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The Family Vulpes

Chapter Six:

Talking Shop

"Rut me!" The vixen let out a sharp hiss; her teeth grit tightly as she pressed the full force of her weight against the handle of her torque wrench. The previously cold metal grip was starting to feel as though it was searing hot against her skin. It sunk deeply into the tender flesh of her paw pads, the sensation making the nerve endings in her palms scream in agony, sending jolts of pain as far up as her shoulders while she continued to push and pry with all her might. However, despite her best efforts (and a metric ton of WD-40), the torque refused to budge. The bolt it was wrapped around held resolute and unmoved in the face of her best efforts.

She was used to this war of attrition by now. Years of working on and maintaining her precious Ol' Red had put her in this very position countless times. Struggling against a particularly stubborn bolt or rusted joint that just refused to give up the ghost. In some ways it was like a game of chicken, with both her and the troublesome fastener coming head to head in their refusal to back down from one another; an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, waiting to see who would blink first (well, if a bolt could blink anyway). But Val always had persistence on her side, each thrust of effort & energy she threw would chip away at its resolve, edging it closer and closer to finally giving way. She just needed to push a little harder, it was so close now that she could almost taste it, that she was sure of.

Sadly, however, this particular assault of effort wouldn't be the turning point to victory. The grease-stained gearhead felt the strength in her arms begin to dwindle rapidly. Once again, she had reached her limit; finding herself breaking away, letting out an exasperated sigh and dropping the torque wrench against the hard cement garage floor with a metallic clatter.

"Damned rutting-!" The coral-colored canine panted hard, swabbing a grease-stained paw against her forehead, her already sweat-soaked fur allowing the slick black ichor to smear into the matted strands. Turning her back to the bike that lay beside, she slumped against it, bringing her knees up to her chest and draping her forearms lamely on top of them.

Val simply sat there for a few moments, her chest pounding. She waited for her breathing to settle and only when her heart rate came back down to something more relaxed did she begin to notice just how much her paw was intensely throbbing from her efforts.

Lifting her tired and strained arm, the marigold-colored mechanic inspected her palm with a bleary blue eye. While there was no visible wound, she could already tell it was going to have a nasty bruise come morning.

"Ugh..." She groaned, allowing her wounded paw to once again rest lamely off the hinge of her knee. She lolled her head back.

"Serves me right, I guess..." Val muttered, letting out a long, slow drag of an exhale. "I really have no one to blame for all this extra work but myself."

The vermillion vixen shook her head weakly, her grease matted tuft of hair shifting jerkily with each movement as the tacky liquid restricted its natural movement.

"Of course, if I hadn't had to cram you full of all sorts of bunk parts to keep you up and running while I waited for the genuine stuff, this would have been a hell of a lot easier. I coulda just mothballed you, and stuck to using the subway to get around for a while." Val smirked to herself, letting out a dull chuckle. "Although I guess we both know there was no way that was going to happen." She added, shaking her head knowingly. "We both know I'm far too impatient to be able to do that..."

Glancing over her shoulder, the gear head glared hatefully at the offending bolt head still holding the wrap-around oil tank in place. It felt as though it was staring right back at her with a mocking leer of its own, despite it still not having any eyes to speak of.

Val let out a terse sigh, turning her attention to the front of her prized motorcycle, her eyes meeting the cold and darkened headlamp at its front; a deep frown formed on her muzzle.

"I'm sorry Ol' girl..." She muttered, reaching out her sore paw and placing it on Ol' Red's fuel tank, taking a moment to savor the feeling of the cool metal against her tender pad before stroking the bike affectionately. "I promised I'd never put you through something like this again after that last spill..." She continued, rolling her eyes slightly. "What was I thinking letting Vernon actually ride you, let alone even touch you?" The vixen added with a huff.

Ol' Red simply lay there in the silence of the garage, the steady glow of the overhead halogen light gleaming off of her brilliant metallic red finish.

"And of course, you had the ZPD mam' handling you in all sorts of ways..." Val retracted her paw slightly and shuddered in disgust. The very thought of forensic officers feeling up her bashed and brutalized bike made her stomach turn. "What was even the point anyway? That idiot just used you as a getaway vehicle..." She huffed, her sudden exhale causing her tuft of hair to bounce against her snout. "Not like you were some sort of 'key piece of _evidence_or something..." Val grumbled, crossing her arms defensively. She turned away from the heap of metal. "Stripping you down like some sort of clumsy cheap chop shop. Pfft, what did they think, someone was hiding drugs in you?"

Red remained silent and inert, leaving the tail end of the chatty canine's statement to briefly echo off the adobe garage walls.

"They could have at least had the decency to clean & dry out your parts before letting me claim you again." Val huffed again, allowing her head to tilt backward for a second time as she closed her eyes. "Eh, it's probably for the best though." She sighed. " Not like I'd trust those clumsy pawed, donut munching_'certified mechanics'_ down at the ZPD's garages to do a thorough enough job."

Val chuckled, glancing back over her shoulder at Ol' Red. The crimson cycle still rested on the cool stone floor, quiet and dormant as it had been just moments ago. The machine merely absorbed Val's rant with the same level of investment as the rest of the lifeless objects that filled the garage space.

"Of course...it's not like I'd trust any mechanic to treat you with the respect you deserve for that matter." Val shook her head dismissively, nudging Ol' red with a ginger elbow while she flashed the cycle a smirk. "Can you believe that idiot mutt actually offered to pay to have a 'pro-mechanic' clean you up for me?" The clearly frayed fox let out a barking laugh. She eyed the slumbering machine by her side. "Probably thought he was doing me a favor..." She muttered bitterly before pressing her paw against the chopper's fuel tank once more, using it to prop herself up on her shoulder whilst she continued to eye her mute companion.

"Saving me the trouble eh?" Val added, eyeing Ol' Red as if she expected some sort of response. Of course, she knew better. The scarlet street speeder was not exactly a talker. No. Where she truly shined was in the role of listener, and Val's rambling had called her faithful steed into the role of confidant. "He should have known better than to even think I'd stand for another strange mammal getting his dirty paws all over you." She chuckled. "Not to mention overcharge the shit out of us for work I could have done myself for one-third of the price."

Val gave Ol' Red a mischievous smirk. "I mean, I did that to Vern anyway, but..."

Silence hung over the pair for a few moments before Val recoiled from Red slightly, the vixen throwing a rather wounded glare in Red's direction.

"Oh don't give me that look. It's not like that mutton-crazed mutt didn't deserve it!" She argued. While Red was always silent, in this moment, its usual treatment felt strangely oppressive and judgmental. It was almost as if the headlamp was glaring back at her, the light dancing across its domed surface coming off as oddly...dubious.

The Mandarin-colored mammal turned her back to the machine, crossing her arms defensively.

"He owed me for the emotional damages as well as the physical ones." She said with a derisive snort. "Hell, he owed both of us..."

Val was quiet, recurrently acting as though she were waiting for a reply, despite knowing better. However, the only sound to fill her ears was the steady hum that drifted down from the overhead lights.

The smudge-stained babe let out a tired sigh, her eyes lazily traveling the grey slab of cement beneath her until they found the wayward torque wrench she had carelessly let drop to the floor after her intense struggle with the bolt that refused to budge.

"But I guess if I'm being honest, it's still my fault at the end of the day." Val exclaimed, her paw creeping across the cool, crisp pavement before coming to rest on the discarded tool. "It was my mistake to trust Vernon with you in the first place after all, wasn't it?" Val chuckled dully.

Gripping the torque wrench in her paw tightly, the vexed vixen let out a tired groan before pressing herself off the floor with the other, turning back to face the disabled cycle.

"It was my mistake thinking that it would end in anything but a real shit show, considering it was pretty much a given the ZPD was going to chase after them."

