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How Not To Become Lunch: 98 - Take A Moment To Digest
“That is Viper,” Sarabeth said softly. “On our left side, ten tables away, coiled between the two nekos and the harpy.”
She took a casual step forward in the lunch line, and Fiona followed with Jack close in tow. Neither girl openly looked in the naga’s direction, but as predators they were both quite well practiced at setting eyes inconspicuously upon unsuspecting targets. Not that anyone would have likely noticed in the hustle and bustle of the cafeteria.
A long moment passed as the wolf studied the snake boy from afar. She took in his features as best she could and tried to get a sense of his size, but it was hard to tell with him coiled up and across the room.
“…I want to get a better look, maybe try to grab his scent too. Could you take Jack back to the table?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Thanks, Sarabeth.” She began to step away but Jack spoke up.
“Hey, you’re not gonna get lunch?” he asked. She was leaving the line, after all.
“Thinking about this doesn’t really give me much of an appetite,” she replied uncomfortably.
“Oh, um, yeah, okay.”
They exchanged awkward nods before she continued her stride out into the shifting crowd of hungry kids. The lunch line shifted forward, taking the remaining pair along with it; and Jack’s eyes, as they finished lingering on Fiona, happened to pass over:
Grizz.
The boy’s muscles twitched, despite the fact that the bear was several tables away and not even looking in his direction.
“You are nervous,” Sarabeth remarked.
Her address caught his attention. Honestly, having a predator read off his unease to him like it was written on a blackboard didn’t do much to help those nerves, but he supposed it was better than what predators usually did when they spotted an unfocused marked human.
“Yeah,” he replied honestly.
“I’ll admit, I am somewhat concerned for her as well. When engaging in a hunt for another predator, it is not uncommon for failure to end in… the opposite outcome.” Her expression shifted sharply for a moment, a tell of the reaction she was forcing herself to suppress. “But Fiona is a wonderfully skilled huntress. We should have all the confidence in her that she will succeed.”
At that point they reached the food and began being served, which gave Jack a convenient moment to silently freak out instead of replying.
I didn’t even think of that! This viper guy could end up eating Fiona instead! Now he really wanted to get a look at that snake, if only to know just how worried he needed to be. But instead he took a hold of himself, took his lunch, and took a few deep breaths. Come on, Sarabeth is right. This is Fiona we’re talking about. She caught an adult all on her own. She’s in the advanced predator class for goodness’ sake!
Jack pulled himself from his thoughts to focus on his surroundings as he began following Sarabeth’s lead back to their familiar table. He couldn’t afford to be distracted walking through the cafeteria. Still, one stray thought did creep in as he approached their destination.
Man, I really didn’t need another thing to worry about right now.
He sat down as that worry started to creep back in again, forking a few lumps of potato into his mouth, but started to feel his appetite might not be much better than Fiona’s.
“…You didn’t get anything either,” Jack suddenly realized, noticing the vampire simply sitting next to him without so much as a tray.
“Well of course not,” Sarabeth replied matter-of-factly, with a pointed glance down toward her belly.
Jack was confused for a moment before-
*guuurgle* *glrsh*
He noticed the slowly growing bulge in her shirt and finally remembered.
“Oh, right, duh.” With everything on his mind, he’d almost forgotten that Sarabeth had snagged and swallowed a kid right in front of him on the way over. In his defense, he still wasn’t used to how deceptively empty vampire stomachs could look before their prey began growing back, and hers had been flat for several minutes now before finally starting to show. (Just a byproduct of her rather ‘enthusiastic’ bite from when she’d heard the news.) He pondered for a moment how an entire, living person could be sealed away in there, struggling with all the same vigor and yet not even noticeable to anyone outside the predator who’d eaten them…
Jack shook the thought from his head. He really did have enough to worry about right now without getting pulled into the existential horror that was the food chain. In fact if he wanted to avoid facing that fate himself, he needed to focus on a different existential horror: teenage romance.
He took a few more absentminded bites of food as he thought about Lily: how she acted, anything she might have said that could tip him off to what she might like. No, not just like, really like. Enough to hopefully forgive Grizz and-
*grrrg*! *squelch*!
…Something that she would like… Maybe my mom could make her a dress or something? No, that would be too obviously from me, it has to be something from Grizz. …Maybe instead-
*churn* *glorp*
He raised another forkful to his lips, but couldn’t quite bring himself to finish the journey. He awkwardly lowered the utensil after a moment, appetite and intellect both defeated. He’d have to give it some more thought later, when he wasn’t in the middle of the cafeteria and Sarabeth wasn’t digesting her lunch right next to-
Wait, Sarabeth, realized the marked boy. She was a pred girl too, wasn’t she? A friend of his he could ask for advice? Sure, she wasn’t that much like Lily, but she had invited the frog to her last birthday party, so they must be at least kind of close, right? Plus, Sarabeth seemed like the kind of person who would respect his discretion when he didn’t want to give details.
“Um, Sarabeth?”
The vampire’s eyes, previously following a certain werewolf through the crowds, flicked to the marked boy beside her.
*squarsh*! went her belly, swelling another inch.
“Jack?”
“Could I… ask you for some advice on something?” he requested, trying to keep his focus on her face rather than her food.
“I suppose so.”
“If someo-” he faltered for a moment, struggling to come up with a framing that didn’t give anything away.
*squelch*! called the vampire’s stomach- a very apt warning for what Grizz’s guts would sound like should he misspeak.
“Let’s say I was dating a girl… but this girl was a pred,” he posed.
