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How Not To Become Lunch: 89 - Be Open
“And, so, yeah, that’s pretty much how the hunting games went,” Fiona concluded. She’d filled Jack in on the important bits between classes, like telling him that his friend was still alive, but hadn’t had the time to go into real detail.
“Wow… well, at least he’s okay…” Jack muttered in reply. He wasn’t sure what was more uncomfortable, knowing just how close Ozzy had come to being a fox’s lunch, or knowing that even Fiona’s best efforts to watch out for him weren’t doing much to improve the relationship. “…Sounds like he at least did drink the potion, though,” the marked boy remarked.
“I’m pretty sure, yeah. I think I could still sort of smell it on him.”
He gave a weak sort of half-smile, thankful that at least he’d been able to help.
Jack’s eyes focused forward as the sounds of excited kids caught his ears. The elementary school was just ahead now, with several students playing in the yard under the watch of a few nearby teachers. It didn’t take him too long to pick out a familiar little furball from within the crowd.
“It is still kinda wild to me that you can smell a potion he drank like an hour ago,” he added, keeping the conversation going.
“Well, werewolves are pretty good at that sort of thing,” Fiona replied, trying her best not to brag.
As if on cue, the particular pup that Jack had spotted in the yard suddenly froze still, all except for her snout, which he could just see twitching in the breeze over the distance. Then suddenly, the young wolf’s head snapped in their direction.
“Fiona!” Sissy called happily as she started running toward her big sister with an even bigger smile. “And Jack!” she added a moment later, arguably even more excited.
For just a moment, the human boy felt glad the little pup was so happy to see him. Then he noticed the slightly different tone when she’d said his name. Then he noticed her drop to all-fours and double her speed. And then, finally, he noticed the new, hungry look in her eyes as they locked directly onto him.
Oh no.
Fumbling frantically for his wand, he grabbed it from his waist, pointed it hastily at the furry projectile and sputtered out a spell.
“P-Pendere!”
Sissy leaped excitedly at him with her ‘little’ jaws gaping open wide… and then came to a sudden halt in mid-air, maybe a second away from his outstretched arm.
The eager pup’s brow furrowed after a moment, once she realized her marked meal wasn’t getting any closer. With a heavily limited range of movement, she did her best to look around in confusion before pouting and declaring, “Hey! No fair!”
Fiona let out her breath. For once, Jack had reacted a little faster than she had, and also not that she’d ever admit it, but the sudden recognition that a mage had a wand pointed at her little sister had given her a bit of an instinctive fright. It didn’t take her very long at all to regain her composure, though.
“That’s very fair, Sissy. He saw you coming and stopped you,” Fiona countered. It seemed that for the moment her ‘advanced class huntress’ and ‘big sister’ modes were more active than her ‘frantically protecting her friend’ mode.
“But I already surprised him twice…” the little wolf girl complained in mid-air.
Meanwhile, having already taken in the sight of that hungry maw for the moment it had been presented his way, Jack had started taking a few steps to the side, careful not to break his concentration yet.
“You, um, might want to move,” Jack warned, feeling his strength and focus fading.
Fiona was quick to comply, stepping away from her sibling’s face, and a moment later Jack relaxed. Off Sissy went, with all the energy and eagerness she’d given to her final pounce. The leap that had momentarily been interrupted, now came to its natural conclusion, only without Jack in the way.
“Whoa!” Sissy yelped with surprise, but she managed to land rather well on all fours and skid to a stop. The pup shook her snout, a little disoriented and still a little pouty. Fiona seeing her sister recover safely, turned her attention back to Jack.
“That was pretty good,” she complimented.
“Yeah, well, ‘practice or prey,’” he shrugged humbly, repeating a common adage amongst young mages.
“Well,” came a new voice, “hello there, Fiona.”
“Hello, Mrs. Pride,” said the werewolf to the approaching lioness.
“Don’t you look wonderful, dear. And don’t you just get taller every time I see you. You’d think I’d get used to that looking after kittens all day.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Pride,” Fiona replied with a light wag of her tail, bearing a shadow of that unique demeanor one tends to use when talking to their teacher. “Has Sissy been doing well?”