Bracing the fuel tank with her still throbbing paw, Val slipped the torque wrench over the offending bolt, her tongue slipping out of the side of her muzzle, for a look of renewed determination had washed over her.

"It was my mistake for feeling like I was obligated to help him out because of what he'd done for me." She paused momentarily, slipping the torque wrench back off the bolt and lazily waving it in the air as she eyed the darkened headlamp at Ol' Red's bow.

"But my biggest mistake?" The vixen chuckled, a dull and raspy sound that sounded just the slightest bit deranged, grinning wildly down at the muted machine now pinned beneath her. "My biggest mistake was ever getting to know Ol' Puppy in the first place!"

With her admission, she quickly slipped the torque back onto the head of the offending bolt and abruptly threw the full weight of her body against it, letting out a hateful snarl, twisting and yanking with all her might.

"Yeah, that was it." Val growled through her teeth, huffing & puffing and pressing as deeply into the rigid metal handle as she could. However, the rigid rivet still defied her efforts, refusing to budge while she continued to bear down on it.

"Him, Gus....all of them..." She hissed, gritting her teeth tightly. The tenacious teen strained against the locked mechanism. She could feel a fresh wave of sweat begin to pool under her fur, the liquid slowly trickling down her forehead before catching in the deepening vee between her eyebrows. The sensation forced her eyes to close involuntarily, an attempt by her body to shield them from the amalgamating mixture of sweat and oil that would inevitably be making its way down to her eyelids.

"Probably time to... 'reevaluate'...this whole...!" Val gasped sharply, forcing another thrust against the torque, a fresh ache forming in her previously unharmed paw. She could feel the sinew in her snout begin to ripple, her teeth bared in a silent sneer concurrently with her strain against the jammed bolt. Slowly, her right eye began to creep back open from the sheer tension in her face muscles, overpowering the reflexive protective measure taken by her body to keep her eyes free and clear of dirt & salt. As if to compensate for the active defiance of her impulses, her left eye slammed shut as tightly as it could. Tighter, tighter and tighter still, the pressure building began to make it feel as though her open eye was throbbing when felt the sweat begin to trickle in, the sting of impurity barely registering since it was followed by a hateful snarl.

"H-Having f-friend's th-th-thi-!"

Suddenly, she felt it. The tiniest, slightest shift in the angle of the torque wrench. To the naked eye, most mammals wouldn't have been able to register such a minuscule movement, but to the masterful machinist, it was easy to recognize the tell-tale sign that the frozen fastener had begun to thaw. In an instant, her previous train of thought had gone completely out the window, overshadowed abruptly by the sense of impending victory.

"C-C'mon sweetie. C'mon!" Val hissed, excitedly forcing another burst of energy to the surface; again, slamming as much weight as she could into the neck of her handy torque wrench. "I-I've almost g-got-!" The tool suddenly slipped from ten to eight before coming to another hard stop.

"C'mon you r-rutting bastard!" Val thrust with all her might, biting her tongue so hard in the process that she was sure she drew blood. But the bolt persisted, seemingly having renewed its former resolve after giving just the slightest bit of ground to the vermilion hellion's efforts.

"Just gi-!"

It held for just a few seconds longer, and for a moment, the vixen was sure she would need yet another breather before tackling the rigid rivet one more time. Without warning, the large bolt completely gave way, causing the valiant mechanic to suddenly lurch forward. The torque wrench smoothly shifted a full half turn before she managed to catch herself. In an instant, the sweat on Val's brow evaporated as though a fever had broken; the lubricated lass letting out a triumphant sigh of relief once her muscles began to relax.

A few quick and easy twists of her wrench later, and the culprit that had been holding the oversized & ill-fitted oil tank to Ol' Red clattered to the floor like a spent shell casing.

The flustered fox swabbed at her forehead with a weak and shaky paw before allowing herself to slump back to the floor, her head coming to rest on her padded grease-stained creeper as she expelled a rather pleased chuckle.

"Phew..." She muttered, a satisfied smile crawling across her muzzle while she stared up at the garage ceiling, studying the cracks in the adobe and letting the lingering waves of tension in her body continue to wane.

"I should take up smoking, cause I think I need a cigarette after that." She giggled to herself.

With the bolt free, Val was sure dislodging the warped wrap-around oil tank from Ol' Red's chassis would be considerably easier work. After all, with the part having well outlived its usefulness now that she had the replacement sitting on her workbench, it was just a matter of hammering at it until it came free of Red's frame. Whether she warped it further or broke clean through it was of little concern, as it was destined for the scrap pile either way. Still, she couldn't help but think about how much easier it would have been had the original oil tank not been punctured by several sharp rocks during its impromptu white water rafting trip down one of the Rainforest District's vast series of mammal-made canals. Of course, that had been the case for the other ten or so parts that had been punctured or dented before Red came to rest at the bottom of one of the freshwater reservoir basins.

"Could have been worse, I suppose...I mean, you could have..." She mused to herself, sliding her arms behind her head. "If you had gotten grabbed by one of those dam pumps on your way down..." Val felt her heart clench at the mere thought. The best-case scenario would have been Red getting completely and utterly chewed up beyond repair by the massive hydroelectric turbine. Worst case: (and more likely scenario, considering how well a motorcycle from Red's era was built) was that it would be destroyed along with a good portion of the pumping system. Whether she or Vern would have to pay for that, she couldn't guess. But one thing she could assume is that the price tag would be something to a tune only someone like Gazelle could pay off, spending the rest of their life in some form of civic debt servitude...or prison.

"Well, let's just leave it at 'you wouldn't be here'..." Val muttered glumly.

With that, the tuckered teen quickly shifted back up into a sitting position. The motion had been a quick one, leaving her momentarily light-headed before she regained her bearings. The femme fox emanated a soft chuckle and braced her forehead with a paw.

"Guess I overdid it a bit with that, huh?" She laughed, stealing a glance at her precious motorcycle. For the hundred-thousandth time, Ol' Red offered no reply. "Felt like my eye was going to pop out of my socket at one point..." She pawed lamely at her right eye, the organ still stinging slightly from the crude oil exposure. Its vision was still a bit blurry, but rapidly improving for the adrenaline and strain simultaneously continued to leave her.

With the dizziness dwindling fading, the marigold-colored mammal raised the paw clasped to her forehead above the bridge of her eyebrows as she began to scan the mess of tools strewn about on the garage floor. It only took a scant few seconds to spot her trusty mallet and flathead, although both had managed to travel well and far away from Red's little operation station presumably from her previous struggles. Shifting to her knees, Val shuffled across the floor, scooping up each tool before circling the wagons back to the task at paw.

"Now for the fun part." Val chuckled to herself. For a moment, she inspected her screwdriver, considering whether she'd need it or not for the next less than delicate part of the operation, before electing to slip it into the breast pocket of her work overalls. Gripping her paw tightly around the mallet handle, she steadied herself by bracing her other paw against Red's Gas tank.

"Alright, here we go."

Val reared the mallet high into the air, but before she could bring it crashing down on the hollow metal compartment, her chest began to vibrate.

Val's stance slackened abruptly, her muzzle scrunching in confusion for the briefest of moments before she realized just what the strange, rhythmic humming against her breast was coming from. Placing her hammer down gently against the pavement, the fox quickly slipped a paw into her overall pocket and extracted her slick red carrot phone, the sound of the Red Hot Canid Pepper's "Cowlifornication" rising to a crescendo once the speaker was freed from its denim prison. A momentary scan of the phone face told her all she needed to know. She accepted the MuzzleTime request and placed her phone onto the ground beside her.

