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How Not To Become Lunch: 91 - Don’t Zone Out
It was late into the period, and the halls were just starting to fill up again as the quicker students finished their lunches, making early starts toward lockers or classrooms, or just wanting to get out of the cafeteria to someplace less crowded with chatter and chomping and churning bellies.
And then there was Jack, a marked boy taking a nice, casual, not-at-all-awkward pleasure stroll with an aggravated dragon and their toad escort. Just a quick trip down the halls and back; but these high school passageways had a funny way of always feeling far too long.
He was letting Pyre lead, but he was keeping close. He knew the dragon was hunting, and he didn’t want to be in the way when the moment came. But he couldn’t stray too far without-
“Come on, stay together you two,” Mort remarked teasingly.
That was the idea after all, right? This was supposed to be an excuse for them to be around each other, maybe even open up a little. Jack took a few quicker steps to close the distance at the toad’s insistence. He’d been silent for a bit, hoping Pyre would say something this time, but that didn’t seem to be happening, so the marked boy once again mustered his nerve to ask another question.
“…Do you… have a favorite class?”
“Pft, no,” the dragon boy scoffed dismissively.
“Oh… Mine’s probably Language.”
“Whatever.”
Silence set in again. Another failed attempt at conversation. It had been the same thing when Jack had asked how Pyre’s day had been going, or how his weekend had been; curt, blunt answers that led to nothing. They really weren’t getting anywhere, other than further down the hall.
“Mort?” Jack asked with a bit of social desperation, turning to the toad who was trailing a few paces behind them. But he just smirked and shook his head.
“Nope, this whole thing is supposed to be for you two to hash things out yourselves. I’m just here to referee.”
Pyre grunted quietly in annoyance and Mort smirked wider, almost chuckling in amusement. Jack sighed, letting a few more paces pass in silence. He once again hoped that the dragon would say something, but the scaly predator just kept scanning over the passing students, looking anywhere but at Jack. That was probably a good thing, since Pyre was looking for a meal, but still.
“…What do you like to do for fun?” Jack eventually asked in another attempt to break the silence.
“Digest annoying humans until they shut up,” Pyre grumbled, as did his stomach.
That was a ‘pleasant’ thought… Jack saw Mort hop up to the dragon’s side and give him an elbow.
The hush was longer this time, as the marked boy pondered the seeming futility of this little exercise. This was never going to work. How was he even supposed to try and improve things with Pyre if the dragon was just going to bite the head off every attempt. What did Pyre even have against him? Why this seemingly huge grudge? What had Jack ever done to him!?
“… … Hey, um, Pyre?”
The dragon continued not looking at the marked boy, so Jack just kept talking after a moment.
“I’m sorry about, you know, attacking you in the cafeteria that one day… with that big spell.”
It wasn’t exactly something Jack felt particularly guilty over; after all they weren’t exactly friends at the time, and if he were being honest the dragon had been acting like a huge jerk and had been threatening to eat him. Still, it probably hadn’t been the nicest thing to do, and Jack did want to try and move forward.
“I was really angry that day, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you,” he continued. “Sorry if you got hurt, or got picked on or anything. …Think you could, um, forgive me?” They were hard words to choke out, admittedly, but he did mean them. If that’s what it took to really connect with this guy, Jack was willing to be the bigger man.
“Dude, seriously?” Pyre snapped, having lost none of his aggravation. He was finally looking in Jack’s direction, but not at all in the way the marked boy had hoped. “You think I care that you managed to land a lucky shot? Yeah, sure, apology ACCEPTED.”
At the very end of his sentence, the dragon suddenly lunged. It caught Jack almost completely off guard. The wall of scales in a crop-top tee just rushed at him out of nowhere, arms and claws suddenly reaching out in a flash of predatory precision.
The marked boy recognized the pounce the moment it met his eyes. He’d seen it from this very perspective far too many times. But he didn’t have time to react, not when he was already this close and this unprepared. All he had time to do was flinch and stumble and close his eyes.
