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How Not To Become Lunch: 58 - Talk
… *gurgle* … *glorp*…
Jack sat there, curled up in a little ball in the stomach of his best friend, utterly still but for the motions of the belly which held him. It had all happened so quickly. One moment he’d been out there, and the next…
*squelch* *guuuuurg*
Gradually, the shock of it all began to leave him, and he felt his first emotion. It wasn’t anger, it wasn’t fear, it was… guilt, regret.
Fi… she ate me… I… I really made her that mad…
*squuuueeeelch*
The walls pressed tight against him, squeezing him uncomfortably hard. He almost winced, and as the walls released, he felt the familiar, instinctive urge to fight back, to push and kick and shove and panic. But still, he didn’t; he didn’t lift a finger. The realization struck him with yet more shock. He’d never been able to resist struggling before. How was he just sitting there calmly!? In Fiona’s stomach!?
But the moment he consciously contemplated striking out at his surroundings, the answer was clear: this was Fiona’s stomach. This heat, this hot, oppressive, suffocating heat threatening to steal the air from his lungs, it was hers; the warmth of her body. The continuous, hungry squelches and gurgles, the loud thumping of another heartbeat in his ears, the many tight, shifting, constricting muscles that were already working in tandem at this moment to take his life, were the very things sustaining hers, letting her move and breathe and be. The death of him, but the life of her.
And he couldn’t strike out, he wouldn’t fight… because he didn’t want to hurt her.
The thought was obviously crazy, not only because her body was, historically speaking, obviously capable of handling a rowdy human meal, but because she had eaten him alive! He was in her stomach! The crushing walls, the rising gastric juices, this is where digestion happened! Death! Humans churned down into fat and protein! She had just pushed him clear over the line from friend to food!
And yet somehow he was calm. He’d been frantic in every other belly he’d ever had the horrific displeasure of visiting. But here he just sat, at the mercy of the werewolf and her gut. Where was the anger!? Where was the visceral horror!? The mortal terror!?
*thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud*
The motions of her stride jostled him, splashing her stomach acids across his skin as the walls around him kneaded and groaned.
We were friends all this time… and I made her so angry that she actually ate me…
There was no anger, he realized, no fury left. He only felt… sympathy, remorse. He’d pushed her over the edge, over a line neither one of them ever thought she’d cross. He’d… he’d torn the last strands of their friendship; been such a jerk that she’d finally decided he was better as a meal.
*thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud*
*glorp* *guuuurgle* *squelch*
…Maybe it’s for the best… She can move on… She has her new friends… he thought. But not out of malice or even self-deprecation, but as if they were some last, sorrowful hope. She won’t have to worry about me anymore… She did seem happy with them, when I wasn’t around.
*blorp*
Jack felt her belly growing gradually tighter, the air she had swallowed with him slowly leaking out. He wasn’t sure how long he would last, or even how long he’d been inside at that point, but he knew eventually he would pass out, and then her belly would take him. She’d churn him up into slop like all the humans she’d eaten before, like Ruby and Zach, and then he’d be nothing more than a meal she’d once called her friend.
I guess I knew that a marked human like me would end up as food one day…
*squelch*
As his fate settled in, impressed upon him by the walls of living muscle and bone- the predator, the werewolf, the person- that had claimed him, he felt a particular feeling peek through. It seemed so out of place here, but it was one he knew well, if not by name. It was the way he felt about Fiona, that same feeling she always gave him, always had and still did even now. A feeling that could devour and snuff out any hatred.
…If I do have to be eaten… I’m glad it was you, Fiona. At least this way I know you won’t be out searching for me, wishing you’d been there to save me… If this is what you want… I’m glad it was you…
…
Anger, then predatory bliss, and then a mix of both. Thoughts, giving way to feelings, giving way to raw physical expression and carnal satisfaction. Forcing a meal down her gullet. Her throat bulging, her tongue soaking in the most amazing sensation she could have imagined; her insides singing in joy while simultaneously crying out for more. And her, drowning in a mix of adrenaline and fury and stress and fear and the taste of marked human flesh.
And then the belly, full and warm. The squelch of her throat as it sealed away another meal. Some external sound registering in her ears, once and then again and then more of them. Cheers; cheers coming from people around her. She very slightly began to return to her senses.