"Hey Val, how are...uh..." The somewhat timid but familiar voice of an exhausted opossum rang out over the speakers. Val scooped the hammer back into her dominant paw, once again bracing red with the other before she went back to sizing up her strike.

"Val, you there?" Ellie asked, a slight confusion evident in her tone.

"I'm here El." The lube-coated canine replied, squinting slightly whilst she made a mock swing with the hammer in order to simulate just where the strike would come down before shaking her head in disapproval.

"How come I can't see you?" Ellie replied with concern. "All I can make out is...wait is that the garage?"

_'CLANK'!_Val struck sharply without warning, the mallet forcing a dent into the oil tank on its first strike and causing it to vibrate from the shock. Over the sudden din, Val could barely make out the muffled, frightened yelp of her sister over the phone.

"What was-!? Are you working?" Ellie spat, an obvious tinge of fear in her voice from what was presumably a sudden scare. Val couldn't help but smirk slightly.

"Yeah..." Val replied, her voice sounding distant and echoey from the mild mannered marsupial's perspective. "I didn't expect a call from you today, so you kinda caught me in the middle of something."

"Oh.." Ellie's voice replied, her tone stained with mild disappointment. "I was...kind of hoping we could talk face to face, y'know?" She continued, mumbling her words slightly. "I mean, that's why I sent a MuzzleTime request and didn't just...y'know...call you?"

'CLANK!' _'__ CLANK!'_Another two sharp raps of the mallet gouged the dent that much deeper into the metal, the edges of the impact site beginning to warp and lighten as it stretched to accommodate the fresh bend. However, the tank still remained fixed in place.

"Sorry El, this is kind of important." Val chuckled softly, sizing up another strike as she spoke. "You know I hate breaking my focus when I'm working on Red. This is like...it's like meditation for me, you know that."

'CLANK!'

"I'm pretty sure meditation is supposed to be a quiet thing..." Ellie replied with a soft but audible snicker. "A moment of calm self-reflection and introspection."

The vulpine rolled her eyes, smirking slightly. She brought the hammer down for another sharp blow.

'CLANK'!

"Hey, to each their own right?" The flippant fox replied with a snicker of her own. "I mean, you find your zen in paintings and...I find my zen in...well, other things."

'CLANK!'

The awkward reply earned a giggle from Ellie.

"I really don't know how you can think straight with that kind of racket going on, sis." She replied.

"No thinking required El, only bike." The cynical cyclist replied, earning another squeaky laugh from her sister. "Besides, you know I'm good at multitasking."

"More like 'good at feigning interest in one thing while really just focusing on the other'." Ellie replied, her voice wavering with slight uncertainty.

Val lowered her hammer for a moment, letting out a barking laugh and spying a glance down at her phone. "Oh-ho-ho! Was that a dig?" The dirt-caked canine guffawed. "I guess those snooty Prenchies and pretentious art hipsters are starting to rub off on you, huh?"

Ellie giggled softly, the air of her usual timidness returning to her laugh. "I grew up with you, remember? If your attitude didn't rub off on me for fifteen whole years, I doubt anyone else is going to be able to pull it off."

Val grinned mischievously, turning her attention back to Ol' Red. "I remember 'rubbing on you'_a few times, not so much _'rubbing off'." She replied, chortling darkly. Raising her mallet high once more, the vixen held it there for a moment, crooking one of her ears in the direction of the phone in anticipation. She knew the response she was going to get for a remark like that, and it still delighted her to the very core.

"V-Val pl-please..." The mousy marsupial stuttered awkwardly, causing Val's already broad smirk to crack into a toothy, smug grin. Despite not looking at the screen of her phone, she knew the pudgy opossum's face was growing beet red in embarrassment. It would have been worth a peek down if she wasn't sure Ellie had already buried her face into her gangly paws. Despite the fact that both of them were technically adults, Ellie's timid whimpering didn't sound a day over six years old, and that always made it music to Val's ears. "C-Can you please not bring that up?"

'CLANK!' Val struck mallet to metal once again, swabbing her forehead with her forearm after the decisive blow. The metal tank had finally begun to warp around the edges, the metal bunching slightly where the tank met the frame. Even if Val had taken a more delicate approach to this little portion of the operation, having to touch up Red's paint job was going to be unavoidable. Luckily, the amber-colored mammal had gotten pretty handy with an airbrush after working on the old motorcycle for so long.

"So how's Prance treating you?" Val asked, shifting the subject to allow Ellie to wind down a bit from her previous embarrassment. After all, teasing her dear little sister was something the vixen liked to draw out, picking and choosing the perfect moments to lob her jabs with precision timing in order to get the perfect reaction.

"You aren't letting those long-nosed oat munchers trot all over you, right?" Val continued, taking a few softer smacks against the stubbornly stuck oil tank with her trusty mallet. "Do I need to come over there and make a few of those professors of yours lame? Because I totally will. I may be small, but I'm wiry, and I've got plenty of tools to get the job done!"

Val could hear Ellie's soft guffaws, as well as her obvious struggle to suppress it.

"N-No, of course not." The portly opossum finally managed through her stifled laughter. "All of my professors have been really nice this semester...if a bit...uh...well as the natives would say, 'Monter leur propre cul.'"

Val paused for a moment, scrunching her muzzle in confusion at the undecipherable (at least to her) Prench words.

"Oh no! They've already got you spitting oat speak!" Val cried in mocking concern, draping a forearm over her brow in exaggerated dramatics despite the fact there was a good chance Ellie couldn't see the display. "Next thing you know, you'll have a feed bag strapped to your face because it's 'more convenient!'"

Ellie was unable to stifle her laughter this time around, and the snarky service mammal was quick to join in, the pair sharing a good giggle before her sweet natured sibling managed to regain her composure.

"I wouldn't have a long enough snout for one of those anyway." Eleanor replied, trying her best to chase away any lingering snickers. "My roommate let me try hers on once and not only could I not get any of the food to my mouth, but...well, the weight of the thing kept pulling my head down."

Val's toothy grin returned, the valiant vixen placing her hammer on her lap and side-eyeing the phone with mild amusement.

"Oh please El, please tell me you took photos of that!" Val bit her lip with impish glee, now trying to stifle a cackle of her own. "I desperately have to have that for my phone's lock screen."

"And that's exactly why I made sure Meighgan didn't take any pictures." The opossum replied, her tone giving Val the impression she had rolled her eyes. "I didn't want to give you another picture like the one of me falling asleep with that family sized bag of Cheeta Paws on my head to hold over me when I get home."

Val could no longer suppress her laughter upon picturing the image of the poor portly opossum with her head trapped inside a foil-wrapped prison filled her mind. She could still remember watching the bag puff up and collapse with each of Ellie's tell-tale loud, obnoxious snores. The mental note of Charlie Cheetah, the biker jacket and sunglasses wearing corporate mascot's stupid grin widingening and shrinking with each of Ellie's slumbering breaths.

"You act like I have more pictures like that in the ol' blackmail album." Val snickered. Her thoughts drifted to the various times her sister had fallen asleep before or partway through a snack session. With her and Ellie being nocturnal mammals, sticking to a daytime schedule lifestyle was always a struggle. But it always seemed worse for Ellie, who tended to shamble through the day like a zombie when not slumping into frequent and impromptu daytime naps. Whether or not she had been trying to eat at the time in order to give her some degree of energy to get through the rest of her daylight hours didn't seem to matter much when it came to her body's actual needs, however, which is what led to the vixen frequently finding her sleepy sibling passed out with a open box of donuts on her lap, or a half eaten pizza in her wide open mouth as she somehow managed to snore around it. Val never found it any less funny; no matter how many times she stumbled across it, always making sure to snap a photo for posterity's sake before making sure her poor sister didn't end up choking in her sleep on a Bug Burga Deluxe.

