FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

A forgotten hero, wandering around the city in dirty wet clothes and wearing a tired look on his face. It's been a while since he left the Great Fox. Months, but it seemed like years to him. Years since he last felt her lips. Time had changed. She's now with Panther, continuing her life with him as a couple.. It's one of those facts that'd hurt him more than anything else, knowing that the vixen he loved was now in someone else's arms...

He still had hope he would see her again, to have her back in his life just one more time. But all that seemed impossible to him now. He'd lost her forever. He had nothing. No one to love, no one to talk to.

Nothing. Sweet nothing.

It was dark. The clouds filled the sky. Small droplets of rain fell. No one was seen in the wet streets. No one except for Fox McCloud. Someone who was cherished and loved. A famous hero who turned into a physical wreck with an alcohol-filled life. Broken hearted, he used to go on long walks around the city, thinking about something. No one knows what. Still walking through the rain, he noticed a bar. "Citadella". He decided to enter the bar since he had nothing better to do and knowing that staying outside in the rain would be pointless.

He approached the bar, first noticing the old wooden door with a gold-colored knob. He opened it, hearing a loud screech as the old wooden door slowly opened. The bar was full of people. Everyone kept talking loudly, some even shouting at each other. The smell of alcohol and cigarettes was strong. To the point that it made him cough loudly.

Making his way to the bartender, he noticed everyone in the bar looking at him. It made him feel uncomfortable, knowing how old and tired he looked for his age. He felt fear. If any of those drunk fools decided to attack him, he wouldn't stand a chance. There wasn't any reason to attack him, but he still felt like he'd get to the bartender in bruises and a bloody nose.

Passing by a table, he felt someone grabbing and pulling his sleeve. He turned around only to see an old wolf with grey fur and a small black hat on his head looking at him with big, blue eyes.

"Heya son, ya seem kinda familiar... ya happen' to be that... Cloud guy?". The old wolf asked him curiously with an inquisitive look on his face.

"Fox McCloud? Yeah, that's me..." He felt ashamed to admit that, he didn't know what the old wolf would think about him.

"Ey, you look different tha' on TV... you look like you just got out of a brothel, boy". The old wolf started laughing, enjoying Fox's embarrassment.

Fox tried to get away from him, hiding his blushing face, but the old wolf grabbed his ruined jacket firmly in his grasp.

"Let me go!", he shouted, but the wolf grabbed his hand and pulled him closer.

"Relax, I don't bite, at least not with these teeth," the wolf said in a more serious voice. "What happen' to ya, son? You wer' a hero once, now you're nobody!" The old wolf blurted out at him before hitting the table with his fist.

"Life treated me like shit", Fox replied in a tired voice. "I'd just like to die, to forget about everything. I've been been hurting myself way too much mentally". He sighed and looked at the old wolf.

"No offense, but ya do look like shit son," the wolf said with a small smile on his face, "did a truck hit you along the way to here?"

_This guy smells like he took a bath in beer, _ Fox thought to himself. And I'm the one to talk, remembering how he stinks as well.

"Look, I got some business here and I really have to-" he said before being interrupted by the wolf.

"Naaah, fuck business, how 'bout a drink? Watch'a say son?", the wolf pulled his arm and grabbed him by the jacket. "Just one drink, please! I'm broke, help an ol' wolf out, will ya?!" The wolf said in a strong, ordering voice, hitting the table with his fist again.

This guy is drunk as fuck...., Fox thought to himself before violently jerking the old wolfs arm and ran towards the bartender. Jesus Christ...

As he was nearing the bartender, he could hear the old wolf shouting at him.

"Eyy, is that how you respect old people ya sack o' shit?! But thanks anyway, this'll hopefully be enough you jackass!", the wolf shouted loudly at him, waving his fist.

Why is he thanking me? It makes no sense...

As Fox finally got to the bartender, he saw a young husky, dressed in his usual bar clothes. He was busy washing wine glasses and didn't notice the fox who was behind him.

"Ahem". Fox cleared his throat to get the bartenders attention, who immediately turned around and saw him face to face.

"Oh, uh, sorry sir, didn't notice you there! Uh, my, uh, w-what can I get y-you?" The young husky asked nervously as if he saw a ghost.

"Whiskey... give me a bottle of whiskey, not in those small glasses, okay?", Fox said in his usual voice.

"Sir, uh, we don't... we don't serve whiskey in glasses.... er, I mean, uh, w-we serve them in glasses, but we don't serve them in bottles...".

Is this guy gonna die from a heart attack?, Fox thought to himself.

Noticing the husky's weird behavior, Fox raised an eyebrow and was about to ask him a question, but he was stopped by the husky himself.

"Uh, never mind sir, o-one bottle of whiskey coming up!"

