# HNTBL 62: Don’t Get Under Someone’s Skin

By: TheDragonBoy

## Content

How Not To Become Lunch: 62 - Don’t Get Under Someone’s Skin

*chomp*!

“AHH! What- No!”

Her fangs already in his neck, she used one hand to pin his wand-wielding arm between his back and her currently-flat belly, before he could draw the magical implement from his waist. Her other arm wrapped around his side, pinning his remaining arm in place, as her hand rose to his mouth and extended a single finger before his lips.

How Sarabeth did wish she could get her meals to stay quiet. Such a scene they always caused.

The ‘shush’-ing finger appearing at the bottom of his vision startled the human boy into silence for a moment, but only until he felt the twitch of those fangs and the entire world began to grow around him, and he began to feel very strange indeed. Then he continued screaming.

Sarabeth sighed internally. If her kind hadn’t been so well adapted to it, those screeches would have been nigh unbearably painful to any species with ears as perceptive as her own. At least as his size was siphoned away, his volume would shrink along with his little lungs. She looked forward to drowning out his undignified racket with the sounds of her belly.

As the lone boy’s cries diminished, a new sound caught her attention quite firmly. A voice, distant, and unfortunately familiar. Her eyes shifted to the lunchroom entrance, and admittedly were a bit surprised to catch sight of Jack, her unfortunate marked human acquaintance. And adding to the surprise, walking in right next to him, was Fiona.

Rather absentmindedly, she shifted her hand away from her meal’s mouth (it wasn’t doing much to help anyway), and adjusted her arm to better hold the boy in place as his legs shrunk away from the ground.

He’s still alive… and Fiona…

She’d been quite inquisitive as to their status, after the brash, unpleasant events of the previous school day’s lunch. But she’d missed seeing them at homeroom, due to some rather irritating events disturbing her morning routine and causing her to be slightly tardy.

The human-pred pair stepped into the lunch line together, clearly chatting and seeming rather happy.

Sarabeth flexed her fangs again intently, quickening her prey’s transition, eager to shut him up- or at least quiet him down enough- so she could hear what they were saying. It only took another few seconds before her sensitive ears could discern their words over her lunch’s blathering pleas.

“Really?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, he just straight up won’t talk to any of us,” Fiona replied.

Sarabeth’s brows raised slightly in mild disbelief. They were speaking quite pleasantly to each other. In fact, she doubted she’d ever seen a human and a pred so comfortable to be standing next to each other in a lunch line. The last time she’d seen them, hardly a few days prior, they’d been screaming at each other. What in the world had happened?

“It really pissed Pyre off,” Fiona continued. “He went up to Arthur after class and started yelling at him, you know: ‘how can you just ignore us like this?’ ‘I thought we were friends’ ‘Stop being such a jerk’.”

“Yeah, that does sound like Pyre,” Jack replied.

“I thought he was gonna end up in detention- or get clawed in the face. But Arthur just stood there and glared at him. The only thing we got out of him were a couple insults when he finally walked away.”

Hardly remembering for the moment the wriggling human she now held in the palm of her hand, Sarabeth turned to glance at the table typically inhabited by Fiona’s pack of classmates. Arthur was distinctly absent. She’d thought previously that the deplorable werewolf was simply off accompanying Fiona somewhere, but now the case seemed otherwise.

The vampire’s eyes lit up for a moment, a refined expression of excitement on her deceivingly human face. She’d overheard vague gossip throughout the morning that something had happened within that clique of theirs, but she wouldn’t have dared dream that it was Conri’s departure! She watched Fiona for a moment longer as the elegant werewolf filled up her tray.

If Arthur was really out of the picture as it seemed, then that meant Fiona was no longer under the influence of that mutt’s arrogant charms. Sarabeth felt a hearty spur of joy and hope within her. Her chances at friendship were not lost after all! Fiona was not gone forever from her life! In fact, now the only other thing she could conceivably have to worry about was-

“So, um, you wanna sit with them, or over on the human side with us?” Jack asked, glancing toward the advanced pred table.

Jack, the vampire thought, her inner tone somewhat neutral. She watched the boy looking awkwardly at his werewolf companion. Sarabeth could hear the hesitance in his words as he asked that question. Perhaps his hold on Fiona wasn’t quite so strong either…

Jack himself was completely oblivious of the snooping vampire, wholly focused on Fiona.

I hope she doesn’t feel like I’m just… expecting her to always stay with me now, he thought. He’d done his very best to keep his bias for that latter option out of his voice. He knew that might have been a bit of a loaded question, but he felt it was better asked. He still wanted her to feel like it was her choice.