"What would one more for the stack actually do El? In the grand scheme of things?" The crimson red rider snickered. "Jeeze, I hope that roommate of yours is actually looking out for you. Last thing me or Dad could take is getting a call from overseas saying you died choking on a half eaten loaf of Prench bread because you're as narcoleptic as a fainting goat in the daytime."

She could hear the painterly opossum let out a mild huff of irritation at her remark.

"You know all my classes are at night, Val." Ellie managed a rebuttal. "Unlike our high school, the Prench Academy of the Fine Arts tries to accommodate their nocturnal students to the best of their abilities."

"The only times I doze off unexpectedly is at those art shows I'm forced to attend." The mild marsupial added. "And thankfully, the food there tends to be in such small portions that I think I'd just inhale them if I fell asleep with one in my muzzle." She giggled.

The vivacious vixen snickered before she sized up another mallet strike.

"What's the matter El?" Val asked. "I thought the whole reason you were going to this school was because you loved to paint. I figure art shows would be your bag."

The battery-brained gal could hear her sister let out a sigh.

"Don't get me wrong...I mean...I'm more than happy to present my own work...but..." Ellie's timid tone seemed to have returned as she spoke. "Having to listen to some of the other students and_'established artists'_prattle on and on about...well nothing at all really, it all just gets...so mentally exhausting." She mumbled. "Just listening to one of these guys for more than five minutes would be enough to put even the most studious meerkat to sleep, even after they've inhaled a few double espressos."

Val chuckled softly. "Mam', considering every meerkat I've ever met has been a real brown-nosing, pencil pusher, that's no small feat."

"Of course, that's hard enough to endure." The modest mammal continued with her rather half-hearted rant, her inflection never truly committing to the obvious annoyance her statement carried. " But I think the worst thing...is probably the fact that I have to talk like that about my own paintings in order to fit in."

The tangerine tinted fox snickered. "I can't even begin to imagine you talking like one of those hipster blowhards." Val shook her head dismissively on the heels of taking a few hard swings at the oil tank with her mallet. By now the entire part was starting to slide out of the frame, and each tap was squeezing more and more free. "It's just...so not you El."

"Notice this school of fish, the majority of which is a deep cold teal representing conformity and lack of creative spark." Eli's tone was haughty and stern, a mock Purench accent coming through clearly over the phone as she continued. " They surround a single lone fish, painted bright orange. This is meant to represent isolationism and non-conformity. The creative spark and the urge to break away from the pack and pursue a lofty goal."

Val drew back slightly, her muzzle twisting into a mixture of amusement and surprise.

"Holy Cow El, was that you you?" Val laughed. "For a moment, I thought I was back in high school, listening to Professor Drommel doing one of his 'power-point lectures'."

"Ugh...just doing that made me throw up in my muzzle a little bit." The meek mammal admitted with what sounded like an audible shudder. "Every time I have to go into that mode...and pull a bunch of 'lecteur sans significant' out of my pouch like that, I can feel a shred of my soul die."

The grease gunked girl quirked an eyebrow.

"Lectro sans Significant?" Val repeated her sister's Prench expression to the best of her limited ability.

"Meaningless drivel." Ellie replied.

The vixen gave a sort of nod and shrug, more to herself than Ellie. She tapped at the now wobbling oil tank.

"Still El, you sounded pretty convincing to me." Val admitted with a chuckle. "I barely understood any of that demo of yours, and it wasn't even in Prench."

"Thanks, I hate it..." Ellie's timid tone returned.

Val smiled softly down at the phone face-up on the garage floor.

"I know it must be really hard for you to do that kind of thing on the regular El." She admitted, a pang of sympathy audible in her tone. "I know how much you hate lying about...well anything." A few more hard 'Clanks' of her mallet, and the mechanistic mammal continued. "But I gotta say, I'm pretty impressed. Where did you learn to bullshit like that?"

"To be honest...mostly you." Ellie replied sheepishly.

Val's muzzle split into a wide, toothy smile as she let out a self satisfied cackle. "Ah, finally you are making use of my expert teachings." She chuckled. "I'm so proud of you El, you've come so far."

"Well...I can't really pull it off with the same level of confidence as you....and I haven't exactly mastered the whole... 'not feeling guilty while doing it' thing you seem to be so good at."

"Give it time Sis, give it time."

With one final powerful slam of her hammer, the oil tank was popped free of its housing, the crumpled piece of scrap skittering across the floor and earning another startled 'eep!' from the opossum on the other line before coming to a dead stop. Val allowed her mallet to drop to the floor before pumping both fists to the sky in triumphant glee.

"YES!" The artful artificer hissed in delight. "Out with the old and in with the new, baby!"

"I take it that means things are going well with Red's repairs?" The meek marsupial's voice interjected, drawing Val out of her little reverie and back to her sibling.

Val offered a weak shrug despite the fact that Ellie couldn't see it. "As well as to be expected, considering how bad of a trashing that dumb mutt gave her." She admitted with a confident sigh. "But it's not the first time I've worked a miracle, and it probably won't be the last."

"D-Don't you think calling Vernon a mutt is a little harsh?" Ellie admitted. "He seemed like a pretty nice guy when I met him."

Val's muzzle tightened into a mildly annoyed sneer.

"He should consider himself lucky that I'm using such tame language." The mandarin-colored mammal grumbled. "Trust me, what I want to say about him is actually much worse."

"Val..." Ellie seemed to whimper slightly, a somewhat chiding lilt to her voice that asked the vixen without so much as a word 'you don't really mean that do you'?'"

"I'd be much less mad if he had at least had the decency to ride down the canal with my precious kit instead of abandoning her like that. It would only have been fair that he took as many lumps as she had to." She scoffed. "All this just because he was lusting after some muttony megalomaniac. Pft..."

"L-Love makes mammals do crazy things sometimes." The overweight opossum replied, letting out a soft coo that made Val reflexively gag. "You shouldn't be so hard on him..."

"Yuck...Love..." Venom was practically dripping Val's reply, the word a throaty grumble of disgust.

"C-C'mon..." Eleanor's stutter seemed to return as the uncertainty in her voice rose. "You can't tell me you don't think what Vernon did for Dawn Bellwether of all mammals isn't the slightest bit romantic?"

The fiery red fox let out a sharp, dismissive scoff. "Pure stupidity is what it is..." She replied with an edge in her voice. "Of course, it seems like that's all 'love' does to mammals." Val shook her head. "Makes them dumb as a box of rocks, and with Vernon already being a wolf, that's a real accomplishment."

"Val..." Ellie half chided again.

"He wrecked my baby, El! All because some crazed culler ewe got him all hot and bothered!" The vehement vixen snapped back. "He should count himself lucky I didn't take a tire iron to his kneecaps when I first saw him again, that's for damn sure." Val chuckled coldly.

"W-Well...I mean...I think it's really sweet..." The muttering marsupial now seemed to be falling all over herself to defend her position. "To go to such extreme and dangerous lengths all to protect the one he loves?" Eleanor let out an amorous sigh as the confidence in her tone seemed to return. "And Dawn, she literally put her life on the line to save his...it's like something out of a romance novel."

Again, Val had to suppress the urge to gag.

"Romance novel is right..." The frustrated fox muttered as she rose to her feet, making her way over to her workbench before continuing as. "SOUNDS LIKE YOU'VE BEEN READING THE ONE THEY WROTE." Val raised her voice in an effort to make sure her words carried back to the phone while she scooped both the replacement oil tank, and the copy of 'Predator Seeking Prey' she had 'conveniently forgotten' to return to Vernon the day before.

"W-Well...I mean...it's pretty common knowledge what happened and all..." Ellie murmured uncomfortably. "B-But I'd be lying if I said I didn't download the e-book as soon as it dropped..."