He felt the scales hit his chest as he lost his balance, and expected fully to feel the death-grip of predatory hands around his shoulders to hold him firmly in place, likely followed by the hot, tight embrace of a draconic muzzle.
But instead he felt something else. His back knocked against another form, tripping him up even further. And when he finally started to fall, no powerful claws came to hold him in place. Jack thumped to the floor on his bottom as a scream from very nearby filled his ears.
“Ahhhhhh!”
*NOMF*
A split second later, having arrived on the ground, Jack opened his eyes again. Pyre’s legs and clawed feet towered prominently to one side of him, but on the other side was a second pair of limbs. Shoes, socks, slimmer pants; human clothes.
*GULP*
The shoes lifted off the ground.
Pyre had found his prey: another human boy who had been finishing up at his locker while the trio had been walking by. They’d passed the kid on Jack’s side, and the dragon had plowed right through the marked boy like he wasn’t even there, knocking the obstacle out of his way as he claimed his meal.
*thunk* *clack-clack*
Jack felt something knock against the side of his head as it fell and then clatter to the floor beside him. A wand. The marked boy saw the wooden tool roll away, then looked up to see the hand it had just been wrenched out of. A moment later he had to shield himself as the rising legs started to flail near his face. He quickly scooted away but didn’t make it far before his back hit up against Pyre’s legs.
*GULP* *squelch*
The kicking shoes jerked higher, as the sounds of a hungry digestive system filled his ears from uncomfortably close by. It pulled his gaze upwards. Blotting out the overhead lights, the arching form of a panicked human schoolmate hung directly overhead, the poor prey’s back pinned up against the lockers, and his front disappearing into the muzzle of an angry dragon.
*GULP*
The human overhead shot forward, hips quickly disappearing between gaping jaws. And in between Jack and his view of the unfolding scene, a slight, scaly bulge began to swell from the predator’s belly. It trembled and twitched, and leaked muffled cries of fresh panic, as the head of Pyre’s prey finally entered his empty stomach.
*SQUELCH*
Jack could hardly even hear the next swallow, not over the clear, vivid, visceral sound of the dragon’s stomach expanding right next to his head. The audible details of the other human’s head and shoulders pressing out into the slime-covered walls and forcing them wider, with acids and juices eagerly spreading over every new inch of fresh prey; all came through into Jack’s mind with lucid detail.
*SLORSH*
Another meaty gulp and the belly suddenly bulged out much wider, knocking into the side of Jack’s head as the prey within struggled. Of course, it hadn’t been a very hard impact at all, not with Pyre’s powerful stomach walls holding his meal tightly restrained. Still, it was more than enough to freshly frighten the marked boy, sending him quickly scrambling against the relative safety of the lockers, now that the other boy’s legs were high and out of the way.
Looking up, the quickly growing bulge eclipsed most of his view now, with the rest predominantly being the bottoms of his schoolmate’s shoes, as they kicked helplessly against the swelling mass of scales, but not for long.
Pyre lifted his head, along with the remainder of his prey’s legs, and let gravity aid him in another hungry swallow. Jack watched the bulge jut out further in his direction, now properly thrashing with the struggles of a doomed human meal, gurgling and splatting and growling in an overlapping cacophony.
The dragon above felt a wave of pleasure and relief, reveling for a moment in the sensation of his stretching gut, and the wonderful warmth of the meal and movements within. That marked kid had really gotten him hungry, not to mention pissed off, and this was just the perfect remedy for both those issues.
For a moment, Pyre vaguely noticed Jack’s familiar form crawling out from under his growing bulge, but he hardly paid that any mind. Instead he just took another meaty swallow, a smaller one this time, taking just a moment to feel his prey’s torso fully slip into his hungry belly, legs sliding smoothly against the proud lump in his gullet, ankles now tickling the tip of his chin.
*guuurgle* called his eager stomach, and he happily obliged.