And then there was the mention of ‘us’. Jack had glanced at his usual table a few times now, seeing Ozzy sitting there, friendless and dejected. Jack really wanted to call out, go say hi, do something to show his friend he wasn’t, you know, dead. But he’d held back because he knew Fiona was with him, and he wasn’t sure how he- or she- would feel about that…

“Oh, um, no I’ll sit with you,” Fiona answered definitely after a moment’s hesitation. “It’s okay, I already told them I would.” She’d been planning on it. Her last period had been her advanced predator class, so she’d just spent a fair bit of time with them already; she’d told them on the way out that she’d be with Jack for lunch. That part wasn’t what made her hesitate.

“Cool,” Jack replied casually, having to force his smile just a little bit, just like Fiona had to force that little bit of stiff apprehension out of her tail.

Sarabeth watched the pair start toward Jack’s usual table. If she wanted her relationship with Fiona to return as it had been before… this was perhaps a perfect opportunity, wasn’t it? Jack had done his job, hadn’t he? He’d pulled Fiona back from Arthur’s grasp, and now he himself was the only obstacle left. Jack, the poor, little, marked, human boy…

The vampire finally raised her lunch up to her face, sparing it a passing glance.

With Jack, she could just simply…

She parted her jaws and gently pressed the wriggling, bite-sized human past her fangs, sealing him inside with a light clack, and then:

*glrk*

Sarabeth let out her breath, her exhale passing through her empty maw, feeling her meal slip deeper into her body to sate her hunger. She set her eyes back on Jack, her expression distinctly neutral.

Jack would hardly be much harder to deal with… she told herself.

The pred-human pair walked together, lunch trays in hand, getting the usual mix of leery, fearful and incredulous glances as Fiona followed her friend to the human side of the room.

It’s fine, Jack told himself, as his eyes settled on Ozzy. It’ll be just like old times. We’ll just all sit together and have lunch… the three of us. He got close enough to comfortably call out, but continued to take a few steps forward as he built up the nerve. When he saw his friend’s eyes flick in his direction, he knew it was too late to back out now.

“Um, hey, Ozzy,” Jack said awkwardly. Ozzy did a doubletake, and then his face lit up.

“Jack!” he called. “Oh, man! I thought you were- I don’t know, eaten or something! You-” His voice faltered when he noticed the werewolf standing next to his friend, then cut out all together when he recognized her. His expression shifted. The smile melted uncomfortably off his face, like a meal dissolving away behind a furry bulge. “You’re with Fiona…” he said, much less enthusiastically, and even with more than a hint of fear.

“Um, yeah,” Jack replied. He stopped, and so did she, feeling the air growing thicker. Ozzy noticed the trays in their hands, and the way they both stood awkwardly by the table.

“You want her to sit with us?” He sounded almost disbelieving.

“I- I know she’s done a lot, but-” But what? Jack realized jarringly. She’s changed? She’s sorry? The only defenses that came to mind sounded like idealistic lines from… from a comic book or something.

“‘Done a lot’?! She ate Zach!”

The blunt, heavy force of those inarguable words- even just hearing their late friend’s name- kept Jack silent. Ozzy, on the other hand, seemed incensed.

“She- she turned our friend into a quick meal and some pudge! You think I’m just gonna sit here and watch her eat after I had to watch her-” his throat clenched up, unable to force out the final words of that thought, but the message was clear. “How- how can you even stand next to her!?”

It was clear the image of Zach descending the werewolf’s greedy throat was vivid in his mind, or maybe it was the later image of that bloated, still, gurgling belly. Jack couldn’t quite escape the thought either, he’d seen that belly too. The knowledge that that same innocuously empty belly standing just next to him had once held that familiar, friendly boy, and melted him alive.

“S-she didn’t know, Ozzy,” Jack replied, on some level saying those same words to himself.

“She should have! You said it yourself! Instead she went off with that werewolf boy and her new pack of friends, and they made me stand there and watch while Zach fought for his life inside her stomach! Why are you defending her all of a sudden?”

Last Ozzy had seen, Jack had stormed furiously over to the pred side of the cafeteria just to yell at her, and now here he was, showing up for the first time after missing a day and a half of school, and there she was back at his side. How could Jack possibly explain everything that had happened in between? How everything had changed? He couldn’t even quite explain it to himself!

“A-a lot’s happened, Ozzy,” Jack groped for words. “She’s not with Arthur anymore.”

Ozzy’s angry gaze shifted back to Jack, traces of disbelief and betrayal in his eyes.

“And you’re just ready to welcome her back with open arms? Forget about Zach and move on?”

“N-no! She’s trying to be around more,” Jack tried to reason, or more accurately, plead.