"Uh-huh..." Val replied dully as she made her way back to Ol' Red and Ellie, unceremoniously flopping back down onto the cool, unyielding cement floor.

"I mean...you pro-probably wouldn't go for it, but I haven't been able to put it down since I got it. I'm probably about halfway th-,"

"I-It's not the worst read..."The exasperated vixen admitted reluctantly, letting out a sigh, eyeing the book sitting in her lap.

The call went silent for a few moments, leaving Val to return to the ambient hum of the garage lights before Eleanor spoke again.

"W-Wait? You're reading it too?" Ellie's tone was a mixture of excitement and trepidation, almost sounding as if she was expecting it to be one of Val's usual pranks.

"Yeah..." Val sighed, her ears sagging sharply, the admission dragged out of her like barbed wire dragging across her pelt. "Vernon gave me a first edition copy when he was in the store the other day..."

An orange arm with brown paw fur waved the book over and across the screen of Val's phone, making sure it was far enough away from the camera so that her scholarly sibling could actually see it. "I originally held on to it for the...few choice smutty excerpts I heard Gus and Melanie chattering about, but....well, that wooly weirdo Vern has attached himself to..she can write a pretty decent page-turner."

"OH! EM! GOODNESS!" Eleanor practically squealed in delight! "A first edition copy!? Val, could you get me one too?" The over-excited opossum stammered. "I-It can be my Yule present! Please!?"

Val rolled her eyes slightly. Ellie was still the only mammal Val knew who could get _that_excited about a book. In fact, the only reason Val's room had a bookshelf in the first place was because of the opossum's love of all things literature.

"Maybe if you get me a pic of you strapped up to that feed bag, we can talk..." The mischievous mammal replied, snickering and placing the book aside.

"V-Val..." Ellie replied, with a soft whimpering whine. "Y-you wouldn't really make me...?" There was a sense of hope in her voice, one that was rapidly fading as she trailed off.

The amber-colored artificer let out a tired sigh.

"I'll see what I can do..."

The phone rang out with another delightful squee.

"Oh thankyouthankyouthankyou!" Ellie babbled excitedly, showing a rare surge of energy that seemed to be reserved purely for art and literature. "I've never owned a first edition copy of anything in my life and..." The over-excited opossum paused for a moment, the line going quiet when she seemed to be mulling something over.

"I-It wouldn't be possible to get it signed by both of them, would it?"

Val rolled her eyes again, trying her best to suppress a smile despite herself.

"Now you're pushing it..." The tickled vixen replied with a chuckle.

"Please Val? Pretty please?" Eleanor pressed. Val couldn't be sure, but there was a good chance Ellie was deploying the 'puppy eyes', which was all the more reason not to look at the phone. The vexed vixen let out another, exasperated sigh.

"We can make that happen when you come home from Yule break. I'm sure they'd be happy to sign it for you." Val finally replied. "Well, at least Dawn would anyway..." She chuckled. "Not sure how keen Ol' Puppy is going to be about signing off on a copy that book that goes into such thorough detail about his bedroom habits. He seemed to have his tail pretty twisted over it yesterday..."

"Why though?' Eleanor replied, genuine confusion in her voice as she spoke. "That whole chapter about their first night together was so beautiful..." That same saccharine, lovey-dovey tone returned to the awed opossum. "It was so raw, so real...I..." Ellie let out a wistful sigh. "I think I'd give anything to have something like that. To have what they have."

Val winced slightly. She felt a strange pang of pity for her sister at that moment. It was something she couldn't help but feel guilty about, as when it came to El she had never once looked down her snout at the opossum in all their lives over any other subject. But for some reason, her overly romantic sensibilities always seemed so kittish to the generally apathetic animal. To be able to get so wrapped up in a need to be loved by another mammal seemed almost alien. Ironically, it was one of the most glaring traits that Eleanor seemed to have somehow inherited from the pair's Ol' Mam', despite the fact that without some sort of miracle involved the two weren't genetically related. Both Ellie and Cameron were mammals that needed that sort of love in their life. They thrived on it, and while she could admit she didn't truly understand it, she could see that. However, when it came to herself, she was more than grateful to be free of that sort of handicap in life.

Val was about to reply with one of her usually snarky one-liners, perfectly timed to get the maximum amount of fluster out of her sappy sibling, but her little moment of introspection had given her pause. Something was tickling at the back of her mind. A thought, a memory...something she felt like she was meant to remember.

"I-In fact..." Ellie mumbled softly, her timid interjection killing that nagging feeling which had momentarily plagued the mandarin-colored mammal. "I...well....I don't want to g-get ahead of myself b-but...I met a pretty great guy a few weeks ago an-"

Val's wide, toothy smirk returned in a flash, her paws working the new, properly fitted oil tank into Red's frame with ease before she spoke.

"I should have figured." Val let out a dull chuckle. "I mean, you're already a pretty unrepentant romantic at heart on most days, but you just seemed so extra gushy about ol' mutt and his mutton." Lining up the tank bolt holds with the grooves on the frame, the gear-headed girl began to idly thread one of the bolts into the socket. "And you only ever get that worked up when you're actually thinking of a guy you're crushing on, like the literal years you spent crushing on Dad."

The bolt slipped out of Val's paw, clattering onto the floor as the word_'Dad'_ floated in the immediate ether before dissipating entirely. She could feel the muscles in her muzzle tense, her lips curling around her teeth slightly as that nagging sensation returned.

"V-Val..." Her sheepish sibling managed to stutter over the silence that had come to dominate the garage.

The vexed vixen shook her head briskly, trying to shake away the thought and return her attention to flustering her dear sister. She wasn't sure how long she had left her hanging in the silence while that trifle of a thought chewed at the back of her mind...but she wasn't about to let up on this one now that the topic had come up. It was too juicy.

"Oh don't you act like you're the one who should be embarrassed!" The snarky service mammal rebuffed. "If either of us should be embarrassed about your little crush on my Dad, it should be me; not you!" She snickered.

"Val p-please...I was...I mean..." Ellie stammered awkwardly, clearly struggling to defend herself after having been caught so off guard. "I-It's normal f-for little girls to get crushes on o-older mammals..."

Val furrowed her brow as she once again lined up the bolt in its housing, flashing a dubious glare over her shoulder in the direction of the phone before she cut her off.

"Not for whom is ostensibly their foster Dad." A teasing Val replied with a snicker.

"N-Nuh-uh!" The overweight opossum's tone had slipped back into that of a whiny four-year-old prior to her continued protest, digging her claws deeper into that hill she seemed so willing to die on. The vivacious' vixen's grin only widened. "A-A lot of y-younger girls...a uh..."

"Younger?" Val rolled her eyes, letting out a chortle. "Do you remember those drawings you used to make of you and my Dad getting married? The ones where the wedding dress you had on used to get poofier and more ornate with each 'updated'_version?" Without missing a beat, the fervent fox had scooped up her socket wrench and began subsequently ratcheting the first bolt into place with unparalleled speed. "The last _'new version' of that drawing, that I know of, you put together when you were sixteen El." With a final, rough tug revealing the bolt would twist no further, she slipped it free of its mooring, raising it to the air and gesturing it toward the phone as if she were scolding it. "And the 'that I know of' part bears repeating".

"V-Val...y-you make it sound like I-I am-.." Ellie let out a hard cough, one Val was sure was deliberate in an effort to cover up that little Shreudian slip she made and presumably hoped the vixen didn't catch. "I was...o-o-obsessed or something..." Ellie's tone wavered, her voice rapidly descending back into her usually timid demeanor as she fought to speak. "I-It's not really...crazy for a girl to fantasize about marrying her d-dream jack...and maybe...er..." The flustered female's words grow quieter and harder to clearly discern as she mumbled on. "Drawing a few pictures....here and there. I am an artist after all!"

