His mother had left, finally, fed up after too many nights that the old man hadn't come home. He remembered her paws shaking with rage as she called his friends first, and then jails, and finally hospitals.
The universe, as they said, was not without a sense of humor. It had been better for both of them, in the end, and better for _____, too.
But those first years after the separation were hard. His father was still drinking in shock, trying to find anything that filled the holes left by absence.
So they bonded over strange things.
He had bought the boy his first cup of espresso, "Don't tell your mother," and they surreptitiously eyed the same young waitress that served it as she approached the table. They had traveled together to view art openings, surreal, sexual, and often violent pieces composed by up and coming amateurs, or established artists from far off lands that nobody except his father had ever heard of. It was only later that _____ realized that most people's fathers didn't smell like beer when they were behind the wheel.
And then there were the movies. The old man had a keen eye for obscure film; the old man would drag hard on one of his filterless cigarettes, and explain how the audience had recoiled from Sergio Lenone's controversial content when Once Upon A Time in the West had first shown in 1965, and how the harsh electric discord of the soundtrack had unfolded before him like a revelation when he heard it for the first time.
It had taken _______ a long time to understand what was wrong with his father.
Alcoholism had rode that side of his family. It was only after he had suffered his own lost years, and had to learn how to forgive himself, that he had finally been able to forgive the fox that helped to make him.
But he still remembered crying himself to sleep at night, wondering why his mother was home with him alone.

December was a month for memories.
At least there was change this time around. He had quit his job along with Sagan, and they had finally moved away. The past month was a smear of chaos. He had burned through his emergency fund paying transit bills, and made up the difference when Sasha had come to him with a terrified expression twisting her muzzle; her funding had come up short when she needed it most, and there was nobody left who could help.
The decision was easy when he thought about it. A promise is a promise. He couldn't live with the thought of that small, miserable town eating her up any more than he could live with the idea of staying a day longer with the way things were.
Things sort themselves out, in the end (or at least, that was what he had been told).

And finally, he had a bite in the job search that mattered. The past couple of weeks had been full of paperwork, and drug tests, and immunizations. If everything came through he'd actually be able to offer something of value to society. The employment stretching behind him was painted in shades of grey. Waxing floors, and stocking shelves, and working call centers, and digging ditches. Wondering if that was all he was born to do. Wondering what would happen if he just kept driving past the company parking lot, driving, and driving until he went off the edge of the map, into the great unknown.
There were so many things that animals shouldn't have to do. Nobody should be screamed at for working a cash register. Nobody should be told they're garbage for cooking an order wrong.
This job, if he got it, would be real change. There would be an expected level of professionalism. There would be repercussions for mistakes. He'd be working with hard bitten wolves, most of whom had seen combat or worn a badge. It would raise the bar in a real way.

So the stress was finally settling in. It was all down to one document, the high school equivalency that he had gotten on three hours sleep after a long night drinking at sweet sixteen. He'd never actually seen it was the funny part. When he had called his mother she swore that she had, but all that paperwork was lost, not, gone with the memories and dreams that burnt up in the fire.

He raised his darkness in the darkness to the distant bureaucrat who was processing his document request. Here's to you.
A swallow, and a grimace, and then he set it down. He wiped his pawpads on his coat absently to remove the condensation from the glass, and wished there was someone with a cigarette he could steal a drag from.

He didn't know what would happen next.
It was a terrible month for the post. Either the paperwork would come through in time, or it wouldn't. The valley wasn't much better than where he came from, but even still, at least in the worst case he'd be searching for work somewhere that had options other than restaurants. He'd find a way. He always did.
One way or another, there had to be some resolution. There had to be work so his life could start again.

Kyra had video chatted him a few weeks back, bright eyed and hopeful. She had asked him if he'd ever thought about going to school north of the border.
It wasn't an entirely unexpected question, but still, he had to think about it for a moment before he replied. He remembered the headstrong optimism of his 20s.
The idea was magic in a lot of ways. Being diagnosed had set fire to the future, just as sure as the past had burned when his old man's house had went up in flames. Being close to her would be wonderful. A border between him and the wolves baying for blood in the political arena would help him sleep easy at night.
But he had told her to think about it. Ask her friends. Ask her therapist. Make sure that she really wanted a poor fox from a foreign country.
And he had to make sure that it was a change he could manage. His mother was old, now. His friends that were still alive were ageing. Time passed and the future had become narrow.

Seven days left before he turned 34.
The urgency had faded. The need to pack in all the things he might regret not doing. When he was still a teen he remembered scheduling his birthday as a grand affair; planning the friends that would be there and the grand debauch that would follow.
Part of him missed the old days.
Holiday parties had been fun. Crouched on the second floor of the warehouse with his friend and his ex, good and sideways for their efforts, and dancing in time to the music from the DJ downstairs. There was a special sort of affection native to the young. Walking home in the small hours before dawn, howling with laughter under the streetlights as they shared the last cigarette.
Your guard wasn't up in your twenties, so you loved unreservedly. There was the feeling of there being less to loose, because you didn't know the cost.

Such cost the years had brought. So much had been lost.

So he sat alone in the darkness.
Faces rose up before him. Tara's long muzzle, specked with white. He had loved and admired her so, and cried like a kit when the news that she had died had been passed his way. Karls, torso in profile, powerful canine shoulders like a mountain in the night. He had never wanted to trust again after that fell apart. Nathan. He had tried to make things work for almost a decade on and off, and in the end it had simply become obvious that _____ would never be loved in the way that he wanted.

His claws scraped on the hardwood as he stood, and pushed the chair away.
It was too much. It was all too much.
_____ staggered slightly as he leaned over and stepped into his pants. He rose, pulling his jacket off the rack hanging from the door, and tottered downstairs, sick inside. The door slipped from his paw as he opened it, pulled by the wind to slam against the railing outside, and he swore to himself. The neighbors already thought he was trash, he was pretty sure. They didn't need to think he was some kind of nighttime creeper. Carefully, he swung it closed, then, and leaned against it to lock it.

There wasn't enough room inside him for him to be himself. Maybe meaning would find him if he could just walk enough miles. Maybe some kind of peace would find him.
So he paced alone into the night, boots forgotten on the stand inside.