*GLUUURK*
Over the course of a small few seconds, Pyre felt the trailing end of his meal glide the rest of the distance down into his belly as it swelled to its full, familiar size. His lunch settled with a wet splatter and a lively slosh, rocking his distended gut and sending a delightful little shiver along his scaly spine. The dragon grinned a predatory grin.
“Nice. That- *UURP* -hit the spot,” Pyre gloated, patting his new prize. “This is the only kind of ‘hanging out’ I wanna do with a human. Them hanging out from my-” The dragon stopped. He’d turned his head to where he’d thought Jack had crawled to, intent on teasing the kid, but the marked boy wasn’t there. Confused, he looked back the other way and found Mort, but only Mort. “Hey, where’d he go?”
“Huh?” The toad blinked. He knew Jack had been right there before Pyre’s big belly had blocked his view. “What do you mean? Isn’t he-?” Hopping over to the dragon’s side, Mort cut himself off early when he clearly saw the marked boy was nowhere to be seen. He seemed visibly confused before eyeing the newly thrashing belly with suspicion. “Dude, you didn’t eat him too, did you?”
“What!? No! Does it look like I’m sporting a double to you? Of course I didn’t-”
“Um, dude,” Mort interrupted, now pointing down the hall.
Past two or three other kids, slowly walking away from them, was a fox boy: hands wrapped tightly around a human’s hips, gullet wrapped even tighter around the upper body, with a pair of frantic, flailing, familiar legs protruding up into the air. Both of them knew immediately that it was Jack on his way down that vulpine gullet.
Mort expected Pyre to start moving, or at least say something. When neither happened, he looked back to his scaly friend and found the dragon smirking and watching.
*glurk* went Jack’s body, as he plunged deeper into the departing fox.
“Dude!” Mort urged with a stiff elbow into a newly stuffed gut.
“Yeah yeah, I know,” Pyre replied, starting to walk briskly. “It was just good to get a break from his stupid conversation stuff. He’s a lot nicer to hang out with when he’s stuffed down a throat.”
Mort hopped along quickly to keep up, starting to feel a little worried as more of the marked boy disappeared from view. He was starting to imagine what Fiona might do to them if they didn’t hurry.
Meanwhile, a certain half-stuffed fox was continuing to obliviously enjoy himself.
Wow! I can’t believe it! Wily thought, another wave of bliss washing through his body as the fresh marked flesh squirmed against his gullet. I finally did it! I caught Jack! It was really lucky that that dragon kid made such a big distraction with his lunch. Jack totally didn’t even see me coming this time because he was so busy watching that! If I run into that dragon again, I should really thank him.
*glurk*
Oh wow, this kid really is delicious. This might be the best day I’ve had all month, definitely the best meal. That’s right, just slide right down into-
“Hey!” The harsh, angry growl pulled Wily right out of his happy place.
He looked back to see that nice dragon boy who had made the distraction, only he didn’t seem so nice at the moment. In fact he looked pretty mad and pretty annoyed, and was pretty much charging right at him.
“Get back here with that human!” Pyre yelled as he approached.
Oh NO! Was that dragon kid going for a double lunch!? Was this supposed to be his!? Shit!
With a gullet full of delicious marked meal just begging to be swallowed, head half clouded with bliss and the rest with sudden panic, and a big scaly brute barreling down the hallway in his direction, he did the thing his instincts were screaming at him to do:
Run.
The fox flung his head forward again and immediately started dashing away at his top speed. But things didn’t exactly go as planned. Jack’s legs still protruding out from his muzzle had a bit more inertia than he was expecting. He’d whipped his head around hard, and a moment later when his prey’s feet caught up, they kept on going and the momentum jerked his snout firmly to the other side.
Already committed to his dead sprint, Wily was unable to keep his balance, and quickly stumbled off course. He scrambled to both keep up speed and get back straight again, but each new step only took him further into disarray, until he finally tripped over himself and stumbled sideways toward the nearest wall.
