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How Not To Become Lunch: 64 - Control Yourself
“So, what should we do tonight?” Jack asked, pack secured to his back as he walked down the road. No invisibility spell required, not now that he once again had a second pair of eyes- and a toothy snout- watching out for him.
“Well, I have science homework,” Fiona replied, less than enthusiastic.
“I can always help with that,” Jack offered, sounding almost as interested in the ‘science’ part as the ‘helping Fiona’ part. She gave a single, short chuckle in response.
“Maybe I’ll actually get a good grade in that class for once. Listening to a human explain how ‘smell’ works is just kinda confusing. Like, I know how to use my nose, I hunt with it all the time, why do I need to be able to explain how it works?” Fiona sounded ‘slightly’ annoyed. Now it was Jack’s turn to chuckle.
“Guess you have a point. I think I have a comic on me too, maybe afterwards we can read it?” Ironically, it was the very same issue he’d attempted to share with her once before, but that copy had ended up… well, melting in her stomach.
“Yeah, alright.” She wasn’t really a huge fan of comics, but the thought of seeing Jack’s grin while he read and pointed excitedly more than made up for it. They reached the Lupella household and Fiona put her hand on the knob.
“Is anyone else home yet?” Jack asked. He needed to know if he should be bracing himself for Sissy.
“Not yet,” Fiona replied, with the casual confidence of a werewolf who could smell her family members from anywhere on the block. “Mom’s picking her up today, they’ll be home later.” She opened the door and stepped inside the empty house, flicking on the lights. Jack felt a hint of relief as he followed her, the stress of all those predatory eyes out in the world seemed to disappear as he stepped into the werewolf’s home.
“So, your room?” he asked.
“Sure.”
…
*gurgle*
…
*page turn*
…
*yawn*
…
*GUUURGLE* *glorp*
Jack glanced at Fiona, sitting next to him on her bed. Her ears were already drooping in embarrassment.
“Sorry,” the wolf girl apologized sheepishly. She was trying to study her homework, as was Jack, but her belly was making things difficult for both of them.
Jack knew rumbles like that only meant one of two things: she had a big meal digesting away inside (which she very obviously didn’t) or she was-
“I’m starving,” she admitted. She smiled awkwardly. It still felt somewhat uncomfortable bringing that subject up, considering everything that had happened between them, but Jack’s words to her gave her courage that she could share those simple, bodily urges without pushing him away.
“I can tell,” he replied with a similar awkwardness. “…I guess I’m probably not helping, huh?” He glanced at her snout, her nostrils lightly flaring and contracting with each breath, drawing in his marked scent.
“Well…” she couldn’t exactly refute that, and she wasn’t going to lie to him. But her stomach seemed to give a reply before she could fully manage one:
*GLURSH*
Jack felt the tiniest jolt of instinctive fear, but one look back to Fiona’s eyes quelled it, and the strange juxtaposition of emotions, mixed with the sudden sound and the awkward silence forced a little laugh out of him.
Fiona looked away, his response forcing a grin out of her.
“My belly can beg all it wants, it can’t have you…” she joked darkly. …back, she finished in her mind. Her little smile faded.
“You sure you want to wait till your mom gets home with dinner? You could always go hunt,” Jack suggested. The thought did appeal to her empty gut, but she dismissed it, she wanted to keep spending time with Jack, even if they were doing homework of all things.
“No, I’m okay,” she assured him. It’s not like she hadn’t had enough food. “It’s just I haven’t had anything big to eat since-” Her face fell, and she went silent. It was frightening, even to her, how a remark that seemed to start off so casual and mundane could lead so insidiously into that thought.
Me, Jack thought, finishing her sentence. Or had she meant… Ruby? After all, maybe he didn’t technically count. Either way, the thoughts that came to mind were far from pleasant.
*glrk*
Jack’s eyes drifted for a moment to Fiona’s belly, the bare fur exposed by her pred-teen cutaway shirt. They both melted in there… He couldn’t escape the thought.
“…Jack?” Fiona’s voice sounded meek and apologetic.
He realized she was watching him stare at her empty belly. He looked up quickly and her eyes caught him. She looked like she had something to say, but couldn’t quite get it past her muzzle.
“…You… you know I’m sorry, right?” she asked. He felt a little lump of surprise in his throat unexpectedly keep him from replying for a moment.
“…Uh, um, yeah… you told me, remember?”
“…No, I didn’t…” she replied, looking away. She seemed guilty, almost angry with herself. Jack felt both confusion and sympathy.
“Yeah you did, after you…” It was still a bit too uncomfortable for him to say, but they both knew exactly what moment he meant. The one on the sidewalk, dripping with slime and slop, when everything had changed.
“I told you I was sorry for, you know, swallowing you,” she consciously decided against the word ‘eating’, “But I never apologized for-”
*glorp*
She huffed quietly, annoyed with her own body’s inconsiderate timing. Admittedly, though, it did get her point across.
“Everything that happened at school today with Ozzy was my fault,” she told him, some of her inner frustration leaking through.
“No it wasn’t,” he replied, a bit of his own heavy emotions weighing down those words.