And then, within an instant: terror. Pure, bone chilling, heart stopping, stomach-turning terror.
Barely half-conscious, she smacked her lips once, pressing her tongue into her palette, taking in the flavor. Jack’s flavor!! She couldn’t deny it. In front of her, an empty space. Her belly, the bulge in her belly. The big, human-sized- Jack-sized bulge in her belly!
SHE HAD EATEN JACK!!
“How do you like that!?” Pyre called.
“It was about time,” Mort chimed in.
“There you go, girl,” Udon added sweetly. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“You were right, Arthur. Well planned,” Chelsie acknowledged.
And then she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Better as a meal, huh?” Arthur asked, smiling at her.
An image of Jack’s happy, smiling face flashed through her mind, and suddenly Arthur’s smile filled her with nothing but pure revulsion. Cold, hard, horrid reality hit her like a punch to the snout. Her face contorted into an utterly appalled, horror-struck expression. Barely able to speak, she muttered under her breath.
“I-I have to go.”
Fiona turned, and ran. She ran out of the room, out of the door, out of the house, out of sight, sprinting as if she could somehow outrun everything that had just happened. But of course she couldn’t, because Jack was right there! In her stomach! And she realized with a literal breathtaking jolt that she couldn’t even feel him moving!
I- I have to get him out!! screamed the thought in her mind.
She hunched over right there in the street, and retched.
Her body- her stomach- protested violently, to the point where it almost hurt. They’d just gulped down one of the tastiest things she’d ever eaten! A full, delicious, wonderfully filling human meal, just like the ones she’d been eating all week only unbelievably better, perfectly ripe for the churning. A meal she’d been resisting for nearly a month! Restraining herself every time she breathed in a whiff of his scent and now finally theirs to digest! It was long awaited bliss! Long-delayed, sweet, satisfying finality! Her body all but refused to let that go.
But in a rage of terror and fury, Fiona insisted.
*blech* *blech* *blech* *blech*
Come on! Come on!!
*blech* *blech* *blech* *blech* *blech**blech-blech-blech- blech-BLECH* *SPLATTER-THUD*
*pant* *pant* *pant* *pant*
Chest quivering, entire body trembling, jaws dripping with drool and bitter stomach juices and the sweet taste of marked flesh, Fiona looked down at Jack; covered- thoroughly and completely soaked through- with the thick slop of her belly.
He gasped and shuttered, and seeing him move she took a deep, shuttering breath herself, overwhelmed with relief. For a split second, she felt the urge to rush forward and hug him, to hold him close if only just to ensure and revel in the mere fact that he was alive.
But she didn’t. She couldn’t. She’d just swallowed him. She’d eaten him! The most horrible thing she could have possibly done. The most vile betrayal she could imagine. She’d eaten her best friend! He was right! She was some kind of predatory monster that only thought with her gut! Eating every human in sight! How could she have let this happen!?
Jack looked up and she met his gaze.
She prepared herself to see rage, or even worse, terror; to see him scramble up and sprint away as fast as he could, away from the fur-brained pred who couldn’t control her instincts even to save the life of her best friend. And that would be the last she’d ever see of him, and it would be better than she deserved. Every millisecond she spent staring into his eyes was like a dagger in her heart, waiting for the retribution, thoughts racing, she was just about to turn and run herself when-
Jack jumped up and threw his wet, dripping arms around her waist.
Fiona flinched and then froze. His trembling body against hers, she felt and heard him sob. And then came his breaking voice, growing stronger and louder as he clawed back his breath.
“I’m sorry, Fi. I’m so sorry. It’s not your fault. I didn’t mean it.” And then between gasps he added- in a breathy whisper that Fiona felt touch the core of her being: “Please don’t go.” He broke down, repeating those last words over and over.
Fiona felt a dampness in the fur beneath her eyes, her chest heaved. And then she collapsed to her knees, she threw her arms around Jack- stomach goop and all- and she shared his embrace.
“I thought you were dead!” she sobbed. “You were in my stomach and you weren’t moving and I thought- I thought I’d killed you- and-”
“I’m sorry,” he muttered again.