*CLANG*!
The side of Wily’s head knocked into a locker, rebounding off and sending the poor pred tumbling to the ground. He landed splayed out on his back, his lunch’s legs still kicking straight up from his maw.
“Whoa! Hey, are you alright!?” Mort asked as he and Pyre quickly caught up, the fox having only actually made it a handful of steps before crashing.
Wily blinked his unfocused eyes in a daze, and grunted weakly.
Snatching one of Jack’s flailing ankles, Pyre placed a foot on one of the canine’s legs and pulled.
*sluuuuuuuurk*-*pop*
Out came Jack Eten, gasping and panting, dripping in fox drool, and just as dazed as his predator.
“Ick,” the dragon snarled. He swung the rescued boy across lightly until he was no longer over the vulpine jaws and then quickly let him go onto the floor; kind enough not to drop him, but not enough to be particularly gentle.
“Oof! …Ugh…” Jack grunted and groaned. It took a few seconds before the boy could catch his breath and blink the stomach slime out of his eyes. When vision finally returned, he focused on the blurry red figure standing overhead. “…Pyre?” he asked, recognition the only thing filling his mind as the fog of consumption faded. “…And Mort?” he added as the shorter predator hopped into view. “Wha… what happened?”
“You almost got eaten, man,” the toad said bluntly. “I really thought you’d be more careful; you hang out with a werewolf for Goodness’ sake.”
“Oh, sorry,” Jack replied weakly, finally sitting up and wiping some of the goop from this face. “I do my best but it still happens sometimes.” He noticed the semi-conscious fox on the floor next to him, and the lingering strands of drool that still connected the two of them. “Did you guys save me? Wow, thanks. A lot.”
“Don’t mention it,” Mort responded. “I mean, Fiona would have skinned us if we didn’t. Plus it was really Pyre who did most of the work.” Jack focused back on the dragon, a bit more lucidly now.
“Really? Well, I guess you must care about me a little bit after all,” he said lightly. “Thanks. Seriously.”
“What I care about is not having a sobbing werewolf clawing at my back,” the dragon snarled back.
Jack, in the middle of standing up, nearly flinched and lost his balance at the unexpected hostility.
“Grrr, now look at you. Covered in fox drool down to your shorts. She’s gonna totally flip out when she sees you!”
“No don’t worry about it,” Jack said in an attempt to calm him down. “It happens all the time. I think she’s pretty used to it by now. She’ll probably just be happy to see you didn’t let anyone get away with me.”
“It happens all the-” The angry dragon spat back the human’s words with frustration until they seemed too unbelievable to leave his own throat. Then he just gawked and stammered for a moment before finally blurting out, “How the FUCK are you even HERE!?”
“W-What?” Jack asked, confused and a bit nervous.
“You’re a marked human, you’ve gotten almost eaten enough times that it barely even bothers you anymore, but you’re somehow still alive! Still right here bugging me!” The dragon wasn’t really asking a question at that point, mostly venting his incredulity. Still, Jack made a shaky attempt to answer anyway.
“I- I- well- F-Fiona-”
“Oh, right, of course!” he raved sarcastically. “It’s because of the top-tier huntress who marked you in the first place and then suddenly decided to make friends with her random high-school lunch and protect you like her life depends on it. How does that make any sense!? How does any of this happen!?”
“Yo, Pyre, chill out,” Mort said, intervening a little in an attempt to contain the flaming dragon. The following few wordless breaths gave Jack enough time to compose himself and speak up.
“Fiona didn’t meet me in high school,” the marked boy corrected tentatively. “We’ve been friends since we were little kids.”
“W… What?” Pyre stammered slowly.