“Oh yes, just fine. Quite the wild little huntress recently, but nothing that causes us any real trouble. I suppose you already taught us what to expect.”
The canine teen glanced away with a hint of embarrassment.
“Oh, sorry, dear. I-” It was at that point her twitching nose finally snagged her attention, and her eyes shifted to- “I- I am sorry, but…” Wheels were visibly turning in the lioness’ head for a moment as she looked the human up and down. “…you wouldn’t happen to be Jack, would you?”
“Um, yes, ma’am,” the marked boy replied. “…Is something wrong?”
*gurgle* went the feline’s belly.
“Oh, no. It’s just that Sissy’s been talking about you quite a bit, and well…” She seemed to choose her words carefully, knowing her student was present. “We weren’t sure how much embellishment was involved.”
“Oh!” Sissy chimed in. “His ‘embellyment’ was this much.” She gestured with her arms the outline of a huge, bouncing bulge in front of her presently humanless-belly.
“Yes, well…” the lioness looked the boy up and down once more, “…quite the wild little huntress indeed.”
Jack was used to the eyes of hungry predators, sizing up just how big a lump he’d make in their hungry guts. But something about the way Mrs. Pride’s eyes hopped between the human teen and the little wolf pup’s belly felt extra odd. He could almost feel the question on the tip of her tongue: had he really fit in that little stomach? But she seemed to have the good judgment not to ask it.
“I’d be careful around this one,” the lioness eventually warned with a light tone and a grin, addressing Jack while pointing to Sissy.
“Yes, ma’am, I know,” he replied with an appreciative- if uncomfortable- smile.
“Don’t worry, he’ll be just fine,” Fiona replied, as Jack felt a familiar clawed hand on his shoulder.
Mrs. Pride regarded the gesture and the pair of teens with a bit of passing interest, before seemingly deciding it best to return to her other charges.
“Alright then, have a good afternoon everyone,” she bid happily.
“Bye-bye Mrs. Pride,” Sissy replied.
“Bye-bye, dear.”
…
“Aww, please Fiona? Just for a little while?”
Fiona frowned, half sympathetic and half annoyed, and took a small, calming breath. She loved her little sister, she really did, but this was the tenth time the pup had walked in on them in the last half hour.
“I told you, not right now. Jack’s trying to help me with math, and then he wants to show me this new comic he got.”
The marked boy glanced away from his textbook and frowned at the kid. Fiona’s experience- and perhaps her species- certainly made her much more resistant to those big, sad, puppy-dog eyes than he could ever hope to be. It was amazing to him how Sissy could go from strangely terrifying to really just an innocent little girl, whenever a moment came that she wasn’t actively trying to hunt him.
“But what am I supposed to do until you’re ready?” she asked pitifully.
“Why don’t you chew on your toys?”
“Well, I was, but… then I swallowed them all…” she admitted.
“Oh, Sissy… Mom told you those were for your teeth, not your belly.”
“I couldn’t help it! I got hungry! I just wanted to feel full. That’s why you should take me out hunting,” came the cleverly crafted child-argument.
“Did she not eat at school?” Jack chimed in, asking Fiona.
“I tried to eat this one girl, but she shoved me away and I fell over. Meanie.”
“But you had your other food, right?” Fiona clarified.
“Yeah…” the pup admitted reluctantly. “B-but I’m a growing girl!” she insisted, parroting what all the grown-ups always told her. “If you’re just gonna read math then you should at least let me have Jack!”
And back to terrifying again, the marked boy thought.
“Jack is not for eating,” the older wolf repeated for the hundredth time, rolling her eyes.
“But it’s his fault I’m so hungry! I always get hungry when he comes to our house!”
“I know. But he is my friend. And I don’t want my friend melting in my little sister’s stomach,” she re-explained, trying to keep her frustration at bay.
Not something I needed to picture, Jack lamented silently.
“Can’t I at least just swallow him up for a little while? Like you did?” the girl whined desperately. Her big sister’s eyes went wide.
“No! You cannot just-!” But Fiona stopped mid-sentence, reprocessed Sissy’s words a second time, and then worriedly looked over to Jack, ears drooping. The marked boy was wearing a similarly surprised expression, shifting into worried.