Val smirked to herself while she lined up the next bolt to the mouth of the socket.

"Yeah, a few. You had a whole binder, remember?" The vixen felt her fangs peel out of her growing smile. "Really frilly little number, with a big label on the front that said 'Val, do not read!"

"YOU READ MY DIARY!?" Eleanor spat, the normally quiet and reserved opossum sounding as though she had completely skipped over being livid in favor of having a panic attack. Val's ears immediately shrank at the sound escaping her phone. "YOU SWORE TO ME YOU-!"

"I read it once, alright?! ONCE!" Val barked back, despite guiltily shrinking into her shoulders. "And I only did it because the night before, you had nearly strangled me to death having a dream you refused to tell me about! Not that I couldn't put the pieces together on my own considering how many times I heard 'Oh Cameron...' or 'Oh Daddy...' slip out of that muzzle of yours!"

The other side of the phone had suddenly grown dead quiet, but Val wasn't yet ready to lament shaming her dear sweet sibling just yet.

"You had such a big dreamy smile on your face too. Would have been funny to rib you about it in the moment if it wasn't for the fact your big dumb tail was wrapped around my neck, squeezing the life out of me like an untrained python." Val snickered softly.

"I-I'm sorry! You kn-know it's not exactly easy to control my tail when I'm sleeping..." Ellie whimpered timidly. "E-Especially when I'm having...one of those...dreams..."

The vermillion vixen let out a tired sigh, rolling her eyes slightly as she began to crank the second bolt into place.

"I'm sorry too...I didn't mean to...er..." The fastidious fox finished her ratcheting session, drawing her wrench up to the back of her head and scratching awkwardly at her fur. "I didn't mean to go at you so hard with that, I'm just saying that if you gave me a play by play of exactly what got you so worked up & unconsciously strangling me, I wouldn't have had to go snooping in your diary to find out the deets."

"Y-you told me you didn't want to h-hear about those kinds of dreams if they involved C-Cameron!" The modest marsupial's tone was that of a hushed, shameful whisper. "Y-you said it was g-gross."

"Oh it was." Affirmed Val, shaking her head dismissively. "Seriously. The picture you painted in that diary was probably..." She could feel her hackles rise as she recalled some of the more intricate prose regarding Ellie's rather intimate dream with her father; a full-body shudder causing her to drop the next bolt she had been sizing up fastening into the frame. "Let's just say it would have been better if you had given me the clop's notes version." The muscles in her muzzle scrunched as she felt another involuntary gag rise in her throat.

"You! You said you could tell! I-" Ellie huffed. For a moment, Val thought she heard a soft, strangled whimper of shame from the other end of the phone. Presumably, whatever attempt Ellie had made at standing up for herself muffled behind her tail. The oversized opossum always had a rather nasty habit of nibbling on her tail when she was feeling particularly shy or nervous, and there was no doubt in the vixen's mind that that was what was happening across the pond at this very moment. It usually signaled it was time to pack up and move on in terms of jabbing at her sister, something she was more eager to do in this particular instance. The sooner they moved the conversation on and never looked back, the better.

"S-so uh...this guy of yours?" Val uttered uncomfortably, turning her focus to the bolt now seated in Ol' Red's frame ready and waiting for fitting.

The other side of the phone was still silent for a few moments, making Val think for the briefest of moments that Ellie had grown so worked up that she had simply ended the call to collect herself.

"H-He's really nice..." The timidly toned mammal finally managed to respond.

The stark-red canine's smile returned, not one of impish delight, but something warmer and softer she reserved for mammals like her sister.

"And?" The fiery red fox asked, bringing forth her instinctual slyness and raising an eyebrow. "Is that all he's got going on or...?

Eleanor giggled softly. "N-No, of course not." She replied. "He's kind,...and soft-spoken,...and really sweet too..."

The crimson canid snickered, shaking her head softly as she ratcheted the next bolt to the hilt of the socket. "That's all pretty vague stuff. Is that all you're going to give me to work with?"

"After the browbeating, you just gave me over Cameron?" Ellie replied, her tone clearly one of mock offense. "Yes, I'd say that's all that's safe to give you for the moment." The oversized opossum giggled.

"El, come on now..." Val replied with a roll of her eyes.

"Look..." Started Ellie. "if things keep going the way they're going, I'll bring him home with me for Spring Break to meet you and Dad, okay?" Ellie replied. "You can get to know him then."

With another bolt fastened, the artful artificer was quick to line up the last bolt in the set.

"Alright, but just make it clear to this new boy-toy of yours that he's not breaking any new ground, regardless of how many bases he hits." Val's rather impish and mischievous grin returned, stretching from ear to ear once she threw a glance over her shoulder at her carrot phone. "Make sure he knows I got to you first, Ellie Vanilli..."

As expected, the phone went silent once more; the embarrassing memory Val had dredged up more than likely causing Ellie to visibly cringe despite her inability to see it.

"V-Val...wh-why do you always have to...?" The opossum whimpered quietly, her words trailing off under her timid mutterings before somehow finding their way back onto the trail of clarity further down the road. "I-I mean you bring it up every ti-time!"

Val chortled in delighted response to Ellie's whining.

"Hey, it was relevant to the conversation," Val stated, an air of personal pride lacing her tone. She placed her free paw onto her hip. "You can gladly tell any boy I bring home that I was your first too and I won't even bat an eyelash over it..."

"V-Val..." The flustered female murmured weakly while the mechanical expert with her doctorate in species of Motorcycles finished ratcheting the final bolt in place. Letting her wrench drop to the floor with a sigh, the filmy-caked fox swabbed her brow with her forearm before turning her attention back to the phone.

"Actually, scratch that." She said with a chuckle."You tell that to one of the guys I bring home, and they'll be looking to get a threeway out of it."

Ellie managed a giggle. "I think that's almost _all_boys Val."

With a soft sigh, Val scooped her phone into a paw, reluctantly bringing the camera to her muzzle as she eyed back at the mousey marsupial on the other end of the line. In her own camera preview, she could see just how much grease had embedded into her previously fiery and vibrant fire-red pelt. Her signature tuft of hair was almost plastered to her forehead with a mixture of sweat and oil, and every trace of lub on the other parts of her fur had created little meadows of dark, soiled cowlicks that made it look like she was suffering from some form of mange they hadn't discovered yet. Still, though, the victorious vixen had looked worse for these sorts of calls, and she had never really been one to care about her looks.

The beady-eyed little opossum was smiling back and, while appearing cleaner, looked just about as disheveled as she was. Ellie was apparently curled up on her beanbag she had brought from home, dressed to the nines in her usual oversized vintage logo tee-shirt that Val couldn't quite make out, and a pair of big, puffy fox themed pajama pants with her large rodent-like tail curled around her legs protectively. Aside from her head fur, which was relatively neat due to the constant having to train it out of her eyes, her gray and silvery body fur was just as messy as the vixen's own. Although in place of the grease stains, the overweight opossum was sporting a few specks of dried paint that signaled to her she had recently come off of a very productive painting session. The lack of bags under her eyes also told the mandarin-colored mammal that either Ellie had gotten some decent sleep the day before (which was unlike her) or that it was later than the fox initially realized.

"Hey, there she is!" Ellie chirped happily, her amethyst eyes seemed to sparkle as her muzzle split into a wide toothy smile. "I was worried I actually wasn't going to see you at all tonight."

Val smirked warmly at her soft-hearted sibling.

"Well, it's only fair with all the teasing I got to do that I didn't just leave you hanging..." The snarky service mammal replied, earning a giggle from Ellie in response.