“Yeah, didn’t you know that?” Mort asked. “They’ve mentioned it before.” But the look on the dragon’s face made it pretty clear that he definitely hadn’t been listening whenever that had been. Jack caught on and realized that this might be his chance. Pyre was listening now; actually listening. If he could just get the guy to understand…
“Our parents introduced us when we were really young. We kinda grew up together, for a while at least. We always loved hanging out together. Back before all this predator and prey stuff really mattered, before my mark… It was my fault. She never meant to do this to me. I asked her to bite me one day because I was a dumb kid, and then my parents flipped out and moved us far away for years. Fi… she’s been living with the guilt all this time. She tries so hard to protect me because… because she wants to make up for it… because she doesn’t want to lose me again. And I try so hard to help her and get along with her new friends because I really don’t want to lose her again either…”
Jack looked to the dragon for some sense of understanding, or at least a sign that he’d been heard, but what he saw was a blank, deadpan face that could rival Chelsie’s, staring off into nothing.
“…Pyre?” Jack asked. No response.
“Dude?” Mort seconded. Another moment of silence.
“We’re going back to the cafeteria now,” the dragon finally said. He didn’t wait for a response, he just started walking.
“Dude, what-”
“Not now, Mort.”
Jack watched them go and quickly started following, not wanting to be left behind with the still-semi-conscious fox who had just nearly gobbled him up. They walked the rest of the short distance in silence; just the passing noise of other classmates, and the constant churning of Pyre’s newly-filled gut. Jack made no more attempts at conversation.
When they made it back to the lunch room, Jack’s eyes immediately sought out Fiona’s. They shared a relieved look as the trio returned to the table, though she was quick to notice the gut-scented slime that covered her friend’s upper half.
“What happened?” the werewolf asked. “Pyre didn’t actually try to-”
“No, no,” Jack quickly answered. “He actually saved me. A fox got me when we were all distracted, but he got me back out.”
“Oh,” Udon started with a hint of concern, “well, it’s a good thing you’re alright. And I suppose that is… sort of good news between you and Pyre, right?”
“No stronger bonds than those forged avoiding stomach acid,” Chelsie added in her characteristically flat tone.
“Wow, you saved Jack again,” Fiona remarked happily. “And without me there to beg you.”
“Well, your threat was definitely still there,” Mort muttered, only half joking. The wolf chuckled.
“Yeah, I guess. But still, thank you Pyre. Jack probably already told you but I really appreciate it too.”
“Yeah, sure,” was all the dragon said in reply, half-mumbled and with about as much visible emotion as their neko classmate.
“…Hey, um…” the canine continued. She’d only half-noticed his demeanor and wrote it off as him being a bit embarrassed and shy with what had just happened. But that might have been because she was more than a bit distracted herself. Truth be told she had something else on her mind. Something she’d been waiting to ask him. “Pyre, do you… still have that chestplate?”
Jack’s eyes immediately widened a little; he knew exactly the item that Fiona was asking about, memories flashing through his mind. Lance had been the boy’s name, one of the marked kids who had been at Survivor’s Anonymous that fateful day, the one who had disappeared into a red dragon’s glowing orange gullet and never came back out. Well, not his body, at least. Only the metal chestplate he’d been wearing for ‘self defense’.
Pyre didn’t readily respond, so Fiona just continued.
“I’ve been thinking about that day, and… if you do still have it… do you think you would mind giving it to me? I know you got it from your prey and it’s yours but… if you’d be willing to let it go, I’d-”
“Yeah, fine,” the dragon muttered, cutting her off.
“Oh, um, really?” the wolf girl confirmed, but Pyre gave no further answer, so Fiona simply accepted what he’d already said. “Well, thanks. I’ll come by your place to pick it up if that’s alright. So you don’t have to carry it around for me.”
At this point, the rest of the table was starting to pick up on the fact that something about the dragon was off, but that’s also when Pyre turned and started to walk.
“I’m gonna head to class, guys. See ya,” came the uncharacteristically quiet words.
Unsure of how to respond, no one stopped him as he left. While everyone puzzled for a moment as to what was going on, Jack in particular thought over what they’d just been through, and what he’d said to the dragon boy. And he wondered what exactly it had been, which had made the predator go quiet.