“…What did you just say?” he asked the little wolf. Sissy sensed the shift in the atmosphere, but didn’t quite understand it yet. She knew it didn’t sound like the loud ‘NO’ she had been getting a moment ago, so she replied cautiously.
“Well, you still feel good and yummy in my belly even when I don’t get to melt you. I could at least not be hungry for a little while…” The clever pup decided not to voice the part where she could maybe sneak away and hide long enough for her to really keep her meal.
Jack was desperately trying to figure out the nicest way to say ‘Sorry, but I don’t trust a hungry little werewolf girl with two close attempts to her name not to try and smother and churn me until I’m nothing but human-stew’. Luckily, Fiona beat him to it.
“No.”
“Aww! But that’s not fair, Fiona! He was my first human. Why do you get to have him in your belly when you want!? You’re lucky I let you share him at all!”
“I- I-” she flashed that worried look at her friend again, but then whipped back around to her little sister. “I don’t! Jack is my friend. He doesn’t go in anyone’s ‘belly’.”
“Liar! You ate him last week! I know it!”
“N-no- no I-!”
“I’m gonna tell mom you’re fibbing!”
“No! You can’t tell mom!”
And at that moment, the escalating sibling tensions suddenly went silent. Fiona had, just then, fallen victim to one of the classic blunders. Not only had she fumbled her denial, but she’d tipped little Sissy off to the fact that the pup now knew a secret. A secret Fiona didn’t want their mom to know.
The older sibling saw the look of power growing across her sister’s face and immediately tried to dig herself out.
“I- I mean, you can’t tell mom I’m lying because I’m not lying.” But her voice had made the truth so clear that even a girl Sissy’s age couldn’t miss it. Still, Fiona doubled down. “Right, Jack? I mean, that’s just crazy. I’ve never…” Why is it so hard to say!? “…eaten you.”
“N-no, I mean, yes- I mean- Of course you haven’t ever done that.” He shifted his totally believable denial toward Sissy. “Why would you ever think Fiona of all people had tried to… do that?”
“Because nose knows!” The pup insisted, as she tapped a clawed digit indignantly against her wet nose. “Last week, you came home smelling like Jack all over! Even with your breath when you were talking!” She shifted to the marked boy. “And you smelled like Fiona’s belly insides! All over!”
“T-There’s a specific smell for that!?” Jack exclaimed.
“Uh-huh! And I nose it! I nose what Fiona smells like! I nose what her belly smells like! And I nose what a tasty Jack smells like after he comes out of a belly instead of staying in! I nose knows!”
And with that defiant display of truth and grammar, the room fell silent.
Bones! If mom finds out I actually swallowed Jack I’ll be grounded for a month! But it’s not like there’s any proof, right? She looked to her unfortunately edible friend, and the expression on his face clued her in to the even worse thoughts going through his head:
What if my mom finds out? What if she never trusts you again! What if she’s scared you’ll try to do it again!? What if she never lets us hang out or even see each other ever again!?
Even without proof, if Sissy even managed to plant the thought of such a thing in the wrong person’s head…
Between the two of them, they could picture the entire scene. Mrs. Lupella asking around, finding the truth, freaking out, calling up Mrs. Eten in shock, Mrs. Eten really freaking out, pulling Jack out of school, moving out of town, never coming back, all because Fiona had screwed up their lives again-
“Sissy, listen to me,” her big sister said in the most serious voice she could muster. “You cannot tell mom about that. Ever.”
The pup put a claw to her chin and considered deeply for a few moments.
“Hm… okay,” she finally replied. “You let me eat Jack for real, and I’ll never ever tell mom you almost tried to steal him from me,” she accepted happily.
“Wha- No!”
“Oh come on, Fi! Even just for a little bit like you did?!”
“Sissy I am not ever, ever, ever letting Jack end up in your stomach ever again!”
“FINE!” she yelled and crossed her arms in a big pout. “…Maybe I won’t tell if you just take me out hunting.”
*sigh*… “Yes, okay, fine. Let’s go.”