“STOP SAYING THAT! How can you be apologizing to ME!? I just ate you!! What kind of sick person am I!? I’ve been fighting the urge every day since you’ve come back! I-I’ve been so scared that I’d do something stupid like this! That I’d let my stupid instincts take over and ruin everything and here I go letting a bunch of- a bunch of jerks that I hardly even know push me to the point that I tried to turn my best friend into dinner!!”
“I’m sorry!” Jack sobbed again.
“WHAT are you apologizing for!?”
“For making you feel like you had to!!” Jack cried. “For not trusting you from the start! For blowing up in your face and telling you it was your fault just because I was scared!”
“Of course you were! They made me lick you! How could I have gone through with such a-”
“No-no not of you!” He squeezed her tighter. “I was scared without you! All week while you were with them I-” his words were interrupted by a sob.
“I never should have left you alone like that. I was so busy chasing Arthur’s tail that I couldn’t even think straight! I gave you that stupid mark and left you to fend for yourself!”
“No! Stop!” In an unexpected role reversal the human boy squeezed the werewolf so hard that he pushed the wind from her chest. “I was scared because I thought I was losing you. Every time a pred got me I would start thinking maybe I would never see you again. The day I came back, I- I was so happy to see you again. But then you started hanging out with those other preds, and I let my STUPID human fears get in the way. I was scared they’d change you, that all you’d care about was hunting and eating humans and that having a marked human friend would start to sound like some silly, childish idea.” He sobbed into her chest.
She knew exactly what he meant. That dark, cold, empty feeling she felt every time he was out of sight for too long. That thought that maybe she’d never see his face again. She felt him pressing against her and wanted nothing more than to hold him just as tight as he was holding her, to hug him close like she would never let go, but she felt a sharp pang of guilt as the hot slime he was covered in squelched into her fur.
“But you were right. I did let them change me. Look what I did- everything I did- how can you say you should have trusted me!?”
“‘Look what you did’? Fiona, I was just inside your stomach and you let me out.”
“I almost couldn’t!”
“But you did! You fought and you did! How many other predators could let a marked human out of their stomach!? How many would even consider it!?”
“But what if it’s not enough next time!? What if I do something stupid again!? What if I-”
“I don’t care! I don’t care if I’m in danger! I don’t care if I’m scared! I don’t want to be… without you. I… I love you, Fiona.”
She took a deep, sobbing, shuddering breath. Everything in the world, all the pain and turmoil spiraling around her, stopped. She felt that deep, heart-wrenching fear in her chest, the terror that one day Jack might run screaming from her, that one day he’d see the urges she had to restrain and abandon her in horror… and she felt the fear disappear. She’d just told him everything. She’d just done everything. She’d just given into the worst possible low of her instincts and dragged him to the edge of death. And he’d said-
Fiona, tears streaming down her muzzle, finally pulled Jack tight, pressing him unabashedly, unrestrainedly close. And with a grand, quivering smile, she said the words:
“I love you too.”
And then they cried together, emotions pouring out, arms wrapped in embrace, pressed as close as any human and predator had ever been. Out in the open, out on the side of the road, but without a single thought to anyone or anything other than each other, they sobbed and wept in immeasurable relief, soaking in the other’s presence like it was the air they needed to breathe.
And Jack felt no fear, pressed against the werewolf’s chest and her hungry, empty belly.
And Fiona felt no fear, pulling the marked human she cherished lovingly against her fur.
And there they stayed, until the hot slime of Fiona’s belly had dripped into a cool puddle beneath them, and they both began to feel the hint of a burning sensation against their skin, and their breathing had steadied almost to the point where the smell was starting to hinder their breaths more than their sobs. And only after that point, did one of them finally speak again.
“Do you think I could wash up at your place?” Jack asked. “My mom would freak if I came home like this.”
“Sure,” she replied, smiling wide and almost even chuckling, just at the simple, pleasant thought of having Jack in her home again.
Slowly, Fiona started to stand. But she couldn’t bring herself to let go yet, and neither could he, so he let himself rise as she lifted them both up to their feet. They looked into each other’s eyes as a long moment passed, and then started laughing at each other as neither made any move to let go. Eventually, they did. Slowly and reluctantly, they let their chests slip apart, leaving long strands of thick goop spreading between them, as if even Fiona’s stomach acids wanted to keep them together.
And then they turned, shoulders still pressed together, hands clasped firm. And together, they walked.