“Yeah!? Well, if she’s around, then I’m not.” He grabbed his tray, full of food he’d been too depressed to stomach, stood up, turned his back on them and left.

“Ozzy, wait…” But Jack couldn’t find any more words, and Ozzy just kept walking.

The din of the noisy cafeteria filled the wake of their quarrel. Jack and Fiona stood at the edge of the empty table. No Ozzy, no Zach, and with all the other unfamiliar kids having fled either when they saw Fiona coming, or when the arguing began.

Jack knew he couldn’t just stand there. Every second drew new eyes to him, a few of them predatory, and they only had so much time for lunch. He put down his tray, and almost reluctantly sat himself at the table. Fiona silently took the seat next to him, her tail drooping, ears flat against her head.

He caught the sad, guilty look on her face from the corner of his eye as she sat down, and realized she hadn’t said a word that entire time.

She’d had words she’d wanted to say, but she just hadn’t been able to find the… the right. What right did she have to defend herself? Ozzy was right, she’d eaten and killed one of their friends, she’d forced him to watch, what was there to defend? How could she expect any other reaction from him? Just the fact that she still had Jack sitting next to her was far more than she deserved. She’d never felt so guilty about digesting a meal in her life.

And Jack had never felt more conflicted in his life. Of course he wasn’t just going to ‘forget about Zach and move on’! Did Ozzy seriously think he wasn’t still upset at Fiona for eating him? And Ozzy didn’t even know about Ruby! Or the rest of Survivors Anonymous! Jack had plenty of reasons to be furious at her!

Seeing Fiona shift slightly brought Jack out of his thoughts for a moment. He noticed himself getting worked up and forced himself to relax. Because as much as he was still upset, he… well he knew her reasons. And more than that he knew she cared, cared more than she could even say. And he knew all this had hurt her too, hurt them both, and maybe that’s why every time those thoughts had come up, he’d pushed them away. Just so they could stay happy together.

Fiona noticed him looking at her, and shifted her gaze to meet his, though she couldn’t bring herself to turn and face him fully.

…They couldn’t avoid this subject, could they? It would just keep hurting them, and their friends. They couldn’t just leave it trapped below, burbling and churning, pressured down out of sight, sooner or later it would have to come up. It was time they-

*UUUURP*

“Oh, goodness. Please, do excuse me. Clearly my lunch has no manners.”

Both turned around.

“Sarabeth?”

The vampire couldn’t deny it felt good to hear Fiona speak her name again.

“Please, forgive my rude intrusion.”

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s okay…” Fiona replied, utterly dejected.

Jack glanced over the vampire, noting quickly the lump in her midriff, gradually growing as it quietly gurgled… and wiggled.

“What brings you here?” he asked. While emotionally he would have much preferred to remain silent and depressed, a friendly greeting (or as friendly sounding as he could muster) seemed like the more polite response. And he knew better than to be rude to her.

“Well, I very much couldn’t help but overhear your row with Ozma.”

“He’s…” Jack began, still not having gotten a firm grip on his words, “he’s just really upset about Zach.” His own frown deepened, saying that name.

“Yes, Zachary,” Sarabeth replied, expressing her familiarity with the name as well as the situation surrounding it.

“Did everyone know about this kid but me!?” Fiona exclaimed, her head dropping down onto the table, barely missing her lunch tray.

“Fi…” Jack said sympathetically.

The vampire looked over at the werewolf with an odd mixture of emotion. She felt bad for Fiona’s sorrow, and yet she felt proud. It was strange, Sarabeth thought, to look upon her friend in this state, and have pride be the strongest emotion she could feel. But after all, Fiona had captured and consumed a very worthy quarry, one which Sarabeth herself had been striving for in vain for some time. It was just another mark of the werewolf’s impeccable hunting skill that she’d managed to claim such a meal, and Sarabeth couldn’t help but feel proud of her friend’s achievement, and admire her all the more for it, even if she was currently regretting it.

“I wish I’d never met Arthur,” Fiona growled. “All he was trying to do from the start was screw up our lives and get you killed, and I…”

Jack put a hand on her shoulder comfortingly as her words trailed off.

Arthur was trying to get rid of Jack? Sarabeth thought. This was news to her. Is that what had gotten Fiona to abandon the charismatic mutt?

“Sarabeth…?” came Jack’s voice, interrupting her thoughts. She looked to him, her belly giving a loud, ill-timed gurgle as her meal struggled within. Jack did his best to ignore it as he looked to her. His words were still failing him; this sudden fight with Ozzy, all these changing feelings, his own emotions when it came to Zach… It was all a bit too much for him, but… “You’ve been friends with her a while, any ideas to cheer her up?”