"Now you and I both know you don't care enough about your looks for anything I could remark about to actually get to you..." Val's sweet-natured sibling replied with another laugh. "It's not exactly a fair trade, is it?"

Val closed her eyes, giving her sister a knowing nod as the pair let out near-simultaneous comforted sighs.

The rooms were silent while the two stared at one another for a few moments. For many mammals, such a lack of exchange would have felt awkward, surely, but for Val and Ellie, it was comforting. It was, for the briefest of moments, as though the two were back in the same bedroom, both sprawled out on their own beanbag chairs & watching some mindless old monster movies or playing some cartoony Nyantendo racing game together. For a moment, things felt like something closer to normal again. For a moment, they didn't seem so far away from one another.

"I miss you El..." Val admitted with a sad sigh, taking a moment to swab at her lower eyelids with her thumb and forefinger. She wasn't tearing up, merely trying to swab away the lingering tiredness that had set in from a long day's work. At least, that's what she'd tell Ellie if she asked.

The fiery fox watched her sister seem to wilt in response. Her smile, while not outright disappearing, seemed to falter as it seemed to shift into warmer and more heartfelt.

"I-I miss you too Val..." Ellie whimpered softly, bringing a single claw to one of her eyes and swabbing at it lamely. "Y-You and Dad...I- " The pouched opossum sniffled sharply. "I really miss you guys s-so much."

Val normally wasn't the kind of mammal for hugs, she had been unwillingly dragged into enough of them by her old 'Mam over the years to know that. But in that moment, she really wished she could somehow reach through the phone screen and hug her sister tightly. Not just for her sibling's sake, but for her own as well. Although she'd never admit it.

"I-I mean don't get me wrong, I'm ha-having a great time in Maris...I just..." The modest mammal whimpered softly..."I-It's just not home without you guys..."

Val could feel the tension in her chest starting to rise. Their conversation had taken more of an emotional turn than had been prepared for, and if she didn't pull them out of this tailspin they had stumbled into, it was going to be increasingly harder for the vixen to play off the tears she felt steadily rising as a simple allergy, or that somehow grease had managed to work it's way into both of her eyes simultaneously.

"A-Alright, El." Val cleared her throat awkwardly, shifting her gaze away from her sister as she spoke and silently cursed the fact that her accidental stutter had betrayed her true feelings. "Put a cork in the waterworks. You don't want to wake your roommate now, do you?" The oddly vulnerable vixen managed a weak chuckle.

Ellie rolled her eyes, emitting a feeble giggle of her own.

"That's my sister." The mild-mannered marsupial replied. " Always quick to dismiss the conversation the second it gets too emotional..." A wry smirk topped off her remark.

Caught red pawed, the crimson canine let out a laugh of her own before bringing her paw over the phone and baring her sister an unamused glare.

"Alright, alright, I'm not above hanging up on you, sister or not." Val tried her best to stifle a chortle, but the smirk crawling across her muzzle easily undermined her faux attempt at appearing serious. Ellie began giggling in response, and it didn't take much longer for her sister to break into a guffaw of her own; the pair nearly cackling like schoolgirls against the quiet of the night.

Slowly, the laughter began to taper, leaving the two to once again share a contented sigh that gave way to a lingering, yet comfortable silence. For a few moments it simply hung there, with the two mammals simply smiling warmly at one another before the demure didelphidae spoke once more.

"I love you Val." Ellie admitted bashfully.

Val once again rolled her eyes, letting out a rather forced sounding huff of irritance before reluctantly replying.

"I love you too El."

Ellie gifted her sister a knowing smile.

"You almost convinced me you hated saying it that time." The portly opossum tittered.

The scarlet service mammal felt the heat of a slight blush building beneath her fur, causing her to avert her gaze once again. Despite the length of their time apart, Ellie hadn't lost her touch when it came to reading the fibbing fox. It seemed she would forever remain one of the few mammals Val couldn't easily pull the wool over.

"Shut up El." The vulpine sniggered.

"Alright, alright..." Her sweet-natured sibling replied, letting out a satisfied sigh. "But before we get off the topic, please tell Dad that I love him too, okay?"

Val felt a broad grin begin to form across her muzzle with a myriad of jokes at the expense of her pining possum sibling commencing to concoct in her mind. The possibilities were practically endless, and another of the many endless opportunities to playfully rib her little sis was simply too good to pass up.

"So should I also tell Dad yo-." Val's words died in her throat. She felt the return of that nagging feeling in the back of her mind. She was forgetting something, something urgent, urgent enough to sandbag this primo joking opportunity and cause the fiery red fox's smile to falter immediately.

"Val? Val are you okay?" Her soft spoken sibling's words managed to pierce her thoughts, pulling the vixen back to Animalia. The grease-caked gearhead shook her head briskly in an attempt to regain her composure before offering her sister a weak smile.

"Yeah, I'm fine..." She replied, trying her best to hide the tone of wavering confidence in that statement she spoke. Judging by Ellie's expression, however, she had done an unconvincing job of covering that up as well. Val desperately wanted to roll back into one of the jokes she had thought up to diffuse the tension, but she couldn't recall a single one to perforate the continuously building unease permeating the air.

Ellie's concerned gaze had begun to bore holes into the mandarin-colored mammal, leaving Val little choice but to come clean about exactly what was bothering her.

"Val?" The meek marsupial spoke again, sounding more concerned than before.

"It's just..." Val started reservedly, scratching the back of her head and wincing. "...something's been bothering me for the last few hours is all." She continued, with a slight grimace as she spoke. "Something I...can't quite put a claw on, you know?" The maroon colored mammal frowned. " Something that feels kinda serious."

Ellie winced, a soft frown crossing her muzzle while she eyed her sister with concern.

"You too?" The overweight opossum replied meekly. "If I'm being honest, I've had kind of a bad feeling for the past few days now that something was wrong." She murmured. "It's kinda why I called earlier than usual." Her admittance was sheepish. "I wanted to make sure everyone was okay."

Val scratched her head in mild confusion. "Earlier than usual? What day is it?" She asked.

Ellie bobbed her head from side to side as she seemed to be mulling over her words. "Well, it's technically Friday here, but it's still Thursday in Zootopia."

Val placed a paw to her head in mild surprise. "Right, it's still Thursday." She replied, furrowing her brow slightly. "You usually call on Friday nights."

"Well, that's technically Saturday for me but..." The portly opossum trailed off, seemingly lost in thought for a brief moment before shaking her head sharply. "Still, I haven't been able to put a claw on it either." The meek marsupial scratched the back of her head awkwardly, exhibiting an uneasy frown. "I was kinda hoping you could help me figure it out,...or at least reassure me that I was worried for nothing."

The vivacious vixen contrasted her sibling with an amused smirk.

"Oh, that's my sister. Only ever calling because she _'needs'_something from me: real typical." The comical canid chortled at her own joke, reveling in the fact she managed to throw Ellie's own words back at her as an added bonus.

Ellie winced, letting out a soft whine.

"Val, you know it's not like that..." She mumbled timidly.

"Yeah, I know, I know." Val replied sarcastically, "Suuuure it's not." The scarlet slink did her best to further stifle her giggling in an effort to appear genuine.

"It isn't! You know it isn't!" The opossum whimpered.

Val smiled to herself. The return to teasing her sibling was a nice reprieve from the rather austere turn the conversation had previously taken. And although it had not fully alleviated the increasingly burdensome knot in her stomach, it made for a decent enough distraction from it.

"Uh-huh." The surprisingly stoic she-fox replied, a deadpan lilt in her voice. "It's almost as if-."

Val paused at the sound of meek scratchings coming from the reptile door on the other side of the room, her ears swiveling toward the source of the noise to better identify exactly what was making it.

"What's wrong?" Ellie asked, concern lacing her tone.

