your elders' expectations. Especially if you don't even meet their expectations," Wolf mumbled, mostly for himself.
Fox laughed in a surprised cackle. "By being a poof?"
"A what-now?"
A crash interrupted them, and Wolf's arms had finally stopped vibrating when he realized it was something he had run into. Around the corner was Terrapin buckled into the children's seat of a shopping cart. "Watch your trolley!" Rabbit had huffed until he realized who they'd run into.
And he and Fox had just been bonding. They would have to do the predator prey thing another time. Wolf decisively averted his cart and kept moving, Terrapin audibly shaking in his shell and Fox chittering through grit teeth.
"Um. Anyways. You were saying?" Wolf asked. "About your mom?"
"Oh, right. That." Fox sighed, catching back up to the cart with a slightly longer stride. "It's not even that she doesn't believe in me, it's just whatever approach I have, she nitpicks how I'm going about it all wrong."
Wolf blinked, torn from his selection of peanut butter by the new information as they approached the cash register. He could have sworn Fox had mentioned her passing away. "I thought she was—"
Fox froze, and Wolf held his tongue. Very much feeling like he was walking himself into some kind of trap.
"Well?"
"I think I've misunderstood something," Wolf finally managed, eyeing the checkout when he wasn't looking at his own feet.
"No. We've talked about this," Fox insisted.
Wolf felt a shiver run through his fur. Damn it, he was upsetting Fox again. Somehow. It wouldn't be so irritating if he could actually tell why. He'd missed something, clearly, but he was trying to be understanding. He wasn't the smartest or most observant, as his father took great liberty with pointing out. And usually, Fox was understanding of that. Right now though, it felt like he was being talked down to. Which, after last week, he might have even deserved. He still had a lot to make up for.
"We can talk about it once we get back to my place," Wolf finally said, picking his check-out lane. "Maybe make that pâté you've been talking about and get your mind off things."
But Fox's mind was clearly already on other things. His head was canted.
"Rabbit. 3 o'clock."
"I know. We saw him earlier."
"Yes," Fox snarled in a whisper. "But mere days before the Woodland Family Fun Day? He's entering the jam-making competition. I need to know what he's making. Go over and look in his trolley."
Wolf sputtered, looking between his cart and the aisle over. "What? Why don't you go?"
Fox rolled his eyes, grabbing the cart from Wolf. "He's a fellow competitor. Rabbit would know I'm spying."
It was difficult thinking of a plan to get close to the cart. This was that whole "improvise" thing Fox was always talking about. A skill he was lacking in.
"And do leave your wallet. I hardly think I should be paying for your liver."
Wolf sighed, setting the leather trifold in Fox's hand before casually emerging from the back of the aisle, nodding politely to other shoppers as he rounded the end-cap.
He almost ran into the turtle again, who this time was toddling in his turtlish way in the opposite direction. "Oh. Pardon. Just grabbing some... magazines. On this side."
"Yeah," Wolf said, the sentence jogging his imagination. "I was just gonna grab some... gum."
They both paused, and when their excuses were not immediately sussed out, they carried on.
With the advantage of height, it was very easy to see over Rabbit's shoulder as his items were scanned. In a produce container in the top sat a large amount of... blackberries. Definitely blackberries.
Very quickly, he snuck back over, bouncing off of that damned turtle again.
"Terribly sorry," Terrapin said from the ground, quickly rocking himself to right again. But Fox's gaze was on them both, as if he had just noticed the short creature. His finger rose in accusation.
"A spy? Come to look at my groceries, are you!?" Onlookers whipped their heads, checkout lines of sheep peering from around their carts and baskets. Terrapin's eyes bulged at the sudden attention the yelling brought him, scrambling to evade the aisle. There was quite a lot of attention on them now. Wolf scratched at the back of his neck, waiting for the moment to pass and for everyone to return to their business. It was mortifying as a predator. But here, it felt more and more like a common occurrence in his life now. He felt less like something intimidating and more like a spectacle. For not the first time, he found himself missing the familiarity of Canada.
The sheep at the register bleated, handing change over to Fox. "You know, I really should charge a handling fee," he said, looking for the groceries that seemed to have disappeared. "Where in the bloody...?"
At the wall at the end of the aisle sat their grocery bag in a trolley, the mole from bagging service loading it up to escort outside. Fox leered, slamming down the cash on the counter so he could run out and cut the attendant off. "The hell do you want? A tip?" He grabbed for his grocery bag, Wolf struggling to place the change in his wallet as he followed behind. They quickly paced out of the store, Fox's step classes giving him a much faster pace than Wolf seemed to manage.
"When the hell did they start doing that?" Fox asked, with far more offense than Wolf thought the situation dictated. It did make him feel a bit better, though. Maybe Fox sounding annoyed wasn't a particularly unusual thing and the events of the week previous weren't nearly as dire as he had thought. It still felt disproportionate, and Wolf wondered if there was another reason Fox might have such disdain for someone handling his personal items. "Who do they think they are? Sainsbury's? They have never carried my groceries out before. Do they really think their customers so incapable?"
"You look more than capable," Wolf said, feeding Fox's ego with an attempt to stay on his good side. "You definitely don't need the help."
Fox's narrowed brow lifted just a tad at that. "No. I suppose that's what you're for."
Somehow, when Fox set the bag in his arms, that felt like a good thing.