“Yes it was,” she insisted. “It’s my fault Ozzy’s upset because it’s my fault Zach is dead.” Her mind flashed with memories of that fateful moment, when she’d leapt out of the shadows of the hunting grounds, intent on taking the unfamiliar boy’s life for a meal. “…He hesitated. I should have known something was up. I should have known when I saw Ozzy! Instead I just thought with my stomach and my-” an image of her ex-crush Arthur flicked through her mind, and she mentally swatted it away with disgust.
“And why do you think he hesitated?” Jack asked, clearly forcing his reply out a bit. Those two words, ‘he hesitated’ had hit him hard. “Because his stupid human friend told him that he didn’t have to worry about one of the most skilled predators in his grade. He let his guard down because of me. Because he trusted me.”
“Because you trusted me,” she added dismally. “And I killed your friends… all of them…”
Jack went silent. ‘All’ of them; she wasn’t just talking about Zach anymore. He glanced away from her drooping, guilt-ridden face, a mixture of anger and sorrow welled up and he took a breath.
“…I was such an idiot, Jack… I told them about your meetings during lunch, I never even stopped to think that they might…”
Jack thought back to when Fiona had walked him to his first Survivors Anonymous meeting. The thought that she might one day lead a pack of hungry predators straight to the door had never even vaguely crossed his mind. He’d trusted her completely, and she’d…
“I swear it was never my idea, but they invited me to the park and then suddenly everyone was there and… and I… I could have tried to stop them, I could have tried to warn you… I should have.” She clenched her fists. She turned her head further away from his.
Jack had been smart enough to realize she must have had something to do with that raid. After all, she’d known when and where the meeting would be. But to hear her say it… Staring at the floor, he felt a flair of rage, the memories of that day filling his head. Part of him wanted to be mad at her, very mad. She hadn’t just led them there, she’d gone in with them, she’d helped them do it, she’d eaten Ruby!
But another part of him refused to let him forget the fact that he knew her reasons, didn’t he? He knew Fiona too well not to.
That split second image he’d seen from the corner of his eye; that glowing maw splayed wide to take him, rushing toward him. If Fiona hadn’t been there- hadn’t been in there with everyone- he would have been dragon chow, no question about it.
And that look on her face… The drool dripping from her jaws as she’d loomed. He had felt the hunger in her belly when it rumbled above him- above them. He and Ruby, pinned beneath the hungry werewolf.
“…It was her or me… wasn’t it?” he asked in a quiet, rhetorical, somewhat bitter whisper.
“…I’m sorry,” was all she could say. Scornful thoughts filled her mind, all directed at herself. Things they both knew they both knew, but that she just couldn’t say. She’d wanted to go in there, she’d wanted to feast, she’d told herself a million reasons why it wasn’t a big deal, and she’d enjoyed Ruby. ‘Her idea’ or not, she’d let it all happen.
Jack couldn’t just excuse this one. ‘Saving his life’ didn’t make up for the fact that it was her fault he’d been in danger in the first place. And he’d paid for his survival with his friends; torn away from him; swallowed down a hungry gullet into a churning abyss. Each one of those kids… and Ruby… and Zach.
Jack’s lip trembled in anger.
And then he heard a sound. A little, whimpering whine. He looked up. Fiona was still turned away from him, but he saw a tiny, glittering drop fall from her face. He suddenly noticed the shakiness in her breathing.
That burning, base desire for rage hissed and fizzled at the sight of that tear. What… what was he angry at? Fiona had done plenty to justify his fury, but the werewolf sobbing in front of him now? So racked with remorse that she couldn’t even look at him? Was that the sight which warranted his anger?
Now more than ever, below all the fur and claws and killer instinct, Jack saw in Fiona another kid, just like him. What did he expect of her? To always be perfect? To never make stupid mistakes? He couldn’t ask that of her. He couldn’t even ask that of himself. If he’d just told Fiona about Zach earlier, he would have still been around.
When they had been little, stupid mistakes meant that things broke, and people got mad. Now that they were older, it meant trust broke and people got digested…
“…Fi?” Jack said quietly.
She turned slowly to him, the fur around her eyes wet.
“…I… I understand,” he said. He didn’t know if he could forgive her… but maybe he didn’t need to. Maybe it was enough, at least for a start, to understand.
Fiona brought herself to meet Jack’s eyes, and saw in them that hope once again. A willingness to love her in spite of everything she’d done.
“Jack,” she choked, and she leaned forward and threw her arms over him.
He laid his arms over her back, sharing the embrace, and felt her chest against his as she took a few deep breaths.
*guuurgle* went her belly, her nostrils filling with even more of his scent, but she paid it practically no mind. No amount of instinct could possibly pry Jack from her arms in that moment.
“I promise, next time I won’t let this happen,” she vowed.
Next time, Jack thought. It was an apt choice of words. Because he and his friends would never stop coming face to face with the gullets of predators, maybe even hers, but… as terrifying as that thought was, as the world was, he was happy to know at least one predator was on his side, trying their best to keep him and the ones he loved safe.
And he was very happy that that one, was Fiona.