The bartender pulled out a full bottle of whiskey from underneath the table, unscrew the bottle cap and placed it in front of the fox.

"There you go, sir", the bartender said in a more calmed, less nervous voice. "Sorry, I'm new here and this is the first time I see a famous hero in my life".

"It's alright, I don't consider myself a hero anymore though, just a random fox with no life". Fox said, sighed, grabbed the bottle and started drinking.

The husky had a confused look on his face, both by how fast he was drinking the whiskey and how Fox was talking about himself. He wanted to ask him a lot of questions, but was scared to do so. Finally, he asked him:

"Uh, why sir? W-what happened?". Again, the husky asked in a nervous voice.

Fox kept drinking even after the young husky asked him a question. After a few seconds of silence, he put the bottle on the table and sighed.

"I made a mistake... which ruined my whole life...", he broke eye contact with the bartender and started looking at the whiskey bottle, as if he didn't want him to see the tears in his eyes. "I used to love a vixen. Really much. I kicked her out of the Great Fox team... and out of my life...", he took another sip out of the bottle, put it down on the table again and opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn't.

He wiped off tears that were now flowing down his cheeks with his jackets sleeve.

"Sir? Sir, are you alright?!" The husky asked him in a worried voice. "Is everything okay?"

He wiped his cheeks again and looked at him.

"Yeah... I'm okay... sort of... memories are fucking me up...", he said in an almost crying voice. "Bottoms up!"

He shook his head and started drinking again. The bartender looked at the bottle with his eyes wide open when he saw that it was empty.

"Ah... give me another one", he said while putting down the bottle in front of the husky. "This shit is good".

"Sir, are you sure that's a good id-"

"Just give me another bottle!", he shouted at the bartender before tilting his head down.

"Okay, okay, sorry sir, I didn't mean to-"

The husky accidentally pushed the bottle off the table, smashing it into pieces.

"Fuck! Dammit!", he shouted curses at the sight of broken glass on the floor in front of him. "Julia! Julia, get over here and clean up this mess!"

"Okay, I'll be right there, no need to yell at me!", a loud voice could be heard from the bar's bathroom.

Clumsy piece of shit... can't even watch what he's doing..., Fox thought to himself and let a smile form on his face.

Well, he's new here I guess... not my thing to judge him for his actions...

"I'll be right b-back sir, I just need to get more w-whiskey from the fridge, you drank the last bottle".

"Alright, just make it quick, kiddo", he said in an amused voice.

Confused, the bartender ran off into the kitchen, while a red furred vixen came out of the bathroom with a mop in one paw and a bucket in the other one.

"Stupid Kenny always breaking shit, this is the fourth thing he smashed this week!", the vixen kept mumbling to herself while picking up pieces of broken glass and putting them into the bucket, without noticing Fox standing in front of the table.

"I wish he'd more be care-" her mumbling was interrupted when she lifted her head up and saw the orange furred fox. "Oh my god... you're Fox McCloud!", the vixen screamed in a delighted voice, causing nearby customers to look at her.

Fox noticed that. He put his right paw over his face so that no one could see him.

"Can you be quiet for gods sake?!", furiously, the vulpine looked at her. "I'm pretty sure that half of the fucking city heard you!"

The happy look on the vixen's face now turned to an angry look. "Oh, excuse me, I didn't know that you were ashamed of other people seeing you, I thought that you were used to people liking you!"

The vixen picked up the bucket and the mop and started walking towards the bathroom when she turned around and looked at the confused and still furious vulpine.

"By the way, you stink more than this whole freaking bar, consider taking a bath sometimes, sweety". She ran into the bathroom as fast as she could after saying that.

What the hell is wrong with her?! Just because someone doesn't want to be seen by others doesn't mean that she needs to make so much fucking drama about it! the vulpine kept thinking to himself and cursing the young vixen.

The bartender got back from the kitchen, carrying a big bottle of whiskey.

"Back! Sorry it took so long, coworker misplaced the bottle somewhere". He opened the bottle and gave it to the vulpine. "There you go, sir".

The husky immediately looked at the floor after giving the whiskey to the vulpine.

"Ah, I see Julia cleaned up the mess I made", the husky said in a surprised voice. "How nice of her!"

"She also freaked out when she saw me here. She screamed so loudly that everyone in the bar would have thought that she's getting killed", the vulpine said jokingly.

The husky started laughing when he heard that. "Hehe, she's always like that when she sees someone famous. After all, we don't get many famous people in here, especially not heroes!"

"Hero my ass..." he said, taking another sip of the whiskey. "I was never a hero and I never will be one".

"Don't be so harsh on yourself", the husky said in a friendly voice. "Also, you were telling me why your life went downhill, remember?"