“…and let me lick Jack’s hand.”
Fiona raised her lip threateningly, but Sissy raised an eyebrow. Jack watched his steadfast protector cave and turn to him, at a loss.
“Oh guts…” the marked boy sighed. He turned away and offered up his hand.
“Yay!!” Sissy immediately leapt forward and nommed onto it.
Jack flinched as he felt her teeth knock against his skin, though luckily not hard enough to do any damage, and then her tongue immediately set to work. He could feel the saliva-soaked appendage squirming its way up, down and all around his hand, worming its way between his digits, spreading her hungry puppy drool copiously across his contours, slathering it into every joint and fold as she savored his uniquely alluring flavor.
The young wolf hummed happily, pressing her tongue firmly into the morsel in her maw to draw out every taste she could, tail swooshing with big, happy wags. Oh, she’d missed this taste so much! Her one and only, special, marked, first human. Oh how she could remember how great he’d felt in her belly. If she could only swallow him down again with a nice *GULP* and have him-
“Okay, that’s enough!” Fiona interrupted, grabbing hold of Jack’s arm.
Little Sissy had been so lost in fantasy that her imagined gulp had turned into a real gulp, and Jack’s hand was now happily wedged in her eager throat. At least until her big sister gave a firm tug and pulled it loose with a wet, and rather sad-sounding schlurk.
The little pup instantly started pouting again, while also hurriedly running her tongue around her maw to collect every last remnant of Jack she could. Her belly gave a loud, forlorn grumble.
“Come on, let’s go find you something to actually eat,” Fiona instructed.
…
Hours later, and the sound of running water filled the otherwise silent air between wolf and human, as the night drew to a close and both prepared for bed. They’d both changed into their pajamas by now, and were taking turns at the sink, washing hands and faces and, presently, teeth.
“Sorry again about Sissy,” Fiona said as she waited her turn. “I know it’s not okay that I didn’t stop her from sucking on your hand, I just… didn’t know what else I could do.” Jack spat and wiped his mouth.
“I know, Fi. I mean, I let her do it too,” he replied with an uncomfortable shrug.
“I just… I don’t ever want you to feel like you’re… just walking food that no one is allowed to eat…”
She glanced away, and he felt something deeply unpleasant stir in the back of his mind. …Those words… those had been his words, hadn’t they? When they were fighting at Arthur’s house.
He stepped away from the sink, leaving an opening for her, and she stepped in. Taking her own toothbrush, she set to work, scrubbing at her sharpened canines.
“…Did… did you always used to brush your teeth?” Jack asked, shifting the subject as the thought struck him. He could remember her doing it a few times recently, but some faded memory from when they were both little told him that dental care like that was much more of a human thing. Preds didn’t have most of the same problems humans did in that area.
“No, not really,” she admitted as she shifted the brush to the other side of her muzzle.
“Why’d you start, then? It’s not like it’s fun.”
There was a long pause before her next answer, though it was hard to tell if she was contemplating her next words, or if she was simply busy. He watched her many gleaming teeth slip in and out of view as she worked them over, before finally putting down the brush.
“You remember that neko who almost ate you the other day?”
“Which one?”
“The tiger.” She dipped her snout under the faucet to rinse.
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
“Remember what you told me about his breath?”
“Huh?”
“You said it was so bad that when he started to swallow you, you almost choked.”
Jack remembered the comment vaguely. He’d mostly just been trying to lighten the mood after another close call, but he hadn’t exactly been lying. His eyes widened a bit as he finally made the connection.
“Oh! I didn’t mean anything about you. You don’t have to, like, worry about that just for me. Trust me, I got over wolf breath when we were, like, four.”
“No, it’s not really about that…” she replied, sounding a bit embarrassed, but she kept her focus on the mirror to keep the feeling at bay. Jack watched as she started picking at the gaps in her teeth with her claws, working out whatever she could find, and talking in between.
“I… just… never really thought about that part… of my meals…” she explained slowly between cleaning. “Most preds don’t get bothered by the same kinds of smells, so it’s not like I ever noticed. I started wondering if, you know, the humans I eat were choking on my breath on the way down.”