Sarabeth’s composed, neutral expression suddenly shifted slightly in a perturbed direction.
What? thought the vampire, like a warning he couldn’t hear. Naturally there was only one pred girl on her mind.
“And this pred girl was upset…”
WHAT?
“… And I maybe had something to do with the reason why she was upset…”
WHAT!?
“… What do you think I could do to make it up to her? You know, as a boyfriend.”
Is he-!? IS HE TALKING ABOUT FIONA!?
*SQUELCH* went her stomach, betraying her flaring fury as it suddenly squeezed down on the poor struggling boy inside. Luckily for her, from the outside it seemed largely involuntary, so Jack’s attention was only pulled to the physical churning of her powerful gut and not the mental churning of her frantic mind.
The pieces fit all too well, right down to Fiona currently being upset due to one of Jack’s friends. ‘Something to do with it’ indeed. But could it really be?! The thought had crossed her mind a few times before, but she’d always dismissed it out of hand. A human and a werewolf!? That alone was a pairing already too unlikely to seriously consider. Let alone a marked human and a huntress in the advanced predator class. And yet, did she not already know the pair’s relationship to be quite the exception to the norm? Had she not already come to accept aspects of Fiona’s affections for this human which she might have thought practically impossible but a few weeks earlier?
Is Jack… Does this marked human boy dare imply that he and my beloved Fiona are actually COURTING!?
Having only recently resolved to spare his life, the vampire now had some not-so-old ideas quickly returning to mind, and found herself ruing the prey already in her stomach for taking up the position he now so rightly deserved. If she’d not already eaten she might have sunk her fangs into him right there on the spot! In fact she might even still if only to-!
“…Sarabeth?”
To her credit, she still seemed remarkably composed on the surface, just frozen still, stiff with tension, and having conspicuously forgotten to breathe for several seconds. Jack’s tone was just as much concerned for her as he was about her.
The vampire took a long, deep breath between her fangs.
Sarabeth Antoinette Beatricia, calm yourself. You mustn’t leap to conclusions.
“…This would… of course depend on the young lady in question,” she finally replied, managing to keep the venom from her voice. “Perhaps if you could give some more information?”
“Well, um, this is- I mean I’m not actually talking about anyone specifically,” Jack lied. “But what if, I don’t know….” he tried quickly to think up a trait of Lily’s that wasn’t too on the nose, “…it was someone kinda popular?”
*SQULARSH*!
POPULAR like someone from the ADVANCED class?
Jack’s eyes darted down to her stomach.
“Um, are you alright?” he asked. Despite his years in isolation, recent weeks had gotten him well acquainted with predator bellies- arguably much more acquainted than most other humans still living- and the vampire’s was starting to sound a bit intense, even for a fresh human meal. Not to mention the discomfort growing ever clearer on her face.
“I…” She took another breath. “…perhaps could do with a trip to the lady’s room.” She stood up, her now-large stomach rising to fill Jack’s view as it trembled with the struggles of the human inside. “Please do excuse me.”
As she walked off with a quick, purposeful stride, Jack was left quickly checking his surroundings and feeling for his wand, realizing he was now alone in the cafeteria. He hardly realized that Sarabeth had done him a favor, because if she had stayed she likely would have ended him herself.
Hearing a muffled cry from her stomach, she noticed and then consciously relaxed the tremendous tension she was placing on her unfortunate meal.
Take control of yourself! she commanded inwardly. If you act in haste you are just as likely to destroy your own future. Surely if Fiona is- she could hardly even bear to think the words- ‘dating’ Jack, then attacking her chosen, openly in clear view of our peers would be tremendous folly.
She stepped into the relative privacy of the restroom. These thoughts were sounding all too familiar to her and she knew it. But this was different! She’d accepted that Jack’s friendship with her Fiona was to the werewolf’s benefit- and importantly would be no impediment to her own desires. But a romance was something else entirely! How could she go on to woo the beautiful huntress if her beloved were already spoken for!? No! This could not be allowed! Jack would have to be-!
Another thought crossed her mind. A memory of her poised over the sleeping marked boy, ready to strike in the dead of night. Her half-hidden scowl shifted more into a regretful frown.
Jack… is an affable young human… One who has shown himself to be respectable… It would certainly be… unfortunate for him to perish prematurely without good, certain cause…
She ran some water.
Somehow, over the course of things, she had grown to enjoy the boy’s company on some level. And while the thought of him stealing her wonderful Fiona away was intolerably infuriating, it was only a thought. A notion backed only by implication and innuendo. She could not justify his demise and the inevitable effects on her fancied canine with a simple hunch.
Of course, she couldn’t very well just let this go, either.
I must know for certain, she decided. Surely… surely it’s not even possible, she told herself, slowly regaining some of her better judgment. But for the sake of my sanity and my future, I must determine the truth without doubt.
She considered her next move. She already kept common company with both Jack and Fiona, and honestly a notable amount of her day was spent on the lookout for the latter as it was. She would just need to broaden her activities. If watching over Fiona came easily to her, then certainly Jack would be no harder; she could even encounter him openly if need be, under the guise of her protection. And surely it would only take enough time in their vicinity for her keen vampiric ears to capture the truth.
I will be observing you very closely now, Jack Eten, she decided.
*gruuuurg*
Her belly gave a low, ominous rumble, and she took a moment to consciously flex her stomach around the wriggling schoolmate inside, now fully returned to size and properly bulging out her top.
For better or for worse.
*squelch*