"Yeah, I was", he said. "You still interested in that stupid story kid?" He was starting to get annoyed by the amount of attention he was getting from him, but he felt the urge to talk to someone, someone who would listen to him and understand him.

"Well, we've got plenty of time to talk, don't we?". The husky looked at his clock. "Hell, it's only three o'clock!"

Three o'clock? I thought it was morning...

"Alright, alright, I'll tell you the story", he said and took another sip from the bottle. "It's not really interesting, ya know".

"Anyway, to make a long story short, I kicked off a vixen called Krystal that I loved from the Great Fox. It broke our relationship and our hearts. She ran off with a guy called Panther. Her choice to love him more than me, but I'm... you know..."

"Jealous?", the husky interrupted him in a curious voice.

"Yeah... jealous....", he covered his face in embarrassment, which only made the husky laugh.

"Haha, there's more fish in the sea dude, if you caught one you can catch another one!", he said happily. "Don't worry, things will get better!"

"Hopefully, they will", he said and faked a smile.

Bullshit, he thought to himself.

The bartender got back to washing wine glasses that he started earlier.

Curiously, Fox turned around to see if the old wolf was still there. He was. He had a small object in his paw, but Fox couldn't see what it was, and he definitely didn't want to approach him and find out. The old wolf saw him and waved at him. Fox quickly turned around to avoid any further eye contact with him. He kept wondering who he was and why he acted like that earlier. It made sense to him that he's a drunk old wolf and that he WILL act weirdly, but he felt like something was wrong.

"Hey, hey bartender?", he said and slightly tapped the table with the whiskey bottle.

The young husky turned around.

"Yes, sir?", he asked politely. "You done with that whiskey?"

"Uh, well...."

I think I had enough alcohol for today... he thought to himself and placed the bottle in front of the bartender.

"Yeah, I guess so... I'm done drinking for today".

"Alright", the husky said and placed the bottle under the table.

"Hey, do you know who's that black wolf with a hat behind me?", he asked. "He seemed quite weird earlier..."

The bartender leaned over the table and made a surprised look on his face when he saw the black wolf. "What is he doing here?", he mumbled.

"Hm?", the fox looked at him weirdly. "You know that guy?"

"Well, not really", he said. "We've seen him here quite a few times. He's really weird, he gets drunk and starts begging people for money. He even once grabbed one of our barmaid's and kissed her when he was drunk. Oh boy, did he get slapped!"

After hearing that, Fox started laughing out loud.

"So, he's a kinky customer, isn't he?"

"Yeah, he claims he slept with more women than anyone else in this bar", the husky said and started chuckling.

"He claims he slept with more women than anyone here?", he asked. "No wonder that he looks like a wreck!"

Both started laughing out loud, especially Fox who found it hilarious that he's calling someone else a wreck when he looks like one himself.

"Ah, hold on, got tears in my eyes from laughing", the bartender said and grabbed a handkerchief to wipe the tears off his face. "Joking aside, you should avoid him though".

"Why?", the fox asked.

"Quite a lot of our customers have complained about getting their watches, wallets and money stolen from him", he warned Fox. "He lives off of that, I guess, stealing stuff from other people".

Then a thought jumped into Fox's head.

What... did he rob me as well?! He grabbed my jacket!

"Wait, wait, wait, hold on one fucking second!", the fox said and started checking the pockets on his jacket and trousers.

"Eh? Checking if he robbed you as well, aren't ya?", he husky giggled.

No... He did not...

"Fucking hell! Where's my wallet!?", he shouted.

"He stole your wallet?"

"Yes, I think he did! God dammit!"

Furiously, Fox turned around to see where he was. But he wasn't there.

"He doesn't seem to be here!", the bartender yelled.

"Oh my god...", he said in a worried voice and leaned his head on his arms. "I had my ID and my money in there!"

"Better search for him, he was here a minute ago", the bartender suggested. "No need to pay for the two whiskey bottles, the drinks are on the house."

"Thanks, I'm off", the fox said and quickly ran towards the door and got outside.

Outside, the sun was shining. The rain has stopped. The streets were still wet, with a few puddles visible here and there. He felt a small breeze tickle his fur. It was quite windy.

He kept looking frantically left and right to see if the old wolf was still there.

He was gone. Gone with the wind, nowhere to be seen.

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And that's it for this chapter. I hope you liked this even though it was very newb-ish. Also, any advice is highly appreciated. Even though I'm better at writing these days and my English vocabulary has expanded I'm still not perfect at it. Advice regarding dialogues and expressing characters thoughts would be particularly useful because... well, you saw how I express character thoughts in this chapter, and it's terrible lol

Anyway, thanks for reading and see you next time!