Val turned her head toward the door, her ears flattening as she watched the familiar form of her pet veiled chameleon, Leon, scramble through the hatch. The creature looked somewhat distressed in its scampering into the room as fast as its bowed little legs could carry it. The fox grimaced sharply. Her ears drooped while she watched the frantic reptile's wild eyes scan the room before setting on her. Leon let out a noise resembling something of a _'meep'_before scuttling up to the vixen clambering into her lap.

"It's just Leon." Val replied, her gaze following the creature as it settled into her lap. Placing a ginger paw on his head fin, the marigold-colored mammal began to gently pet him, earning a soft but strained coo from her stressed looking pet.

"He seems really worked up about something." She added.

"Don't you mean "Captain Aertmus Leopold de Reptello the Third?" The portly opossum asked with a knowing snicker.

Val furrowed her brow, shooting her sister an annoyed glance.

"Would you stop calling him that?" The vermillion vixen replied with a snort.

Ellie simply rolled her eyes. "Don't blame me, you're the one who named him after all." She replied with a giggle.

Val could feel herself reflexively cringe at her sister's words, the reminder of her creative kithood naming conventions making her stomach lurch in disgust with her former self.

The sound of lightly clattering metal snapped the feminine canine back to the moment, her attention quickly drawing down to her lap: only to find that Leon had slipped away from her. Turning her attention to the sound, she could see the lizard had crawled his way over to her socket wrench, and was now gnawing on it despite his lack of teeth.

"Leon!" Val snapped, scooping the little reptile into her paws and drawing him up to face level. "You know better than to use my tools as toys!"

Leon's beady little eyes slowly shifted to varying directions, never quite making eye contact with the rust-colored repair mammal as it cocked its head curiously. Val gave the little lizard a half lidded gaze as she let out an irritated sigh.

"What's gotten into you?" She muttered, eyeing the reptile expectantly as she began to turn him over in her palm, checking his sides and stomach as though she expected to elucidate something from it. Much to her surprise however, she gleaned a distinct lack of pigment in the chameleon scales that told her he was decidedly stressed.

"You're looking a little grey in the scales there buddy. What's up?" She spoke to the creature as if she expected an answer, despite knowing she would never get one (at least not in Animaglish anyway).

Steadying the lizard in her paw, his eyes once again did their best to fix on her. Then, without warning, Leon opened his maw and fired his probed tongue directly at his owner's snout, the bulb on the end finding purchase directly on the tip of her nose before the little green goblin retracted it.

Val scrunched her muzzle in response, only for Leon to fire off several more volleys of his tongue, each one striking in and around the same area of her nose as it had before.

"Ugh..." The vexed vixen huffed in mild annoyance. "You know that doesn't tell me anything bud."

"Maybe he needs his litter box changed?" Ellie chirped helpfully.

Val shook her head dismissively, re-studying the lizard's scales with a trained eye.

"His scales usually are more yellowish if he needs to go." She mused. Tapping a paw to her chin, the vixen began to run through the various scale colors she had seen Leon display throughout his life that (with some degree of struggle) she had managed to seek out as to their meaning. A library of colors flickered through her mind, eliminating each entry one by one, quickly coming to rest on a likely match for the little lizard's current dazzling display.

"Are you hungry boy?" Val spoke, eyeing her pet curiously.

In response, the little lizard stuck another tongue probe onto his owner's nose, this time with a bit more visible enthusiasm.

The vixen opened her muzzle to speak, only to be met with a dull groan of her own stomach. The lizard's apparent hunger reminded the russet repair gal of her own growing appetite that she had apparently been suppressing due to being totally lost in her work.

Val chuckled, gifting her pet a warm smirk. "I guess that makes two of us, huh Leon?" Leon simply flicked his tail in response, seemingly satisfied his owner had gotten the message.

Pressing herself off of the cold, grease stained floor, the exhausted engineer managed to rise to her feet before stretching her back as she let out a loud & tired sounding yawn.

Furrowing her brow slightly, the fiery fox turned her gaze to the tiny lizard in her paw. She could feel that familiar nagging formless thought starting to creep back up on her as she appraised the hungry reptile. For some reason, the fact that neither of them had eaten yet was odd, and while she mediated on that thought, it only served to deepen her growing sense of unease.

I'm surprised you haven't already eaten, isn't it like..."

Turning her attention to the corner of her phone screen, Val scrunched up her forehead in visible confusion.

"It's seven o' two?" The crimson canid muttered in mild surprise.

"Seven?" Ellie added, sounding equally as confused.

"Usually Dad feeds Leon at around five." Val mused, the knot in her stomach tightening as the frown on her muzzle grew that much deeper. "He also bugs me about what I want to eat too whe..."

Val's words trailed off. Alarm bells began to sound in her head. Their cries far off, distant and muddled though still discernible, for Val was feeling the pieces starting to slide into place. The gnawing sense of urgency had been replaced by a growing feeling of panic. A mild one, sure, but a feeling of panic nonetheless. She could feel her stomach starting to drop as her thoughts fixated on her father; the word repeating over and over in her head until it had nearly lost all sense of meaning.

"Dad..." Val mumbled dumbly, a clear sense of rising unease in her voice.

"Dad...?" Ellie repeated, her own tone growing thoughtful and deep, mulling over a similar series of thoughts.

"Something with Dad..." Val continued, her heart beginning to thrum as the clutch of rising fear had totally ensnared it. "Something's...wrong with Dad..."

"Something's wrong with Cameron." The portly opossum's words sounded as though they had meant to come out as a question. In actuality, it was an echo of her sister's worried statement.

"I-It's November...right?" Val uttered uncertainty, her lip quivering as she spoke.

"It-It is November." Ellie replied, sounding increasingly nervous. "Oh no...with all my schoolwork I completely...I forgot..." The previously oblivious opossom let out a horrified gasp. "Gods! I'm such a horrible daughter!"

Val's eyes grew wide, seemingly arriving at the same conclusion as her mortified sibling. "Oh...Oh no..." The sirens in Val's head grew louder and clearer. Realization had finally begun to set in, and with it Val felt her stomach bottom out against the floor of the garage.

It was the last week of November. A week that the vixen had, in recent years, done her best to eject and isolate from her thoughts as much as possible. Usually by dedicating it entirely to her work. It was a week that signified something dark and miserable for both her and her father. Not one, but _two_anniversaries that when recalled filled their humble little adobe home with a bleak, blackened silence so thick and utterly gut wrenching that it filled her with an almost irresistible and screaming impulse to run. Loki's cunning, Gods oh Gods, how could she have forgotten? Not even for her own sake, but for the sake of her old Mam'!

"Where's Dad right now!?" Ellie urged, her tone practically demanding an answer from her sister. An answer she cursed herself for not having. "Where is he!?"

"I don't know!" Val barked in reply, her eyes momentarily darting around the garage in a flurry as though she expected to see him somewhere in there. Immediately her brain was awash with troubling thoughts. Images of nooses, of pills, of various other dangerous methods of self-termination flashing through her mind, causing the knot in her stomach to twist and gnarl with each terrifying vision.

Val felt her paw crawling up to her throat like a spider, the cool sensation of her phone screen sinking into her pelt. She grit her teeth tightly and thrust the bulk of her worrying thoughts aside in desperation. She had to calm down, to soothe the fire alarm blaring in her head with a deluge of logic and sensibility. She knew her father wouldn't do something that drastic (at least...she was pretty sure that was the case).

"Think, think..." Val stressedly thought to herself, thrusting the door wide open as she began her search for the old tod.

The house was dark, and silent as the grave; a poor choice of metaphor Val regretted conceiving. The inky blackness of night made it nearly impossible to make out the furnishings and accents of the hall clearly while she stumbled into the void.