“And, what? You’re worried your food might judge you before they’re digested?” Jack teased playfully. “Trust me, that’s probably the last thing on a human’s mind by that point.”
“No,” Fiona retorted in kind, flicking a claw through the running water to scatter it toward Jack’s face. “It’s just, you know, I am giving them the worst and, um, last day of their lives, but… like, at least they don’t have to smell bad breath too?”
“So, you’re cleaning your teeth… for the humans you eat?” It was much more of a rhetorical question, as Jack wrapped his mind around the concept.
“I know it probably doesn’t really do anything for them,” she admitted. “I am digesting them all the same, but… there’s no reason I have to make it even worse for them, right? Maybe I could at least make it just a little less horrible?”
“Huh…” Jack pondered, trying to think. He’d been down more than a few gullets; how would fresh breath have improved things? “That’s… a nice thought, I think…” he eventually said, offering the best truthful reply he could muster, though he couldn’t help but add, “…But you do know stomachs smell way worse.”
“Yeah, well…” she paused to continue picking her teeth, “…not much I can do about that one.”
Nope… Biology is not kind to food… Jack agreed silently.
“Yes! Finally!” From deep in the back of her maw, Fiona withdrew her claw. “Geeze, this thing has been stuck back there forever,” she vented.
She and Jack both focused on the tip of her pointed digit, where a wad of something now clung. It was a fabric of some kind, thoroughly soaked through in saliva, worn and frayed from many hours of constant abrasion between the werewolf’s teeth and tongue. No doubt a stubborn, leftover scrap of clothing from one of her many meals, which had gotten snagged on the way into her greedy gullet. Not terribly unusual.
One thing did stand out about it, though. Despite obviously starting to fade, a dying shade of vibrant, ruby red still clearly glittered beneath the gleaming drool.
Fiona’s eyes widened, fur bristling. She glanced to Jack as he did to her; he looked like he’d just seen a ghost. She shook her head slightly.
No, there’s no way this was hers. I’m sure I’ve eaten other people in red since…
Jack started having much the same thought. He shook his head too. No, of course not, that could be any random piece of red… anything. He forced a smile. She forced one back, showing her newly cleaned teeth, and quickly flicked the debris into the trash.
Out of sight, out of mind… right?
…Right?
It was just another one of those silly awkward moments. They had those all the time. It would just pass like all the rest and before they knew it they would be-
“Hey…” Fiona muttered, turning off the faucet for an excuse to look anywhere else. “Can we… um… maybe… talk about… all that?” She didn’t have anything to excuse the long pauses between her words this time, only pure, visible apprehension.
After a moment or two of silence, she couldn’t bear not knowing his reaction anymore, so she glanced back at him.
Jack had his lip lightly between his teeth, arms in close as he nervously squeezed his fingers together.
“…Okay.”
The air grew thicker. In the silence of the approaching night, Jack braced himself, and Fiona sorted through her thoughts as she searched for words. She knew she’d hurt him that day, she knew that, it had been painted all over his face, the anguish soaking his scent. And she knew some of what she’d done, but… It always ate at her, that she didn’t really know how badly she’d…
The werewolf’s posture sunk lower as she felt the weight of the words in her mind. This was going to hurt. But… she had to know… what she’d done.
“Ruby…” The air itself seemed to almost creak under the pressure, but they held together. “…She… You… You two had a date planned.” Her voice was a bit too reluctant and flat to come off as a real question, but Jack answered anyway.
“Yeah…”
“…Did you… ask her, or…”
“S-she asked me.”
“That first time I took you to the place?”
“No, she… She showed up at my house a few days later.”
“She went over just to ask you out?” Fiona dug her claws nervously against the floor. That definitely sounded romantic.
“Yeah, she… She’d been so scared since she got marked, but… she wanted to try and be brave.” Jack couldn’t believe it, despite everything, he could still feel a faint smile creeping onto his lips as he thought back to that moment. “She left right after. I think that was all she could manage.” He almost laughed, remembering how flustered she’d been- they’d both been. Was he blushing again? He glanced at the mirror to check.
“And you were… pretty happy she asked…” Again, another question that sounded more like a statement, but this time it was more because she could see the answer right in front of her.