The vampire was caught slightly off guard, though it didn’t show. She’d ventured over in the first place with the intention of cheering Fiona up, and perhaps hopefully ingratiating herself a bit. But she hadn’t expected Jack to ask her for help. The human seemed so sad to see Fiona like this… She looked back to the werewolf.

What would she actually say, though?

Sarabeth wanted to offer congratulations on a successful catch, but it was quite evident that that would not go over well. No, she would have to think of something else. All this fuss over a human meal, she scoffed mentally. But she caught herself, realizing quickly that if she were to be of any use in cheering Fiona up, she would have to at least attempt to understand her friend’s plight. Of course, Fiona’s sadness was directly linked to Ozzy’s, so in fact she would have to try and understand his plight as well; the struggles of a human.

All this over the loss of a human, she considered again, a tad more thoughtfully. …Over Zachary… Perhaps, if she took a moment to ponder it, she could feel something of melancholy for the werewolf’s late lunch; Zachary had been a respectable, rather pleasant human. If only for a moment, the vampire’s mind drifted back to the short time she’d spent at this very table, with Jack, Ozzy and Zach…

“It’s… understandable, Ozma’s reaction,” she finally said after a long moment. If she had lost a friend, she could imagine how it might hurt. The concept seemed so simple once she had reached it. In fact, thinking back to the times she’d sat alone, watching Fiona talking with Jack- “It is not easy, having a companion taken from you.” She skillfully kept the gravel from her voice.

While not wrong, Sarabeth realized that her statements weren’t exactly of the encouraging kind. She needed to think of something that might inspire some hope.

What does Fiona want? For Ozma’s anger to resolve? She couldn’t really even know if that were possible; she’d been without a dear friend’s company for a few days, not had one eaten. How was she supposed to know how the human’s mind would cope?

Jack gave her an encouraging look.

Jack, she thought, he was furious with Fiona that day…

“…But it is not impossible that he will recover,” she continued rather certainly after a moment. “Humans are… rather strange creatures. …They face death and loss near constantly, and yet they manage to remain collected and rational-”

*GUURGLE* *mmph-MMPH*

“-at least until their ends come. It’s the very same mental and emotional fortitude that makes them such remarkable prey. This ability of theirs to withstand the stress of the hunt, of life, and maintain their wits; to adapt and survive and remain happy in spite of all. They… they can be quite strong in this way.”

“Well, at least I haven’t depressed him forever,” Fiona said cynically, “…But I won’t ever be able to make up for what I did… I’ll never have his trust again…”

“…You can try,” Sarabeth replied. She wasn’t looking at either of them directly now, more so she was looking inward, almost lost in thought. “You are a remarkable individual, Fiona. So much so that it seems even humans can recognize it. Jack-” she did her best to speak his name without derision “-was utterly irate just the other day, and now see how he attends to you. He suffered Zachary’s loss just the same, did he not? If you wanted it, I believe you could win back Ozma’s favor as well. If you were sincere, I find it difficult to imagine predator or human reacting to you otherwise.”

Fiona’s head rose. She looked up at Sarabeth with a hint of surprise, and a glint of hope in her remorse.

“Do you really mean that?” the werewolf asked.

Fiona’s face suddenly brought Sarabeth back to her senses, and she quickly realized all the doting, borderline passionate prose she’d just spouted. Her eyes widened, and she took a curt breath. She forced herself to answer through her restrained embarrassment, hoping desperately that she was not blushing.

“Y-yes. Of course,” the vampire assured her. The very smallest hint of a smile appeared on the werewolf’s muzzle.

“Thanks, Sarabeth. Hey, um, why don’t you sit down? It’s been a little while, hasn’t it?” She still sounded noticeably down, but not quite so apathetic.

“I’d be happy to,” Sarabeth replied, her politeness maintained despite her extant shock and the mild fluttering in her chest- mixed in with the avid struggles of her lunch. She took a few more deep breaths as she sat. She wasn’t sure what exactly had compelled her to forsake her own decencies, however lightly and briefly, to say those words, but she was relieved at how it had gone. More than relieved, she found herself almost growing confident. Perhaps regaining her place in Fiona’s life would be easier than she had anticipated.

Jack peeked over from Fiona’s opposite side and flashed her an appreciative, welcoming smile as she settled.

Jack, she thought again. Arthur’s targeting of Jack is what prompted Fiona to leave Arthur behind… She considered that fact carefully for a moment. The mutt should have been more careful; I won’t make his mistake of getting caught.

*GUUURGLE* *GLORP* *mmmmph*

Originally Published: 19-Jul-2022