“Yeah, I… I couldn’t stop thinking about it… About her… I was so excited to…” He watched his own smile break in the reflection.
“Did you two… ever get the chance to hang out at all, or…”
“No… no, not really… Just the two SA meetings. We were supposed to after, but…”
“…”
“…”
“…You… really liked her, huh?”
Jack didn’t answer, just looked into the sink. Fiona looked downward as well.
“…I… I’m really… I’m so… sorry, that I… took her from you.” Each word felt pitifully inadequate, as she re-contextualized every moment since, now knowing more fully what she’d put him through. She could remember seeing his face, as they walked to Arthur’s house, the pain behind it that she didn’t fully understand. When he’d screamed at her. When she’d gotten him back out of her stomach and he’d-
A new thought suddenly crossed her mind. Her ears perked a bit and her frown went tense. The words. He had said those words to her. A question appeared, one that she would probably never find the courage to voice, but for this one, awkward, vulnerable moment. She glanced sideways back in Jack’s direction.
“Do you… feel that way about me?”
It was perhaps the smallest Jack could ever remember his friend sounding, even from back when they were kids. His eyes widened as he suddenly followed her train of thought. His gaze darted over to her in that same, awkward, sideways glance, finding himself unable to look anywhere else as he nervously clenched his hands together. He searched for an answer.
“I… I-”
Fiona felt a flurry of terror as she realized what she’d just done. They had just been talking about her eating his crush and now she’d asked that!? What in the world was she expecting him to say!? Her mind froze the instant she heard him find words.
“I- I… I don’t know,” he finally answered, voice thick with honesty. He felt like he was maybe starting to sweat. “I know that… that even after what happened, you’re… you’re my best friend, and… I couldn’t lose you, too. I- I didn’t… I don’t… ever want that… That’s, um… kinda all I can figure out… Is that… okay?”
There was a longer pause as they locked eyes again, and she stared at him. For once, he couldn’t seem to read her.
“…That’s, um, honestly kind of a relief.” She finally broke eye contact, glancing away awkwardly and smiling. “Cause I have no idea either.”
Jack had no clue what kind of reaction he’d been expecting, but somehow that had just been so perfect and… relatable that he couldn’t help but smile too and then.
“Heh- hehehe.”
“Pfff- hahahaha.”
The laughter started, and then rose, filling the room. They pointed at each other and laughed at their hopeless nerves, then at their own silly reflections in the mirror, and when the giggles eventually faded, they each took a big breath of the somehow lighter air and were just… happy to be in the same room together.
“Hey,” came a sleepy, almost squeaky voice. “What’s so funny in here?” The bathroom door creaked open.
“Sissy?” Fiona questioned, seeing her droopy-eared little sibling. “I thought mom put you to bed an hour ago?”
“I got up to pee,” the pup replied simply, rubbing one eye.
“Alright, well, come on, I’ll walk you back,” the older werewolf offered, reaching out a hand. Sissy sort of wrapped herself around the entire limb for support as she started dragging her tired little self back toward the door.
Jack followed them out of Fiona’s bathroom, and watched the canine siblings approach the hallway door. That’s when he noticed his backpack, conspicuously overturned and unzipped.
“Hey, what…?” he walked up to investigate. It looked like someone had gone through his stuff and- “What happened to my shirt?” He’d packed it away just after changing into his PJs, it should have been right on top.
*urp*
He glanced over at the half-conscious werewolf pup, now idly smacking her chops as she presumably savored the last of his aftertaste.
“Welp, I’m not getting that one back,” he remarked. Fiona sighed and rolled her eyes.
“Sorry,” she said again, for what felt like the thousandth time, glancing back toward Jack, then down to her hopeless little sister. “I hope you’ll manage to forgive her for all this someday,” she added rhetorically in passing, thinking of all the things the pup had put him through.
“I wouldn’t worry about it. I mean, she’s your sister after all,” he replied, not even really pausing to think. He didn’t even really catch the implications until a moment later, as Fiona passed through the door with a little relieved smile on her face.
Yeah, maybe someday… he thought. …I’d like that.